Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 52 | Blog#42
The world's tyrants and an innocent in training...
News worth repeating
Senate Dems brace to vote for a bill they hate — to block Elon Musk
Democrats appear on the cusp of voting to avoid a shutdown because they fear the consequences of standing up to the Trump administration could be worse.
Senate Democrats appear poised to vote for a spending bill they hate to avoid a worse fate: Allowing a government shutdown that could enable President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to make deeper cuts to federal agencies.
[…]
In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday night announcing he would support the House-passed stopgap, Schumer said he had little choice as the Friday shutdown deadline loomed.
Continue reading at Politico
Andy Beshear hits Newsom for hosting Bannon on his new podcast
The criticism amounts to what could be an early skirmish in the next Democratic presidential primary.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear took a swipe Thursday at a fellow leading Democrat, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for hosting one of the most prominent figures in the MAGA movement on his new podcast.
Beshear, whose popularity in a heavily Republican state has turned him into a potential presidential candidate, told reporters that Newsom shouldn’t have opened his platform to Steve Bannon, an outspoken advocate of the “America first” agenda of President Donald Trump.
“I think that Governor Newsom bringing on different voices is great, we shouldn’t be afraid to talk and to debate just about anyone,” Beshear said at a Democratic policy retreat in Virginia. “But Steve Bannon espouses hatred and anger, and even at some points violence, and I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform, ever, anywhere.”
Continue reading at Politico
Schumer’s shutdown ‘surrender’ sends the left into a rage
The Senate minority leader’s decision to forego a government shutdown rekindled his old critics.
The Democratic base wants a fight. Chuck Schumer won’t give it to them.
The Senate minority leader on Thursday backed away from the shutdown confrontation that many liberal voters and activist leaders had been pushing for — arguing that closing the government would only empower President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk in their bureaucracy-slashing campaign.
That decision sent shockwaves through the left and had many in their ranks seething at a top party leader who had sought to win them over in recent years.
Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the liberal grassroots organization Indivisible, quickly dubbed it the “Schumer surrender.”
“I guess we’ll find out to what extent Schumer is leading the party into irrelevance,” he said in an interview, adding that his decision “tells me maybe he’s lost a step.”
Continue reading at Politico
House Democrats stew over Schumer's capitulation on GOP funding bill
The cave was the talk of the Democratic policy retreat.
LEESBURG, Virginia — House Democrats privately and publicly steamed Thursday evening about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to back passage of a GOP spending patch they had fiercely opposed.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told his caucus behind closed doors that they could be proud of their decision to vote against the stopgap funding bill. He did not mention Schumer.
“Dr. King once made the observation that, although everyone may not see it at the moment, the time is always right to do what's right," he said, according to a person in the room. "This week, House Democrats did what was right. We stood up against Donald Trump. We stood up against Elon Musk. We stood up against the extreme MAGA Republicans."
Jeffries received a standing ovation from his caucus. He and other Democratic leaders later said in a joint statement that "House Democrats will not be complicit" and "remain strongly opposed to the partisan spending bill under consideration in the Senate."
Continue reading at Politico
60 percent of voters unhappy with DOGE handling of federal workers
A majority of voters are unhappy with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) handling of federal workers, according to a new poll.
When asked about “the way Elon Musk and DOGE are dealing with workers employed by the federal government,” 60 percent of respondents in the Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters said they are not supportive of it. Thirty-six percent said they are supportive of the way Musk and DOGE are dealing with federal workers.
Musk and DOGE have been trying to slash their way through the federal government, offering buyouts to and laying off scores of workers. Many of their actions are now the subject of lawsuits.
Continue reading at The Hill
Postal Service signs cost-cutting deal with DOGE
The United States Postal Service said it has signed a deal with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut costs at the agency.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told congressional leaders in a letter that he had signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s DOGE to cut jobs and spending at the agency that has long since lost money.
DeJoy said the organization has spent the last four years transforming from a “battered government bureaucracy” that experienced financial losses into a higher quality service, but it is still not achieving its goals.
Continue reading at The Hill
Today’s news
German defense giant Rheinmetall overtakes VW valuation
Germany’s economic agenda is shifting from cars to defense as the United States retreats and Russia threatens.
Weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall's market capitalization overtook automotive behemoth Volkswagen Group on Thursday, a sign of Germany's economic shift from cars to defense.
Rheinmetall's market cap — the value of a publicly traded company — stood at €55.7 billion as of 4 p.m., compared to Volkswagen's €54.4 billion.
Rheinmetall's value has more than tripled since Donald Trump became U.S. president in January, alongside those of many other big European defense companies, while their U.S.-based rivals have seen their share prices fall on rising concern that Trump's unpredictable policies could harm American arms exports.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
EU lays out ‘massive investment’ boost in defense to deter Russia
The European Commission’s defense policy proposal lays out a strategy for the bloc to rearm.
BRUSSELS — The EU aims to launch a massive project to build up its defense industry aimed at deterring Russia and supporting Ukraine while the U.S. pulls backs from the continent, according to a draft of the so-called White Paper on defense obtained by POLITICO.
“Rebuilding European defence requires a massive investment over a sustained period,” the draft says.
The paper, prepared by EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius and the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, is due to be presented next week to EU leaders. The draft could still change before being released.
Crucial elements of the new EU policy include favoring weapons production within the bloc and “like-minded third-country companies," encouraging joint purchases of arms, making it easier to finance defense projects, focusing on key areas where the bloc has a capacity shortfall like air defense and military mobility, and slashing red tape on defense investments.
Russia’s actions are the driving force behind the new policy.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
House Dems go into "complete meltdown" as Schumer folds
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans' stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they "walked the plank," in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
"Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains," said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members' internal conversations.
A senior House Democrat said "people are furious" and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is "very bad," the possibility of a government shutdown "has consequences for America that are much, much worse."
Continue reading at Axios
Trump blesses Medicaid scrutiny to pay for mega-MAGA package
President Trump opened the door Thursday for Senate Republicans to find cost savings in Medicaid as they hunt for ways to pay for his border, defense and tax priorities, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Trump has been emphatic that Medicaid benefits won't be "touched," but he endorsed looking for "waste, fraud and abuse" and even imposing new work requirements.
On Thursday, Trump and some top White House officials met with Republican senators on the Finance Committee, which includes Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and GOP Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
Zoom in: Trump indicated to senators he is open to cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" from any mandatory spending — including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, multiple senators in the meeting told Axios.
Social Security can't be dealt with in reconciliation.
Trump expressed openness to work requirements for Medicaid and discussing ways to reduce the rate of growth of some health care programs which could be counted as potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.
Continue reading at Axios
Democrats fume at DOGE's "surprise attacks" on their districts
House Democrats are homing in on a new attack against DOGE at their annual retreat: That they don't even get a heads up about cuts that will clobber their constituents.
Why it matters: Republicans have been able to work back-channels to get cuts in their districts rolled back, but Democrats don't have the same privilege, as Axios previously reported.
"Part of what we're seeing with DOGE — it's surprise attacks," said House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) at a press conference on Thursday.
"I learned about a week ago that every single member of the Boston [Housing and Urban Development] office had been fired — as it was happening," she added.
State of play: DOGE has been on the warpath against the federal government workforce, slashing agency workforces and entire programs.
Republicans, terrified about backlash from constituents, have privately urged DOGE to be more gentle in its approach to firings and even to reverse some of its cuts.
But, in the words of Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.): "I have not heard of any Democrats getting that kind of treatment. I think Tom Cole, obviously, has better connections with the oligarchs than we do."
What they're saying: "In my district, there is a lot of retribution even against some of the law firms," Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.) said at the Thursday press conference.
Continue reading at Axios
House Democrats bash Senate colleagues for backing GOP spending bill: ‘Huge slap in the face’
House Democrats are furious at their fellow Democrats in the Senate for supporting a Republican spending bill, saying Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other aisle-hopping senators are set to empower President Trump to gut the government at the expense of their own constituents.
“There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “And this is not just about progressive Democrats, This is across the board — the entire party.”
The lower-chamber Democrats were virtually united on Tuesday in rejecting the partisan GOP spending package — a forceful show of opposition they hoped would inspire Senate Democrats to take the same resistant stand. And House Democratic leaders have also taken the rare step of publicly urging Senate leaders to reject the bill, which was crafted by House Republicans without Democratic input.
Continue reading at The Hill
Portugal rules out buying F-35s because of Trump
The country’s air force has recommended buying the jets, but the outgoing defense minister said “the predictability of our allies” must be taken into account when making procurement decisions.
Portugal ruled out replacing its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets with more modern F-35s because of Donald Trump — in one of the first examples of the U.S. president killing a potential lucrative arms deal.
The country's air force has recommended buying Lockheed Martin F-35s, but when outgoing Defense Minister Nuno Melo was asked by Portugese media Público whether the government would follow that recommendation, he replied: “We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices. The recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO ... must make us think about the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a greater asset to take into account."
With the dramatic realignment taking place under Trump — who said again today he would annex Greenland and threatened Canada — there are fears the U.S. government could decide block access to software updates and spare parts needed to make the F-35 fully operational.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Judge rejects DOJ’s effort to expand reach of Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, called the Justice Department’s position irrational.
In a ruling Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, became the first judge to reject outright the Justice Department’s recently adopted position about the scope of Trump’s clemency.
Reversing its initial stance in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, the department is now arguing that Trump’s pardon extends to crimes with no connection to the attack on the Capitol other than the fact that law enforcement agents uncovered evidence of them during the Jan. 6 investigation.
Friedrich said DOJ’s position “contradicts” the “clear and unambiguous” language of Trump’s Day 1 executive order granting pardons to about 1,500 people convicted of participating in the riot.
Friedrich noted that Trump’s order said it applied to “individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The judge found illogical the contention that the order extended to other crimes authorities came across as they conducted that investigation.
“To interpret the Presidential Pardon to apply to any type of offense — no matter when or where that offense was committed — simply because evidence of that offense was uncovered incident to a January 6-related search warrant would ‘defy rationality,’” Friedrich wrote, quoting an earlier court precedent.
Continue reading at Politico
House Dems go into "complete meltdown" as Schumer folds
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans' stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they "walked the plank," in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
"Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains," said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members' internal conversations.
A senior House Democrat said "people are furious" and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is "very bad," the possibility of a government shutdown "has consequences for America that are much, much worse."
"A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country," Schumer said.
Continue reading at Axios
The midterms won’t save the Democrats
UNFRIENDLY MAP — If there’s any silver lining for Democrats in the gray storm cloud that is GOP-dominated Washington, it’s that in two years there’s likely to be a backlash. That’s not an assessment of Trump’s first two months in the White House so much as it is a historical fact.
Midterm elections tend to be unkind to the party in power. The sitting president’s party has lost House seats in every midterm but two dating back to 1950. The last time Donald Trump was president, during the 2018 midterms Democrats flipped the House and picked up 41 House seats.
The prospect of an epic comeuppance in 2026 — as in 1994, 2010 or even 2018 — gives many Democrats hope in what is otherwise a dark time. But this week brings yet another reminder that the midterm isn’t necessarily going to solve the party’s problems. While Democrats begin the election cycle in a decent position to win back the House by campaigning against Trump overreach, control of the Senate may be out of reach.
Just like in 2018, when Republicans were able to keep control of the Senate in face of a strong Democratic tide, an unfavorable Senate map this year makes the Democratic path incredibly daunting. Even accounting for thermostatic public opinion swinging far away from the GOP and the fact that Republicans are defending close to twice as many Senate seats as Democrats, it will be a tall task for Democrats to pick up the seats the party needs to win back the chamber.
The problem is the nature of the seats the two parties are defending. Nearly all of the 22 Republican-held seats are in red states — many of them red states where Trump romped in 2024. At the moment, there are only two Republican-held seats that figure to be competitive (Maine and North Carolina). Democrats are only defending 13 seats, but four of those races figure to be competitive — and two of them (Georgia and Michigan) are presently viewed as toss-ups.
This week, the Senate map got even more complicated for Democrats. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) announced Wednesday that she would not seek reelection in 2026, making her the third Democrat from a competitive state to announce retirement, joining Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota and Gary Peters of Michigan.
The last time a Republican won a Senate election in New Hampshire was in 2010, so Democrats aren’t exactly panicking. Democrats can also feel relatively confident about their chances of holding onto seats in Minnesota and Michigan after holding Senate seats in both states in 2024.
Still, winning open seats is always a much trickier prospect than having an incumbent defend a seat. In New Hampshire, Democrats have a strong bench but popular former governor Chris Sununu — whose brother served in the Senate — has opened the door to a potential Senate run, which would change the equation.
Yet even if Democrats successfully hold on to Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire — and hold Sen. Jon Ossoff’s Georgia seat — they’ll still need to pick off four Republican seats to win outright control of the chamber.
Continue reading at Politico Nightly newsletter
Newsmax agreed to pay Smartmatic $40M to settle defamation suit
Newsmax agreed to pay Smartmatic $40 million in the conservative cable network's settlement of the defamation lawsuit over the airing of 2020 election falsehoods, per a regulatory filing.
The big picture: The companies reached a settlement last September that includes the cash settlement "payable over time and the issuance of a five year cash exercise warrant to purchase 2,000 shares of Series B preferred stock at an exercise price of $5,000 per share," per the filing.
Newsmax had "made payments under the settlement agreement totaling $20 million" to the voting technology firm as of March 7, according to the filing.
Context: Smartmatic accused Newsmax of falsely reporting a baseless conspiracy theory that its voting technology "rigged" the 2020 presidential election for former President Biden over President Trump in key swing states.
Smartmatic filed a similar suit against One America News Network, which was settled last April.
What they're saying: A representative for Smartmatic told Reuters the firm couldn't comment on the deal, but it looked forward to its upcoming $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit trial against Fox News, which has said it's defending the case on First Amendment grounds.
Continue reading at Axios
DOGE lease cancellations: Which government offices could be closed this year and when
The General Services Administration, working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has notified landlords that federal agencies will be terminating hundreds of leases for offices and buildings in the coming months. A GSA planning document dated March 10 lists the dates when many of the cancellations are expected to go into effect. That does not mean all the locations will close by those dates, but agencies would have to either negotiate new leases or move elsewhere if they remain open. Agencies are still figuring out what to do.
Lease cancellations expected June 30:
Savannah River Operations Office, Aiken, S.C. (2,250 square feet)
Natural Resources Conservation Service, Amherst, Mass. (22,428 square feet)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Boise, Idaho (44,623 square feet)
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Carmel, Ind. (247 square feet)
Agricultural Marketing Service, Everett, Mass. (2,789 square feet)
Indian Health Service Navajo, Farmington, N.M. (2,000 square feet)
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fredonia, Ariz. (1,500 square feet)
United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Grand Junction, Colo. (1,444 square feet)
Continue reading the list at the Associated Press
Hundreds of federal offices could begin closing this summer at DOGE’s behest, internal records show
Federal agencies will begin to vacate hundreds of offices across the country this summer under a frenetic and error-riddled push by Elon Musk’s budget-cutting advisers to terminate leases that they say waste money.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency maintains a list of canceled real estate leases on its website, but internal documents obtained by The Associated Press contain a crucial detail: when those cancellations are expected to take effect. The documents from inside the General Services Administration, the U.S. government’s real estate manager, list dozens of federal office and building leases expected to end by June 30, with hundreds more slated over the coming months.
The rapid pace of cancellations has raised alarms, with some agencies and lawmakers appealing to DOGE to exempt specific buildings. Several agencies are facing 20 or more lease cancellations in all, including the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Continue reading at the Associated Press
US and Israel look to Africa for resettling Palestinians uprooted from Gaza
JERUSALEM (AP) — The U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for resettling Palestinians uprooted from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump’s proposed postwar plan, American and Israeli officials say.
The contacts with Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland reflect the determination by the U.S. and Israel to press ahead with a plan that has been widely condemned and raised serious legal and moral issues. Because all three places are poor, and in some cases wracked by violence, the proposal also casts doubt on Trump’s stated goal of resettling Gaza’s Palestinians in a “beautiful area.”
Officials from Sudan said they have rejected overtures from the U.S., while officials from Somalia and Somaliland told The Associated Press that they were not aware of any contacts.
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’
Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI.
As America’s most decorated civil servants sipped cocktails in the presidential ballroom of the Capital Hilton, worrying about their table assignments and wondering where they fell in the pecking order between US senator and UAE ambassador, Elon Musk sat staring at his phone, laughing.
Few of the guests at the Alfalfa Club banquet in Washington, DC, on January 25 knew what he knew: that a crew of senior executives and young Musk loyalists was preparing to occupy the top offices of a nearby federal building. Under guard, they would sleep on mattresses lined with body temperature and breath rate sensors as they raced to refactor the nation’s code base—or, better yet, scrap it altogether.
Musk wasn’t big on formalities, but he’d dressed up for the occasion. The Alfalfa Club had been around since 1913 and existed solely to host a yearly banquet where the most important people in government could hobnob with the most important people in business. Membership was limited to around 200, and the Alfalfas admitted new “sprouts” only when existing members died. That evening, Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan and Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman joined the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and US senator Kirsten Gillibrand as members. Musk was attending as a guest.
The social chairs of the Alfalfa Club seemed to think that elections and constitutional norms should determine the seating chart in American political life. The head table was reserved for Alfalfas in government. Musk, the assumed leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, sat on the opposite side of the room. He spent much of the dinner on his phone—talking to the president, if whispers were to be believed. Musk was closer than ever to Donald Trump. He told friends he was crashing in government buildings. He would soon move in next door to the White House, staying in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s Secretary of War Suite. He’d even had his video-gaming rig installed there.
Continue reading at Wired
Schumer clashes with liberal colleagues over House GOP funding bill
Schumer’s announcement provides crucial political cover to Senate Democratic centrists who are thinking about voting for the House-passed bill to keep the government from shutting down, even though they have serious concerns about the House bill.
Centrists such as Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) have come under intense pressure from Senate Democratic liberals and progressive activists outside of Congress to defeat the House bill.
Liberals including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are spearheading calls to vote against the House proposal, which would make cuts to nondefense programs and wouldn’t prevent Trump from shifting around funding to favor his own priorities.
Warren argued the House bill would give President Trump and Elon Musk “a blank check to spend your taxpayer money however they want.”
“We need to push back,” she declared.
Continue reading at The Hill
First look: Third Way's plan for Dems to fight back
Third Way, the well-connected center-left Democratic think tank, today will launch an 18-month Signal Project, including polling, to identify Trump administration actions "that are most relevant to key voters and how best to frame those issues."
Why it matters: Anything "that seems performative will be tuned out or backfire," Third Way says. "It is a painful irony that while our very democracy is at stake, a focus on 'democracy' (and the trashing of democratic norms) simply won't save it."
In unveiling the project, Third Way says: "Shuttering USAID, using government power to attack political opponents, firing indiscriminately, degrading the civil service, releasing J6ers, or blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion all are a combination of unwise, unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional. But none resonate much with key voters."
So as an opening frame, the project will focus on "Risking Americans' Safety and Security."
Between the lines: Matt Bennett, a Third Way co-founder, told Axios that there's "real concern among Democrats that the Trump/Musk attacks were coming so fast and so arbitrarily that the opposition was having trouble with a coherent response.
Continue reading at Axios
Democrats set to host town halls targeting vulnerable House Republicans
The effort, which has been dubbed “People’s Town Halls,” was launched Friday by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC).
The town halls will target Republican Reps. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, Gabe Evans in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, Anna Paulina Luna in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, John James in Michigan’s Nebraska’s 10th Congressional District, Ann Wagner in Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District, Ryan Macke in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, and Rob Bresnal in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District.
DNC Chair Ken Martin accused House Republicans of selling out voters “by backing the Trump-Musk agenda.”
“Now they’re terrified to be in the same room as the people who sent them to Washington,” Martin said. “When 217 House Republicans voted for Donald Trump’s billionaire tax handout, each one agreed to destroy Medicaid, keep food from kids and families in need, and target the programs that take care of our veterans – all in service of massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors and wealthy corporations.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Tech stocks tumble as AI boom fizzles out
The world’s biggest technology companies have seen their stock prices tumble over the past month as wider tumult in the market hits the tech sector hard after years of steep gains driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
Since major advancements in AI exploded onto the scene a little more than two years ago, tech stocks have been on a tear, driving much of the market’s gains. However, this success has come back to bite the industry, combined with the uncertainty surrounding President Trump’s tariffs and questions about the future of AI.
“Tech has become a victim of its own success,” said Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean the tech sector’s story has imploded,” she continued. “It’s just that the expectations for tech have grown so high that it’s hard for the sector to keep reaching them.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Whole Hog Politics: Your way-too-early Senate race ratings
As Senate Democrats agonize over whether to help Republicans avoid a government shutdown Friday, the number that’s in the back of their minds isn’t the $1.6 trillion price tag on the House-passed spending package. It’s just two digits: 6-0.
The fight over a continuing resolution is the first time in this Congress that Democrats have had to think seriously about a world in which Senate Republicans can advance legislation outside of the procedural end-around of budget reconciliation.
With 53 Senate seats, Republicans can do a lot on taxes and spending and can, as this year has already abundantly proved, get almost anybody confirmed to a high position in the government.
But they can’t really legislate. Without anything like sufficient support in the GOP conference for abolishing the filibuster, it will continue to take 60 votes to make laws. As Democrats test their own appetites for obstruction on the continuing resolution, we know that at some point sooner or later, Republicans will get the seven Democrats they need to advance the bill.
Continue reading at The Hill
Candidates take their marks ahead of dramatic leadership race for French Socialists
The race could determine if the left unites ahead of upcoming elections, including for the presidency.
PARIS — Grab your popcorn.
The race to lead the French Socialist Party is shaping up to be a dramatic affair, one that could have major ramifications for France’s next presidential election.
Three candidates have thrown their hats in the Socialist ring. The party’s current leader, Olivier Faure, is being challenged by one of his former top deputies, Boris Vallaud, and a rival he struggled to beat last election, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. In their shadows lurks former President François Hollande, who is plotting another run for the highest office in the next election, scheduled for 2027.
The newest contender, the 49-year-old Vallaud, has been president of the Socialists in the National Assembly since 2022 — making him one of the party’s most prominent figures alongside Faure. Vallaud comes from the same crop of French politicians as current President Emmanuel Macron. Both attended the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration and Vallaud succeeded Macron as former Hollande’s deputy chief of staff, a position the current president occupied before he launched his own centrist political party.
The stakes are high for the Socialists. For decades, they were France’s biggest left-wing party, and their broad tent encompassed much of the French left’s ideological spectrum.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
EU renews Russian sanctions after deal with Hungary
Four sanctioned Russians will see their restrictions relaxed as part of a compromise.
BRUSSELS — The EU on Friday saved its sanctions on Russian oligarchs, military chiefs, energy bosses and the Moscow elite from collapsing after striking an 11th-hour deal with Hungary, which had threatened to veto the whole framework.
As part of the deal, the EU removed four individuals from its sanctions list, relaxing the restrictions on their finance and travel rights, according to four diplomats with knowledge of the talks told POLITICO. Without the compromise, the entire list of more than 2,000 individuals and entities would have expired on Saturday night.
The four individuals Hungary got removed on Friday are banker and chemicals industry chief Vladimir Rashevsky; Gulbakhor Ismailova, the sister of Uzbek-Russian mining tycoon Alisher Usmanov; Israeli-British-Russian businessman Viatcheslav Kantor; and Russian Sports Minister and Olympics chief Mikhail Degtyarov.
The EU’s Russia sanctions must be renewed every six months, requiring consent from all 27 countries. In recent months, Hungary has consistently threatened to torch the sanctions every time one component comes up for renewal, pointing to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ongoing ceasefire talks over the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
JD Vance: I’d be ‘shocked’ if Trump moved nukes to Poland
Polish President Andrzej Duda had called on the U.S. to station nuclear weapons in his country to deter Russian aggression.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he would be "shocked" if Donald Trump was in favor of moving American nuclear weapons into Poland.
"I haven't talked to the president about that particular issue, but I would be shocked if he was supportive of nuclear weapons extending further east into Europe," Vance said during an interview on Fox News. "We have got to be careful."
Continue reading at Politico Europe
US has ‘cautious optimism’ on Ukraine ceasefire after Trump envoy’s Moscow visit
Kremlin confirms that Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday night, as the sides work toward a presidential summit.
The U.S. has “some cautious optimism” that a ceasefire deal in the Ukraine war is coming soon, Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said late Thursday.
His comments came after the American president’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Moscow to negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin.
After hours of speculation, the Kremlin confirmed that the Russian president received Witkoff for a meeting late Thursday night to discuss the American proposal to end the full-scale invasion that Russia launched in February 2022.
According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, “additional information was provided to the Russian side” and “Putin passed on information and additional signals to President Trump” through Witkoff.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Americans lost billions more to fraud last year
Chart: Fraud and other FTC reports, 2024
Americans reported losing over $12.5 billion to various forms of fraud last year, per new FTC data — up a staggering 25% from 2023.
Why it matters: The spike suggests fraudsters are outpacing both law enforcement and efforts to educate consumers on how to protect themselves.
Driving the news: Investment and impostor scams took the biggest financial tolls last year, the FTC says, with consumers losing $5.7 billion and nearly $3 billion to each, respectively.
Scams where perpetrators pretend to be government representatives are particularly hot right now, with reported losses increasing from $171 million in 2023 to $789 million in 2024.
Between the lines: The raw number of FTC fraud reports remained relatively steady year-over-year.
But there was a big spike in the share of victims reporting that they lost money as a result of fraud: 38% in 2024, up from 27% in 2023.
Continue reading at Axios
The Trump migration is prompting the wealthy to move
Why it matters: The wealthy tend to have the greatest ability to move, which means that such outmigration can have a disproportionate effect on state and local taxes.
The big picture: The pandemic caused a generational change in the ability and willingness of many high-income professionals to move.
Having done it once, or seen their peers do it, they're more likely to act upon similar impulses this time around.
Some folks are moving in response to Donald Trump's election. Others are fleeing red states with abortion bans. (More on that below.)
Flashback: From 2020 to 2021, large U.S. urban areas lost more than $68 billion in taxable income, per the Economic Innovation Group, with Manhattan alone accounting for more than $16 billion of that sum.
Continue reading at Axios
People are leaving red states over abortion bans, studies find
New evidence confirms that people started fleeing red states after the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights in its 2022 Dobbs ruling.
Why it matters: At first, there were mainly anecdotes about individuals who were considering moving out of states with strict abortion bans.
This year, the harder data started rolling in.
The big picture: Employers say bans make it more difficult to recruit talent.
The departures are also a hit to a state's economy. The ones leaving are valuable citizens, often high-earning young adults — sometimes in key public health roles — at the start of their professional lives. Typically, these are the people who are planning families.
"It's a classic case of brain drain," says Julia Taylor Kennedy, senior director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Zoom in: "People are making migration decisions" based on these bans, says Jason Lindo, an economist at the Georgia Institute of Technology who just published a widely read study on the topic.
Continue reading at Axios
Focus group: Trump voters in Michigan have buyers' remorse
Most Michigan swing voters in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said that although they voted for President Trump in November, they have objections, frustrations and fears about his behavior since he returned to power.
Driving the news: Ten of 13 participants from this battleground, auto-industry state bordering Canada said what they're seeing isn't what they thought they were voting for — and they're worried Trump's approach may hurt their pocketbooks.
"Erratic," "frightening," "disruptive" and "dictator" were among the words they used to describe their concerns.
Zoom in: A focus group is not a statistically significant sample like a poll, but the voters' reactions suggest that Trump risks overplaying his mandate to reshape government, trade and international alliances.
The online panels, conducted Tuesday night, were made up of Michigan voters who backed former President Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump last November. Eight were self-described independents, four were Republicans and one was a Democrat.
Continue reading at Axios
Hamas agrees to release one American hostage and return four others' bodies
Hamas said on Friday it agreed to release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander and return the bodies of four other American-Israeli hostages.
Why it matters: Hamas' statement didn't make clear what the group demands in return for releasing the five remaining American hostages.
Hamas would likely demand Israel release Palestinian prisoners and extend the Gaza ceasefire.
Continue reading at Axios
Scoop: ICE already short $2 billion as Trump's immigration crackdown ramps up
The agency charged with carrying out President Trump's mass deportation promises has warned Congress it is short a whopping $2 billion for this fiscal year, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) repeatedly has faced significant budget shortfalls in recent years. Trump's immigration plans — which include deporting "millions" of unauthorized immigrants — would rack up costs even more.
Congress would send ICE an extra $500 million in the stop-gap spending bill that passed the House and is being debated in the Senate.
But that wouldn't come close to covering the nearly $2 billion the agency told Congress it needs just to keep up the work it's doing through the end of September, two sources familiar with the communications told Axios.
Add to that the expense of fully implementing Trump's plans —which will include hiring hundreds of people, more than doubling ICE detention space to 100,000 beds and adding many more planes for deportation flights.
Zoom in: Not all of that is addressed in the bill now before Congress, which means the additional money ICE says it needs is unlikely to land anytime soon.
Continue reading at Axios
Liberals enter the MAGA lion's den
Deprived of all levers of federal power, and with their party's popularity at rock bottom, some Democrats are taking a polarizing new tack: Engaging with the enemy.
Why it matters: Backlash against cultural elitism — and a reluctance to take risks — fueled the party's loss in 2024. Ambitious Democrats are reckoning with the need to reach beyond their base as they try to claw out of the wilderness.
Driving the news: None have been as daring as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has rankled the Democratic base by hosting a trio of hardline MAGA voices for the first three episodes of his new podcast.
Other party favorites are itching to take the fight to Republicans on their home turf, sensing opportunity as President Trump's honeymoon fades and DOGE cuts grow more unpopular.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former VP nominee Tim Walz are touring red districts, filling a vacuum where some Republicans have refused to hold town halls.
The intrigue: Far from staging combative debates, Newsom — who's widely expected to run for president in 2028 — struck a conciliatory tone and sought middle ground in his debut podcast episodes.
Continue reading at Axios
Maxine Waters: Trump is ‘working towards a civil war’
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is accusing President Trump of seeking to start a civil war.
The California Democrat, a long-time adversary of Trump, said the early flood of presidential policies — the disruptive tariffs, mass firings of federal employees and empowerment of Elon Musk to gut the government and the services it provides — may appear haphazard on their surface. But there’s a unifying theory behind them, she said: Trump wants to incite violence.
“This president is putting us in a position where hungry people are going to be on the street. Where nonprofits, who were waiting for their checks, are not gonna get them. Where seniors waiting for their Social Security check, will not get it. Where poor families with children will not get what they believe the government has agreed to do,” Waters told reporters during the Democrats’ annual issues retreat in Northern Virginia.
Continue reading at The Hill
1 big thing: Doctors may be in trouble
Mehmet Oz heads to the Senate today, where members will consider his nomination to be CMS administrator. Here's what I'm watching for him to address: How Medicare determines what to pay doctors, and how much HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to shake up that process.
Why it matters: The American Medical Association, the largest group representing doctors in the country, and certain specialist physicians may be facing changes they won't like at all.
Republican ire with the AMA has been building for years.
But tackling the association's influence over doctor payments — and the incentives those payment rates create — also aligns with Kennedy's quest to root out industry influence from the government and reduce the prevalence of chronic disease in the U.S.
Interestingly enough, the subject has also drawn interest from people well outside of the MAHA movement, including some who otherwise oppose most of Kennedy's stances.
Reforms could begin to chip away at the gap between what primary care doctors and specialists are paid, which could ultimately lead to more preventive care and healthier people.
Where it stands: I'll say it from the start: Medicare payment policy is incredibly dense. But it's also incredibly important, and influences reimbursement throughout the rest of the health care system, including commercial insurance.
Continue reading at Axios Vitals newsletter
2. Uncommon bedfellows
An attempt to take on the RUC or the AMA more broadly could have a lot of political cover from both sides of the aisle.
When I asked former senior Trump official Joe Grogan whether the AMA is in trouble, he responded, "God, I hope so."
Grogan isn't exactly ideologically aligned with Zeke Emanuel, a left-leaning health policy expert who was a health care adviser in the Obama administration. But Emanuel also favors rethinking the status quo.
"Those physicians have an inherent conflict of interest: They are in effect setting their and their colleagues' pay," Emanuel recently wrote of the RUC in The Atlantic. "It is clear that primary-care physicians deliver life-saving care — and deliver it efficiently. But their compensation does not reflect this utility," he added.
Other unlikely potential allies: Families USA, a patient advocacy group that usually sides with Democrats; the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank; and Arnold Ventures, the billionaire-founded philanthropy that has pushed for drug price and hospital payment reforms that would be unfavorable to those industries.
All three have pushed for Medicare payment reforms that include changes to the RUC process.
Yes, but: Weakening the role the AMA plays in determining how Medicare values different health care services inherently requires coming up with an alternative method.
Continue reading at Axios Vitals newsletter
3. What RFK previously wrote about measles
Kennedy's response to the measles outbreak spreading across the Southwest has been criticized by experts as inadequate and somewhat awkward. His writing on the disease and its vaccine from four years ago may explain why.
Kennedy, as HHS secretary, is tasked with both responding logistically to the outbreak and messaging to the public what people can do to protect themselves.
The answer to the latter, according to health care experts and extensive scientific research, is to get vaccinated. But saying so — or even believing so — would be greatly at odds with what Kennedy wrote only a few years ago.
Extensive research has found measles vaccines are safe and effective.
Where it stands: Kennedy wrote the forward in a book on the measles published in 2021 by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group he founded and formerly chaired. The book is subtitled "Thirty-Five Secrets the Government and the Media Aren't Telling You about Measles and the Measles Vaccine."
Readers of the book "will learn that they have been misled by the pharmaceutical industry and their captured government agency allies into believing that measles is a deadly disease and that measles vaccines are necessary, safe, and effective," Kennedy wrote.
Continue reading at Axios Vitals newsletter
Playbook: The fight Dems didn’t want
IN MEMORIAM: “Rep. Raúl Grijalva, one of Arizona’s longest-serving congressmen, dies at 77,” by the Arizona Republic’s Ronald Hansen and Laura Gersony: “Rep. Raúl Manuel Grijalva, the son of a Mexican immigrant who rose to the halls of Congress in a public-service career that stretched more than 40 years, died Thursday after a battle with lung cancer. He was 77.” More from the Tucson Sentinel … the Arizona Daily Star
YOUR MORNING LISTEN: Trump 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita sits down with my colleague Dasha Burns for a rollicking, wide-ranging conversation on this week’s episode of “Playbook Deep Dive.” Among the highlights:
On Project 2025: “A ton of stuff in Project 2025 is your standard Republican fare. … But there was some stuff in there where we were like, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’”
On Susie Wiles: “When you’re dealing with me, you see me coming a mile away. I make a lot of noise. Susie, she’ll sneak right up on you.”
On Musk and DOGE: “They’re not going to cut Social Security. … He’s not the president. He doesn’t get to make those decisions.”
On tariffs and market volatility: “There’s a lot of shock therapy going on right now. It’s very fast. It’s a lot. It’s literally ripping the bandaid off.”
On 2028: “It’s a little early and I mean, the shit-stirers are always trying to stir. But JD [Vance] is just fundamentally not only a good person, a brilliant person but I think he’s more than capable of carrying on the MAGA mantle.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify … Watch on YouTube
NOT THE FIGHT DEMS WANTED TODAY: Ahead of a midnight deadline to fund the government … at a moment when escalating tariffs and raging economic uncertainty have put the Dow on track for its worst week in two years … as President Donald Trump is expected to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to carry out mass deportations as soon as today … with the president due to speak this afternoon at the Justice Department amid ongoing concerns about its independence and the rule of law … Democrats are seized by a debate over Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s reluctant support for the House GOP’s continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown.
The summary: On Tuesday, the House approved a stopgap that would keep the federal government funded through the end of the fiscal year, 217-213. … On Wednesday, Schumer announced that the House-backed CR did not not have the eight Democratic votes needed to overcome a filibuster — which some observers interpreted to mean that Schumer was going to go all-in on opposing the CR. … Yesterday, Schumer announced that he will support the CR.
What Schumer said: “As bad as passing the continuing resolution would be, I believe a government shutdown is far worse,” he wrote in a Times op-ed, launching into four primary reasons for that calculation: (1) A shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk the ability to “destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now;” (2) Republicans could use the shutdown to “cherry-pick which parts of government to reopen;” (3) it’d mean “real pain for American families,” and; (4) it would distract from the “chaos” reining across government and the economy.
Cue the outrage. While it’s almost a certainty that there are a sufficient number of Senate Dems who privately share Schumer’s thinking, you sure didn’t hear from them in the ensuing maelstrom of reactions.
Today, you’re going to want to watch a few different things …
1. The split within the Senate Dem caucus. Support for the CR does not break down neatly along ideological lines. Yes, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) will vote for cloture. Yes, the most prominent lefties are nos. But it’s striking how many early-tenure Democratic senators — especially those from states Trump carried in 2024 — have lined up in opposition to the CR across a wide spectrum of views.
Consider this: In the hours after Schumer told his colleagues his position on the CR, Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) all reiterated their opposition to the CR. Add to that mix a few freshmen from bluer states, like Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), and you start to see a breakdown that is perhaps less ideological than generational. These younger, newer members view the world differently, Senate insiders told Playbook last night.
Continue reading the Politico Playbook newsletter
Capitol agenda: Schumer stops a shutdown
Chuck Schumer has given Senate Democrats an out.
Chuck Schumer has given Senate Democrats an out — drastically lowering the chances of a government shutdown Saturday.
The Senate minority leader, both privately to his caucus Thursday and in a floor speech shortly after, said he would vote to advance a GOP-written stopgap to fund the government through September. He said Republicans’ spending bill is “very bad.” But he argued the “potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse” and would empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to further gut federal agencies.
It’s a remarkable shift. Just 24 hours before, Schumer had said Senate Republicans didn’t have enough Democratic support to clear the 60-vote threshold to advance House Republicans’ continuing resolution, or CR.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has now teed up that procedural vote for 1:15 p.m. — and indicated he’d be willing to give Democrats a poised-to-fail vote on a four-week stopgap as part of a deal to speed up passage for Republicans’ CR. All 100 senators would have to green-light that, and as of Thursday evening, Schumer said there was no time agreement.
Continue reading at Politico
Germany’s Merz secures breakthrough on gargantuan spending plan
The apparent deal with the Greens paves the way for up to €1 trillion in new spending for defense and infrastructure.
BERLIN — Germany’s conservative Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has reached a breakthrough with the Greens on a massive spending plan to unleash hundreds of billions of euros for defense and infrastructure, people familiar with negotiations told POLITICO.
Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), struck a deal with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) earlier this month to effectively exempt defense spending from the strictures of the country’s constitutional debt brake and to create a €500 billion special fund to finance infrastructure projects outside of normal budgetary spending over the next decade.
But in order to pass the bills through parliament, Merz needs the support of Germany’s Greens, who had — until now — been withholding support. The apparent agreement today paves the way for the measures to pass in the Bundestag on Tuesday.
Details of the breakthrough with the Greens today were not yet clear, but people familiar with the negotiations said a broad agreement on the spending package had been reached.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
DHS raids Columbia University dorms but no arrests made
Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided two Columbia University dorm rooms Thursday night, the school said in a statement.
Why it matters: The news comes days after federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia University alumnus, allegedly for organizing pro-Palestinian activity on campus. Khalil has not been charged with a crime.
The big picture: DHS agents conducted searches of two student rooms after serving the university with two warrants signed by a federal magistrate judge allowing agents to access non-public areas of the school, Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong wrote in a statement Thursday.
Armstrong said she was "heartbroken" by the development but confirmed that "no one was arrested or detained. No items were removed, and no further action was taken."
Armstrong noted the school was legally obliged to comply with the warrants but said that "University Public Safety was present at all times."
DHS did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Continue reading at Axios
Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who bridged partisan gaps with his quick wit, dies at age 93
Simpson died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a political legend whose quick wit bridged partisan gaps in the years before today’s political acrimony, has died. He was 93.
Simpson died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December, according to a statement from his family and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a group of museums where he was a board member for 56 years.
Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney, Simpson was a towering Republican figure from Wyoming, the least-populated state. Unlike Cheney, Simpson was famous for his humor.
“We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party,” was among Simpson’s many well-known quips.
Continue reading at Politico
Man escorted out of N.C. Republican’s town hall
“He has nothing to say but lies, you’re lying,” the man shouted from his seat during Edwards’s remarks, according to video from CNN.
“I’m a veteran and you don’t give a f— about me,” he screamed before standing up and pointing at the second-term lawmaker, who represents the western corner of the state.
Edwards’s security detail approached the individual and asked him to calm down. Instead, the man became more irate and was escorted out by multiple Asheville Police officers.
He was just one of 2,000 residents who came to voice their concerns, with some focused on the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) that includes cuts to nondefense spending on health care and related research.
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge denies CFPB funding relief to Baltimore
A federal judge on Friday declined to temporarily block the Trump administration’s bid to strip the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) of its reserve funds, after the city of Baltimore sued over an apparent effort to defund the agency.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox declined to grant Baltimore’s request for a temporary injunction, finding the challengers failed to prove the administration took a “final agency action” to defund the consumer watchdog.
Such a finding is mandatory for relief in claims brought under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The decision notches a victory for Trump, whose efforts to cut spending across the government in alignment with his agenda have often faced roadblocks in the courts.
Continue reading at The Hill
Tesla says it is ‘exposed’ to retaliatory tariffs
Tesla warned U.S. trade representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer that the electric vehicle company and other American exporters are “inherently exposed” to retaliatory tariffs levied in response to ones from Trump administration.
“While Tesla recognizes and supports the importance of fair trade, the assessment undertaken by USTR of potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States,” Tesla, which is owned by major Trump adviser and donor Elon Musk, wrote in a letter to Greer on Tuesday.
“U.S. exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to U.S. trade actions,” it continued.
The EV company also urged Greer to take into account “existing limitations in the domestic supply chain,” noting that Tesla has sought to create a strong supply chain stateside, but some vehicle parts are “difficult or impossible” to source in the U.S.
Continue reading at The Hill
Commerce secretary says Trump wants TikTok deal done under current deadline
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday said President Trump would like to hammer out a deal on TikTok’s future ownership under the current deadline, saying the president “doesn’t like to ask for extensions.”
“So, it’s in Donald Trump’s hands. He is going to make the decision how he wants to play it,” Lutnick said in an interview on FOX Business Network on Friday. “And you know Donald Trump. He wants to do it in the timeframe that he was given.”
“He doesn’t like to ask for extensions, because he is the best businessman who has ever sat behind that desk and he knows how to do things,” Lutnick continued. “He is going to try to get it done in the timeframe that he has. So, that’s number one.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Schumer apologizes for calling Republicans ‘bastards’
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) referred to Republicans as “bastards” on live television before quickly apologizing during a heated discussion on MSNBC over his decision to vote in favor of the GOP’s stopgap funding plan to avert a federal shutdown.
Schumer has faced intense pushback on the left this week, with progressives accusing him of capitulating to Republicans — who hold slim majorities in the Senate and House — on a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through September.
“It’s much, much better not to be in the middle of a shutdown, which could divert people from the No. 1 issue we have against these bastards — sorry, these people — which is not only all these cuts, but they’re ruining democracy,” Schumer said Thursday on MSNBC’s “All In.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Perkins Coie executive order ‘one of the most sinister’ Trump has entered: Luttig
Retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig said Thursday that President Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie is “one of the most sinister” that he “has entered to date.”
Speaking on MSNBC, Luttig said Trump had “declared war on the rule of law” even before he returned to the White House.
“In the past several weeks, however, he has really launched a full-frontal assault on the Constitution, the rule of law, our system of justice and the entire legal profession,” Luttig added.
On Wednesday, a judge temporarily froze parts of Trump’s executive order on Perkins Coie, which claims it is being targeted over its past work for Democrats.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate Democrat: This is ‘best time’ to take on ‘tyrant’ Trump
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said the current fight over a Republican spending bill was the “best time” for Democrats to take on President Trump, coming less than two months into his presidency.
Speaking on CNN on Thursday, Merkley said, “The best time to take on a tyrant is as early as possible, and this is the moment.”
Merkley argued a government shutdown would hurt Republicans politically and restore Democratic leverage in spending battles with GOP majorities.
“It will be bad policy, and we will get back to using our leverage in an effective fashion,” he said in his CNN remarks highlighted by Mediaite.
Continue reading at The Hill
Social Security says it will no longer accept bank changes over the phone
Social Security will no longer process bank account changes via phone
There are two ways to change your bank info: online or in-person
The agency's other phone services will remain the same
Americans will no longer be able to change their Social Security bank account information over the phone — a move the agency said will help eliminate the risk of fraud.
“Approximately 40 percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is associated with someone calling SSA to change direct deposit bank information. SSA’s current protocol of simply asking identifying questions by telephone is no longer enough to prevent fraud,” the Social Security Administration (SSA) said Wednesday.
Those who need to update their direct deposit information or make other bank account changes with the agency will have two options:
Online: Using two-factor authentication via their “my Social Security” account
In-person: Visiting a local Social Security office to prove their identity
The change will start on March 29, according to a post on X from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, the official press release did not include a specific date.
Continue reading at The Hill
Megastorm may bring blizzards, tornadoes, flooding and even fires across much of US: Where, when it will hit
More than 100 million people in the U.S. will be in the path of an intense March storm starting Friday as the sprawling multi-day system threatens fires, blizzards, tornadoes, and flooding as it tracks eastward across the Great Plains.
Scientists said the storm’s strength and potential for far-reaching impacts is notable, but its timing isn’t particularly unusual. Extreme weather can pop up in spring because storms feed on big temperature differences between the warmth that’s starting to show up and the lingering chill of winter.
“If there’s a time of the year where a storm like this can deliver these coast-to-coast impacts, we are in it,” said Benjamin Reppert, meteorologist at Penn State University.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump says he’s asked Putin to spare Ukrainian troops’ lives
President Trump said he strongly requested that Russian President Vladimir Putin spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers surrounded by Russian troops, in a statement posted to his social media site.
Trump described “good and productive” discussions between U.S. officials and the Russian leader, part of his effort to secure a ceasefire and halt fighting over three years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion against Ukraine.
“There is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end — BUT, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!”
Continue reading at The Hill
NATO chief opens door to restoring Russia relations after Ukraine war
“But we are absolutely not there yet,” defense chief says a day after talks with U.S. President Trump.
“It’s normal if the war would have stopped for Europe somehow, step by step, and also for the U.S., step by step, to restore normal relations with Russia," Rutte said in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday.
However, the defense chief added that the alliance must keep up the pressure on Moscow to ensure they engage seriously in ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
"We are absolutely not there yet," he said, referring to any normalization of relations. “That's why we have the sanctions. Let's not be naive about the Russians. But in the longer term, Russia is there, and Russia will not go away.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Danish FM to Trump: Greenland’s flag can’t be painted with stars and stripes
Greenland voted for pro-independence party in Tuesday’s election, a decision Trump welcomed.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen snapped back at Donald Trump’s recent comments suggesting that Greenland’s latest election results are “good” for United States interests.
“It’s a misinterpretation of the Greenlandic election to conclude that we’ll have an independent Greenland tomorrow, flying a white flag that can then be painted with stars and stripes,” Rasmussen said in an interview with Danish TV 2 on Friday.
The center-right Democrats defeated the governing left-wing coalition in Greenland’s Tuesday election, while a pro-U.S. party recorded its best result ever.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
BlackRock's Panama Canal deal isn't a sure bet
BlackRock's landmark deal for two Panamanian ports is in danger of running aground, threatened by geopolitical forces outside of its control.
Driving the news: Panama's Maritime Authority requested all legal and financial documents involved in the sale, while China urged Hong Kong-based seller CK Hutchinson to "think twice" about a plan that it called a "betrayal."
Meanwhile, NBC News reports that President Trump has "directed the U.S. military to draw up options to increase the American troop presence in Panama ... [including] the less likely option of U.S. troops' seizing the Panama Canal by force."
Zoom in: BlackRock's $22.8 billion agreement with CK Hutchinson, announced on March 4, is broken up into two parts.
The first covers two ports, one on either side of the Panama canal, and only was signed in principle. There's an April 2 deadline for definitive paperwork.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump praises Schumer's "courage" in backing spending bill
Why it matters: Trump's public praise could further enrage some Democrats who have vied this week to block the short-term funding bill. A handful of Democrats will need to support the bill for it to advance.
"Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took 'guts' and courage!" Trump posted Friday on Truth Social, calling it a "really good and smart move."
State of play: Schumer privately told his colleagues Thursday he plans to help break the filibuster on the GOP-led government funding bill, sources told Axios. He also authored an op-ed in the New York Times titled: "Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One."
Continue reading at Axios
What to know about the wartime authority Trump could use in mass deportations
President Trump plans to invoke a centuries-old wartime authority to accelerate mass deportations of undocumented immigrants with little to no due process.
Why it matters: Trump floated invoking the law on the campaign trail. Its potential use comes as some of his administration members have become frustrated with the slower than expected pace of deportations.
Trump could invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as soon as Friday.
Since the act is not part of immigration law, it would allow the government to detain and deport people without court hearings or asylum interviews.
Its most infamous use came during World War II, when it was used help justify Japanese internment.
Reality check: The U.S. is not currently at war with any country.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump administration targets 45 colleges for their DEI programs
The Department of Education said Friday it is investigating 45 colleges over allegations that they participated in "race-exclusionary practices."
Why it matters: It's the latest attempt by the Trump administration to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which have been repeatedly targeted since Trump came into office.
Framing schools' DEI programs, which are meant to provide equal opportunities for students of color, as "race-exclusionary" also aligns with some Trump allies' desire to reinterpret Civil Rights-era laws to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color, Axios' Alex Thompson has reported.
The letter comes after the Education Department warned 60 colleges, including Harvard and Yale, their federal funds could be cut if they don't address allegations of antisemitic harassment on campus.
Driving the news: The department said in a statement that the schools were being investigated for potentially violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which obliges schools that receive federal funds to provide students with an environment free of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin.
Continue reading at Axios
Changes loom for how Medicare pays doctors
Mehmet Oz heads to the Senate today, where lawmakers will consider his nomination to be administrator of Medicare and Medicaid. Here's what I'm watching for him to address: How Medicare determines what to pay doctors, and how much HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to shake up that process.
Why it matters: The American Medical Association, the largest group representing doctors in the country, and certain specialist physicians may be facing changes they won't like at all.
Republican ire with the AMA has been building for years.
But tackling the association's influence over doctor payments — and the incentives those payment rates create — also aligns with Kennedy's quest to root out industry influence from the government and reduce the prevalence of chronic disease in the U.S.
Interestingly enough, the subject has also drawn interest from people well outside of the MAHA movement, including some who otherwise oppose most of Kennedy's stances.
Reforms could begin to chip away at the gap between what primary care doctors and specialists are paid, which could ultimately lead to more preventive care and healthier people.
Where it stands: I'll say it from the start: Medicare payment policy is incredibly dense. But it's also incredibly important, and influences reimbursement throughout the rest of the health care system, including commercial insurance.
Continue reading at Axios
Florida’s famous orange groves may soon disappear
“At some point, this isn’t going to be an orange grove anymore,” Murphy, a third-generation grower, says as he gazes at the rows of trees in Lake Wales, Florida. “You look around here, and it’s all houses, and that’s going to happen here.”
Polk County, which includes Lake Wales, contains more acres of citrus than any other county in Florida. And in 2023, more people moved to Polk County than any other county in the country.
Population growth, hurricanes and a vicious citrus greening disease have left the Florida orange industry reeling. Consumers are drinking less orange juice, citrus growers are folding up their operations in the state and the major juice company Tropicana is struggling to stay afloat. With huge numbers of people moving into Florida’s orange growing areas, developers are increasingly building homes on what were once orange groves.
Continue reading at the Associated Press
New lawsuit alleges Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights cannot fulfill responsibilities after cuts
A lawsuit filed on Friday alleges the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is unable to fulfill its mandated obligations due to Trump administration changes as it seek to wind down the entire department.
The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and two parents filed the federal suit with the District of Columbia days after the Education Department announced Tuesday it is slashing its workforce in half, with layoffs affecting OCR.
The lawsuit alleges Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor are violating the Fifth Amendment and it seeks injunctive relief “to restore the investigation and processing capacity of OCR and to process complaints from the public promptly and equitably in accordance with OCR’s statutory and regulatory obligations.”
The lawsuit alleges OCR does not have the staffing needed to fulfill its complaint and investigative functions.
Continue reading at The Hill
Beshear compares Trump, Musk to ‘Thelma and Louise’
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) compared President Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk to “Thelma and Louise,” saying that potential cuts to Medicaid will “decimate” rural health care.
“Look at his presidency. He‘s obsessed with every issue other than the economy. You see the tariffs raising prices. You see the DOGE cuts, meaning tens of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs and being told it‘s their fault,” Beshear said of Trump in a Thursday appearance on CNN.
“You see potential cuts to Medicaid that would decimate rural health care between Trump and Musk. I’m not sure which one is Thelma and which one is Louise, but our economy is that car, and they are driving it off the cliff,” Beshear said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump tariffs push consumer sentiment to lowest level since 2022
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plunged 10.5 percent to 57.9, according to preliminary results. That marks the lowest level for the index since November 2022, when it dipped to 56.7 amid steep inflation and aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes.
“Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors,” said Joanne Hsu, director of the Michigan surveys of consumers.
“Frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences.”
The Michigan consumer sentiment index, which is closely watched by Wall Street, has fallen in three consecutive months since January and is down 22 percent from 2024.
Declines in consumer confidence were widespread across age, income, education, demographic and regions of the U.S., Hsu noted.
Continue reading at The Hill
Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Ukraine war, new polls show
The polls this week show doubt among voters, as Trump looks to close a deal with Russia to end the war.
A majority of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is engaging with Russia and Ukraine to end the war between the two countries, according to two new polls released this week.
Trump has cast himself as the central figure in brokering a peace in the yearslong war that Russia started. Trump has been hot and cold on the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, since entering office, and has also repeatedly thrown blame on Ukraine for the war. He has also sought to normalize relations with the Kremlin — while occasionally threatening devastating economic sanctions — and has repeatedly touted his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A new poll from CNN released Friday found 59 percent of Americans said it’s not too likely, or not at all likely, that Trump’s approach will bring long-term peace to Ukraine, with 41 percent saying it’s at least somewhat likely. Another 59 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the U.S.’ relationship with Russia — and 55 percent disapprove of how he’s handled “the situation” in Ukraine.
Half of the Americans polled said Trump’s approach to the war is bad for the U.S., with 29 percent saying it’s good for the country, and the balance said it didn’t make a difference.
Continue reading at Politico
Why Democrats have yet to capitalize on Trump’s tariff backlash.
Democrats are trying to pull off a balancing act on trade as they try to win back Rust Belt voters.
President Donald Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to trade policy has given Democrats an opening. They’re just not sure how to seize it.
Nowhere is their conflicted response more evident than in the upper Midwest, where Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China and other major trading partners promise both possible upsides but also tremendous risks for automakers and other manufacturers that are central to the regional economy.
Democrats from states like Michigan and Pennsylvania are trying to thread the needle by condemning Trump’s erratic policy pronouncements and attacks on allies like Canada, while not criticizing tariffs or protectionist policies.
“It’s indiscriminate tariffs that are not based on anything — that’s the problem,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) “I’ve supported tariffs. I supported Joe Biden’s 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from China.”
That’s a balance that former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both tried to strike in the 2024 election — with little success. And it remains a point of tension for Democrats on Capitol Hill and back home in the Rust Belt, as they fumble for an economic message that strikes a chord with working-class voters. Resolving that tension will be key to improving their chances in 2026.
Continue reading at Politico
Consumer sentiment plunges in early March, inflation expectations soar
s: The mix of new tariffs, federal cutbacks, erratic policy, and a slumping stock market is dampening American's optimism, which risks generating self-fulfilling economic weakness in the event consumers act on their newfound sense of worry.
Lower sentiment was strikingly broad-based, seen "across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions," survey director Joanne Hsu said in an announcement.
By the numbers: Overall consumer sentiment fell by about 11% in the month to 57.9, the third straight month of decline. That level is the lowest since the fall of 2022, when Biden-era inflation was still running high.
The decline was sharpest among Democrats, whose expectations declined 24%, but sentiment among Republicans fell 10% as well.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump's immigration factor
Volatile trade policy is getting all the media attention lately. But another risk to the growth outlook is also playing out — an end to the high immigration rates that were a feature of the U.S. economy in recent years.
Why it matters: Most economic policymakers say immigration helped loosen the tightest labor market in decades and eased inflation. Whatever your views on the policy, plummeting border crossings — paired with White House deportation plans — mean economic adjustment ahead.
It is a key element of President Trump's economic shock therapy, with uncertainty about what the mix of policies — lower immigration, higher tariffs and more — will ultimately mean for businesses and consumers.
What they're saying: "For US economic growth, immigration policy deserves more attention," Seth Carpenter, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a recent note.
"Immigration has been a fundamental part of the US growth story in the post-Covid phase," Carpenter wrote. A slowdown will affect growth, "boost inflation and present a thorny choice for the Fed."
By the numbers: Morgan Stanley expects net immigration of about 1 million this year and 500,000 in 2026, both notably lower compared to their estimated 2.7 million in 2024.
Continue reading at Axios
DHS revokes visa of one Columbia student, arrests another
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday it has revoked the visa of one Columbia University student and arrested another, escalating its crackdown on students engaged in protests over the conflict in Gaza.
The stripping of the visa comes just days after the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former grad student at the university, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Khalil has a green card, which can only be revoked by an immigration judge.
But Ranjani Srinivasan, a citizen of India and doctoral student in urban planning at Columbia University, had her F-1 student visa revoked on March 5, according to DHS.
The federal agency said Srinivasan “was involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization,” sharing a video of her passing through airport security.
Another Columbia student, Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was arrested by ICE for allegedly overstaying her F-1 student visa.
Kordia’s visa was terminated back in January of 2022 for lack of attendance, and she was arrested in April 2024 over her involvement in the pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Continue reading at The Hill
IRS to pause modernization efforts under Trump
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is pausing the operational overhaul it started during the Biden administration and is set to make changes to its workforce, senior Treasury officials said on a call with reporters Friday.
A Treasury official said that the U.S. tax collection agency has an opportunity to make a strategic pause on its modernization effort.
The official took an indirect swipe at the initial $80 billion in additional funding given to the IRS in Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), saying that a large investment often yields a small outcome.
The announcement of a pause follows Thursday reports in multiple media outlets saying that the IRS would shed as much as 20 percent of its workforce amid inquiries at agency by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Continue reading at The Hill
Measles confirmed in 3 more states as cases multiply
More than 300 cases of measles, one of the most contagious viruses in the world, have now been confirmed across more than a dozen U.S. states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.
The actual case count is likely higher. The agency said it’s aware of more “probable” measles cases that are still under investigation.
As of this week, the virus is now confirmed in three additional jurisdictions: Maryland, New York and Vermont. (Previously, measles had been identified in New York City, but not elsewhere in New York state).
Continue reading at The Hill
FBI investigating fake ‘SWAT’ calls against conservative media figure
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it would launch a probe into fake swatting calls after noticing an uptick in pranks involving conservative media figures that have warranted a response from law enforcement.
“I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a Friday morning post on X.
“This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers. That will not be tolerated,” he added.
Several conservative hosts of shows, including Joe Pagliarulo of the “Joe Pags Talk Show” and Shawn Farash of “UNGOVERNED,” as well as conservative commentator Nick Sortor, said they have been targeted by individuals who put out false alerts that have involved law enforcement’s Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) units
Continue reading at The Hill
Democratic tensions flare as Senate prepares to vote on funding bill
The Senate is up against a government funding deadline Friday and needs 60 votes to keep the lights on and prevent a shutdown beginning Saturday morning.
“The sooner we get this wrapped up, the better,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Friday morning.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) backed the continuing resolution late Thursday, sparking the fury of many in his party who have called loudly for the bill’s defeat.
Those tensions remained on full display Friday.
His announcement provides crucial political cover to Senate Democratic centrists who are thinking about voting for the House-passed bill to keep the government from shutting down, even though they have serious concerns about it, but a number of them have already vowed to oppose the measure.
The first vote is set for early afternoon.
Continue reading at The Hill
House GOP promotes use of ‘Taiwan’ over ‘Chinese Taipei’ in slight to Beijing
A group of House Republicans is introducing legislation to assert Taiwan as the official name of the independently-governed island in U.S. communication, pushing back against claims to the territory by the Chinese government in Beijing.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) authored the America Supports Taiwan Act on Friday, legislation that would eliminate any reference to “Chinese Taipei” in U.S. communication and replace it with “Taiwan.” Reps. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) are co-sponsors. A copy of the legislation was exclusively shared with The Hill.
The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official U.S. stance is not to recognize or advocate for Taiwan’s independence. The U.S. rarely uses the term “Chinese Taipei,” although it has appeared in some government communication. Taiwan’s embassy in Washington is referred to as the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” — a nod to Beijing’s demands that the country not be referred to as Taiwan. The legislation does not address that office’s name.
Continue reading at The Hill
Mark Kelly ditching his Tesla: ‘Built and designed by an a‑‑hole’
“I’m here in Washington driving to work for the last time in my Tesla,” Kelly said in a video posted on the social platform X. “When I bought this thing, I didn’t think it was going to become a political issue.
“Every time I get in this car in the last 60 days or so, it reminds me of just how much Elon Musk and Donald Trump is doing to our country. Talking about slashing Social Security, cutting health care benefits for poor people, for seniors. It’s one bad thing after the next,” he said of Musk’s actions as the lead of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Kelly also said Musk is firing veterans.
Continue reading at The Hill
Grassroots Democratic group calls for Schumer to resign as minority leader
The group is part of a chorus of anger within the Democratic party after Schumer said he would vote with Republican senators to advance the House GOP’s spending bill, which includes various provisions Democrats oppose.
“Chuck Schumer is unwilling and unable to meet the moment,” Pass the Torch said in a statement Friday. “His sole job is to fight MAGA’s fascist takeover of our democracy — instead, he’s directly enabling it. Americans desperately need a real opposition party to stand up to Trump.”
“It’s clear that will not happen as long as Schumer remains in charge of Senate Democrats. It’s time to ‘chuck’ Schumer out,” it added.
The group said the Senate minority leader should resign “to make way for leaders who will actually fight for the American people.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Jeffries stays silent on Schumer's future as Senate leader
The two New York Democrats have been at odds amid a government shutdown fight.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped a question about the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — a stunning demonstration of the breach that has emerged between the two New York Democrats over a looming government shutdown.
"Next question," Jeffries told reporters when asked if there should be new leadership in the Senate. He also declined to answer a question on whether he had confidence in Schumer and said that while he'd been in touch with his fellow leader, their conversations would "remain private."
Schumer said Thursday he planned to vote to advance a GOP-written funding patch to avert a shutdown, which is said was the better of two bad options.
“It is a false choice that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans have been presenting, between their reckless and partisan spending bill and a government shutdown,” Jeffries responded Friday. “We do not support a bill that is designed to hurt the American people.”
Continue reading at Politico
Pelosi slams 'false choice' on shutdown, indirectly criticizing Schumer
The former speaker said she did not buy the argument that a shutdown would be worse than passing the GOP's spending bill.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered some sidelong criticism of her colleagues in the other chamber Friday after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would vote to allow passage of a GOP spending patch.
"America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People," she said in a statement, endorsing an alternative bill from top Democratic appropriators Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
Continue reading at Politico
Inside House Dems' furious anti-Schumer movement
House Democrats from across the party's ideological spectrum — united in their fury at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — are engaged in a campaign to get Senate Democrats to defy their leader.
Why it matters: House lawmakers feel that there is a glimmer of hope, however faint, that they can actually persuade their Senate counterparts to reject a Republican-led government spending bill.
"There is a massive effort going on with people reaching out to their senators ... still happening this morning," one House Democrat told Axios on Friday.
"We just need to pick off four or five" senators, the lawmaker said.
What we're hearing: House Democrats are circulating a draft letter to Schumer, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, voicing "strong opposition" to passing the spending measure.
"The American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican chaos," they wrote. "Instead of capitulating to their obstruction, we must fight ... we urge you to reject the partisan continuing resolution."
Continue reading at Axios
Trump says ‘thousands’ of Ukrainian soldiers encircled in Kursk; Ukraine says that’s ‘untrue’
Ukraine insists its troops aren’t surrounded, but they are pulling back from areas they captured last summer.
KYIV — U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that thousands of Ukrainian troops are surrounded by the Russian military in the Kursk region and said he has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to spare them.
However, both Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Kursk and the Ukrainian high command say Trump is wrong. Ukraine is pulling back from the Russian territory it captured in a surprise offensive last summer, but those forces have not been encircled.
The Ukrainian command has sent reinforcements to secure the retreat to new positions, a process that has been under way for several days.
But that's not the view from the White House after Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin on Thursday night.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Chuck Schumer is drowning in Dem criticism. Hakeem Jeffries refused to throw him a rope.
The two New York Democrats have been at odds amid a government shutdown fight.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped a question about the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — a stunning demonstration of the breach that has emerged between the two New York Democrats over a looming government shutdown.
"Next question," Jeffries told reporters when asked if there should be new leadership in the Senate. He also declined to answer a question on whether he had confidence in Schumer and said that while he'd been in touch with his fellow leader, their conversations would "remain private."
Continue reading at Politico
Canada to G7: 51st state threat ‘is not a joke’
As foreign ministers arrived in Canada, Mélanie Joly welcomed them with a message: “Canadians are anxious.”
LA MALBAIE, Quebec — As G7 foreign ministers enjoyed Canadian hospitality in a five-star hotel in rural Quebec, their Canadian host sounded frustrated.
The topic: President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to his northern neighbor’s sovereignty.
“I think many of my colleagues coming here thought that this issue is still a joke, and that this had to be taken in a humorous way. But I said to them, this is not a joke,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said Friday. “Canadians are anxious. Canadians are proud people. And you are here in a sovereign country.”
The previous day, Trump had said Canada “only works as a state” — the latest in a long string of his comments about annexing Canada as the U.S.’ “51st state.”
Continue reading at Politico
Mace sued for defamation by man she accused of abuse in floor speech
The legal action seeks to carve out an exception from the speech or debate clause of the Constitution.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is facing a defamation lawsuit filed by one of the four men she has publicly accused of sexual abuse in a floor speech, in a case that could test the legal protections members of Congress have for their official conduct.
The South Carolinian took to the House floor last month to accuse her ex-fiance, Charleston businessman Patrick Bryant, and three other men of rape, sex trafficking and nonconsensually filming sex acts with her and others.
Now Brian Musgrave, one of the other men Mace named on the House floor, is suing the member of Congress for defamation.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in South Carolina, he categorically denied the allegations leveled against him by Mace — saying he was not present during any alleged events Mace described and did not “film” or “incapacitate” anyone — adding she “and her team destroyed the lives” of Musgrave and his family.
Continue reading at Politico
European security advisers dash to Washington after Witkoff’s talks with Putin
As Washington and Moscow negotiate Ukraine’s future, European security advisers scramble to avoid being left out of the deal.
Top European officials rushed to Washington as the United States and Russia move closer to a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
Germany’s national security adviser, Jens Plötner, traveled to Washington on Friday for urgent talks alongside his British counterpart, Jonathan Powell, and French President Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne. The three met with U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz at the White House.
The hastily arranged trip comes amid intensifying negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. officials agreed on the framework for a 30-day ceasefire after talks in Saudi Arabia, effectively putting the ball in Moscow's court.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Conservative group launches six-figure campaign hitting Ossoff over transgender vote
“Jon Ossoff had a choice: to protect women’s sports or sell out to the woke mob. Ossoff sold out,” a narrator in the 30-second ad says, which was first shared with The Hill.
“Years of practice wasted. The championship ripped away. Her scholarship stolen. Ossoff voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” the narrator continues. “He put politics over our daughters. Call Jon Ossoff — tell him to protect our daughters’ sports and their safety.”
American Principles Project, which describes itself as “the only national pro-family organization engaging directly in campaigns and elections,” is attacking Ossoff after he voted against allowing legislation, which would have banned schools receiving federal funding from allowing transgender women to participate in women sports, from advancing.
Ossoff’s Senate counterpart, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), also voted to block it from proceeding. Republicans needed at least 60 votes to advance the bill.
Continue reading at The Hill
North Dakota Senate rejects resolution asking Supreme Court to reverse same-sex marriage ruling
The North Dakota Senate on Thursday rejected a resolution that would have asked the Supreme Court to revisit its landmark 2015 ruling on marriage equality.
Senators voted 31-16 against the resolution, introduced in January by Republican state Rep. Bill Tveit. It would have called on the Supreme Court to overturn its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges and “leave unaddressed the natural definition of marriage as a union between one man, a biological male, and one woman, a biological female.”
“It’s past time for the good citizens to speak their displeasure with this Supreme Court decision, and call for restoration of the definition of marriage as only of the legal union between a man and woman,” Tveit said while testifying in favor of the resolution in February.
“If same-sex couples desire a collaborative union of a sort, or a legal bonding, they must call it anything but marriage,” he said.
Continue reading at The Hill
David Sacks and his VC firm sold $200 million in crypto assets
David Sacks, the venture capitalist advising President Trump on crypto and AI policy, sold $85 million of crypto-related assets in order to satisfy government ethics rules, according to a White House memo.
Sacks' investment firm, Craft Ventures, divested another $115 million of crypto-related assets.
There was no mention of AI-related divestitures.
Why it matters: Sacks has been criticized on social media and by the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee for his financial ties to the crypto industry, particularly given his advocacy for a bitcoin strategic reserve.
Continue reading at Axios
Amendments are circulated as Senate nears shutdown-averting deal
The likely-to-fail measures could be key to securing a unanimous agreement on a final spending vote.
With less than nine hours before a possible shutdown, that will require all 100 senators to agree to move toward a quick resolution, and some of them want votes on amendments in exchange for their consent. Five are being circulated among senators to gauge support and make sure there are no objections — a final step before an agreement can be locked in.
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is the only Republican seeking an amendment. It would cut foreign aid grant funding by 83 percent, enacting the reductions Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative are already making. The amendment could put his Republican colleagues in a bind, however, because while they support the DOGE cutbacks, they do not want to derail the Trump-backed spending bill. Adopting it would require calling the House back from recess to pass the bill, and Paul has been pushing to hold a vote at a simple majority threshold — further squeezing the GOP.
— On the Democratic side, there is major support for an amendment from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator, for a four-week stopgap that would keep the government running on current funding levels in an effort to buy more time for bipartisan funding talks.
— Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) is seeking reinstatement eligibility for veteran federal employees fired by DOGE and a report on the numbers of veterans impacted across agencies.
— Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wants to block funding for DOGE or "any successor agency."
— And a proposal from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) would limit some of the bill’s rescissions — language zeroing out funding for certain programs.
Continue reading at Politico
The Justice Department is investigating whether Columbia University hid students sought by US
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security searched two university residences with a warrant Thursday evening. No one was arrested, and it was unclear whom the authorities were searching for, but by Friday afternoon U.S. officials had announced developments related to two people they had pursued in connection with the demonstrations.
A Columbia doctoral student from India whose visa was revoked by the Trump administration fled the U.S. on an airliner. And a Palestinian woman who had been arrested during the protests at the university last April was arrested by federal immigration authorities in Newark, New Jersey, for overstaying her student visa.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking at the Justice Department, said it was all part of the president’s “mission to end antisemitism in this country.”
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Trump calls for imprisoning his opponents in bellicose speech at Justice Department
President Donald Trump on Friday walked into the Department of Justice and labeled his courtroom opponents “scum,” judges “corrupt” and the prosecutors who investigated him “deranged.”
With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison.
“These are people that are bad people, really bad people,” the president said. “The people who did this to us should go to jail.”
In a rambling speech that was by turns dark, exultant and pugnacious, Trump vowed to remake the agency and retaliate against his enemies.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump suggests federal government take over DC if local leaders ‘can’t do the job’
President Trump on Friday suggested that the federal government could take over Washington, D.C., if the national capital’s administration “can’t do the job” as he pursues making the district “the talk of the world.”
“We’re cleaning up our city. We’re cleaning up this great capital, and we’re not going to have crime and we’re not going to stand for crime, and we’re going to take the graffiti down and we’re already taken to tents down there,” Trump said in a speech on “law and order” at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“We’re working with the administration, and if the administration can’t do the job … we’re gonna have to take it back and run it through the federal government,” the president said of the district’s leadership.
“But we hope the administration is going to be able – so far, they’ve been doing very well. The mayor has been doing a good job.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate moves ahead on shutdown votes
Democrats agreed to speed up consideration of the bill to allow a vote on Friday in exchange for votes on four amendments.
Senate leaders struck a deal on Friday to pave the way for passage of the House GOP’s seven-month stopgap spending bill and avoid a government shutdown.
Under the deal, Democrats agreed to speed up consideration of the bill to allow a vote on Friday in exchange for votes on four amendments — but not Democrats’ preferred four-week funding alternative. Without an accord, it would have taken days to get the stopgap bill through the Senate and a shutdown would have started just after midnight on Saturday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune separately set up action on a bill to reverse some cuts to the District of Columbia budget that were included in the stopgap funding bill.
Continue reading at Politico
Senate advances funding bill
The government is due to shut down just after midnight.
Ten Senate Democrats joined with Republicans Friday to advance a seven-month government funding bill, taking a key step toward averting a midnight shutdown.
The 62-38 vote marked a major breakthrough after Senate Democrats spent much of the week paralyzed over whether to use the moment to fight back against President Donald Trump. The procedural vote Friday afternoon required support from at least 60 senators.
But this initial vote was the real test of Democrats’ will to fight, especially after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer enraged members of his own party — including basically every Democratic colleague in the House — for ultimately deciding to support the measure, arguing it best not to risk empowering President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to further ramp up their unchecked crusade to dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
He was joined by Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Gary Peters of Michigan, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, alongside Angus King — an independent from Maine, who caucuses with Democrats.
Continue reading at Politico
Fetterman claps back at Ocasio-Cortez on government funding vote
Fetterman said Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal lawmakers who are calling for the Senate to block the bill, which would fund government through Sept. 30, don’t have a viable exit strategy for ending a government shutdown.
And he says it’s easy for House liberals to take potshots at the Senate when members of Congress would continue to receive paychecks during a shutdown while tens of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed without pay, possibly for weeks.
“I hope you can relay how little I care about her views on this,” said Fetterman when asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments that Senate Democrats who vote to advance the bill are betraying their Democratic House colleagues.
“I’m going to stand on what I happen to believe is the right thing to do but ask her, ‘What’s the exit plan once we shut the government down?’ What about all the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?” he asked.
Continue reading at The Hill
US sees 300-plus measles cases, highest in a year since 2019
The U.S. has recorded more than 300 cases of measles in just the first three months of this year, according to data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the most infections recorded in a single year since 2019.
More than 90 percent of those cases are linked to a growing outbreak that began in western Texas and has now spread to New Mexico. The Texas Department of State Health Services recorded 259 cases Friday, and an additional 35 in New Mexico. According to CDC, at least 50 people have been hospitalized.
Continue reading at The Hill
Store closing sales enter final days for Big Lots, Party City and more
Liquidation and going-out-of-business sales are entering the final days and weeks for closing Big Lots, Party City, Kohl's and Macy's stores.
Why it matters: Approximately 15,000 store closures are expected this year, more than double the 7,325 stores that closed in 2024, according to Coresight Research.
JCPenney, Joann, Dollar General, CVS and Walgreens are also shuttering stores this year.
State of play: If you want to shop at a closing store sale, try calling to confirm your closest location is still open.
Some stores closed earlier in the liquidation sale.
Big Lots stores closing, some reopening
Big Lots posted on its Facebook page Friday that its stores were going into their "final weekend" and "slashing prices until it's gone!"
Its Facebook page notes it's the "last 3 days or less" as "stores close when it's all gone."
Zoom in: The Columbus, Ohio-based company had about 27,700 employees and more than 1,300 stores in 48 states when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.
Continue reading at Axios
Newsom tells Senate Dems to ‘do the right thing,’ oppose CR
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has called on Senate Democrats “to stand up and do the right thing” and vote no on the GOP-backed stopgap bill that would avert a looming government shutdown.
“Passing this bill would give Republicans 6 months to consolidate power in the Executive branch and wreak havoc on our country. They are already threatening social security and Medicare. Gutting the Department of Education. Firing veterans. Vandalizing basic environmental protections. This will only allow them to continue that,” he said Friday in a post on social platform X.
“They will go on to cut funding and punish states that don’t do their bidding. There’s still time to do the right thing. VOTE NO,” he added.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), who like Newsom is seen as a prospective presidential candidate for Democrats, also urged his party to oppose the measure.
Continue reading at The Hill
DHS targets more pro-Palestinian protesters from Columbia University
Donald Trump vowed earlier this week that the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil would be the “first of many to come.”
A second protester from Columbia University has been arrested by immigration officials, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday, following the high-profile arrest of a green card holder earlier this week.
Immigration officials also said a third protester had their student visa revoked, who then “self-deported” via the CBP One app.
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was arrested by local Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities for allegedly overstaying a student visa. Her visa was terminated in 2022 “for lack of attendance,” DHS’ announcement said.
Kordia was among the pro-Palestinian activists arrested in the spring of 2024 for protesting at Columbia University, the agency added.
DHS also shared video footage of Ranjani Srinivasan, who is from India and had been studying for her doctorate at Columbia with a student visa, leaving the country Tuesday after having reported her intention to depart on the Customs and Border Protection app.
The State Department had revoked her student visa last week, a DHS announcement said, and the agency accused her of “supporting Hammas [sic], a terrorist organization.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump was poised to have a bad week. Enter Democrats.
Democrats are fighting each other, distracting Washington, at least temporarily, from Trump’s trade war that has wreaked havoc on the stock market.
President Donald Trump’s week was poised to be bruising.
Instead, the president is ending it on a political high after he and congressional Republicans closed ranks and, with an assist from the looming specter of DOGE, cornered Democrats into voting to avert a government shutdown on their terms. Now, it’s Democrats who are fighting each other, distracting Washington, at least temporarily, from Trump’s trade war that has wreaked havoc on the stock market.
It’s a sign of just how different this Trump is from the one who left office four years ago. Not only is Trump firmly the leader of a GOP he has remade in his image — borne out Tuesday when many hardline members of the House Freedom Caucus voted for their first ever stopgap spending bill. But his mercurial governing style drove a wedge between Democrats, some of whom feared they would play into the president’s hands if they voted to shut the government down.
Continue reading at Politico
Wyden, Sanders blocked from attempt to pass standalone health package
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were blocked Friday from passing a package of health policies, including changes to the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry that was left out of December’s government spending bill.
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, attempted to pass the bipartisan legislation by unanimous consent. It was blocked by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who made no comments on the Senate floor as to his reasons.
The Hill has reached out to Scott’s office.
Continue reading at The Hill
California tries Trump-proofing by another name
State lawmakers want to bolster environmental rules against federal rollbacks — but they’re shying away from articulating the reason.
SACRAMENTO, California — California politicians are still trying to protect themselves from President Donald Trump — they’re just being quieter about it.
The latest example is a trio of Democratic state bills that would enshrine pre-Trump federal water protections in state law. The key context is Trump’s promises to undo federal environmental protections, but lawmakers are avoiding making it all about him.
“We have purposely not been communicating that this bill is a Trump resistance bill,” said Sean Bothwell, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, of a measure to insulate the state from any weakening of the federal Clean Water Act, as Trump did on Wednesday.
Lawmakers during Trump’s first term explicitly billed a previous version in 2019 as “Trump insurance.” This time, they’re going with “future-proofing.”
State Sen. Ben Allen, the author of this year’s bill, said in a release Thursday that Trump’s move makes his proposal “now more important than ever to future-proof these precious natural resources.”
Continue reading at Politico
Europeans boycott US products to protest against Trump tariffs
As US President Donald Trump escalates a trade war with the European Union – most recently by threatening a 200% tariff on wine and champagne – Europeans are taking matters into their own hands by starting grassroots boycotts of American products that are mobilising tens of thousands of consumers.
“Tired of financing American imperialism? Take action,” reads the description of a Facebook group started in France that encourages members to support the French and European economies by refusing to buy products made in the United States.
The Boycott USA: Buy French and European! group was created on February 28 and has already amassed more than 20,000 followers sharing tips on how to replace popular US brands such as McDonalds, Levi’s and WhatsApp with local equivalents.
Across northern Europe, similar grassroots movements are popping up. Two Swedish Facebook groups both have around 80,000 members as does a Danish group, with smaller groups up and running in the Netherlands and Belgium.
“It's not just a question of blindly boycotting everything, but of consciously directing our wallets towards solutions that are most beneficial to the local, French and European economy,” wrote the French group’s founder, Édouard Roussez, in a post.
The group’s members share extensive lists of US brands to avoid – even though, in a globalised world, defining what counts as “American” is not always easy. Coca-Cola, for example, has a large factory in northern France. So would a boycott hurt French workers?
Continue reading at France 24 in English
‘Terrible for Their Relationship’: The Schumer-Jeffries Split Explodes in Public
“To beat Trump, we need clarity of purpose, discipline and coordination,” one top Democratic strategist said. “It’s clear none of that exists right now.”
Year after year, in shutdown fight after shutdown fight, in debt-limit standoff after debt-limit standoff, you could count on this: While Republicans would be bickering and taking potshots at each other, Democratic leaders would stay in lockstep — giving their members a united front to rally behind.
That all exploded in dramatic fashion this week, culminating Friday at a news conference unlike any I have seen in my career covering Congress, where the No. 1 House Democrat repeatedly dodged questions about whether the No. 1 Senate Democrat was fit to lead.
Should Senate Democrats ditch Chuck Schumer? House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, as the kids say, chose violence: “Next question.”
It was the diss heard around the Capitol and in Democratic circles around the country. It marked the end of decades of relative peace atop the Democratic ranks and exposed the friction between two Brooklyn natives who had worked closely together last year to engineer a new presidential ticket. And it sent a worrying signal to their party: In the future, these two leaders won’t necessarily be singing from the same political hymnal.
The stunning breach comes just as President Donald Trump takes a wrecking ball to the federal bureaucracy and pushes the limits of his constitutional powers. And yet the Jeffries-vs-Schumer drama has emerged as the biggest show on Capitol Hill this week — a distraction for Democrats that is yanking the headlines away from Trump’s tough polling and a spiraling stock market.
Ashley Etienne, a former top communications strategist for ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has vocally criticized Hill Democrats agitating for a shutdown, told me it amounted to a “complete meltdown” for Democrats.
“Trump had given the party a gift — the economy is tanking, his tariff wars are devastating Americans’ pocketbooks, and the courts are finally checking his authority — yet we’ve found a way to squander it,” she said, “To beat Trump, we need clarity of purpose, discipline and coordination. It’s clear none of that exists right now.”
Continue reading at Politico Magazine
Note from Rima: While I avoid sharing columns, this one contains a lot of insights from insiders.
‘Uniting anger’: Democrats fume over Schumer’s handling of funding fight
The longtime New York senator faces a precarious moment.
Chuck Schumer is facing one of the most perilous moments of his Senate leadership career.
The Senate minority leader came under heavy fire for the second straight day from Democrats enraged at him for backing a Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown, and fallout appears likely to last well past Friday’s vote.
A handful of House lawmakers, including some in battleground districts, are floating supporting a primary challenge against him. Activists are organizing efforts to punish him financially. Schumer is facing questions within his own caucus about whether he made strategic errors in handling the high-stakes moment and failed to outline a clear plan about how to deal with the complex politics of a shutdown, according to interviews with six lawmakers or their aides. Some Democratic senators are even privately questioning whether he should stay on as their leader.
“He’s done a great deal of damage to the party,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, which has scheduled an emergency call Saturday with its New York chapter and other local leaders to “seriously consider if the current [Democratic] leadership is equipped to handle the moment we’re in.”
In a remarkable sign of how deep the intraparty frustration with Schumer runs, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to throw his fellow New Yorker a life raft. Asked by reporters on Friday if there should be new leadership in the Senate, he said, “Next question.”
Continue reading at Politico
Radio Free Asia set to furlough most US-based staff due to government funding freeze
Financial support suspension pushes government-funded broadcaster toward “skeleton staff” operations.
The U.S. government-backed broadcaster Radio Free Asia expects to start furloughing most of its 300-odd U.S.-based staff next week due to a suspension in funding by its parent agency, according to the outlet.
“If this situation continues into next week, we have little choice but to begin furloughing the majority of our staff starting Friday,” said an RFA spokesperson granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the organization’s budget crisis. The media platform’s overseas operations won’t be affected, he added.
While the furloughs are in keeping with ongoing mass staff reductions across the federal bureaucracy under the Trump administration, the cuts at Radio Free Asia are notable because they will effectively shut down one of the few tools the U.S. government has to combat Chinese propaganda and reach people living under authoritarian regimes across Asia.
“Staff were told on Thursday that furloughs will begin as early as next Friday because of the funding cut” said one of two people familiar with the broadcaster’s plan, adding that the broadcaster will try to continue operations with a “skeleton staff.” Both people were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the broadcaster’s funding troubles.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media — which oversees RFA and other media platforms including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: I spent at least half of my childhood and teen years overseas. The broadcasts from RFA, VOA, and BBC World Service were my connection to home.
Rubio says South Africa’s ambassador no longer welcome in US after criticizing Trump
The move comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and South Africa.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. is a “race-baiting politician” who is no longer welcome in the country — the latest sign of tension between the Trump administration and the African nation.
Rubio declared that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool is persona non grata in a social media post after the diplomat accused President Donald Trump of promoting global white supremacy.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio said on X. “Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”
The rare move to declare the diplomat unwelcome comes amid deteriorating relations apparently driven, at least in part, by the billionaire Elon Musk, the close Trump adviser who is a native of South Africa.
Continue reading at Politico
Tracking Trump: The trade war, Ukraine and Columbia
President Trump's whirlwind of policy hauls kept spinning this week as he navigated international trade disputes, a ceasefire proposal for Ukraine and turbulence over his claims of antisemitism at Columbia University.
Here's our recap of major developments.
U.S. economic outlook sours amid trade war
Global investors are becoming wary of the possibility Trump will eventually follow through on his pledge of across-the-board tariffs on many of the largest U.S. trading partners.
These trade conflicts have triggered worries about stagflation, a combination of stagnant growth and elevated inflation.
Catch up quick: The European Union announced $28 billion in counter tariffs Wednesday in response to Trump's levies on steel and aluminum, escalating the global trade war.
The EU's move follows Trump's earlier tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump spikes football at Justice Department
President Trump paid his first visit to the Department of Justice Friday and denounced the prosecutors who once worked out of this office.
Why it matters: Despite Trump's decisive November victory, he won't let go of his grievances over his federal criminal cases, which have been dismissed. He didn't announce any new policies in a more than hour-long speech.
"The case against me was bullshit," Trump, referring to the indictment over mishandling classified documents, said to laughter in The Great Hall of the Justice Department. He praised Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw the federal case and dismissed it before the election.
For a president given to making and creating superlatives, his off-the-cuff campaign-style speech was unlike any other ever given by an occupant of the White House at the department.
State of play: It's highly unusual for a sitting president to speak at the Justice Department, but Trump's visit marks the latest victory stop on his revenge tour since taking office. He went from federal defendant in two criminal cases to the leader of the executive branch firing the prosecutors who indicted him.
His remarks were reminiscent of a campaign speech at times, as he outlined his grievances against the Biden administration and prosecutors involved in cases against him, and derided what he views as the weaponization of the department.
He accused former President Biden of being part of a "crime" family.
Continue reading at Axios
Boehler withdraws nomination as special presidential envoy for hostages affairs
Adam Boehler, who oversaw unprecedented direct negotiations with Hamas on behalf of President Trump, has withdrawn his nomination for the position of special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, according to two White House officials.
The intrigue: A senior Trump administration official claimed that the move has been planned for two weeks and was intended to shift Boehler into a different presidential envoy position with a broader mandate but no need for Senate confirmation.
The big picture: Boehler has been at the center of a media and political storm since Axios revealed he had met directly with Hamas officials — making him the first U.S. official ever to do so.
Although those talks were approved by Trump, they sparked anger among some Senate Republicans, some of whom took the issue up privately with the White House.
That could have made Senate confirmation difficult.
News Nation first reported on Boehler's decision.
Driving the news: Last week, Axios reported that Boehler held two meetings with senior Hamas officials in Doha to negotiate the release of American hostages held by the group in Gaza.
The talks between Boehler and Hamas have sparked great anger in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, including an angry phone call with Netanyahu's close confidant, Ron Dermer.
Continue reading at Axios
Some student loan repayment plans have been suspended. Here’s what borrowers should know
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration’s recent changes to student loans are causing frustration and confusion for some borrowers.
In response to a February court ruling that blocked some Biden-era programs, the Education Department has taken down online and paper applications for income-driven repayment plans.
“This especially hurts anyone who’s lost their jobs, including federal workers,” said Natalia Abrams, founder and president of the Student Debt Crisis Center. “A few months ago, they would have been able to get on a zero-dollar income-driven repayment plan.”
The removal of application materials also has caused confusion around the recertification process for borrowers already enrolled in repayment plans, experts say. Income-driven repayment plans take a borrower’s finances and family size into account when calculating monthly payments, but borrowers must periodically demonstrate they still qualify.
Adding to the uncertainty are layoffs at the Education Department, which oversees the federal loan system. The federal website for student loans and financial aid, StudentAid.gov, suffered an hours-long outage Wednesday, but the department has said it will continue to deliver on its commitments.
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Senate GOP campaign arm targets Ossoff over vote against funding bill in digital ad
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) targeted Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) in a new digital ad on Friday over his vote against a GOP-crafted bill to fund the government through September.
“Democrat Jon Ossoff voted for a reckless government shutdown that would have hurt Georgia families,” a narrator in the 30-second spot says. “Jon Ossoff voted against pay increases for our military and firefighters, against funding for border security. He even voted against our veterans.”
The ad goes on to accuse Ossoff of caring more about “fighting Trump than getting things done.”
Ossoff is arguably the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection in 2026. The ad is the latest example of Republicans seeking to pin the vote on Democrats
Earlier this week, the National Republican Congressional Committee rolled out their own digital ads targeting House Democrats who voted against the measure.
Continue reading at The Hill
Appeals court reinstates portions of Trump’s DEI orders
A federal appeals court Friday reinstated portions of President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that were blocked by a lower court.
The unanimous three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the administration is likely to succeed in its February appeal, though the two judges appointed by Democratic presidents made clear a challenge could still succeed in the future.
“But my vote to grant the stay comes with a caveat,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, an appointee of former President Obama. “What the Orders say on their face and how they are enforced are two different things. Agency enforcement actions that go beyond the Orders’ narrow scope may well raise serious First Amendment and Due Process concerns.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Albert Diaz, another Obama appointee, said he agreed and raised concerns about the recent attacks on DEI, saying such programs seem “to be (at least to some) a monster in America’s closet.”
“And despite the vitriol now being heaped on DEI, people of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,” Diaz wrote in a separate opinion.
Continue reading at The Hill
House Democrats copy GOP by savaging their own Senate leader
The quotes from House Democrats since Thursday sound a lot like what readers have gotten used to from House Republicans over the last 10 years.
Why it matters: Former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was a frequent target of attacks from his own party, just like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been feeling this week.
See if you can spot the party ID of the person behind each of the quotes below. (Answers at the bottom).
"[McConnell/Schumer] is supposed to be the leader of the opposition, not a rank-and-file member of the [other party]."
"I'm looking at [McConnell/Schumer] when I say this: DO YOUR JOB, Leader. ... Do your job and follow the wishes of the American people."
McConnell/Schumer "should only agree to a short-term CR … to allow … the House to make the appropriations bills next year."
Continue reading/check your answers at Axios
Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.
Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of antisemitism.
Across academia, it was seen as a stunning intrusion.
“It’s an escalation of a kind that is unheard of,” said Joan Scott, a historian and member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors. “Even during the McCarthy period in the United States, this was not done.”
Continue reading at the Associated Press
Trump rolls back over a dozen Biden-era executive orders, actions
Trump signed an executive order late Friday that rescinded 18 executive actions signed by Biden during his four-year term in an effort to “reverse damaging policies and restore effective government,” according to a White House official.
With Friday’s executive order signed, Trump has reversed nearly 100 executive actions in his first two months back in office as he moves to reshape the federal government.
Trump rescinded Biden’s executive action that “elevated radical gender ideology in U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid.” Since returning to office, Trump has sought to roll back transgender rights, including signing an executive order recognizing only two sexes.
The previous administration also authorized the Department of Energy to utilize the Defense Production Act (DPA), first enacted in 1950, to expand the U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technology. That was ended Friday, including “mandates” for electric heat pumps and solar panels.
Trump also revoked an executive order, signed by Biden in 2024, focused on bettering labor standards. Biden’s order directed federal agencies to prioritize various labor practices, including high wages, a pathway to joining a union and safety in the workplace.
Continue reading at The Hill
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Musical interlude
Two wonderful performances by the late, and great, Al Jarreau.