Things Musk (and Trump) Did... 04-16-25 | Blog#42
Young Democrats are on the rise and raring to go...
Yesterday's post
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Yesterday’s News Worth Repeating
In unprecedented move, DNC official to spend big to take down fellow Democrats
David Hogg, the DNC vice chair, wants to take down some safe incumbents.
David Hogg, a controversial Democratic National Committee vice chair, is pledging to upend Democratic primaries by funding candidates who will challenge “ineffective, asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.
The move puts Hogg, the now 25-year-old who first gained national stature as an outspoken survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, on a collision course with his own party and some Democratic House members.
Leaders We Deserve, which Hogg co-founded in 2023, announced plans on Tuesday to spend $20 million in safe-blue Democratic primaries against sitting House members by supporting younger opponents. In an interview with POLITICO, Hogg said the group will not back primary challenges in battleground districts because “I want us to win the majority,” nor will it target members solely based on their age.
“We have a culture of seniority politics that has created a litmus test of who deserves to be here,” Hogg said. “We need people, regardless of their age, that are here to fight.”
It’s an unprecedented, and controversial, move from a national officer within the Democratic Party that will enrage some insiders. Democratic Party committees, like the DNC, have traditionally not opposed incumbents in their own party, focusing instead on attacking Republicans, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is explicitly set up to protect incumbent members by providing resources, fundraising and strategy.
Hogg’s decision comes at a time when the Democratic Party is grappling with how to confront President Donald Trump — and with what kind of Democrats can be their most effective messengers against the administration. Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have faced intense pressure from base voters to ramp up their opposition to Trump’s administration.
When asked if DNC Chair Ken Martin supports his plan, Hogg said Martin “certainly has different views” on challenging incumbents.
“There are disagreements in our party about the right way to approach this moment. There are certainly disagreements we have,” Hogg said. “What I will say about Chair Martin, even if we do have disagreements, he’s doing an excellent job of building and reforming our party.”
Continue reading at Politico
Generational change could be coming fast for Senate Democrats
The ascendance of several young senators — and one big potential retirement — is reshaping power within the caucus.
Democrats have been grappling with the need for generational change inside their party leadership in the months since last November’s election. In the Senate, that debate could soon get kicked into overdrive.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the party’s No. 2 leader, will announce in the coming weeks whether he will run for reelection. Many Democrats in Washington and back in Illinois are expecting the 80-year-old to say he will retire next year at the end of his current term.
That decision would have major ramifications inside the Senate Democratic Caucus, where the median age is 66 years old. If Durbin — the third-oldest in the caucus — hangs up his hat, it will provide an opening to inject new blood into the upper echelons for the first time in a decade. And it could come at a politically precarious moment: Congressional Democrats are facing doubts from their own party’s voters about their ability to lead in President Donald Trump’s Washington, and there are lingering questions outside of the Senate about Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s continued leadership.
Many senators are hailing the modest shift that’s already underway that has empowered an influx of opinionated, media-savvy freshmen and elevated some of the caucus’ younger members into the lower rungs of the leadership ladder.
“We need that youthful energy in caucus leadership,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), 67, about the broader changes, crediting their newest members for “not sitting down and waiting for years before they speak up.”
Durbin’s potential retirement at the end of 2026 could solidify that generational shift: 52-year-old Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii is currently viewed as his most likely successor — though one person granted anonymity to describe internal discussions cautioned that there hasn’t yet been a thorough caucus-wide discussion out of respect for Durbin, who has not tipped his hand on his reelection decision.
Continue reading at Politico
Ocasio-Cortez raises nearly $10M in first quarter of 2025
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) raised nearly $10 million in the first quarter of 2025, marking her strongest quarter ever, according to her campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez’s team said she raised more than $9.5 million from 260,000 individual donors, with an average donation of $21. The progressive congresswoman enters the second quarter with $8.2 million cash on hand.
The staggering off-year fundraising haul comes as speculation continues to build around her future as a leader within the Democratic Party as the party finds its footing following Republican gains last year. Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly been floated as a potential primary challenger for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), but she has given no indication she will do so.
Ocasio-Cortez has spent much of the first three months of the second Trump administration drawing large crowds at rallies across the country along with progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders drew crowds of tens of thousands at rallies in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.
Continue reading at The Hill
Biden says Trump administration has ‘done so much damage’ since taking office
Former President Biden said the Trump administration has “done so much damage and so much destruction” since taking office, accusing the White House of having “taken a hatchet” to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and “breaking things” as he delivered his first remarks since leaving the Oval Office earlier this year.
“Fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so much — done so much damage and so much destruction. It’s kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon,” Biden said at the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) in Chicago.
“They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration,” Biden said. “7000 employees — 7000 — out the door in that time, including the most seasoned officials. … Already we can see the effects.”
The speech, Biden’s first major remarks since he handed control of the White House over to President Trump, comes amid fears from Democrats that Trump’s attempts to crack down on government bureaucracy and spending could ultimately damage Social Security and hurt the tens of millions of Americans who receive the benefits.
The SSA has planned significant workforce reductions, and the agency faces a lawsuit over access by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, to millions of Americans’ personal data stored in SSA systems.
Continue reading at The Hill
Former Pres. Biden delivers keynote address at bipartisan conference in Chicago
A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data
In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.
The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information.
The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB's internal systems. They've said their unit's overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration's policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
Continue reading at NPR
Note from Rima: Daniel Berulis, the whistleblower, appeared on CNN with his attorney and was interviewed by Jake Tapper. Watch:
Whistleblower claims DOGE took sensitive data - now he’s being hounded by threatening notes
Top House Dems trying to send delegation to El Salvador
Two members of House Democratic leadership are trying to send an official congressional delegation to the El Salvadorian prison where the Trump administration is sending deportees, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Dozens of House Democrats have privately expressed interest in participating in such a trip to protest the Trump administration's deportation policies, sources tell Axios.
But while lawmakers could travel to the Central American country informally, a Republican committee chair's approval is needed to send an official congressional delegation, or CODEL.
A CODEL would provide the members with crucial oversight powers and security resources.
Driving the news: Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) asked House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.), in a letter first obtained by Axios, to authorize a CODEL to El Salvador.
They cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is being held at El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) despite the Supreme Court ordering him to be returned to the U.S.
"A Congressional delegation would allow Committee Members to conduct a welfare check on Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as others held at CECOT," they wrote.
Reps. Garcia and Frost said they are "prepared to travel as soon as possible" and would "gladly include any Republican Members of the [Oversight] Committee who wish to participate."
Zoom out: The letter comes after Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) requested a meeting with El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele to discuss the return of Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident.
Continue reading at Axios
Newsom, California Democrats double down on cap-and-trade program
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and top California Democrats announced on Tuesday that they would seek an extension of the state’s “cap-and-trade” emissions reduction program — countering Trump administration efforts to thwart such initiatives.
Newsom, along with State Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, made this decision following a recent executive order that called for the rollback of what President Trump described as local environmental “overreach.”
In last week’s order, Trump chided states for advancing “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance.”
He claimed that the Golden State “punishes carbon use by adopting impossible caps on the amount of carbon businesses may use, all but forcing businesses to pay large sums to ‘trade’ carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements.”
A day after the executive order’s issuance, Newsom indicated that he would not be backing down, vowing on Wednesday that “California’s efforts to cut harmful pollution won’t be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”
California’s cap-and-trade program — proposed and then signed into law by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 — seeks to hold carbon polluters accountable by charging them for excess carbon emissions.
Continue reading at The Hill
New trade war front: Washington weighs kicking Chinese companies off Wall Street
Such a move could come at a precarious moment. The markets have already been rattled by the trade war, and mass delistings could shock investors even more.
Washington is exploring a new weapon in President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war: throwing Chinese companies off American stock exchanges.
As the White House doubles down on massive tariffs on China in its bid to reorder global trade, administration officials and the president’s supporters are leaning further into the prospect of delisting the nearly 300 Chinese companies that trade on U.S. exchanges.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said “everything’s on the table,” when asked about it last week. Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” and a vocal Trump ally argued that it would help pressure China “to come to the table” on negotiations. And Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), whose concern about Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges dates back years, sees Trump’s hardline stance on China as a potential opening to ratchet up scrutiny on those entities and give them the boot once and for all.
“The U.S. capital markets are the envy of the world, providing unparalleled access to funding for companies worldwide. However, this privilege comes with responsibilities, chief among them being transparency and adherence to our financial disclosure rules,” the Florida Republican said in a recent letter to incoming Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins. “It is alarming that Chinese companies continue to enjoy access to American capital while refusing to play by our rules.”
Continue reading at Politico
Chinese Embassy accuses Bessent of ‘maliciously slandering’ Beijing
The Chinese Embassy in Argentina has criticized U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for “maliciously slandering” the country as it continues to fund development assistance for African and Latin American countries.
“We advise the U.S. to adjust its mindset, instead of spending time repeatedly smearing and attacking China, meddling in the foreign cooperation of regional countries,” the embassy said, according to Reuters.
The statement comes after Bessent said he met with Argentine President Javier Milei — a President Trump ally — on Monday to emphasize the administration’s economic support for the country.
Bessent, who has been critical of China amid the tariff war and ongoing geopolitical competition, spoke with BloombergTV after the meeting, where he said the administration is looking to help Latin American countries avoid the “rapacious” foreign aid agreements made by China in Africa.
“What we are trying to keep from happening is what has happened on the African continent, where China has signed a number of these rapacious deals marked as aid, where they are really, they take … mineral rights, they’ve added huge amounts of debt on to these countries’ balance sheets,” Bessent said, referencing the country’s investment in infrastructure and commercial projects.
Continue reading at The Hill
Today's news
Democratic News Corner
Biden visits students at Harvard Kennedy School
Former President Biden spoke with students at the Harvard Kennedy School in an off-the-record study group on Wednesday at the invitation of his longtime adviser, Mike Donilon.
Donilon is one of nine fellows at the school’s Institute of Politics for the spring. He was the chief strategist for Biden’s 2020 campaign, served as a senior adviser to the leader during the first three years of his presidency and helped facilitate the Democrat’s reelection campaign.
“The Institute of Politics gives students a chance to learn firsthand from prominent public servants across the political spectrum. Over the years, we’ve been honored to host former presidents and presidential candidates from both political parties, including George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Robert Dole, Jeb Bush, John McCain, Al Gore, and now President Biden, who was invited by his longtime advisor Mike Donilon,” the Harvard Kennedy School said in a statement to The Hill.
“As a school devoted to training the next generation of public leaders, we are proud to welcome senior policy makers and political figures representing a broad cross-section of views to engage with our students,” the school added.
The Kennedy School fellow did not announce the details of Biden’s appearance, and only a select group of students were asked to attend.
Continue reading at The Hill
Newsom ramps up economic attacks on White House with tariff lawsuit
“We’re a world away from the values that are emanating out of the White House,” the California governor said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom cast President Donald Trump’s tariffs as “one of the most self-destructive things that we’ve experienced in modern American history” on Wednesday as he touted California’s lawsuit against several of the levies in the state’s agriculture-heavy Central Valley.
The Democratic governor, sporting blue denim in lieu of slacks at an almond farm south of Sacramento, bemoaned the economic impacts on California’s marquee tech and farming industries and argued the White House has no authority to unilaterally tax imports under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act which it has cited.
“We’re a world away from the values that are emanating out of the White House,” Newsom said. “That’s why we are asserting ourselves. I can’t imagine anything more unifying for a state at this moment than stepping up … on this critical issue.”
Newsom has been relatively muted in his criticism of Trump on issues such as immigration and gender, particularly since he started pleading his case for unconditioned federal aid to help Los Angeles recover from the wildfires there. He has reserved some of his most pointed broadsides for Trump’s tariffs, dubbing them a “betrayal” even before his inauguration. He has also asked international leaders to spare California from retaliation.
“No state is poised to lose more than the state of California,” Newsom said. “That’s why we’re asserting ourselves on behalf of 40 million Americans. And I imagine if you caucused those 40 million Americans, you’d find few — I don’t care where they were in the last election — that are celebrating this uncertainty.”
Continue reading at Politico
Race for Oakland mayor too close to call as Barbara Lee predicts ‘a long week’
The former representative is in a tight special election contest against a former City Council member.
OAKLAND, California — Oakland’s mayoral election was too close to call on Tuesday night, a setback for frontrunner and former Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee that underscores the profound voter frustration animating the progressive city’s politics.
As of late Tuesday, former City Council member Loren Taylor held a narrow lead and neither candidate had secured a majority in a 10-candidate field. The tight margin all but guarantees the vote tally will stretch into the coming days as mail ballots are counted and could come down to voters’ backup selections under the city’s ranked choice system.
“We all know this is going to be a long week,” Lee told a crowd at an event space in downtown Oakland bedecked with yellow and green decorations — Athletics colors — that included cheerleading gear in a nod to her biography.
Lee had hoped to win outright in the special election, which would have required her to secure a majority of first-place votes. If she does not, the vote tally will move to the next round, which means the last-place candidate is eliminated and their lower-ranked selections are redistributed.
The tight result underscores the deep political divisions fracturing resolutely Democratic Oakland. Frustration with crime, homelessness, business closures and public corruption led voters to recall former mayor Sheng Thao last year — along with former district attorney Pamela Price — triggering a special mayoral election.
“It’s a closer race than any of us expected,” state Sen. Jesse Arreguin, a former Berkeley mayor, said in an interview as a band pumped Stevie Wonder. “Voters in Oakland are frustrated.”
Continue reading at Politico
Biden reemerges on the attack, but doesn’t mention Trump
In his first major speech since leaving the White House, Biden criticized the Trump administration for endangering Social Security.
CHICAGO — Former President Joe Biden ripped the Trump administration’s efforts to slash Social Security spending in his first major public speech since leaving the White House, but never mentioned the current president.
“In fewer than 100 days, this administration has caused so much damage and destruction. It’s breathtaking,” Biden told about 200 people gathered for the conference of Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled on Tuesday. “They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration.”
Biden attacked the Trump administration for thousands of job cuts at the federal agency, arguing that they’ve eviscerated services and endangered benefits for the roughly 73 million seniors who rely on the popular financial assistance program.
“They’re shooting first and aiming later,” Biden said. “The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights.”
Biden-isms shined throughout the sometimes rambling, roughly 30-minute speech, as he used the phrases “folks” and “I mean it sincerely” to make his points. The former president told well-trod stories of growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and of seeing his parents struggle to make ends meet, and he reminisced about his decades on Capitol Hill.
Biden’s comments were timed with “Social Security Day of Action” on Tuesday to protest what advocates describe as severe threats to the program under the Trump administration. His gradual reemergence comes as other — more critical — voices begin to shape the narrative surrounding his term. Biden’s aides have been bracing for the release of several books documenting his physical and mental state before he abandoned his reelection campaign last year, with allies already challenging reporting about his decline.
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: Video of Biden’s speech can be found above, in the News Worth Repeating section.
Gottheimer funnels $10 million from congressional campaign into group supporting bid for gov
Gottheimer’s hefty federal war chest can’t be given directly to his campaign for governor. He’s sending it to a super PAC instead.
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s congressional campaign has sent close to $10 million to a super PAC supporting his bid for governor.
The total was disclosed in the Democrat’s congressional campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, covering the first quarter of 2025. A prolific fundraiser who has brought in millions of dollars for each of his House bids since he was elected in 2016, Gottheimer had more than $20 million in his congressional campaign coffers when he announced his gubernatorial run in November.
But that money cannot be transferred directly to his state campaign for governor, raising questions about how his congressional war chest would be used to help it. In January, Gottheimer’s campaign did not answer questions about whether he was planning to contribute from his congressional campaign account to an outside group supporting his campaign for governor. In late February, Gottheimer declined to comment on the matter.
Tuesday’s FEC filing revealed the answer after months of speculation: Gottheimer’s congressional campaign sent $9.6 million across six donations throughout February and March to Affordable New Jersey, a nonfederal super PAC boosting his bid for governor ahead of the June primary to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy. (A second group, No Surrender, is also supporting Gottheimer’s gubernatorial bid, though Tuesday’s report does not show him contributing to that entity.)
Continue reading at Politico
Iowa Democrat launches Senate campaign against Ernst
Democratic contender Nathan Sage, who’s the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, is launching a Senate bid to take on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) next year in Iowa.
Sage made that announcement official on Wednesday; in his campaign launch and an interview with The Hill ahead of his announcement, Sage emphasized fighting for the working class, including advocating for better health care and better pay.
“I come from a very poor background. I grew up in a trailer park, and I watched my family struggle for a very long time. My dad was a factory worker, my mom was a daycare teacher,” Sage told The Hill.
“I feel like a lot of the people in the working class have been fighting this whole time to survive and instead of thrive, and I think it’s time we fought to thrive,” he said.
Sage, a Marine Corps veteran who’s also worked in local news, said he felt compelled to run last year after the November election. His wife had suffered a miscarriage earlier that year, and his wife was concerned after the November election about their health care coverage moving forward if they tried again.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats fear chances of bringing home mistakenly deported man slipping away
Congressional Democrats are growing concerned that their hopes of bringing home a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador may be slipping away, even as they struggle with how to push for his return.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared during his Monday visit to the U.S. that the country would not release Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
This has left the minority party fretting about where to go from here, according to multiple Democratic sources.
One Senate Democratic aide told The Hill that a number of Senate Democrats have been texting back and forth about a possible forceful response against President Trump’s handling of the situation, but worry that swinging too hard could play into the administration’s hands.
“That’s a concern. Most people are pretty devastated,” the aide said. “No one has been able to give us an answer of ‘what happens now.’ You’re not going to send troops to get him or anything.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Inside Democrats' scramble to travel to El Salvador
Democrats are rushing to organize trips to El Salvador as President Trump refuses to comply with a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to the country.
Why it matters: It's not just about one deportee, or even immigration policy, lawmakers say. "This is about a president of the United States defying the Supreme Court and wanting to be a king," said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.).
Garcia and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) are trying to secure GOP authorization to lead a congressional delegation to visit deportees at El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), Axios first reported Tuesday.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is leaving Wednesday to travel to the Central American country. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is also planning a trip, as Axios first reported.
What they're saying: "We need to spring into action. ... You can't just put up statements. That doesn't mean anything," Garcia told Axios in a phone interview on Tuesday night.
"I think that it's important to say what we're thinking and what our next steps are, but we've got to show action," he added.
"We have to do similar kinds of things for the others who are victims of this dystopian attack on our Constitutional rights," said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.). "This president is dangerous and we can't let this go."
Zoom out: For months, Democrats have been dogged by the question of how best to demonstrate and display opposition to the Trump administration.
Continue reading at Axios
Schumer moves to block Trump’s top prosecutors
The Senate minority leader’s move could energize the party base but challenge longstanding institutional norms.
Senate leaders typically defer to senators to sign off on confirming judicial nominees in their home states, awaiting a return of the so-called blue slip to begin the confirmation process in the Judiciary Committee.
But Schumer announced Wednesday morning he will not return the blue slip for Trump’s picks to serve as New York attorneys: Jay Clayton to head the Southern District of New York office, which oversees Wall Street and regularly prosecutes some of the country’s biggest white-collar cases; and Joseph Nocella Jr. to run the Eastern District of New York office, which prosecutes scores of MS-13 gang cases as well as immigration matters arising from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
“Donald Trump has made clear he has no fidelity to the law and intends to use the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney offices and law enforcement as weapons to go after his perceived enemies,” Schumer said in a statement. “Such blatant and depraved political motivations are deeply corrosive to the rule of law and leaves me deeply skeptical of … Donald Trump’s intentions for these important positions.”
This game of hardball could play well with progressive activists, who called for Schumer’s ousting as leader after the government funding fight and floated the prospect of a potential 2028 primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
It also could come as a relief in New York’s Southern District, which has been in a state of turmoil since the Trump administration ordered it to abandon its prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The current interim U.S. attorney, who has a long history with the office, could continue to run operations there, rather than a newcomer like Clayton, a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has never before worked as a prosecutor.
Continue reading at Politico
Clooney defends op-ed calling for Biden to exit race: ‘It was a civic duty’
“I don’t know if it was brave,” the “Ocean’s Eleven” actor told Jake Tapper when the CNN anchor described Clooney’s opinion piece as something some in the public might call courageous.
“It was a civic duty,” Clooney said in a preview clip from the interview airing Wednesday on “The Lead.”
“Because I found that people on my side of the street — I’m a Democrat … in Kentucky, so I get it — when I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time,” Clooney said.
Clooney, one of Hollywood’s most prominent Democratic supporters, who hosted a fundraiser for Biden weeks earlier, penned the New York Times piece last July urging the then-commander in chief to drop out of the presidential race.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal‘ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” Clooney wrote at the time.
Continue reading at The Hill
National Security
Fight over Space Command HQ continues with new watchdog report
The fight over the location of the U.S. Space Command headquarters chugs on after a new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog revealed uncertainty behind the scenes in choosing the permanent spot and several major questions left unanswered.
In a heavily redacted 54-page report, released Tuesday by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG), investigators found a break between then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Army Gen. James Dickinson, who was commander of Space Command at the time, over whether the headquarters should stay at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., or be moved to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.
The biggest concern over a move, the inspector general found, was that roughly 1,000 civilian employees would not relocate from Colorado to Alabama and that setting up the needed facilities at Redstone Arsenal would take up to four years, risking Space Command’s readiness.
The document is the latest piece in a basing decision that has stretched back more than four years to when President Trump, late in his first term, chose Alabama over Colorado for the command’s headquarters.
Continue reading at The Hill
Top Pentagon official at center of Jackie Robinson controversy to resign
John Ullyot’s departure comes during a week of upheaval at the Defense Department.
John Ullyot, the former top Pentagon spokesperson who found himself at the center of several controversies in the first months of the Trump administration, said he will resign this week.
“I made clear to Secretary Hegseth before the inauguration that I was not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs,” he said in an exclusive statement to POLITICO. “Last month, as that time approached, the Secretary and I talked and could not come to an agreement on another good fit for me at DOD. So I informed him today that I will be leaving at the end of this week.”
He said that he remains a strong supporter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Ullyot’s departure comes in the midst of a tumultuous week for the Pentagon. Three political appointees were put on administrative leave on Tuesday and Wednesday during an investigation into potential leaks, including two top aides to Hegseth and the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.
He also leaves less than a month after the Pentagon struggled to mount a public response to a Signal chat among national security leaders where Hegseth posted sensitive details about U.S. military strikes in Yemen.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Continue reading at Politico
State Department eliminates key office tasked with fighting foreign disinformation
Leading Republicans have long accused the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office of silencing conservative voices.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced the closure of the agency’s hub for fighting foreign disinformation campaigns — the final nail in a yearslong effort to shut down the office accused by GOP lawmakers of censoring conservative voices.
In a statement, Rubio claimed the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office at the State Department, formerly known as the Global Engagement Center, had “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” According to Rubio, the relatively modest federal office expended “more than $50 million per year.”
“This is antithetical to the very principals [sic] we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America,” Rubio said. “That ends today. Under the administration of President Trump, we will always work to protect the rights of the American people, and this is an important step in continuing to fulfill that commitment.”
The center came under fire from leading Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year for allegedly silencing conservative voices through its efforts to clear up disinformation and misinformation online. Elon Musk, who now heads up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, described the office in 2023 as “the worst offender in U.S. government censorship.”
But the center’s supporters, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), have asserted that it plays a critical role in combating Russian and Chinese disinformation.
Continue reading at Politico
French defense minister heads to US for Hegseth talks amid transatlantic tensions
Sébastien Lecornu will brief his American counterpart about military planning on security guarantees for Ukraine.
PARIS — French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu will travel to Washington Thursday to meet with his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth, a French official told POLITICO.
The Middle East, Ukraine, the Indopacific region and NATO's June summit are on the agenda, the official said.
The visit comes as the transatlantic relationship is increasingly strained thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war, his undermining of NATO commitments, shift of support away from Ukraine and repeated demands for Europeans to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense.
Earlier this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Europe can’t be a "permanent security vassal" of the U.S., but singled out France among the few European nations he deems worthy militarily.
The French minister will also brief his U.S. counterpart about ongoing military planning on security guarantees for Ukraine led by France and the U.K.
Negotiations between the U.S. and Russia about the war in Ukraine are also on the menu. The two ministers will discuss NATO's June summit in The Hague, where leaders are expected to raise the alliance's defense spending target.
Lecornu will also meet Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence
Continue reading at Politico Europe
North Korea is making what could be its largest, most advanced warship ever, new satellite photos show
Seoul, South Korea CNN — New satellite images show what could be North Korea’s biggest warship ever – possibly more than double the size of anything in leader Kim Jong Un’s naval fleet.
Images taken by independent satellite providers Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs on April 6 show the ship under construction in the water at the Nampo shipyard on North Korea’s west coast, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwestof the capital Pyongyang.
Analysts say the pictures show ongoing construction of weapons and other internal systems of the ship, which is likely a guided-missile frigate (FFG) designed to carry missiles in vertical launch tubes for use against targets on land and sea.
Continue reading at CNN.com
2 top Pentagon officials put on leave amid leak investigation
The Pentagon placed two top officials on administrative leave on Thursday as part of an investigation into leaks at the Defense Department, a department official confirmed.
The big picture: Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon building as part of an "unauthorized disclosure" investigation, Reuters first reported.
Darin Selnick, the Pentagon's deputy chief of staff, was also placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, the Defense Department official told Axios, confirming Politico's reporting on the matter.
Context: The Pentagon launched an investigation last month into "unauthorized disclosures."
Continue reading at Axios
Russian state hackers target European diplomats — with fake wine-tasting events
Notorious hacking group Cozy Bear tried to trick European diplomats into downloading malicious software, cybersecurity firm finds.
BRUSSELS — Russian hackers sure know their target audience.
A hacking group previously linked to Russian intelligence services has in past months targeted European diplomats with invitations to fake wine-tasting events from a European foreign affairs ministry, new research released Tuesday showed.
Cybersecurity firm Check Point said the Russia-linked group known as Cozy Bear had targeted European diplomatic entities with emails bearing subject lines like “Wine Testing [sic] Event” and “Diplomatic Dinner.” The emails contained malicious software to compromise victims' security.
Cozy Bear is one of Russia's most notorious hacking groups. It is believed to have conducted major hacks like the intrusion into the United States Democratic National Committee in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, as well as the recent massive hack of software firm SolarWinds, described as the largest attack ever.
Western security services have previously linked Cozy Bear, also known as APT29 and Midnight Blizzard, to Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump dashed Musk's secret Pentagon briefing on China
Beyond tariffs and court battles over Trump policies, two pieces of White House palace intrigue emerged Tuesday:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended two top Pentagon officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked word of a planned top-secret briefing on China for Elon Musk.
Axios learned that Musk or Hegseth didn't just decide to call off that briefing after the leak. President Trump himself ordered staffers to kill it.
"What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn't go," Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.
Why it matters: Musk has annoyed several administration officials with his constant presence at the White House, his haphazard social media posts and his slash-and-burn tactics at his Department of Government Efficiency.
The planned Pentagon briefing, however, got him cross with the boss at the Resolute Desk.
"POTUS still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines," the official said. "Elon has a lot of business in China and he has good relations there, and this briefing just wasn't the right thing."
Trump also had said he wouldn't allow conflicts of interest with Musk on his watch, although critics doubt his sincerity.
Flashback: The China episode became public on March 20, when the New York Times accurately reported that Musk was scheduled the next day to receive a Pentagon briefing on military plans in case of war with China.
Continue reading at Axios
Economics
Toy industry CEO on Trump’s China tariffs: ‘Christmas is at risk’
The Toy Association president and CEO said President Trump’s 145 percent tariffs on China will likely jeopardize the Christmas holiday for children as the world’s two largest economies remain entangled in a trade battle.
“No toys are currently being produced in China. And there are reports that major retailers here in the U.S. are starting to actually cancel orders. So, Jake, Christmas is at risk,” Greg Ahearn said in a Tuesday appearance on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”
The toy industry leader said American companies can’t generate the same production scale as factories in China as 96 percent of United States manufacturers are considered small or medium-sized businesses.
“There are some toys that are made here in the U.S., but they’re mostly paper goods or highly automated goods. And it represents a small portion of the toys that are manufactured,” he told CNN.
Ahearn said it would take a significant amount of time for American manufacturers to catch up to the pace of their counterparts in China.
Continue reading at The Hill
Hong Kong’s postal service to stop shipping goods bound for the US due to ‘bullying acts’
Hong Kong’s postal service announced that it had halted item mail services by sea and will pause the acceptance of air postal items containing goods bound for the United States starting on April 27.
“For sending items to the US, the public in Hong Kong should be prepared to pay exorbitant and unreasonable fees due to the US’s unreasonable and bullying acts. Other postal items containing documents only without goods will not be affected,” the government of Hong Kong said in a statement released on Wednesday local time.
The government of the semi-autonomous Chinese city said the U.S. is “unreasonable, bullying and imposing tariffs abusively. Hongkong Post will definitely not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the US and will suspend the acceptance of postal items containing goods destined to the US.”
Hong Kong pointed to President Trump administration’s decision to suspend the “de-minimis” exemption “for postal items dispatched from Hong Kong to the US and increase the tariffs for postal items containing goods to the US starting from May 2.”
Hong Kong is facing the same tariffs as China. Trump has escalated the trade war against the world’s second-largest economy, slapping 145 percent tariffs. China has retaliated by imposing a 125 percent tariff.
Continue reading at The Hill
IRS faces mass exodus of workers
A Trump administration plan would ax 30,000-40,000 positions at the agency, while 22,000 workers have expressed interest in “deferred resignation.”
The IRS could see a mass exodus of up to 40 percent of its workforce through a combination of buyouts offered by the Trump administration and widespread layoffs, according to an internal memo obtained by POLITICO.
The memo outlines the agency’s plans to reduce its workforce to between 60,000 to 70,000 employees, down from a previous headcount of roughly 100,000. Notices of “reductions in force” will start going out this week, the memo says, specifying that “taxpayer services and compliance will need to be trimmed.”
Already, around 22,000 employees at the IRS have opted to take the administration’s latest “deferred resignation” buyout offer, according to a person familiar with the plans granted anonymity to share them.
Combined, the figures mean the IRS could lose significant portion of its workforce just as the 2025 tax filing season draws to a close Tuesday night.
The new figures are on top of 7,000 probationary workers the IRS terminated earlier this year and up to 5,000 employees who accepted the administration’s first deferred resignation offer.
Some tax experts fear that the sudden budget cuts could result in the Treasury losing out in hundreds of billions in tax receipts, potentially accelerating the timeline under which Congress must reckon with the debt limit
Continue reading at Politico
Tourism to America is under threat
International tourism to the U.S. is falling fast, and the actions of the Trump administration are only likely to make things worse, industry experts say.
Why it matters: The travel industry was worth $1.3 trillion in 2024, and supported 15 million U.S. jobs, per the U.S. Travel Association. Now, that revenue — and those jobs — are being threatened.
The big picture: Non-U.S. citizens were already wary about visiting the U.S. in March, according to Aran Ryan at Tourism Economics.
Visits from Germany alone plunged by 28% year-on-year in March, he wrote in a recent report, showing the "early ramifications of a potent mix of negative sentiment, which has developed abroad in response to polarizing rhetoric and policy actions by the Trump administration, as well as concerns around tighter border and immigration policies."
What's next: "March may be just the beginning," he added, noting that the "Liberation Day" tariffs will only damage sentiment further.
Driving the news: Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent an extremely harsh message on Saturday to anybody thinking of visiting the country.
Continue reading at Axios
What the bond market is saying
Chart: U.S. high-yield corporate bond spread
The bond market — just like the stock market — is sending signs that maybe you can start breathing again. Not breathing normally, perhaps, but still, breathing.
Why it matters: The junk bond market seized up after the "Liberation Day" tariff announcements on April 2, but now it's showing signs of life.
The big picture: The bond market is more important for the economy than the stock market, since it's the main way for real money to find its way into companies and deals. (The stock market, by contrast, is overwhelmingly dominated by investors just selling shares to other investors.)
Where it stands: After April 2, no companies rated below investment grade — high yield, or junk, issuers — were able to issue debt at all, until Tuesday, when a single natural gas company came to market.
A closely watched index of high-yield spreads, from ICE BofA, spiked alarmingly from 3.42 percentage points on April 2, before Trump's reciprocal tariffs were announced, to 4.61 points on April 7.
Continue reading at Axios
Inside Trump’s strategy to get China to the negotiating table
The administration’s theory of the case is that tariff deals with other countries will isolate China — and urge them to come to the table.
President Donald Trump wants Chinese leader Xi Jinping to call. Making trade deals with China’s neighbors is part of a broader White House strategy to get him to the negotiating table.
As the two countries face off in a bitter trade war, the administration’s current theory of the case, which has been circulating among Trump allies and was confirmed by a White House official, is that tariff deals with Asian countries, as well as the dozens of others across the globe seeking to negotiate with the U.S., will isolate China, disrupt the Chinese supply chain and threaten to cut the country off from the rest of the world.
The White House sees the wave of announcements from companies moving manufacturing operations to the U.S. and its broader sectoral-based tariff strategy as key components in getting Xi to cooperate as well, said the official, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to discuss the administration’s strategy.
“Once you see a lot of countries — not just in southeast Asia or Asia, but all over — you’ll see that they’re willing to make deals with America, and that exerts pressure on China to hopefully come to the table,” the official said. “Because China’s economy is reliant on a lot of these other countries around the world, I think once people see, hopefully, deals being struck with these countries, that exerts pressure on China.”
But even people close to the White House — who want to see Trump succeed, China crippled and manufacturing boom in the U.S. — are unsure the strategy will work. Some argue cutting deals with other countries is at odds with the president’s broader America First approach on trade, which seeks to restore U.S. manufacturing, while using tariffs as a stick to eke out leverage. Others see those deals as a necessary stopgap as the U.S. works to reshore manufacturing.
“The tough balance is the fact that we get money because of tariffs, but we want to pick and choose which countries to have free trade with. We want to appear to be going towards free trade but we also love the revenue from tariffs,” said a second White House official.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump's $350 billion European oil and gas idea is a heavy lift
Chart: U.S. energy exports to the EU and the rest of the world
Monthly; January 2015 to January 2025
There's probably room for the EU to buy even more U.S. oil and gas, but the $350 billion target President Trump floated to bargain down new tariffs would be a heavy lift.
Why it matters: Trump sees U.S. fossil fuels as a negotiating point with countries in Europe and Asia — a merger of his trade and "energy dominance" agendas.
Catch up quick: Trump last week focused on more energy exports to end the trade deficit with the EU.
"They're going to have to buy our energy from us, because they need it," he said in the Oval Office. "They can buy it, we can knock off $350 billion in one week."
Yes, but: EU purchases of U.S. energy are already a really big share of U.S, exports (see above), and several analyses highlight challenges to hitting Trump's $350 billion target.
Wood Mackenzie's Ed Crooks explores various reasons why even more oil and gas exports can't alone transform bilateral trade balances.
"[T]he mechanics are challenging," the firm's vice chair for the Americas writes.
"Countries will need to make commitments to buy more US oil and gas to show that they are not just offering empty promises. In the oil market, refiners and fuel suppliers will generally not want to make those long-term commitments," he writes.
The intrigue: When it comes to LNG, long-term contracts are common, but other challenges remain.
Continue reading at Axios
Retail sales soared in March in pre-tariff spending binge
Retail sales surged 1.4% in March — the biggest monthly jump in two years after back-to-back months of weak consumer spending, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.
Why it matters: Economists say consumers rushed to make purchases before Trump's broadest tariffs took effect and potentially raised prices for goods.
The strong spending data defies gloomy economic messages in consumer sentiment surveys that suggest a shopping pullback.
The big picture: Retail sales had been weak in 2025, with a slight increase of 0.2% in February and a drop of 1.4% the previous month.
By the numbers: Retail sales, which are not adjusted for inflation, got a huge boost from auto sales which surged 5.3% in March.
Excluding those purchases, overall retail sales rose just 0.5%.
Continue reading at Axios
The American EV dream still relies on China
The U.S. has been investing feverishly in recent years to create a domestic supply chain for electric vehicles and reduce its dependence on foreign countries, but it's far from complete.
Why it matters: Despite more than $130 billion in EV investments in the U.S., big gaps in the supply chain — mostly in mining and refining — have left America vulnerable to an escalating trade war with China.
Catch up fast: With trade tensions rising, China is leveraging its control of critical minerals and refining technology to disrupt American supply chains for everything from cars and electronics to missiles and robots.
Beijing has tightened export controls on rare earth minerals and magnets that are essential for electric motors, for example, and graphite, a critical material for battery anodes.
Many other vital battery materials, including lithium, cobalt and nickel, are also mined and refined in China, or by companies under Chinese influence.
Where it stands: U.S. companies trying to reshore the EV supply chain have made a lot of progress in a short period of time.
Continue reading at Axios
A dozen House Republicans fire warning shot to Mike Johnson
A dozen swing-district and centrist House Republicans are warning Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that they won't vote for a budget reconciliation package that cuts Medicaid too deeply.
Why it matters: It puts Johnson in a vise as members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus demand steep cuts to the health program for low-income individuals.
The GOP's clash over how much to offset their planned $4 trillion in tax cuts was on full display last week as the Freedom Caucus rebelled over a Senate budget measure that mandated only $4 billion in cuts.
The House had initially passed a budget resolution that would require $1.5 trillion in cuts — and would likely reduce Medicaid funding.
What they're saying: The 12 lawmakers wrote in a letter to Johnson and other GOP leaders that many of them represent "districts with high rates of constituents who depend on Medicaid."
"Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of ... their health and economic security," they said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Axios.
The lawmakers issued an ultimatum: "We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations."
Zoom in: The letter was signed by Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), Young Kim (R-Calif.), Robert Wittman (R-Va.), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.).
Continue reading at Axios
Trade war shock hits US companies
AMERICAN COMPANIES ARE WARNING of multibillion-dollar setbacks and extreme uncertainty over the trade war with China as earnings season gets underway.
United Airlines gave two financial forecasts, saying it’s “impossible to predict” whether the U.S. might slide into a recession amid the tit-for-tat tariffs.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato warned the trade war may disrupt the drug supply chain as the administration considers new tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Yahoo Finance that CEOs should stop worrying.
“We’re going to have a lot more clarity on the way forward over the next 90 days,” Bessent said.
CHIPMAKERS TAKE A HIT
U.S.-based artificial intelligence chipmakers are taking massive hits over a new Trump administration rule meant to keep China from building a supercomputer.
Nvidia’s stock plunged nearly 7 percent Wednesday after the company announced it would take a $5.5 billion quarter charge tied to its chip exports to China. The California-based company revealed in a filing that the U.S. government will require it to obtain a license to export some chips due to new restrictions.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump's tariffs "highly likely" to reignite inflation, Fed chair Powell says
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that President Trump's tariffs would likely lead to a faster rise in prices and weigh on economic growth.
Why it matters: Trump campaigned on lowering prices for inflation-weary consumers, but Powell is the latest to suggest Trump's trade war might do the opposite.
In a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said the Fed could face a tough scenario if inflation rises alongside teetering economic growth.
What they're saying: "Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation," Powell said, warning of the possibility that inflationary effects could also linger.
Powell said how long tariff-related inflation persists depends on a slew of factors, including the time it takes for tariffs to "pass through fully to prices."
The big picture: Trump's tariff regime — which has shifted week-to-week — has so far been "significantly larger than anticipated," Powell said.
"The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth," he added.
Continue reading at Axios
The U.S.-China decoupling arrives
What has been a yearslong economic risk is now reality: The tit-for-tat tariffs effectively end U.S.-China bilateral trade, the final step in the economic decoupling of the world's juggernauts.
That is the new warning from the World Trade Organization on Wednesday in the release of its latest global outlook.
Why it matters: The sudden divorce of the two economies might mean profound pain for American workers and the nation's wealth built on the back of a strong trading relationship.
A prolonged trade fight risks splitting the global trading system into two distinct blocs — countries that trade with the U.S. and those that trade with China.
Stunning stat: The WTO anticipates trade between the U.S. and China will screech to a halt this year.
Trade of merchandise between the two countries will drop by 80%, a drop that would have topped 90% without the White House's recent exemption for smartphones and other tech goods, according to WTO director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
What they're saying: "The drop in U.S.-China trade of the magnitudes we are talking about is virtually tantamount to a decoupling of the two economies," Okonjo-Iweala told reporters Wednesday morning.
"This is a phenomenon we've talked about before ... and now we're seeing it emerging," Okonjo-Iweala added. " I think this is one of the most worrying factors for us."
The big picture: The total volume of goods traded around the world is expected to contract by 0.2% this year — an abrupt turnaround from the near 3% increase last year.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump chip export restrictions deal blow to Nvidia and AMD
Chips sector sentiment soured Wednesday amid signs that the semiconductor industry is facing further export restrictions on advanced AI products.
Why it matters: The global AI race is colliding with the trade war between the U.S. and China — and chip makers are caught in the middle.
Between the lines: Nvidia shares fell 6.9% Wednesday after the company warned it expects to take a $5.5 billion hit from "inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves" connected with its H20 chips.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said it's facing similar charges of up of $800 million tied to its MI309 products due to new export restrictions, sending its stock down 7.4%.
The sector is also awaiting word from Trump on chip tariffs.
Threat level: The U.S. government notified Nvidia on April 9 that it would require a license to export H20 chips "and any other circuits achieving the H20's memory bandwidth, interconnect bandwidth, or combination thereof," the company said in a public filing.
Continue reading at Axios
Bank of Canada governor: Trump’s tariffs creating once-in-a-century economic shock
Tiff Macklem is warning that the trade war could plunge Canada into a yearlong recession.
OTTAWA — Canada’s central bank chief is blaming President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff war for “violently” damaging the economy of America’s northern neighbor.
“The Canadian economy ended 2024 in good shape,” Governor Tiff Macklem said Wednesday during an interest rate announcement that preserved the status quo.
“Since January, we’ve had a seismic shift in U.S. trade policy and a sharp increase in uncertainty. New tariffs are now in place on key Canadian industries and on every other U.S. trade partner. Financial markets in Canada and around the world have violently repriced and remain volatile,” he said.
The dire economic portrait set the scene hours before the first of two federal leaders’ debates in the Canadian federal election. The campaign has focused squarely on Trump’s economic assault on what was once America’s best friend, and on who is best suited to negotiate with his administration the morning after Canadians go to the polls on April 28.
“This is an unprecedented shock in more than 100 years,” Macklem said.
“Giving Canadians a false sense of precision would not be doing Canadians a good service. Look, I think everybody’s feeling this uncertainty. I think everybody is watching the daily announcements coming out of the White House and seeing the — you know — the erratic, unpredictable course of U.S. trade policy,” he said.
Continue reading at Politico
Musk’s shadow grows over space industry
CEOs feels a mix of worry and excitement that the world’s biggest space entrepreneur has a hotline to the president.
For all of the fretting about Elon Musk on the national political stage, perhaps no part of America operates in his shadow more directly than the space industry.
Musk’s influence, even before he became President Donald Trump’s trusted advisor, was already vast. SpaceX, the company he founded, accounted for 95 percent of all rocket launches from the United States last year, while its constellation of 7,000 Starlink satellites accounts for the vast majority of active satellites in space.
Now, with a direct line to President Donald Trump and a new job with tendrils reaching everywhere in government, the billionaire has even more levers with which to push forward his own ideas of what America’s space policy should be.
Should the industry be anxious, or excited? Interviews with a series of officials suggest a potent mix of both — a familiar feeling for many executives, as they watch his one-man war on whatever he perceives as an obstacle to his will.
On paper, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Trump confidant has no official responsibility for space, and has said he must recuse himself from NASA budget decisions.
But Musk — so unable to restrain himself on social media that he bought a whole platform — has stirred controversy with a string of pronouncements on space since Trump’s election, calling NASA’s moon mission a “distraction,” promising a crewed mission to Mars and claiming the Biden administration stranded two astronauts on the International Space Station.
Continue reading at Politico
Tariffs will cost families nearly $5K per year, Kentucky governor says
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) — Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is raising alarm bells over tariffs under consideration by the Trump administration, saying they’ll end up costing American families thousands of dollars.
Beshear, in a message posted on social media, said the tariffs would cost an average family an extra $4,700 a year.
“That’s months upon months upon months of groceries. That’s months upon months of rent. That might be your entire annual deductible if you’ve got private health insurance coverage,” he said. “No family will be able to get through that without being severely impacted and for those that are struggling to pay bills at the end of the month, it’s enough to put you under.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Health and Science News
White House plan would eliminate Head Start, make sweeping health cuts
A Trump administration budget proposal calls for eliminating programs like Head Start, funding for community mental health clinics and initiatives aimed at preventing teen pregnancy in fiscal 2026.
Why it matters: The 64-page document, called a budget passback, reveals the breadth and deep extent to which the Trump administration is eyeing cuts to the federal health bureaucracy.
The Office of Management and Budget document is just a proposal but offers a preview of what President Trump's spending priorities are. Congress has the final say in how discretionary funds are allocated.
The document was first reported by the Washington Post.
Zoom in: The proposal calls for about $20 billion appropriated to a new agency within Health and Human Services called the Administration for a Healthy America. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last month that he planned to combine several existing agencies into this new entity.
The document also requests $500 million to be allocated by the HHS secretary for activities that support the administration's so-called "Make America Healthy Again" initiative, per the document.
In all, about $40 billion, or one-third of the HHS discretionary budget, would be cut under the proposal compared with fiscal 2024 levels.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump administration mulls sharp funding cuts at health agencies
A preliminary proposal would slash the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget by more than 30 percent
The Trump administration is considering a more than 30 percent cut to the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services, as part of a sweeping reorganization that would eliminate dozens of programs and consolidate key health agencies.
Public health initiatives aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention would no longer exist. Major parts of the National Institutes of Health would be abolished. The Food and Drug Administration would cease routine inspections at food facilities. And funding for many of the administration’s priorities are on the chopping block, including federal programs focused on autism, chronic disease, drug abuse and mental health.
Overall, the proposal outlined by the White House Office of Management and Budget recommends slashing HHS’ overall discretionary funding to roughly $80.4 billion, down from the $116.8 billion enacted in the fiscal 2025 budget.
“Many difficult decisions were necessary to reach the funding level provided in this Passback,” OMB wrote in the document, referring to the practice of notifying department officials what to expect in its funding request for the coming fiscal year.
The proposal, which was dated April 10 and obtained by POLITICO, is still subject to change as the White House prepares to send a formal budget proposal to Congress. An HHS spokesperson referred questions to OMB. OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said “no final funding decisions have been made.”
Continue reading at Politico
Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts
HHS would be asked to absorb a $40 billion cut, about one-third of its discretionary budget.
The Trump administration is seeking to deeply slash budgets for federal health programs, a roughly one-third cut in discretionary spending by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by The Washington Post.
The HHS budget draft, known as a “passback,” offers the first full look at the health and social service priorities of President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget as it prepares to send his 2026 fiscal year budget request to Congress. It shows how the Trump administration plans to reshape the federal health agencies that oversee food and drug safety, manage the nation’s response to infectious-disease threats and drive biomedical research.
It calls not only for cuts, but a major shuffling and restructuring of health and human service agencies.
Continue reading at the Washington Post
CDC ‘scraping’ to find resources to help states respond to growing measles outbreaks
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is struggling to keep up with requests for help from states responding to ongoing measles outbreaks, even as a large number of cases are not being reported, a senior agency scientist said Tuesday.
More than 700 measles infections have been reported nationwide, making 2025 the second-worst year on record in decades. There are 561 confirmed cases in Texas alone since late January, according to the most recent statistics.
David Sugerman, senior scientist for the CDC’s measles response, told members of the agency’s vaccine advisory committee that Texas is pulling resources and staff away from other parts of its health department or moving them from other regions of the state to help respond to the outbreak.
Each measles case costs anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 in public health work, Sugerman said, which “adds up quite quickly.”
The Trump administration last month canceled more than $11 billion in public health grants to state and local health departments from the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which were being used to respond to infectious disease outbreaks.
Continue reading at The Hill
U.S. trails China in race to utilize biotech on the battlefield
A critical avenue of U.S.-China competition has slipped under the public's radar despite its potential outsize impacts on economies, militaries and weaponry: biotechnology.
Why it matters: Better body armor, dynamic camouflage, foods synthesized in trenches, super soldiers, landmine-detecting bacteria and sabotaged materials shipped to the enemy are all promises of this field.
And a new report concludes that Beijing is ascending to biotech dominance, at great risk to Washington.
Driving the news: The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology filed that report to Congress this month after two years of research and debate.
Commissioners include Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), also a member of the intelligence committee; Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO; and Michelle Rozo, a vice president at In-Q-Tel and former principal director for biotechnology at the Pentagon.
Here's a taste of the report's many findings, recommendations and warnings:
China is sprinting ahead after prioritizing biotech 20 years ago. The U.S. must course correct in three years.
Washington should dedicate $15 billion minimum over the next five years to supercharge the sector.
Continue reading at Axios
Polling- Surveys
Voters sour on Trump's tariffs but favor immigration policies, polls show
Immigration is a winning issue for President Trump, while his historic tariffs have plummeting favorability among voters, polls show.
The big picture: Trump has made sweeping changes on both the immigration and economic fronts — two key areas he campaigned on and won voters' support. But now that he's implemented some of his promised policies, the poll numbers shows mixed reviews.
A YouGov/Economist poll found Trump's approval in general among young voters has fallen from +5 at the start of his term to -29 now.
Another survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of the way he's handling the job.
Zoom in: Trump's tariffs have become a liability for him: A vast majority of voters (72%) said they think Trump's tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short-term, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released last week.
That's true across 97% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 44% of Republicans.
Continue reading at Axios
California voters have Trump-resistance fatigue, poll finds
From taking on Trump to hot-button issues, voters writ large embraced a different approach -- although Democrats are more ready to fight.
California voters are less keen on fighting Trump than their state’s political elite.
In a dual survey of California voters and political professionals who are driving the state’s agenda, the electorate is strikingly more likely to want a détente with the White House. Voters are also more divided on issues like immigration and climate change, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers have asserted progressive ambitions that rebuff President Donald Trump’s agenda.
A plurality of voters is skeptical of legal immigration, and less than half think the state should be able to set its own strict standards on vehicle emissions, an authority California has used for more than half a century.
The results suggest a disconnect between the policymaking class and voters in an overwhelmingly blue state where Trump made broad inroads in 2024 amid widespread frustrations over crime and a prohibitively high cost of living. Registered Democrats, however — who comprise nearly half the electorate — are more enthusiastic about progressive policies and more eager to challenge Trump’s Washington.
California’s approach to the president has become a core point of debate among the state’s elected Democrats as the national party seeks a path out of the political wilderness. Newsom has invited conservative luminaries like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast, appealed to the president for Los Angeles wildfire aid and approved millions to battle the Trump administration in court as legislative Democrats wrestle with the balance between combating Trump and addressing quality-of-life concerns.
On Wednesday, the governor and attorney general announced California would sue Trump over tariffs, the first state to do so.
Continue reading at Politico
Schumer losing favorability in second Trump term: Poll
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been losing favorability over the course of President Trump’s second White House term, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.
The Economist/YouGov Poll found that just 23 percent of surveyed U.S. adults had a favorable view of Schumer, while 51 percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable outlook of the longtime upper chamber lawmaker.
Schumer’s favorability has decreased since Trump returned to the Oval Office earlier this year. In late January, the New York Democrat’s favorability was 30 percent while another 41 percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of the top Democrat, the Economist/YouGov Poll published at the time showed.
The Wednesday survey found that just 7 percent of respondents had a “very favorable” view of Schumer, while 17 percent said they had a “somewhat favorable” view of the senator.
On the flip side, around 16 percent of respondents had a “somewhat unfavorable” view of Schumer. Meanwhile, 35 percent said they had a “very unfavorable” view of the Democrat. Approximately 26 percent of individuals surveyed were unsure.
Continue reading at The Hill
The Courts / Legal
Judge warns "probable cause exists" to hold Trump in contempt over deportation flights
A federal judge said Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt for defying his order to halt deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Why it matters: The Trump administration's defiance of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's order last month has sparked a high-stakes legal battle that could test the limits of President Trump's deportation powers.
It has also proven to be a political lightning rod, with both administration officials and Democratic lawmakers visiting the infamous El Salvadoran mega-prison where the migrants are being sent.
The big picture: The Trump administration's decision to proceed with the deportation flights displayed a "willful disregard" for the order, Boasberg wrote in a ruling Wednesday.
The administration has defended its decision to follow through with the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, arguing the planes were already in international waters at the time and the ruling did not apply.
This reasoning, Boasberg noted, "requires ignoring the clear context in which the Order was issued."
Zoom in: Boasberg wrote that the Trump administration had been given "ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory."
"Probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt," he added.
The other side: White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X Wednesday that the Trump administration plans "to seek immediate appellate relief."
Continue reading at Axios
Maine gov on DOJ lawsuit over transgender athletes: This is about ‘states rights,’ ‘defending the rule of law’
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) commented Wednesday on the Justice Department’s (DOJ) announcement of a lawsuit targeting her state over transgender athletes, calling it part of “an unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.”
“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states’ rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Mills said in a statement on the Maine government’s website.
The Trump administration announced a civil lawsuit Wednesday targeting the Pine Tree State’s Department of Education for violating Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination that the Trump administration has said bars transgender students from taking part in girls’ and women’s sports in schools.
“We have exhausted every other remedy,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday. “We don’t like standing up here and filing lawsuits.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Ex-Trump cyber official leaves private sector role to fight DOJ probe
Chris Krebs, a top cybersecurity official in the first Trump administration, is leaving his role at SentinelOne to focus on fighting the new government investigation into his time in public service.
Why it matters: Krebs made the announcement in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, his first since President Trump opened a probe into Krebs' time leading the country's top cybersecurity agency.
Catch up quick: Last week, Trump revoked all of Krebs' remaining security clearances and ordered the Justice Department investigation. The president also suspended any security clearances held by SentinelOne employees.
The move is a direct response to Trump's year-long grudge against Krebs, who was in charge when CISA released a statement calling the 2020 election the "most secure in American history."
Zoom in: In an email to employees that SentinelOne published on its site, Krebs said he was leaving his role to focus on fighting Trump's attacks.
Continue reading at Axios
Justice gets criminal referral alleging mortgage fraud by NY attorney general
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department against New York Attorney General Letitia James, arguing she said a Virginia home was her primary residence to secure more favorable loan terms.
“Based on media reports, Ms. Letitia James has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms,” the agency wrote in its referral, which was obtained by The Hill.
“At the time of the 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase and mortgage, Ms. James was the siting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York—even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA property as her primary home.”
The referral asks for a criminal investigation into James, who prosecuted a civil fraud case against President Trump last year.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate Democrat asks government watchdog to audit Trump foreign assistance cuts
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is asking an independent government watchdog to analyze the consequences of President Trump’s foreign aid cuts.
The request, to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), demonstrates one avenue the minority party is using to exercise accountability over Trump’s actions. The GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.
The GAO can examine how taxpayer dollars are spent and provide Congress and federal agencies with objective, fact-based information to help the government save money and work efficiently.
In a letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Merkley requested a “comprehensive audit” of the foreign policy and national security implications of the Trump administration’s deep cuts to foreign assistance, its shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and efforts to downsize the State Department.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump’s pick to lead the IRS raked in donations to pay off campaign debt after he was announced
Democrats have previously raised concerns about former Republican Rep. Billy Long’s ties to firms at odds with the IRS.
President Donald Trump’s pick for Internal Revenue Service commissioner recently cleared a substantial debt from his failed 2022 Senate bid, using campaign contributions that rolled in after Trump announced his intent to nominate him to lead the tax agency, according to federal filings.
Former Republican Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) raked in roughly $137,000 in campaign donations in January — the month after Trump said he would nominate him to serve in Trump’s administration — according to campaign finance disclosures filed late Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Long then paid back an outstanding personal loan of $130,000 he had made to his now-dormant 2022 U.S. Senate campaign in February. A number of the donors are affiliated with firms in the tax consultancy industry.
The Lever was first to report on the filings.
Continue reading at Politico
California is first state to sue Trump on tariffs
It’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s most direct move against Trump since the president retook office.
SACRAMENTO, California — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing Donald Trump over tariffs in an aggressive move to end the president’s stranglehold on global commerce.
Newsom’s lawsuit, announced Wednesday morning with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, is the first challenge from a U.S. state against Trump’s signature foreign policy cudgel.
California, the world’s fifth largest economy, stands to lose billions to tariffs with major state industries from Silicon Valley to agriculture heavily dependent on global trade.
“President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses, and our economy — driving up prices and threatening jobs,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue.”
The lawsuit is Newsom’s most direct legal challenge to Trump’s agenda since the president retook office in January. The move instantly reignites California’s war with Trump and cements its place atop the resistance, after Newsom spent months appealing to the president for federal disaster relief.
It’s also notable as a unilateral challenge, underscoring the singular importance of the issue in California. Bonta has worked closely with other blue states on previous lawsuits challenging Trump’s immigration policies and federal funding cuts.
Newsom and Bonta’s argument targets the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, the law Trump is using to impose tariffs without congressional approval. The two Democrats argue Trump lacks the authority to levy tariffs under the law, mirroring a similar case filed Monday by a group of U.S. businesses.
Continue reading at Politico
Republicans quietly hope Supreme Court bails them out on Trump’s trade war
The high court has ruled in favor of Trump several times during his first few months in office, but it handed his administration a setback last week by ruling that it must facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs against more than 180 counties face new legal challenges after several businesses sued the administration in the U.S. Court of International Trade and a federal district court in Florida.
Most of those tariffs are on hold for a 90-day period to allow countries to negotiate with the Trump administration. China is the big exception. Many of its products now face tariffs at 145 percent.
Some Republican lawmakers, who privately oppose Trump’s tariffs but are afraid of criticizing the president publicly, hope that that the Supreme Court will ultimately curb Trump’s tariff authority.
“Members would love to have the courts bail them out and basically step in and assert the authority under the Constitution that taxes are supposed to originate in the House of Representatives,” said Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate GOP aide.
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge in deportation case threatens Trump admin with contempt of court
If the Maryland man erroneously deported to El Salvador manages to return to the U.S., he will be detained and removed from the country, the Department of Justice said in a court filing Tuesday.
The big picture: The Trump administration is resisting courts' orders to return Kilmar Armando Abrego García from a notorious Salvadorian prison, despite conceding that he was deported in an "administrative error" — and a federal judge later Tuesday wouldn't rule out holding the government in contempt of court, per multiple reports.
State of play: U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a hearing the Trump administration will be required to provide documents and answer questions to show what's being done to "facilitate" Abrego García's release, per the New York Times.
"To date nothing has been done," Xinis said to the DOJ lawyer, per the NYT.
"If everyone is operating in good faith, this will get done in two weeks," said Xinis, declining to immediately hold the Trump administration in contempt, according to the Washington Post.
"If you're not, that will be a fact in and of itself for this court to consider," she added. "If I make a finding of contempt, it will be based on the record before me."
Zoom in: The DOJ said in its filing earlier that Abrego García would either be removed to a country that's not El Salvador or the government would seek to "terminate" his "withholding of removal" status and send him back to El Salvador if he were returned to the U.S.
Continue reading at Axios
Judge temporarily halts deportation of University of Wisconsin student after Trump visa cancellation
Judge William Conley ruled to block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from immediately deporting Krish Lal Isserdasani, 21, who claimed his F-1 student visa was wrongfully terminated. He’s a senior who expects to graduate in May.
Officials said he failed to maintain his status as a legal resident due to being identified in “criminal records.”
Isserdasani was arrested on November 22, 2024, after a verbal argument took place outside of a bar, according to legal filings.
“Although Isserdasani was arrested for disorderly conduct, the District Attorney declined to pursue charges after reviewing the case,” his attorneys wrote in court documents.
“As a result, Isserdasani never had to appear in court and believed the matter was completely resolved with no possible immigration consequences. Aside from this encounter, Isserdasani has had no other interactions with law enforcement,” they added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump tariffs face Main Street lawsuit
U.S. courts have the potential to be the biggest threat yet to the central tenet of President Trump's economic agenda.
Why it matters: Legal groups representing Main Street businesses want judges to block some tariffs as lawsuits against the levies make their way through the judicial system.
State of play: Bigger names in corporate America are reluctant to take Trump on in court. A trade group representing major retailers has pulled back on a potential tariff lawsuit, Bloomberg reported this month. Its members were hesitant to proceed.
Small businesses, however, are involved in multiple lawsuits seeking to block Trump's tariffs. The legal groups that represent them admit it is impossible to know how — and how quickly — courts might respond.
The latest lawsuit, filed by Liberty Justice Center on Monday on behalf of five small businesses, alleges Trump does not have the power to impose across-the-board worldwide tariffs without congressional approval.
Between the lines: The White House relied on untested emergency powers to impose tariffs, a move that at least three lawsuits now argue is executive overreach.
Continue reading at Axios
UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female
Judgment is a victory for gender-critical feminist campaigners — and a blow for transgender rights activists.
LONDON — Britain’s highest court ruled Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said as he delivered his judgment on Wednesday.
It will be seen as a landmark victory for gender-critical feminist campaigners who have long argued biological sex is immutable, and a blow for transgender rights activists. The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the provision of single-sex spaces and other gender-specific public services across Scotland, England and Wales.
The U.K government said the ruling had brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs.
“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” a spokesperson said in a statement following the ruling.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
AP asks judge to intervene after White House removes wires from press pool
The Associated Press is asking a federal judge to step in following a move by the White House to remove the spot typically reserved for wire services from the press pool covering President Trump.
The West Wing’s decision came just days after U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered the Trump administration to restore the AP’s access to key White House spaces after it was banned from the pool over a refusal to use “Gulf of America” in its widely-cited stylebook.
“The new policy abandons the longstanding role of wire services, which have been included in the pool since its inception to assure that White House reporting reaches the broadest possible audience in the United States and around the globe as quickly and reliably as possible,” the AP wrote to McFadden in its filing. “This change marks the latest reduction in wire service participation, which the White House continues to use as a pretext for targeting the AP.”
The AP sued the White House earlier this year over the decision to ban it from the pool.
Continue reading at The Hill
Department of Defense sued over book removals, curriculum changes in its schools
A group of 12 students sued the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) over changes that have been made to curriculum and book removals in its schools.
The lawsuit accuses the DODEA of eliminating curriculum that deals with subjects such as slavery, Native American history, and LGBTQ issues, taking books off shelves and canceling events the government says are promoting “gender ideology” or “divisive equity ideology.”
The changes come after President Trump signed several executive orders aimed at the military, transgender people, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Military schools are under the direct control of the administration, which allows for implementation of these changes at a much quicker rate.
“Learning is a sacred and foundational right that is now being limited for students in DoDEA schools. The implementation of these [executive orders], without any due process or parental or professional input, is a violation of our children’s right to access information that prevents them from learning about their own histories, bodies, and identities,” said Natalie Tolley, a plaintiff on behalf of her three children in the department’s schools.
“I have three daughters, and they, like all children, deserve access to books that both mirror their own life experiences and that act as windows that expose them to greater diversity. The administration has now made that verboten in DoDEA schools,” she added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge blocks Trump EPA from clawing back billions in Biden-era climate grants
A federal judge on Wednesday indefinitely blocked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from clawing back billions of dollars in Biden-era climate grants.
U.S. District Tanya Chutkan said the EPA may not suspend or terminate the green grant awards nor limit access to those funds while a lawsuit challenging the effort to recoup the money moves forward.
She also ordered Citibank, which received the funds but refused to disburse them at the government’s request, to unfreeze the climate groups’ funds.
However, Chutkan directed Citibank to refrain from releasing any funds until Thursday afternoon. After that, the groups will be able to use that money to finance climate-friendly projects.
The administration has already appealed her decision, which she said would be explained in a forthcoming memorandum.
Through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA was given $20 billion for grants to financial institutions to fund climate-friendly projects.
Continue reading at The Hill
Biden, Obama-appointed judges oversee bulk of Trump cases
The Gavel has broken down the more than 200 lawsuits challenging major Trump administration actions and it found that most of the cases — 72 percent — have been assigned to judges appointed by a Democratic president.
The bulk of those cases are being overseen by those appointed by some of President Trump’s top political foes — former Presidents Obama and Biden.
The judges don’t always rule against Trump, but their flood of injunctions — and plaintiffs’ attempt to bring their cases in favorable courts — has led Trump to lash out by calling many of them Democratic activists and insisting they don’t have the power to tell him how to conduct his administration’s business.
Here’s the full breakdown of judges, by which president appointed them:
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump admin goes after N.Y. AG who won civil fraud trial against president
New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the government after a federal agency referred her for potential criminal prosecution for alleged mortgage fraud.
Why it matters: It's the latest example of the administration following through on President Trump's pledges to seek retribution against his political enemies.
Trump has already stripped security clearances from James, who is not facing any charges in relation to the criminal referral, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured a historic conviction in the president's hush money case.
State of play: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director William Pulte wrote a criminal referral relating to James to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche.
He alleges that James "falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms," per the letter seen by Axios and first reported by the New York Post on Tuesday evening, which cites media reports.
Trump shared one of those reports in a Monday Truth Social post with the comment: "Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, IMMEDIATELY. Everyone is trying to MAKE NEW YORK GREAT AGAIN, and it can never be done with this wacky crook in office."
Flashback: James successfully brought a $464 million civil fraud case against Trump, his companies and fellow defendants over the president's business practices.
Continue reading at Axios
Unions launch ‘Rise Up’ legal defense network for federal workers fired under Trump
A network of federal employee unions and legal groups are launching a legal defense group to provide counsel to thousands of government workers recently fired by the Trump administration.
Deemed Rise Up, the program will recruit lawyers to provide pro bono legal help to scores of federal workers.
“Federal workers’ unions and allied organizations are already fighting back in court, but thousands of federal workers still need individual legal advice and representation. Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network will mobilize and train thousands of lawyers to provide pro bono legal guidance to federal workers,” the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal government union, wrote in a statement announcing the program.
The Trump administration has fired thousands of employees still in their probationary period – a timeline that can stretch from one to two years depending on the agency.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has also directed agencies to embark on reductions in force (RIFs), which would mean wide-scale government layoffs. Agencies faced a deadline earlier this week to send OMB their plans for doing these reductions.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration acted in contempt of court by not turning around deportation flights, judge says
Judge James Boasberg has found probable cause that the Trump administration acted in contempt of court when officials last month defied his order to turn two planes around carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
"As this Opinion will detail, the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt," the judge wrote Wednesday.
Continue reading at ABC News (developing news)
News Alert: Judge finds ‘probable cause exists’ to hold Trump administration in contempt for violating orders on deportation flights
US District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The judge is still deciding punishment and the next steps he may take, and is giving the Justice Department an opportunity to respond.
The situation has been a major political and legal flashpoint for the Trump White House in its efforts to carry out a historic deportation campaign, especially in mid-March when it sent three planes of migrants to a prison in El Salvador.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Anti-DEI-Whitewashing
Thomson Reuters drops ‘diversity’ for ‘inclusion’ as Trump pressures press
The corporation is the parent company of Reuters international news agency and also offers tech services for the federal government as a contractor.
“To ensure ongoing compliance, we are clarifying some of our talent practices and language. This includes renaming ‘diversity and inclusion’ to ‘inclusion and belonging’ and building detailed guidance to inform how we articulate and implement programs and practices,” the company wrote in a Tuesday email to employees obtained by The New York Times media reporter Benjamin Mullin.
Trump’s two orders entitled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” abolished previous executive orders that outlined policies for equal employment opportunities for the federal workforce, federal contractors and grant recipients.
“It is the policy of the United States to protect the civil rights of all Americans and to promote individual initiative, excellence, and hard work. I therefore order all executive departments and agencies to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements,” Trump wrote in the first executive order.
Continue reading at The Hill
General News
Advocates worry over possible cuts to Head Start
Chart: Funded slots in Head Start and Early Head Start programs, by congressional district
Worries are growing over funding for Head Start, the decades-old federal program that provides childcare, nutrition assistance and other services to the nation's poorest families.
Why it matters: Shuttering the program — something the White House is reportedly considering — would be "catastrophic," says Casey Peeks, senior director of Early Childhood Policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.
More than 790,000 children, through age 5, rely on Head Start for learning, meals and healthcare services, per a report from CAP out Wednesday morning.
The big picture: There would be ripple affects for other families if child care providers lose access to this funding — straining a nationwide system already struggling with wait lists and high costs.
Such disruption would hit "not only our staff, but our parents that are working," says Jennifer Carrol, the Assistant Director of Children's Services at Community Action Partnership of North Alabama, one of the largest Head Start programs in Alabama, serving over 1,600 children across 15 counties.
By the numbers: The impact would be particularly hard on rural America, per CAPs report.
46% of Head Start funding goes to rural areas, often in places without any other child care options, according to federal data from the 2023-2024 school year they analyzed. Only 22% is for those in urban areas.
Zoom in: CAP looked at Head Start funding by Congressional district and found it is pretty evenly split between parties, with 47% going to Republican districts, particularly in those rural areas.
Continue reading at Axios
New fundraising data shows warning signs for key Senate incumbents and strength for others
Campaign finance reports filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission help provide a clearer picture of where things stand.
Facing a brutal Senate map, Democrats have an extremely difficult path back to the majority. They have to defend Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and three open seats in Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Republicans are looking to hold onto North Carolina and Maine.
Voters won’t head to the polls for more than 560 days, but the 2026 midterms are well underway, and fundraising reports filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission help provide a clearer picture of where things stand a few months into President Donald Trump’s second term.
Here are five takeaways from the campaign finance reports from the first three months of the year.
Democrats have a head start in open seats
Democrats are off to an early fundraising lead in possibly competitive states with open Senate seats in 2026. Democratic senators are retiring in Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire, depriving their party of their large bank accounts in states that are key to their hopes of winning back the majority. But early interest from House members has helped Democrats start to make up that gap.
Rep. Haley Stevens, the Michigan Democrat who is taking steps toward a Senate run, leads that charge, raising just under $1.2 million through the end of March. She has over $1.6 million in the bank.
In Minnesota, Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, who is seriously considering running for Senate but has made no announcement, also raised $1.2 million. She ended with $1 million in cash on hand. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is already in the race and raised nearly $452,000 after launching her campaign in mid-February.
Continue reading at Politico
Newsom doubles down on climate policy
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and top state Democrats announced Tuesday they would seek an extension of the state’s cap-and-trade emissions reduction program — countering Trump administration efforts to thwart such initiatives.
Newsom — along with state Sen. Mike McGuire, the Senate president pro tempore, and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas — made this decision following a recent federal executive order that called for the rollback of what President Trump described as local environmental “overreach.”
In last week’s order, Trump chided states for advancing “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance.”
He claimed that the Golden State “punishes carbon use by adopting impossible caps on the amount of carbon businesses may use, all but forcing businesses to pay large sums to ‘trade’ carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements.”
California’s cap-and-trade program — proposed and signed into law by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 — seeks to hold carbon polluters accountable by charging them for excess carbon emissions.
However, the current program is set to expire in 2030 and, therefore, requires an extension from the Legislature.
Continue reading at The Hill
The untold story of how Trump shocked Europe in a few short days
The world changed in February. Here’s how it looked to political insiders.
PARIS — European leaders knew Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president would be a challenge. But the magnitude and speed with which Washington broke from decades-long defense policies forced governments across the continent to confront the unthinkable: Is the U.S. now more of a threat than a partner?
POLITICO reporters have dug deep into the events of a couple of weeks in February when everything changed. Europe experienced a series of Trump-induced geopolitical shocks that shook the transatlantic relationship to its core and rattled Europe’s faith in its most crucial ally.
It prompted leaders in Berlin and Warsaw to reverse — in a matter of days — their security doctrines, and diplomats to try to salvage what remains of the post-World War II order.
Since Trump entered the White House for the second time in January, Europe has had to ride a rollercoaster that’s swerved from policies on Gaza to Greenland, from Ukraine to a trade war.
While actual policy announcements have been hard to follow, especially as they’re often blurred or reversed by overnight social media posts, the key message on the transatlantic relationship was sent loud and clear soon after Trump took office: Europe should fend for itself and America’s military umbrella, extended over the continent since 1945, shouldn’t be taken for granted.
And what European leaders were even more worried about, according to the officials POLITICO spoke to, is that much of Trump’s rhetoric felt to them hauntingly close to the Kremlin’s own messaging. Top of the list: The inaccurate claim that Ukraine was responsible for starting its war with Russia.
The goodies and baddies
The first sign of the drama to come happened mid-February when U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Brussels to deliver Europe bad news.
At a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Hegseth said Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy should give up hope of taking back all the land Russia has seized and returning to pre-2014 borders. It’s “an illusionary goal,” he said, as he quashed Ukrainians’ hopes of joining the military alliance in the near future.
Two seats to Hegseth’s left was the United Kingdom’s Defense Secretary John Healey, who had little time to process what he was hearing.
Later in the afternoon, as Healey was halfway through a press conference after meeting NATO chief Mark Rutte, details of a call between Trump and Putin started to emerge. An aide rushed up to Healey once he’d finished speaking and showed him Trump’s Truth Social post on his phone.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Making excuses for Putin
The strike on Sumy wasn’t an error, aberration or mishap. It fits into Russia’s long-established tactics — and Washington knows that.
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Hours after 35 civilians were killed and more than a hundred wounded in a Russian ballistic missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy, United States President Donald Trump called the attack a “horrible thing.”
He then caviled, saying it may have been a mistake and hazarding Russia didn’t mean to do it.
Trump’s comments on the deadliest single Russian strike in Ukraine this year stands in marked contrast not only to that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — “only completely deranged scum can act like this,” he said — but it’s also at odds with his own special envoy Keith Kellogg.
Kellogg didn’t look for excuses, stating without hesitation that the Sumy strike “crosses any line of decency.”
Indeed, it did. And in a war that’s so far claimed the lives of at least 13,000 civilians, so too have many others.
The Kremlin denies deliberately targeting civilians, which is considered a war crime under international law. But Russia’s strikes have been well-documented — strikes on hospitals, schools, maternity wards, theaters … the list goes on. It’s an established military strategy for Moscow. It’s never a hearts-and-minds approach, rather always an iron fist.
Under different leadership, the Pentagon had no doubt about this. “We assess that Russia has deliberately struck civilian infrastructure and non-military targets, with the purpose of needlessly harming civilians and attempting to instill terror among [the] Ukrainian population,” U.S. military officials said back in 2022.
And that approach has continued, all with the goal of breaking Ukraine’s will to resist, demoralizing and exhausting its population and coercing them into throwing in the towel from mental and physical fatigue.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Rubio, Witkoff heading to France for talks on Ukraine, Iran and trade
The duo are expected in Paris later this week.
PARIS — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy tasked with ending the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, are expected to travel to Paris later this week, according to two people familiar with preparations for the trip.
Witkoff is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron while Rubio will speak with his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
According to a U.S. official who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, Rubio will be in Paris this week before heading to Africa.
An official familiar with preparations for the trip said the two sides will discuss Ukraine, Iran and trade relations in the wake of Trump’s tariff threats.
Macron’s meeting with Witkoff comes only days after the envoy met Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible ceasefire in Ukraine after Russia-U.S. talks stalled in recent weeks. The encounter in Moscow was “another step in the negotiating process towards a ceasefire” despite Trump’s “frustration,” according to the White House press secretary.
The French president has been leading European efforts to provide Kyiv with security guarantees, including the deployment of a so-called reassurance force in Ukraine, in the event of a truce.
The trip marks the first time high-level American dignitaries have traveled to France since U.S. Vice-President JD Vance attended a summit on artificial intelligence in February.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Canadian university teachers warned against traveling to the United States
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — The association that represents academic staff at Canadian universities is warning its members against non-essential travel to the United States.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border.
The association says academics who are from countries that have tense diplomatic relations with the United States, or who have themselves expressed negative views about the Trump administration, should be particularly cautious about U.S. travel.
Its warning is particularly targeted to academics who identify as transgender or “whose research could be seen as being at odds with the position of the current U.S. administration.”
In addition, the association says academics should carefully consider what information they have, or need to have, on their electronic devices when crossing the border, and take actions to protect sensitive information.
Continue reading at the AP
DOGE trumpets unemployment fraud that the government already found years ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest government waste touted by billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency is hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims it purportedly uncovered.
One problem: Federal investigators already found what appears to be the same fraud, years earlier and on a far greater scale.
In a post last week on X, the social media site Musk owns, DOGE announced “an initial survey of unemployment insurance claims since 2020” found 24,500 people over the age of 115 had claimed $59 million in benefits; 28,000 people between the ages of 1 and 5 collected $254 million; and 9,700 people with birthdates more than 15 years in the future garnered $69 million from the government.
Continue reading at the AP
Trump's pressure campaign against universities hits a Harvard-sized snag
Why it matters: Harvard is an international brand with a $53 billion endowment — a rare institution with the resources and willpower to withstand an onslaught of funding cuts and investigations from the government.
The money quote: "Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions. ... Let's hope other institutions follow suit," former President Obama posted on X.
Zoom in: In the last few weeks, American institutions have steadily buckled under pressure from the Trump administration.
Columbia ceded control of an academic department and expanded campus police powers to try to unfreeze federal funding. The University of Michigan shut down its expansive diversity, equity and inclusion program. Several Big Law firms offered nearly $1 billion in pro bono work to get on the administration’s good side.
But Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, rejected the administration’s demands tied to its federal funding, saying Harvard is committed to combating antisemitism but will not concede academic freedom.
Continue reading at Axios
Three nontraditional living situations Americans are adopting to make housing more affordable
This story is the third in a four-part series. Read part one here and part two here.
As the precipitous rise in housing costs over the past decade has put buying a traditional home out of reach for many Americans, a growing number are turning to nontraditional alternatives.
Some are repurposing old commercial buildings or buying land and prefabricated homes, while others are choosing to share homes with strangers to cut down on costs.
Here are three nontraditional ways Americans are housing themselves:
Tiny Houses
When Elisa Boots and her husband Rick moved from New York City to Seattle 10 years ago, they arrived just as the city was experiencing the biggest population boom in its 174-year history. Thanks to a surge in tech jobs coupled with a growing city economy, Seattle gained about 60,000 new residents between 2010 and 2014, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
That boom increased the demand for housing, which in turn caused the price of homes to skyrocket in the city. Six months after they arrived, the couple discovered that they couldn’t afford to buy a home in Seattle or its suburbs.
They eventually began to investigate other options and came across the tiny house movement.
Continue reading at The Hill
Commerce refires probationary employees as court order lifts
The Commerce Department and its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are already refiring probationary employees after a temporary court restraining order was lifted.
The Trump administration first attempted to get rid of the employees, who were recently hired or promoted, en masse earlier this year, but it was halted by a temporary court restraining order, and employees were brought back to the government on administrative leave.
That restraining order was lifted last week, and the Commerce Department began to fire them again.
It’s not clear whether other federal departments also moved to refire their probationary workers after the court order expired. The Commerce Department appears to be carrying out some of the administration’s most aggressive efforts to cut federal workers as it moves to slash the civil service workforce and government spending.
The Commerce Department did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
Continue reading at The Hill
Stefanik considering run for governor of New York
Rep. Elise Stefanik is considering a run for New York governor, according to two people familiar with her thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it.
Since giving up her nomination to be U.N. ambassador, Stefanik has been getting encouragement to run from in-state Republican leadership and donors along with close allies of President Donald Trump, the people said. They believe she is formidable enough to stand a chance in the traditionally blue state.
She’s had longtime support from Trump, who this morning posted about Stefanik on Truth Social, saying simply: “Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is GREAT!!!”
Continue reading at Politico
WTO warns of global trade decline amid Trump tariff war
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is calling the trade war unleashed by President Trump a “crisis” and is warning things could get worse if “the situation deteriorates.”
WTO economists on Wednesday updated their projections for 2025, noting a “substantial downgrade” to the forecast for merchandise trade and a smaller reduction in their outlook for services trade.
Much of the change was driven by new estimates for North America, which is now is projected to see a 12.6 percent decline in exports and 9.6 percent drop in imports this year.
“Our simulations show that trade policy uncertainty has a significant dampening effect on trade flows, reducing exports and weakening economic activity,” Ralph Ossa, WTO chief economist, said in a statement. “Moreover, tariffs are a policy lever with wide-ranging, and often unintended consequences. In a world of growing trade tensions, a clear-eyed view of those trade-offs is more important than ever.”
Trump has paused the massive taxes on imports from most countries that he initially proposed April 3, but he has escalated retaliatory action against China, levying 145 percent tariffs on most goods.
Trump has also launched other tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Continue reading at The Hill
Chicago mayor: Trump acting like ‘terrorist’ for withholding federal funding
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) compared President Trump to a terrorist after the president threatened to withhold federal funding for sanctuary cities.
“Trying to hold people hostage and manipulating them to succumb to his will, and then hold up our tax dollars, that is how terrorists behave,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “Look, he’s not going to hold the people of Chicago ransom.”
Since starting his second term, Trump has set his sights on sanctuary cities, or jurisdictions that limit the amount of information it will share with federal immigration officers.
In February, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies and departments to refrain from providing funds to states and localities that could “facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
Chicago is a sanctuary city, and could lose up to $3.5 billion if Trump holds firm.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump: Comcast ‘trying to avoid lawsuits’ spinning off MSNBC
President Trump issued a threat to Comcast Universal, saying the massive media conglomerate is planning to spin off MSNBC in an effort to avoid litigation.
“Comcast, which also has the ailing network known as NBC, is trying to stay away from lawsuits by disassociating NBC from MSNBC, but it won’t work,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Tuesday. “Comcast, the owner of both, and it’s Chairman, Brian Roberts, are a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!”
Trump’s blistering criticism of the network comes as he is suing Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, over a “60 Minutes” segment featuring an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that aired before last year’s election.
ABC News, another frequent target for Trump’s ridicule, settled a defamation lawsuit last year brought by the then Republican nominee for president stemming from a false claim about him made by an anchor on that network.
Trump has repeatedly threatened NBC, ABC and CBS over their coverage of him and suggested his Federal Communications Commission pull their broadcast licenses.
Continue reading at The Hill
GOP’s legal threats sink Democrats’ billboard attacks over Medicaid
The House GOP’s campaign arm in recent weeks has successfully pressed three advertising companies to pull down Democratic billboard displays bashing vulnerable Republicans over Medicaid — a setback to Democratic campaigners hoping to make health care a liability for battleground Republicans around the country.
In a series of cease-and-desist letters, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) said the imposing roadside ads — sponsored by a splinter group of the top Democratic super PAC in six battleground districts — promoted “patently false” claims against the targeted GOP incumbents, warning the companies that they would be complicit in defaming those lawmakers if the billboards were left up for public consumption.
The threat proved successful — the billboards in all six districts were taken down almost immediately.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration removes Democratic members of credit union watchdog
The Trump administration has fired two Democratic board members from the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the officials said Wednesday.
Todd Harper, one Democrat on the board, shared the news of his removal in a post on LinkedIn and said the firing was “just plain wrong.”
“The decision of the White House to fire me before the completion of my term is wrong. It violates the bipartisan statutory framework adopted by Congress to protect credit union members and their deposits,” Harper said in his statement.
Harper argued the firings were an attack on the NCUA and undermines the organization’s independence and work. The NCUA regulates credit unions and protects credit members.
“If a President can fire an NCUA Board member at any time, how will we maintain public trust in our nation’s financial services regulatory system?” he questioned.
The other Democrat removed was Tanya Otsuka. Their departures leave just one member of the board left, Republican Chair Kyle Hauptman, Reuters reported.
Continue reading at The Hill
Van Hollen denied meeting, phone call with Abrego Garcia during El Salvador visit
The Salvadoran government on Wednesday rebuffed Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-Md.) request to meet or speak with a wrongfully deported Maryland man, the senator said, accusing the Trump administration and others of lying about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s gang ties.
Van Hollen said Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa told him the government had no information connecting Abrego Garcia to MS-13 but could not accommodate a visit to the notorious CECOT prison, known by its acronym in Spanish.
“If the government of El Salvador has no evidence that he was part of MS-13, why is El Salvador continuing to hold him in CECOT?” Van Hollen asked.
“And his answer was that the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT.”
The fiery press conference was in many ways a rebuttal to numerous Trump administration claims, with Van Hollen directly pleading for Abrego Garcia’s release and accusing the Trump administration of violating a Supreme Court order by failing to do anything to facilitate his return.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration proposes loosening protections for endangered species
The Trump administration proposed to loosen federal protections for endangered species Wednesday.
A draft rule from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would repeal the current definition of “harm” that’s prohibited under the Endangered Species Act.
The law prohibits activity that would “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” an endangered species.
Currently, the agencies interpret “harm” under that law to include damage to a species’s habitat — which is what the Trump administration is trying to change.
It said it is specifically targeting the part of the definition that “includes habitat modification,” saying it “runs contrary” to the best interpretation of the Endangered Species Act.
In practice, the Trump administration’s move could loosen restrictions for industrial activities that could damage the habitat of an endangered animal — if the action may not directly hurt the animal itself.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration plans to end free tax filing program
The Trump administration is planning to end the free tax filing service developed during the Biden administration, The Associated Press reported, citing two people familiar with the decision.
The IRS’s “Direct File program” allows Americans to file their tax returns directly to the agency for free online. The electronic system launched as a pilot program in 2024 and was made permanent last May.
But, in mid-March, the IRS staff assigned to the program were told to stop working on it for the 2026 tax filing season, the two sources told the AP.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 tasked the IRS with developing a “direct file” system, and the Biden administration spent tens of millions developing the program.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump appoints Adam Boehler to expanded hostage envoy role after Hamas talks uproar
President Trump expanded the portfolio of his adviser Adam Boehler and appointed him as special envoy for hostage response, according to a notification sent to Congress on April 4 and obtained by Axios.
Boehler will coordinate across agencies on hostage issues and report to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The intrigue: Boehler faced a political firestorm in March after Axios revealed he had met directly with Hamas officials — making him the first U.S. official ever to do so.
Although those talks were approved by Trump, they sparked anger among some Senate Republicans, some of whom took the issue up privately with the White House.
In mid-March, Boehler withdrew his nomination as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, a position that requires Senate confirmation.
The new appointment is temporary and does not require Senate approval.
Driving the news: On Wednesday, Boehler told Al-Jazeera "it is possible" he will engage directly with Hamas again in an effort to free the remaining hostages in Gaza, including American Edan Alexander.
Zoom in: Boehler will work with all relevant government agencies "to ensure that all U.S. nationals held abroad under concerning circumstances are given focused attention by the U.S Government and appropriately resolved," the notification says.
Continue reading at Axios
Puerto Rico goes dark after massive power outage
Puerto Rico went dark on Wednesday after experiencing a massive power outage on the island impacting families, businesses and homes alike.
“We are reporting that we have experienced a massive power outage across the island due to the unexpected shutdown of all generating plants, including those of Genera PR and other private generators,” the power generator Genera wrote in a post on X.
“This situation has caused a significant disruption to electrical service, and we are currently collaborating with @lumaenergypr to identify the recovery process,” they added.
The incident comes months after a similar blackout struck the island on New Year’s Eve, rendering a dim holiday for residents. It lasted for about two days.
This time, power companies were able to restore energy more swiftly after dealing with the same issue earlier this year. The Wednesday outage started at around 1 p.m. AST. Some energy plants were revived by 3 p.m. AST.
Continue reading at The Hill
DOGE comes for AmeriCorps staff in Washington and across the country
Employees were abruptly placed on administrative leave.
AmeriCorps placed employees at its Washington headquarters and around the nation on administrative leave Wednesday as the Trump administration and DOGE moved to make sweeping cuts at an organization that deploys volunteers across the U.S.
Employees received a memo from Interim Director Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi informing them they had been placed on leave effective immediately, according to a copy of the memo obtained by POLITICO and agency staff with direct knowledge of the situation who were granted anonymity to avoid repercussions.
A spokesperson for AmeriCorps did not immediately respond to questions but staff members said hundreds of people appear to have been placed on leave, jeopardizing the organization’s programs with nonprofits around the country. Only a handful of senior officials and program heads remain active at the agency, one of the affected employees said.
“The work we perform for the American public is vital and we’ve now been stripped of our ability to do that,” said an AmeriCorps employee placed on leave. “I worry about the impact that this will have on grantees, members, and volunteers who have committed themselves to providing service for Americans.”
The action is the latest move by the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Elon Musk, to carry out cutbacks across departments and agencies. The billionaire Tesla CEO once pledged to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget but seems to have recently pared that down to $150 billion.
Nearly half of AmeriCorps’ 600-person workforce had already accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignations and the agency earlier this week dismissed 1,500 young volunteers for the National Civilian Community Corps who provide disaster relief and other services around the country.
Continue reading at Politico
Europe watches warily as Meloni meets with Trump
Italy’s leader wouldn’t be the EU’s first choice to negotiate with Trump. But she might be its only choice.
Top European officials are antsy about Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveling to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday with trade talks on a razor’s edge.
But they also know she might be their best chance to ease transatlantic tensions.
Meloni, a leader with ties to Italy’s far-right who’s tacked to the center in working closely with European Union partners, is uniquely positioned to engage with Trump productively on behalf of her own country and Europe more broadly, experts say. Her EU colleagues hope she’ll be able to nudge Trump toward a trade deal to avoid more tit-for-tat tariffs and to influence his approach to resolving the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“There’s a lot of nervousness in Brussels and other European capitals about what Meloni is trying to do,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a State Department official during the Obama administration. “But they’re desperate enough, they’re not trying to stop her.”
Trump, who invited Meloni to his inauguration and praised her as “a wonderful person,” has long put personal relationships at the center of his diplomacy. Although aides are ready to discuss a range of issues, the president sees the meeting itself as validation of his claim that his tariffs have driven other leaders to come to him, said one White House official granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
That, of course, is what European officials worry about: the optics of a European leader traveling to see Trump only a week after he declared, as he hit pause on his broader tariff regime, that “countries are calling us up, kissing my ass.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Thousands of British oil workers are set to lose their jobs. No one has told them.
Government advisers north and south of the border worry workers are being failed by shifting policies and poor communication.
LONDON — Britain's green revolution is coming for oil and gas workers — but a lack of clarity from politicians is leaving them in limbo.
In Westminster, Labour has promised to ditch reliance on fossil fuels in favor of solar farms and wind turbines. That means phasing out environment-wrecking oil and gas drilling in the North Sea — good news for the planet, but deeply unwelcome for the thousands of people who rely on jobs in the industry’s traditional Scottish heartlands.
Worse still, experts say those workers have no idea what is about to hit them.
“The workers in Aberdeen did not think that oil and gas was going to decline,” Emma Pinchbeck, who advises ministers as head of the independent Climate Change Committee, told MPs earlier this year, after a visit to the heart of the drilling industry in north-east Scotland.
“There has been a failure of communication to those workers about the transition that’s coming,” she warned.
Advisers to the devolved government in Edinburgh, which is led by the Scottish National Party (SNP), meanwhile see the same problem ahead.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Spain and Lithuania push to oust Ireland from leading eurozone talks
Carlos Cuerpo and Rimantas Šadžius are considering running for the Eurogroup presidency.
BRUSSELS — Finance ministers from Spain and Lithuania plan to challenge Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe's attempt to secure a third term as the leader of the powerful group of eurozone countries.
Carlos Cuerpo and Rimantas Šadžius are gauging support among their peers ahead of a secret vote that will likely take place in July, five officials with knowledge of the proceedings told POLITICO.
With three months to go, political plotting is underway to end Irish Finance Minister Donohoe’s five-year stint as the head of the Eurogroup, a club of 20 eurozone ministers who meet every month, usually in Brussels, to coordinate economic policy.
The presidential role has considerable clout as it chairs the meetings, steers the agenda and is part of glitzy international gatherings such as the G7 and G20.
Donohoe’s rivals face an uphill struggle as the Irishman has made a name for himself as a balanced power broker with a broad base of support among his peers.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
German parties’ boycott of far right looks to be over — with AfD on course for key jobs
Lawmakers from the incoming chancellor’s CDU party signal an end to the “firewall” that saw mainstream politicians refuse to work with extreme groups for decades.
BERLIN — The party that won Germany’s election is radically softening its approach to working with the far right as the reality of the country’s transformed political landscape starts to bite.
While the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) — the party of Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel — has for decades steadfastly refused to cooperate or do deals with politicians on the extremes, that “firewall” now appears to be crumbling as the German parliament works out how to organize itself in the wake of the country’s Feb. 23 snap election.
A challenge to the determination of mainstream politicians to give the Alternative for Germany (AfD) the cold shoulder looked inevitable as soon as it scored a huge success in the election, the first time a far-right party has come in second place in the country’s postwar era.
Some AfD lawmakers have already built ties with members of other parties behind closed doors and have received signals of support for the group, which promotes antimigration and anti-EU policies, to chair key parliamentary panels, officials from the AfD told POLITICO.The AfD won more than 20 percent of the vote and secured 152 seats to become the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag, which entitles it to chair several committees. Those posts hold real power because committee chairs steer debates, summon expert witnesses and influence the legislative agenda.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Ukrainians roll eyes at Witkoff, reject border changes
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff has conveyed Moscow’s desire for peace in exchange for five regions in Ukraine.
KYIV — Ukraine’s determination to defend its territorial integrity will never flag, Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday, brushing aside a claim by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff that a permanent peace deal with Russia hangs on Kyiv’s relinquishing five regions currently under Moscow’s control.
“Ukraine is a sovereign country, united within internationally recognized borders. This position of Ukraine is immutable and will never change. I can tell you: never. No matter how many years, months, it will never change. Ukraine, as it was, will be within internationally recognized borders,” Tykhyi said.
Tykhyi once again outlined Ukraine’s three red lines in peace talks with Moscow: that Kyiv will never recognize the occupied territories as Russian; that it will never agree to any limitations on its defense capabilities or foreign aid; and that third countries will not have a veto over Ukraine’s choice of which unions or alliances to join.
“This all is Ukraine’s right under international law, not just a wish list” Tykhyi added. “Russia has no right to dictate anything to Ukraine. It’s an aggression, where there’s a state that was attacked and the attacker state. There should not be equalizing of the two.”
Earlier this week, Witkoff, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 11, said that Russia wants a permanent settlement and that the peace deal Moscow has proposed includes “five territories of Ukraine”.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Note from Rima: This is what we get when a realtor is in charge of “diplomacy”
California’s lawsuit puts West Coast business leaders to the test
Industry leaders are walking a fine line as California Democrats go after the Trump administration.
SACRAMENTO, California – California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday presented himself as a defender of the state’s formidable economy while unveiling a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s authority to impose tariffs.
The labor-aligned Democrat told POLITICO he had “direct conversations” with “quite a few folks” from business and trade organizations angry with Trump’s tariffs before filing the nation’s first state-led suit, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.
He said Trump’s haphazard approach to tariffs was inflicting heavy losses on mom-and-pop shops and other trade-reliant California businesses, putting some at risk of closing their doors.
“This is very specifically important to California,” Bonta said in an interview, noting the state’s standing as the fifth-largest economy in the world. “We wanted to move quickly and assertively.”
But there was no noisy chorus of support from business leaders in the wake of Bonta’s bombshell announcement. The California Chamber of Commerce, one of the state’s most influential business groups, remained mum on the lawsuit. And a leading retail group — along with a coalition of business organizations — while supportive of Democratic officials’ efforts to push back against tariffs, also used the moment to criticize what it views as the state’s heavy-handed approach to regulation.
The muted response reflects the delicate dance business leaders find themselves in as Bonta and Gov. Gavin Newsom opened another front in their war against the Trump administration with the tariff lawsuit. Behind-the-scenes support for the legal challenge might be strong, but business heads were reluctant to publicly align themselves with Newsom and Bonta. While Newsom has some significant support in the state’s business community especially in the tech sector, Bonta is not seen as a strong ally. Both carry the added baggage of being presidential foes.
Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association, said that while she agrees the state needs a strategy to respond to the financial hits many small businesses could take, state leaders need to reexamine regulations they are slapping on businesses while they call out Trump.
Continue reading at Politico
Economic Analysis
Economist Jared Bernstein
Economist Dean Baker
Economist Mike Konczal
When Reality Isn't Bad Enough: Trump’s Fake ‘Private-Sector Recession’ of 2024
In which we dive into the labor market of 2024 and the question of whether an increase in health care jobs is evidence of or justification for a recession.
“Were we in a secret labor market recession in 2024? Was the labor market experiencing a ‘private-sector recession’ as the Trump administration took over? No. But as the reality of Trump's disastrous trade war and the growing threat of an actual recession set in, we’ll hear more of this excuse from Trump officials. It’s wrong—and worse, the Trump team's current actions represent the most harmful response possible to any underlying economic slowdown.”
The Federal Reserve vs. the Tariff Shock: What If It Isn’t Transitory?
As global supply chains fray and the economy veers towards recession, the Federal Reserve faces a different spin on a recent problem — one it can’t fully fix.
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At least 6 protestors removed from Greene town hall
At least six protestors were removed during Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) town hall in Cobb County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta.
Three people were arrested — two of them required stun guns to be used in the process — according to the Acworth Police Department.
“While attempting to remove the subjects from the event, officers were threatened, physically resisted, and harmed in the process. One of those arrested provided identification that placed them outside of Congresswoman Greene’s district,” Acworth Police said in a Tuesday night release.
“It is disappointing that a very small number of people actively worked to create a temporary disruption to what was otherwise a completely peaceful event,” law enforcement said.
At the beginning, Greeen told attendees that this “is a town hall. This is not a political rally. This is not a protest. If you stand up and want to protest, if you want to shout and chant, we will have you removed, just like that man was thrown out. We will not tolerate it,”
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That work wardrobe you need? Fuhget it for the next four years | Blog#42
If you’re a white collar worker, one of the costs of working is having to maintain a work-appropriate wardrobe, and pencilling in time at your favorite department store at your local upscale mall. No matter what kind of work you do, if you have children, you pencil in a trip to the local mall to buy children’s clothing, with time at their favorite restaurant for a burger and dessert.