Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 50 | Blog#42
In the face of destruction, the answer is... cooperation?
News worth repeating
“Look, I mean, people know me, I’m pretty straightforward. I don’t think it’s a secret that Democrats have been on their heels since Trump won the election, right?” Slotkin said. “I don’t think that’s … something hidden.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Sen. Slotkin says Democrats and Republicans ‘need to do better and act like adults’
Centrist House Dems say Mike Johnson is ghosting them
Why it matters: This isn't a new problem, some Democratic moderates say. "There's been no outreach all year," Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) told Axios.
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) said it is "very telling" that GOP leadership is trying to get members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus to back the spending measure rather than Democrats.
"I think that puts some of the moderates — my moderate friends — in a really tough position," she told Axios.
Driving the news: The House is poised to vote Tuesday on what is known as a continuing resolution — a stopgap spending measure to keep the government funded at 2024 levels until September.
The measure lacks language Democrats had pushed for that would stop the Trump administration from unilaterally cutting congressionally appropriated funding, leading Democratic leadership to whip against it.
A senior House Democrat told Axios that leadership is "working hard" to ensure no Democrats vote for the measure, "just like" last month's budget vote.
What they're saying: Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) declined to say how he will vote, but said of funding the government, "I think if [Republicans] have the votes to do so without talking to Democrats, then it's their responsibility."
Continue reading at Axios
From 'hell no' to hmm
On Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) posted on X that the House Republican spending patch was a "Hell no" in his eyes. But on Monday, he would not rule out voting for it if it were the only way to avoid a government shutdown at midnight Friday.
"I hope the House realizes this is not a good product," Kaine said in a brief interview Monday. But if it's the only option on the table come later this week? "Ask me after they vote," he said.
Virginia is home to about 145,000 federal jobs, according to the Congressional Research Service, and Kaine has argued strenuously against prior shutdown threats.
Continue reading at Politico
Democrats Expected to Pass a Bill (Drafted by Elon’s Lawyers) That Threatens Your Retirement Fund
It's not enough to ruin the federal government. Musk doesn't think corporations should have to play by state rules, either.
Due to its highly lenient business laws, the state of Delaware has long been home to a majority of American corporations. However, that leniency is apparently not enough for the world’s richest man, whose lawyers have introduced legislation that would rewrite the state’s laws to boldly empower corporations that are already immensely powerful. Critics say the legislation would allow companies to misbehave on a massive scale and leave shareholders with few avenues of retaliation. Worst of all, it appears that the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature is eager to pass the bill.
The legislation in question was drafted by Richards, Layton & Finger (RLF), a law firm that counts Musk as one of its clients. CNBC writes that the bill, should it pass, would “pave the way” for the reinstatement of Musk’s much-coveted $55 billion Tesla compensation package that the billionaire has been preoccupied with for the past several years.
Musk’s huge payout has been the subject of a judicial battle that has been ongoing for over half a decade. A Delaware judge, Kathaleen McCormick, has repeatedly thwarted Musk’s attempts to receive the payout, claiming that the process that led to the approval of the pay package was deeply flawed and that the compensation represents “an unfathomable sum.” As of December, the billionaire was still being denied his pay package.
Continue reading at Gizmodo
See my opinion piece:
4th Update: Those Who Kneel to The Men Who Sold The World
Note to readers: light posting today due to illness
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Yesterday’s post
Today’s news
Trump’s approval dips amid concerns over economy: Poll
The Emerson College Polling survey released Tuesday, just after the 50-day mark of Trump’s second term in office, found 47 percent of voters approve of Trump’s job performance and 45 percent disapprove. That’s a drop from the 49 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval rating at the beginning of Trump’s second term.
The public’s views of the economy under Trump seem to be a drag on his overall approval rating, with a plurality of 48 percent saying they don’t approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 37 percent approve.
“Despite not yet delivering on the economy in voters’ minds, Trump’s support remains strong,” said Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling, in a release. “However, the true challenge will be how voters perceive their financial future. While little has shifted since the election, the initial ‘honeymoon phase’ seems to be coming to an end.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Larry Summers: Odds of a recession ‘close to 50/50’
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Monday that the odds of a recession are “close to 50/50.”
“I told [Kasie Hunt] @CNN today, I think there is a real possibility of a recession,” Summers said in a thread on the social platform X.
“I would have said a couple of months ago a recession was really unlikely this year. Now, it’s probably not 50/50, but getting close to 50/50. There is one central reason. Economic policies that are completely counterproductive,” he added.
The stock market on Monday started the week with intense losses amid rising American anxieties around the economy, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing with a loss of 890 points, down 2.1 percent.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate Democrats leery of blocking GOP bill fear shutdown politics have changed
Senate Democrats are leery of blocking a House Republican-drafted six-month government funding bill, fearing that a government shutdown may backfire on them politically by giving Elon Musk and the Trump administration more leverage to force federal workers into retirement.
Democratic senators panned the House GOP proposal unveiled over the weekend, arguing it would erode Congress’s power of the purse and give President Trump and Musk a blank check to redirect government funding and eliminate long-standing programs.
But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stopped short of declaring the House bill dead on arrival in the Senate, reflecting Democratic qualms about killing the measure if it manages to pass the lower chamber later this week.
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: See my opinion piece
Speaker Johnson looks to jam Senate Democrats with bill to avert shutdown
Before Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can dare Senate Democrats to reject a Republican-crafted bill to avert an end-of-week shutdown, he has to pull off a feat: keeping his fractious, razor-thin majority united behind the legislation.
The House is set to vote Tuesday on a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government funded through Sept. 30, boost funding for defense and impose cuts for nondefense programs. Republicans have touted the stopgap as “clean” as they look to move it ahead of Friday’s funding deadline.
Democrats, however, have argued that the measure is far from “clean,” hammering away at what they say will be cuts to health care, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and his two deputies announced Saturday they will oppose the bill, and leadership is whipping against the measure.
Should Democrats oppose the stopgap in unison, a real prospect considering their language and the political cover that some of the bill’s provisions could give them, Johnson will have to rely on his slim majority to get the measure across the finish line.
If there is full attendance and complete Democratic opposition, he can afford just one GOP defection — which he already lost when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced he would vote “no.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats offer short-term alternative to House GOP spending patch
The four-week measure would buy more time for a bipartisan deal that Republican leaders aren't currently interested in.
Top Democratic appropriators released a short-term funding bill Monday night meant to serve as an alternative to the House Republican plan to fund the government through September as the two parties face off ahead of a Friday midnight shutdown deadline.
The Democratic bill would keep the government running on current funding levels for four weeks in an effort to buy more time for lawmakers to strike a deal on a bipartisan funding package. But GOP leaders have so far shown no interest in the bipartisan talks and are now seeking to push through a seven-month extension.
“There is a very clear alternative to House Republicans’ plan: immediately passing a short-term patch to prevent a senseless shutdown and finishing work on serious, bipartisan funding bills that invest in working Americans, keep our country safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top two Democratic appropriators, in a statement.
The new bill gives Democrats a tangible Plan B to tout as they oppose the measure Speaker Mike Johnson plans to bring to a House vote Tuesday. While keeping the government open through Sept. 30, it would also give President Donald Trump's administration more leeway to shift funding while cutting non-defense spending by $13 billion and increasing defense programs by $6 billion.
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: Democrats always save Republicans from themselves, apparently, even today, with everything bad that has happened and is still happening.
Poll shows Dems in hole on jobs, economy
The poll’s findings will be presented at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference on Wednesday.
The polling, shared first with POLITICO, is one of the first comprehensive surveys of voters in swing congressional districts since November 2024. House Democratic members and staff are scheduled to hear from one of the researchers, who will present their findings, at their caucus’ Issues Conference on Wednesday in Leesburg, Virginia. The meeting is aimed at guiding members’ messaging as they prepare for the 2026 midterms, and the survey suggests the party has an enormous amount of work to do to repair its image.
“The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” said Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters who worked on the research by Navigator, a project within the Hub Project, a Democratic nonprofit group. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”
Especially alarming for Democrats were findings around voters’ views of Democrats and work. Just 44 percent of those polled said they think Democrats respect work, while even fewer — 39 percent — said the party values work. Only 42 percent said Democrats share their values. A majority, meanwhile — 56 percent — said Democrats are not looking out for working people.
Continue reading at Politico
USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks
States have been notified that they will not receive 2025 funding for schools to buy food from nearby farms.
The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending.
Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association.
State officials were notified Friday of USDA’s decision to end the LFS program for this year. More than 40 states had signed agreements to participate in previous years, according to SNA and several state agencies.
The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which supports food banks and other feeding organizations, has also been cut. USDA notified states that it was unfreezing funds for existing LFPA agreements but did not plan to carry out a second round of funding for fiscal year 2025.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson confirmed that funding, previously announced last October, “is no longer available and those agreements will be terminated following 60-day notification.”
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: This kind of thing is what makes Democratic cooperation so infuriating.
House Republicans huddle with Bessent on tax policy menu
Senators, meanwhile, said they're far from a consensus on their own plans.
The tax writers were for the most part tight-lipped on what they discussed as they exited the all-day session at the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress. But committee members indicated that it was a productive discussion about the framework for a large bill that would enact President Donald Trump’s tax agenda, which would include an extension of trillions of dollars in expiring tax cuts.
“We’re looking at the menu,” said Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), a freshman on the committee, adding, “I don’t think we’ve ordered anything.”
Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said he wouldn’t share anything about the details of the meeting, only that “it went very well."
The meeting showed that House Republicans are forging ahead in crafting legislation under the budget they passed in February — even as Senate Republicans are indicating that they’d like major changes to the House framework.
Continue reading at Politico
John Kennedy is trying to get Trump to get serious about the debt limit
The Louisiana senator has been tapped to consult with the president on a strategy for avoiding a federal default.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has deputized a folksy Louisiana lawmaker known for his blunt political observations and creative analogies to take the lead in convincing President Donald Trump to develop a strategy for raising the debt limit later this year.
That Senate envoy, Sen. John Neely Kennedy, says Trump isn’t ready to focus just yet — and that attention deficit could have reverberations across the global economy.
Kennedy confirmed in an interview that Thune asked him a few weeks ago to lead shuttle diplomacy with Trump about the GOP’s options for preventing the U.S. from defaulting on its $36 trillion-and-counting debt later this year. Since then, Kennedy said, he has asked Trump and Vice President JD Vance “point blank” to start thinking about a plan for lifting the nation’s borrowing cap to head off a default — a breach that top economists predict would irreparably mar America’s reputation as a reliable borrower.
“I’ve done it publicly and privately, and it’s clear to me that the president is not ready to focus that much on the debt limit,” Kennedy said about his discussions with Trump.
“I think the president is clearly aggravated having to deal with it,” Kennedy, a member of the Senate Banking and Budget committees, continued. “And I don’t blame him. His attitude is: ‘Why didn’t y’all fix this before I took office?’”
Continue reading at Politico
Democrats eager for Cooper Senate bid in North Carolina
Democrats are eager to see former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) jump into the Tar Heel State’s Senate race next year, seeing him as the most formidable challenger to Sen. Thom Tillis (R).
Cooper said at the conclusion of his second term as governor that he would look at running for Senate as one of several options ahead of him, and speculation of him getting into the race has only risen since then, with the head of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm reportedly praising him to donors.
A popular two-term governor of the purple state, Cooper would bring name ID to a race in a state where Democrats haven’t held a Senate seat in a decade and that President Trump won by 3 points in 2024.
Continue reading at The Hill
Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist announces bid for Michigan governor
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s No. 2 enters what is likely to be a crowded race to succeed her.
Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist is entering the field for governor, seeking to distinguish himself in an emerging field as a problem solver with close ties to both the popular Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state’s largest city.
Gilcrhist, who would be the state’s first Black governor, launched his candidacy on Tuesday morning, with a formal announcement slated for the evening in Detroit.
Continue reading at Politico
Judge orders urgent release of DOGE records, citing ‘unprecedented’ power and ‘unusual secrecy’
It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil, a decision that undercuts Musk’s repeated insistence about the operation’s transparency.
A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is wielding so much power that its records will likely have to be opened to the public under federal law.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the vast and “unprecedented” authority of DOGE, formally known as the U.S. Digital Service, combined with its “unusual secrecy” warrant the urgent release of its internal documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The authority exercised by USDS across the federal government and the dramatic cuts it has apparently made with no congressional input appear to be unprecedented,” Cooper wrote in a 37-page opinion.
It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil, a decision that undercuts Musk’s repeated insistence about the operation’s transparency — and the White House’s refrain that Musk is simply a run-of-the-mill presidential adviser with limited decision-making authority. Cooper said this representation is undercut by the weight of evidence that has trickled out in court and in the news.
Continue reading at Politico
Welfare vs. warfare: France’s political parties divided over cash for defense
Macron’s calls for more military spending without tax increases have sparked fears over future cuts to social programs.
PARIS — Will France’s defense-spending boost threaten the country’s beloved welfare state?
French President Emmanuel Macron has sought to build up public approval on spending more on the French military to face the threat posed by Russia as the United States disengages from Europe. But, crucially, he hasn’t explained where the money will come from.
Macron merely set a red line: Taxes, he said, should not be raised to fund the spending boost. Those comments have triggered fears among opposition parties and unions that social spending will be sacrificed on the altar of the defense effort, and that warmongering will be used as a pretext to push through unpopular austerity measures.
While the French president has great power over defense policy, the legislature controls the purse strings — and Macron has no majority there.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Disgraced pols and crypto moguls vie for Trump pardons: ‘The level of interest is unheard of’
White-collars defendants are responding in droves as the president opens the door to more clemency.
President Donald Trump’s moves to expand the use of pardons have white-collar defendants jolting to attention — and many are responding with creative maneuvers designed to appeal less to judges or juries than to the ultimate arbiter in the Oval Office.
High-profile convicts including Sam Bankman-Fried and Bob Menendez are among those reportedly seeking relief while framing their case in a way Trump could relate to: by casting themselves as victims of a crooked justice system.
Meanwhile, a Democratic District of Columbia Council member facing federal bribery charges has lavished public praise on Trump’s pick to lead the FBI; a Bitcoin entrepreneur fighting extradition from Spain on tax charges has sat down with Tucker Carlson to plead his case; and, in an interview with POLITICO, a Turkish businessman under federal indictment has offered to share details of a meeting with former President Joe Biden’s brother with investigators — but he wants the case against him dropped.
Continue reading at Politico
Vought pushes for stopgap funding bill in GOP meeting
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, has also called at least one Republican holdout.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought met with some House Republicans Monday night, where he offered “full-throated support” for the seven-month funding patch, according to House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, who was in the meeting.
“He was very supportive of the [continuing resolution], went through it, explained what’s in it and talked about why it is critical that we pass this and it would open up the reconciliation down the road. We need to get this off the table,” the Oklahoma Republican said.
Cole described working “hand in glove” with OMB and the White House on the stopgap spending bill, which would avert a shutdown on Saturday and needs to pass the House with near-unanimous Republican support. And Vought's appearance isn't the only way the Trump administration is exerting pressure — Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), one of the holdouts on the bill, said White House chief of staff Susie Wiles called him Monday.
"I haven't had a chance to return the call. I was in a SCIF meeting," Mills said in a brief interview.
Continue reading at Politico
In late-night screed, Trump says he’s buying a Tesla to support Elon Musk
The president said he will purchase a Tesla as the automaker’s stock price takes a tumble.
President Donald Trump is going electric.
In a flurry of late-night posts Monday on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump announced he will purchase “a brand new Tesla” in “a show of confidence and support” for Elon Musk, who is leading his efforts to slash the federal government.
Continue reading at Politico
Here’s Britain’s pitch to Donald Trump on a new tech pact
The U.K. hopes teaming up with the U.S. on advanced tech might help avoid the president’s tariff wrath.
LONDON — Keir Starmer’s government is pinning hopes for closer economic ties with the United States on a trade pact that talks up the West winning the technology race — and avoids awkward chat about regulations.
A document prepared by the U.K. side outlines Britain’s ambitions for an “economic partnership” on technology. It comes as the U.K. is racing to secure carve-outs that shield it from some of the Trump administration's more stringent trade policies, including tariffs.
In the document the U.K. makes its case by pointing out the countries are the only two allies in the world with trillion-dollar tech industries — and argues it is vital that Western democracies beat their rivals.
No. 10 has previously said it is aiming for “moonshot missions” in AI, quantum and space. The document remains vague on these missions, talking about collaboration on R&D, talent and procurement as an initial phase of the partnership.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Moscow hit with ‘massive’ drone strike as Ukraine, US meet for peace talks
Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down 337 drones, with 74 over the capital.
KYIV — Ukraine launched its biggest drone attack on Moscow since the start of the war with Russia on Monday night, according to Russian officials, hours before a delegation from Kyiv was due to meet with United States representatives for peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
The Russian military said it shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions, while the Russian health ministry said two people were killed and 18 injured, and several residential buildings damaged.
“The most massive drone attack on Moscow has been repelled tonight. Some 74 drones were shot down near Moscow, and hundreds at different frontiers,” the city's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement. Russia has launched a criminal investigation into “terrorism.”
Ukraine has not yet taken direct responsibility for the strikes, but officials in Kyiv said the attack was a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Why housing affordability keeps getting worse
Not only have home prices soared over the past decade, but it's the "affordable" homes that have seen the biggest price increases.
Why it matters: Rising prices, exacerbated by a shortage of affordable homes, put homeownership out of reach for many, driving them to a rental market that's also seen remarkable cost increases.
Zoom out: It's a doom loop. A shortage of affordable homes means that buyers compete fiercely for the cheapest ones, pushing up prices.
Prices for the bottom third of homes are up 124% since 2015, while the top third increased 77%, per a new analysis by Moody's Analytics.
The big picture: The most desirable cities are becoming affordable only to the wealthy, while many of those of more modest means are forced into longer commutes, creating more traffic, more environmental strain, and greater social division, Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics chief economist, wrote in the paper.
Continue reading at Axios
Behind the Curtain: Trump plays with fire — by choice
They did it delicately, privately and belatedly. But some Cabinet members and top confidants warned President Trump that two pillars of his flood-the-zone strategy could backfire: tariffs and Elon Musk's budget-gutting.
Why it matters: Both moves hacked off allies — some Hill Republicans and Cabinet officials with cuts, Canada and Mexico with tariffs — and created the impression and reality of uncertainty or outright chaos.
Now, the public is weighing in:
Markets hate uncertainty and chaos. The S&P 500 is down 6.4% since Inauguration Day, and 3% since Election Day — one of the worst-performing major indices in the world. Most market signals are negative — partly because of a tech meltdown that's not entirely Trump-driven. But the uncertainty is the critical element. The uncertainty is the point.
Consumers are already losing confidence and pulling back on spending, weakening a key engine of the economy.
Several polls show a slump in Trump's popularity since he took office and launched his shock-and-awe plan to remake the U.S. government and the world order.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump's nuclear dilemma: "Greatest threat" is getting bigger
President Trump calls nuclear weapons the "greatest existential threat" humanity faces, but he may be ushering in a world of more nuclear powers and fewer nuclear guardrails.
Why it matters: Trump on Sunday reiterated his urgent hope to halt the nuclear spiral in which China, Russia and the U.S. are developing ever-more sophisticated tools to end life on Earth.
He also revealed that he'd written to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei expressing his desire for a new nuclear deal — while warning that without one, he'll have to take "the other option" to ensure Tehran never gets a nuke.
Trump's first weeks back in office have been peppered with nuclear warnings, including his desire to avoid "World War III" over Ukraine.
Continue reading and see the chart at Axios
Air traffic controllers are worried about safety, staffing and more
Some air traffic controllers are worried about safety, staffing and more amid the Trump administration's purge of federal workers, they tell Axios.
Why it matters: Aviation safety has been in the spotlight since January's tragic midair collision over Washington, D.C., with some travelers afraid that flying is suddenly more dangerous despite contrary data.
Driving the news: Axios spoke to six current and retired air traffic controllers and instructors, all of whom requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
Controllers have so far been spared from President Trump's mass firings, though other FAA employees have gotten the axe, raising safety concerns.
What they're saying: "I have friends and family [asking], 'Should I get on an airplane?' one retired controller tells Axios.
"And I'm like, well, it's not there yet. But it seems to be trending that way."
"I don't believe that if these people really cared about safety, that they would be doing the things that they're doing."
Continue reading at Axios
Axios-Ipsos poll: COVID's enduring divides
Share who say they received a COVID-19 vaccine or booster in the last three months
ive years after the COVID pandemic began, its legacy is as much political as epidemiological, according to a comprehensive new Axios-Ipsos poll, with Americans' views of what happened cleaved by partisanship and media preferences.
The big picture: 39% say they know someone who died. Everybody wants to leave the era behind. Yet two-thirds of Americans don't believe the nation is adequately prepared to deal with another pandemic or widespread health crisis, according to the Axios-Ipsos American Health Index.
Trust in public health institutions and leaders divided, declined and never fully recovered.
Today, just 31% of Americans (67% of Republicans, 7% of Democrats, 22% of independents) say they trust President Trump for information about health topics. Trust in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally low.
See the chart and continue reading at Axios
The chill over American workplaces
Glassdoor employee confidence index
Monthly share of employees with a positive view of employer’s business outlook; January 2016 to February 2025
The still-low unemployment rate hides the bleak new reality for employees: rising fears of layoffs, uncertainty about the health of employers' business, and plummeting hope of finding other work.
Why it matters: High inflation crushed optimism in the Biden era. Now concern about the labor market and the economy is helping sink sentiment, a result of President Trump's fast-moving policy, including federal cutbacks.
What's new: Employee confidence — as measured by workers' confidence in their employer's business outlook — sunk to a record low in February, according to new data from workplace review platform Glassdoor.
No sector saw a steeper drop than government and administration.
Confidence among those workers fell nearly 5 percentage points last month, as the Department of Government Efficiency has "thrown the future of the federal workforce into disarray," Glassdoor said in a release.
Continue reading at Axios
‘Very scary’: Scholars in US and abroad stuck amid State Department funding freeze
Fulbright scholar Aubrey Lay was supposed to get paid for three months of work by the U.S. government through his teaching assistantship at a school for Ukrainian refugees in Estonia. Instead, he only got about one week’s pay and no word on when he might see the rest of his grant.
Lay is among scholars around the world who depend on State Department funding to participate in long-established programs like Fulbright and say their payments were abruptly cut off after being notified that officials were reviewing their activities. The move appears to be in line with the White House’s initiative to sharply slash government spending, a shakeup that has affected scores of federal agencies.
Continue reading at The Hill
Major U.S. airlines warn consumers aren't spending
Three of the largest U.S. airlines have cut their revenue or earnings forecasts since Monday's market close, with all citing weakening consumer demand.
Why it matters: Indications are piling up, almost by the hour, that consumers — the engine of the U.S. economy — are losing their nerve amid tariff uncertainty and rising recession fears.
Catch up quick: Delta, Southwest and American all warned Monday night and Tuesday morning that their first-quarter results will disappoint.
"(We) saw companies start to pull back in terms of corporate spending — started to stall. Consumer spending started to stall. Largely domestic, largely in the close-in. But it was also exacerbated, as you know, the uncertainty that's out there and consumers in a discretionary business do not like uncertainty," Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC.
Southwest, in a regulatory filing, cited lower government travel and "softness in bookings and demand trends as the macro environment has weakened."
American, in a filing, cited the impact of the January crash of American Flight 5342 in Washington, as well as "softness in the domestic leisure segment, primarily in March."
The intrigue: Stocks across the travel and leisure sector dropped sharply Tuesday morning, including hotels and cruise lines, as well as other airlines.
Continue reading at Axios
Bipartisan group aims to increase transparency in federal spending
The bill comes as Republicans have embarked in a largely partisan effort to cut the size of the federal government.
A bipartisan, bicameral group is rolling out legislation Tuesday to try to increase transparency over a slice of federal spending.
The bill, from Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), as well as Reps. Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), requires that so-called “other transaction agreements,” which are aimed at providing flexibility and fall outside of several typical federal contracting rules and regulations, be published on USAspending.gov, a website that tracks all government spending projects.
In addition to transmitting data to the website, the bill, which was shared exclusively with POLITICO ahead of its rollout, requires a report to be published with the amount of federal spending on federal awards that has not been posted already to the website, including an explanation for why it was not included
Continue reading at Politico
Capitol agenda: Johnson’s spending holdouts
House GOP leaders went into the week with plans to pass their stopgap funding bill today without Democratic support. That might not be possible.
With one surefire “no” in Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican leaders still need to wrangle a handful of potential holdouts — including Reps. Tony Gonzales, Tim Burchett, Cory Mills, Rich McCormick, Beth Van Duyne, Kat Cammack, Andy Ogles and Brian Fitzpatrick.
This group seems more open than Massie to backing the funding patch that would avert a shutdown that could kick in Saturday. Gonzales has repeated he will make a “game-time decision.” Mills said he needs “further explanations on some areas.” Others, like Ogles, might change their tune since leadership adjusted a provision in the bill that increased the number of available visas for Afghan allies.
The White House pressure campaign is in full swing. Trump is pushing for a primary challenger to Massie, saying he will “lead the charge against him.” Mills said Trump called him with OMB Director Russ Vought a few days ago to explain “some of the pros and cons” of the bill. Mills also got a call from Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles on Monday. And Vice President JD Vance will join Republicans' weekly conference meeting this morning.
Continue reading at Politico
Republicans join bill to protect workers after DOGE firings
Republicans are joining a Democratic bill aimed at DOGE in the GOP's latest break with Elon Musk.
A new bill to address the mass firings of probationary federal workers by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is picking up bipartisan support.
First-term Republican Reps. Michael Baumgartner of Washington and Jeff Hurd of Colorado have signed onto legislation that would ensure that recently terminated probationary workers could reclaim the seniority they amassed in their previous positions if later rehired by the government.
Their support for the Protect Our Probationary Employees Act — to be formally introduced Tuesday by fellow first term Rep. Sarah Elfreth, Maryland Democrat — marks the latest response from Republicans who are increasingly feeling political pressure to offer some response to DOGE's actions.
The DOGE backlash has gotten so difficult for many members back home that the chair of the House GOP campaign operation instructed lawmakers last week not to hold in-person town halls to avoid scrutiny from constituents.
Continue reading at Politico
Meet the Jewish judge who ruled Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil should not be deported by ICE
The Columbia graduate was targeted by the Trump administration as part of its fight against antisemitism on campus
When Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York issued an order on Monday that blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and leader of pro-Palestinian protests, it was not the Jewish judge’s first involvement in a case related to President Donald Trump.
Furman presided over the 2022 trial of Michael Avenatti for defrauding his ex-client Stormy Daniels, who was paid hush money to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, and he also presided over a 2018 lawsuit about the Trump administration’s census citizenship question. In both of those cases, Furman’s Jewish observance of Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah influenced the trial schedule.
Khalil was a target for pro-Israel activists who have been calling on the Trump administration to deport students involved in protesting the war in Gaza. Khalil received a master’s degree in December from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, is married to a U.S. citizen and holds a green card. He has been involved in protests at Barnard College this year, and at protests on Columbia’s campus since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him on Saturday and took him to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
Continue reading at the Jewish Daily Forward
Katie Porter gets in
DRIVING THE DAY — Former Rep. Katie Porter is officially entering the 2026 governor’s race, shaking up a field that is still bracing for the possible entrance of former VP Kamala Harris. Our Melanie Mason has more.
Continue reading at Politico California Playbook newsletter
Katie Porter enters race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Porter, who is running her second statewide race in as many years, enters the field with a number of advantages.
Katie Porter, the ex-Orange County representative who rode an anti-Trump wave to her first elected office, is betting a fresh “resistance” fervor can propel her to a new and bigger job: California’s next governor.
Promising “a little bit of hope and a whole lot of grit,” Porter launched her gubernatorial bid — her second statewide campaign in as many years — on Tuesday. Her kick-off video touches on the anti-corruption, consumer protection themes that transformed Porter into a whiteboard-wielding political celebrity. But the animating cause underpinning her run is, unmistakably, President Donald Trump.
Continue reading at Politico
Southwest is getting rid of its most recognizable perk
New York (CNN) — Months after ditching its open seating policy, Southwest Airlines is ending its most recognizable perks: Free checked baggage.
The airline will begin charging for the first and second checked bag beginning on May 28, Southwest announced Tuesday. However, members of its A-List loyalty program or those traveling on a business fare will be exempt from the fees.
Continue reading at CNN
Johnson confident ahead of government funding vote
The speaker said he was expecting maybe "one defection" on the bill as Vice President JD Vance is also helping to rally the troops.
Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview Tuesday morning he expects House Republicans “are going to pass” a bill to fund the government later in the day, ahead of the looming March 14 deadline to avoid a shutdown.
His comments came as Vice President JD Vance is attending the House GOP Conference's weekly meeting to rally members ahead of the big vote, which would keep federal operations afloat through the end of the fiscal year.
Johnson predicted there would be “maybe just one” GOP defection on this bill, appearing to reference Rep. Thomas Massie. President Donald Trump has called for a primary challenge against Massie over the Kentucky Republican's opposition to the funding plan, which Trump is pressuring House Republicans to support.
Johnson needs virtually all Republicans to vote yes on the bill, given his razor-thin majority and House Democrats lining up against the plan. Republican Reps. Kat Cammack of Florida and Tim Burchett of Tennessee both said they were still undecided as they walked into the meeting.
Continue reading at Politico
Microplastics may be stoking antibiotic resistance: Study
The microscopic shards of plastic found in every corner of the planet may be exacerbating antibiotic resistance, a new study has found.
Bacteria exposed to these ubiquitous fragments, known as “microplastics,” became resistant to multiple types of antibiotics commonly used to treat infections, researchers showed in the study, published on Tuesday in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
The authors expressed alarm about their discovery, particularly for people living in high-density, low-income places like refugee settlements, where plastic piles up and bacterial infections spread with ease.
“The fact that there are microplastics all around us, and even more so in impoverished places where sanitation may be limited, is a striking part of this observation,” senior author Muhammad Zaman, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, said in a statement.
Continue reading at The Hill
POLITICO Pulse
Trump admin takes aim at Obamacare
OBAMACARE IN THE CROSSHAIRS — The Trump administration released its first major health regulation Monday, proposing policies that would limit Obamacare enrollment, Chelsea and POLITICO’s Robert King report.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposed rule, which sets 2026 coverage year policies for the Affordable Care Act, would shorten the annual enrollment period for Obamacare from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15. The previous period stretched to Jan. 15.
The rule would also scrap a Biden-era regulation cleared last year that allowed recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which lets young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children remain in the country — to enroll in Obamacare. The agency proposes stripping this eligibility as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end the “taxpayer subsidization of open borders.”
Why it matters: The proposed rule illustrates how the Trump administration wants to tighten access to Obamacare’s insurance exchanges after enrollment surged and reached record levels during former President Joe Biden’s administration. It also builds on the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding from nearly $100 million to $10 million for nonprofit “navigators” that help people find insurance plans.
Also in the rule: The administration proposes other changes to Obamacare it says will crack down on improper enrollments, including ending a special monthly enrollment period for people in households earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. The administration’s goal is to end a policy that “allows people to wait to enroll until they become sick instead of promoting continuous enrollment.”
It would also remove “sex trait modifications,” or gender-affirming care, from a list of essential health benefits that Obamacare plans must cover.
Continue reading the Politico Pulse newsletter
FEMA cancels classes at national fire training academy amid federal funding cuts
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy courses were canceled amid a “process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities,” according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice.
Firefighters, EMS providers and other first responders from across the country travel to the NFA’s Maryland campus for the federally funded institution’s free training programs.
“The NFA is a powerhouse for the fire service,” said Marc Bashoor, a former Maryland fire chief and West Virginia emergency services director with 44 years of fire safety experience. “It’s not a ‘nice to have.’ It is the one avenue we have to bring people from all over the country to learn from and with each other. If we want to continue to have one of the premier fire services in the world, we need to have the National Fire Academy.”
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Wall Street Journal warns there could be a coming ‘Trump recession’
“Stock prices have been richly valued for some time, and this may be merely a market correction. But there are also signs of a slowing economy that should have the Trump Administration on alert,” the Journal wrote in an editorial published on Monday evening.
President Trump, the newspaper wrote “didn’t help the mood” with comments on cable news over the weekend in which he did not rule out the possibility of a slowing economy, saying “there is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”
“Mr. Trump was right to note that a President shouldn’t be preoccupied with short-term investor reactions to economic policies that will boost long-term growth. But there are flashing signs that the U.S. economy is slowing,” the Journal wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
US to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, Trump announces
Trump’s decision is the latest escalation of a trade war with Washington’s northern neighbor.
“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “This will go into effect TOMORROW MORNING, March 12th.”
Trump’s decision is the latest escalation of a trade war with Washington’s northern neighbor, after the president imposed 25 percent tariffs on the country last week, and is sure to fuel greater turbulence for markets already reeling from broader fears of a recession. Trump plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from all countries on Wednesday.
Continue reading at Politico
Vance tells House GOP they’ll take the blame if it comes to a shutdown
“We already lost one vote, we can’t lose another,” the vice president said, referring to holdout GOP Rep. Thomas Massie.
Vice President JD Vance told House Republicans hours ahead of an expected vote on a seven-month funding patch on Tuesday that Republicans will take the blame for a government shutdown if they don't pass the legislation, according to three people who were in the room for the comments.
Vance emphasized that Republicans had little room for dissent given the tight margin in the House. Government funding is set to expire at midnight Friday, and a handful of GOP members have yet to commit to the stopgap put forward by Speaker Mike Johnson and endorsed by President Donald Trump.
“We already lost one vote, we can’t lose another,” Vance said, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to describe a private meeting. That one vote belongs to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has said he is firmly against the plan.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump on Canadian electricity surcharge: ‘We’ll just get it all back on April 2’
“Despite the fact that Canada is charging the USA from 250 percent to 390 percent Tariffs on many of our farm products, Ontario just announced a 25 percent surcharge on ‘electricity,’ of all things, and [you’re] not even allowed to do that,’ Trump wrote late Monday in a post on Truth Social.
“Because our Tariffs are reciprocal, we’ll just get it all back on April 2. Canada is a Tariff abuser, and always has been, but the United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” he added. “We don’t need your Cars, we don’t need your Lumber, we don’t your Energy, and very soon, you will find that out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Continue reading at The Hill
Small business optimism falls at fastest pace in 5 years: NFIB
Small business optimism is faltering as stock markets are dropping and a range of macroeconomic and policy uncertainties are weighing on the business outlook.
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) optimism index, which measures sentiment among small business owners, fell by 2.1 points in February. The group’s uncertainty index also registered its second-highest reading ever.
The 12 percent of business owners reporting that it’s a good time to invest and expand was down 5 percentage points from January — the largest monthly decrease in five years.
Continue reading at The Hill
Schumer assails Musk for claiming Social Security rife with fraud
“Elon Musk confirmed what many of us had been warning about for a long time: Republicans are getting ready to gut Social Security and Medicare,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
“The richest man on earth repeated again a bevy of lies that entitlement programs, [which] tens of millions of people rely on, are riddled with fraud and abuse. That’s a pretext to slashing them. But it’s false,” Schumer said.
Continue reading at The Hill
White House says Trump won’t cut Social Security, Medicare after Musk remarks
“So, the waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is all of the — which is most of the federal spending is entitlements. So, that’s, like, the big one to eliminate,” Musk told former Trump official Larry Kudlow, suggesting it could amount to more than $500 billion in annual savings.
Multiple media outlets reported on Musk’s comments and indicated the Tesla CEO was talking about cutting entitlement programs to reduce government spending. Such a move would trigger significant political backlash and create fodder for Democrats to go on the attack.
But the White House pushed back on those reports, arguing Musk was talking only about cutting fraud.
Continue reading at The Hill
NASA eliminates chief scientist role, other offices
NASA has cut its office of the chief scientist and its Office of Science, Policy, and Strategy, among other entities, the agency said in an internal email that Axios has viewed.
Why it matters: Eliminating these offices comes ahead of potentially deep cuts to the agency's science programs.
Katherine Calvin, a climate scientist, had the role of chief scientist. Questions have arisen about the fate of NASA science programs, particularly its Earth science work studying human-caused climate change.
Calvin has also held the dual title of NASA's senior climate adviser.
Zoom in: In the email, Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro said the cuts were part of a "phased" reduction in force, or RIF.
The reduction came in response to instructions from President Trump's executive orders and in conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget.
Continue reading at Axios
Musk blames Ukrainians for cyberattack on X. Experts aren’t convinced.
Evidence of Ukrainian involvement in X disruptions is very thin, cyber experts say.
Cybersecurity experts including the United Kingdom's former cybersecurity chief are pouring cold water over Elon Musk’s suggestion that a large-scale cyberattack on his social media site X came from Ukraine.
Musk on Monday said X had been deluged by a “massive cyberattack" involving "either a large, coordinated group and/or a country." The tech mogul and close ally of United States President Donald Trump later told the Fox Business channel that "there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area."
But cybersecurity experts were quick to push back.
“What Mr. Musk has said is wholly unconvincing based on the evidence so far. It's pretty much garbage," Ciaran Martin, a former chief executive of the United Kingdom's cybersecurity agency, who now teaches at Oxford University, told the BBC on Tuesday morning.
The cyberattack on X impacted users since at least Monday morning and destabilized many features on the website, such as viewing posts and user profiles. Musk's statements and cybersecurity experts' observations suggest it was a so-called distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS), which involves pointing an overwhelming amount of traffic at a website to bring it down.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
DOJ official says she was dismissed after not recommending Mel Gibson’s gun rights be restored
Liz Oyer, the pardon attorney at the DOJ, said through a spokesperson that she was not told why she was fired, but her termination came after she was pressured to add the actor to a list of those recommended for restoration of gun rights.
“Unfortunately, experienced professionals throughout the Department are afraid to voice their opinions because dissent is being punished,” Oyer said in a statement.
“Decisions are being made based on relationships and loyalty, not based on facts or expertise or sound analysis, which is very alarming given that what is at stake is our public safety.”
Continue reading at The Hill
US resumes military aid to Ukraine after Saudi cease-fire talks
Ukraine agrees to immediate 30-day cease-fire if Russia does so too.
The United States will immediately lift the pause in intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine, according to a joint statement issued after a meeting of the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
In return, Ukraine agreed to accept a U.S. proposal for the immediate introduction of a temporary 30-day cease-fire that can be extended by mutual agreement, subject to acceptance and simultaneous implementation by Russia.
Speaking during an event at the White House to promote Tesla vehicles, U.S. President Donald Trump said of the cease-fire proposal: "Ukraine has agreed to it, and hopefully Russia will agree to it."
"I'll talk to Vladimir Putin," he added. "It takes two to tango."
Continue reading at Politico
How hard will Trump’s immigration raids hit red states?
Agriculture in Kristi Noem’s home state has thrived, helped by lax enforcement.
Noem, who was governor from 2019 to 2025, helped boost the state’s thriving dairy farms that generate $7.2 billion a year — with a dairy cow population up 70 percent since she took office. But much of that growth wouldn’t have been possible without state and federal officials looking the other way at the legal status of the farm hands who pull the long shifts needed to keep the milk flowing.
Noem is now playing a major role in orchestrating President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans as Homeland Security secretary — putting her and her state squarely at the center of the long-simmering question that has now reached a boil. To deport all 12 million people, the Trump administration will have to conduct raids throughout the entire country, upending communities and disrupting economies in red states, where more than 40 percent of undocumented immigrants reside.
The politics will only get harder. It’s one thing for Noem to don an ICE cap and bulletproof vest while raiding an apartment building in New York City or Arlington, Virginia — blue cities that are easily demonized by Trump’s base. It’s quite another to disrupt rural farm economies in the heartland, which overwhelmingly supported Trump and house key industries heavily dependent on foreign-born workers.
Continue reading at Politico
Republicans have hated universities for years. Anti-war protests gave them a reason to punish them.
The White House is casting elite universities as hotbeds of hate as the diploma divide reaches an all-time high.
In 2021, JD Vance proclaimed “the universities are the enemy.” This week, the White House declared war against them.
President Donald Trump and his administration are escalating their attacks on higher education, intensifying a yearslong effort to hobble the campuses they say breed progressive ideology by casting them not as spaces of innovation, but as hotbeds of hate.
Republicans have long blamed college campuses for being ground-zero for a number of “woke” culture war issues to which they’re now taking an axe, including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and academic frameworks like critical race theory. The protests that roiled college campuses last spring in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war gave Republicans fuel to go after the schools over concerns about antisemitism, and since taking office, Trump has swiftly taken actions designed to punish higher education.
Continue reading at Politico
New version of CBP app enables migrants to ‘self-deport’
The app was used to set up asylum appointments under President Joe Biden.
A phone app intended to facilitate communication between migrants and the U.S. government has been repurposed for the Trump era.
The latest version of the Customs and Border Protection app has a new name — and a new feature that allows people to announce their “intent to depart” from the U.S.
CBP One, as it was previously known, was used under President Joe Biden to enable migrants seeking asylum to set up appointments for screening.
President Donald Trump’s administration, which has kept limits on asylum imposed near the end of his predecessor’s term, initially shut down the app before relaunching it this week as CBP Home. Users can check border crossing times and request an inspection of cargo entering the country in addition to signaling their intention to leave the U.S. or “self-deport” amid increased efforts to remove people without legal status.
“The CBP Home app strengthens our mission to secure the border and provides illegal aliens with a straightforward way to leave now before facing much harsher consequences later,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.
Continue reading at Politico
USAID official tells remaining staffers: Shred and burn all your documents
The mass document destruction order marks the latest step to dismantle the agency.
A senior official at USAID instructed the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.
The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency’s “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, said an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr, and obtained by POLITICO.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email said. Carr instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO/” (agency shorthand for “bureau or independent office”) in dark Sharpie.
The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, having rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the building last month.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump taps Eric Ueland for key role at OMB
A longtime Senate aide will return to Capitol Hill seeking confirmation to a senior role in the White House budget office.
President Donald Trump has tapped Eric Ueland, a veteran Senate and White House aide, to a key post at the Office of Management and Budget.
Ueland has been nominated to serve as deputy director for management at the White House budget office, a high ranking role that would have him serving directly under OMB Director Russ Vought.
He is already a familiar face to many lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill in his former capacity as legislative affairs director during the first Trump administration. Ueland also was a key fixture in the Senate during negotiations on the massive, $2 trillion pandemic relief package enacted in March 2020.
Earlier in his career, he held a number of roles on Capitol Hill over more than two decades, building a reputation as a strategist and master of the Senate’s rules. He was the GOP staff director of the Senate Budget Committee under then-Chair Michael Enzi, and chief of staff to former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Continue reading at Politico
Education Department will close Washington offices Tuesday night for ‘security reasons’
“Employees will not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th”, for any reason,” the message said.
The Education Department will close its Washington-area offices beginning Tuesday evening for unspecified “security reasons,” according to a notice sent to agency employees.
Department employees must vacate the building by 6 p.m., according to the Tuesday notice, and have been allowed to work from home on Wednesday if they have approved telework agreements.
“Employees will not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th”, for any reason,” the message said.
All offices were set to reopen to in-person work on March 13th, according to the notice.
Continue reading at Politico
Vance to visit India for second foreign trip as VP
His first trip to Munich shook allies.
Vice President JD Vance will travel to India later this month alongside Second Lady Usha Vance, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
It marks Vance’s second foreign trip as vice president after making his world stage debut in France and Germany last month.
Usha Vance’s parents emigrated from India to the U.S. It will be her first time visiting her ancestral country as second lady.
Continue reading at Politico
House Judiciary Dems join chorus of outrage over Trump's efforts to deport student
House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin warned of the president's "brazen attack on our fundamental freedoms.”
House Judiciary Democrats are looking into whether the Trump administration is acting illegally in efforts to revoke the green card of a Columbia University graduate student who has become a face of campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
Their attention to the matter, detailed by a senior Democratic aide granted anonymity to speak freely, comes as members of the minority party are increasingly mounting concern — and outrage — over the administration's efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, who participated in a demonstration in support of Palestinians being targeted by Israel.
Continue reading at Politico
House approves stopgap funding bill days before government shutdown
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats still won't say whether they'll vote for the measure.
The 217-213 vote went almost entirely along party lines. One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted “yes,” while Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, voted “no.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to cross the aisle to clear it for President Donald Trump’s signature.
Continue reading at Politico
Schumer punts on how Senate Dems will handle GOP spending bill
"We're going to wait to see what the House does first,” the Senate minority leader said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declined multiple times Tuesday to say how his caucus will handle a House GOP funding bill — keeping Democrats’ shutdown strategy close to the vest.
"We're going to wait to see what the House does first,” Schumer said, referring to how Democrats would vote on the stopgap spending bill that would avert a government shutdown Saturday.
It’s Schumer’s first public comments on the GOP funding bill since text was released Saturday, made shortly before the House is scheduled to vote on the legislation this afternoon. The GOP bill includes an increase in defense funding while cutting non-defense funding by roughly $13 billion.
Senate Democrats had a “vigorous discussion” during their closed-door Tuesday lunch about how they should handle the government funding fight. But as they left the meeting, they were largely tight-lipped about their strategy or if they were united. Several echoed Schumer when pressed if they would vote for the House bill, saying they were waiting to see what happens across the Capitol. Speaker Mike Johnson plans to send House lawmakers home after the vote on the bill, an attempt to force the Senate’s hand.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump threatens, then reverses, new Canadian tariffs
President Trump on Tuesday imposed new retaliatory tariffs on Canada and insisted the only solution was for the country to join the U.S. — but then reversed his decision after Ontario agreed not to levy electricity exports.
Why it matters: The pullback was the latest example of the on-again, off-again volatility that has disrupted financial markets.
However, the initial threat was an escalation — both of the trade war with one of the top U.S. trading partners, and of Trump's increasingly serious rhetoric about trying to make Canada part of the U.S.
The big picture: Close allies less than two months ago, relations between the U.S. and Canada have now frayed to the point that diplomacy is being conducted by furious TV appearances and social media name-calling.
Continue reading at Axios
Scoop: Trump FTC tells CEOs when agency will get "out of the way" on M&A
President Trump's new FTC chair Andrew Ferguson told a group of big business CEOs on Tuesday that he wouldn't let proposed deals "die on the vine," but warned them not expect automatic approval for big mergers.
Why it matters: Ferguson is explaining the Trump administration's approach to M&A, giving fresh guidance to the group it will need to help bolster the economy and usher in a new age of prosperity.
"If we think conduct or merger is going to hurt Americans economically, I'm taking you to court," Ferguson told a gathering of Yale's CEO Caucus in Washington on Tuesday morning, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by Axios.
"But if we don't, we'll get the hell out of the way," he said in the closed-door meeting, which included JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs' David Solomon and Dell's Michael Dell.
"But I want to be really clear about something. This isn't the Bush administration."
A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.
Continue reading at Axios
House GOP blocks Democrats from forcing vote on repealing Trump tariffs
It essentially means that any legislation to undo the national emergency declaration Trump used to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China would have to go through a process subject to approval by House GOP leadership, rather than under a fast-track process that Democrats were hoping to utilize.
Democrats are fuming at the legislation, with Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) — members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade — issuing a joint statement slamming it.
“Every House Republican who votes for this measure is voting to give Trump expanded powers to raise taxes on American households through tariffs with full knowledge of how he is using those powers, and every Republican will own the economic consequences of that vote,” Beyer and DelBene said in the statement. “It speaks volumes that Republicans are sneaking this provision into a procedural measure hidden from the American people.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Perkins Coie sues over Trump’s order stripping security clearances
Law firm Perkins Coie has launched a suit to challenge President Trump’s stripping of security clearances for lawyers at the firm, saying it was targeted due to its past work for Democrats.
Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, was the subject of an executive order signed by Trump last week, citing the “dishonest and dangerous activity” of the firm.
Beyond stripping the firm’s clearances, the far-reaching order also essentially blocked its attorneys from federal buildings.
Continue reading at The Hill
Thune says Trump’s tariffs should be ‘temporary’ amid market volatility
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he supports President Trump using tariffs to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States but said the tariffs should be temporary, citing the growing uncertainty that is roiling the financial markets.
“The president, I believe, is trying to accomplish a specific objective here and that is to halt the flow of fentanyl into this country, and the tariffs are a tool in order to make that happen. And I am supportive of using tariffs in a way to accomplish a specific objective, in this case, ending drug traffic,” Thune told reporters Tuesday when asked about the reverberations Trump’s tariff threats are having on the markets.
But Thune warned that the tariffs shouldn’t last for long, given their impact on the domestic economy.
“I hope these are temporary. I think the one thing that markets don’t like is uncertainty, and there’s obviously uncertainty around that tariff policy at the moment,” he said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump floats labeling Tesla dealership violence as domestic terrorism
President Trump said Tuesday he will label violence against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism.
The big picture: Elon Musk's companies have faced boycotts and protests amid the Tesla founder's pivotal role in the Trump administration.
#TeslaTakedown protests at dealerships nationwide are among the grassroots backlash targeting Musk's flagship company.
Continue reading at Axios
West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government
Inside a DOGE ‘hostile takeover’
COME ON DOWN TO 1600 PENN! DONALD TRUMP today turned the White House South Lawn into a makeshift showroom for ELON MUSK’s Tesla, in an extraordinary bid to boost the business of a major campaign donor who now wields significant power over the federal government, our ADAM CANCRYN reports.
“I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people,” Trump said as he inspected five different Tesla models parked in front of the South Portico. “And I just want people to know that he can’t be penalized for being a patriot.”
The president reiterated his pledge to personally purchase a Tesla as a show of support for Musk. Tesla’s stock has plummeted in recent weeks amid backlash to DOGE’s dramatic cuts to federal jobs. Trump later said he hoped the impromptu promotional event would help Tesla’s sales.
The potential purchase represents an unprecedented effort by a president to prop up a company led by one of his top advisers and donors. Musk spent close to $300 million to help Trump get elected.
ANATOMY OF A ‘HOSTILE TAKEOVER’: It began with an email from Treasury Department leadership to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operations chief ADAM MARTINEZ at 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 6: DOGE is coming — tonight.
“They were there at 6:15,” Martinez recalled on the witness stand in federal court Monday. “We were anticipating two IT engineers. The two IT engineers ended up not showing up.”
Instead, the visitor was CHRISTOPHER YOUNG, a DOGE detailee to the Office of Personnel Management. Young told Martinez the other two DOGE employees were late because they “were having to order car service because they were being essentially stalked, tailed, followed, harassed.”
“That was the first indication something was off and odd,” Martinez recalled.
Martinez’s anecdote kicked off the most detailed explanation to date of how Musk’s operation — with the blessing of Trump administration leaders — engineered the takeover and attempted dismantling of the Obama-era federal agency. CFPB, long targeted by Trump, is charged with protecting consumers from bad bank practices and conducts oversight of financial institutions.
Martinez’s roughly five hours of testimony today and Monday came in response to a lawsuit brought by a Treasury employees union, contending that the race to dismantle CFPB violated the law. U.S. District Judge AMY BERMAN JACKSON has blocked further dismantling for at least another week while proceedings play out.
Continue reading at Politico West Wing Playbook newsletter
BREAKING NEWS:
Department of Education lays off nearly half of workforce
The Department of Education announced on Tuesday it was firing nearly half of its workforce, the latest Trump administration move to shrink the federal government that could face swift legal challenge.
A senior department official said 1,315 staffers will be let go and received the notification Tuesday.
The Education Department started out President Trump’s second term with more than 4,000 employees, but even before Tuesday, hundreds had already been put on leave or had taken a buyout offer.
After this reduction, there will be 2,183 employees left with the department, which Trump has repeatedly called to shutter completely.
Continue reading at The Hill
Education Department to slash half its workforce
“Employees will not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th”, for any reason,” the message said.
An agency official told reporters Tuesday that the job cuts being finalized over the coming weeks are expected to affect roughly half of the agency’s workforce.
The official said the department focused on cutting teams whose operations are redundant or not necessary to serve its core functions.
“We have a department now that exists largely to oversee contractors, add strings, and in many cases, do duplicative efforts across the department,” the official said.
Employees affected by Tuesday’s announced force reduction will have 90 days until they are actually terminated and will receive full pay and benefits during this time, in addition to severance pay.
Continue reading at Politico
Administration cancels meteorologist disaster training
The Trump administration has canceled a training that prepares meteorologists to forecast during disasters, The Hill has learned.
The incident meteorologist training for the National Weather Service was canceled amid “short staffing” and a severe reduction in how much employees are allowed to spend on travel, according to an email viewed by The Hill.
An agency source expressed concern that the cancellation of this session would delay new incident meteorologists from being certified — leaving the weather service less able to respond to disasters like fires and putting an even greater strain on the existing workforce.
[…]
Meanwhile, this also does not appear to be the only government training that has recently been canceled.
A senior Department of Homeland Security official confirmed to The Hill that fire trainings at the Federal Emergency Management Agency were also being canceled, saying via email, “The bottom line is we are no longer paying for non-employee travel. We are only authorizing travel for mission critical programs, this isn’t one.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Republicans warn Trump not to let trade war drag as he doubles down on tariff threats
Senate Republicans are warning President Trump to not let his trade war drag on as his latest escalation sent Wall Street further into turmoil.
Trump on Tuesday threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports in response to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s plan to issue a retaliatory surcharge on electricity to a trio of states. Ford backed off and Trump reversed course hours later, promising talks in Washington on Thursday about a renewal of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) before reciprocal tariffs go into effect early next month.
But Senate Republicans are fretting that if the tariff tit for tat isn’t resolved — and quickly — both Trump and American consumers will feel the pinch.
“If we have the same problem in May without some sort of signal that it’s tailed off or plateaued or changed direction, I would expect a little more angst,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said on Tuesday evening following Trump’s walk-back. “But for now … most Americans are looking at it going, ‘Well, this is what the transition looks like I guess, so we can do that. We can live through that.’”
Continue reading at The Hill
The Republican who’s testing the limits of Trump’s complete control
MAGA NON GRATA — Republicans today narrowly passed a continuing resolution to fund the government, averting a March 14 shutdown deadline. But the one Republican vote against the CR exposed an unexpected test of President Donald Trump’s control over his party. And this test has a name: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Massie — an idiosyncratic, libertarian-minded conservative from Northern Kentucky’s 4th District — has long been a thorn in the Trump administration side, having refused to fall in line behind Trump on several key votes during Trump’s first term. Just last month, Massie was also the only Republican to vote against the “big, beautiful” budget bill that the White House was pushing through the House.
But on Sunday, Massie raised the stakes of that conflict when he announced that he would vote against a Trump-backed continuing resolution to fund the government through September, arguing that the CR is a “UNIPARTY deal” that doesn’t go far enough to curtail government spending or defund Democratic-backed initiatives. (House Republicans can only afford to lose one vote on the bill.) Trump responded on Monday evening with a post on Truth Social accusing Massie of being a “automatic ‘NO’ vote on just about everything” and calling for him to be primaried by a more loyal Republican.
“He’s just another GRANDSTANDER, who’s too much trouble, and not worth the fight,” wrote Trump. “He reminds me of Liz Chaney [sic] before her historic, record breaking fall.” Shortly thereafter, Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita joined the fight, seemingly taunting Massie in a series of posts on X.
But then, something unexpected happened: Republicans and the MAGA grassroots came to Massie’s defense.
Continue reading at Politico
Lone Democrat to back House GOP spending bill explains decision
Golden’s “yes” vote, to be sure, was not decisive, since Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — with help from President Trump — rallied enough Republicans to pass the measure with or without the lone Democrat.
But the support from Golden — who represents a district Trump won in 2024 — dealt a minor blow to House Democratic leadership, which formally urged its members to vote against the measure and was hoping to showcase united opposition to the continuing resolution.
“We’re working to make sure that every Democrat votes no and is here and present on the floor,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) said ahead of the vote on Tuesday.
In a statement following the vote, Golden — a moderate Democrat from Maine who has a history of breaking from the party — argued that while the GOP’s legislation was not ideal, a shutdown would be more harmful.
“This CR is not perfect, but a shutdown would be worse,” Golden said, using an abbreviation for continuing resolution (CR). “Even a brief shutdown would introduce even more chaos and uncertainty at a time when our country can ill-afford it.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump allies are blaming Lutnick for Trump’s tariff turmoil
There is a growing consensus that Lutnick could be forced to take the fall for the economic chaos generated by the president’s unsteady tariff policies.
White House and administration officials, as well as Trump’s outside allies, are growing increasingly frustrated with Lutnick, privately complaining about the close proximity he has to the president and the counsel he is giving him on economic issues. It’s an exasperation compounded by recent television appearances, they say, that suggest a lack of understanding of even the basics about how tariffs and the economy work. He has also at multiple points over the last week gotten out in front of the president on announcements and contradicted his messaging.
Those factors, coupled with an abrasive personality, have left Lutnick with few friends in the administration — and a growing consensus within it that he could be forced to take the fall for the economic turmoil generated by the president’s unsteady tariff policies, according to five people close to the administration. The Dow slid nearly 500 points Tuesday after Trump announced and then walked back new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, amid ongoing economic uncertainty — after closing 890 points down Monday.
Lutnick, one of the people close to the administration said, is “constantly auditioning for Trump’s approval.”
“He’s trying to be a mini-Trump. I don’t think he got the memo that only Trump gets to be Trump,” the person said. “It just reinforces that he doesn’t really know how to do the job.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump official tasked with defending DOGE cuts posted fashion influencer videos from her office
As the Office of Personnel Management oversaw the layoffs of thousands of federal workers and pressed others to justify their positions, the agency’s chief spokesperson repeatedly used her office for a side hustle: aspiring Instagram fashion influencer.
In at least a dozen videos filmed in her OPM office, political appointee McLaurine Pinover modeled her outfit choices for the day, while directing followers from her Instagram account to a website that could earn her commissions on clothing sales.
On the same day OPM sent a government-wide memo pressing federal officials to identify barriers they faced in their work to “swiftly terminate poor performing employees,” Pinover posted a video blowing a kiss to the camera with the caption “work look” and the hashtag #dcinfluencer. Her Instagram account linked to a site where viewers could buy the $475 purple skirt she wore in the video.
Continue reading at CNN
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