Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 62 | Blog#42
“A man's vanity often goes hand in hand with his lack of knowledge.” - Eraldo Banovac
Yesterday’s post
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Subhead-worthy
Trump demands Colorado take down ‘purposefully distorted’ painting
President Trump is demanding that Colorado take down it’s “purposefully distorted” painting of him hanging in the State Capitol.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump said in a post Sunday on Truth Social. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one [of] me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.”
Trump said he would prefer not having a picture at all than having the one hung up. He said many Coloradans have called the state looking to get it changed or removed.
“I am speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down,” Trump said. “Jared should be ashamed of himself.”
Continue reading at The Hill
“A man's vanity often goes hand in hand with his lack of knowledge.”
Eraldo Banovac
Trump portrait to be removed at Colorado Capitol after president’s criticism
A portrait of President Trump that has been hanging in the Colorado Capitol for years is coming down after the president trashed the painting as “truly the worst” and suggested it was intentionally distorted to make him look bad.
House Democrats said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that the painting would be removed at the request of Republican lawmakers, adding “if the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Democratic News Corner
‘Old guard isn’t cutting it’ Ro Khanna tells voters in town hall tour
POLITICO rode along with Khanna on a swing through battleground California districts as he mused about dejected Democrats from the front seat of an SUV.
BAKERSFIELD — The banner draped behind Rep. Ro Khanna promised, in a deliberately Bernie Sanders-esque style, “Benefits over Billionaires.” The hand-painted signs in the audience lambasted Elon Musk.
But in the three town halls Khanna hosted in three red House districts far from his Silicon Valley home base on Sunday, it was the Democrats who were unambiguously being put on blast. So it was up to Khanna to convince his audience that his party still had a pulse.
“I want to know why in the world the Democratic Party hasn’t fought yet?” asked Ryiad Cooper, a 45-year-old combat veteran at Khanna’s afternoon event in California’s Inland Empire, the eastern exurbs of Los Angeles. “I’m sorry but you’re the only Democrat standing here, so you’re the only person I’ve got to ask.”
Town halls are, once again, in the political zeitgeist, much like the Tea Party-inspired outpouring of 2009 or the 2017 backlash to the efforts to gut Obamacare. Republican leadership is advising members to avoid in-person meetings; those who forged ahead anyway are rewarded with viral clips of booing crowds Meanwhile, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hosted mega-rallies over the weekend, including attracting 34,000 attendees in Colorado.
Khanna, the 48 year-old son of Indian immigrants who has carved out a distinct and somewhat incongruous niche as tech-friendly populist, had planned a tour designed to make California’s most vulnerable House Republicans sweat. He intended to send a signal to GOP Reps. David Valadao, Ken Calvert and Young Kim that the DOGE wrecking ball through the federal government and fears of cuts to Medicaid and Social Security was fomenting a popular backlash that could soon put their jobs at risk.
Continue reading at Politico
Liberal group warns Democratic leaders over their strategy against Trump
MoveOn’s members say they are deeply frustrated with the party’s current approach to the president.
A major liberal group is warning Democratic leaders that they have deep problems with their base when it comes to their strategy toward President Donald Trump.
The progressive organization MoveOn said in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that its members are irate over what they see as inaction from Democratic lawmakers in Congress. The memo, which was first shared with POLITICO, cautioned that grassroots volunteers and donors will stop helping the Democratic Party if it doesn’t do more to obstruct Trump.
“These members, arguably the backbone of the party, have reached a unifying consensus since President Trump’s inauguration,” wrote Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn. “Whether they live in a deep-red, purple, or blue district, their message is clear: Now is not the time for politics as usual. Don’t back down, fight back.”
The letter is the latest example of Schumer facing growing calls from within his own party to take a tougher approach against Trump — or step down as leader altogether — after voting with the GOP to advance a stopgap funding bill earlier this month. Four youth-oriented progressive organizations said last week that Schumer needs to “stand up” or resign from his leadership post. Another liberal group, Indivisible, called for him to go as leader. A handful of Democratic lawmakers have suggested that his time is up as well.
Continue reading at Politico
Behind the Curtain: Dems' dark, deep hole
Top Democrats tell us their party is in its deepest hole in nearly 50 years — and they fear things could actually get worse:
The party has its lowest favorability ever.
No popular national leader to help improve it.
Insufficient numbers to stop most legislation in Congress.
A durable minority on the Supreme Court.
Dwindling influence over the media ecosystem, with right-leaning podcasters and social media accounts ascendant.
Young voters are growing dramatically more conservative.
A bad 2026 map for Senate races.
Democratic Senate retirements could make it harder for the party to flip the House, with members tempted by statewide races.
Continue reading at Axios
Illinois progressive Congress member attracts Gen-Z challenger
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has represented the Chicago-area district for decades, has yet to announce her reelection plans.
CHICAGO — A progressive social media influencer announced a run for Congress on Monday in the Chicago-area district held by Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, citing frustration with Democratic Party leadership.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party right now is doing enough. [Sen.] Chuck Schumer backing down on the funding bill was just disgusting, frankly, and we can’t keep going that way,” Kat Abughazaleh, who announced her run on the Bluesky social network, said in an interview.
Schakowsky, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has represented the area for decades. The Illinois Democrat, who is 80, has yet to announce whether she’ll seek reelection.
Abughazaleh covered the Democratic National Convention as a social media influencer and before that worked at the liberal watchdog group Media Matters For America.
She gained fame on TikTok for her biting political humor, and her videos were published by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, where she critiqued Fox News for how it covered then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run.
Continue reading at Politico
Schumer's reconciliation training camp
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will summon his caucus this week for a crash course on how to oppose Republican budget reconciliation plans, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Republicans don't need Democratic votes to pass President Trump's proposals to cut taxes and alter government safety net programs. It'll be up to Democrats to find a way to make the GOP's efforts hurt politically.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his caucus will huddle Wednesday with budget reconciliation experts, sources tell us.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met earlier this year to discuss how the party can turn the GOP's tax-cut plans into political poison.
House Republicans last month passed a budget resolution — the first step toward a final reconciliation bill — that allows for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, offset by $2 trillion in spending cuts.
The big picture: Democratic leaders see an opening to go on offense against Trump and Republicans over their plans to cut taxes while slashing federal programs.
Continue reading at Axios
Wyden: Democrats shouldn’t make Republicans job ‘any easier’ by helping them raise debt limit
Sen. Ron Wyden (R-Ore.) on Monday said Democrats shouldn’t help Republicans tackle the debt ceiling this Congress, after a recent forecast warned the government was at risk of defaulting during the summer.
“The economic agenda for Trump and Republicans is about running up the debt and inflicting pain on working families to make billionaires like Elon Musk even wealthier,” the Finance Committee ranking member said in a statement on Monday.
“Democrats should not make their job any easier by helping them raise the debt ceiling,” he said.
His statement came in reaction to a projection released by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a prominent think tank, earlier on Monday.
Continue reading at The Hill
Yesterday’s news worth repeating
Today’s news
National Security
Concerns about espionage rise as Trump and Musk fire thousands of federal workers
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to overhaul the federal government, they’re forcing out thousands of workers with insider knowledge and connections who now need a job.
For Russia, China and other adversaries, the upheaval in Washington as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency guts government agencies presents an unprecedented opportunity to recruit informants, national security and intelligence experts say.
Every former federal worker with knowledge of or access to sensitive information or systems could be a target. When thousands of them leave their jobs at the same time, that creates a lot of targets, as well as a counterespionage challenge for the United States.
“This information is highly valuable, and it shouldn’t be surprising that Russia and China and other organizations — criminal syndicates for instance — would be aggressively recruiting government employees,” said Theresa Payton, a former White House chief information officer under President George W. Bush, who now runs her own cybersecurity firm.
Continue reading at the AP
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
This is going to require some explaining.
Continue reading at The Atlantic
"Heads should roll": Congress erupts over stunning Trump admin leak
Members of Congress in both parties exploded in anger Monday after the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic revealed he was inadvertently included in a highly-sensitive Trump administration Signal chat on airstrikes in Yemen.
Why it matters: Some Democrats are already calling for an investigation and potential repercussions against the national security officials involved in the lapse.
"This is an outrageous national security breach and heads should roll," Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement to Axios.
He added: "We need a full investigation and hearing into this on the House Armed Services Committee, ASAP."
"We can't chalk this up to a simple mistake – people should be fired for this," said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), another Armed Services Committee member.
Between the lines: People identifying as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Vice President Vance were among the 18 people in the Signal chat, per The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.
Continue reading at Axios
‘Amateur hour': Washington aghast at Trump administration’s war plan group chat
One Democratic congressional aide called it an “operational security nightmare.”
Members of Congress and national security staffers were stunned Monday by a bombshell report that top Trump administration officials — including the vice president and Defense secretary — discussed war plans in a Signal group chat.
“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), an Army veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, wrote on X. “If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”
“Get the fuck out,” said one Democratic congressional aide, capturing a general reeling on Capitol Hill about broken security protocols. It’s an “operational security nightmare,” the aide said. The aide, and others, were granted anonymity to be candid about a sensitive security issue involving the administration.
In the report in The Atlantic, the magazine’s editor revealed that he had accidentally been added to a group chat on the secure messaging app Signal where senior members of the Trump administration were discussing plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Some on Capitol Hill used it as an opportunity to hit back at the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
“Amateur hour,” Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona (D), a Marine veteran, wrote in a post on X. “These are the geniuses that are also selling out Ukraine and destroying our alliances all around the world. No wonder Putin is embarrassing them at the negotiation table.”
Continue reading at Politico
National Security Daily
The Trump administration did what now?
Top Trump national security officials discussed plans for striking Houthi militants in Yemen over the commercial messaging app Signal this month and accidentally added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat. Among those in the group chat were — apparently — Vice President JD VANCE, Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH, Deputy White House Chief of Staff STEPHEN MILLER, Director of National Intelligence TULSI GABBARD, Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO, CIA Director JOHN RATCLIFFE and national security adviser MIKE WALTZ. A National Security Council spokesperson didn’t respond to a request from NatSec Daily for comment, but told The Atlantic that the message chain appeared to be authentic.
The chat reveals both the unvarnished inner thinking of the Trump national security team and also the stunning potential operational security risks of planning military operations by group chat, as our Paul McLeary writes.
As our own Amy Mackinnon, Robbie Gramer, Paul and Jack Detsch reported today, The Atlantic’s reporting was met with a mixture of shock and horror inside the Pentagon and Hill offices. One congressional aide described it as an “operational nightmare.”
It’s worth noting that this is beyond the bounds of protocol that existed even in the first Trump administration. A former Trump administration official told NatSec Daily that sensitive plans of this nature would never have been discussed on Signal given the (evidently) higher sensitivity in the first Trump presidency to digital hygiene and information safeguarding.
“There were a lot more traditional Republicans in national security in Trump 1, who understood and appreciated the sensitivity of classified information and the imperative of” operational security, the official said. NatSec Daily agreed not to name the official, and others, so they could freely discuss internal government processes.
There’s a certain irony to all of this, given that many of the officials implicated spent the last decade raking former Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON and other top Democratic national security officials over the coals for their own digital mishandling of classified information. As recently as 2023, Waltz insinuated the Justice Department should have probed Biden administration national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN for sending “top secret” emails to Clinton’s private server when he worked for her.
Will any of the officials involved face consequences for the incident? Top Democrats are accusing them of criminal wrongdoing, and the recent fixation of Trump adviser ELON MUSK in crushing leakers might suggest they would. But Trump claimed ignorance when asked to comment by a reporter in the Oval Office. It’s also even less likely that congressional Republicans will launch probes despite their yearslong obsession with Clinton’s emails and Biden administration security lapses.
Continue reading at Politico’s National Security Daily newsletter
Speaker Johnson: Waltz, Hegseth shouldn’t be disciplined over war plans Signal chat
Asked by The Hill if Waltz, who apparently added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat on Signal, and Hegseth, who according to Goldberg shared the sensitive details ahead of the offensive, should be disciplined, Johnson responded “no, no of course not.”
“The administration, as I understand, I just was with the president in the Oval Office, just now, the administration is addressing what happened,” Johnson said when asked if he was concerned about the report. “Apparently an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They’re gonna track that down and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Pressed on whether it was irresponsible of top-level national security officials to talk on a text chain and not in a facility designed to safeguard sensitive information, Johnson responded: “I’m not gonna characterize what happened.”
“Clearly, I think the administration has acknowledged it was a mistake and they’ll tighten up and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
House Republican calls for ‘safeguards’ after war plan text chat
GOP Rep. Mike Lawler (N.Y.) called for “safeguards” to be implemented to ensure the leaking of war plans doesn’t happen again after a journalist was included in a Signal group chat discussing them.
“Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period,” Lawler said Monday in a post on the social platform X.
“Safeguards must be put into place to ensure this never happens again,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Buttigieg assails leak as ‘highest level of f—up imaginable’
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D) slammed Trump administration officials for reportedly discussing plans for an attack against Houthi rebels in Yemen on a text chain that inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.
“From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of f—up imaginable,” Buttigieg wrote in a post on X, responding to the report in The Atlantic on Monday.
“These people cannot keep America safe,” he continued.
Continue reading at The Hill
House Democrat presses for training on handling of classified material after war plan
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), a moderate Democrat and former Air Force officer, pressed for all government personnel to receive training on how to handle classified material, following a news report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inadvertently texted key details of U.S. war plans to a prominent journalist.
In a letter addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the top Democrat and Republican on the House Administration Committee, Houlahan said the recent reporting in The Atlantic makes clear the importance of the training.
“Given the recent events involving executive branch officials’ spillage of national security information, it is imperative that all government personnel receive adequate training on the proper handling and management of classified material,” Houlahan wrote in the letter, linking to The Atlantic story published Monday.
Continue reading at The Hill
Vance on Trump admin’s plans to bomb Houthis: ‘I just hate bailing Europe out again’
Vice President Vance reportedly said that he disliked “bailing Europe out again” when discussing Trump administration plans to bomb Houthi rebels in a group chat featuring other administration officials.
According to a new report from The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, he gained access to a group chat on Signal featuring Trump administration officials such as Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In the group chat, officials talked about and went back and forth on details of attacks targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to Goldberg’s reporting.
Hegseth previously stated that the attacks in Yemen, which struck several targets over the course of three days beginning on March 15, were included in an “unrelenting” campaign that would continue until the Houthis halted their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, which is an important maritime corridor.
Goldberg reported that Vance said in the chat that he believed the strikes were “a mistake,” saying that 3 percent of U.S. trade moves through the Suez Canal, while 40 percent of European trade moves through the canal.
Continue reading at The Hill
Waltz’s future in doubt following accidental war plan leak
“You can’t have recklessness as the national security adviser,” one official said.
The stunning revelation that top administration officials accidentally included a reporter in a group chat discussing war plans has prompted speculation inside the White House that national security adviser Mike Waltz may need to be forced out.
Nothing is official yet, and White House officials cautioned that President Donald Trump would ultimately make the decision over the next day or two as he watches coverage of the embarrassing episode.
A senior administration official told POLITICO on Monday afternoon that they are involved in multiple text threads with other administration staffers on what to do with Waltz, following the bombshell report that the top aide inadvertently included Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a private chat discussing a military strike on Houthis.
Continue reading at Politico
Hegseth says ‘nobody was texting war plans’ after group chat breach
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said outside a plane in Hawaii after being asked about Goldberg’s access to the chat.
Hegseth also called Goldberg “a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump donor John Phelan confirmed as Navy Secretary
While Phelan did not draw outright opposition during his Feb. 27 nomination hearing, some lawmakers expressed unease at his lack of prior military service or management of any civilian sector of the Pentagon.
But Phelan argued that his background made him an ideal candidate to fix the issues that have plagued the Navy such as failed audits, workforce management issues, cost overruns and delays in shipbuilding.
He is the founder and chair of Rugger Management LLC, a private investment firm based in Florida, and also was the managing partner of MSD Capital, a private equity firm.
Phelan, also a prominent art collector, donated nearly $1 million to Trump’s fundraising committee, and nearly a million to other Republican campaign committees, according to public filings. He also held a glitzy fundraiser for Trump at his $38 million Aspen home, charging $25,000-$500,000 per couple, according to The Guardian.
Continue reading at The Hill
General News
Trump is ‘declaring war’ on judicial system: Conservative former federal judge
A conservative former federal judge, J. Michael Luttig, said he believes President Trump is “declaring war” on the judicial system.
Luttig, who was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush and served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006, criticized the president in an op-ed published Sunday in The New York Times.
“President Trump has wasted no time in his second term in declaring war on the nation’s federal judiciary, the country’s legal profession and the rule of law,” Luttig wrote.
The Trump administration is battling a federal judge who sought to stop the deportation of nearly 300 alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Judge James Boasberg ordered the plane not to leave the U.S. or to turn around if they already had.
Continue reading at The Hill
Usha Vance Accidentally Reveals Very Un-MAGA Item on Her Shelf
On Sunday, Second Lady Usha Vance posted a video to her SLOTUS Instagram account announcing her upcoming trip to Kalaallit Nunnaat, Greenland, to attend a dog sled race.
The video features the 39-year-old standing in front of a mantel in a room with limited decor. Despite the bland background, however, one particular item can be spotted in the top left hand corner of the screen; a small figurine standing in front of a book written by a vice president of the United States.
You might assume the one book featured in the room would be Hillbilly Elegy, written by her husband, JD Vance. But instead, it’s Earth in the Balance, authored by Bill Clinton’s VP Al Gore.
Continue reading at The Daily Beast
Greenland’s prime minister slams ‘highly aggressive’ visit by US officials, including second lady Usha Vance
Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede called the US delegation’s trip to the island “highly aggressive” in an interview with Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday, and raised particular objection to Waltz’s visit.
“What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us,” Egede said. “His mere presence in Greenland will no doubt fuel American belief in Trump’s mission — and the pressure will increase.”
Trump’s idea to annex Greenland has thrown an international spotlight on the territory, which holds vast stores of rare earth minerals critical for high-tech industries, and has raised questions about the island’s future security as the US, Russia and China vie for influence in the Arctic. Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in the US taking the island by force or economic coercion, even as Denmark and Greenland have firmly rejected the idea.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Greenland to Trump: No, we didn’t invite you
A delegation that includes second lady Usha Vance is slated to arrive on the island on Thursday.
Greenland did not invite an American delegation to come visit this week, the self-ruling island’s government said Monday, flatly denying a claim made by President Donald Trump.
Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, will land in the Danish territory on Thursday, alongside National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The planned visit has been met with anger in Greenland, with outgoing Prime Minister Múte B. Egede calling it part of the U.S.’ “very aggressive” bid to seize the Arctic island.
“We are now at a level where this cannot in any way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife. … The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us,” he said.
Trump told reporters Monday that Greenlandic “officials” requested Washington send a team to the island. “People from Greenland are asking us to go there,” he said.
Continue reading at Politico
UK considers pulling the plug on £180M Brexit trade system
“Single Trade Window” platform could be abandoned as government seeks savings ahead of spending review.
LONDON — It was billed as the “world’s most effective border.”
In December 2020, as the United Kingdom prepared to enter a brave new world outside the European Union, the then-Tory government outlined plans for a “Single Trade Window” to “radically simplify traders’ interactions with the border.”
The platform, backed by a £180 million investment, would allow importers and exporters to file all their paperwork digitally in a single place, saving time and money.
But, after years of delays and setbacks, the project — which the government estimated would cost £330 million in total to deliver — has still not seen the light of day.
Now it may be abandoned altogether.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Romanian media watchdog defies Musk over censorship claims
Bucharest is at the center of a heated debate over social media policing.
Romania's social media regulator has hit back at Washington's claims that it is censoring speech, saying it is instead fighting an information war with Russia to stop election meddling.
Pavel Popescu, the vice president of telecom and media regulator ANCOM, told POLITICO in an interview that a "hybrid war" was underway and that "we are fighting it. We are fighting it at the highest level with all the institutions."
Romania has become ground zero in a global struggle over how speech is regulated online. Its top constitutional court in December canceled the win of ultranationalist Călin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential election after security services warned Russia was mounting “aggressive” hybrid attacks on social media. Georgescu has been barred from running in the do-over election scheduled for May.
ANCOM oversees the Digital Services Act in Romania, the European Union's social media rulebook that governs how platforms like TikTok and X moderate online speech.
"We’ve never seen something like” what happened in the November 2024 presidential election, Popescu said.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Belgian FM: EU should fight fire with fire in Trump’s trade war
Targeting Big Tech could be among the EU’s options to hit Washington where it hurts, Belgium’s foreign minister says.
BRUSSELS — An eye for an eye.
That, in essence, is the playbook the European Union should follow in responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war, according to Belgium’s new Foreign and European Affairs Minister Maxime Prévot.
The American leader's derogatory remarks about the EU along with subsequent U.S. measures “must lead us to react with similar vigor,” Prévot told POLITICO. The bloc must demonstrate that its market of 450 million people “deserves to be treated differently” than Trump has done so far, he said.
Prévot, a Walloon centrist who led his party, The Committed Ones, to big gains in Belgium’s elections last June, is one of the power players in the country's seven-week-old center-right government under Prime Minister Bart De Wever.
In responding to Trump the European Union shouldn’t take anything off the table, including hitting Washington where it hurts, Prévot said.
“We know that, among the sectors likely to bring the greatest sensitivity and responsiveness [from the U.S.], there is the whole digital component. And so personally, I'm more in favor of also using this lever as part of the battery of counter-fire measures,” he said.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Germany’s Merz loses leverage as coalition talks sputter
Incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz is under growing pressure to win conservative policy concessions as coalition talks hit key stumbling blocks.
BERLIN — For Friedrich Merz, the hard part begins now.
The incoming conservative chancellor began coalition talks with the Social Democrats by giving them exactly what center-left parties have always wanted, reaching a landmark deal to unleash hundreds of billions of euros in new borrowing to bolster Germany’s military and infrastructure, including funds for green energy.
For Merz, long a preacher of fiscal discipline, the borrowing deal was a historic policy reversal — one that was easy for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to endorse. But pressure is now growing on Merz from inside his own conservative alliance to secure traditional right-wing policy concessions in return, particularly on migration and cuts to welfare.
The problem for Merz, however, is that his fiscal flip has already given the SPD what it wanted most — meaning he has ceded much of his leverage in coalition negotiations.
“This is a clear defeat for the conservatives, right at the start of the [coalition] negotiations,” said Johannes Winkel, the leader of the conservative alliance’s youth organization, in a radio interview after Merz and the SPD agreed the borrowing deal. “The question is, of course, what is the quid pro quo for this major concession in financial policy.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
A samurai helmet, shamrock socks and one epic meltdown: Trump’s Oval Office meetings, ranked
How to survive a White House summit with the combative U.S. president.
Get it right, and you could score a major win for your country. Get it wrong, and you might face a global dressing-down.
If you’re a foreign leader visiting the White House, chances are you’ll be thrust into a public Oval Office meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has ditched closed-door confabs for televised joint press conferences.
Often playing out like high-stakes hazing rituals, these on-camera audiences have tested the diplomatic nerve and dexterity of presidents and prime ministers like little else.
“Trump is a master at filmed conflict. Much of his persona was built on ‘The Apprentice,’” said Timothy J. Lynch, professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne, referencing the reality show Trump hosted for 14 seasons.
Trump “has taken to heart the impact value of this intimate format: a front room and two antagonists,” Lynch told POLITICO, adding that the president relishes using Oval Office grillings to pile pressure onto friends and adversaries alike — much like his boardroom showdowns on “The Apprentice.” “They are likely to be a test of the mettle of all leaders sitting on that couch.”
We rate which leaders aced their test, who flunked out — and who might have been better off just staying home.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Former Utah Rep. Mia Love, the first Black Republican woman elected to the US House, has died
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Mia Love of Utah, a daughter of Haitian immigrants who became the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress, died Sunday.
She was 49.
Love’s family posted news of her death on Love’s X account.
Continue reading at the AP
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo reinstated as acting president after impeachment overturned
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Constitutional Court overturned the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, reinstating the nation’s No. 2 official as acting leader Monday while not yet ruling on the separate impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol over his shocking imposition of martial law late last year.
Many observers said the 7-1 ruling in Han’s case did not signal much about the upcoming verdict on Yoon, as Han wasn’t a key figure in the imposing martial law. But the ruling could still embolden Yoon’s staunch supporters and ramp up their political offensive on the opposition.
Continue reading at the AP
GOP senators warn Trump agenda will be slowed by internal divisions
Much of Washington’s attention has focused on the rocky path Trump’s agenda faces in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) slim majority means he can only lose one GOP vote and still pass GOP legislation.
But Republican senators are warning that getting a major package through the Senate will take months longer than has been publicly discussed, due to the sheer size of Trump’s ambitious agenda and internal Republican divisions over an array of policy questions.
While Thune has told Republican senators he wants to move a budget resolution in the “next work period” before the April recess to show progress on Trump’s agenda, the “finished product” is still months away.
“Thune and others have said they don’t think it’s realistic we’ll move the finished product until the end of July,” a Republican senator said of Thune’s projected timeline for moving Trump’s agenda.
“Thune said he thought that the House’s timeline on this was totally unrealistic and that the House doesn’t have their ducks in a row, and their budget resolution has to be completely reworked, and this idea that we do it by April or May is just ridiculous,” the source said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Congress to dive into Trump feuds, agenda upon return to Washington
In the House, a Republican push to impeach Judge James Boasberg — who directed flights carrying Venezuelan migrants to be turned around — is likely to take center stage, as President Trump, Elon Musk and GOP lawmakers lobby for him to be removed. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) signaled over the weekend that the House may vote on a bill that would place limitations on the ability of district court judges to issue injunctions.
On the Senate side, Republicans are expected to turn to the effort to pass Trump’s legislative agenda, as GOP lawmakers work to reconcile the separate House and Senate budget resolutions. A top item on the to-do list is figuring out how to make the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent.
And throughout the Capitol, Democrats are sure to discuss the future of their party after this month’s shutdown showdown, which split the group — including the chamber’s two top leaders — and has left lawmakers sparring with one another over the best strategy and message to combat the second Trump administration.
Also this week, the Senate is set to confirm more of Trump’s cabinet nominees.
Continue reading at The Hill
GOP group launches new ads seeking to turn out Trump voters for Schimel in Wisconsin race
The Republican State Leadership Committee’s (RSLC) Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI) rolled out the new advertising on Monday, which were first shared with The Hill.
The two ads are looking to encourage the same voters who cast ballots for President Trump last November to once again show up for an off-year spring election for Schimel, who is vying against liberal candidate Susan Crawford for an open seat on the high court.
Whoever wins the April 1 election will determine the partisan ideological balance on the court.
“What if you don’t vote on April 1st? It would be like Trump never won, with the far-left in control of our country,” says a narrator in part of the one 30-second ad, called “Needs Us.” “If we stayed home then, that could have been our reality, and if we don’t vote now against liberal Susan Crawford, it could be. Last year, we showed up for Trump, and he won.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Pro-Palestinian activists face alarming new era under Trump
Alarm over the government’s actions has grown in recent days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was active in pro-Palestinian protests on campus and is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. with a green card. The Trump administration has vowed to continue to pursue its policy and has since detained a couple others.
Advocates say the administration’s moves are designed to create a climate of fear among those who speak out. But they emphasize that continuing to stand up for Palestinian rights is as important as ever as the war between Israel and Hamas restarts.
“I think we’re all seeing, across the Palestinian movement, that the Trump administration is trying to make an example for all other social justice movements, that if they dare criticize his ways, this is likely to happen to them as well,” said Iman Abid-Thompson, the director of advocacy at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump’s executive power flex leaves some legal challengers adrift
President Trump’s unprecedented flex of executive power has sent legal challengers scrambling to courts to pump the breaks.
But some of the president’s more extraordinary actions have been difficult to confront, as the administration barrels forward with an act-first, defend-later approach to its policy agenda.
“We were looking for any mechanism that would, so to speak, stop the trains here,” Andrew Goldfarb, a lawyer representing challengers to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), said at a hearing this week.
“Anything to stop the destruction that is going on,” he said.
More than 100 lawsuits have been filed opposing Trump’s executive actions and the ways his administration has sought to effectuate them, spanning the president’s crackdown on law firms, DEI, gender, controversial immigration and deportation policies and DOGE’s efforts to slim down the federal government.
Continue reading at The Hill
House vs. Senate tensions jam up the Trump agenda
To show quick progress, lawmakers will have to make a host of difficult decisions in the coming weeks.
Congressional Republicans left Washington riding high after their big victory on government spending. Now they’re returning to face a brutal reality check: Their legislative agenda is going nowhere fast.
Now months into the process, House and Senate Republicans are still trading barbs and accusing each side of slowing down progress on President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority — a sweeping bill linking a tax overhaul to energy, defense and border policies.
When GOP lawmakers return to Washington Monday, they will be under fierce pressure to show meaningful progress toward delivering on that agenda in the narrow, three-week window they have before leaving town again. Speaker Mike Johnson has set an ambitious goal of finalizing a budget blueprint with the Senate and getting it passed in the House by the week of April 7.
Yet nearly every key decision remains unsettled. They include how deep to cut into social safety-net spending, how to placate swing-seat lawmakers over a key tax break, how to account for the cost of extending existing tax cuts and how many more breaks they can pile on top.
“How can we be moving quickly when some of those foundational questions haven’t been settled?” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said about the rising pressure from the House GOP.
Continue reading at Politico
Hochul’s ‘guardrails’ around Eric Adams stall in local legislature
Unrealistic expectations and an inflexible bargaining position have left the New York governor unable to deliver on her plan.
NEW YORK — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed guardrails on Mayor Eric Adams are going nowhere.
It’s been more than a month since Hochul announced with great fanfare her plan to layer the New York City mayor with additional oversight to prevent the influence of President Donald Trump.
But a misunderstanding of New York City politics and a plan unpalatable to most City Council members — who must approve the framework before the state Legislature can consider it — meant the wheels began coming off the governor’s proposal soon after she set it in motion.
“We had a preliminary conversation a few weeks ago and there were a lot of questions and concerns raised by Council members that I think will need to be worked through before we have a package that is ready for prime time,” said Brooklyn Democrat Lincoln Restler, who chairs the Council committee that would cast a key vote on Hochul’s plan.
Nevertheless, he added, “There is a real sense of urgency from the Council that we need to take action to ensure that the office of the mayor is operating with integrity and with much more robust oversight.”
Continue reading at Politico
US will breach debt ceiling between July and October unless Congress acts, forecasters warn
While “quite unlikely,” there is still a possibility that the U.S. could run out of borrowing power in early June.
The U.S. is most likely to default on its $36 trillion national debt sometime between mid-July and early October if Congress doesn’t act, the Bipartisan Policy Center predicted Monday.
On Capitol Hill, the trusted forecast from the nonpartisan think tank is crucial to the GOP’s legislative agenda. Republican leaders are now trying to decide whether to increase the debt limit in their behemoth party-line package or to instead begin bipartisan negotiations with Democrats. Some Republican lawmakers have said they hope a debt limit forecast might inspire President Donald Trump tofinally start focusing on the issue.
It’s the first public prediction of a range for the so-called X-date since the Treasury Department began deploying “extraordinary measures” to free up more cash after the debt ceiling was reinstated on Jan. 1. The new analysis is likely to quell concerns among some top lawmakers who previously warned that the U.S. could default on its debt as soon as May.
GOP leaders could use the fiscal cliff to heighten the urgency to pass the party-line package they hope to enact this year to extend trillions of dollars in tax breaks, along with hundreds of billions of dollars in new border security and military spending. Trying to handle the debt limit through the party-line process could also complicate top Republicans’ efforts to build support around the package, since many fiscal conservatives are reluctant to vote for increasing U.S. borrowing authority.
Continue reading at Politico
‘Nothing is off the table’ in Trump trade talks, UK tech chief says
Peter Kyle says both sides are ‘exploring all’ options as London considers putting its Big Tech tax up for negotiation with the U.S.
U.K. Tech Secretary Peter Kyle told POLITICO that “nothing is off the table” as Donald Trump’s administration urges the U.K. to roll back its digital services tax (DST) during trade talks.
The U.K. is racing to strike a pact with the White House before a new tranche of “reciprocal” trade tariffs come into effect on April 2. U.S. officials have said that at least 100 countries might be spared the extra duties.
The U.S. has expressed particular displeasure with the DST, which exacts a 2 percent levy on tech giants. Trump name-checked the tax in a February memorandum entitled: “Defending American Companies and Innovators From Overseas Extortion and Unfair Fines and Penalties.”
Asked if the U.K.’s 2 percent levy is on the table during the negotiations, Tech Secretary Peter Kyle told the POLITICO Tech podcast: “Well, we are exploring all of the things that both territories, the United Kingdom and the U.S., either are concerned about or are excited about doing into the future.”
He added: “Nothing is off the table at this point.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
In DOGE effort to combat fraud, Social Security's core mission at stake
The big picture: "Social Security has always talked about its twin missions of stewardship and service," says someone familiar with the agency's longstanding effort to combat fraud.
But now, we're in a moment where fighting fraud is in the driver's seat. "That's probably going to be bad for a lot of people around the edges," this person said.
Catch up quick: With the agency's most recent cuts to phone services, experts say field offices could flood with people, who'll see delays getting service or may not be able to access benefits at all.
"It's always a trade-off," says a former employee at the U.S. Digital Service (now renamed the U.S. DOGE Service), who worked at the Social Security Administration.
"Preventing every possible case of fraud often places an undue burden on legitimate users trying to access what they need."
Zoom out: The stakes with Social Security are higher than in the private sector.
Continue reading at Axios
New friction surfaces over replicating research
The Trump administration wants to spend more federal dollars replicating medical research. A key question will be which studies get repeated and, with limited resources, at what expense.
Why it matters: Many findings can't be replicated — a problem scientists say needs to be addressed. But it could also consume increasingly scarce resources as the administration cuts spending and freezes federal grants.
And some warn repeating accepted studies into how diseases originate or drugs work could undermine science for political gain.
"We should ask questions, ensure reproducibility, and grow our evidence base with replication," David Higgins, a practicing pediatrician and health services researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said in an email.
But that "requires considering many factors," he adds.
Continue reading at Axios
Law school applications skyrocket in D.C.
The big picture: A presidential transition year, changes to the LSAT exam, and more attention being paid to the law and courts are leading more people to apply to law school, observers say.
Applications to nearly 200 law schools nationwide jumped 20.5% compared with last year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
State of play: Georgetown University Law Center has already received its most applications ever — 14,000. That's up 25% from last year. In fact, dean of admissions Andrew Cornblatt tells Axios, it's the highest number of applicants any law school in the nation has ever gotten.
"I know it's stressful for students who — three, four years ago — would've been admitted with the credentials they had" but instead are on the wait list, Cornblatt says. The office hired extra part-time staff to read applications.
Georgetown has 650 seats. And three wait-list levels.
Georgetown's last surge was during the pandemic, going into the fall of 2021. This time around, some applicants say, the current political climate is driving them to join the legal arena.
Continue reading at Axios
Watchdog warns DOGE cuts threaten financial system
A government watchdog has a new warning about DOGE personnel cuts at a key regulatory agency: Fewer workers could jeopardize bank oversight.
Why it matters: It's an example of how DOGE cost-cutting could have consequences beyond the targeted agency. In this case, the effects could ripple across the financial system.
What they're saying: The inspector general for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — one of the nation's main bank regulators and the body that insures depositors' funds — said a smaller agency will have to contend with the same duties of a larger one: examining the health of 4,500 banks under its purview.
"With fewer examiners but the same responsibility to conduct statutorily required exams in 2025, it may be difficult for the FDIC to complete these examinations by the end of the year," the inspector general said in a new report.
"Safety and soundness examinations are especially important given potential risks in the banking sector," the report notes — calling out banks sitting on huge unrealized losses, which sparked the 2023 banking crisis (that, and a concentration of uninsured deposits).
The report cites an FDIC manual that says its examinations are key to "ensure public confidence in the banking system."
Continue reading at Axios
Charted: DOGE's consulting cuts
Consultants make a lot of money telling government agencies what to do. DOGE thinks it has a simpler solution: Just fire the consultants.
Why it matters: It's an existential threat to some of the largest firms, whose revenue depends to varying degrees on government contracts.
The big picture: Shares of the big publicly traded consultants, like Accenture and Booz Allen Hamilton, have fallen sharply as DOGE pushes to cut costs.
Federal News Network reported in late February that those firms, and eight others, were on a list issued by the General Services Administration, targeting contract cuts this month.
Accenture shares sank last week after the company acknowledged DOGE's efforts were hurting sales.
Of note: Accenture's federal services business, together with Booz Allen (which gets almost all of its revenue from government contracts), collectively employ more than 40,000 people.
Continue reading at Axios
Playbook
Judge dread
In today’s Playbook …
— White House cranks up its war on the justice system
— U.S.-Russia love-in hits new heights
— Congress is back … and it’s a dollop of misery all round
BOA CONSTRICTOR? Donald Trump’s escalating battle with the judiciary hits the appeals court today for a high-stakes hearing over the president’s use of wartime powers to deport foreign migrants. The Trump administration will urge a three-member appeals panel to overturn Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport planeloads of migrants without due process. Justice Department lawyers will also demand Boasberg be thrown off the case following a ferocious weeklong effort to publicly discredit him … led by the president himself. The hearing starts in Washington at 1:30 p.m.
Time to pay attention: Yes, there’s been a lot of court cases the past few weeks. But today’s hearing is more than just another (important) step toward what will likely become one of many Supreme Court battles over the extent of Trump’s powers. Crucially, it’s also an early test of the president’s ability to browbeat the entire U.S. justice system into line.
POLITICO’s legal guru Josh Gerstein emails in: “This is a big test for the Trump team’s in-your-face approach to all of the litigation it now faces: coupling confrontational court filings with an all-out fusillade on both cable news and social media against judges who’ve blocked administration policies.” And as Josh notes, that approach hasn’t sat well with Boasberg, who at a hearing last Friday expressed dismay at “intemperate and disrespectful language I’m not used to hearing from the United States.”
Also unimpressed: Judge J. Michael Luttig, the former D.C. appeals court judge and conservative legal titan, who has a blistering polemic in the NYT. “Boasberg doesn’t want to assume the role of president,” he writes. “The president wants to assume the role of judge.”
What we’re watching for today: “All eyes are going to be on the two Republican appointees” on the panel, Josh notes: George W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson and Trump appointee Justin Walker. (The third judge is Patricia Millett, a Barack Obama appointee.) “Will they embrace Trump’s expansive view of executive power,” Josh asks, “or will they show concern about what Boasberg has called the ‘very frightening’ possibility of almost any migrant being rapidly expelled to a third country based solely on the say-so of the executive branch?”
Continue reading the Politico Playbook newsletter
Tesla’s Europe sales collapse as anti-Musk backlash grows
To add insult to injury, Chinese EVs are surging.
Tesla's downward spiral is turning into a rout, with its share of European electric car sales falling by 58 percent in the first two months of this year, dropping from 18.4 percent in 2024 to 7.7 percent for the same period this year, according to data from JATO Dynamics, an auto consulting firm.
To add insult to injury, Chinese EV brands sold nearly 20,000 vehicles in Europe last month, far outpacing Tesla's 15,700 units.
The American EV company is facing a global backlash, fueled by ire at CEO Elon Musk and his actions as a key adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.
In Europe, Germany is leading the charge in rejecting Tesla, which has one of its gigafactories outside Berlin. That's been fueled by a backlash against Musk after he spoke at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of the February snap election.
More than 94 percent of respondents to a recent survey of 100,000 Germans said they would no longer buy a Tesla.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Genetic testing firm 23andMe files for bankruptcy
Gene testing firm 23andMe said on Sunday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to facilitate its sale, after years of struggling to find a sustainable business model.
In a statement announcing the bankruptcy, the firm said its CEO, Anne Wojcicki, had resigned effective immediately. She will remain on the company’s board of directors.
“After a thorough evaluation of strategic alternatives, we have determined that a court-supervised sale process is the best path forward to maximize the value of the business,” Mark Jensen, chair and member of the Special Committee of the board of directors, said in the statement.
Late last year, the company said it was cutting about 40% of its workforce - around 200 employees - and discontinuing further development of all its therapies as part of a restructuring program, according to Reuters.
In September, all seven of the company’s independent directors resigned en masse, citing their frustration with the CEO’s “strategic direction” and efforts to take 23andMe private.
The company, which went public in 2021, had never made a profit. The stock shot up following the listing, briefly valuing the company at $6 billion. Wojcicki, who owned 49% of the company, became a billionaire.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Louisiana is ‘tired’ of fighting over its congressional maps. The Supreme Court will review its districts anyway.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday in a years-old, messy legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional districts that could have nationwide implications for how states consider race as they draw new lines.
And given the GOP’s narrow majority, the high court’s decision could be a factor that helps decide control of the House of Representatives after the 2026 election.
The state’s briefing at the Supreme Court drips with exasperation: Louisiana was, at first, required by a federal court in 2022 to create a second majority Black district out of the state’s six total districts. A group of self-described “non-African American voters” then sued in 2024, alleging the state violated the Constitution by relying too much on race to meet the first court’s demands.
“Louisiana is tired,” state officials told the Supreme Court in December. “Midway through this decade, neither Louisiana nor its citizens know what congressional map they can call home.”
Continue reading at CNN.com
Weekly Education
Democratic state lawmakers brace for battle over Education Department cuts
— Democratic state lawmakers say they are bracing for a fight. Without the department, they’re concerned education programs could face severe cuts and it will be up to their statehouses to patch up billions of that funding.
— “Losing federal funding for education could be disastrous for Connecticut and for every other state territory that receives money from the Department of Education,” Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff said. “We’ll try to plug holes where we can, it’ll be impossible to fill all the gaps that exist. … There’s just no way a state can cover what the federal government sends us.”
— Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Sunday, in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, defended the president’s order by saying it would not lead to “any defunding for those programs.”
— “The Department of Education does not educate one child,” McMahon said. “It does not establish any curriculum in any states. It doesn’t hire teachers. It doesn’t establish programs. What it is is more of a pass through of funding, which is appropriated by Congress. We want to make sure that that funding continues in departments where it needs to be, but at the same time, give states the opportunities to be innovative and creative with their teaching.”
— While there are no immediate cuts to funding with the order, Trump previously sought billions in funding cuts to federal education programs in his budget proposals to Congress during his first term. Democrats and education groups also fear staffing shortages could affect the agency’s ability to deliver funds and execute programs.
“You need staff in order to make sure the programs are working properly, that they are being administered to the state or to the localities,” Duff said, rebuking the Trump administration’s claim that the cuts won’t affect programs. “I just don’t make that connection that you lose staff and you still have the funding for the programs because it goes hand in hand.”
— State legislators have been decrying the elimination of the agency, urging their states to pass more funding for education and are looking for ways to shore up programs like school meals in case they need a buffer if federal funding falls through.
Continue reading at Politico Weekly Education newsletter
Weekly Shift
BLS expert alarmed by advisory committee cuts
CAN WE TRUST THE NUMBERS?: Two advisory panels for the Bureau of Labor Statistics were eliminated, fueling concerns that it could mean job data may be easily manipulated and less reliable.
The Technical Advisory Committee and the Data Users Advisory Committee, which gave guidance on statistical methodology and specialized economic expertise, were cut in accordance with an executive order from President Donald Trump that directed the identification and removal of unnecessary advisory groups.
Unions and labor groups previously sounded the alarm when officials with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency made their way to the Labor Department over fears that their efforts could expose data workers’ personal data and access to sensitive information about key gauges of the U.S. economy.
Shift spoke with former BLS Commissioner Erica Groshen on what the axing of both advisory groups means for the nation’s job data.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Given your experience as a BLS commissioner, how were both of these panels important to the agency?
Technology changes, the economy changes, people’s needs change, and so [for] statistical agencies, nothing is one and done. You have to be adjusting all of the time. And in order to do that well [and] to make sure that every tax dollar is well spent, you need to be consulting with users and with technology experts. It also promotes transparency.
How sure can we be about the quality of BLS data going forward?
You lose one more means to counteract baseless accusations, you lose one more means to communicate exactly why you’ve done what you’ve done and to clarify that for anybody who has a question. Also, if there were attempts to manipulate BLS in some way that was unprecedented, illegal [or] something inappropriate, then it would be more obvious in the context of the give and take of an advisory committee than in many other ways. … I would say that if an administration wanted to try to manipulate data, then they would not want these advisory committees to be around.
Continue reading at Politico’s Weekly Shift newsletter
USTR urged to reject port fee on Chinese-made ships
— Business groups hope to use hearings this week to persuade the Trump administration to abandon plans to impose a hefty port fee on Chinese-made ships that dock at American ports.
— Sen. Steve Daines’ (R-Mont.) trip to Beijing over the weekend drew attention to the lack of high-level U.S.-Chinese contacts since President Donald Trump took office.
— Auto dealers are worried that Trump’s proposed duties on auto imports could raise the price of a new car by between $3,000 and $10,000.
Driving the Day
BUSINESS PUSHBACK: A coalition of nearly 300 business groups wants the Trump administration to drop a proposal to subsidize domestic shipbuilding by charging a fee of up to $1.5 million on Chinese-made ships that visit U.S. ports.
“We support scrutiny of China’s efforts to dominate the maritime industry,” the National Retail Federation and other groups said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer today. “However, USTR proposed actions will not deter China’s broader maritime ambitions and will instead directly hurt American businesses and consumers.”
The letter comes as USTR is set to hold hearings today and Wednesday on its proposal to impose the port fees and to require that a rising percentage of American goods be exported on vessels owned by a U.S. company and registered in the United States.
That “U.S.-flagged and U.S.-operated” requirement rises from 1 percent in the first year of the program to 15 percent in the eighth year.
U.S. built too: It is accompanied by another more stringent requirement that a certain percentage of American exports be transported on “U.S.-flagged, U.S.-operated and U.S.-built” ships. That rises from zero in the first three years of the program, to 3 percent in the fourth year and 5 percent in the eighth year — a timetable that critics say is unrealistic given the paltry level of shipbuilding in the United States.
“The U.S. cannot build a vibrant shipbuilding industry from its current capacity in seven years,” the opponents warned in their letter. “Holding firm to USTR’s proposal would force a reduction in U.S. exports, since the capacity does not exist nor will exist under USTR’s timelines.”
Backstory: The United Steelworkers and other union groups, in a bid to boost U.S. steel production and jobs, filed a petition slightly more than one year ago asking USTR for an investigation into Chinese shipbuilding practices.
The trade agency released the results of its probe in the final days of the Biden administration and said it had determined that “China’s targeting of the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance … is actionable” under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act.
The Trump administration took the reins from there, outlining a proposed remedy which included the port fee proposed by the union groups in their petition last year.
Continue reading at Politico’s Weekly Tax newsletter
Inside Elon Musk and Russ Vought’s quiet alliance
The DOGE leader and budget director are slashing the government with an outside-inside approach.
Musk, the impulsive Silicon Valley billionaire, provides the public face to the bureaucracy-slashing efforts and takes the heat for the budget-cratering, employee-firing and overall havoc-wreaking that has been unleashed on the federal government. Vought, the conservative budget wonk, brings the expertise, insider knowledge and ideology to a dramatic downsizing that both men see as necessary and transformational, four former Trump administration officials told POLITICO.
The men, who haven’t talked about their relationship publicly, have found a way not only to get along but collaborate as they complete one of the most aggressive makeovers of the federal government in modern history. Neither would be as potent in their efforts to slash and upend the government without the other, said the former officials, some of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamic between the pair.
The line between where the work of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency stops and the work of Vought’s Office of Management and Budget begins is blurry — even to people close to the efforts. But in practice, it’s been working something like this: Musk’s army makes very public incursions into agencies and ferrets through data using artificial intelligence and other technology to identify allegedly wasteful spending while Musk handles the public relations campaign on X and amplifies their findings. Vought’s OMB, meanwhile, brings the technical tools and expertise to figure out, one, whether the concerns DOGE raises are actually problems and, two, what to do with them.
Continue reading at Politico
Senate ‘must act’ on House budget, GOP leaders insist
The ultimatum from Speaker Mike Johnson and others comes amid profound rifts between the two chambers.
Johnson & Co. said Monday that the Senate should simply take up the House version: “The American people gave us a mandate and we must act on it,” they said, noting that the House “took the first step to accomplish that by passing a budget resolution weeks ago, and we look forward to the Senate joining us in this commitment to ensure we enact President Trump’s full agenda as quickly as possible.”
“Working together, we will get it done,” they added.
But the GOP leaders on opposite ends of the Capitol are still very much divided on what to include in the package and continue to criticize their counterparts after months of disagreement. Senate Republican leaders are now deciding how substantially they want to tweak theHouse framework before punting it back across the Capitol.
A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity because they were not authorized to respond publicly said Monday that if House GOP leaders wanted their budget “to be a serious option,” they should have included instructions for Senate committees. “Instead, the House made theirs a performative exercise,” added the aide.
Continue reading at Politico
Judge blocks 3 agencies from disclosing troves of sensitive personal data to DOGE
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman barred the Department of Education, Department of the Treasury and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from disclosing the personal identifying information of about 2 million plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging DOGE’s access to any of the advisory board’s affiliates.
She noted that the Privacy Act of 1974 was enacted to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of personal information collected by the government, citing Congress’s concern at the time that a single bureaucrat or institution could assemble “every detail of our personal lives” in an instant.
“Those concerns are just as salient today,” the judge wrote in a 68-page opinion. “No matter how important or urgent the President’s DOGE agenda may be, federal agencies must execute it in accordance with the law. That likely did not happen in this case.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump compares judges in deportation flights, hush money cases
President Trump on Monday leveled another attack against the judge overseeing a case involving deportation flights, comparing him to a New York jurist who handled Trump’s hush money case.
Trump shared a report from media outlet Just The News that outlined how U.S. District Judge James Boasberg attended a legal conference in Idaho last year with other judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans.
The report alleged that some of the speakers and sponsors of the conference were hostile toward Trump’s immigration agenda.
“This Judge is almost as conflicted (actually, not even close!) as the Judge whose daughter made Millions of Dollars representing Biden/Harris against me, while her father presided over a Fake Case against me, and refused to RECUSE himself,” Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to New York Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter is a Democratic consultant.
“He should be disbarred! Crooked Alvin Bragg was the D.A. in the case. They put me under a GAG ORDER so that I could not talk about it. Miscarriage of Justice!!!” Trump added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump knocks NY Times over ‘long and boring’ ‘hit pieces’
“The Failing New York Times insists on using Liddle’ Peter Baker, a really bad writer and Obama biographer and sycophant, to write many of the long and boring Fake News hit pieces against me,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday night. “The only two people with less talent than Peter are his ‘wife,’ the lovely Susan Glasser, and, of course, Maggot Hagerman, who may be the least talented writer in the entire stable of New York Times’ MEDIOCRITY!”
Trump did not call out specific pieces of Times reporting, but the newspaper has published extensive pieces in recent weeks on his immigration agenda, trade policies and relationship with billionaire Elon Musk.
“There’s something really wrong with these people, and their SICK, TRUMP DERANGED EDITORS,” the president wrote. “They did everything within their power to help rig the Election against me. How did that work out??? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Continue reading at The Hill
Bondi says Supreme Court ‘will get involved’ in migrant deportation flights case
“Oh, the Supreme Court will get involved,” Bondi said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“This is an out of control … federal judge trying to control our entire foreign policy, and he cannot do it.”
The Trump administration is battling U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who on March 15 tried to stop the deportation of Venezuelan migrants the administration claimed were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Continue reading at The Hill
Supreme Court declines Steve Wynn’s bid to loosen libel standard
The Supreme Court on Monday turned away casino mogul Steve Wynn’s bid for the court to consider overturning its 61-year-old precedent that has protected journalists from libel lawsuits.
Wynn urged the justices to use his lawsuit against The Associated Press to revisit the 1964 landmark decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, which requires a showing of “actual malice” for public figures to hold newspapers and journalists liable for defamation, a high legal bar.
President Trump has long called for reducing libel protections for the press, and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas has said multiple times the precedent should be overruled.
“New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity,’” Thomas wrote in dissent when the court declined to take up a similar case in 2022.
Thomas did not publicly dissent Monday when the high court declined to take up Wynn’s appeal in a brief order.
Continue reading at The Hill
UK’s Starmer says Trump ‘has a point,’ but ‘I don’t trust Putin’
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a new interview that President Trump “has a point” on the need for Europe to bear a greater defense burden.
He maintained, however, that he does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the U.S. seeks to move forward with brokering a ceasefire deal with Ukraine.
“Many people are urging us to choose between the U.S. and Europe,” Starmer told The New York Times, in an interview published Sunday. “Churchill didn’t do it. Attlee didn’t do it. It’d be a big mistake, in my view, to choose now.”
After pausing for a moment, he added, “I do think that President Trump has a point when he says there needs to be a greater burden borne by European countries for the collective self-defense of Europe.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Johnson: Democrats ‘doubling and tripling’ down on policies that resulted in ‘big victory’ for GOP
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he thinks congressional Democrats are “doubling and tripling” down on the policies that resulted in a “big victory” for Republicans in November’s election.
Johnson joined Fox News for “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” and was asked if he thinks Democrats understand why they lost battles for the White House and congressional majorities in 2024. The Speaker said he doesn’t think so.
“They seem to be doubling and tripling down on the failed policies that gave us the big victory last November,” he said.
Johnson argued Democrats have “no leader” and “no vision” to run on.
“The Democratic Party is flailing. But meanwhile, the Republican Party is sticking together and getting our agenda done,” he said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Social Security administrator backs out of ‘shutting down’ agency
The head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) said Friday that he wouldn’t be “shutting down the agency” after a federal judge backed up a temporary restraining order issued against Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting panel.
SSA chief Leland Dudek, an appointee of President Trump responsible for implementing cuts from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said Friday that the court had clarified its position on its restraining order and that the agency would continue working.
“I am not shutting down the agency,” Dudek said in a statement. “SSA employees and their work will continue under the [temporary restraining order].”
Dudek has indicated he’s not the one running the show at the SSA, but is rather following orders.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump putting ‘secondary tariff’ on Venezuela
President Trump on Monday announced that Venezuela will be hit with a “secondary tariff,” arguing the country has sent migrants that are criminals and gang members into the United States.
Beginning next week, the U.S. will impose a 25 percent tariff on countries that purchase oil and gas from Venezuela, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, amid escalating efforts from the administration to deport Venezuelans.
Continue reading at The Hill
Teachers union, NAACP sue over Trump order to dismantle Education Department
A group of advocacy organizations and groups invested in schools sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
The new lawsuit alleges President Trump exceeded his constitutional authority in trying to dismantle the department, as well as violating the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Taken together, Defendants’ steps since January 20, 2025, constitute a de facto dismantling of the Department by executive fiat …” the lawsuit reads.
“But the Constitution gives power over ‘the establishment of offices [and] the determination of their functions and jurisdiction’ to Congress — not to the President or any officer working under him,” it added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Patel on FBI staffing: ‘We’re going to reorient our assets in Washington’
FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday the agency plans to “reorient” its assets in Washington by relocating them to field offices in other parts of the country.
“We’re going to reorient our assets in Washington. We’re going to look at it strategically, as we’ve been doing the last month, and send our agents and analysts and SOS operatives into the field to take on this violent crime explosion that has occurred over these last four or five years,” Patel said Sunday evening on Fox News.
“To make sure that every state and every county — be it in my hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, or up in Montana or in Kansas or Iowa or Maine — is all safe and secure,” he added
Last month, Patel informed managers at the FBI that 1,500 personnel would be transferred from the Washington headquarters to offices around the country, including around one-third being placed in an Alabama office.
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge won’t lift block on Trump use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg declined to lift a restraining order barring the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, determining migrants are likely to succeed in pushing for hearings on whether they are in a gang.
Boasberg noted President Trump’s “unprecedented use of the Act outside of the typical wartime context” in signing an order that allowed the removal of any Venezuelan suspected of being a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.
“Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” Boasberg wrote.
“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Former Giffords intern Daniel Hernandez Jr. running for Grijalva seat
Daniel Hernández Jr., a former intern for former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) who served in the Arizona legislature, announced on Monday he is running for former Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s (D-Ariz.) seat in Congress.
“I’m running for Congress in AZ-07! I’ve spent my life fighting for Southern Arizona—protecting our healthcare, lowering costs for families, standing up to extremists, and defending our democracy,” Hernández said in a post on X. “Now, I’m taking that fight to Washington.”
Hernández, a former member of the Arizona state House of Representatives, was present when Giffords was targeted in a 2011 assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona.
Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting in a supermarket parking lot. Six people were killed and Giffords, the wife of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), was shot in the head.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration will narrow scope of "tariff day": reports
The White House plans to spare specific sectors from wide-ranging tariffs expected early next month, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Why it matters: Stocks jumped in early trading after reports that suggested the much-hyped "Liberation Day" might not be as harsh or broad as previously expected.
What to watch: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration will likely impose reciprocal tariffs on about 15% of nations with ongoing trade imbalances with the U.S.
He did not specify the nations or the tariff rates they could face, as the Wall Street Journal notes.
Between the lines: If the administration does hold back on specific sectoral tariffs, that could spare industries like autos and pharmaceuticals — goods he says should be produced domestically.
Continue reading at Axios
FCC threatens blocking media mergers based on DEI policies
The Federal Communications Commission is threatening to block media mergers based on corporate DEI policies.
Why it matters: This creates new layers of complexity and uncertainty for dealmakers, and reflects how the Trump administration is willing to pull novel levers to end what most CEOs viewed as sensible policies until two months ago.
Driving the news: FCC chair Brendan Carr tells Bloomberg that he only can "approve a transaction if we find that doing so serves the public interest ... If there's businesses out there that are still promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination, I really don't see a path forward where the FCC could reach the conclusion that approving the transaction is going to be in the public interest."
He also mentioned several pending transactions, including Paramount's merger with Skydance, Verizon's $20 billion deal for Frontier Communications, and U.S. Cellular's $4.4 billion wireless unit sale to T-Mobile US.
The Federal Trade Commission declined to comment when asked by Axios if it plans to take a similar tact.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump appoints presidential counselor Alina Habba to top DOJ job in New Jersey
President Trump on Monday appointed his presidential counselor Alina Habba to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.
Why it matters: Habba, who served as Trump's personal lawyer before joining his administration, is succeeding John Giordano in the position. Giordano was sworn in for the job earlier this month.
Trump plans to nominate Giordano as the ambassador to Namibia, he said in a Truth Social post.
What they're saying: "Alina will lead with the same diligence and conviction that has defined her career, and she will fight tirelessly to secure a Legal System that is both 'Fair and Just' for the wonderful people of New Jersey," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
State of play: Habba leaves her role in the White House less than two months into Trump's second term.
"I am grateful to President Trump for entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility," Habba wrote in a post on X. "Just like I did during my time as President Trump's personal attorney, I will continue to fight for truth and justice."
Continue reading at Axios
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to pause reinstatement of federal workers at 6 agencies
The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to pause a lower court decision that required six agencies to reinstate more than 16,000 federal probationary workers who were terminated.
The request for emergency relief from the Justice Department is the latest intervention the administration is seeking from the Supreme Court as it faces more than 100 lawsuits challenging President Trump's policies. Already pending before the justices is a request to narrow injunctions that blocked implementation of Mr. Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. A decision on that request isn't expected until early next month.
Continue reading at CBS News
Supreme Court questions race’s role in redistricting in Louisiana map fight
The Supreme Court questioned Monday whether Louisiana’s addition of a second majority-Black congressional district went too far and amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The case could impact states’ leeway to legally consider race in redrawing congressional maps upon designs being struck down under the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
It also marks the latest chapter in the long-running, messy saga over Louisiana’s congressional map that began after the 2020 census.
“Louisiana would rather not be here,” Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga told the justices.
Continue reading at The Hill
Hegseth mocks judge for halting transgender ban
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the weekend joined other Trump administration officials in virtual attacks on federal judges, lashing out at a judge who indefinitely blocked a ban on transgender troops in the U.S. military.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington – appointed by former President Biden – last week ruled that President Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order effectively barring transgender people from serving openly in the military likely violated the U.S. Constitution, calling it “unabashedly demeaning.”
At the time, Hegseth took to social platform X to announce: “We are appealing this decision, and we will win.”
But on Saturday, Hegseth went a step further and mockingly called the judge “Commander Reyes,” questioned her title, appeared to make a jab at personal pronouns, and suggested the ruling overstepped her powers.
“Since ‘Judge’ Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids…after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare,” Hegseth wrote on X.
Continue reading at The Hill
Angus King blasts Musk, Lutnick for ‘assault’ on Social Security
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) took aim at tech billionaire Elon Musk and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Monday, saying they’re engaging in an “assault” on Social Security.
“I never thought I’d say this, but social security is under assault,” King said in a video posted to X.
“Every day we learn something new, where Elon Musk and his crowd are in the Social Security databases. They’re trying to get personal information. They are pushing aside the professionals that work there. People are being fired. Regional offices are being closed,” he continued.
King, who caucuses with the Democrats, noted that Lutnick suggested late last week that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass firings of probationary workers
The appeal is part of a nascent effort by the Trump administration to press the Supreme Court to rein in district court judges.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to follow through with its attempt to fire thousands of probationary workers across the federal government.
The administration filed an emergency appeal of a March 13 ruling from U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who ordered the government to immediately rehire probationary workers who had been terminated at six federal agencies.
Alsup’s order required the government to offer reinstatements to about 16,000 federal workers, Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the appeal.
Alsup’s ruling let “third parties hijack the employment relationship between the federal government and its workforce,” Harris argued.
“That is no way to run a government,” she wrote.
Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled that the administration had violated federal law and skirted required procedures when it conducted the mass terminations. A second judge — Baltimore-based U.S. District Judge James Bredar, an appointee of President Barack Obama — similarly found that the terminations of probationary workers was illegal, and he issued an even more sweeping order requiring the workers to be rehired at 18 federal agencies.
Continue reading at Politico
Military veterans are becoming the face of Trump’s government cuts and Democrats’ resistance
WASHINGTON (AP) — As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government, one group is already taking a front and center role: military veterans.
From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions. And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service.
“At a moment of crisis for all of our veterans, the VA’s system of health care and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully put on the chopping block by the Trump administration,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, at a news conference last week.
Most veterans voted for Trump last year — nearly 6 in 10, according to AP Votecast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters. Yet congressional Republicans are standing in support of Trump’s goals even as they encounter fierce pushback in their home districts. At a series of town halls last week, veterans angrily confronted Republican members as they defended the cuts made under Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Continue reading at the AP
23andMe users warned to delete their data
Genetic testing company 23andMe has officially filed for bankruptcy
Company has seen sales decline, laid off hundreds last year
California AG says company has 'trove of sensitive consumer data'
After extended financial uncertainty and recent layoffs, 23andMe has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and CEO Anne Wojcicki, whose takeover bids failed, has stepped down.
The genetic testing company has the genetic data of more than 15 million customers — and California Attorney General Rob Bonta is warning users to purge their data sooner rather than later.
In a news release, Bonta said it is important to make use of “robust privacy laws” allowing customers to “take control and request that a company delete their genetic data.”
In a news release announcing the bankruptcy filing, 23andMe chair Mark Jensen thanked the company’s employees and assured the security of customer data.
Jensen said 23andMe is “committed to continuing to safeguard customer data and being transparent about the management of user data going forward, and data privacy will be an important consideration in any potential transaction.”
Continue reading at The Hill
23andMe files for bankruptcy, will seek a buyer
Genetics testing company 23andMe has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and launched a sale process, just weeks after rejecting a takeover offer from co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.
Why it matters: The writing was on the wall when 23andMe's independent directors quit last fall, but it's still stunning to witness the dysfunctional destruction of the rare biotech unicorn to become a household name.
The big picture: There's no repeat incentive for consumers to keep testing their DNA, and the data 23andMe sold to drug developers wasn't proving valuable enough. It's a plan that made sense on paper but was hard to execute.
Don't be surprised if we see similar outcomes for functional medicine companies that rely on DNA testing subscriptions for revenue.
By the numbers: 23andMe, which went public via SPAC in 2021 at a $3.5 billion valuation, listed $277 million in assets and $215 million in liabilities. It also secured $35 million of DIP financing from JMB Capital Partners.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump on Greenland’s fury over visit: ‘This is friendliness, not provocation’
President Trump on Monday defended the decision to send a U.S. delegation to Greenland, saying that officials from the Danish territory had invited them after Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede called the visit “very aggressive.”
Trump said the visit is “not provocation” when asked by a reporter to further explain the goal of sending second lady Usha Vance and other U.S. officials there after leadership from Greenland criticized the visit.
“This is friendliness, not provocation. We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to their being properly protected and properly taken care of. They’re calling us. We’re not calling them. And we were invited over there, and I thought it would be great,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting.
The president said that the second lady “loves the concept of Greenland,” calling her “brilliant,” and added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will also be visiting the Danish territory.
Continue reading at The Hill
Federal court blocks Trump administration from separating 2 transgender airmen
A federal court on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from separating two transgender service members from the military under a pair of executive orders while another case moves forward.
Two transgender men, Master Sgt. Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bear Bade, had argued in a lawsuit that President Trump’s executive orders proclaiming the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and barring trans people from serving openly in the military subject them and other trans service members “to unequal, harmful, and demeaning treatment.”
Ireland and Bade, both members of the U.S. Air Force, also challenged the implementation of those orders by Acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who over the weekend mocked on social media the Washington, D.C., judge who said Trump’s ban on trans military service is “soaked in animus” and blocked it nationwide.
In a March 19 post on the social platform X, Hegseth wrote that the Pentagon is appealing that decision, “and we will win.”
Continue reading at The Hill
UNAIDS chief: US funding cut could mean ’10-fold increase’ in deaths
The head of the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warned Monday there will be a “10-fold increase” in AIDS-related deaths due to the recent cuts in U.S. foreign funding.
USAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima told reporters in Geneva that the impact of the funding cuts has been devastating, warning that a spike in the global AIDS pandemic, due to these cuts, will kill millions more around the round.
“At the last count, in 2023, some 600,000 AIDS-related deaths were registered globally, she said. “So, you’re talking of a 10-fold increase.” That would mean about 6 million annual AIDS-related deaths.
Continue reading at The Hill
US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy resigns
Louis DeJoy has resigned as postmaster general of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) amid uncertainty about the agency’s future under President Trump.
DeJoy had notified the USPS board of directors in February that it was “time for them to begin the process of identifying his successor.” His resignation on Monday expedites that process and leaves Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino in charge until a permanent replacement is found.
“While our management team and the men and women of the Postal Service have established the path toward financial sustainability and high operating performance – and we have instituted enormous beneficial change to what had been an adrift and moribund organization – much work remains that is necessary to change our positive trajectory,” DeJoy said in a statement first reported by Reuters.
Continue reading at The Hill
Social Security rushing service cuts at White House request, sources say
The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios.
Why it matters: These changes will strain the already struggling Social Security system and deprive some people of benefits entirely, according to current and former employees and advocates for retirees.
Some of the most vulnerable Americans — including people who are hospitalized, kids in foster homes and those living in remote areas — will be effectively blocked from applying for disability benefits, according to one advocate who spoke with Axios and was at the meeting.
Driving the news: Acting commissioner Leland Dudek said the changes in question would usually take two years to implement, but will be made in two weeks instead, the two sources said on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.
Dudek also said the changes, happening so fast and with little public understanding, will create opportunities for scammers, one of the sources said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Columbia student sues Trump admin over efforts to deport her
Columbia University student Yunseo Chung is suing the Trump administration amid its efforts to deport the 21-year-old, who has been in the U.S. since she was 7 and has lawful permanent resident status.
A lawsuit was filed Monday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) got an administrative warrant for Chung’s arrest and told the South Korean native that her status was being “revoked,” even though only an immigration judge can take away a green card.
Chung has been involved in the pro-Palestinian protests on campus but has not spoken to the press or been in a high-profile position like Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student and fellow legal immigrant who has been detained by ICE.
Continue reading at The Hill
7 bargaining chips Trump has given Putin over Ukraine
The U.S., once firmly aligned with Ukraine, has been trying to broker a deal to end the war started by the Kremlin’s invasion.
In seeking a historic peace accord between Russia and Ukraine, President Donald Trump has presented himself as an agnostic arbiter focused only on bringing the three-year war to an end.
But his divergent approach to the parties — quick to apply pressure on a more vulnerable ally Ukraine, more patience and gentle coaxing for the aggressor in Moscow — reflects his own perception of a stark power imbalance. Ukraine, as he memorably told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last month, doesn’t “have the cards.”
It’s true that Ukraine, dependent on defense aid from Washington and Europe, is in the weaker position should this war of attrition grind on for years. But Trump has done several things to weaken Zelenskyy’s hand.
The U.S. is leading talks with officials from both countries in Saudi Arabia this week, hoping to make additional progress toward a broader ceasefire. Here is a look at some of the bargaining chips Trump has given away that could have been used to pressure Russia.
Giving Putin multiple phone calls after Biden cut him off
Continue reading at Politico
Trump says car tariffs coming ‘in next few days’
The president also said he would be announcing pharmaceutical tariffs in the “not too distant” future.
President Donald Trump indicated Monday that he could announce new tariffs on imported cars as soon as this week, as his administration works toward a larger “reciprocal tariff” package hitting a broad swath of countries on April 2.
“We are going to be doing automobiles, which you’ve known about for a long time,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’ll be announcing that fairly soon, over the next few days probably. And then April 2 comes. That will be reciprocal tariffs.”
Trump made similar remarks earlier Monday at a Cabinet meeting, saying he planned to announce car tariffs “very shortly” and then “we’ll be announcing pharmaceuticals at some point in the not too distant [future] because we have to have pharmaceuticals.”
Continue reading at Politico
The mystery of Trump's tariff bomb
The Trump administration is expected to soon announce the most aggressive pivot in U.S. trade policy in decades. For a change so big, businesses know surprisingly little about what's coming in mere days.
Why it matters: The fallout might be a scramble to adjust to the new trade normal that could jolt the global economy.
Trump has called April 2 "the big one" and "Liberation Day," referring to the wide-ranging levies expected to be announced and potentially take effect a week from Wednesday.
What they're saying: "Because of the attention President Trump has drawn to April 2, presumably something is going to happen. The hard part is trying to figure out what precisely that might be," UBS economist Jonathan Pingle wrote Friday in a client note.
"[W]hatever it looks like and regardless if one agrees with the application or not, let's hope that it's then done so businesses, households and investors can at least have some visibility from all of this and can plan around them," Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group, wrote Monday.
Zoom in: The White House might spare specific sectors from the broad tariffs on April 2, as Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported. That's a turnaround from Trump's threats to the auto and pharmaceutical industries.
Continue reading at Axios
Espaillat sues Manhattan Dem leader over attempted expulsion
Ethics committee’s allegations that Espaillat cheated on a party vote is the latest battle in a long-running feud between Manhattan power players.
NEW YORK — In a serious escalation of a long-running political feud, Manhattan Democratic Party Chair Keith Wright scheduled a vote on whether to expel Rep. Adriano Espaillat and three allies from their roles as district leaders.
The move toward an expulsion vote comes after an ethics report found the member of Congress tried to cheat in an election for a party position in 2023.
Now Espaillat has filed a lawsuit to block the Thursday vote, saying the report was politically motivated and invalid since the Manhattan Democrats’ ethics committee chair actually lives in Westchester County.
“The Ethics Committee has operated as an arm of a factional political agenda,” Espaillat’s attorney Ali Najmi wrote in the suit filed Monday. “County Leader Keith Wright has demonstrated a long-standing hostility towards Congressman Adriano Espaillat.”
The situation is inflaming longstanding tensions between Espaillat and Wright — and threatens to weaken Espaillat’s hold on his local base of power.
Continue reading at Politico
‘Nazis got better treatment’: Appeals-court judge grills DOJ on swift deportation of Venezuelans
But a second judge was more sympathetic to DOJ’s arguments, while the third remained largely silent during a two-hour hearing.
A lengthy courtroom showdown Monday offered few clear answers on whether the courts will allow President Donald Trump to resume his effort to swiftly deport Venezuelan nationals using a rarely invoked wartime power.
One judge on a three-member appeals court panel grilled a Justice Department lawyer on the administration’s handling of the deportations. A second judge seemed more sympathetic to the administration. But the panel’s third judge remained almost entirely silent during two hours of oral arguments, leaving the fate of the administration’s appeal unclear.
The panel’s sole Democratic appointee, Judge Patricia Millett, voiced grave concern about how the administration whisked more than 200 people out of the country on March 15, mere hours after Trump invoked the 18th century Alien Enemies Act against members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
“There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act than has happened here,” said Millett, an appointee of President Barack Obama.
Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign said he disputed the Nazi analogy. Under Millett’s questioning, he conceded that detainees being deported under the law have a constitutional right to contest their deportations in court. But he refused to guarantee that the government would provide enough notice to the detainees — or their lawyers — for them to have a practical opportunity to seek relief in court before being flown out of the country.
Continue reading at Politico
Venezuelans Trump deported facing "significant harm" in prison, judge says
The alleged Venezuelan gang members deported by the Trump administration earlier this month are likely to suffer "significant harm" in El Salvador, a federal judge asserted Monday.
Why it matters: The Trump administration's decision to deport the alleged gang members in defiance of a court order has set up a high-stakes legal battle that could test the limits of President Trump's power.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during a cabinet meeting Monday that she intends to visit El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison during an upcoming trip to Latin America.
State of play: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg rejected the Trump administration's request to lift the temporary halt on the deportations.
Boasberg wrote in an opinion that the plaintiffs deserved individualized hearings to determine whether they were part of the Tren de Aragua gang as the administration claimed and whether the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 — which Trump invoked to justify their deportation — could be applied to them.
Boasberg also wrote that the plaintiffs "readily meet" the criteria establishing they face "irreparable harm" by their removal to El Salvadoran prisons.
The big picture: In Salvadoran prisons, detainees often face life-threatening harm, Boasberg noted.
Continue reading at Axios
Impeachment push won’t come straight to House floor
Texas Rep. Brandon Gill said he won’t trigger an immediate vote following talks with Speaker Mike Johnson.
The Texas Republican seeking to impeach the federal judge who attempted to block President Donald Trump’s deportation flights isn’t backing down. But he said Monday he has no immediate plans to force a House vote on ousting U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.
Rep. Brandon Gill said in an interview Monday that he spoke with Speaker Mike Johnson about the matter and the two “discussed a range of options” about how to move forward. While Gill could call up his resolution targeting Boasberg as a privileged matter, he said he isn’t seeking to fast-track the effort at the moment.
He has, however, secured three new GOP cosponsors: Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois, John McGuire of Virginia and Michael Rulli of Ohio, bringing the total to 19.
Gill still said he viewed impeachment as the “proper remedy” for Boasberg’s “lawless and unconstitutional ruling” against Trump that’s blocking a key piece of his agenda: “We’re going to continue pushing impeachment.”
Continue reading at Politico
DOJ alleges key omissions on Mahmoud Khalil's green card application
The Trump administration lodged new accusations over the weekend against detained Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil in an effort to justify its deportation case against him.
The big picture: The arrest of Khalil, a leader in Columbia's pro-Palestinian protests and a U.S. green card holder from Syria, set the stage for a historic test of immigrants' speech rights under the Trump administration.
Driving the news: The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a filing Sunday that Khalil, who is a legal resident in the U.S., did not disclose in his permanent residency application that he was a member of a United Nations agency that helped Palestinian refugees and that he worked for the British Embassy in Lebanon after 2022.
"Khalil's First Amendment allegations are a red herring," the DOJ said in the filing, which argued that the decision to "conceal group memberships" created an "independent basis" to deport him.
The other side: Khalil's attorney, Marc Van Der Hout, called the additional allegations "completely meritless."
He told Axios, "They show that the government has no case whatsoever on this bogus charge that his presence in the U.S. would have adverse foreign policy consequences."
Continue reading at Axios
Tracking the foreign nationals detained by ICE as tourists or U.S. residents
U.S. tourists and permanent residents from around the world have been arrested, detained and deported under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Why it matters: The recent high-profile detentions and deportations demonstrate an escalation in tactics from immigration officials, accused of targeting some for their political stances or involvement.
What we're watching: The United Nations advised its New York-based employees and their family members to carry U.N. identification cards and a copy of their passport page that contains their visa, the New York Times reported on Monday.
They were warned that they risk being stopped by immigration officials.
Read more about the arrests and detentions:
French scientist detained for text messages
A French researcher was prevented from entering the U.S. this month because of messages he sent that were critical of the Trump administration's academic research policies, French government officials told multiple outlets.
The scientist, whose name has not been revealed, was traveling to a conference near Houston, per Le Monde.
Continue reading at Axios
Monsanto parent ordered to pay $2B in Roundup lawsuit damages
The company behind Roundup weedkiller herbicide was ordered to pay more than $2 billion in a man’s cancer lawsuit.
According to his attorneys, John Barnes developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Monsanto’s Roundup for two decades.
The case resulted in a $2.065 billion verdict, Barnes’s lawyers said. The Associated Press reported that Bayer, the parent company for Monsanto, was ordered to pay $65 million to compensate Barnes and an additional $2 billion in punitive damages by a Georgia jury. Monsanto is appealing the ruling.
Thousands of cases have alleged that Roundup causes cancer. Monsanto has maintained that it does not.
“We believe that we have strong arguments on appeal to get this verdict overturned and the excessive and unconstitutional damage awards eliminated or reduced,” said a statement from the company.
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge blocks Texas A&M drag ban
A federal judge handed a preliminary victory Monday to an LGBTQ student group that sued the Texas A&M University System and its flagship over a policy effectively banning drag performances on each of its 11 campuses.
The university system’s Board of Regents voted almost unanimously in February to adopt a resolution stating drag events are inconsistent with the system’s “mission and core values, including the value of respect for others.”
Continue reading at The Hill
The soft underbelly of U.S. job growth
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other Trump administration officials argue that the U.S. job market has been overdependent on government and "government-adjacent" fields, making the economy they inherited weaker than it would appear at first glance.
They have a point.
Why it matters: In the cyclical sectors that rely purely on consumer and business demand, job creation has been strikingly weak over the last two years. This raises worries about what could happen to the labor market next.
Administration officials see this as justification for what Bessent calls a period of "detox" for the economy, and their willingness to risk pain to achieve it.
Economists attribute disproportionate growth in health care and government jobs to the population's aging and to a catch-up effect from pandemic job losses. But some do see overreliance on these sectors as evidence of underlying weakness.
By the numbers: Over the past two years, employment by government (including federal, state and local), the health care industry, the social assistance sector, and private education has risen by 3.2 million jobs, a 6.7% jump.
Within health care, major drivers of job growth were home health care (employment up 16.2%), nursing and residential care (9.6%), and hospitals (7.6%).
Continue reading at Axios
‘Targeted’ and ‘cruel’: NASA staff react to layoffs as broader changes loom
The agency is planning to implement a reorganization plan as it chases some of the most ambitious goals yet in its nearly 67-year history, such as establishing a permanent lunar settlement after working to return humans to the moon’s surface later this decade.
“Over the past few weeks, an internal team has defined a strategy to identify and act on opportunities for optimizing our organization — whether by streamlining operations, reducing duplicative reporting and analysis, finding areas to accelerate decision velocity, or identifying cost-savings measures,” said NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro in a Friday email addressed to space agency staff that was obtained by CNN.
“Rather than prescribing specific changes at this point, our initial submission outlined areas we will explore to find the best approach for our agency’s future,” the email reads. “In the coming weeks, we will evaluate where we can make these changes, while also considering the potential for any new priorities from the administration and the next administrator once confirmed.”
NASA formed a “Tiger Team” that’s tasked with evaluating how the agency might implement potentially sweeping cuts, CNN reported last week. According to an emailed meeting invitation, the team aims to identify possible areas for cost reduction to comply with Trump’s executive orders, and the Department of Government Efficiency — the initiative to drastically cut federal spending, spearheaded by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Senate GOP, Dems prepare to face off before parliamentarian over tax cut cost
Top budget aides from each party will make their cases for and against the “current policy baseline” approach that would zero-out the price tag.
The next step for Senate Republicans trying to put a zero-dollar price tag on a slew of tax cuts is to defend their reasoning against Democratic attacks before the Senate parliamentarian, according to a person familiar with the meetings.
Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan rule-keeper, has already met with top aides from each party about the idea — twice with Democrats and at least once with Republicans. She plans to next call a joint meeting with budget aides from both sides who will lay out their arguments for and against the accounting tactic, though the meeting has yet to be scheduled, according to the person.
Whether the parliamentarian allows GOP leaders to use the “current policy baseline” approachPresident Donald Trump has endorsed is crucial to their effort to enact a sweeping package that delivers on Trump’s campaign promises of tax cuts and new energy policy, plus hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on border security and the military.
Senate Majority LeaderJohn Thune aims to bring a new budget framework to the floor sometime in the coming three weeks to take the next step toward enacting the behemoth party-line package, as GOP leaders in the House and Senate continue to spar over its scope.
As top Senate Republicans push for making permanent the tax cuts set to expire this year under a 2017 package, using the “current policy” scoring approach could be the only way they can build enough support — and afford everything they want to do.
Continue reading at Politico
GOP senator: Trump ‘interested in’ seeing Congress codify DOGE cuts
The White House still hasn’t said whether it will ask lawmakers to ratify Elon Musk’s government-slashing efforts.
Republican Sen.John Kennedy pitched President Donald Trump in a 30-minute phone call Monday on a legislative package to codify Elon Musk’s spending cuts through the Department of Government Efficiency — and said Trump is open to it.
“He’s very interested in doing it,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters Monday.
Kennedy’s private call with Trump adds to the pressure coming from many Senate Republicans for the White House to send over a so-called rescissions package, which would allow lawmakers to give Musk’s spending cuts the force of law.They have argued such a move could put the cuts on stronger legal ground as courts increasingly shoot down DOGE’s efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy.
Republicans also see a technical advantage in moving a rescissions package, recognizing they could pass it with just a simple majority in both chambers and avert the 60-vote threshold for most legislation in the Senate. Republicans are trying to enact broad swaths of Trump’s legislative agenda through the party-line, filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process, too — but much of DOGE’s efforts won’t qualify for inclusion in a reconciliation bill given procedural rules.
“A lot of these cuts — spending porn that Mr. Musk has found — we can’t do in reconciliation because it’s not mandatory,” Kennedy explained Monday.
Continue reading at Politico
Jennifer Siebel Newsom condemns ‘tech oligarchy running our country’
Online safety advocates hope to leverage animosity toward tech’s relationship with Donald Trump to regulate the industry.
SAN FRANCISCO — The wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted Silicon Valley leaders Monday for cozying up to Donald Trump, calling them a “tech oligarchy” and accusing them of using “unchecked” power to avoid accountability for kids’ safety on social media.
First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom issued her criticism as she called for action to fight social media addiction at the Common Sense Summit in downtown San Francisco, run by the eponymous advocacy group.
“There’s a tech oligarchy running our country right now that is unchecked, where there’s no accountability and transparency,” Siebel Newsom said during a panel discussion with Pinterest CEO Bill Ready.
“The fact that we recognize that, that we’re actually outing it, in a way, that gives me hope because that means that something can change because we know something’s wrong.”
Her latest remarks come as Democrats nationally — including husband Gavin Newsom — have started embracing the term “oligarchy” to refer to President Trump’s efforts to slash federal programs in close collaboration with tech leaders like Elon Musk.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump administration shuttering long Covid office
The move comes as part of the administration’s reorganization of HHS, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.
The Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.
The email was sent Monday by Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice. It said the closing is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ reorganization.
The office’s handful of staff were not told whether they would remain employed in the federal government or whether the office would close immediately or wind down operations over time.
“We are writing to let you know that the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice will be closing as part of the administration’s reorganization coming this week,” the email reads. “We are proud of what we have accomplished together advancing understanding, resources, and support for people living with Long COVID.”
One HHS employee who works on long Covid, granted anonymity to share details of the move, argued closing the office would not save much money and could cost more over time. Not only could suspending the office’s coordination work lead to overlapping and duplicated efforts, the employee said, but also abandoning work that could cure long Covid means the country’s health care system will have to provide years if not decades of costly care for millions of chronically ill people.
Continue reading at Politico
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