Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 37
Yesterday’s post
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Yesterday’s news worth repeating
Dems join Republicans to kill Biden drilling rule
The Senate has voted on its first Congressional Review Act resolution of the 119th Congress to undo a Biden-era rule.
A group of Senate Democrats crossed the aisle Tuesday to blow a hole in former President Joe Biden’s environmental legacy.
The Senate voted 54-44 on a resolution that would undo an Interior Department rule affecting offshore drilling. Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada and Jacky Rosen of Nevada joined all Republicans present to overturn the rule.
Continue reading at Politico
Congressional Republicans start backing away from Musk
The tech mogul hinted he might wade into spending negotiations again ahead of the next government funding deadline.
Elon Musk is beginning to wear out his welcome with congressional Republicans.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday shrugged off Musk’s attempt to interfere with his budget plan. In the Senate, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis pointedly suggested that President Donald Trump’s appointees should stand up to the billionaire’s whims, including his recent demand that all federal workers justify their employment. And a growing number of GOP lawmakers urged the tech mogul to show more compassion for the civil servants he’s already culled.
Continue reading at Politico
Today’s news
Jolted Republicans beg Elon Musk to ease up with DOGE
Fresh off a week of being yelled at back home, Republicans returned to Capitol Hill suddenly pressing Elon Musk to project a kinder, friendlier face of DOGE.
Why it matters: Republican and Democratic congressional districts alike have been rattled by Musk's tactics for slashing government funding and terminating chunks of the federal workforce.
"When you have a lot of people who are scared and a lot of people who are angry, of course you should take it seriously," said Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), one of several House Republicans who were grilled on DOGE at tense town halls last week.
McCormick noted that Musk told Republicans to be more compassionate in 2022. "He's kind of forgotten some of that," McCormick said of Musk. "I want to be his conscience."
Said Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.): "We can all agree on removing fraud, waste and abuse. ... Does it also mean that you remove benefits from those that need it? The answer is no."
State of play: The potential for anti-DOGE backlash was made all too real for Republicans last week, when angry constituents flooded their town halls and protested outside their offices in opposition to DOGE.
Continue reading at Axios
Apple says it's fixing iPhone bug that types "Trump" instead of "racist"
Apple said Tuesday it's working to fix an iPhone bug after some users reported its automatic dictation feature briefly displays "Trump" when they say "racist" before the text-to-speech transcription software corrects itself.
The big picture: A viral TikTok video of the glitch that Apple says erroneously suggests the word "trump" when users dictate some words that also include an "r" consonant caused outrage among conservatives online who've accused Big Tech of political bias.
The glitch underscores artificial intelligence's accuracy problems as the technology develops and as companies like Apple move to make AI a key differentiator in choosing a smartphone.
Zoom in: Apple says the glitch is sometimes occurring during initial analysis when the speech recognition models that power dictation have on occasions displayed words that contain some phonetic overlap, but then further analysis identifies the intended word.
Continue reading at Axios
Note from Rima: Should be a permanent feature.
Senate GOP squirms over U.S. vote with Russia
The U.S. vote against a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression is becoming another tension point between President Trump and Senate Republicans.
Why it matters: Republicans are bracing to have their party's leader challenge or undercut their core assumption about foreign policy. Some still hold out hope for a war-ending deal.
"I think we should have voted 'aye'," Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Axios. "Clearly, Putin's Russia is the aggressor. And the world has been aware of that for over a decade."
It's Wicker's second rebuke of Trump this month, after he called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's comments on Ukraine's territorial borders a "rookie mistake."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called the vote "unfortunate," while Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) chose the word "shameful."
Continue reading at Axios
Who is Amy Gleason, the interim administrator of DOGE?
Here’s what you need to know about the Gleason, DOGE’s interim administrator:
She was a member of the last Trump administration
Gleason was a part of the United States Digital Service between 2018 and 2021, per her LinkedIn, and assisted the coronavirus pandemic federal response of the White House, The Associated Press reported.
She has history surrounding health care
The New York Times reported that the DOGE interim administrator said five years ago that medical system-related irritations she faced following her daughter’s illness diagnosis sparked a focus on health care reforms in Gleason. She worked at a health company-centered investment firm as a chief product officer in the wake of President Trump’s first term with health care executive Brad Smith, the Times reported. The outlet reported that Jared Kushner and Smith previously assisted in the response to the coronavirus together.
Continue reading at The Hill
Arizona governor signs order ‘to combat the cartels’ and ‘stop drug smuggling’
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has signed an order “to combat the cartels, stop drug smuggling, and secure Arizona’s border,” the governor said in a Tuesday news release.
The executive order requires a joint task force named “Operation Desert Guardian” to be set up by the Grand Canyon State’s Department of Public Safety, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Emergency and Military Affairs “focused on the identification, deterrence, interdiction, and dismantling of” transnational criminal organizations.
Continue reading at The Hill
Gavin Newsom is launching his own podcast — and inviting MAGA favorites
Newsom declined to name the half-dozen guests he said have privately agreed to come on with him. But he gave a big hint: ”Look at the lineup at CPAC.”
Gavin Newsom will soon host his own podcast where the California governor will mix it up with MAGA personalities, open his vast Rolodex for frank conversations with Democrats about how to come back from the wilderness and break news on consequential policy decisions.
The solo venture from a likely presidential aspirant comes as Democrats writ large struggle to keep pace with the onslaught of actions from President Donald Trump and Republicans. Leaders from across the minority party are casting about for a compelling message while trying to break through in an increasingly siloed media environment. The podcast space, with its proliferation of Trump-friendly personalities, has proven especially challenging for Democrats.
Continue reading at Politico
Germany weighs massive defense spending deal before far right can block it
A sense of urgency is rising as parties on the extreme right and left may be able to block defense spending when Germany’s new parliament convenes.
Germany’s conservative victors in Sunday’s election are considering circumventing strict spending rules in order to adopt a potentially massive defense package as alarm grows that the United States will no longer protect Europe within NATO.
That move could come within weeks. Workarounds to Germany’s constitutional spending restraints require a two-thirds majority in parliament, which could allow two parties that finished strongly in the Feb. 23 vote — the far-right, pro-Kremlin Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left, which opposes military spending — to block the package.
Germany’s newly-elected lawmakers must convene by March 25, potentially giving the current parliament just weeks to act.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Note from Rima: The past couple of weeks has been filled with news about the Trump-proofing in many EU nations.
Voters might like tariffs, but not on Canada and Mexico, new poll finds
Americans aren’t so fond of taxing goods from the country’s closest allies.
More Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico than support them, even as the public is split on tariff policy overall, new polling finds.
Tariffs on the United Kingdom would also be deeply unpopular, according to a survey from the British firm Public First shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The poll finds U.S. voters harbor mixed — and at times inconsistent — opinions on the use of tariffs. There are large partisan splits, with Trump supporters more likely to defer to his judgment. But the specifics of the implementation matter with voters across the political spectrum.
“Americans don’t really know what to expect from tariffs,” said James Frayne, founding partner of Public First. “They’re obviously not an economic tool that’s been used terribly widely in recent times, and therefore you get what look like contradictions in public opinion.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump posts madcap Gaza ‘Riviera’ AI video featuring sunbathing Netanyahu
The clip features a song with the lyrics: “Donald Trump will set you free, bringing the life for all to see, no more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here.”
U.S. President Donald Trump posted a late-night video on social media with an AI-generated vision for the future of Gaza.
The bizarre, 30-second clip starts with scenes of destruction in the coastal enclave, where the Israeli military waged a 15-month retaliatory assault to try to root out Hamas militants in response to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The opening scene is superimposed with the text “Gaza 2025.”
The video then asks “What next?”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump: ‘I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people’
President says Russian oligarchs will “possibly” be eligible for new “gold card” visas to the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Russian oligarchs would “possibly” be able to apply for a $5 million “gold card” via a new scheme that grants a pathway to American citizenship to wealthy foreigners.
“Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people,” a jovial Trump said in response to a question about whether they would be eligible for the gold card, saying “it’s possible” they could obtain one.
“They are not as wealthy as they used to be; I think they can afford $5 million,” Trump joked.
Continue reading at Politico
Behind the Curtain: Trump's media-control strategy
President Trump is setting a new precedent for tight, punitive government control over a free press.
Why it matters: Trump and his administration are doing this systematically, gleefully and unmistakably. But as we've written before, this unprecedented shift could set the precedent for future Democratic presidents, too.
The big picture: Trump frames this as payback for what he calls incompetent, left-wing coverage, and the White House says it's expanding access to new voices and outlets. The White House Correspondents' Association says he's tearing "at the independence of a free press in the United States."
The end result is twofold: much tighter control over media, and new tools and tactics to punish critics.
Here is what's different today than 38 days ago:
Lawsuits. Before taking office, Trump sued ABC News, CBS News and a former Des Moines Register pollster over coverage. This is a new technique for a president or former president — and one getting results. ABC agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's future presidential library instead of fighting in court. CBS also appears to be heading toward settling. Hard to see how this doesn't encourage more lawsuits and entice future presidents pissed off about coverage to do the same.
Continue reading at Axios
1. Universities feel ripple effects of DOGE cuts to health
As the battle over Elon Musk's DOGE-directed cuts to federal medical research continues, institutions already are freezing hiring, cutting back on the number of Ph.D. students they'll accept and making other contingencies.
Why it matters: Capping how much the National Institutes of Health covers the schools' overhead costs could lead to billions of dollars in cuts to scientific research funding and widespread economic fallout.
Driving the news: An economic analysis by software company Implan on Tuesday estimates proposed cuts could lead to a loss of $6.1 billion in the nation's gross domestic product, a $4.6 billion reduction in labor income and result in the loss of more than 46,000 jobs nationwide.
This includes the direct effects of the research itself, with 17,000 expected job cuts, but also indirect effects through a slowing of business-to-business spending in the R&D supply chain that could support 14,000 more jobs.
What they're saying: "It's not just researchers that are affected. It's not just universities that are affected," said Bjorn Markeson, academic divisional director and economist at Implan.
2. House sets up possible Medicaid overhaul
A narrowly divided U.S. House late Tuesday laid the groundwork for a possible major overhaul of Medicaid to help pay for an extension of Trump tax cuts, by adopting a GOP budget resolution in a 217-215 vote, Victoria Knight and Peter Sullivan wrote first on Pro.
Why it matters: The safety net program emerged as a prime target after House Republican budget writers instructed the Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in cuts.
That put moderate Republicans in a bind, concerned that reduced federal Medicaid dollars could force painful trade-offs for states and lead to significant coverage losses.
House Republican leaders argued Medicaid isn't technically mentioned in the budget blueprint, and that any of those details can be worked out later. They also said they would focus on "fraud, waste and abuse" in the program.
Driving the news: Conservative holdouts who complained about how much the resolution would increase the deficit ended up caving to leadership's pressure and voting to pass the resolution.
3. Trump revisits price transparency
President Trump used an executive order on Tuesday to direct three federal agencies to enforce the health care price transparency regulations he rolled out during his first term.
The big picture: Trump didn't unveil new pricing policies but the order indicates it's still a priority for him — and it could signal more enforcement against noncompliant hospitals and insurers going forward.
Flashback: The first Trump administration finalized rules requiring hospitals to post their negotiated prices for different health care services online, and for health insurers to post their negotiated rates for services.
Continue reading at Axios
How much federal workers get paid
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia have the highest federal wages per worker, Labor Department data shows.
Why it matters: The Trump administration's attempts to cut the government workforce is likely to hit particularly hard in places with the most federal workers, and where those workers take home the biggest paychecks.
By the numbers: Federal workers in D.C. make about $136,000 per worker, those in Maryland make about $126,000 per worker, and those in Virginia make about $111,000 per worker.
All three areas also rank in the top five for most federal workers overall.
D.C. has about 191,000 federal workers, Virginia has 189,000, and Maryland has 158,000.
How it works: This data comes by way of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, and reflects annual averages for 2023.
Caveat: These raw state-by-state figures don't account for varying costs of living between locations.
$126k in Maryland doesn't go as far as it would in, say, West Virginia.
Continue reading at Axios (salary map)
Mike Johnson escapes stalemate with stunning 13-minute reversal
With the help of President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) muscled a budget package through the House — a win he claimed will give him momentum to pass "Trump's full America First agenda — not just parts of it."
Why it matters: Johnson's dream of one big, beautiful bill will live another day. But so will the reality of his razor-thin House GOP majority.
The extraordinary evening was an early taste of the chaos to come.
Zoom in: Just before 7:30pm ET, lawmakers began filing out of the House chamber after being told votes were done for the evening. Leadership thought they had too many holdouts to risk a vote.
Just 13 minutes later lawmakers were streaming back in — the vote was on.
Continue reading at Axios
Gabbard to fire more than 100 intelligence officers over "explicit" chats
Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, said Tuesday more than 100 intelligence officers will be fired for taking part in sexually explicit discussions in agency chat rooms.
The big picture: Gabbard said on Fox News she "put out a directive" on Tuesday that those who took part in these chats on the National Security Agency's (NSA) "Intelink" messaging platform will also have their security clearances revoked.
Driving the news: Gabbard earlier Tuesday confirmed a report by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who writes for City Journal, that the DNI was sending a memo directing all intelligence agencies to identify the employees who participated in the chats that included discussion on transgender identity.
DNI spokesperson Alexa Henning said on X Tuesday that the memo was sent to "all intelligence agencies" over the chats that she described as "obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit."
Gabbard said on "Jesse Watters Primetime" there "are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in what is really just an egregious violation of trust."
Continue reading at Axios
DHS announces undocumented immigrants registry that includes fingerprints
Undocumented immigrants age 14 or older must register and provide fingerprints or face a fine or even imprisonment under new Trump administration plans announced Tuesday.
The big picture: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the escalation in the administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants that she vowed the administration would enforce.
Driving the news: Undocumented immigrants will from Tuesday be required to register and create an USCIS online account, per a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services online page.
The Department of Homeland Security will soon announce a form to complete the registration requirement, according to the post.
The requirement applies to anyone in the U.S. for 30 days or longer.
Once a person has registered and been fingerprinted, DHS will issue "evidence of registration," which immigrants over 18 must carry and keep with them at all times, according to USCIS.
Continue reading at Axios
Mapped: The fastest-warming U.S regions during spring
New sickle cell treatment cures disease at lower cost than gene therapies
A new type of bone marrow transplant can cure sickle cell disease with only half of the donor's cell proteins matching, according to new clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Why it matters: The procedure would greatly expand the pool of potential donors, in addition to costing less than one-quarter of the price of innovative gene therapies for the condition that have earned Food and Drug Administration approval in recent years.
Context: Sickle cell anemia is considered a rare disease, but it's the most common inherited blood disorder. It affects about 100,000 people in the U.S. and 8 million people across the world.
The disease changes the shape of red blood cells in a way that can block blood flow to the rest of the body. Sickle cell anemia is associated with extreme pain and other health complications including strokes and organ damage.
What they did: The new transplant method uses bone marrow from "half-matched donors," who have some but not all of the same cell proteins as the patient. Patients received low doses of chemotherapy and total body irradiation before the transplant, followed by other drugs for up to a year to prevent adverse reactions.
Continue reading at Axios
The Gavel: Courts become Trump’s only backstop
Happy Wednesday. Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s new weekly look at the intersection of courts and national politics.
We’re Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee, The Hill’s courts team. For months, we’ve sat in courtrooms with the president as he attempted to fend off four criminal indictments and a barrage of civil litigation.
Now that Trump is back in the White House, he’s become a defendant again, but in scores of lawsuits involving challenges to his administration’s sweeping executive agenda — and his once-personal defense attorneys have become Justice Department prosecutors.
Continue reading at The Hill
Musk business entanglements loom over CFPB siege
Elon Musk’s plans to add payment services to X, his social media platform, are looming large over the Trump administration’s push to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),
The tech billionaire has long voiced his hopes of turning X into an “everything app” that would also function as a payment platform, a vision brought one step closer to reality last month after X struck a deal with Visa to launch a digital wallet.
As Musk draws nearer to his goal of making X a payment platform, he has also become a leading force behind the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, which have effectively gutted CFPB. As Musk zeroes in on the agency that oversees digital payment platforms, questions are swirling about how he could personally benefit from rolling back the CFPB’s oversight capabilities.
Continue reading at The Hill
RFK Jr. targets childhood psychiatric drugs; doctors push back
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made psychiatric medications a focus of his review of the country’s childhood chronic disease crisis, claiming they’ve been “insufficiently scrutinized” and are addictive.
Childhood psychiatrists insist the drugs, for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression, are nonaddictive and proven safe and say they are more concerned about young Americans unable to access psychiatric medications that could help.
Kennedy emphasized his skepticism of these medications during his Senate confirmation hearings.
“Fifteen percent of American youth are now on Adderall or some other ADHD medication. Even higher percentages are on SSRIs and benzos. We are not just overmedicating our children, we are overmedicating our entire population,” Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee.
Continue reading at The Hill
GOP lawmakers sound alarm over Trump’s Ukraine strategy
The Republican criticism of President Trump’s strategy for ending the war in Ukraine comes after the United States voted with Russia and its allies, such as North Korea and Belarus, against a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression toward Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of its troops from the country.
While GOP senators were willing to grant Trump broad deference on his controversial Cabinet nominees, they are doubling down in blaming Russia for starting the war and warning the president to approach Putin warily in any negotiation.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) blasted the American opposition to the U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression.
“Yesterday’s vote by the U.S. against the U.N. resolution was shameful,” she said Tuesday.
Continue reading at The Hill
Playbook: Trump’s ‘Apprentice’-style budget battle isn’t over
ABOUT LAST NIGHT: POLITICO Capitol Bureau Chief Rachael Bade writes in … House GOP leaders declared victory after adopting their budget resolution last night, a surprise turnaround after they cancelled the vote and sent members home — then called them back a few minutes later having flipped three last-minute holdouts.
But the budget drama is far from over.
The Trump angle: Though he leaned in to try to move at least two GOP holdouts to the “yes” column yesterday, President Trump has also indicated to other GOP lawmakers that he has reservations about parts of the House budget and, I’m told, would like to see changes.
What changes? This week, POTUS expressed reservations to some lawmakers about potential cuts to Medicaid, which while not specified in the budget, are expected given that the document calls for the Energy and Commerce Committee to identify more than $800 billion in reductions. While Speaker Mike Johnson has argued that those cuts would come from program “fraud,” many are skeptical the party can reach those kinds of savings without impacting constituents.
View from one Trump ally: “He absolutely is depending on [the resolution] to change in the Senate,” one GOP lawmaker told me last night of Trump. “He does not want to cut Medicaid.”
Continue reading at Politico Playbook newsletter
Brussels pitches €100B for grand plan to boost made-in-EU clean manufacturing
The strategy is a response to mounting competition from China and the US and argues Europe can win on green technology.
ANTWERP, Belgium — The European Commission on Wednesday announced €100 billion in short-term relief to supercharge climate-friendly manufacturing in the EU.
The funding is part of the EU executive’s Clean Industrial Deal, its master plan to help traditional industries cut carbon emissions and boost the EU’s emerging clean-technology sector amid fierce competition from China and the United States.
“Today, Europe has decided to invest in its decarbonization and reindustrialization. Over 100 billion euros in all,” EU Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné said in a press conference announcing the strategy. “At a time when some would seek to impose their model on us, the best response is to bolster our own European model.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Why Trump's F-35 offer signals closer U.S.-India ties
What can a potential arms sale portend?
Well, in the case of the F-35, one of the most coveted, costly and complex weapons on Earth, it's more intimate ties between the U.S. and India.
Why it matters: For all the chaos President Trump is injecting into U.S. foreign policy — trade wars with allies, aligning with Russia on a UN vote — a focus on the Indo-Pacific remains steady.
In that calculus, New Delhi is priceless.
Driving the news: A meeting this month of President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi produced a handful of defense commitments, including "paving the way" to share Lockheed Martin's stealth fighter.
Continue reading at Axios
Politico Inside Congress
What’s next for the House budget
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
What senators want to change in the House budget
Trump’s Labor nom gets Dem support
GOP meeting on spending deal
Quick recap: With GOP Reps. Thomas Massie, Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson and Victoria Spartz firmly opposed, House leaders pulled the budget resolution vote at the last minute Tuesday night, only to reverse course after a wild whip effort and some conversations with President Donald Trump. All but Massie flipped their votes when Republican leaders called members back to the floor.
Now that it’s approved, Senate Republicans are largely prepared to switch to the House’s one-bill track, which would link together defense, energy and border security with an overhaul of the tax code. But during a closed-door GOP lunch on Tuesday, senators discussed needing to negotiate changes to the House budget resolution, two people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting told Jordain.
The potential tweaks include making Trump’s tax cuts permanent, pulling back some of the House’s proposed deep spending cuts and removing the provision to raise the debt ceiling.
Remember: The Senate and the House have to adopt the same budget resolution to move forward, and Speaker Mike Johnson barely squeaked this one through. That all eventually leads to the really difficult part — drafting and passing the bill actually implementing the policy.
Still, Johnson and other House GOP leaders took a victory lap Tuesday night — and some thinly veiled shots at the Senate.
“We’re going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it,” Johnson told reporters. He added that there’s “a lot of work ahead.”
That’s an undersell. The deep concerns that nearly derailed the budget resolution still exist. While hard-liners push for steeper cuts, centrists worry the current levels will mean significant reductions to Medicaid and other safety-net programs. Senators relate to the latter.
“There is going to be a lot of concern about the Medicaid cuts,” GOP Sen. Josh Hawley said in a brief interview.
Continue reading at Politico Inside Congress newsletter
Romanian police haul in election front-runner Călin Georgescu for questioning
Local media reported the pro-Russia candidate is being quizzed over the financing of his controversial — and successful — election campaign late last year.
Romania’s pro-Russia presidential election front-runner Călin Georgescu has been taken in by police for questioning, in relation to last November’s controversial canceled vote that he won.
“Călin Georgescu was going to file his new candidacy for the Presidency. About 30 minutes ago, the system stopped him in traffic and he was pulled over for questioning at the Prosecutor General’s Office! Where is democracy, where are the partners who must defend democracy?,” a post on Georgescu’s Facebook account said.
According to Romanian news channel Digi24, prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for him and have begun searching the premises of his close associates, including mercenary leader Horațiu Potra and Georgescu’s bodyguard.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
1. Companies stay quiet on DEI in the Trump era
Why it matters: The survey from employment law firm Littler Mendelson was conducted in two waves — once before and once after President Trump's inauguration — and is a stark illustration of the outsized impact of the White House's broad crackdown on diversity initiatives.
By the numbers: After Trump took office last month, 53% of the executives surveyed said his anti-DEI policies will likely lead their organization to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
That's a sharp increase from what executives said before January 20, when only 38% said they were looking at decreasing DEI commitments.
55% of executives polled said they are now more worried about the risk of DEI-related lawsuits, government enforcement actions, and shareholder proposals.
Those fears are more widespread among federal contractors (74%), public companies (67%) and large employers (65%).
How they did it: 347 C-suite executives, including chief executives, legal officers and diversity heads, were surveyed in December 2024. Then 340 executives were surveyed again in early February.
2. Bessent has a gloomy economic view
Bessent said yesterday the private sector has been in a recession, but official economic data shows ongoing growth and hiring among private businesses.
Why it matters: Any disapproval of the Biden-era economy is now a shot at the baseline economic conditions this administration will ultimately have to own.
Bessent put a dark cloud over the economy the Trump administration inherited and laid out how far officials want to go to remake it.
What they're saying: "Our goal is to reprivatize the economy," Bessent said at an investment conference in Washington.
He said the Biden administration's regulatory and fiscal policies "left us with an economy that may have exhibited reasonable metrics but is ultimately brittle underneath."
Huge government spending threw the economy and the labor market out of whack, Bessent said, in a way that put the private sector at a disadvantage. The Trump administration sees Elon Musk's frenetic cost-cutting efforts at DOGE as a way to reverse that.
"This is about more than just reducing the fiscal deficit," Bessent said. "Government overspending brings distortions in the economy that inhibit dynamism and limit growth to a designated subset of favorite sectors."
Reality check: A private sector recession is a regular recession by another name.
Continue reading at Axios
Republican leaders seek ‘united’ GOP funding strategy as shutdown looms
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune plan to meet Wednesday with their two appropriations chairs.
Republican leaders from both sides of the Capitol will on Wednesday endeavor to settle on a unified GOP plan for approaching government funding negotiations with Democrats ahead of the March government shutdown deadline.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said in an interview late Tuesday night that he and Speaker Mike Johnson are hoping to land an agreement with their Senate counterparts on “a path forward” on how to fund government programs. “The best-case scenario is that we walk out united about what we need to do,” the Oklahoma Republican said about the planned Wednesday confab with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).
[…]
If top lawmakers can’t hatch a bipartisan deal to fund the government in the next two and a half weeks, Cole warns that lawmakers will be forced to clear a “full-year” stopgap that keeps federal cash flowing at current levels through September. And even if an overall funding agreement is reached soon, Congress is likely to need at least a short-term funding patch to wrap up more granular negotiations on each of the dozen funding bills.
Continue reading at Politico
Non-religious 'nones' are on the rise, study shows
The U.S. has become much less Christian, driven in large part by Gen Z and younger Millennials, according to a new Pew study.
Why it matters: "This is a broad-based social change," says Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at the Pew Research Center.
"We've had rising shares of people who don't identify with any religion — so-called 'nones' — and declining shares who identify as Christian, in all parts of the country, in all parts of the population, by ethnicity and race, among both men and women, and among people at all levels of the educational spectrum," he says about the survey findings.
By the numbers: Fewer than half of 18- to 29-year olds identify as Christian (45%), and nearly the same portion have no religious affiliation (44%), according to Pew's Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed more than 35,000 Americans.
Meanwhile, 78% of those 65 and older identify as Christian.
Continue reading at Axios
Pew Research religious identity study
Cuts and a combative vibe emerge at the Pentagon
There's a new, combative air at one of the world's largest office buildings, as accomplished military leaders are axed, thousands of average Joes face layoffs and press access is muddied.
Why it matters: The Pentagon, so often roasted for its sedateness, is being blitzed by change. And the long-term tea leaves are hard to read.
Here are some of the latest developments:
A "DOD Rapid Response" account sprang to life on X. One of its stated goals there is "fighting against fake news!" Posts have so far amplified clips of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and singled out lawmakers and journalists.
Defense Department personnel were instructed not to respond to the "What did you do last week" email, which Elon Musk has championed. The far-flung message posed information-security concerns, according to critics.
Continue reading at Axios
FCC chairman climbs WKRG broadcast tower to highlight, promote industry
“If we are going to continue to expand connectivity we need a lot more tower climbers,” Carr said. “It’s a great job. It’s a good-paying job and it’s a career.”
After a harness and safety check, he took a 20-minute ride in a lift called a “pan” and transferred onto the Nexstar tower where the real work of climbing began.
Continue reading at The Hill
Egg prices expected to rise more than 40 percent in 2025: USDA
The USDA's latest outlook predicts egg prices will increase 41% in 2025
That's more than double the USDA's egg price forecast a month ago
Poultry prices are still expected to remain stable
Egg prices are at an all-time high and expected to get even worse for consumers, according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projection.
The USDA’s latest outlook predicts egg prices will increase 41 percent in 2025 as a widespread bird flu outbreak continues to devastate egg-laying chicken flocks.
Tuesday’s updated forecast is more than double the 20 percent jump in egg prices the agency projected for 2025 a month ago.
The bleak outlook stems from the fact that roughly 18.8 million commercial egg layers were affected by Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in January, the highest monthly total since the outbreak began in 2022, the USDA said.
Continue reading at The Hill
'Where is Mr. Musk in all of this?' Judges question secrecy of DOGE's activities
Feb 26 (Reuters) - On social media and at political rallies, Elon Musk has taken credit for leading the team that is cutting allegedly wasteful U.S. government spending, even waving a chain saw on stage at a conference.
In court, it's a different story.
During a hearing on Monday in a case trying to block access by the DOGE cost-cutting team to Treasury Department systems, a federal judge repeatedly pressed a government lawyer to clarify who is running things. "Where is Mr. Musk in all of this?" asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
"I don't have any information beyond close adviser to the president," responded Bradley Humphreys, an attorney for the Department of Justice.
"You can't tell me what role he has?" the judge persisted.
Kollar-Kotelly did not say if she would block DOGE and Musk from the Treasury Department information systems as requested.
Questions about Musk's role and the activities of the team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, are at the heart of multiple lawsuits seeking to block them from accessing government systems and slashing programs.
Continue reading at Reuters
DOGE Is Working on Software That Automates the Firing of Government Workers
Operatives working for Elon Musk’s DOGE appear to be editing the code of AutoRIF—software designed by the Defense Department that could assist in mass firings of federal workers, sources tell WIRED.
Engineers for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are working on new software that could assist mass firings of federal workers across government, sources tell WIRED.
The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several times and used by a variety of agencies to expedite reductions in workforce. Screenshots of internal databases reviewed by WIRED show that DOGE operatives have accessed AutoRIF and appear to be editing its code. There is a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) enterprise GitHub system titled “autorif” in a space created specifically for the director’s office—where Musk associates have taken charge—soon after Trump took office. Changes were made as recently as this weekend.
Continue reading at Wired
Newsom takes a page from Bill Maher
THE BUZZ: VOICEOVER — Democrats are in the wilderness as they try to break through the GOP’s dominance in Washington, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan: Be more like Bill Maher and get outside the party’s ideological comfort zone.
That’s the attitude Newsom said he hopes to capture as he launches his own podcast, a solo program by iHeartPodcasts titled “This is Gavin Newsom.” As our colleague Christopher Cadelago scoops today, Newsom’s podcast will feature interviews with prominent MAGA personalities, as well as the Democratic Party’s future and behind-the-scenes discussion about major decisions.
The venture comes as the governor has pivoted in recent months toward a more bipartisan and reflective tone. He’s taken a more friendly posture toward President Donald Trump, particularly as he appeals to the president for federal aid in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires. And Newsom has sought to help Democrats do deeper soul searching about the party’s message on economic issues in the wake of a lopsided defeat in 2024.
The governor has long been critical of Democrats’ reluctance to compete with Republicans’ national messaging edge on culture war issues and discomfort engaging with critical media.
“I think the biggest mistake we’ve made is staying in the warm embrace of our ideological lane,” Newsom told Chris. “And it didn’t work out for us. We are sitting here on the sidelines right now trying to figure out how to get back in the game.”
Continue reading at Politico California Playbook
Axios Pro Rata
Top of the Morning
Private equity entered 2025 with high hopes for a deals boom, to be driven by decreased regulation and interest rate cuts.
That second part is increasingly uncertain, which perhaps helps explain why U.S. private equity activity is 53% lower than at this time last year.
State of play: The Fed typically weighs both inflation and labor market conditions when deciding rate changes. Right now it's in a holding pattern.
Inflation has heated back up, even before tariffs go into effect, and the typical monetary response is to increase rates or keep them static.
Hiring was strong in January, which also puts upward pressure on long-term rates.
Zoom in: The big question right now is if the labor market is actually weaker than it appears, which could be a counterintuitive silver lining for private equity if it prompts the Fed to cut.
Continue reading at Axios
You Should Download Your Kindle E-Books Now, Before It’s Too Late
This week, Amazon is eliminating the “Download & Transfer via USB” option for Kindle users. If you own a vast library and hope to take your reading elsewhere, this may be your last opportunity.
Amazon has stated in a note on users’ library management page that, starting Wednesday, Feb. 26, it was eliminating “Download & Transfer via USB. All Kindle e-book owners will be restricted to downloading Kindle books via WiFi. The former option was one of the last loopholes readers could use to take their proprietary Kindle format e-books off Amazon’s closed ecosystem.
Continue reading at Gizmodo
We Finally Know Who’s (Supposedly) Running DOGE
It's Amy Gleason. Does she know that, though?
Interestingly, Gleason was also previously recognized by the Obama administration as a “Champion of Change” for her work improving healthcare technology, including digitizing medical records. She also served as the Vice President of Research at the Cure JM Foundation, a non-profit that seeks to research and support children and families who suffer from Juvenile Myositis.
She seems like a somewhat unconventional but, by Trump administration standards at least, quite reasonable pick to help operate an agency that she already has experience working within. But like…does she actually run the agency, though? Not a shot at her, just genuinely wondering because her name was kept under wraps like it was a state secret until today.
Per CBS News, when its reporters reached out to Gleason on Tuesday, she said that she was in Mexico. Is she working remotely? Is Elon cool with that? Because there’s kinda been a whole thing with DOGE and forcing government employees to return to office. What’d she put in that email asking for five things she accomplished last week? And if she’s running DOGE, does Elon work for her?
Continue reading at Gizmodo
‘Roadblocks’ or supports? Military lawyers question Hegseth’s firings.
The Pentagon chief said he doesn’t want lawyers who are “roadblocks” to decisions he or military commanders make.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s firing of top legal staff has alarmed military lawyers, who distrust the motives of someone who publicly defended troops accused of war crimes and questioned the legitimacy of long-established codes of conduct.
Hegseth promises to replace the lead lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force with a “broader set” of people, just as active-duty troops head to the border on a vaguely defined mission and the Trump administration shows a propensity for smashing norms with little concern for legal backlash.
Continue reading at Politico
Walz not running for open Minnesota Senate seat
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) won’t seek the open Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Sen. Tina Smith (D), taking one of the most prominent names in the state off the list of possible candidates.
Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz, announced the decision in a statement on Wednesday, saying that Walz “loves his job as Governor and he’s exploring the possibility of another term to continue his work to make Minnesota the best state in the country for kids.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump approval rating holding at 44 percent: Survey
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, released Tuesday, found that 44 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance after the first 30 days of his second term. Around 50 percent disapprove of his leadership, a slight drop from the previous week’s 51 percent.
Still, the 44 percent approval is higher than what former President Biden had during his 2021-2024 tenure. The number is also greater than what Trump netted during the majority of his first term, according to the research.
Continue reading at The Hill
Merz dashes to Paris for surprise talks with Macron as security fears weigh on EU
Incoming German leader will hold high-stakes talks with French president as Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump hover over Europe.
BERLIN — Friedrich Merz, Germany’s incoming chancellor, is set to travel to Paris on Wednesday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to four officials with direct knowledge of the visit.
Macron briefed European leaders in a confidential video call earlier Wednesday about his recent discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump, which reportedly covered U.S.-EU trade relations, NATO’s future and security challenges in Eastern Europe.
Concerns are growing in Europe about the continent's security architecture, underpinned for decades by the United States, as the Trump White House looks set to pivot away from supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The Paris meeting marks Merz’s first foreign visit since his party’s strong showing in Germany’s federal election on Sunday, which positioned him as the likely next chancellor.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Exclusive: Wildfire crisis depicted by congressional district
A new interactive map and report — provided first to Axios — show wildfire risks in the West are outpacing preventative measures.
Why it matters: The work from the Property and Environment Research Center and UC Davis shows that risks can differ from one congressional district to the next.
"We have a really high wildfire risk across the West, and we aren't doing nearly enough to prevent these fires," Hannah Downey, PERC's policy director, told Axios in an interview.
Threat level: Wildfires have become more frequent, larger and more intense in recent decades. They've also extended earlier into spring and later into fall across much of the West, in trends tied to human-caused climate change.
Continue reading/viewing at Axios
House GOP inches closer to Medicaid cuts
The approval also moves Republicans a step closer to majorly cutting Medicaid: It would task a key committee with jurisdiction over the program to find $880 billion in funding cuts over a decade. The bulk of those cuts would likely come from Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people jointly funded by federal and state governments.
A faction of the GOP conference — moderate Republicans, many representing swing districts — had qualms about the scale of the Medicaid cuts implied by the budget plan. But by Monday night, some said that a presentation from House leaders had moved them closer to supporting the budget plan. By Tuesday, House leaders were confident enough to move toward a final vote.
What’s next: The Tuesday vote sets up a harsh reality check between House and Senate Republicans. The Senate, which passed a competing plan last week, is looking to avoid deep cuts to Medicaid, while the House is relying on the cuts for significant cost-shifting.
The two chambers will now have to reconcile the differences between the two fiscal blueprints, potentially jeopardizing the fragile GOP support for the House measure.
Continue reading at Politico Pulse newsletter
Progressives tap a rising star to deliver their response to Trump
California Rep. Lateefah Simon is serving in her first term in Congress.
Progressives are naming California Rep. Lateefah Simon, a rising Democratic star, to deliver their response to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress next week, according to a statement provided first to POLITICO.
“I’m honored to speak on behalf of the Working Families Party,” Simon said in a statement. “We need a government that is run by and for working people, not billionaires — and that’s what the WFP is fighting for.”
Simon, who is serving her first term and represents a district centered around Oakland, California, is expected to focus on the impact of Trump and Elon Musk’s dramatic overhaul of the federal government, according to a spokesperson. She is also likely to talk about her recent visit to labs at the University of California, Berkeley and the effects of cuts at the National Institutes of Health on disease research.
The Working Families Party response to the State of the Union or the president's joint address has generally given the party’s left flank an opportunity to provide counter-programming apart from Democrats’ main rebuttal speech. The progressive organization also gave rebuttal speeches to former President Joe Biden’s joint addresses, causing some controversy among Democrats who chafed at the left-flank pressure.
Continue reading at Politico
Musk-Trump Cabinet meeting
Clips from the cabinet meeting
Musk dominates, disparages federal workers at first Trump Cabinet meeting
Elon Musk at the first meeting of President Trump’s Cabinet defended his email demanding all federal workers report their accomplishments to his office, calling it a “pulse check” and saying anyone with a heartbeat and neurons could complete it.
Musk said he asked all federal employees to send emails listing their accomplishments in order t make people who are collecting paychecks prove they are actually working. Musk has argued his efforts are rooted in eliminating waste and fraud in the government.
He said the email was not a personnel review “but a pulse review” and that anyone who was not dead could answer it.
“There are fictional individuals collecting paychecks,” Musk said of the government, though he did not offer specific evidence that people are fraudulently getting paychecks. “Are they alive, and can they write an email?”
Continue reading at The Hill
Maine House censures GOP lawmaker who posted photos of transgender student
Maine’s Democrat-controlled House voted Tuesday evening to censure a Republican lawmaker who posted photos on their Facebook page of a transgender high school student.
The state House voted 75-70 along party lines to censure Rep. Laurel Libby (R), who refused to apologize for posting about the student and accused her Democratic colleagues of attempting to silence her.
Continue reading at The Hill
GOP chair demands staff call West Bank by biblical name
The Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee instructed GOP staff to refer to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.
The term is still used by Israel’s government to refer to territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians.
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee, wrote in a staff memo that all “formal correspondence, communication, and documentation” would refer to the territory of the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. The term is often used by Israel’s religious and political right to emphasize Israel’s claim over the territory.
Continue reading at The Hill
South Carolina Republican wants to put Trump on new $250 bill
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) says he is preparing legislation to feature President Trump on a new $250 bill.
“Grateful to announce that I am drafting legislation to direct the Bureau of Graving and Printing to design a $250 bill featuring Donald J. Trump,” Wilson wrote in a Tuesday post on X with a mock-up of the proposed bill.
Current laws prevent a living person from appearing on U.S. currency.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate confirms top Trump trade negotiator
The Senate voted to confirm a trade attorney and first-term Trump official for the position of America’s top trade negotiator as the Trump administration looks set to reconsider long-standing relationships with many traditional U.S. trading partners.
The Senate voted on Wednesday by a margin of 56 to 43 to confirm Jamieson Greer as the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). The vote was largely along party lines, with Republicans generally voting for Greer and Democrats voting against him. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) was among the Democrats who voted in favor of Greer.
Continue reading at The Hill
DHS rolls out registry, fingerprinting for undocumented migrants
The Trump administration is pushing migrants to be fingerprinted for a new registry of those not lawfully present in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced late Tuesday.
The requirement points to a little-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that requires anyone over the age of 14 who is unlawfully present to register with authorities and alert the government of any change in address.
Speaking with Fox News after the announcement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the platform would be used to help migrants “relocate” to their home country.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump threatens lawsuits, ‘NICE NEW LAW’ over anonymous sources in books
President Trump on Wednesday threatened lawsuits against authors who use anonymous sources in books about him or his allies, calling them defamatory and dishonest.
Trump also teased that a new law could be created to protect against anonymous sourcing in books, while arguing the first month of his second term has been historically successful.
“As a President who is being given credit for having the Best Opening Month of any President in history, quite naturally, here come the Fake books and stories with the so-called ‘anonymous,’ or ‘off the record,’ quotes,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“At some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these ‘anonymous sources’ even exist, which they largely do not,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Former Blackwater CEO: ‘No indication’ government interested in mass deportation memo
Blackwater founder Erik Prince said while his mass immigration proposal seeking to remove 12 billion illegal immigrants from the U.S. before the 2026 midterms is circulating among President Trump’s advisers, the administration has given “no indication” that they will implement the plan.
“It’s a matter of bureaucratic process, and I’m sure they’re trying to exhaust all the internal government capability first,” Prince told NewsNation’s “On Balance” on Tuesday.
“But eventually, if they’re going to hit those kind of numbers and scale, they’re going to need additional private sector,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Graham: House budget proposal needs ‘major overhaul’
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says the House-passed budget resolution that is the key to unlocking President Trump’s agenda will need a “major overhaul” before passing the Senate.
Graham listed problems with the House budget resolution before it narrowly passed the lower chamber Tuesday evening, 217-215.
“The tax cuts are not permanent; they don’t use current policy [budget baseline]. It would be a major overhaul,” Graham told reporters.
The veteran South Carolina senator declined to comment further when asked about the topic Wednesday.
“Not right now,” he said when approached by reporters after meeting with Republican senators at the Capitol.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump says Zeldin plans to cut up to 65 percent of EPA staff
President Trump said Wednesday that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin has floated cutting the agency’s workforce by up to 65 percent.
Speaking at the inaugural Cabinet meeting of his second term, Trump said Zeldin “thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental. And we’re going to speed up the process, too, at the same time.”
Zeldin, a former New York congressman, was present at the meeting Wednesday.
The EPA has a permanent staff of 17,202 as well as 1,540 temporary workers, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Continue reading at The Hill
Interior halts employee spending and travel
The Interior Department has paused spending and travel for employees — a move that could potentially hinder scientific work at the agency.
An email viewed by The Hill shows that spending limits on employee purchase cards have been reduced to $1 — meaning staffers can no longer use these cards make purchases of equipment or to pay to submit scientific research to journals.
Other emails also seen by The Hill show that, at least for the time being, all travel has been paused until the department updates its approval process. Employees who were slated to travel to conferences have been told to cancel their travel.
It’s not clear how long the travel moratorium will remain in place.
Continue reading at The Hill
Police killings set record in 2024, but with smallest increase in years: Report
The number of people killed by police in the U.S. reached a new record in 2024, but the increase wasn’t as dramatic as it has been in recent years, according to an analysis released Tuesday.
The Mapping Police Violence found that at least 1,365 people were killed by law enforcement last year — a slight uptick from the 1,329 civilians who died at the hands of police in 2023. The project from police reform advocacy group Campaign Zero has been tracking police killings in the country since 2013.
May 2024 was recorded as the second deadliest month since the group began tracking the killings, with 136 killed by officers. That number follows closely behind August 2023, which had a record 137 deaths.
Continue reading at The Hill
White House removes liberal outlet from press rotation
The move breaks a long-established precedent of journalists determining who covers the White House.
The White House on Wednesday removed a liberal media outlet from the rotation of reporters granted close access to the president, breaking a long-established precedent of journalists — not the White House — determining which reporters cover it.
HuffPost, an outlet decried by the right as anti-Trump, was slated to serve Wednesday in the press pool, a rotating group of journalists allowed access to the president in smaller settings. Late on Tuesday, HuffPost got an email from press wrangler Allison Schuster, asking which reporter would take the organization’s spot in the pool.
Continue reading at Politico
DOGE panel eyes criminal referrals for alleged misuse of US foreign aid
Marjorie Taylor Greene threatened to escalate during her subcommittee's second hearing.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday her Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee will consider recommending "criminal referrals" to individuals she believes have misused U.S. foreign aid.
[…]
Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns,” said Greene, the subcommittee chair, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Has it affected elections? The real questions the American people deserve to know answers to, are these.”
She also noted, "this committee, based on this hearing and witness testimonies, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals."
Continue reading at Politico
Wiles talks DOGE with senators
Republican senators questioned White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on the Department of Government Efficiency during a closed-door lunch on Wednesday.
GOP senators asked Wiles about what DOGE is doing — amid rising grumbles from lawmakers about the Elon Musk-led effort to slash the size of the federal workforce — and whom they should contact when they have DOGE-related questions.
"Kind of nuts and bolts-y type of stuff," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), adding that Wiles told GOP senators they could contact her on DOGE issues.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump’s nominee for solicitor general won’t rule out ignoring court orders in ‘extreme cases’
If confirmed, D. John Sauer will be the administration’s top advocate at the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump’s nominee to be solicitor general told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that presidents might rightfully defy court orders in “extreme cases.”
“Generally, if there’s a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it,” D. John Sauer said at his confirmation hearing, in response to questioning by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s ranking member.
When Durbin questioned whether Sauer could envision an exception, Sauer replied by citing two Supreme Court decisions that were eventually overturned: a 1944 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese civilians during World War II and the 1857 decision that upheld slavery.
“I suppose you could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases like the Korematsu decision, the Dred Scott decision,” he said.
Continue reading at Politico
EPA moves to ditch finding that greenhouse gases cause harm
The recommendation by Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, could upend existing and future regulations on climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency will move to reverse its 2009 declaration that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare — a step that would threaten most major climate regulations and make it harder for future presidents to enact new ones.
Three people granted anonymity to discuss the action said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has recommended to the White House that the agency overhaul the finding, which underpins all Clean Air Act climate regulations.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump signals more firings of military leaders
Senior officers involved in the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan are “going to be largely gone,” he said.
President Donald Trump, in a continued effort to replace Pentagon officials, hinted his administration would fire the military leaders involved in the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“They’re going to be largely gone,” he said Wednesday during his first cabinet meeting, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by his side. “I’m not going to tell this man what to do,” he said, turning to Hegseth. “But I will say that if I had his place, I’d fire every single one of them.”
Continue reading at Politico
Conservatives on the Supreme Court May Not Fully Align With Trump
Real divisions exist within the conservative super-majority on issues of presidential power.
Aziz Huq teaches law at the University of Chicago and is the author of The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies.
President Donald Trump looks likely to be a frequent guest at the Supreme Court in the coming weeks. Through dozens of executive orders and other actions, he has challenged, or appeared to outright flout, the laws and constitutional provisions that have long placed limits on presidential power. More than 80 federal court challenges to his moves are ongoing. Others, no doubt will follow soon.
Trump may think he’s likely to largely prevail. After all, the Supreme Court is stacked with six Republican appointees, including three selected by Trump in his first term. The court also delivered him a stunning victory last year, establishing sweeping new criminal immunities for actions taken while president amid his indictments for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
But there is some reason to think that the six conservative justices might not stick together or inevitably side with Trump, at least in every case. When it comes to matters of presidential power, the dividing line is not always as simple as left versus right.
This dynamic strikes at the question of what it means to be a conservative justice today, particularly with a 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court. The conservative movement faces real internal contradictions. On the one hand, there is deep skepticism of Washington-based power — think of the tea party and its “Don’t tread on me” bumper stickers. On the other, there is an eager embrace of a muscular view of the presidency for Trump, and before him, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The two approaches to power coexist uneasily under the best of circumstances. In these circumstances, there may be a direct conflict.
Continue reading at Politico Magazine
Senate Republicans say House budget won’t fly with them
Tuesday’s big win for Speaker Mike Johnson might not last long.
House Republicans spent weeks in painstaking negotiations before delivering a budget blueprint for “one big, beautiful bill.” Now Senate Republicans are preparing to tear it apart.
Despite a razor-thin 217-215 House vote Tuesday, GOP senators indicated Wednesday they would not accept Speaker Mike Johnson’s fiscal framework as-is — heralding a rough road for President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
That’s not to say they want to start from scratch: Most Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they were prepared to switch to the House’s one-bill approach after spending more than two months pushing a competing two-bill plan. But they want major, contentious changes to policy choices embedded in the House plan.
Continue reading at Politico
House Democrats call on Trump to rescind order against gender-affirming care
More than 80 House Democrats are calling on President Trump to revoke an executive order to broadly restrict access to gender-affirming health care for transgender young people, alleging the directive is unconstitutional and puts lives at risk.
Trump signed the order, one of several targeting transgender rights, during his second week back in office. It accuses medical professionals of “maiming and sterilizing” children and directs government officials to slash federal support for transition-related care for trans youth under 19.
Federal judges in Baltimore and Seattle temporarily blocked the order this month, preventing agencies from withholding funds from medical facilities that provide the care to minors. Some hospitals had begun suspending care over threats to their federal funding.
Continue reading at The Hill
House Democrat: ‘Absolute lie’ that Trump, Musk are boosting government efficiency
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said it was an “absolute lie” that President Trump and Elon Musk were increasing government efficiency through a series of federal employee layoffs and cuts to federal agency budgets.
“Today they’re [Republicans] planning on voting for a budget resolution that is going to increase the debt by $2 trillion over the next decade. This is an absolute lie that Donald Trump is telling to the American people,” Smith said during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC.
“Call them out on that lie and begin to build support to push back.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrat: Party has ‘fallen out of touch with the majority of Americans’
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he believes the Democratic Party has “fallen out of touch” with what the majority of Americans want from the party.
Moulton went on Fox News on Wednesday, where he highlighted the idea from Democratic strategist James Carville that Democrats should sit back and let President Trump “punch himself out” and “collapse” shortly.
“I don’t agree that we should just step back, I think we’ve got to show leadership, show Americans that we’re actually willing to change,” Moulton argued. “We lost an election across the board, so by definition we’ve fallen out of touch with the majority of Americans.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats face decision point on shutdown strategy
Republicans rebuffed Democrats’ demands in shutdown negotiations. Democrats now have a choice to make.
Republicans and Democrats are on a collision course over federal spending after GOP leaders ruled out limiting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s ability to claw back congressionally approved funding.
It’s a dynamic that’s ratcheting up fears of a government shutdown in just 17 days.
Democrats are insisting on the guardrails for Trump and Musk amid deep anger on the left about the president’s unilateral dismantling of the federal government. Following a meeting of top GOP appropriators and party leadership Wednesday morning, Republicans officially rejected the proposal.
Democratic leaders now face a dilemma: Do they hold firm, refrain from bailing Republicans out and allow an unpopular shutdown? Or do they fold and risk the ire of liberal voters eager to see the party stand their ground against Trump and Musk? So far, they are treading carefully.
“The red line for us is, are you going to not harm the American people? Are you going to continue to cut Medicaid, to take health care away from our seniors and kids and veterans, or are you not?” said House Minority Whip Katherine Clark in a brief interview. “That is the insurance we’re looking for.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump creates more confusion on tariffs
The president and his Commerce secretary gave mixed and at times contradictory comments on the timeline to impose tariffs on trading partners.
President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday he will delay 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada another month, the latest in a series of conflicting statements about the timeline for those and other tariffs that have created confusion about which duties the White House plans to roll out — and when.
“April 2 ... for everything,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting in the White House, when asked about the planned tariffs on the North American countries. “I’m not stopping the tariffs. Millions of people have died because of the fentanyl that comes over the border,” Trump said.
Continue reading at Politico
WaPo Opinion Editor resigns after Jeff Bezos announces changes to Opinion section
The Washington Post's Opinion Section editor David Shipley resigned after owner Jeff Bezos mandated the section prioritize two topics, personal liberties and free markets, and not publish dissenting views in those areas.
Why it matters: The changes will dramatically reshape The Post's opinion coverage, which has focused on a broad array of issues, especially politics and policy, for decades.
"This is a significant shift, it won't be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision," Bezos wrote in a note to staff Wednesday. "We'll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction."
The big picture: The new announcement, following a controversial move by Bezos to kill presidential endorsements last year, shows how much Bezos is willing to assert his power to shape public opinion as the owner of one of the country's largest newspapers.
The Post lost thousands of subscribers last year over Bezos' endorsement decision. Members of the Opinion Board resigned in protest.
Zoom in: Bezos said the Post will cover other topics "but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
Continue reading at Axios
Unvaccinated child dies in Texas measles outbreak
A West Texas city reported Wednesday that an unvaccinated child with measles died after being hospitalized amid the recent outbreak.
The big picture: It's the first death officials have reported in the outbreak that began late last month. At least 124 people have been infected in the state so far.
It's the largest measles outbreak in Texas in 30 years, following smaller outbreaks in 2013 and 2019.
The surge in cases this year has prompted an uptick in vaccinations among parents who had previously declined to vaccinate their children, NBC News reported.
Driving the news: Officials for the city of Lubbock, in West Texas, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) confirmed the death in a joint press release Wednesday.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump says Ukraine minerals deal done and Zelensky visiting Friday
President Trump confirmed on Wednesday that the U.S. and Ukraine have reached a minerals deal and that he still expects Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit the White House on Friday.
Comments from Zelensky earlier on Wednesday had seemed to put the deal and the visit in doubt.
Why it matters: The deal is designed to allow the U.S. to tap into Ukraine's minerals and other natural resources and establish a joint fund for rebuilding Ukraine. It has the potential to reduce tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine after a public squabble last week.
What they're saying: "It is going to be a very big agreement on rare earths and other things. It has all been worked out. We are happy about it. We will also make a deal with Russia and Ukraine about stopping killing people," Trump said.
Trump confirmed Zelensky would visit the White House on Friday for a signing ceremony. That would be the first meeting between the two leaders since Trump assumed office.
Continue reading at Axios
Iran accelerating near-weapons-grade plutonium production: Watchdog
As of Feb. 8, Iran had 274.8 kilograms (605.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 percent according to The Associated Press who reviewed the confidential report.
According to the IAEA, approximately 42 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb, if enriched further to 90 percent.
“The significantly increased production and accumulation of high enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear weapon State to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the IAEA report read as reported by AP.
Continue reading at The Hill
Jeffries: Cuomo comeback bid would draw ‘a lot’ of interest
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said a potential political comeback bid from former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) would draw “a lot” of interest from constituents in the Empire State.
Jeffries told Spectrum News NY1 on Wednesday that he hasn’t spoken with Cuomo but looks forward to speaking with him “sooner rather than later” if he enters the New York City mayoral race, as he is expected to do.
The House Democratic leader declined to take a position on Cuomo’s expected candidacy but said a bid from Cuomo to replace Mayor Eric Adams (D) would draw interest from many voters.
“I think he’d be a candidate that a lot of people, as I’ve heard from the district that I represent, would be very interested in checking out,” Jeffries said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Abortion pill maker enters legal battle over FDA rules
The country’s only manufacturer of generic abortion medication asked to be a part of the first legal fight over the procedure since President Trump returned to office.
The company, GenBioPro, filed a motion on Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, asking to be added to the list of defendants in a case seeking to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone.
If a judge grants the company its request, it means the company would be allowed to lead the case’s defense.
Continue reading at The Hill
Supreme Court appears sympathetic toward straight woman’s ‘reverse discrimination’ case
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to lean toward reviving a straight woman’s “reverse discrimination” case brought over claims she was passed over for a promotion and demoted in favor of gay colleagues.
Such a ruling would lower the legal hurdle in many areas of the country for white and straight employees to bring discrimination suits against their employers.
Lower courts ruled against Marlean Ames, who has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for two decades, by finding she must provide more evidence than minority groups to prove her claims, because she is part of a majority group.
Continue reading at The Hill
Republicans dig in heels against restricting Trump powers in shutdown talks
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters on Wednesday that “substantial differences” remain between both parties as Congress stares down a March 14 deadline to pass legislation to keep the government running.
“Not so much on numbers, but over the presidential power issue with the Democrats, differences between the House and Senate,” Cole explained.
Democrats have pressed for assurances that a bipartisan funding deal that emerges from talks won’t be undercut by Trump amid his Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) sweeping operation to reshape the federal government.
Cole made the comments just moments after leaving a huddle with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Continue reading at The Hill
DOGE reps will fan out across the government
Trump order requires every agency to have a direct line to Elon Musk’s efficiency project.
All federal agencies will soon have their own Elon Musk.
An executive order handed down Wednesday by President Donald Trump directs all agencies to have a representative of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — a kind of political commissar to monitor efforts overseen by the billionaire to cut the size and scope of government.
The DOGE representative, working with agency leadership, will oversee all spending “to ensure Government spending is transparent and Government employees are accountable to the American public,” according to the order.
It is the latest adjustment to what Trump and Musk have billed as a broad government efficiency project that has already resulted in the large-scale termination of federal contracts and the firing of thousands of public-sector workers across the country.
Continue reading at Politico
5th Circuit rebuffs ruling against Planned Parenthood
The unanimous ruling overturns a decision by Texas U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee.
A three-judge panel at the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling that Planned Parenthood pay nearly $2 billion for defrauding Medicaid.
The unanimous ruling overturns a decision by Texas U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee. In 2023, he ruled that Planned Parenthood had to return funding it received from Texas and Louisiana’s Medicaid programs and used to provide services to low-income patients — and pay more than a billion in damages.
The case was triggered by an anti-abortion activist’s sting operation that produced recordings of Planned Parenthood staff discussing the donation of fetal tissue from abortions for research purposes in 2015. The tapes prompted Texas and Louisiana to try to throw the provider out of their Medicaid programs and prevent low-income patients from going to its clinics for non-abortion services like testing for sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. After several years of litigation, Planned Parenthood remains part of Louisiana’s Medicaid program but not Texas’.
Continue reading at Politico
Elon Musk’s Silicon Valley fail-fast ethos is clashing with Washington
“It’s a lot easier to crash an unmanned rocket when you’re spending other people’s money.”
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are taking a distinctly tech-sector mindset to reshaping the federal government: Cut first, then see what breaks.
It’s an approach deeply rooted in Silicon Valley’s “fail fast” ethos that encourages rapid iteration without being certain whether the experiment will work. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person who has become a top adviser to Trump, has long championed the philosophy. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you’re not innovating enough,” he told Fast Company in 2005.
But that ethos doesn’t always play in Washington.
“It’s a lot easier to crash an unmanned rocket when you’re spending other people’s money,” said Nu Wexler, a former Capitol hill staffer who has worked at Google and Twitter. “Musk has had great success in the private sector by exercising complete control over his companies. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to replicate that in government.”
Continue reading at Politico
Johnson open to zeroing out the cost of extending Trump's tax cuts
The cost of paying for the extension has been a major hangup in the House, with deficit hawks insisting the cuts be offset.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that an accounting method that would make tax cut extensions appear to cost nothing “makes good logical sense,” which could remove a major obstacle in the House to making the cuts permanent as President Donald Trump wants.
“It’s a really important principle, and I hope that we can employ that because it makes a big difference in the [cost] calculations," Johnson told reporters.
“The Senate wants it. I think the House wants it as well,” he said, though he may struggle to convince deficit hardliners.
The budget that House Republicans approved on Tuesday makes room for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has said that's not enough to accommodate a permanent extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts — set to expire at the end of the year — and other proposals the president has put on the table, like ending federal taxes on tips and overtime pay.
Continue reading at Politico
UK’s Keir Starmer warns Putin will ‘come again’ as he flies into Trump tornado
‘If there is a ceasefire without a backstop, it will simply give him the opportunity to wait and to come again,’ Keir Starmer warned on the flight to Washington, D.C.
ABOARD THE PRIME MINISTER'S PLANE TO WASHINGTON — Keir Starmer came to see Donald Trump with a warning — fail to protect Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin will "come again."
His face solemn, the U.K. prime minister finished his Q&A with journalists and returned to aides at the front of his plane.
Barely an hour later, Trump sounded in no mood to listen.
The president told his cabinet: "I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We're going to have Europe do that.”
It was a neat illustration of the diplomatic tornado awaiting Britain's buttoned-up prime minister when he meets Trump for lunch Thursday.
Starmer's comments, made on his flight to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, had not even been published by U.K. media outlets before they were outrun by another presidential remark.
'Intense discussion' on backstop
Starmer is one of three leaders flying in to make his case at the White House this week, after French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump scraps Biden-era fair housing rule
Trump had weaponized an earlier version of the rule during the 2020 campaign, declaring that Democrats wanted to “abolish the suburbs.”
The Trump administration on Wednesday revoked a Biden-era fair housing proposed rule requiring localities to track and address patterns of segregation in their communities in order to receive federal funds.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2023 proposed the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule — a reworked version of an Obama-era rule that President Donald Trump had scrapped in 2020 — to crack down on housing discrimination.
But the Biden White House never finalized the rule, much to the chagrin of fair housing advocates and some Democrats in Congress, in part because of campaign concerns. Trump had weaponized the earlier version of the rule during the 2020 campaign, declaring that Democrats wanted to “abolish the suburbs.”
Had the 2021 rule been finalized, HUD would have been required to go through formal notice-and-comment rulemaking to revise or repeal it, a time-consuming process. The Biden administration withdrew the proposal in the Federal Register in January, and HUD put out an interim final rule replacing it on Wednesday.
Continue reading at Politico
US vaccine advisory meeting postponed after Kennedy takes top health job
Feb 20 (Reuters) - A meeting of U.S. vaccine advisers set for late February has been postponed, a federal official confirmed on Thursday, raising new uncertainty about the Trump administration's vaccine policy after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s installation atop the nation’s health bureaucracy.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) normally holds multiple meetings a year, reviews scientific data and makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control. It had been scheduled to convene for three days next week and take several votes, including one about how a key government vaccine distribution program should handle influenza inoculations.
That session will be postponed to allow public comment prior to the meeting, said Andrew Nixon, director of communications at the U.S. Department of Health and Human services.
"The ACIP workgroups met as scheduled this month and will present at the upcoming ACIP meeting," Nixon added.
The move comes a week after Kennedy was confirmed as the secretary of Health and Human Services despite his criticism of agencies under his supervision, including the CDC. Kennedy has denied being "anti-vaccine" and has said he would not prevent Americans from getting vaccinated.
Continue reading at Reuters
Note from Rima: Dr. Peter Hotez was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. He said that now is the time that, normally meetings take place to plan and decide on the vaccine formula for the upcoming season. Those meetings have not taken place and the vaccine manufacturers need those decisions to be made before they start manufacturing.
My opinion: This is a big problem and one way for RFK to prevent people from getting a flu vaccine next year.
Experts warn the proposed SAVE Act could make it harder for some married women to vote. Here's who could be affected.
Experts say the bill, which was recently reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, would not explicitly prevent these voters from casting a ballot, but it could create barriers to registration by requiring them to show additional documentation.
If passed, the act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to offer voter registration when obtaining a driver's license, to mandate documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration.
This means that common forms of ID used for voter registration, including driver's licenses, would no longer be accepted as they are not generally considered proof of citizenship. Instead, voters would have to present documents such as a U.S. passport, a birth certificate, or naturalization paperwork to register.
The Center for American Progress analysis estimated as many as 69 million have taken their spouse's name but do not have a matching birth certificate. "The fate of those 69 million women are basically up in the air, the way the bill is written," said Greta Bedekovics, associate director of democracy policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy and advocacy group.
Continue reading at CBS News
Trump administration goes to Supreme Court to stave off midnight deadline to unfreeze foreign aid
The Justice Department filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court Wednesday asking to block a midnight deadline for the Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2 billion in blocked foreign aid payments.
A federal judge set the deadline after the finding the administration had not complied with his previous ruling to restart the flow of foreign aid contracts and grants as litigation continues.
“The court’s 11:59 p.m. 30-some-hour deadline thus moved all the goalposts,” acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the motion.
“It is not tailored to any actual payment deadlines associated with respondents’ invoices or drawn-down requests, or anyone else’s. And it has thrown what should be an orderly review by the government into chaos,” she continued.
Continue reading at The Hill
VA reverses course, halts contract cancellations after pressure from Congress
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Wednesday paused an effort to terminate hundreds of contracts after pressure from Democrat lawmakers, according to Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
The major reversal, which came a day after VA Secretary Doug Collins publicly touted the cancellation of up to 875 contracts in a video posted to social media, was relayed in an email to agency staff.
“VA Leadership is reconsidering previous guidance,” the email states, as reported by The Washington Post. The missive ordered the effort halted and that “further contract reviews will be conducted to arrive at a new final decision.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Mulvaney says Trump, Musk ‘itching for a fight’ with courts on federal worker cuts
NewsNation contributor and former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said President Trump and Elon Musk are itching for a fight with the courts over their cuts to the federal workforce.
Mulvaney was weighing in on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sending a memo to federal agencies requiring them to turn over their plans for mass government layoffs.
It follows an executive order from Trump that mandated layoffs and provided more specific guidance, including breaking down their plans for a reduction.
Continue reading at The Hill
Newsom instructs parole board to evaluate risk of possible clemency for Menendez brothers
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) directed the state’s parole board to evaluate the risk of possibly granting clemency to Erik and Lyle Menendez.
Newsom’s announcement came on a teaser trailer Wednesday for his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”
“So, we’re getting a lot of questions, a lot of calls about something that’s getting a lot of attention unsurprisingly and that’s what’s going on with the Menendez brothers,” he said.
Newsom said he directed parole board to conduct a risk assessment investigation into the Menendez brothers’ application for resentencing, which is an avenue to change their sentences.
Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, were sentenced in 1996 for the shotgun killings of their parents, Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez.
They have been serving two life sentences without parole but have sought to change that.
Continue reading at The Hill
Johnson says deal to avert shutdown will probably be ‘clean,’ without DOGE cuts
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Wednesday that a stopgap to avert a government shutdown next month is “becoming inevitable” and that it will probably be as “clean” as possible, as both sides have struggled for weeks to strike a full-year funding deal.
Pressed about the prospect of a six-month stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), Johnson said, “It looks as though it is becoming inevitable at this point,” while pointing fingers at Democrats for “placing completely unreasonable conditions on the negotiations.”
“They want us to limit the scope of executive authority,” Johnson said. “They want us to tie the hands of the president. They want to stipulate, for example, how many specific numbers of employees would be required by executive agencies.”
“That’s just totally unprecedented. It’s inappropriate. I think it’s unconstitutional. I think it’d be a violation of separation of powers,” he said.
Continue reading at The Hill
DOJ doubles down on Supreme Court intervening in Trump firing case
The high court last week punted on the emergency motion to immediately terminate U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, keeping him in his post in what has become the first major test of the new administration’s effort to consolidate control over federal independent agencies.
In the new letter, Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris pointed to a federal judge’s ruling hours earlier that extended the block on Dellinger’s firing for another three days.
“Those developments underscore the grounds for vacating the district court’s order,” Harris wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
House votes to overturn rule implementing methane fee
The House on Wednesday voted to overturn a Biden-era rule implementing a program that charges oil and gas companies for excess methane emissions.
The vote was 220-206-1.
Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Adam Gray (Calif.), Kristen McDonald Rivet (Mich.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) voted with nearly every Republican in favor of the measure.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats against it. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) voted present.
The Senate is expected to soon hold a similar vote and the resolution is likely to pass there as well and ultimately be signed by President Trump.
Continue reading at The Hill
White House Correspondents Association cedes control of pool reports to Trump administration
The move breaks from decades of cooperation between the White House and the journalists who cover the president.
Reversing decades of precedent, the White House Correspondents Association announced Wednesday that it would no longer coordinate shared coverage of President Donald Trump in an escalating dispute over press access to official events.
The association, which represents more than 60 news organizations that regularly cover the president, said it would no longer manage the rotating cast of reporters who attend White House events or compile the shared accounts of news that are widely used in American political journalism.
“This board will not assist any attempt by this administration or any other in taking over independent press coverage of the White House,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels, a POLITICO journalist, said in a statement to association members. “Each of your organizations will have to decide whether or not you will take part in these new, government-appointed pools.”
Continue reading at Politico
VA pauses billions in cuts lauded by Musk
The cuts would affect everything from cancer care to the ability to assess toxic exposure.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs has temporarily suspended billions of dollars in planned contract cuts following concerns that the move would hurt critical veterans’ health services, lawmakers and veterans service organizations said Wednesday.
The pause affects hundreds of VA contracts that Secretary Doug Collins a day earlier described as simply consulting deals, whose cancellation would save $2 billion as the Trump administration works to slash costs across the federal government.
“No more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes!” Collins posted to X Tuesday, in a post that was then lauded by Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting executive at the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The Associated Press has obtained the full list of 875 affected contracts, which shows the cuts would affect everything from cancer care to the ability to assess toxic exposure. The list underscores how the Trump administration’s approach to broad spending reductions has immediate and potentially unintended consequences, generating significant concern not just among Democrats but also Republican lawmakers.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump administration says it’s cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts
The cuts would leave few surviving projects for advocates to try to save in ongoing court battles with the administration.
The Trump administration said Wednesday it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world.
The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.
The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday.
Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of U.S. policy that foreign aid helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.
Continue reading at Politico
Breaking News: Chief Justice John Roberts pauses order for Trump admin to pay $2 billion in foreign aid by midnight
Justice Department ends lawsuits over tests for police and fire jobs
Trump appointees are taking a sharply different approach from Biden officials on “disparate impact” discrimination claims.
The Justice Department is carrying out President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI agenda by ending federal civil rights lawsuits accusing police and fire departments of discrimination based on tests given to applicants for jobs or promotions.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that such suits endanger public safety by encouraging local governments to make hiring decisions based on diversity concerns rather than on qualifications.
“American communities deserve firefighters and police officers to be chosen for their skill and dedication to public safety — not to meet DEI quotas,” Bondi said in a statement.
Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department launched a series of lawsuits to force changes to written examinations and physical fitness tests that often resulted in Black and female applicants losing out on fire and police jobs due to lower scores. DOJ alleged at the time that the tests did “not meaningfully distinguish between applicants who can and cannot perform the job” duties of firefighters or police.
Continue reading at Politico
Prominent political donor and attorney John Morgan launching new political party
Prominent political donor and attorney John Morgan is launching a new political party, he said on the social platform X on Wednesday.
“I am forming a new political party for those of us stuck in the middle. Our two party system is broken due to Gerrymandering and divisive issues… both sides. No labels is not an option. Everyone wants a team or tribe,” Morgan, an attorney at the Morgan & Morgan law firm, said in his Wednesday post.
He ended the post with, “Stay tuned,” without adding many details about the launch.
Morgan could have been referring to the group No Labels in the post, which dropped its own “effort to put forth a Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election” in April of last year.
Continue reading at The Hill
Mike Johnson eyes solo approach to avoid government shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) won a game of brinksmanship with his own party on budget reconciliation. Now he's prepared to do the same with Democrats on government funding, lawmakers and aides tell us.
Why it matters: House Republicans are increasingly confident they can avoid a government shutdown without any Democratic support.
"I think it demonstrated we can do things on our own," House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters on Wednesday.
Going alone would be unprecedented but not impossible. The current funding bill runs through March 14.
🙏 Johnson will need strong buy-in from the White House that President Trump will back his approach.
After a White House meeting Wednesday, Johnson said a spending stopgap is "becoming inevitable."
Continue reading at Axios
Trump gives Musk's DOGE extra teeth to scour government contracts
President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday empowering DOGE to scrutinize how federal agencies spend money, the latest expansion of Elon Musk's cost cutting powers.
Why it matters: Trump, who hours earlier backed Musk's email to federal employees asking them to outline what they accomplished at work last week, is giving the billionaire SpaceX founder extra teeth to upend government through his work on DOGE.
Driving the news: The executive order asks agencies to work with a DOGE team lead to review contracts and grants, and cut or modify them "where appropriate," per the White House.
It also asks agencies to build a system to "record every payment" spent on the agency's contracts and grants and provide a "brief, written justification for each payment."
The executive order also asks agency heads to work with their DOGE team lead to build a system to record approval for federally-funded travel or conferences — and provide written justification for conferences or non-essential travel.
Continue reading at Axios
Scoop: Schumer's early guest list for Trump's speech to Congress
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is privately pushing Democrats to fill their guest lists next week with people affected by federal job cuts and the funding freeze.
The big picture: Senate Democrats are planning to bring guests to President Trump's joint speech to Congress whose backgrounds connect to the results from the president's first 100 days in office.
DOGE: The guests are expected to include a child with a genetic spinal condition who is alive because of an NIH program that was recently cut; an Army vet close to retirement who was fired from Veterans Affairs, and a fired Department of Agriculture employee who worked in rural development.
GOP budget plans: Democrats plan to bring a person who relies on Medicaid to survive.
Between the lines: Democrats are still trying to figure out what their opposition should look like.
Continue reading at Axios
Economist Dean Baker
More updates soon…
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An email for the circular file, Part II?
I wrote about some emails I’ve been receiving by the national Democratic party yesterday.
Misogyny and Misanthropy Under Musk (and Trump) | Blog#42
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