Trump sat in the driver’s seat of a brand new red Tesla that he said he planned to buy, with Musk in the passenger seat, but did not test drive it.

Demonstrators have targeted Tesla showrooms in recent weeks in protest against Musk’s cost-cutting role in Trump’s administration.

Trump said they were “harming a great American company”, and anyone using violence against the electric carmaker would “go through hell”.

The president described the shiny red Model-S, one of a number of Teslas lined up on the White House drive, as “beautiful” but said he was no longer allowed to drive and so would keep the car for the use of White House staff. Current and former presidents are not allowed to drive for security reasons.

He also said he would not want to buy a self-driving model, which Musk said would reach the market next year.

The showcase for Tesla’s cars outside the White House came after Tesla’s market value halved since its all-time peak in December, sliding 15% in a single day on Monday, before recovering slightly on Tuesday.

Trump said he had told Musk, “You know, Elon, I don’t like what’s happening to you, and Tesla’s a great company.”

Musk, Trump’s top donor in the election campaign, has been tasked with radically cutting government spending through his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

He has instigated sweeping cuts to federal workforce, cancelled international aid programmes, and has voiced support for far-right politics.

That has prompted a backlash among Tesla owners.

“Tesla takedown” protests have seen demonstrators gather outside dealerships, in Portland, Oregon, last week, and New York City earlier in March, with the aim of undermining the Tesla brand.

Organisers behind the protests said on social media that the demonstrations were peaceful, but a few have been destructive with fires intentionally set at Tesla showrooms and charging stations in Colorado and Massachusetts last week.

Asked in front of the White House whether such protesters should be labelled “domestic terrorists”, the president said “I will do that”, a position later confirmed by a White House spokesperson.

“You do it to Tesla and you do it to any company, we’re going to catch you and you’re going to go through hell,” Trump said.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump blamed Tesla’s share price falls on “radical left lunatics”, who he said were trying to “illegally and collusively boycott” the firm.

However, stock analysts said the main reason for the poor performance of the shares was fear about Tesla meeting production targets and a drop in sales over the past year.

UBS warned that new Tesla deliveries could be much lower than expected this year.

Lindsay James, an investment strategist at Quilter Investors, said that although there was “an element” of Elon Musk’s politics having a “brand impact”, there were other reasons for the share price fall.

Ultimately the drop came down to “hard numbers”, she said.

“When we look at new orders, for example in Europe and China, you can see that they’ve effectively halved over the last year,” she said.

Sales in Europe have fallen sharply this year. Across the continent, they were down 45% in January compared to the same month in 2024, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

There has also been a steep decline in China – a key market – and Australia.

Other experts have said Tesla is over-valued, so the fall is seen as a correction, while others have pointed to rising competition from some of China’s electric vehicle companies.

Investors are “certainly getting more worried about an economic slowdown too, so the richest-valued companies like Tesla have been hit hardest in recent days”, Ms James said.

There have also been concerns that Musk has not been focusing enough of his attention on his firms.

In an interview with Fox Business on Monday, he said he was combining the Doge role with running his businesses “with great difficulty”.

Alongside Tesla, his businesses include Space X, which has experienced serious failures in the last two launches of its giant Starship rocket, and the social media network X, which suffered an outage on Monday.

Despite his supportive comments, President Trump’s policies so far have been designed to limit electric car sales in the US, including revoking a 2021 order by former president Joe Biden that half of all car sales should be electric by 2030, and halting unspent government funds for charging stations.

Trump’s tariffs could also hurt the manufacturer. Tesla chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said in January Tesla parts sourced from Canada and Mexico would be subject to the levies and that this could hit profitability.

Tesla’s share price fall came against a broader US market slump on Monday as investors, concerned about the economic effects of Trump tariffs and weakening confidence in the economy, sold shares.

Trump’s own economic policies on tariffs are also making investors nervous, analysts said.

Senator Lindsey Graham suggested Zelensky should resign, adding that Friday’s altercation had imperilled future US military support for Kyiv.

The extraordinary row culminated in Zelensky being asked to leave the White House without signing a deal with the US that would have jointly developed Ukraine’s valuable minerals.

On Saturday, Zelensky enjoyed a much warmer reception from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Downing Street, a day ahead of a meeting with King Charles.

AdvertisementWatch: ‘Complete, utter disaster’ – Lindsey Graham reacts to Zelensky meeting

The Ukrainian leader also made a plea on Saturday to the US to “stand more firmly” with Kyiv, adding that he was ready to sign the minerals deal with Trump, but wished for defined security guarantees.

Trump has suggested that Ukraine should concede territory to Russia to end its invasion and has opened peace talks between the US and Russia, which do not include representatives from Ukraine.

The American president has also warned Moscow that he will impose high tariffs and further sanctions if President Vladimir Putin fails to end the “ridiculous” war.

Before leaving for Florida after Friday’s Oval Office clash, Trump told reporters that Zelensky had “overplayed his hand”.

AdvertisementWatch: Starmer meets Zelensky in Downing Street

“Either we’re going to end it or let him fight it out, and if he fights it out, it’s not going to be pretty,” Trump said. “Because without us, he doesn’t win.”

Republicans in Washington loyally backed Trump as Democrats said they were horrified by the Oval office showdown before world media.

“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again,” said Senator Graham, a longtime advocate for Ukraine aid and a foreign policy hawk, as he left the White House on Friday.

“The question for me is, ‘is he redeemable in the eyes of Americans?’ Most Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelensky to be their business partner, including me, and I’ve been to Ukraine nine times since the war started.”

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville posted on X on Saturday: “The best thing President Trump has done so far is kick that Ukrainian weasel out of the WH.”

Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty posted on X: “The United States of America will no longer be taken for granted.”

But other Republican members of Congress were less enthused.Watch: ‘Unpleasant to see’ – Ukrainians react to Trump and Zelensky’s spat.

Mike Lawler of New York called the meeting “a missed opportunity for both the United States and Ukraine”.

Don Bacon of Nebraska said Friday was “a bad day for America’s foreign policy”.

“Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” he said in a statement.

Neither Republican directly criticised Trump or Vice-President JD Vance, who first quarrelled with Zelensky during the meeting.

Democrats lambasted the White House for the spat with a US ally.

“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Senator Chris Coons said Zelensky deserved better.

“We owe him our thanks for leading a nation fighting on the front lines of democracy – not the public berating he received at the White House,” he posted on X.

Enrique Tarrio, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol, was arrested not long after holding a news conference on Friday.

Protesters attempted to drown out the event, held near the site of the riot, but Tarrio’s remarks to media went ahead as planned.

In a statement, US Capitol Police said that after the event concluded and the Proud Boys were leaving the area, a woman put a phone near Tarrio’s face. Officers allegedly saw him strike the phone and the woman’s arm.

At the news conference, Tarrio was joined by several other members of the group and by Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia.

Tarrio and the other Proud Boys announced plans to sue the US justice department over their imprisonment.

They criticised prison conditions and said they had used a cryptocurrency to raise funds to launch the suit.

A group of about 200 Proud Boys was at the US Capitol riot, and dozens were arrested and convicted before being released after Trump issued a blanket pardon on the first day of his second term in office.

Following his release from prison, Tarrio hinted that he would resume his role at the helm of the Proud Boys, although some of the group’s local chapters have rejected his leadership.

During the news conference, while counter-demonstrators chanted against his group, Tarrio called Capitol rioters “peaceful protesters” and repeated conspiracy theories that the disorder that day “was orchestrated by none other than the government itself”.

Both Tarrio and Rhodes were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the US Capitol riot, which saw supporters storm Congress as lawmakers certified Joe Biden’s election victory.

One of the rioters, un unarmed woman, was shot dead by police, and a police officer died of a stroke the day afterwards.

Tarrio had been banned from the city of Washington due to previous criminal charges and watched the riot itself on TV from nearby Baltimore. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Rhodes was near the Capitol but stayed outside while members of his militia entered the building. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Both were among the nearly 1,600 people pardoned by Trump.

Modi’s two-day visit comes as Trump recently ordered that all the US’ trading partners – including India – should face sweeping reciprocal tariffs.

And while both men praised each other’s leadership, Trump criticised India for having some of the highest trade tariffs in the world, calling them a “big problem”.

The Indian leader, seeking to soften impending trade barriers, said he was open to reducing tariffs on US goods, repatriating undocumented Indian nationals and buying military fighter jets from the US.

At a joint news conference, Modi made several references to Trump’s “make America great again” slogan, including his own spin to it: “It’s Make India Great Again – Miga,” Modi said.

“Maga plus Miga…[is a] Mega partnership for prosperity”.

Trump also added that India would be “purchasing a lot of our oil and gas” in an effort to close the trade deficit between both countries.

“They need it. And we have it,” Trump said.

With India already being reliant on imported oil, which it sources from multiple countries, the energy deal with the US “presents a relatively low hanging fruit for both parties”, Radhika Rao, a senior economist at Singapore’s DBS bank told the BBC.

“The US is the largest export market for India’s goods and services, which underscores the administration’s willingness to pre-emptively smoothen trade relations and offer concessions to narrow the bilateral trade deficit that the US runs with India,” she said.

However, “India’s challenge will be to balance its own trade deficit because US oil and gas might be more expensive due to a stronger dollar,” Amitendu Palit, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies said.

“Reciprocal tariffs are likely to follow on India too at some stage. Hopefully for India, they won’t turn out to be larger than expected,” said Dr Palit.

Trump also added that the US would increase sales of military hardware to India by millions of dollars, eventually supplying Delhi with F-35 fighter jets.

The two also spoke about immigration – another pain point in bilateral relations – with Trump announcing that the US would extradite a man who allegedly plotted 2008 Mumbai terror attack to “face justice in India”.

Modi thanked Trump for allowing the extradition and vowed to accept repatriations of Indian nationals illegally living in the US.

Last week, US deported on a military plane 104 Indians accused of being illegal immigrants, with a video showing deportees in shackles. A second flight is expected to land in India on Saturday.

Indians are one of the largest populations of unauthorised immigrants in the US. They also hold the majority of H-1B visas – a programme that Trump had temporarily banned during his first term and is now coming under fresh scrutiny.

Shortly before his meeting with Modi, Trump had ordered his advisers to calculate broad new tariffs on US trading partners around the globe, warning they could start coming into effect by 1 April.

He acknowledged the risks of his tariff policy but argued the policy would boost American manufacturing and the country would be “flooded with jobs”.

Trump told reporters that “our allies are worse than our enemies”, when it comes to import taxes.

“We had a very unfair system to us,” the Republican president said before meeting Modi. “Everybody took advantage of the United States.”

The White House also issued a news release that fired a trade shot across the bows of India and other countries.

The document noted that the average US tariff on agricultural goods was 5% for countries to which Washington had granted most favoured nation (MFN) status.

“But India’s average applied MFN tariff is 39%,” the White House fact sheet said.

“India also charges a 100% tariff on US motorcycles, while we only charge a 2.4% tariff on Indian motorcycles.”

Trump has already placed an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, citing its production of fentanyl, a deadly opioid that has stoked a US overdose epidemic.

He has also readied tariffs on Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners, that could take effect in March after being suspended for 30 days.

Earlier this week, he removed exemptions from his 2018 steel and aluminium tariffs.

The announcement was made on Wednesday, and followed a ruling from a judge who said the programme, which offered workers eight months of pay if they resign, could move ahead.

US District Judge George O’Toole in Boston said unions who had sued to stop the programme did not have legal standing.

About 75,000 federal employees opted into the programme before it was closed, according to US media reports.

An announcement on the website of the US Office of Personnel Management said the program was closed as of 19:20 ET on Wednesday.

The offer is part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to slash the size of the federal government, a plan that is being spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

On 28 January, administration officials offered more than two million federal workers the choice to resign and receive eight months of pay.

Administration officials said in an online announcement that employees choosing to leave were “not expected to work”, except in rare cases.

The offer was available to full-time federal employees – excluding certain staff such as postal workers, members of the military, immigration and national security officials.

The offer was announced in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” – which resembled one sent to Twitter employees soon after Elon Musk bought the company, which he renamed to X, and began to downsize its workforce.

Employees were given until 6 February to sign up – a deadline that was extended due to the legal challenge.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the offer “generous” for workers and something that will “save the American people tens of millions of dollars”.

Democrats, unions and advocacy organisations have said it will lead to a “brain drain” in the federal government and expressed intense concern over unanswered questions and the legality of the plan.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and other unions called the offer illegal.

They argued that the offer was a threat pushing employees to resign or risk losing their jobs without any payout. The email noted that those who declined the offer could not be given full assurances that their jobs would not be eliminated.

The unions also said there was no guarantee that those who took the offer would get a full eight months of pay because Congress, which appropriates such funds, had not approved government funding beyond mid-March.

After initially granting an injunction pausing the program, Judge O’Toole said that the unions do not have the “required direct stake” in the issue to challenge it in court.

The White House had no immediate comment on the ruling.

In a statement, AFGE National President Everett Kelley called the ruling a “setback” but said that the union’s lawyers were assessing next steps.

“We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk,” he said.

On Thursday, USAID employees were told to expect the agency’s staff to drop from about 10,000 to less than 300 globally, according to US media reports.

The lawsuit filed by the labour groups in Washington DC argues the president does not have the authority to shut down the agency.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US is “not walking away from foreign aid”. The BBC has asked the White House, the state department, USAID and the treasury department for comment.

The Trump administration has said USAID is wasting money and needs to align with the president’s policy priorities.

Thursday’s lawsuit was filed by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). It is the first legal action related to Trump’s measures to cut USAID.

In addition to Trump, the lawsuit takes aim at the US state department, USAID, the treasury department, the secretary of state and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The lawsuit argues that the president is violating the Constitution and federal law by attempting to dismantle the agency.

“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the lawsuit says.

“And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”

It calls for an independent acting director of USAID to be appointed, for USAID buildings to be reopened to employees, for the USAID website to be restored, for grants and contracts to be reinstated, and for mandatory evacuation notices to staff to be lifted.

It asks for a judge to immediately halt the implementation of the plan to “gut” USAID, which the lawsuit notes has been spearheaded by Elon Musk, due to the urgent need to resume to aid programmes.

“These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled US national security interests,” the lawsuit says.

It comes as thousands of USAID workers expect to be put on administrative leave from Friday night.

On Wednesday, Rubio defended Trump’s moves against USAID, telling about 200 agency workers in Guatemala that the US does not plan to stop distributing aid to foreign countries. But he said that the programmes must align with US priorities.

“The United States is not walking away from foreign aid,” America’s top diplomat said. “It’s not.

“We’re going to continue to provide foreign aid and to be involved in programmes, but it has to be programmes that we can defend.”

“It has to be programmes that we can explain. It has to be programmes that we can justify. Otherwise, we do endanger foreign aid.”

Vought’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been controversial due to his role as an author of Project 2025, a “wish list” of conservative priorities for Trump in his second term.

Democrats held the floor overnight into Thursday, delivering speeches criticising Vought’s role in Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government.

But with Democrats the minority in the chamber, Republican votes for Vought were enough to confirm him to the new role by 53-47.

Project 2025 was created by the Heritage Foundation, one of Washington’s most prominent right-wing think tanks, and calls for the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies like the Department of Justice, to be placed under direct presidential control.

It also advocates for eliminating job protections for thousands of government employees, who could then be replaced by political appointees, and calls for a nationwide ban on abortion.

Vought wrote a key chapter in the document on the executive office of the president, and served as the Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform policy director.

He will now administer the $6.75tn (£5.44tn) federal budget. He served in the same role during Trump’s first administration.

Democrats are already outraged by Trump’s budget decisions since returning to the White House, including the move to cut funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), reportedly allowing Elon Musk access to sensitive Treasury payroll documents, and his attempts to shrink the federal workforce with a buyout programme.

Faced with the quick pace of Trump’s executive orders, Democrats rallied around funding and the federal budget in their overnight session, and sought to make an example of Vought in an attempt to tank his nomination.

Democrats painted Vought as Trump’s “most dangerous nominee” due to his control over funds that have been allocated by Congress.

Democratic minority Senate leader Chuck Schumer described Vought as “the most radical nominee, who has the most extreme agenda”.

“We want Americans every hour, whether it’s 8pm or 3am, to hear how bad Russell Vought is and the danger he poses to them in their daily lives,” he said on the Senate floor.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said Vought was already making radical changes to government, even before he was confirmed.

“Russ Vought was the puppet master behind the funding shut down that threw this country into chaos,” Warren said, referring to last week’s funding freeze on many federal projects.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority over Democrats in the chamber, which made it impossible for the minority party to block Vought’s confirmation without objections from Republicans.

Vought received the backing of all Republicans, including Utah Senator Mike Lee, who took X to congratulate him.

“If you like what you’ve been seeing from President Trump and DOGE, get ready, because Russ Vought is going to be a lean, mean, budget-cutting machine leading OMB,” Lee wrote.

The White House had said that more than 40,000 US government workers had accepted the offer to resign in exchange for pay through 30 September – though workers expressed confusion about the terms of the deal.

Federal Judge George O’Toole Jr said the plan would be paused until a hearing on Monday when he could hear the merits of a lawsuit filed by federal employee unions who questioned the plan’s legality, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The order came hours before Thursday’s 23:59 ET (04:59 GMT) deadline for federal workers to accept the deal.

A lawyer for the Justice Department said the White House’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would notify federal employees that the deadline had been paused, CBS reported.

An OPM official told the news outlet that the agency would continue processing resignations until the Monday hearing.

The White House, which previously said it hoped for as many as 200,000 people to accept its offer, told US media they expected a spike in participation just ahead of the deadline.

“We expect the number to increase,” Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing on Thursday. “It’s going to save the American people tens of millions of dollars.”

Leavitt added that the administration encourages other workers to “accept the very generous offer”.

“If they don’t want to show up to the office, if they want to rip the American people off, then they’re welcome to take this buyout, and we’ll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles,” she said.

An analysis of the federal workforce by the non-profit Partnership for Public Service found that the annual attrition rate among federal employees is about 6%, suggesting that some workers may have been intended to leave government.

The resignation scheme’s announcement – delivered in the form of a late-night email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” – is part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to slash the size of the federal bureaucracy and cut spending.

The worker union American Federation of Government Employees filed the lawsuit against the White House’s Office of Personnel Management, arguing it had violated the law as it did not have the funds to back the deal and have given conflicting guidance about its terms.

AFGE had previously warned its members “NOT to resign or respond” to the White House’s resignation package.

The union had said in an email to members that the offer was part of an “effort to dismantle the civil service and replace the skilled, professional workforce with unqualified political appointees and for-profit contractors”.

The union noted that Congress has not passed a budget past 14 March, meaning it was unclear whether agencies could pay workers through September.

“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” AFGE said in the message.

Some federal employees had said that they buyout proposal came as a shock. They said they worried about unanswered questions with the process and its legality, which has piled on uncertainty to an already hectic start to Trump’s second term.

“The tone of the initial email was like ‘you may be cut anyway,'” Monet Hepp, a medical support specialist at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, previously told BBC. “People were blindsided by it.”

Some employees thought the email was spam, as it was such a departure from typical government communcations, causing them to delete it intially.

“I want to confirm that this is a legitimate communication from OPM,” a public affairs officer with the VA wrote in an email that was sent to employees and shared with the BBC.

Democrats have questioned the legality of the resignation package and warned that it would lead to a “brain drain” that would be “felt by every American”.

“Without the expertise and institutional knowledge that so many federal employees bring to their work, our government will be incapable of responding effectively to national emergencies, serving the American public, or even carrying out routine operations,” Democrats on the House Oversight Commitee wrote in a letter to President Trump.

On Tuesday, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became the first national security department to extend the offer to its staff, telling its entire workforce they could quit and receive about eight months of pay and benefits.

Former US intelligence officials and several lawmakers have raised concerns that this offer could undermine US national security priorities.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, cautioned CIA employees against taking the offer.

“There are few government agencies more essential to our national security than the CIA,” Warner said in a statement. “A lot of federal employees, including at the CIA, are my constituents, and I’ve been warning them that these ‘buyouts’ are empty promises, since Congress hasn’t approved any money to do it.”

“Our right of return, it’s something we’ve thought about our whole lives,” Iman Kishawi, who was born in Gaza but now lives in the Los Angeles area, told the BBC.

She said she was “very angry” over what President Trump has said, asking: “Who are you to own the land?”

Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, Trump proposed the idea that Palestinians could be resettled elsewhere while the US took ownership of the territory and turned it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Hosting a joint press conference with Netanyahu, the first international leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration, the president said: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.”

He added: “I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East.”

His proposition – a radical departure from decades of US policy – was met with backlash.

Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian-American author and activist, said she was “stunned”.

“It was appalling,” the Maryland resident told the BBC.

“It just showed an utter sort of callous disdain and disregard for Palestinian lives and Palestinian humanity and Palestinian dignity, like it’s as though they’re just a pawn that are being played around with,” she continued.

“He was talking about Palestinians as though, again, they existed in some vacuum, as though they had just been the unfortunate victims of some natural disaster.”

Some Republicans have defended Trump or sought to clarify his remarks, while others have greeted the proposal with scepticism and confusion.

For many Palestinian Americans, the president’s comments just reaffirm Gaza’s situation.

Tariq Luthun, a Palestinian American living in Michigan, who once told the BBC that “every day I wake up, I check to see if family members are alive”, said he was “pretty numb” to Trump’s remarks.

He called Trump’s proposal a continuation of “US imperialist policy”.

Trump is “simply saying the quiet part out loud. This is the admission of what we have seen over the course of the past several decades”, Mr Luthun added.

Iman Kishawi, who was born in Gaza in 1958 but fled because of war when she was seven years old, said she became “depressed a little” over the news.

“We need to give people a chance to live on their homeland,” the Los Angeles-area resident said, adding that losing your home is like “losing your identity”.

Just last month, after the announcement of a ceasefire following 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Ms Kishawi began contemplating her eventual return to Gaza.

“I just have a yearning of going and belonging and helping my people,” she said.

But that fantasy has been tossed into doubt – for now – following Trump’s remarks.

“The minute you see hope coming, it’s gone,” Ms Kishawi said.

The current conflict started when hundreds of Hamas fighters stormed across Israel’s southern border on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Israel responded with an air bombardment, then a full-scale ground invasion that has left more than 46,700 people – most of them civilians – dead, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Normally two people manage air traffic control for helicopters and airplanes flying in the area – one of the most controlled airspaces in the world – but only one person was doing so on Wednesday at the time of the crash, according to sources cited by the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

Officials are still investigating the cause of the incident that killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said a preliminary report will be issued in 30 days.

The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, known as the black boxes, can help offer clues to investigators about what may have gone wrong on the flight.

According to the NTSB, late on Thursday night both boxes were transported to one of its labs for evaluation.

In other developments on Thursday, air traffic control staffing numbers, first reported by the New York Times, was noted as “not normal”, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report.

The federal government has struggled for years to fill certain key positions at the FAA.

The type of staffing that had one air traffic control worker managing both the helicopters and planes at the Regan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night is reportedly not uncommon and did not breach guidelines.

Divers spent most of Thursday swimming through the icy waters of the Potomac River, searching for the bodies of victims.

The search was suspended on Thursday evening due to dangerous conditions.

There were 64 passengers aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter that was on a training mission flight. Three soldiers were on board.

Teams have so far recovered 27 bodies from the plane and one from the helicopter.

At a White House briefing on Thursday, President Donald Trump began with a moment of silence and a prayer for victims.

He said “we can only begin to imagine the agony that you’re all feeling”, adding, “our hearts are shattered alongside yours”.

Trump speculated on the cause of the collision, suggesting without evidence that lower hiring standards for air traffic controllers in the FAA under previous administrations run by Democrats may have been a factor.

Later on Thursday, he signed a memorandum to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in the aviation sector.

DEI programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds. Backers say they address historical or ongoing discrimination and underrepresentation but critics argue they can themselves be discriminatory.

Trump also signed an executive order to appoint a new head of the FAA.

The fatal incident happened at about 21:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday, when a PSA Airlines jet operating as American Airlines 5342 collided mid-air with a US Army helicopter as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Both aircraft careened into the Potomac River. The passenger plane broke into multiple pieces and sank several feet into the water, while the helicopter ended up upside down in the river.

The plane, a Bombardier CRJ700, had departed from Wichita, Kansas, and was carrying dozens of passengers, including a pair of young figure skaters, their mothers, and two Russian coaches.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted in Russia media saying: “There were other of our fellow citizens on board. It’s bad news today from Washington.

“We are sorry and send our condolences to families and friends.”

On Friday, China confirmed two of its nationals died in the crash and expressed “deep condolences”.

China urged the US “to promptly update it on the progress of the search and rescue operations, swiftly clarify the cause of the accident and properly handle follow-up matters”, a spokesperson for Beijing’s foreign ministry said.

The helicopter was a Sikorsky H-60 that took off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia with three soldiers on board, and belonged to B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion.

“It’s a tragedy, a horrible loss of life for those 64 souls on that civilian airliner, and of course the three soldiers in that Black Hawk [helicopter],” said new defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.