Trump 2nd term live updates: Trump defends tariffs, declines to comment on Ukraine aid

With the Trump administration battling more than a hundred lawsuits in court, the president issued a memorandum directing his agency heads to push back against the litigation by trying to make it costlier to sue the administration.

President Donald Trump instructed the heads of the federal agencies to request that the parties suing the administration issue a sum of money equivalent to the cost the government would incur fighting the case and damages from whatever relief the court orders.

The policy comes as a response to what Trump called a "anti-democratic" series of lawsuits that resulted in judges "inserting themselves into the executive policy making process and therefore undermining the democratic process."

While individual judges will determine if the plaintiffs suing the Trump organization need to post a security, the move could make it costlier to bring cases challenging Trump's executive actions.

"Federal courts should hold litigants accountable for their misrepresentations and ill-granted injunctions," the memo said.

-ABC News' Katherine Faulders and Peter Charalambous

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to strip security clearances from attorneys working at a law firm that previously represented Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign -- and was later linked to opposition research that included many salacious and now-discredited allegations about Trump's ties to Russia.

The executive order mandates that lawyers working for Perkins Coie have their security clearances stripped and aims to terminate any government contracts that might exist with the firm or other entities that it represents.

It is not clear how many attorneys at the firm have active security clearances or whether it has any ongoing contracts with the government.

A spokesperson for Perkins Coie did not respond to a request for comment.

-ABC News' Alexander Mallin

President Donald Trump was asked in the Oval Office for an update on the mission to bring back astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams from the International Space Station.

The astronauts were part of Boeing's Starliner test flight mission last year and were forced to stay on the station after tests showed the craft was not safe for a return flight.

Trump claimed Elon Musk is ready to go up in two weeks to bring the astronauts back.

"We're going to get them out. We're coming up to get you. I've authorized Elon," he said, without going into further details.

Trump continued to blame former President Joe Biden for the situation.

Last month, Wilmore told CNN that he and Williams "do not feel abandoned."

"I understand why others may think that, but we came prepared. We came committed. That is your human spaceflight program. It prepares for any and all contingencies that we can conceive of, and we prepare for those. So let's change the narrative to we are prepared and we are committed," he said.

President Donald Trump on Thursday again suggested the United States may not defend NATO allies if they don't meet spending targets.

A reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office, "Are you going to make that policy, U.S. policy, that the U.S. wouldn't defend NATO countries that don't pay?"

"Well, I think it's common sense, right?" Trump responded. "If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. No, I'm not going to defend them. I got into a lot of heat when I said that. You said, oh, he's violating NATO."

A core tenet of NATO is Article 5, which states that member nations pledge to treat an attack against one as an attack on them all. Trump went on to question if European allies would abide by that component of the treaty.

"You know the biggest problem I have with NATO -- I really, you know, I mean, I know the guys very well. They're friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem, France. We got a problem, a couple of others I won't mention. Do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure."

In fact, NATO's Article 5 clause has been invoked only once, and that was on September 12, 2001-- the day after Al Qaeda killed almost 3,000 people on American soil. After 20 years of war, most of those killed in the coalition were American, but well over 1,000 of them were international partners.