It's been quite the busy Saturday in US politics both in and out of the nation's capital. Here's a rundown of the day:

• Senate confirms Trump’s Homeland Security pick: The Senate confirmed Kristi Noem late this morning to serve as Department of Homeland Security secretary by a vote of 59-34. Noem became the fourth cabinet nominee to be confirmed by the Senate since Trump has entered office.
• Hegseth sworn in as defence secretary: Pete Hegseth was sworn in as the US's Secretary of Defense this morning after the Senate confirmed his nomination late last night. His nomination was approved by the narrowest possible margin after three Republicans voted against Hegseth, forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast the deciding vote.
• Trump fires inspectors general: Trump has fired at least a dozen inspectors general - independent watchdogs for federal agencies - prompting claims that the dismissals are unlawful. This news broke late Friday night, but response came pouring in on Saturday. Senate Minority Leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said at least 12 had been dismissed "in the dark of night" and called it a "chilling purge".
• Trump holds Las Vegas rally: President Trump began the second day of his first domestic trip since his inauguration in Las Vegas, where he held a rally in a downtown casino. He spoke on executive orders, artificial intelligence and touted his no tax on tips campaign promise.

We're ending our live coverage now. Here is more on what Trump has done since taking power and you can find an explanation of his "no tax on tips" policy here.

The 37-year-old Massachusetts independent voted for Harris in November.

I really found a lot of the content of Trump's inaugural speech to be disingenuous, because he mentioned specific things like justice, honour, integrity, trustworthiness. These are not qualities that I think are reflected in his policy or his behaviour. I found the content provoking. I watched it out of a sense of civic duty.

I think what we see right away with this early surge of executive orders and other actions is that he no longer feels any sense of restraint, and I think that that is because there have been no consequences for his actions in breaking the law.

The Floridian is an independent voter who supported Trump in November. He was struck by the spectacle of Trump’s unconventional inauguration day.

I felt like I was watching like WWE, professional wrestling. Just the boisterousness, the showmanship, the playing for the cameras. You can tell that the entertainment is a big part of Donald Trump's credo as opposed to whether you had Barack Obama or Joe Biden inaugurated.

I just think that he does exactly what he tells you he's going to do, for better or worse. The showmanship of it, the throwing pens, the doing executive orders in an arena in front of a crowd, like he was putting on a performance.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump's order to freeze foreign aid appears to have had immediate consequences.

Shawn VanDiver, the president of the non-profit #AfghanEvac that assists Afghan refugees who worked with the US, tells the BBC that it has immediately affected many of those that his organisation helps.

VanDiver explains that the order is a functional pause of the special immigration visa program. While the approval process for someone to get into the program or interview for a visa is still ongoing, relocation flights and funding for housing resettlements are paused.

"I think they didn’t know where all the foreign aid money went and how it tentacled out,” he says of the Trump administration's decision to enact the state department order.

VanDiver says refugee families or anyone in the special immigration visa program are stuck in limbo.

He stresses that special immigration visas and refugees are legal immigration pathways to the United States, which differ from the illegal immigration and border security issues Trump campaigned on.

“We just spent the last three and half years rebuilding this system… We were keeping our promises to our wartime allies - even if it wasn’t fast enough. We were doing that and now we’re not,” VanDiver says.

#AfghanEvac has urged the Trump administration to grant an immediate exemption for the Afghans affected in a letter that VanDiver says described what "would happen if they didn't apply a scalpel rather than a hatchet".

As the new Secretary of Defense, it seems that Pete Hegseth has moved quickly to adopt President Donald Trump's priorities.

Shortly after he was sworn in as Secretary of Defense this morning, the US Army told units to prepare for deployment to the southern US border in the next 24 to 48 hours, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

No additional orders have yet been handed down, but Pentagon officials are reportedly reviewing deployment options.

Image source, Getty Images

Earlier today, Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense pick - Pete Hegseth - was sworn in. He has since outlined his priorities for the department, saying the Pentagon under his watch "will put America first, and we will never back down".

In a written message to the department's three million employees - which includes more than a million uniformed personnel - the former Fox News host said he would restore a "warrior ethos", rebuild the military and reestablish US deterrence strategies.

"We are American warriors. We will defend our country," Hegseth wrote. "Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose."

The statement hemmed closely to what Hegseth said during his Senate hearing earlier this month, where he said repeatedly said he would return the focus of the Pentagon to the strength and lethality of America's military.

Hegseth was confirmed late on Friday after a tie-breaking vote from Vice-president JD Vance. Concerns over Hegseth's qualifications as well as misconduct and sexual harassment allegations nearly derailed his confirmation.

Three Republicans ultimately voted against him.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent reporting from Las Vegas

Image source, Getty Images

I'm here in Las Vegas reporting on the first domestic trip of Trump's new administration.

As I wrote earlier, Trump's speech at Circa Casino today served as a bit of a victory lap - and it seems he's making a literal lap of the building now.

I just saw Trump walk onto the floor of the casino and approach the gaming tables.

He chatted with a cocktail waitress, touting his no tax on tips proposal, and then watched a couple of rolls on the craps table.

And that essentially concludes Trump's trip, which included visits to disaster areas in North Carolina and California before the stop here. He's now heading to Miami for his Doral Golf Club.

Just a bit ago, we heard President Trump briefly discuss his plan to cut taxes on tips, saying he planned to work with lawmakers in Congress in the coming weeks.

The proposal has been applauded by the Culinary Union, a union in Nevada that includes cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry, and kitchen workers.

"The Culinary Union welcomes plans to end taxes on tips," said Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge in a statement. "But it must not end there."

"Ending the $2.13 sub-minimum wage, that is the reality in too many states across the country, will uplift millions of hospitality workers," he said.

For context: the federal tipped minimum wage is to $2.13 per hour but tipped employees must earn at least $7.25 per hour with their wage and tips combined. Some states have higher minimum standards, but recent efforts to raise minimum wage nationwide have stalled in Congress.

Image source, Getty Images

As we've been reporting, Trump just addressed a rally in Las Vegas.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of far-right militia group Oath Keepers, was in attendance.

Rhodes was one of 14 people who had their sentences commuted by President Trump this week after they were imprisoned for their role in the 6 January Capitol riot.

Rhodes, a former US Army paratrooper and Yale-educated lawyer, was charged for leading a contingent of Oath Keepers members to Washington. Although he didn't enter the Capitol, he directed his members from outside.

He was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in 2023 for seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering, but he was released hours after Trump commuted his sentence.

This isn't Rhodes' only political appearance this week, as he was seen on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. He told reporters that he was meeting with House Republicans.

If you're just joining us, President Trump just wrapped up a speech in Las Vegas where he held a rally in a downtown casino.

Here's what you missed:

• No tax on tips: Trump briefly touched on his plan to cut taxes on tips - the intended focal point for this speech - but didn't outline his plan for the policy or when it would be enacted. It's worth noting there are several proposed bills in Congress aiming to accomplish some version of this policy. The president said he would work with lawmakers "in the coming weeks"
• Executive orders: Trump claimed he took nearly 350 executive orders since entering office last week and took several jabs at the Biden administration for "horrible failures and betrayal"
• Artificial intelligence: Trump touted a newly announce artificial intelligence infrastructure project called Stargate that will fund the construction of AI infrastructure throughout the US. He says it will create 100,000 American jobs
• DEI: Trump bragged about getting rid of the "woke crap" and ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The Trump administration ousted many DEI workers this past week.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump has just joked about serving more than two terms in the White House.

"It will be the greatest honour of my life to serve not once, but twice - or three times or four times," he jokes with a smile. "Headlines for the fake news!"

Trump then clarifies he'll only serve two terms - the maximum amount a president is legally allowed to remain in office.

"For the next four years, I will not rest. I will not yield and together we will not fail," he says.

Trump spent a fair amount of time talking about his administration's efforts to address US immigration policy.

He said he has begun to leverage the power of the federal government to eliminate foreign gangs and criminal networks.

"We don't allow people to enter our country and dump our prisons into the United States of America any more," he said.

Trump adds that law enforcement officials now "can do whatever the hell they want to do" in response to immigration at the US southern border.

He says Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants during his first week in office.

Trump was clearly enjoying this speech - it was peppered with jokes and Trump stopped to laugh frequently.

He moved on to his plan to cut taxes on tips, which is met with much enthusiasm from the crowd.

Trump joked that it must have had "no influence" on him winning Nevada for the Republicans.

"No tax on tips," Trump said, to enthusiastic applause.

Trump briefly described his vision for the policy and offered a few anecdotes from people in the service industry before moving on to describing his immigration crack down.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump has just finished addressing a crowd of supporters in Nevada.

The Village People song YMCA - which has become something of an anthem for the president - plays as he leaves the stage.

We'll bring you more on what Trump said shortly - stick with us.

Trump is now describing how his win in the 2024 election has brought "light over America". He goes on to say foreign leaders are calling him up and telling him that they hate him, but there's now "light over the world".

He retells a story where he alleges that a foreign leader told him that former President Joe Biden wouldn't speak with them. Instead, they'd be told that Biden was very busy and would call them back in two months.

"He's extremely busy sleeping," Trump says.

But then, Trump says, Biden would never return make the promised call.

"These stories are not very exaggerated, I want to tell you, a little bit for laughter, but it's only for the laughter," he says.

"The fake news will say, 'Oh, he exaggerated it was only one month you know,'" he adds to laughter from the crowd.

Trump says his administration has accomplished more in one week than others have done in four years.

"And we're just getting started. We got rid of the woke crap," he says, to applause and cheers from the crowd.

He says companies were "petrified of it", in an apparent reference to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and suggests many companies didn't believe in it.

Trump's White House has moved quickly to end DEI programmes in the federal government and ousting many workers connected to them.

Trump's economic speech includes boasts and political jabspublished at 21:05 Greenwich Mean Time 25 January

21:05 GMT 25 January

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent reporting in Las Vegas

This was billed as an economic speech, but as is typical with Donald Trump he is already covering a wide range of topics.

He has bashed the record of the Biden administration, boasted of the scope of his electoral victory last November, celebrated his Cabinet nominees who have been confirmed and reviewed his early executive actions as president – particularly on immigration.

“American decline is over,” he said. “What the world witnessed this week is nothing less than a revolution of wealth creation and common sense.”

He also once again touched on his interest in territorial expansion, noting that the US has been the same size for decades.

“We might be an enlarged country pretty soon,’ he said.

Trump touts the newly announced artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure project called Stargate.

The scheme will see the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI, team up with another US tech giant, a Japanese investment firm and an Emirati sovereign wealth fund to build $500bn (£405bn) of AI infrastructure in the US.

Trump announced the project in the White House earlier this week.

He tells the rally it will create around 100,000 American jobs, and adds it will be "very big for Nevada".

Trump tells the crowd his pick for homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, has just been approved, as has Pete Hegseth for defence secretary, which both get a big cheer from the crowd.

"She's a tough one," Trump says of Noem.

Trump claims he took nearly 350 executive actions since entering office last week.

"Since I became the 47th president at noon on Monday, I've been working with urgency and historic speed to fix every single calamity of the Biden administration that they've created," he says.

Trump said his executive actions were to reverse "the horrible failures and betrayal we inherited from a group of people who didn't know what they hell they were doing".

The president is emphasising several of his actions, including withdrawing from the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Accord as well as freezing federal hiring and foreign aid.