Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 46 | Blog#42
Musk got muzzled yesterday. Not really...
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News worth repeating
The U.S. crypto reserve is all about forfeited assets
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate stockpile of other cryptocurrencies.
Why it matters: The "first crypto president" has committed the government to a long-term holding of the first and by far the largest cryptocurrency.
What we're watching: Bitcoin plummet.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump puts new limits on Elon Musk
The president convened his secretaries, with Musk, to clarify power.
President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.
According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.
Continue reading at Politico
Orbán announces Hungarian poll on Ukraine joining the EU
PM says he will “collect the opinion of the people” in a mail-in campaign that critics have derided as a propaganda tool.
Hungarians will have a say on whether they want Ukraine to join the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said early Friday — though the ballot is non-binding and will almost certainly be stacked against Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters after an emergency summit of all 27 EU leaders in Brussels — in which Hungary was the lone holdout refusing to endorse a joint statement in support of arming Ukraine — Orbán said his government would poll Hungarians on their support for Kyiv’s EU accession.
“We have the so-called national consultation scheme, which we use regularly to collect the opinion of the people, so we will use the same scheme just now,” he said.
Orbán’s government has launched over a dozen so-called national consultations since 2010 on a variety of matters, from migration to LGBTQ+ rights.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
EU tech chiefs say they don’t target US tech
The European Commission pushes back on U.S. criticism of its Digital Markets Act that targets Big Tech.
Commission Executive Vice Presidents Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen wrote to Jim Jordan, the head of the U.S. Congress Judiciary Committee, to explain the aims of the Digital Markets Act which requires tech companies to open up services to rivals under threat of hefty fines. The law largely targets U.S. giants such as Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
U.S. President Donald Trump has joined tech chief executives in complaining about EU fines, even threatening tariffs in a Feb. 21 memorandum on “defending American companies and innovators from overseas extortion and unfair fines.”
The letter, dated March 6, is the fullest defense so far from the European Commission to U.S. criticisms, responding to Jordan's demand for an EU explanation of its laws.
"The objective of DMA enforcement, as in any other piece of EU law, is to ensure compliance – not to issue fines," they said, stressing that they are "fully committed" to enforcing the law.
“We are convinced that the European Union and the United States share the common goal of preventing the harmful effects of monopolization,” they said.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump tariff war would hurt Boeing more than Airbus
The U.S. plane-maker could be the “biggest victim” of a tariff war.
On Tuesday, Washington hit imports from Canada and Mexico with a 25 percent tariff, as well as a 20 percent fee on goods from China — the three largest United States trading partners. They are retaliating with countermeasures. The White House quickly backtracked on cars and subsequently delayed tariffs on all other goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with the duty-free terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but many of the tariffs are still in place.
The aviation sector, which relies heavily on international supply chains, will be hurt, but Boeing will have a harder time passing on any price increases than Airbus, and also risks losing out in the fast-growing Chinese market.
“Boeing is likely to absorb these additional material costs, leading to higher production expenses and reduced profit margins per aircraft,” said Wouter Dewulf, an air transport economist at the University of Antwerp.
The tariffs add to Boeing's growing list of troubles, including safety problems and strikes that saw the company to lose nearly $1 billion a month in 2024.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Germany’s Merz has 2 weeks to deliver historic spending revolution
Losing faith in Washington as a military ally, Berlin wants to rip up the old fiscal orthodoxy. But it’s now a race against the clock.
BERLIN — Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz is promising a constitutional revolution to allow Germany to become Europe’s unlikely big spender — on arms and infrastructure — to contend with a new world order in which America is no longer a dependable ally.
To pull off such a sensational U-turn in the way the world’s third-biggest economy traditionally operates, however, he must secure a political consensus by an ultra-tight deadline: March 25, when a new configuration in the Bundestag will make reform difficult.
It’s hard to exaggerate the scale of the change Berlin is targeting after U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of military support to Ukraine and his demand that Europe should step in and provide Kyiv with security guarantees against Russia.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Eric Schmidt Suggests Countries Could Engage in Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM)
The U.S. should not create its own Manhattan Project for AI, because such a project would invite retaliation from adversaries.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang are co-authors on a new paper called “Superintelligence Strategy” that warns against the U.S. government creating a Manhattan Project for so-called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) because it could quickly get out of control around the world. The gist of the argument is that the creation of such a program would lead to retaliation or sabotage by adversaries as countries race to have the most powerful AI capabilities on the battlefield. Instead, the U.S. should focus on developing methods like cyberattacks that could disable threatening AI projects.
Schmidt and Wang are big boosters of AI’s potential to advance society through applications like drug development and workplace efficiency. Governments, meanwhile, see it as the next frontier in defense, and the two industry leaders are essentially concerned that countries are going to end up in a race to create weapons with increasingly dangerous potential. Similar to how international agreements have reined in the development of nuclear weapons, Schmidt and Wang believe nation states should go slow on AI development and not fall prey to racing one another in AI-powered killing machines.
At the same time, however, both Schmidt and Wang are building AI products for the defense sector. The former’s White Stork is building autonomous drone technologies, while Wang’s Scale AI this week signed a contract with the Department of Defense to create AI “agents” that can assist with military planning and operations. After years of shying away from selling technology that could be used in warfare, Silicon Valley is now patriotically lining up to collect lucrative defense contracts.
Continue reading at Gizmodo
Senate Votes to Strip CFPB of Ability to Regulate Platforms Like X
Conservative activist and friend of Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, is freaking out.
Late last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which is tasked with rooting out financial malfeasance—issued a rule that expanded its purview to include digital payment apps like Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle. Just as the CFPB is responsible for overseeing traditional financial institutions, the agency had also sought to exert oversight over the increasingly popular peer-to-peer payment sites. “Digital payments have gone from novelty to necessity and our oversight must reflect this reality,” the CFPB’s then-director Rohit Chopra said. “The rule will help to protect consumer privacy, guard against fraud, and prevent illegal account closures.”
Since then, Trump has fired Chopra, and, amidst a broader rampage throughout the federal government, Musk’s DOGE has sought to shut down the CFPB. “RIP CFPB,” Musk posted in February, after having ransacked the agency. That same month, the newly installed CFPB chief, Russell Vought, enacted several policies that slowed the agency’s operations to a crawl before telling all of the agency’s staff members that they did not need to come in to work.
The attack on CFPB has since run into legal roadblocks, but the effort to destroy the agency comes at an interesting juncture, given that Musk’s platform, X, recently entered into an arrangement with Visa to create a peer-to-peer digital payments system. The new feature, which is still in the works, would allow the site’s users to transfer money and make payments in a Venmo-like fashion.
Continue reading at Gizmodo
Trump Family’s DeFi Project Stocked Up on Crypto Assets Ahead of White House Crypto Summit
Surely this is all on the level.
Say what you will about the Department of Government Efficiency, but there are some ways that the Trump administration has significantly cut down on bloat. For example, it used to take at least a little digging to identify if a President was favor-trading and self-dealing. Now it seems like it just happens out in the open. So streamlined!
To that end, cryptocurrency analysis platform Nansen AI reported that World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance protocol that is operated primarily by President Trump’s three sons, purchased $25 million in cryptocurrencies including $10 million in Ethereum, $10 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and $1.5 million in of MOVE. That move comes just one day before President Trump will host the White House Crypto Summit on Friday. The company also announced Thursday that it was entering a “strategic reserve deal” with layer-1 blockchain project SUI, which caused a significant uptick in the value of the coin.
Now, to be fair, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to place a bet that the cryptocurrency market might spike in response to the hype generated by the White House Crypto Summit—just like when Trump announced a “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” it resulted in prices spiking. The crypto market, if nothing else, is extremely predictable in that it will react to hype.
Continue reading at Gizmodo
Macron calls Putin an 'imperialist' after Russian president's Napoleon comments
French President Emmanuel Macron branded his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin an "imperialist" who was trying to "rewrite history" after Putin compared Macron's proposal to extend France's nuclear umbrella to its European allies to Napoleon Bonaparte's failed invasion of Russia in 1812.
Russia views comments by President Emmanuel Macron about extending France's nuclear deterrent to other European countries as a "threat", Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. Macron responded by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin an "imperialist" who was trying to "rewrite history".
Lavrov also reaffirmed his country's opposition to European forces being deployed in Ukraine if an accord was made to halt the conflict.
Macron on Wednesday called Russia a "threat to France and Europe" and said France was "legitimately worried" about the United States shifting its position on the Ukraine conflict under US President Donald Trump.
The French leader said he would open a debate on extending France's nuclear deterrent, following a phone conversation with Germany's likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Continue reading at France 24
Macron says France is 'loyal' US ally as Trump casts doubt on NATO solidarity
French President Emmanuel Macron said that France was a "loyal and faithful ally" after US President Donald Trump expressed doubt that NATO would come to the US's defence if it was attacked. NATO's Article 5 defence guarantee was invoked following the September 11 attacks against the US.
President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed uncertainty that NATO would come to the United States’ defence if the country were attacked, leading French President Emmanuel Macron to respond that France was a "loyal and faithful" US ally.
Article 5, the alliance's defence guarantee, was invoked following the September 11 terror attacks on the US, leading to NATO's largest operation in Afghanistan – an operation that involved the French military. It is the only time the defence guarantee has been invoked in NATO's history.
Trump also suggested that the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don't meet defence spending targets, a day after his pick for NATO ambassador assured senators that the administration's commitment to the military alliance was “ironclad”.
Continue reading at France 24
Ukraine intel pause sows confusion and chaos
Confusion reigned on Thursday in the wake of CIA Director JOHN RATCLIFFE’s remarks yesterday that Washington has paused its vital intelligence sharing relationship with Ukraine.
The administration has been tight-lipped as to how far the ban will go. Even Ukrainian officials say they are unsure.
“We didn’t yet get the details how it will be restricted,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister RUSTEM UMEROV said in Berlin, where he met his German counterpart, BORIS PISTORIUS.
The ban appears to extend to U.S allies. On Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported that the United States had ordered the U.K. to stop sharing American intelligence that had previously been cleared to be shared with Ukraine. (A British official declined to comment when we tried to confirm).
But untangling British and American intelligence isn’t easy, particularly when it comes to SIGINT, the collection of communications signals, where the two countries work hand-in-glove, blurring the lines over who owns what.
“You literally can’t just take your satellites and go home, because that’s not the way that it works,” said DAVID GIOE, a visiting professor on intelligence and international security at King’s College London.
There also could be complicated decisions to make regarding defensive intelligence that Ukraine has relied upon to learn about massing Russian forces and to defend itself from incoming missile strikes.
Under a protocol known as “duty to warn,” U.S. spy agencies have long sought to warn other countries in the event that they pick up intelligence about an impending, potentially lethal threat — even if American citizens aren’t directly in the line of fire.
In the Biden administration, this was used in at least two publicly known incidents, with the U.S. warning adversaries Russia and Iran of terror threats against their countries.
Continue reading the Politico National Security Daily newsletter
Democrats divided over way forward under Trump
Democrats are struggling with which direction to take their party amid President Trump’s turbulent return to office.
Noting the hard-right turn of the country, some operatives say the party swung too far left, alienating moderates and handing Republicans firepower. But others say the progressive movement is where the energy is and where it will continue to be in the future.
“Part of the reason we are where we are is because our party became almost too big tent and we sort of lost our way,” said one Democratic strategist. “No one really knows what we are right now.”
At the same time, more centrists say they don’t recognize the Democratic Party anymore and don’t identify with it.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democratic lawmakers warn budget cuts pose risks to power grids
As early as February, about 130 federal workers were fired from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which operates about three quarters of the Pacific Northwest’s power grid.
The following week, some 30 probationary workers were offered their jobs back, similarly to workers who were fired and recalled from jobs at the Department of Agriculture and the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). But Democratic lawmakers expressed concern that even temporary disruptions in such cases could have an effect.
Another 88 employees have been fired from the Western Area Power Administration, which provides service to 15 states.
Continue reading at The Hill
Republicans press Trump to resume military, intelligence aid to Ukraine
Republican lawmakers are starting to urge President Trump to reverse his decisions to pause U.S. military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, warning that a prolonged stoppage of U.S. help for the war effort would have a seriously detrimental effect.
They say that Trump has the right to temporarily halt weapons shipments to Ukraine to assess the war, pressure NATO allies to step up their contributions and to create a window to negotiate a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But they warn that stopping the flow of weapons and munitions to Ukraine for too long could have a devastating effect on Ukraine’s warfighting ability, which would undercut its leverage in talks with Russia.
Continue reading at The Hill
Whole Hog Politics: Pretty good isn’t good enough for Dems with Jewish voters
But in the age of mega-MAGA, there’s no question about whether the priorities of the new working-class voter base of the GOP is having its way. What was the party of the suburbs for most of the 20th century looks a lot more like a party arranged around small-town and rural voters’ demands. Farmers tend to dislike tariffs for obvious reasons, but other than that, the policy priorities for the Republicans seem aligned with their core voters’ on core issues.
But what about the Democrats?
In her response to Trump, Slotkin — the newest Jewish member of the Senate — touted her national security background and her work in the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. She heaped praise on Ronald Reagan’s understanding “that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity.” It was an effective message for a woman who just won a Senate race in a state Kamala Harris lost.
Continue reading at The Hill
Kamala Harris gets serious about whether to run for California governor
“I am staying in this fight,” she’s told allies in phone calls and at private gatherings.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is seriously considering a run for governor of California — and has given herself a deadline to decide.
At a pre-Oscars party last weekend, Harris was asked by another partygoer when she would make a decision about jumping into the California governor’s race. She gave a definitive answer, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation: the end of the summer.
And in calls to supporters, allies and trusted aides in recent weeks, Harris has made clear that she plans to make a decision in a few months.
Harris’ timeline, reported here first, is the clearest indication to date that she may enter the race to succeed the termed-out Gavin Newsom in the Golden State. And, allies said, a win would almost certainly take a 2028 presidential run — which Harris is still mulling — off the table.
Continue reading at Politico
Ukraine uses French Mirage 2000 jets for first time in repelling massive Russian attack
It was the first large combined airstrike by Moscow since Washington halted aid and intel-sharing to Kyiv.
KYIV ― Ukraine's military used Mirage 2000 jets provided by France to repel a Russian attack for the first time, deploying the aircraft overnight against Moscow's latest barrage of missiles and drones.
Russian forces launched 67 missiles and 194 drones against Ukraine, bombing mostly energy and civilian infrastructure in the country's Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv and Ternopil regions, Ukrainian officials said. Army spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy said it was first massive Russian combined attack since the U.S. stopped aid to push Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.
Kyiv managed to shoot down 34 missiles and 100 drones, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said in a statement.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
US officials planning to meet with Ukrainian counterparts in Saudi Arabia
The meeting would mark a significant diplomatic reengagement after last week’s Oval Office blowup.
Senior Trump administration officials are planning a meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts in Saudi Arabia next week, to begin discussions about a cease-fire to end the country’s war with Russia.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff, who confirmed Thursday that planning was underway, will be part of the U.S. delegation alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
“The idea is to get down a framework for a peace agreement and initial cease-fire,” Witkoff told reporters outside the White House.
Another administration official, granted anonymity to discuss plans that are not yet public, confirmed that the meeting has been under discussion and is “possible.” One aspect of the meeting that remains unsettled, Witkoff said, was the city in Saudi Arabia where the meeting could take place.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump's rug-pull presidency
Donald Trump is building a reputation for himself as the flip-flopper in chief — the president who, after announcing a bold new policy today, is more than likely to reverse it tomorrow.
Why it matters: In a chaotic and unpredictable world, the federal government normally acts as a stabilizing force. Under Trump, it has become the primary driver of the chaos.
The big picture: Across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada — two of America's three largest trading partners — have been on and then off and then on and then off. Colombia knows the feeling.
The government put 80 million square feet of its real estate up for sale, only to then take the "for sale" sign down.
Trump has fired federal employees at the CDC, the FDA, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, only to then re-hire them.
Continue reading at Axios
Scoop: Israel objected to secret U.S.-Hamas talks in tense call
Israel's concerns over the Trump administration's secret negotiations with Hamas erupted in a contentious call Tuesday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-hand man and the U.S. official leading the talks, an Israeli official and a source with knowledge of the call tell Axios.
Why it matters: When Trump aides sounded out Israeli officials in early February about the possibility of engaging directly with Hamas, the Israelis advised them not to do it — particularly not without preconditions. Israel found out through other channels that the U.S. was moving ahead anyway.
Driving the news: Netanyahu has avoided publicly criticizing President Trump since Axios revealed the unprecedented U.S.-Hamas talks on Wednesday, saying only that Israel had made its opinion clear to the U.S.
But Netanyahu's closest confidant, Ron Dermer, was much less restrained a day earlier in a call with U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler, the sources say.
Continue reading at Axios
Management is in its Boss Era
If there's one thing Elon Musk and Donald Trump have made clear: The U.S. is in its Big Boss Era.
Why it matters: Workers had a moment of empowerment in the wake of the pandemic — remember the Great Resignation? Summer of Strikes? Quiet Quitting? Well, forget it. That time is in the rearview.
A slowing labor market, combined with a vocally pro-management, at times anti-worker White House is giving executives the chance to reclaim their vast power over working schlubs.
What's out: Work-life balance and flexibility. Unions. Diversity and inclusion.
What's in: The office. Firing people who don't toe the line. Very long work hours.
"This is a boss's administration," says Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
"You have a president who's made his mark as an employer," Sojourner points out. Trump's trademark Apprentice catchphrase was "you're fired!'"
Continue reading at Axios
1 big thing: The real concern with FDA drug approvals
Forget all of the conspiratorial — and unfounded — concerns about the FDA allowing unsafe vaccines to come onto the market; many critics' real concern over the last few years has been about whether the agency is approving drugs without enough evidence that they work.
Why it matters: The FDA is tasked with proving new drugs are both safe and effective, but deciding what counts as enough evidence that a drug works — especially for diseases lacking alternate treatments — is essentially a judgment call.
A series of agency decisions in recent years have been met with backlash, at least within certain circles. At the same time, these controversial approvals have been for therapies targeting populations desperate for options, and were applauded by some patient groups.
It will now be the Trump administration's turn to thread this needle at a time when public trust in public health agencies is slipping — a shift partially fueled by members of the new administration, especially HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Continue reading at Axios
2. A potential alliance
Public mistrust of federal health agencies, including the FDA, has become so prominent that Kennedy, one of its primary instigators, is now in charge of all of them.
"It's much easier for the FDA to lose public confidence than to develop it," said Rachel Sachs, a professor at WashU Law and an author of a piece published in JAMA yesterday on the dangers of lowering effectiveness standards.
Sachs also said effectiveness can't be divorced from safety, as "the concept of safety is relative to the question of efficacy and the conditions of use."
Flashback: Before his nomination as HHS secretary, Kennedy railed not only against vaccines but also against the agency itself, accusing it of being beholden to industry interests.
Continue reading at Axios
3. Why Medicaid cuts are so hard
New KFF polling drives home exactly why it's going to be politically tough for Republicans to cut federal Medicaid spending: Even most of their own voters don't want them to.
Continue reading and viewing the chart at Axios
Will Senate Dems help stop a shutdown?
SHUTDOWN SCARIES — Senate Democrats are running out of time to decide whether fighting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s funding freezes is worth forcing a government shutdown.
Assuming House Republicans can successfully pass the six-month spending patch they plan to put on the floor next week, GOP senators will need help from at least eight Democrats to get a House-passed stopgap bill through the other chamber. And they could need more if other Republicans join Sen. Rand Paul in opposition.
Right now, Republicans have one Democrat committed: Sen. John Fetterman, who told Lisa on Thursday that he’ll “never” be part of shutting the government down. He said it was “bullshit” that Democrats “would even rattle those sabers.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, told our colleague Jordain Carney on Thursday that he didn’t believe enough of his members were willing to support a full-year stopgap bill to get it through the Senate. But Democrats have clearly been keeping their options open — Senate Democratic leaders have avoided saying the party would blanket oppose a clean funding patch, and they’ve privately urged members to keep their powder dry.
Senators are listening, for now. Across roughly a dozen interviews, Senate Democrats largely declined to say they’d vote against a clean stopgap. Sen. Tim Kaine said he is “anti-shutdown” but declined to endorse Republicans’ plan. And swing-state Sen. Elissa Slotkin told Mia she was “open to all options” but “I gotta understand what protections we have that money we appropriate is going to be used right for the purposes it was appropriated for.”
The bill may not be totally clean. It’s expected to include measures that would avert cuts in pay for doctors treating Medicare patients and extend eased Medicare telehealth rules, our Ben Leonard reports. Those provisions are expected to be narrow. But any additions could make passing a stopgap harder, given that fiscal conservatives don’t want more spending and Democrats would like to propose additions of their own.
Several Democrats — and some Republicans — want to give negotiators more time to hash out a deal on overall spending levels with top appropriators saying an agreement is imminent. But GOP Sen. Susan Collins, the chamber’s top appropriator, indicated Thursday that House Republicans would not support a shorter stopgap.
“I do not think the House is interested in that,” she told reporters, adding, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next week, but I’m determined to prevent a government shutdown.”
Continue reading at Politico Inside Congress newsletter
Playbook: Is the honeymoon over?
TODAY: 8:30 a.m.: The February jobs report and unemployment rate are released. … 12:30 p.m.: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gives a speech on the economic outlook at the 2025 U.S. Monetary Policy Forum. … 2:30 p.m.: President Donald Trump signs executive orders. … 3 p.m.: Trump speaks at the White House’s cryptocurrency summit, following his executive order yesterday to create a national strategic reserve of Bitcoin. … 5 p.m.: Trump leaves the White House. … 7:50 p.m.: Trump arrives at Mar-a-Lago.
HONEYMOONS NEVER LAST FOREVER. Both President Trump and Elon Musk have been around enough to know that. The question is what comes after: A relationship built on shared goals and something deeper than fleeting passions, or a creeping realization that absent the momentum of the new and exciting, there’s not much to keep the couple together. Nearly seven weeks into the presidency, the political marriage of Trump and Musk may well be facing such a moment of truth. The honeymoon phase is over. But the signs of what comes next suggest a partnership that could be far more sustainable than many observers once assumed.
DOGE on a leash: In what is likely the most consequential scoop of the last 24 hours, my POLITICO colleagues Dasha Burns and Kyle Cheney report that the president convened a Cabinet meeting to tell his department heads, effectively: You are in charge of your departments; Musk is not.
What Trump said: “According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy,” Dasha and Kyle write. “The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy and the pacing of implementation.”
The next phase: In a Truth Social post yesterday, Trump wrote that from now on, federal workforce cuts will be done by “the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet.’”
There’s more to this story: I asked Dasha, POLITICO’s indefatigable White House bureau chief, to tell us what Playbook readers need to know about these latest turns in the Trump-Musk relationship. Here’s what she wrote in …
The questions ahead: “After six weeks of DOGE days filled with chaos and confusion, the president called this meeting to give some clarity. But his directive also raises questions. How do Cabinet secretaries handle accepting or rejecting recommendations from Musk? How much leeway will they have (or feel they have) to tell him to take a hike?”
The end isn’t near: “There is no indication from my sources or from Trump’s comments Thursday that Musk is going anywhere anytime soon. He still has the president’s ear, and continues to receive his praise.”
This was Trump’s idea: “The intervention-style meeting was President Trump’s ‘idea and his orchestration,’ one of the sources familiar told me. Said another: ‘The president felt it was important for everyone to know it’s coming directly from him.’ It’s why Trump decided to bring everyone together behind closed doors.”
What was behind it? “The move could be part of a legal play, given the mounting lawsuits plaguing DOGE and the administration. But given the avalanche of litigation Trump has already faced, it’s just as likely that politics are the motive. He’s been receiving frustrated calls from agency heads and lawmakers. He wants people to feel heard. And DOGE has been triggering alarm bells every day since the inauguration.” (More on that in a moment.)
Continue reading at Politico Playbook
A Sensitive Complex Housing a CIA Facility Was on GSA's List of US Properties for Sale
Plans to redevelop a Northern Virginia warehouse site have long been complicated by the area’s worst-kept secret—the presence of a CIA facility. The GSA put the site up for sale anyway.
A now-deleted list containing hundreds of US government properties that the General Services Administration (GSA) plans to sell includes most of a sprawling, highly sensitive federal complex in Springfield, Virginia, that also houses a secretive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility, WIRED has learned.
The GSA’s effort to sell hundreds of US government properties is part of a blunt reshaping of the federal government and its workforce led by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Staffed in part by young engineers with no prior experience in government, DOGE’s efforts have resulted in mass reductions in force, the effective shuttering of entirely independent agencies, and a flurry of lawsuits that seek to mitigate DOGE’s razing of the government over the past six weeks.
Continue reading at Wired
The US Army Is Using ‘CamoGPT’ to Purge DEI From Training Materials
Developed to boost productivity and operational readiness, the AI is now being used to “review” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies to align them with President Trump’s orders.
The United States Army is employing a prototype generative artificial intelligence tool to identify references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) for removal from training materials in line with a recent executive order from President Donald Trump.
Officials at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)—the major command responsible for training soldiers, developing leaders, and shaping the service’s guidelines, strategies, and concepts—are currently using the AI tool, dubbed CamoGPT, to “review policies, programs, publications, and initiatives for DEIA and report findings,” according to an internal memo reviewed by WIRED.
The memo followed Trump’s signing of a January 27 executive order titled “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” which directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate all Pentagon policies seen as promoting what that the commander in chief declared “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational theories” regarding race and gender, a linguistic dragnet that extends as far as past social media posts from official US military accounts.
Continue reading at Wired
DOGE Is the Deep State
A shadowy group of unelected figures reshaping the federal government to their own benefit from the inside? Sounds familiar!
The “deep state” is a top-tier conservative bogeyman, right up there with DEI and George Soros. But it seems fair to ask: If a bunch of shadowy, unelected figures, many with shared business interests and connections, took over government functions at the highest levels and directly contravened the will of Congress, what might you call that? How about … DOGE?
After years of alarm over unelected bureaucrats pulling the strings, what better example can you find than this moment the US government is in? DOGE is the thing it claims to fear the most. Elon Musk is the problem he purportedly wants to solve.
Secretive? The so-called Department of Government Efficiency has never provided an org chart, did not have a publicly documented leader until last week, and refused to reveal the identities of its young staffers in early internal meetings. Check.
Continue reading at Wired
If Ukraine Loses Starlink, Here Are the Best Alternatives
OneWeb, Project Kuiper, and IRIS2 could all, in time, replace Elon Musk's satellite communications system in Ukraine, but they will struggle to replicate Starlink's coverage and usability.
One by one, Ukrainian villagers gathered round and held their smartphones out to catch the signal. A nearby Starlink terminal, a small, square-shaped panel facing the sky, was about to beam their voices to a satellite in low Earth orbit, which in turn would relay their calls to relatives hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.
Here, close to the front line in Ukraine’s northeastern provinces, where mobile phone networks are down, you don’t get to make that connection very often, to send that picture that shows you are still OK. Phones rang, people on the other end picked up, conversations—and tears—flowed.
“I don’t think it can be exaggerated how big a difference it makes to people’s lives. For them to be able to have that moment of normality,” says Ada Wordsworth, director of KHARPP, a charity predominantly working to rebuild homes in Ukraine, who brought the Starlink terminal to this village with her team in 2023.
Continue reading at Wired
War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge
References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Two US soldiers accused of selling sensitive military information
Two active-duty U.S. soldiers stationed in Washington state and one former soldier were arrested on bribery and theft charges after being accused of selling sensitive information to China, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Jian Zhao and Li Tian, Army soldiers stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and Ruoyu Duan, a former Army soldier, were arrested on Thursday after a federal grand juries in Washington and Oregon indicted them.
Tian and Duan were charged with conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property, the DOJ said in a Thursday news release. Zhao was charged with conspiring to obtain and transmit national defense information to a person not authorized to receive it, bribery and theft of government property.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate Democrats file complaint against DC US attorney Ed Martin
“We write to express our grave concern about actions taken by Edward Robert Martin, Jr. that may constitute professional misconduct under the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct,” wrote Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The letter, signed by all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary panel, asks for the disciplinary counsel, which is overseen by the D.C. Court of Appeals, to investigate whether Martin, a member of the D.C. Bar, violated rules of professional conduct.
“When a government lawyer, particularly one entrusted with a leadership role in the nation’s foremost law enforcement agency, commits serious violations of professional conduct, it undermines the integrity of our justice system and erodes public confidence in it,” they wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
Canadian foreign minister: Trump tariffs ‘pretext’ to annexation
Trump’s 25 percent tariffs against Canada went into effect Tuesday, with the president arguing that America’s northern neighbor has not done enough to prevent the movement of fentanyl across the U.S. border.
Joly disputed Trump’s assessment of her country’s border security, contending that less than 1 percent of the lethal drug comes from Canada, which she said has a “very strong and secure border.”
“We have $1.3 billion worth of investment in our new border plan,” Joly said during her Thursday appearance on CNN. “We’ve invested in more boots on the ground, Black Hawk helicopters, a new fentanyl strike force with the Americans. We also have a new fentanyl czar.”
“But clearly, this is not the issue right now. This is a pretext. This is not the right argument. Because fundamentally, the U.S. is a net exporter of illegal migrants, of illegal guns, and illegal drugs to Canada,” she told Christiane Amanpour on CNN.
Continue reading at The Hill
McMahon: Dismantling Education Department ‘not a turn off the lights and walk out’
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Friday that Trump administration plans to dismantle her department will not simply be a case of walking away and abandoning it.
“This is not a turn off the lights and walk out of the department,” McMahon said on NewsNation. “It’s in close consultation with Congress and looking at how the needs of students can best be serviced.”
The comment comes after McMahon confirmed on “Fox & Friends” earlier Friday that President Trump “intends to sign” an executive order aimed at dismantling the federal agency. Such an order could come as soon as Friday.
It is unclear what the next actions of the department will be, as to completely abolish the agency would require an act of Congress, which is unlikely to happen due to the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump offers pathway to citizenship for South African farmers, families
“They are confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT,” he wrote in a Friday morning post on Truth Social.
Trump signed an executive order last month halting federal aid to South Africa over property laws he said impose “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaner farmers.
“To go a step further, any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship,” he wrote Friday. “This process will begin immediately!”
He didn’t provide additional details about the immediate plan, but Trump wrote in his February order that the U.S. would “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation” and directed his Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to prioritize their resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Fact Check from the BBC:
Zelensky says Ukrainian energy infrastructure targeted: ‘Force Russia to stop the war’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Russia launched a “massive” drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s energy facilities, adding that Moscow should be forced to stop the war.
“In total, the Russians used nearly 70 missiles, both cruise and ballistic, as well as almost 200 attack drones,” Zelensky said in a post on the social platform X.
“All of this was directed against infrastructure that ensures normal life,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Majorities say pandemic is over, fear future health crisis: Gallup
Five years after COVID-19 prompted widespread shutdowns across the world, most Americans say that while that pandemic is over, a new deadly health crisis is brewing, according to a new poll.
The latest Gallup survey shows that views on the issue are largely unchanged from a year ago and remain split along party lines. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say the pandemic is over — 79 percent to 43 percent, respectively — and less likely to be worried about another global pandemic — 66 percent to 22 percent.
Around 72 percent of respondents also say they’ve contracted COVID at some point in the last five years, according to the poll. Another 28 percent said they did not contract the virus.
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: I still wear a mask everywhere I go because I am immuno-suppressed.
Trump says he wanted to ‘help’ Mexico and Canada ‘to a certain extent’ by pausing tariffs
Asked why he implemented the pause, Trump told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that it was “because I wanted to help Mexico and Canada to a certain extent.”
“We’re a big, big country, and they do a lot of their business with us, whereas in our case, it’s much less significant. We do very little with Canada by comparison. And I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2nd,” Trump said in an excerpt of the interview set to air in full this weekend.
“I thought it would be a fair thing to do, and so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time,” Trump said, adding it would be “for the good of the American car makers” and the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
Continue reading at The Hill
GOP senator on Trump tariffs: ‘When we start losing, you back off’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) signaled Thursday that President Trump’s threat to levy tariffs on key trading partners of the U.S. is hurting his constituents, saying “when we start losing, you back off.”
“Almost every industry in Kentucky has come to me and said, ‘It will hurt our industry and push up prices of homes, cars,’ and so, I’m going to continue to argue against tariffs,” Paul said late Thursday in an interview with CNN.
The Kentucky Republican argued the U.S. has “more leverage” than any other nation, but not “all the leverage.” He urged the Trump administration to be “smart” about levying additional taxes and reciprocal tariffs.
“When we start losing, you back off. There’s such a thing as strategic retreat,” he said, according to a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
Continue reading at The Hill
Dozens of conservative leaders back clean stopgap to avert shutdown
“Conservatives support President Trump’s efforts to streamline and rebuild a federal government that works for the American people. As the March 14 funding deadline approaches, we support President Trump in his efforts to pass a Continuing Resolution to September 30th and urge all conservatives in Congress to do the same,” reads the memo set for release Friday, a draft of which was obtained by The Hill.
The at least 70 signatories include J. Kenneth Blackwell, chair of the Conservative Action Project; former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), chair of Conservative Partnership Institute; David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth; Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America; David Bossie, president of Citizens United; Eric Teetsel, president of The Center for Renewing America; and Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate Democrats’ impending choice: Shutdown or surrender
House Democrats say they won’t vote for the House GOP’s spending plan. Democrats across the Capitol aren’t so sure.
Senate Democrats have a fast-approaching dilemma: Vote for a spending bill unilaterally drafted by House Republicans or engage in the kind of shutdown brinkmanship they’ve long opposed.
It isn’t a decision they’ll be able to put off for much longer. House GOP leaders are poised early next week to send a bill to the floor that would largely hold current spending levels in place through the end of September. Democrats don’t like this approach, arguing it would only further empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to continue to act beyond their authority in clawing back congressionally approved dollars.
In the House, Democrats are vowing to hold back support, arguing that Republicans are responsible for finding the votes for a continuing resolution, or CR, after walking away from negotiations with the minority party.
“If Republicans decide to take that approach, as Speaker [Mike] Johnson indicated it’s his expectation, then Republicans are going it alone,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump issues threat of sanctions, tariffs on Russia
In a post on Truth Social, Trump put pressure on the country that so far has faced little public pushback from his administration.
In a Friday post on Truth Social, Trump put pressure on the country that so far has faced little public pushback from his administration. Trump and his allies have declined to throw the blame on Russia for starting the war in Ukraine — and said he has a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late,” Trump wrote.
Global leaders across Europe have grown concerned over the U.S. aligning with the Kremlin. Just last week, Trump had a public blowup with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, and has since cut off some U.S. aid to the Eastern European country.
Russian forces launched a massive salvo of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure early on Friday, the first attack since U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine stopped. Zelenskyy reacted with a stern message to Russia.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump says he’s not considering pardoning Derek Chauvin
President Trump said Friday that he’s not considering pardoning former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted for the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
A reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office if he was considering it, noting, “your allies are calling on your to pardon Derek Chauvin.”
“No, I haven’t even heard about it,” the president responded. “No. I haven’t heard that.”
Conservative media figure Ben Shapiro launched a petition this week to call on Trump to pardon Chauvin, who was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for unintentional murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.
Continue reading at The Hill
Fetterman trolls ‘resistance’ Dems, warns against voting for shutdown
“Never, never, never vote for a shutdown — ever,” he posted to the social platform X.
Congress faces a March 14 deadline to approve a stopgap spending plan and prevent a government shutdown. Because of the razor-thin GOP majority in the House, some Democratic votes may be necessary to keep agencies running.
Democratic negotiators working on a resolution to keep the government afloat until a long-term budget proposal is worked out have accused hard-line conservatives of pushing priorities they don’t support.
“Government funding is always bipartisan,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Democratic leaders bash GOP’s spending plan: ‘Not acceptable’
House Democratic leaders warned Friday that they won’t back a long-term extension of current funding levels, which GOP leaders are teeing up for a vote next week.
The top Democrats — Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — said the Republicans’ bill is a “partisan” effort “that threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year.”
“That is not acceptable,” the Democrats wrote Friday in a letter to fellow House Democrats.
Lawmakers are racing to avert a shutdown before government funding runs out on March 14.
Continue reading at The Hill
McMahon says 300 Education staffers took $25K buyout
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Friday that approximately 300 employees took the Department of Education’s recent offer to be paid $25,000 to quit their jobs.
“The $25,000 was a buyout provision that was only good from the Friday that it was announced to the following Monday,” McMahon told NewsNation.
“So, that was about four days. On my last count, and I could stand to be corrected on this, I think we had over 300 people who did avail themselves of that opportunity for the buyout provision in early retirement,” she added.
Continue reading at The Hill
DHS ending collective bargaining for transportation security officers
In a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the agency said striking the agreement means the “Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them. The Trump Administration is committed returning … to merit-based hiring and firing policies.”
The DHS also claimed TSA agents were doing more union work than screenings at 86 percent of airports — prompting the Democratic leader of the House Homeland Security Committee to accuse the agency of “lying.”
The department’s statements were contradicted by the employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which called the move a “clearly retaliatory action” for its broader pushback against the Trump administration.
Continue reading at The Hill
Federal judge rejects request to block DOGE staff from Treasury system
A federal judge on Friday rejected a request to block employees with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing a sensitive federal payment system at the Treasury Department.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied the request from the Alliance for Retired Americans and several employee unions, finding they failed to show they would face irreparable harm if the DOGE staff gained access.
“If Plaintiffs could show that Defendants imminently planned to make their private information public or to share that information with individuals outside the federal government with no obligation to maintain its confidentiality, the Court would not hesitate to find likelihood of irreparable harm,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
First US execution by firing squad in 15 years set for Friday: What to know
A South Carolina prisoner is set to be executed by firing squad on Friday in the first execution of its kind in more than a decade.
Brad Sigmon, 67, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 in the murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents a year earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final case appeal in 2021.
Sigmon will be the state’s first death row inmate to be shot to death under a 2021 law, if the execution moves forward as scheduled, after he picked the firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair.
Continue reading at The Hill
Powell focused on separating ‘signal from noise’ amid policy uncertainties
“The new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes,” Powell said. “We are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves. We do not need to be in a hurry.”
Powell said that “uncertainty around the changes and their likely effects remains high.”
The Trump administration has issued a number of stop-and-start orders on tariffs, increased border enforcement, and made significant cuts to several regulatory agencies — all of which will have economic effects that the Fed must consider.
Continue reading at The Hill
Hispanic Caucus demands apology from GOP campaign arm after ‘illegal immigrant’ smear
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is demanding an apology from the House Republicans’ campaign arm after it falsely portrayed the CHC’s chairman as an “illegal immigrant.”
The National Congressional Campaign Committee (NRCC) deleted the controversial social media post on Friday. But the unannounced move did little to appease the Hispanic Caucus, which is asking the NRCC to go further.
“You can’t sweep this under the rug,” the group wrote on X. “We demand a retraction and an apology, not a mulligan.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration drops suit that sought to cut toxic emissions in ‘Cancer Alley’
The Trump administration has dropped a lawsuit that sought to cut toxic emissions from a facility in a highly polluted area of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.”
In 2023, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Denka Performance Elastomer in an effort to get it to cut down its emissions of chloroprene.
Chloroprene is a chemical that’s used in the production of neoprene, a material that is used to make wetsuits, hoses and adhesives. The EPA considers chloroprene to be a likely carcinogen.
Continue reading at The Hill
$400M in federal grants to Columbia University canceled amid antisemitism probe
The federal government canceled $400 million in grants to Columbia University amid its antisemitism probe into the school, the Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced Friday.
The cancellation is due to the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students,” the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education and the U.S. General Services Administration said in a joint statement.
A university spokesperson said Columbia is seeking to reverse the decision.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senators eye national standard for wildfire response on federal lands
Under the bill, the Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act, all wildfires on Interior Department- or Agriculture Department-administered lands would be subject to a half-hour response standard.
In a statement, Sheehy and Kim noted the National Fire Protection Association currently has a 5-minute, 20-second response time standard in place for structural fires, which has been credited with reducing civilian deaths 70 percent. No such standard currently exists for wildfires.
“The WRAP Act will help our brave firefighters put out wildfires while they are small and dramatically reduce catastrophic wildfire damage. This bill will save lives and prevent hundreds of billions of dollars in future property damage,” Sheehy, a onetime aerial firefighter, said in a statement.
Continue reading at The Hill
Musk’s SpaceX confirms Starlink lease agreement with FAA
Elon Musk’s space technology company said it is working with L3Harris, the current contractor for the FAA’s telecommunications infrastructure, to test Starlink “as one piece of the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed along with fiber, wireless, and other technologies.”
“Starlink is a possible partial fix to an aging system. There is no effort or intent for Starlink to ‘take over’ any existing contract,” SpaceX said in a post on the social platform X, which is also owned by Musk.
“Beyond this initial testing deployment, SpaceX is working with L3Harris and the FAA to identify instances where Starlink could serve as a long-term infrastructure upgrade for aviation safety,” it added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Most Trump voters oppose Medicaid cuts: Poll
More than 80 percent of respondents, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, Trump voters, and adults living in rural areas, said Medicaid funding should either increase or be kept about the same.
The findings underscore the potential political peril facing congressional Republicans as they decide how deep to cut the social safety net to pay for much of Trump’s agenda, including an extension of tax cuts.
According to the poll, support for Medicaid cuts was notably low among conservatives; only 33 percent of self-described Republicans and 35 percent of Trump voters said they support Medicaid spending cuts.
Continue reading at The Hill
Treasury secretary forecasts ‘detox period’ for US economy
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday the United States economy has become increasingly reliant on excessive government spending, adding, “There’s going to be a detox period.”
“The market and the economy have become hooked, become addicted, to excessive government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period,” Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Bessent added there will be a “natural adjustment” as the Trump administration seeks to move the country toward private spending.
When asked by the host how long this economic uncertainty will last, the secretary said, “I am confident, if we have the right policies, it will be a very smooth transition.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump’s tariffs put the Fed’s Powell in a bind
The central bank chief may eventually have to decide which effect poses a bigger long-term risk to the economy — slow growth or spiking prices.
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s trade wars threaten to put the Federal Reserve in a no-win situation this year. And the economy’s future may be riding on how Fed Chair Jerome Powell responds.
Higher tariffs on major U.S. trading partners like Mexico, Canada and China are likely to slow economic activity, which would call for the Fed to lower interest rates. But they will also push up costs, fueling upward pressure on consumer prices. That could prompt the Fed to keep rates where they are — or, in a worst-case scenario, even begin to raise them again.
Powell may eventually have to decide which effect poses a bigger long-term risk to the economy — slow growth or spiking prices. The dilemma is all the more acute for the Fed because it has a dual mandate to both stabilize prices and promote maximum employment.
On Friday, Powell suggested the Fed is holding its fire until it knows more.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump threatens tariffs on Canadian dairy, lumber products as soon as Friday
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, complained about Canada’s steep tariffs on dairy products and lumber imported from the U.S. The president claimed Canada is charging Americans a tariff of more than 200 percent on dairy products and a “tremendously high tariff” on lumber exports.
“They make it impossible for us to sell lumber or dairy products into Canada. But our numbers are a tiny fraction of that. Almost nonexistent,” Trump said.
“They’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it,” Trump added. “And that’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Pence whacks Trump’s tariffs
The comments come as Trump has both levied and walked back tariffs on Canada and Mexico in the last week.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is breaking with his former boss, criticizing the Trump administration’s tariffs strategy and calling for free trade to lower the cost of goods.
Pence responded to comments from Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent defending the tariff policy despite the possibility of it causing economic disruptions.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream,” Bessent said in a speech from New York on Thursday.
Continue reading at Politico
Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like
We interviewed Democrats and Republicans — on the record and anonymously — about life on Capitol Hill, what broke Congress and a whole lot more.
This article was compiled from interviews conducted by Ben Jacobs, Jasper Goodman, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes, Hailey Fuchs, Emma Dumain, Lisa Kashinsky, Connor O’Brien, Holly Otterbein, Adam Wren, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu. Juan Benn Jr. contributed to this report.
It’s hard to find an institution the public loathes more than Congress. But guess what? A lot of the people in Congress aren’t so happy with it either.
To get an inside look at what it’s like to serve on Capitol Hill — after years of gridlock, government shutdowns and now another Donald Trump stampede through Washington — we sat down with 25 lawmakers who were ready to dish.
We talked about what they hate and love about Congress, why it’s broken and how to fix it (one suggestion: bring back the powdered wigs). They also told us what would really shock the public if they knew the truth about life as a lawmaker (it’s what’s for dinner).
Continue reading at Politico
Top lawmaker blocking US arms sales to UAE over role in Sudan war
Democrats are ramping up pressure on the Middle East partner for fueling the long-running conflict.
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee is blocking U.S. arms sales to a key Middle Eastern partner over its purported role in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, according to three congressional aides informed of the plan.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) has quietly blocked arms sales to the United Arab Emirates since late last year, and plans to make that hold public as he introduces a bill to take action against those fueling the war in Sudan. The UAE has been widely accused by human rights groups and outside conflict observers of covertly arming and funding a militia accused of genocide and war crimes in Sudan.
Any of the four top lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee can place a hold on arms sales. It’s unclear whether Meeks’ hold has actively blocked any arms transfers to the UAE as of yet.
Continue reading at Politico
Johnson defends Musk, says essential veteran jobs ‘will come back’
The speaker said that the Department of Government Efficiency is going through a “recalibration” and that Musk will correct his mistakes.
Speaker Mike Johnson is throwing his support behind Elon Musk following President Donald Trump’s tense closed-door meeting with his Cabinet, saying that the role of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is going through a “recalibration” and that Musk will correct his mistakes along the way.
“I think the president kind of did a recalibration yesterday. He brought in Elon and he brought in the Cabinet secretaries, and they had a dialogue about the process, to formalize more of this,” Johnson said in an interview Friday on Fox News.
Continue reading at Politico
Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army
Already a major spender within NATO, Warsaw has massive military plans as fears grow about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally against Russia.
WARSAW — Poland will look at gaining access to nuclear weapons and also ensure that every man undergoes military training as part of an effort to build a 500,000-strong army to face off the threat from Russia, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the parliament on Friday.
Poland's dramatic military expansion comes as fears grow across Europe that U.S. President Donald Trump is aligning with the Kremlin and turning his back on America's traditional western alliances — a geopolitical shift that Warsaw regards as a potentially existential threat.
Tusk said that Poland "is talking seriously" with France about being protected by the French nuclear umbrella. President Emmanuel Macron has opened the possibility of other countries discussing how France’s nuclear deterrent can protect Europe.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
House Dems invoke Medicaid cuts in warnings over government shutdown fight
Despite Democratic opposition, Speaker Mike Johnson plans to call a vote next week on a lengthy stopgap funding patch.
The top three House Democrats stopped short on Friday of urging united opposition in their party to the funding plan Republicans are working to finalize — with just one week left until federal cash stops flowing.
In a letter to members, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar trashed Speaker Mike Johnson’s intent to pass a bill next week to keep federal agencies running on autopilot budgets through September. The missive does not call for all Democrats to vote “no” on that bill, after Jeffries said Thursday that “Republicans are going it alone.” But the letter does defend safety-net programs like Medicaid that Republicans are targeting in their separate, yet-to-be-drafted, party-line page of tax cuts, defense spending, border security investments and energy policy.
“Medicaid is our redline,” the letter said. The Democratic leaders did not elaborate, however, on whether they would demand future Medicaid protections as an ultimatum in the fight over government funding.
Continue reading at Politico
Hakeem Jeffries rejects Mike Johnson's shutdown plan
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his leadership deputies said Friday they will not lend their support to the stopgap spending bill being proposed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Why it matters: Democrats are holding out for language that will restrict President Trump and DOGE from being able to slash government programs already authorized and funded by Congress.
House Democrats from across the party's ideological spectrum have argued the onus of averting a government shutdown falls squarely on Republicans, who control Congress and the White House.
Johnson will likely need Democratic votes to pass any government funding measure. Even if he manages to pass a GOP-only bill, Democrats can block it in the Senate.
What they're saying: With a week until the March 14 government shutdown deadline, Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) wrote that the continuing resolution Republicans are expected to put forth is "not acceptable."
Continue reading at Axios
Nearly 100 immigration court staff retiring, resigning amid swelling backlog
Nearly 100 U.S. immigration court professionals are resigning or retiring, on top of the around 30 immigration judges and senior staff recently fired by the Trump administration, a union for immigration judges said Friday.
Why it matters: The staff reduction will likely add to the historic backlog of cases and slow President Trump's mass deportation plan, even as he asks Congress for more resources.
The nation's immigration court system is how immigrants can make their case to stay in the U.S.
The big picture: The Department of Justice said in a memo last month it is moving to consider all immigration judges at-will employees without any federal employee protections.
Continue reading at Axios
Americans are behind on car payments at a record level
Americans are missing their car payments at the highest rate in decades, according to Finch Ratings data.
Why it matters: Car costs, including loans and insurance, have soared in an economy where consumers are showing mounting signs of stress.
By the numbers: 6.6% of of subprime auto borrowers were at least 60 days past due on their loans as of January 2025.
This is the highest level since the agency began collecting data. The fall and winter of 2024 saw the next highest subprime delinquency rates.
Prime borrower scores are faring better than subprime, with 0.39% 60-day delinquencies in January 2025, up from 0.35% in January 2024.
Threat level: "Subprime auto loans face a deteriorating outlook for 2025," a Fitch report said.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump threatens new sanctions and tariffs on Russia to force peace talks
President Trump on Friday threatened new sanctions and tariffs on Russia as he ramped up pressure on the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire and peace settlement with Ukraine.
Why it matters: This is the first time since taking office that Trump has issued a public threat against Russia, after taking a softer line toward Vladimir Putin while hammering Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A senior White House official said "Trump's rage has been intensifying" in recent days due to Russia's behavior and its escalation of strikes on Ukraine at the same time that he's been pushing for a ceasefire.
Driving the news: Earlier this week, Trump made the decision to suspend weapons supplies and intelligence sharing with Ukraine to force negotiations.
Continue reading at Axios
Labor market holds steady, but there are warnings for Trump
The labor market is showing signs of underlying softness, just as the Trump administration implements policies that could further scare employers.
Why it matters: The white-hot hiring environment of a couple of years ago is long gone.
While unemployment remains low and companies keep adding to payrolls, there are emerging signs of weakness, even before the impacts of historic trade disruption and potential wide-scale spending cuts.
By the numbers: The economy added 151,000 jobs in February, similar to the average monthly gain of 168,000 over the past 12 months. That offered a bit of relief to markets after whispers on Wall Street that a big deceleration could be afoot.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1%, still a historically low level of joblessness. But the details of why were bad.
Between the lines: About 380,000 workers left the labor force last month, while almost 590,000 fewer workers reported being employed. The employment-to-population ratio among prime-age workers, those between 25 and 54 years old, fell 0.2 percentage point to 80.5%.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump says he sent a letter to Iran's leader proposing nuclear deal
President Trump said he sent a letter on Wednesday to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and stressed that he wants to reach a deal on the country's nuclear program.
Why it matters: Trump's letter to Khamenei, which the president revealed in an interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that will air in full on Sunday, is the first significant engagement between the U.S. and Iran since the new administration took office.
Iran's mission to the UN said no letter from Trump had been received.
What he's saying: Trump reiterated in the interview that he wants to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran.
"The other alternative is you have to do something because Iran can't have a nuclear weapon," Trump said in the interview.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that the coming days "will be interesting" when it comes to Iran.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump strikes dark tone as he seeks to restart nuclear talks with Iran
“We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” the president warned.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he is seeking a new agreement with Iran to curb the country’s nuclear program, warning ominously of a conflict if a deal can’t be reached.
The president earlier told Fox News that he sent a letter to Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, calling for an agreement to replace the one that the Trump administration canceled in May 2018 in favor of what they called a “maximum pressure” campaign.
He suggested, without specifics, that the issue could quickly lead to conflict with Iran, which has accelerated its production of weapons-grade uranium since 2018.
“We’re at final moments.” Trump said. “We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
Continue reading at Politico
Rubio, Musk clash at Trump Cabinet meeting: NYT
Rubio, privately, has been “furious” with Musk for some time, particularly after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set its sights on shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency that administers billions of dollars of security, humanitarian and development assistance in over 100 countries, The Times reported.
During Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did not attend, Rubio pushed back.
The secretary of state contended that Musk was not telling the truth. He asked if over 1,500 State Department workers who went into early retirement should be brought back only to be fired in order to count as layoffs, the newspaper reported.
After the increasingly heated back-and-forth, Trump stepped in to defend Rubio. The president praised the nation’s top diplomat for doing a “great job,” and said that he is dealing with a loaded schedule, packed with media appearances and still has to oversee the State Department, the Times reported.
Continue reading at The Hill
Fox Business host on ‘shocking decline’ in consumer spending: ‘The boom times are over’
“A couple of days ago, Bank of America came out with their credit card data, and it was scary! I mean, a shocking decline in restaurants, airlines, lodging,” Payne said during a Friday appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings With Maria.”
“Just look at the most recent poll on people who say they’re going to go traveling in the next few months, and it’s plunged,” he added.
The Commerce Department on Feb. 28 released data showing consumers in January slashed their spending by 0.2 percent from December, the most since February 2021.
“I think the boom times are over. All the free money has been spent,” Payne told anchor Maria Bartiromo.
Continue reading at The Hill
Scientists rally in DC against Trump’s cuts to research
Hundreds of people gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday afternoon to protest President Trump’s recent cuts to government spending on research institutions.
The Trump administration has taken steps to disrupt operations at the country’s top federal research institutions since late January, freezing grants issued by the National Institutes of Health and issuing executive orders on sex and gender and diversity, equity and inclusion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrubbed its health data from its site in order to comply with those orders.
Most recently, the administration issued a policy to cut government funding to the National Institutes of Health by reducing the amount of grant funding that can go toward overhead costs.
NIH is the largest biomedical funder in the world and spent $35 billion on grants for research last year alone. About $9 billion of those funds went toward “indirect costs” like fees associated with facility maintenance and compliance and administrative worker salaries.
Continue reading at The Hill
Ohio tries again with Medicaid work requirements
Ohio asks feds to approve Medicaid waiver
Ohio has requested the Trump administration reinstate a work requirement for Medicaid expansion beneficiaries in the state.
Ohio previously received federal approval for a similar proposal in 2019, only to have that approval revoked by the Biden administration in 2021. Public comments on the state’s latest request will end in April.
Approving states’ Medicaid work requirements was a major priority of the first Trump administration, though House Republicans are currently weighing whether to nationalize work requirements, even in blue states.
Continue reading at The Hill
Transgender inmates sue Trump, Bureau of Prisons over policies restricting gender-affirming care
Three transgender people incarcerated in federal custody sued the Trump administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Friday in a class action lawsuit over new policies restricting their access to gender-affirming care.
The complaint, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges one of President Trump’s executive orders and a BOP directive to end treatments, including hormone therapy and surgery, for trans inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Trump’s Jan. 20 order, which he signed during his first hours back in office, proclaims the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and broadly prohibits federal dollars from being used on what he and his administration have called “gender ideology.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump takes aim at Canadian milk, lumber
Trump threatens reciprocal tariffs on Canada
President Trump threatened reciprocal tariffs on Canada for dairy products and lumber amid a mounting trade war between the two nations.
“They make it impossible for us to sell lumber or dairy products into Canada. But our numbers are a tiny fraction of that. Almost nonexistent,” Trump said.
The president claimed Canada is charging Americans a tariff of more than 200 percent on dairy products and a “tremendously high tariff” on lumber exports.
Trump warned Canada will “be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it.”
“And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair.”
Access to dairy and lumber markets have long been two of the biggest points of contention in the otherwise strong economic relationship between the U.S. and Canada.
Continue reading at The Hill
US companies urge Trump to reject exceptions to steel tariffs
CEOs of leading American steel companies sent a letter to President Trump on Friday, urging him not to provide any exceptions or exclusions to the planned steel tariffs set to go into effect on March 12.
The letter, obtained by NewsNation, has been signed by the CEOs of companies such as US Steel Corporation, Cleveland-Cliffs and Nucor.
The letter said that the steel tariffs enacted by Trump in his first term were welcome but that “subsequent negotiations opened the door to renewed increased import volumes, diluting the program’s effectiveness…”
“The result was a weakened U.S. steel industry exposed again to the global steel oversupply crisis,” the letter adds.
Continue reading at The Hill
Fetterman: ‘Columbia pays for its failure’ with $400M in grants axed
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) criticized leaders at Columbia University for allegedly allowing antisemitic rhetoric to spread throughout campus, which has resulted in the institution being stripped of $400 million in federal grants.
“Columbia let antisemitism run amok to cater to lunatic fringe and paid provocateurs. Leadership allowed those assholes to take over the campus and terrorize Jewish students,” Fetterman wrote in a Friday post on X.
“Now, Columbia pays for its failure and I support that.”
Continue reading at The Hill
5 notable images flagged in Pentagon’s DEI purge
The Pentagon has reportedly marked thousands of photos and online posts for deletion as the Department of Defense works to root out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the military. But some flagged images have raised eyebrows online.
They include the removal of digital files dedicated to accomplishments of women in the military, the esteemed Tuskegee Airmen and the aircraft that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Japan.
The Associated Press obtained a database, confirmed by U.S. officials, of more than 26,000 images that were flagged because they were deemed to have gone against the anti-DEI push. The AP noted in its report that the total could be higher.
Continue reading at The Hill, NPR, and the AP
Note from Rima: Racist morons.
Loeffler: SBA will relocate 6 offices out of ‘sanctuary cities’
The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that it will relocate six of its regional offices out of often-called “sanctuary cities,” arguing that the existing locations are bad for small business communities and not complying with federal immigration law.
The SBA will move the offices from Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City and Seattle to “less costly, more accessible locations” that follow immigration laws and better serve the business communities, the agency’s administrator Kelly Loeffler said on Thursday.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that this agency will cut off access to loans for illegal aliens and relocate our regional offices out of sanctuary cities that reward criminal behavior,” Loeffler said in a statement.
Continue reading at The Hill
CDC launches ‘conflicts of interest’ page about vaccine advisory panel
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a webpage Friday listing the conflicts of interest reported by members of a key vaccine advisory committee.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hailed it as another step toward “radical transparency,” while one former member of the panel called it a “distraction.”
The CDC’s new web tool lists all the declared conflicts of interest for the outside expert members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since 2000. Across the nearly 40 current and former voting members of the ACIP, roughly 200 items are listed, though not all are necessarily conflicts of interest.
ACIP voting member Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatrics and epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, has two items listed under her name but one is explicitly stated to represent “no conflict of interest.” The item instead is a note relaying she had previously served on the data and safety monitoring board for Pfizer meningococcal vaccine trials and served in similar roles for other vaccine trials.
Continue reading at The Hill
Eric Adams charges should be dropped permanently, court-appointed lawyer tells judge
If the Justice Department is committed to abandoning the case, it should not get to reserve the right to revive the charges in the future, lawyer Paul Clement wrote.
NEW YORK — An outside lawyer appointed by the judge overseeing the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams advised the judge on Friday to dismiss the case permanently, rather than approve the Justice Department’s request to abandon it for now while preserving the right to reinstate it in the future.
Paul Clement, a prominent conservative Supreme Court advocate, wrote in a 33-page brief that “the court has a limited, but critical, role” to play in evaluating the Justice Department’s effort to stop prosecuting the Democratic mayor on corruption charges.
Judges have no authority to force the department to continue prosecuting a case, Clement wrote. But judges do have a role in approving how a case is dismissed once the department has decided to abandon it. In the Adams case, the “proper remedy” is a permanent dismissal, Clement told U.S. District Judge Dale Ho.
Continue reading at Politico
Private lunar lander is declared dead after landing sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole
The Athena spacecraft missed its mark by more than 800 feet, Intuitive Machines said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private lunar lander is no longer working after landing sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole and its mission is over, officials said Friday.
The news came less than 24 hours after the botched landing attempt by Texas-based Intuitive Machines.
Launched last week, the lander named Athena missed its mark by more than 800 feet and ended up in a frigid crater, the company said in declaring it dead.
Athena managed to send back pictures confirming its position and activate a few experiments before going silent. NASA and other customers had packed the lander with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments including an ice drill, drone and pair of rovers to roam the unexplored terrain ahead of astronauts’ planned arrival later this decade.
It’s unlikely Athena’s batteries can be recharged given the way the lander’s solar panels are pointed and the extreme cold in the crater.
“The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission,” the company said in a statement.
Continue reading at Politico
‘I don’t trust a word of it’: Federal workers deeply skeptical that Trump will rein in Musk
The president and Republicans have faced political blowback over steep cuts to the workforce.
Federal workers, Democrats and even some Republican lawmakers want to believe that President Donald Trump clipped billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s wings Thursday.
But many of them aren’t counting on it.
After Trump privately told his Cabinet that they are in charge of their departments and Musk does not have the authority to fire government workers — a stunning shift in their alliance should it pan out — rank-and-file federal employees said they were skeptical in light of weeks of confusing and contradictory guidance. None of the more than a dozen federal workers POLITICO spoke to reported being told by their supervisors or labor unions that anything had changed directly due to Trump’s Cabinet meeting and subsequent comments.
“I don’t really expect them to necessarily start implementing what they say they will,” said David Casserly, an employee at the Department of Labor who said he was speaking in a personal capacity. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump wants his Cabinet and Musk to play nice on DOGE cuts
The consternation over Musk’s role reached a crescendo this week during a contentious Cabinet meeting.
This week, the president publicly lauded those efforts while privately trying to strike harmony between Musk and his Cabinet, which has been growing increasingly frustrated by the tech mogul’s incursions into their agencies.
The consternation reached a crescendo during a contentious Cabinet meeting on Thursday where Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins “came” for Musk, said a person with knowledge of the meeting who was granted anonymity to share private details. During the meeting, which was first reported Thursday by POLITICO, Trump made clear that it was his Cabinet secretaries, and not Musk, who are responsible for their departments.
The person said Rubio “jumped his shit” at Musk, while Duffy and Collins raised specific concerns about cuts within their agencies. Details of the confrontation between Rubio, Duffy and Collins and Musk were first reported by the New York Times. Rubio was incensed that Musk had distanced himself from the mass firings during a previous meeting with lawmakers, the person said.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump administration declares TSA screener union contract void
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it will cancel TSA’s collective bargaining agreement and stop collecting union dues, a move it says will “strengthen workforce agility.”
In a statement, DHS said its decision to invalidate a 2024 collective bargaining agreement that covers about 45,000 people — including its baggage screeners — “removes bureaucratic hurdles that will strengthen workforce agility, enhance productivity and resiliency, while also jumpstarting innovation.” The agency claimed that TSA employees are exploiting the current system by abusing sick leave policies, in turn overburdening other screeners who have to pick up extra shifts, among other tasks.
DHS said these employees will adhere to a new system based on “performance, not longevity or union membership.”
Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agency will immediately cease using its payroll system for collecting union dues. In addition, McLaughlin said DHS will “conduct an orderly termination of any functions, processes, or obligations arising out of” the agreement.
Continue reading at Politico
DOJ opens investigation into egg companies for price-fixing
The probe comes as egg prices hit record highs.
The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest egg producers are conspiring to keep prices high as the bird flu outbreak worsens and grocery stores start setting rations for customers, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
The price-fixing investigation is in very early stages and targets large egg producers such as Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms, the people said. The Capitol Forum first reported the DOJ investigation.
The Justice Department declined to comment. Cal-Maine and Rose Acre did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
More than 160 million commercial poultry have died or been culled as a result of this current outbreak of avian influenza, which dates back to 2022. Egg-laying hens have been hit particularly hard, and egg prices have soared as a result: In January, the average price of a dozen large, grade-A eggs was $4.95, a record high according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Continue reading at Politico
Stablecoins will preserve dollar dominance, Bessent says
The Trump administration sees a way for digital asset technology to ensure the U.S. dollar remain the dominant global reserve currency: stablecoins.
Why it matters: Stablecoins have been the killer app of blockchains, with something like $6 trillion or more in transactions each year.
Driving the news: The White House held its first Digital Asset Summit on Friday, with many of the top leaders in the cryptocurrency industry and members of the Trump cabinet.
What they're saying: "As President Trump has directed, we are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world, and we will use stablecoins to do that," Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said during a publicly streamed portion of the meeting.
Bessent said he would work with the Office of the Controller of the Currency and the IRS to rescind any guidance that undermine the digital asset markets.
He also said his agency would work on the "stablecoin regime."
What we're watching: Congress.
Continue reading at Axios
Apple confirms delay for AI-enhanced Siri
Apple said Friday that additional AI-powered enhancements to Siri are taking longer than projected and are now planned to arrive "in the coming year."
Why it matters: Apple was already later to generative AI than other big tech companies when it unveiled its highly personalized Apple Intelligence approach AI last year — and the new delay raises fresh doubts about its competitiveness in the field.
Driving the news: In a statement shared with Axios, the company said: "It's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year."
The company has already made more modest improvements to Siri, including greater product knowledge, a more conversational tone and the ability to summon ChatGPT for more advanced queries.
Yes, but: The ability for Siri to understand sophisticated queries and find answers from users' personal data was among the most compelling elements of its Apple Intelligence strategy.
Continue reading at Axios
Social Security says it will restart clawing back 100% of overpayments to beneficiaries
The Social Security Administration (SSA) said it is reinstating a plan to recover 100% of overpayments to beneficiaries, a policy the agency had abandoned last year after an outcry over cases in which the practice led some Americans to receive shock bills amounting to thousands of dollars.
[…]
Because of public backlash over the 100% recovery policy, the agency last year had capped the withholding rate for someone who had been overpaid at 10% of the person's monthly benefit. On Friday, the SSA said it will start claiming 100% of benefit checks to cover new cases of overpayments, while the withholding rate for people with overpayments before March 27 will remain at 10%, as will the rate for overpayments for Supplemental Security Income, a program for low-income seniors and disabled Americans.
"People who are overpaid after March 27 will automatically be placed in full recovery at a rate of 100% of the Social Security payment," the agency said.
The 100% clawback policy had sparked an outcry after instances in which beneficiaries were hit with surprise bills that demanded repayment within 30 days. In some cases, the bills were for tens of thousands of dollars. If beneficiaries were unable to immediately pay the bill, the agency could dock their entire monthly Social Security payment, leaving some people financially destitute, as reported by "60 Minutes," KFF Health News and other media outlets,
In many cases, the overpayments were the fault of SSA.
Continue reading at CBS News
H5N1 bird flu virus detected at 4 Southern California dairy farms
Public officials said the H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected at four dairy farms in San Bernardino County.
The risk of H5N1 infection remains “relatively low,” and no person-to-person spread of bird flu has been detected in California, the county said in an announcement on its website Thursday.
“While the risk of bird flu to the general public remains low, the detection of this virus in animals across multiple farms serves as a reminder to practice caution when handling animals or animal products,” San Bernardino County Health Officer Sharon Wang said.
The announcement did not identify the dairy farms but shared information on preventative measures and symptoms to look out for.
Preventive measures for residents and pets:
Avoid consuming unpasteurized “raw” milk and undercooked meat.
Wear protective clothing when working with birds, wildlife, livestock or their environments.
Refrain from working with sick animals or those exposed to avian influenza.
Wash hands frequently after handling animals or being in their environment.
Continue reading at KTLA
Trump has a new European leader coming to his doorstep
Mark Carney, Canada’s likely next prime minister, continues to be held in high regard across the Atlantic, where he spent the better part of the last decade.
European leaders may soon be able to take comfort in having one of their own sitting north of the border of the United States.
Mark Carney, a former central banker who spent much of the last decade in Europe, is widely expected to win the leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party on Sunday. If so, he will succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister, who announced in January that he would step down once his party selected a new leader amid his poor polling numbers and internal party disputes.
Carney spent the early part of his career at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for 13 years before serving a five-year term as Canada’s central bank governor. But his profile rose to prominence on the continent after he became the Bank of England’s first non-British governor in 2013.
Jean-Claude Trichet, the former head of the European Central Bank, told POLITICO that having a foreigner helm a major central bank was “in no way an obvious decision,” but that Carney’s “remarkable” reputation in central banking helped the appointment go through.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump adds two Fox News personalities to revamped Kennedy Center board
Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo join a slate of presidential allies on the board of the Washington cultural institution.
President Donald Trump has added two personalities from Fox News to the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, bolstering a slate of newly added allies to the leadership of the cultural institution.
The president announced Friday that he had chosen Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo as his final appointments to the center’s revamped board.
“We look forward to restoring the Center to Greatness, and ushering in America’s Golden Age,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump wants his Cabinet and Musk to play nice on DOGE cuts
The consternation over Musk’s role reached a crescendo this week during a contentious Cabinet meeting.
This week, the president publicly lauded those efforts while privately trying to strike harmony between Musk and his Cabinet, which has been growing increasingly frustrated by the tech mogul’s incursions into their agencies.
The consternation reached a crescendo during a contentious Cabinet meeting on Thursday where Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins “came” for Musk, said a person with knowledge of the meeting who was granted anonymity to share private details. During the meeting, which was first reported Thursday by POLITICO, Trump made clear that it was his Cabinet secretaries, and not Musk, who are responsible for their departments.
The person said Rubio “jumped his shit” at Musk, while Duffy and Collins raised specific concerns about cuts within their agencies. Details of the confrontation between Rubio, Duffy and Collins and Musk were first reported by the New York Times. Rubio was incensed that Musk had distanced himself from the mass firings during a previous meeting with lawmakers, the person said.
Trump liked the show of toughness from his secretaries, the person said.
Continue reading at Politico
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Opinion: Gavin Debases Himself | Blog#42
Gavin Newsom debased himself today, first, by choosing to make Charlie Kirk his first guest on his brand new podcast, then ditching the very principled stance on LGBTQ rights that propelled him to stardom in the political arena, not to mention pulling a Trump by going after the most vulnerable among us at a time when they are literally being persecuted by the new regime. Newsom got his start in politics thanks to San Francisco’s LGBT community.
Keeping Up With The Crazy News Cycle
Free Speech and... a Muzzle | Blog#42
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TO: Elon Musk erm71@who.eop.gov
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Hello Elon,
I just wanted to personally thank you for your invaluable contribution to the absolute annihilation of the United States. What you are doing is unforgivable.
With deep contempt,
U.S. Citizen
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