Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 65 | Blog#42
A binder full of... nincompoops
Yesterday’s post
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Yesterday’s news worth repeating
German outlet reportedly finds Trump officials’ private contact info online
The German news outlet, Der Spiegel, reportedly found private contact information for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and national security adviser Mike Waltz, who were involved in the Signal group chat security breach.
The news site’s report said each individual’s email address and phone number were readily available on the dark web, according to a Wednesday report.
Hegseth’s mobile number and active email address were sent to Der Spiegel by a commercial provider of personal information for marketing purposes.
Their search of the leaked user data revealed that the email address and, in some cases, even the password associated with it, could be found in over 20 publicly accessible leaks and traced back to a WhatsApp account for the Defense Secretary that was recently deleted as reported by the outlet.
Waltz’s contact information was obtained by the same unnamed provider and was linked to his Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Signal accounts in addition to several passwords for the adviser’s email address in leaked databases Der Spiegel wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump's Social Security check change could affect half a million Americans
Nearly half a million Americans will be affected by President Trump's order that will cease Social Security payments by paper check.
Why it matters: The switch risks disrupting the financial lives of some of the most vulnerable Americans, at a time when Social Security is cutting back services to help them.
Driving the news: The federal government must stop issuing paper checks by Sept. 30 in favor of direct deposit, prepaid cards, or "other digital payment options," per an order Trump signed yesterday.
The move is part of a broader White House effort against what it considers government waste, fraud and abuse.
The order includes language allowing for "limited exceptions," including for people without bank accounts.
By the numbers: Nearly 456,000 Americans are still receiving paper Social Security checks as of March, per Social Security Administration data.
Continue reading at Axios
Social Security postpones and partially rolls back ID changes
The Social Security Administration on Wednesday said it would postpone controversial changes to phone service and partially relax new rules on identity verification.
Why it matters: Advocates and current and former officials have said the changes could break an already strained system and leave the most vulnerable populations without their benefits.
Driving the news: The SSA said the changes will now take effect April 14, rather than the end of this month.
Continue reading at Axios
Bessent opens door to Russian return to major international banking system
“I think this is premature to discuss the terms of a deal before we have a deal,” Bessent said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday did not rule out allowing Russian banks to rejoin the SWIFT international payment messaging system as negotiations continue on an end to the war in Ukraine.
But the White House would need backing from Europe to restart it.
“There would be a long discussion about many things in terms of the proper way to bring Russia back into the international system,” Bessent told Fox News news anchor Martha MacCallum. “But I think this is premature to discuss the terms of a deal before we have a deal.”
The Biden administration helped lead the push to remove some of Russia’s largest banks from SWIFT, an international system that allows financial institutions from all over the world to communicate transaction information, shortly after the country invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
Continue reading at Politico
New Social Security clawback policy starts this week: What to know
A major change in how the Social Security Administration (SSA) handles benefit overpayments is set to kick in Thursday.
Starting March 27, the Social Security Administration will start to withhold 100 percent of a person’s monthly benefit to recoup any outstanding overpayment amount. The current clawback rate, which was set by President Biden, is 10%.
The Office of the Chief Actuary estimates that the policy will translate to roughly $7 billion in savings over the next decade.
“We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people,” said Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security, in a statement. “It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds.”
While the policy is sold as a measure that’s crucial to make sure American taxpayer dollars are going to the right people, in the correct amount, there is concern over how the change may affect some seniors.
“The ‘clawback’ of payments is especially unfair to seniors who do not have external support to help manage their finances and track their benefits,” Shannon Benton, executive director of the Senior Citizens League, told CBS earlier this month.
The SSA notes that the new withholding rate will not apply to benefits paid before March 27, but anyone overpaid after Thursday will “automatically be placed in full recovery at a rate of 100 percent.” Payments won’t resume until the scheduled benefits match the overpayment amount.
Continue reading at The Hill
Documents reveal scope of Trump’s foreign aid cuts
The State Department sent the list of impacted grants and contracts to Congress, according to a document seen by POLITICO.
The Trump administration has terminated more than 5,300 grants and contracts managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development worth more than $27 billion, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.
The document, sent to Congress on Monday, also shows that nearly 900 programs worth about $8.3 billion have been retained. The information was current as of March 21, a USAID official told Congress, according to a separate document seen by POLITICO.
USAID retains 869 staffers, who work with the State Department to continue the agency’s “lifesaving and strategic aid programming,” according to that document. USAID had more than 10,000 employees as of Jan. 20, before Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began dismantling the agency.
Some notable cuts include:
$880 million for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which helps developing countries procure vaccines, covering the period from Sept. 30, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2030
$262 million for UNAIDS, the United Nations HIV program, for the period from Sept. 19, 2022, to Sept. 24, 2026
$57 million in tuberculosis research granted to Johns Hopkins University for the period from Aug. 1, 2022, to Sept 31, 2027
Continue reading at Politico
Tufts PhD student detained by immigration authorities
A foreign-born Ph.D. student from Tufts University was detained by federal authorities Tuesday, the latest international scholar swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The university said in a statement the student, whom it did not name, was arrested outside an apartment building in Somerville, Mass. The school said it had no prior knowledge the arrest would take place, and it happened off campus property.
“From what we have been told subsequently, the student’s visa status has been terminated, and we seek to confirm whether that information is true. The university has no additional information at this time about the cause or circumstances of the student’s apprehension and is attempting to learn more about the incident,” Tufts said.
The Boston Globe identified the student as Rumeysa Ozturk. A federal judge Tuesday ordered that Ozturk is to stay in the country for now.
The Hill has reached out to Ozturk’s attorney and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Continue reading at The Hill
Today’s news
Democratic News Corner
Outraged Dem voters "stick it" to MAGA's new soft spots
Without President Trump on the ballot, signs of MAGA weakness are popping up all over.
Why it matters: Any surprise upset is huge for Democrats after all their recent losing — and a letdown for Republicans praying the mega-MAGA coalition outlasts the Trump presidency.
✅ One upset's already on the board: The Pennsylvania GOP lost a state Senate seat earlier this week in a district Trump won by 15 points in November. One Democratic voter told AP she's "tired of the bullyism" under Trump and wanted to "stick it" to Republicans.
☑️ In Florida, the GOP is worried ahead of Monday's special House election about an underperforming candidate in a district Trump won by 30 in November.
☑️ In Wisconsin, Trump and Elon Musk are all-in on Tuesday's state Supreme Court race. Polling shows an enthusiasm problem among MAGA voters.
The other side: Bad candidates can tank MAGA's chances, as Arizona Republicans (Kari Lake) and Georgia Republicans (Herschel Walker) know well.
In Florida's 6th District, GOP candidate Randy Fine is struggling mightily. Fine is within the (large) margin of error in a recent poll, and has been badly out-fundraised.
Continue reading at Axios
Schumer keeps his job as Democrats wonder if he’s on borrowed time
The embattled minority leader has faced criticism across the party over his fumbled strategy over a government funding bill.
Chuck Schumer is bruised but not beaten — at least not yet.
Two weeks after the Senate minority leader joined with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown, Democrats are still fuming over how he handled the standoff. But many in the party are conceding that they’re stuck with him for the time being.
With no obvious alternative to Schumer emerging nor any appetite among the vast majority of Senate Democrats for a messy leadership contest, lawmakers are indicating they are falling in behind the New Yorker and hoping for the best as they prepare for upcoming fights. Some frustrated Democratic donors have made the same calculation.
After Schumer enraged his party by voting to advance the Republican stopgap measure, he went into damage-control mode making a flurry of media appearances, pleading his case to lawmakers, and working the phones with liberal groups. Even as a handful of House members and outside progressive activists called for him to step aside, he avoided any defections inside his own caucus. And Schumer’s seeming omnipresence enabled him to run out the clock until another news cycle — this one over the Trump administration’s war plan group chat — began.
“Chuck’s been reaching out to everyone and having conversations with folks, which I appreciate,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) on Wednesday. Asked if there were discussions about replacing Schumer as leader, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) added: “Not within the caucus.”
Continue reading at Politico
Pennsylvania upset underscores Democratic enthusiasm
Democratic East Petersburg Mayor James Malone’s surprise victory over his GOP rival in a Trump-friendly district follows other under-the-radar wins the party has pulled off since the beginning of the year.
It’s another example of the party performing well in off-year elections when President Trump isn’t on the ballot. But it also comes as anger rises among the base over Trump’s actions and how Washington Democrats have responded, and comes days before the first major election of the year with Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race.
“I think it shows that the Republicans have a problem, and while the Democrats have their problems as well at the national level, in the end, the Democratic voters are coming home and people are upset with what’s going on in Washington,” said Pennsylvania Democratic strategist Mike Mikus.
Continue reading at The Hill
DNC chair will campaign in Florida district ahead of special election
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin will campaign in Florida’s sixth congressional district this weekend ahead of next week’s special House election.
Martin will hit the campaign trail with Democratic candidate Josh Weil in St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. Martin will also take part in a roundtable with Latino leaders in Orlando, which is located outside of the district and leans more Democratic.
The Hill was the first outlet to report on Martin’s visit.
Democrats will face an uphill climb in Tuesday’s special election race in the sixth congressional district. President Trump and his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz both won the district by over 30 points last November.
However, Democrats say Martin’s visit is part of a long-term strategy to bolster the party’s standing across the country. Florida will mark the thirteenth state Martin has visited since being elected DNC chair in February.
“I’m going to Florida’s 6th Congressional District this weekend as part of my Organizing Everywhere Tour because the stakes are too high for Democrats to not compete all across the map,” Martin said in a statement.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democratic group: Hit Trump on economy
Third Way, a center-left think tank, argued that President Trump needs to be criticized over one of his largest issues: the economy.
“All presidents are vulnerable on the economy but none more so than Trump. He repeatedly pledged, ‘Starting the day I take the Oath of Office, I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again,’” the group said in a new report.
“Voters put up with his antics and the insults because they believed they were going to have someone at the top who understands the economy and can deliver results. Or so they thought,” Third Way wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
House Democrat introducing Houthi PC Small Group Act
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) is proposed legislation, dubbed the “HOUTHI PC SMALL GROUP Act” that it would make it illegal for officials to use an outside messaging platform, such as the Signal app, “to discuss classified information.”
Under Torres’s proposal, nicknamed after the group chat that high-level national security officials used on the Signal app to discuss a looming airstrike on Houthi rebels in Yemen, anyone who violates the law would face up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000, according to Torres’s office.
The name is an acronym for “Homeland Operations and Unilateral Tactics Halting Incursions: Preventing Coordinated Subversion, Military Aggression and Lawless Levies Granting Rogue Operatives Unchecked Power.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Blumenthal: Schumer agrees Democrats need to be ‘more aggressive’
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he thinks Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is united with fellow Democrats on the need to be “more aggressive” following intense backlash from within his party after Schumer supported a GOP continuing resolution to keep the government open.
In an interview on SiriusXM’s “Mornings with Zerlina,” Blumenthal said he thinks Schumer “recognizes” the concerns of the party and will take a stronger approach to countering Republican efforts in the future.
“I think that we’ve all learned something from the continuing resolution controversy,” Blumenthal said. “I voted against the continuing resolution. I felt strongly that we should stand firmly against the administration, take a stand. And obviously Sen. Schumer voted the other way.”
“But I think we are now going through a renewal, call it a renewal of vigor and determination, led by Sen. Schumer, who recognizes that we need stronger tactics and strategy,” Blumenthal continued.
“And I hope that change in determination will become more evident as we go forward,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Greg Meeks to endorse Cuomo for mayor this weekend, snubbing longtime ally
The Queens Democratic party boss is expected to boost the former governor with a rally.
NEW YORK — Rep. Greg Meeks, an influential Black Democrat and county party boss, is expected to endorse Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor with a rally Sunday in Queens, five people familiar with the plans told POLITICO.
The former governor — who denies allegations of sexual harassment that forced him to resign from office — is leading every poll in the race to oust Mayor Eric Adams.
The support from Meeks, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and leader of the Queens County Democratic Party, comes after Cuomo got the backing last week of a slate of politicians in the Congress member’s backyard of Southeast Queens. The area of predominantly working- and middle-class Black Democrats routinely has high turnout in local races; Adams won it handily in 2021.
The pending endorsement is another blow to Adrienne Adams, whom Meeks supported in her successful bid to become City Council speaker four years ago. She recently entered the Democratic primary to oust Eric Adams.
Continue reading at Politico
National Security
How Trump's team could've planned the Houthi strikes without Signal
It's not just the Situation Room or Signal — senior Trump administration officials bypassed a range of secure government systems when they decided to discuss plans for an upcoming attack in Yemen on a commercially available app.
Axios spoke to one current senior U.S. official and five former senior U.S. officials — all of whom have taken part in communications around similarly sensitive overseas operations — about the secure channels through which these conversations are supposed to happen, why turning to Signal could seem appealingly expedient, and why doing so is potentially dangerous.
What they're saying: "It's shocking. It's shocking negligence," a former senior defense official said. "We've got the best secure communication systems in the world — of any country — so why are we using a rickety, commercially available system?"
The former official said Signal is "not even in the same universe" as the Pentagon's JWICS intranet, through which some of the country's most delicate intelligence is shared.
Set aside the fact that a prominent journalist was privy to the group chat. Sending a minute-by-minute timeline of impending strikes over a network you can't be sure is fully secure endangers pilots and could compromise the success of an operation, the former official contended.
The other side: The White House insists there was nothing wrong with officials using Signal, which is end-to-end encrypted and is widely used by private citizens (such as journalists) to share sensitive information and gossip.
Continue reading at Axios
GOP lawmakers turn up the pressure on Hegseth
Republican lawmakers have stopped short of calling on Hegseth to resign, but they’re warning that his decision to share sensitive details about a pending military strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen over Signal, a commercial app, is a clear “strike” against him.
“I think they should make sure it never happens again. I wish they’d tell us, ‘It will never happen again.’ It’s the first strike in the early stages of an administration,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Don’t let it ever happen again.”
“I don’t know how many strikes you get. In baseball you get three. Maybe this is worst two,” he added. “If mistakes like this continue to happen, we’ll deal with them as it happens. My hope and my expectation is that it won’t.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Fox’s Jennifer Griffin: Info Hegseth sent ‘classified’ and meant only for secure channels
Fox News’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin said she surveyed current and former defense officials on Wednesday who said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared “classified” information via the Signal group chat with President Trump’s cabinet members and The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was mistakenly added to the message thread.
“What Hegseth shared two hours ahead of the strikes were time sensitive ‘attack orders’ or ‘operational plans’ with actual timing of the strikes and mention of F18s, MQ9 Reapers and Tomahawks,” Griffin wrote in a Wednesday post on X.
“This information is typically sent through classified channels to the commanders in the field as ‘secret, no forn’ message. In other words the information is ‘classified’ and should not be shared through insecure channels,” she added.
Griffin’s discussion with past defense officials revealed that the information shared about the U.S. strike on the Houthis in Yemen could have put American lives at risk.
“‘Attack orders’ or ‘attack sequence’ puts the joint force directly and immediately at risk, according to former senior defense official #1. ‘It allows the enemy to move the target and increase lethal actions against US forces,’” the journalist wrote.
Continue reading at The Hill
Health news
Nearly 3M HIV deaths due to foreign aid cuts, study forecasts
Researchers warn that decades of progress in HIV treatment and prevention could be undone.
Over 10 million more people could be infected with HIV and nearly 3 million people could die by the end of the decade because of foreign aid cuts by Western governments, new research published today found.
The study, published in The Lancet HIV, estimates the potential public health impact of planned or proposed cuts by the top five donor countries — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands — which currently account for 90 percent of all international HIV funding.
The greatest impact would be in sub-Saharan Africa and among vulnerable and marginalized populations who are already at a higher risk of acquiring HIV, such as people who inject drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men and children.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
1 big thing: Health players seek tariff relief
Medical device makers, hospitals and other key health industries are pressing to gain exemptions under the Trump administration's new tariff regime with the next and most aggressive actions to date due to be unveiled next week.
Why it matters: About $303 billion of imported drug, biotech and device industry goods entered the United States in the last year — $294 billion of which entered duty-free, according to PwC.
Health care's heavy reliance on foreign countries for raw materials and manufacturing means new levies could result in higher prices for providers and consumers and supply chain disruptions, PwC said.
State of play: On April 2, Trump is expected to impose reciprocal tariffs, potentially on dozens of countries, at levels still unclear. He refers to that as "the big one," though he's lately hedged on just how big it might be.
Continue reading at Axios Vitals newsletter
2. HHS cancels over $12B in health care grants
The Trump administration is canceling billions of dollars in grant funding to state and local health departments without warning, throwing their programs into disarray.
Why it matters: The move casts doubt on states' ability to continue substance use disorder support programs and prevent emerging infectious diseases, among other efforts.
In Virginia, the state health department has already begun laying off staff as a result of the funding cuts.
Where it stands: The CDC expects to claw back about $11.4 billion from states, which was largely directed toward COVID-19 testing, vaccination and initiatives to bridge health disparities, HHS confirmed to Axios.
The administration also canceled about $1 billion in grants that had been made possible by COVID-19 relief legislation and dispersed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, HHS said.
Zoom in: Community health workers, nurses and epidemiologists in Virginia have begun receiving termination notices, several current and former Virginia Department of Health employees familiar told Axios.
Continue reading at Axios Vitals newsletter
HHS to cut 10,000 employees in major overhaul of health agencies
CNN —
The US Department of Health and Human Services will announce Thursday it is cutting 10,000 full-time employees across health agencies, the department told CNN.
The cuts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
This comes on top of 10,000 employees who’ve left voluntarily, amounting to shrinking by about a quarter of the workforce.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Fearing Trump cuts, California Democrat proposes creating state’s own NIH
The ambitious state lawmaker argues moves by Elon Musk and RFK Jr. show the Golden State must “step up” as a global leader.
SACRAMENTO, California — An ambitious California Democrat wants the world’s fifth-largest economy to create its own National Institutes of Health and vaccine program, saying the state can’t rely on the Trump administration to support research and science.
A bill introduced in the California Senate on Thursday, shared first with POLITICO, would create a new state agency to fund the scientific research being slashed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as well as bolster the vaccine access being questioned by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“California is a global leader on science in our own right, and we must step in to protect our scientific institutions from the new Administration’s anti-science, Make America Sick Again onslaught,” the bill’s author, San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement announcing his proposal.
“For California to thrive, we must defend science.”
The move comes as California and other states gird for potentially massive cuts to health care and scientific research coming from Washington, and as a growing measles outbreak throws the administration’s position on vaccines into question.
Continue reading at Politico
POLITICO Pulse
Advocates pressure GOP over Medicaid cuts
MEDICAID CUT PUSHBACK — Patient advocacy groups and health care workers are ramping up pressure on Republican lawmakers to steer clear of massive cuts to Medicaid that GOP leadership is proposing.
The groups, from across the country, are converging on Washington this week to warn Republicans of the political ramifications of cutting a program that serves more than 70 million low-income Americans, many of whom reside in red districts. The efforts come as House Republicans have doubled down on their proposal to find $880 billion in cuts — with most cuts likely coming from Medicaid — to offset funding for President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda.
At the same time, some Senate Republicans are wary of advancing a bill that would lead to massive Medicaid cuts. It’s a major sticking point as both chambers work out a deal on a reconciliation bill framework they hope to adopt by the week of April 7.
“Beyond work requirements, if it’s something that results in reductions in benefits to folks who depend on it and who are qualified and are working, I’m not going to vote for that,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told POLITICO on Wednesday. “That’s 20 percent of my state.”
Amid the standstill, the advocates swarming the Capitol hope to convince lawmakers to protect Medicaid. About 20 California health care workers flew into Washington on Wednesday to visit the offices of the state’s Republican Reps. David Valadao, Ken Calvert and Young Kim to ask them to “reverse course on Medicaid cuts that could shutter hospitals, raise healthcare costs, and leave working families without care,” according to an advisory from the Fight for Our Health Coalition.
Additionally, the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, representing about 15,000 nursing homes and long-term care facilities, flew in providers from dozens of facilities across 16 states to stress to lawmakers the importance of Medicaid for the intellectual and developmental disabilities community.
“Without reliable Medicaid funding, our residents could see their coverage cancelled, their care options reduced, or their facilities close,” said Jamie Anthony, chair of the AHCA/NCAL’s intellectual and developmental disabilities committee, in a press release.
And more than 300 advocacy groups sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday calling on him to reject House Republicans’ budget blueprint.
“Medicaid is already a lean program; the cuts required by the House budget resolution would blow a hole in state budgets, forcing them to offset financial losses by either raising taxes or dropping people from coverage, eliminating critical health services, or cutting payments that support rural hospitals, community clinics, nursing homes and other providers — delaying care and driving up costs for everyone,” the organizations said in the letter.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Thune signaled Wednesday that they would move forward on a fiscal blueprint before they resolved major disputes over the offsets. Thune, asked about potential Medicaid cuts, said the budget resolution is the first step in moving forward, and decisions about the source of spending cuts would be made later.
“Some of that is just getting the process unlocked … so the committees can actually start doing the scrub and finding where they can find savings,” he said.
Continue reading the Politico Pulse newsletter
Very few people ‘know what’s happening’: RFK Jr. cuts surprise and alarm
The cuts sent shockwaves through the department’s sprawling workforce, prompting a scramble among senior agency officials to figure out which employees and policy priorities were affected.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s move to gut and reorganize the federal health department shocked many people tasked with making it happen, and left others fearful that everything from the safety of the nation’s drug supply to disease response could be at risk.
The disaster preparedness agency in the Department of Health and Human Services has just two days to prepare a plan to fold itself into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an HHS official, granted anonymity for fear of retribution.
Health staffers entrusted with regulating prescription drugs, managing public health programs and conducting scientific research were blindsided by the cuts, with many learning the details from a Wall Street Journal story published early on Thursday, several people familiar with the matter said.
“There’s very few people who actually know what’s happening,” said one health official granted anonymity to describe the internal reaction.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) also said he learned of the cuts from news reports. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the committee that oversees the health department, found out from Kennedy during a breakfast Thursday just before the news broke.
The hushed-and-hurried nature of Thursday’s announcement, which called for terminating 10,000 workers, the elimination of departments and the closure of regional offices, underscores how Kennedy as health secretary intends to impose his singular vision on a department he has chided as a bloated bureaucracy that has lost its way.
“We’re going to eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments and agencies while preserving their core functions,” Kennedy said in a six-minute video explaining the cuts that he posted to X on Thursday.
Continue reading at Politico
Senate Republican questions FDA chief on counterfeit weight loss drugs
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) wants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to look into foreign-made active pharmaceutical ingredients he says are being included in online weight loss drugs.
In a letter to acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner, Banks warned that the nation is seeing a spike in drugs with the foreign-made ingredients that could post health risks for Americans purchasing them online.
“Booming online gray and black markets are flooding the country with knock-off and counterfeit GLP-1s contaminated with foreign-made APIs [active pharmaceutical ingredients], and few Americans purchasing these drugs are aware of the risks they pose,” Banks wrote in the Wednesday letter.
“I request detailed information about how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will prevent unlawful APIs from entering the country and potentially harming Americans,” he added.
GLP-1s refer to compounded glucagon-like peptide 1 agonist medications — injectable weight-loss drugs.
Continue reading at The Hill
RFK Jr.’s critics: 24 percent HHS staffing cuts risk ‘manmade disaster’
The Trump administration announced plans Thursday to get rid of roughly a quarter of staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), prompting a flurry of warnings from Democrats, former officials and policy experts over the potential consequences for the health of Americans.
In a press release Thursday morning, the HHS said it would be reorganizing the department and cutting about 10,000 jobs in the process through layoffs. The department will seek to cut an additional 10,000 employees through buyouts, early retirement and the administration’s “Fork in the Road” offer.
Removing 20,000 employees from the 82,000 HHS workforce represents a reduction of about 24 percent.
In an email to the American Federation of Government Employees union seen by The Hill, a representative from the human resources office said the workforce reduction would primarily affect employees in “administrative positions including human resources, information technology, procurement, and finance.”
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. On social platform X, Kennedy acknowledged “this will be a painful period for HHS.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Who Is David Geier, the Man Leading Federal Autism-Vaccine Study?
— Discredited researcher, vaccine skeptic was disciplined for practicing medicine without a license
David Geier, a man without a medical degree who once was disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physiciansopens in a new tab or window for practicing medicine without a license, reportedly will lead a new HHS study to identify whether a relationship between vaccines and autism exists.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long promoted a link between vaccines and autism, despite volumes of dataopens in a new tab or window showing the two are not associated.
The news of the HHS study comes as measles cases total nearly 330opens in a new tab or window in Texas and outbreaks have been reported in numerous other states, while Kennedy has downplayed the role of vaccination.
David Geier and his father Mark Geier, MD, are known for several discredited studies claiming that thimerosal, a preservative containing low levels of ethylmercury used in some vaccines, increased the risk of autism. (Thimerosal has been reduced or eliminated from vaccines for decades, and all vaccines recommended for children 6 and younger are available in formulations that do not contain thimerosalopens in a new tab or window.)
"The studies were poorly done; they were full of confounding variables," Paul Offit, MD, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told MedPage Today.
One study used data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The American Academy of Pediatrics warned cliniciansopens in a new tab or window about the study, saying it contained "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements," and failed to show a connection between thimerosal and autism.
Continue reading at MedPageToday
Economics
1. These brands will be hit hardest by Trump's new auto tariffs
President Trump's increased tariffs on imported vehicles will hit foreign automakers the hardest, though domestic automakers General Motors and Ford will also face a significant impact.
Why it matters: Experts expect automakers to raise prices to make up for at least part of the cost.
The exact percentage increase will depend on each automaker's willingness to absorb tariffs, but analysts believe the average new vehicle price will increase by several thousand dollars.
Between the lines: Volvo (13%), Mazda (19%) and Volkswagen (21%) make the lowest share of their U.S.-sold vehicles in this country, according to Wards Automotive and Barclays research.
Hyundai-Kia (33%), Mercedes (43%), BMW (48%) and Toyota (48%) also make less than half of their U.S.-sold vehicles here.
Examples of notable 2025 models that are imported to the U.S. include the Ford Maverick pickup, the Chevrolet Blazer crossover, the Hyundai Venue crossover, the Nissan Sentra compact car, the Porsche 911 sports car and the Toyota Prius hybrid, according to the Department of Transportation.
The big picture: About 45% of U.S.-sold vehicles are imported, with the largest percentage coming from Mexico and Canada.
Continue reading at Axios
2. The Wall Street bull is still roaring
Wall Street had a banner year in 2024. The stock market volatility we've seen so far in 2025 isn't going to change its fortunes very much.
Why it matters: Axios Markets readers are well aware that the stock market is not the economy. By the same token, Wall Street is not the stock market.
Indeed, when the market goes through a period of high-volatility down days, traders can end up making enormous profits.
Driving the news: Last year turns out to have been even better than many thought: The bonus pool divvied up by New York securities firms hit a new record high of $47.5 billion in 2024, per New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
If you look instead at the broad banking system, total revenue hit a record high of $856 billion in 2024, per Sifma.
Net income of $198 billion was second only to the boom year of 2021.
Zoom out: Wall Street makes money in lots of different ways.
Continue reading at Axios
3. Student loan borrowers in trouble
A record share of student loan debt is delinquent, according to new estimates by the New York Fed.
Why it matters: The all-time high estimate signals more stress on American consumers than previously known.
Nearly one-quarter of student loan borrowers are estimated to have fallen behind on payments.
The fallout could be a sharp drop in credit scores that makes it harder, and costlier, to borrow for credit cards, auto loans and more.
Flashback: At the onset of the pandemic, the government said borrowers would not be penalized for missing student loan payments, while collections on delinquent debt were paused. Delinquent debt was marked as current.
Federal student loans started accruing interest again in 2023. The government instituted an "on-ramp period" through September 2024 that froze notices to credit agencies about missed payments.
Continue reading at Axios
4. Trump's Social Security check change
Nearly half a million Americans will be affected by Trump's order to cease paper check Social Security payments by Sept. 30.
Why it matters: The switch risks disrupting the financial lives of some of the most vulnerable Americans, at a time when Social Security is cutting back services to help them.
By the numbers: Nearly 456,000 Americans are still receiving paper Social Security checks as of March, per Social Security Administration data.
That's about 0.7% of the approximately 68.2 million total recipients.
Between the lines: Social Security recipients are by definition on the older side, and some may struggle with any changes — particularly those who have long been able to switch to direct deposit but have not done so.
Continue reading/view chart at Axios
Axios Macro newsletter
This week's trade news is a big deal because of what it implies about President Trump's pain tolerance. We explore it below.
Plus, a first look at a new study on legal immigration that the administration might want to consider. 👀
Situational awareness: Only 224,000 Americans filed new claims for jobless benefits last week, the Labor Department said, a slight decline from the previous week and another sign the labor market is holding up.
The number of claims in Washington, D.C., and among federal employees both fell, suggesting DOGE cuts aren't having much impact on the overall U.S. job market.
1 big thing: Trump is willing to cause some pain
This week puts to rest any notion that Trump will deploy tariffs using his limited first-term playbook. Assume there will be import taxes on all kinds of stuff, all the time, for all sorts of stated reasons, for years to come.
Why it matters: Trump's willingness to touch the hot stove of tariffs — even at the cost of higher consumer prices, a stock market slump, and disruption to America's deepest international relationships — is far higher than any president's in living memory.
It implies more risk ahead for inflation, asset prices, and the ability of businesses to make long-term investments.
Driving the news: Yesterday's surprise announcement of a 25% tariff on imported automobiles and auto parts was just the latest in a dizzying string of escalations over the last few days.
It follows Trump introducing the concept of "secondary tariffs" earlier in the week, threatening additional taxes on imports from China and other nations in order to coerce them into no longer importing Venezuelan oil.
2. New study on legal immigration shift
A new report by the Penn Wharton Budget Model — seen first by Axios — finds a larger share of college-educated immigrants leads to faster economic growth, less federal debt and higher wages for all income groups.
"A small change in immigration policy that focuses more on skill — less on family structure — actually has a pretty big impact on the economy," Kent Smetters, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's The Wharton School who authored the report, tells Axios.
How it works: Smetters models the effects of replacing 10% of visas for lower-skilled workers and increasing higher-skilled visas by the same amount. It does not change the number of visas issued, just the composition.
With more higher-skill immigrants, GDP would be 0.4 percentage point higher than would otherwise be the case in 2054, while consumption would be higher by the same amount.
For higher-skill STEM immigrants, GDP would be 0.7 percentage point higher than expected in 2054, while consumption would rise by 0.6 percentage point.
Smetters says it could be a pay-for in the tax bill discussions underway in Washington: With a focus on STEM workers, the study shows the proposed policy would raise $152 billion in revenue over 10 years.
Continue reading the Axios Macro newsletter
RFK Jr.'s food stamp plan fuels tension with USDA
The Health secretary’s push to approve state-level restrictions is irritating some Agriculture officials who see it as overreach.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to swiftly bar the use of food stamps to buy soda is fueling tensions between his team and the Agriculture Department, according to four people inside and outside government familiar with the dynamics.
The Health and Human Services secretary wants the Trump administration to approve state petitions banning soda from the program for the first time. But he doesn’t control the massive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is managed by the USDA.
Aides to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins agree with Kennedy that federal aid should not be supporting a product they blame for driving obesity and other chronic diseases, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. But they have questioned the feasibility of Kennedy’s rapid approach and bristled at his encroachment into their territory.
The behind-the-scenes friction represents an early flashpoint in the delicate partnership between Kennedy and Rollins aimed at fulfilling the Trump administration’s vows to improve Americans’ health through its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“Rollins and Kennedy, they’ve both talked about this issue,” said one of the people, a USDA staffer. “However, [HHS] is flying solo. It just doesn’t help to find a joint pathway forward.”
Continue reading at Politico
Social security admin partially walks back plans for ID verification, cutting phone services
The Social Security Administration said Wednesday it would modify it’s proposed new policy by foregoing an in person requirement to verify the identity of account holders with Disability Insurance, Medicare and SSI Applications.
“We have listened to our customers, Congress, advocates, and others, and we are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the country’s most vulnerable populations,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security.
“In addition to extending the policy’s effective date by two weeks to ensure our employees have the training they need to help customers, Medicare, Disability, and SSI applications will be exempt from in-person identity proofing because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a person’s identity.”
The Wednesday announcement said that beginning on April 14, those who cannot use their online Social Security account can complete their claim over the telephone without needing to come into an office.
Continue reading at The Hill
Oil execs offer brutal early verdict on Trump's trade policies
Executives in heart of the U.S. oil patch offered a brutal — if anonymous — verdict on Trump 2.0 trade policies and uncertainty they create for producers.
Why it matters: The Dallas Fed's latest survey highlights problems facing the White House's simultaneous push for a drilling surge, new tariffs, and lower costs.
The overall industry is greeting Trump with a mix of elation and concern.
Driving the news: "'Drill, baby, drill' is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn't have a clear goal," said one exec who was quoted anonymously.
"Uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy continues to negatively impact our business, both for mid- to long-term planning and near-term costs," said another, using the "u" word that surfaced a lot.
Several said tariffs will raise steel costs, while others said the push for lower prices collides with a major oil output boost (a reminder U.S. production is already at record levels and still rising).
"There cannot be 'U.S. energy dominance' and $50 per barrel oil; those two statements are contradictory," said one respondent.
Continue reading at Axios
CEOs deliver tough talk as workers face a softening labor market
The return of the Big Boss Era has brought with it tough talk, as corporate leaders take a more candid tone internally.
Why it matters: How CEOs are communicating with employees has evolved from "bring your best self to work" to "step it up."
The big picture: The slowing labor market and economic uncertainty have given management an upper hand it didn't have during the COVID era.
This has been underscored by return-to-office mandates, diversity, equity and inclusion walk backs and layoff fears. Now, once-vocal employee bases are just trying to hang on to their jobs.
These macro factors, paired with the cultural shift toward more corporate "masculine energy," have created a work environment that looks unrecognizable from that of a few years ago.
Meanwhile, leaders in Washington and corporate America are working to battle bureaucracy, increase efficiencies and do much more with much less, believing these drastic changes will ultimately pay off.
What they're saying: "There seems to be this shift among employees, with some understanding that most CEOs are in tough positions and they don't want their company to become a target for this administration," says Shallot Communications co-founder Teal Pennebaker.
Continue reading at Axios
$1B Food Aid Cut Hurts CA Schools, Farmers And Food Banks
The action comes as food banks are already struggling to meet unprecedented demand amid hunger rates that rose along with inflation.
CALIFORNIA — About $1 billion in federal funding cuts and pauses by the Trump administration will put more pressure on already-strained food banks in California, according to multiple sources.
The USDA is dismantling a pair of pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion to local food banks under the The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. At the same time, the Local Foods for Schools program was canceled.
"California receives more than $314 billion in federal funds for food benefits, health coverage and other social services each year, while federal grants to nonprofits and private contracts total more than $81 billion," CalMatters reported. "Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said it’s still too early to determine whether California can afford to make up the federal spending being cut."
The action comes as food banks are already struggling to meet unprecedented demand amid hunger rates that rose along with inflation and the expiration of some programs that kept food on Americans’ tables during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vince Hall, the chief government relations officer for Feeding America, told The Economic Times that about half of the discretionary spending from a Commodity Credit Corporation pool used to fund TEFAP has been frozen.
A USDA spokesperson told Reuters the agency is still making purchases under the TEFAP program.
Continue reading at Patch.com and The Economic Times
US-Canada airline bookings plummet 70 percent: Report
Airline bookings between the U.S. and Canada are down by 70 percent compared to the same time last year, according to the aviation analytics company OAG.
According to new data, airline capacity has been reduced between the two countries through October 2025, with the largest cuts occurring during peak travel season between July and August.
This drop is likely an indication of President Trump’s tariffs against the country paired with his calls for Canada to become the 51st state.
Airlines have begun to look elsewhere for their flights, including Europe, as future travel bookings between the U.S. and Canada has “collapsed,” OAG said.
Comparing bookings made this week for later in the summer to bookings made in 2024, there’s a more than 70 percent decrease in bookings for April through September.
While there’s a decreased number of flights, there might be an upside for travelers, OAG said.
“For those that are still planning to travel there may be some airlines offering particularly cheap airfares over the next few months as they seek to stimulate demand,” OAG said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senate votes to overturn CFPB overdraft rule, in new blow for agency
The vote comes as the consumer bureau, long a target of Republicans’ ire, is facing dramatic cuts by the Trump administration.
The Senate voted 52-48 on Thursday to overturn a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule capping the overdraft fees that banks can charge, in another blow to the beleaguered agency.
The resolution under the Congressional Review Act now heads to the House, where the Financial Services Committee approved a companion bill on a 30-19 vote earlier this month. CRAs both invalidate regulations and preclude future administrations from introducing “substantially similar” proposals.
The vote comes as the consumer bureau, long a target of Republicans’ ire, is facing dramatic cuts by the Trump administration.
The Biden administration finalized the overdraft rule — part of its campaign against so-called junk fees — in December, to the chagrin of Republicans who had asked financial regulators to pause rulemaking after the election until the new administration was sworn in. Banks, which say the rule would limit their ability to offer overdraft coverage, fiercely opposed the regulation and sued to stop it hours after it was finalized.
“President Biden’s politically motivated ‘junk fee’ conversation was not about helping consumers,” Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott said on the Senate floor Wednesday night.
Continue reading at Politico
‘Breathtaking': Warren presses Trump’s SEC pick over potential conflicts
The Massachusetts Democrat’s attack underscores the left’s concerns about how Atkins will lead the top Wall Street regulator as chair.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) criticized Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s nominee for SEC chair, on Thursday over what she called his “breathtaking” potential conflicts of interest with his ties to Wall Street.
In a sharp exchange, the Senate Banking Committee’s top Democrat pressed Atkins — a former SEC commissioner — for details about his previously announced plans to divest from his consulting firm, Patomak Global Partners. Atkins’ stake is valued at north of $25 million.
“Will you disclose who the buyers are and how much they pay, so that we can make certain that these are not people who are just buying access to the future chair of the SEC?” Warren said during Atkins’ confirmation hearing.
Atkins promptly responded: “Sen. Warren, I have abided by the Office of Government Ethics’ [process].”
“So that is a ‘no’ — you’re not going to tell us who you sell it to and how much money you get,” Warren cut in. “Some people might call that a pre-bribe.”
Continue reading at Politico
General News
Exclusive: Trump's "pro-Hamas" purge could block foreign students from colleges
The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are "pro-Hamas," senior Justice and State Department officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The effort — which could include grand jury subpoenas —marks another escalation of Trump's aggressive crackdown on immigration and antisemitism that civil libertarians say stifles campus speech and has led to several lawsuits.
Zoom in: The idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any student visa-holders grew out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" program, which now is focusing on students who protested against the war in Gaza.
A senior State Department official called the demonstrators it's targeting "Hamasniks" — people the government claims have shown support for the terror group.
More than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks "Catch and Revoke" has been in operation, the official said. There are 1.5 million student visa-holders nationwide.
"Everyone is fair game," the official said.
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 March 24.
They were warned that they risk being stopped by immigration officials.
Read more about the arrests and detentions:
University of Alabama doctoral student
Continue reading at Axios
Signalgate scrambles MAGA's messaging machine
An unstoppable force — President Trump's famed "never back down" mentality — has met an immovable object: the cold, hard Signalgate receipts published by The Atlantic.
Why it matters: The MAGA movement's ability to bend reality through brute force is facing its stiffest test yet, courtesy of the most explosive and widely read story of Trump's second term.
The result is a cocktail not seen since Trump's first term: A scandal that won't quit, and a base left scrambling to defend what many see as indefensible.
Zoom in: The Trump administration's official response emerged Wednesday within minutes of The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg publishing messages he had initially withheld that showed top officials discussing an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.
It centered in large part on semantics: Trump officials pointed to The Atlantic's use of "attack plans" in its new headline to accuse the magazine of walking back its initial claims about leaked "war plans."
There is a distinction in military parlance: "War plans" are typically more comprehensive, strategic frameworks that account for multiple scenarios, while "attack plans" usually pertain to a specific tactical operation.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked the "war plans" characterization: "No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods."
Zoom out: That argument fell flat with much of the national security community, which expressed horror at Hegseth's public sharing of detailed information about the sequencing of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump’s trade war hits home on ‘the front line of Canada’
Border town residents are adapting to a changing relationship with their U.S. neighbors
Whenever President Donald Trump talks about obliterating Canada’s auto industry, he takes direct aim at the people who live over the river from Detroit in Windsor. Windsorites recoil from his threats, but few see Detroiters as adversaries.
But as they gear up to head to the polls on April 28 in a snap federal election, the focus for Canadians in border towns and elsewhere is increasingly their complicated relationship with their neighbors. As long as there’s a trade war, Trump will be the ballot question.
Because of where they live and work, Windsor residents intuitively understand what’s at stake.
“If you said to them, the Ambassador Bridge is closed and protesters are blocking it, 100 percent of the people in Windsor would say, ‘Uh oh,’” said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens. “They know right away that’s a deeply troubling issue.”
That is not a hypothetical. In 2022, a six-day blockade of the bridge that connects the city to Detroit delayed billions in trade. In Windsor — and all along the Canadian border — the trade war is personal.
Brian Masse, a longtime New Democratic Party lawmaker fighting his ninth federal election in the district of Windsor West, puts it bluntly: “We are expecting to be the front line of Canada in this fight,” he says.
Continue reading at Politico
Inside the push and pull to keep GOP Jan. 6 probes alive
Significant differences between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) are leaving plans for a new House GOP probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in limbo more than two months after it was announced, as the sides collide over a new select subcommittee’s scope and authority.
Loudermilk, who is supposed to chair the new panel that would be housed under the House Judiciary Committee, is asking for broad jurisdiction and autonomy to go wherever the investigation takes him.
“We’re kind of in flux right now, trying to negotiate out some of the jurisdictions,” Loudermilk told me earlier this month. “I just need to continue on the way we were going before.”
Here is Loudermilk’s ask: The Georgia congressman wants to keep researching security posture and issues that Republicans have with the original Jan. 6 select committee, which House Democrats controlled from 2021 to 2022.
That would include being able to find more videos of depositions conducted by the original committee; pursuing missing documents he believes are at the Department of Homeland Security; and investigating the Metropolitan Police Department’s operations.
Continue reading at The Hill
Tax, spending divisions rankle Republicans despite momentum on reconciliation
Major sticking points in the House-passed budget resolution include nearly $1 trillion dollars of budget cuts required from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which will mean reductions to federal healthcare that some Republicans are loath to support. Republicans are also divided over how many additional tax cuts should be included beyond those that are expiring.
There’s also the issue of raising the debt ceiling. Republicans are increasingly in agreement that they want to raise it in their tax cut and spending package, but such a move could alienate the budget hawks within their conference, such as Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) who could demand additional budget cuts beyond the $2 trillion sought by the House to get their support.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated Wednesday that the government’s ability to borrow money will likely run out in August or September if Congress does not pass legislation to increase the debt limit.
Continue reading at The Hill
Marjorie Taylor Greene to UK journalist: ‘Why don’t you go back to your country’
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told a Sky News reporter on Wednesday to “go back to your country” as she tried to ask about the recent controversy behind a Signal chat with military plans among the Trump administration’s national security officials that included a journalist.
“We don’t give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. Why don’t you go back to your country,” Greene said, pointing at the journalist who said she was from the United Kingdom.
C-Span cameras captured the interaction between the lawmaker and the reporter who tried to continue her line of questioning.
“You should care about your own borders. Let me tell you something, do you care about people from your country,” Green continued.
“What about all the women that are raped by migrants, do you care?”
Continue reading at The Hill
Inside Congress newsletter
3 big moves for Trump’s agenda
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
The path for Trump’s agenda gets a little clearer
What’s next for Signalgate on the Hill
A big day for crypto
Three big developments are poised to give Republican lawmakers long-sought clarity on how they can get moving on President Donald Trump‘s legislative agenda — and when they need to finish.
Time to punt: As they rush to settle on a budget framework before Easter recess, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are signaling that they’ll move forward without resolving some major disputes over how to pay for Trump’s tax, border and energy policies — including controversial Medicaid cuts.
They’ll do that by approving a budget resolution that defers to each chamber’s respective committees for how much money they will need to trim from programs under their jurisdictions, and then try to merge the approaches later, our Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and Benjamin Guggenheim report.
Tax clarity: The Senate parliamentarian is expected to decide in the coming days whether Republicans can use an accounting approach known as “current policy baseline” that would allow them to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in a costless fashion, Jordain reports.
Thune told Jordain that Republicans need to know if the parliamentarian will green-light their strategy before taking their budget resolution to the floor, which they want to do as soon as next week. Separately on Wednesday, House GOP tax writers met in private with Joint Committee on Taxation chief Thomas Barthold to discuss next steps on their tax package, Benjamin reports. The non-partisan JCT will have to weigh in on the cost of extending tax cuts and Trump’s other tax pledges, including eliminating taxes on tips and overtime work.
X marks the deadline: CBO announced Wednesday that the U.S. will default on its debt around August or September if Congress doesn’t act — in effect setting a new deadline for Republicans to pass Trump’s mega-bill if they stick with a plan to include a debt ceiling increase.
House Republicans are hoping the updated “X-date” lights a fire under the Senate GOP to speed things up, Meredith reports
“We all know Congress needs a deadline to get anything done,” said a senior House GOP aide granted anonymity to speak freely. “This is the new deadline.”
Continue reading at Politico’s Inside Congress newsletter
Good morning! Today's edition is a true team effort, with contributions from CNN's Clare Duffy, Elizabeth Wagmeister, Katelyn Polantz, Liam Reilly, Megan Thomas, Dan Heching and more. Let's get to it...
The AP's day in court
This is the day The Associated Press has been waiting for: the day its arguments against the Trump White House's ban will be heard at length by US District Court Judge Trevor McFadden.
The AP is seeking a preliminary injunction to restore access to Trump press conferences and other events.
"The White House has locked us out simply because we refer to the Gulf of Mexico by the name it has carried for more than 400 years, while acknowledging that Mr. Trump has chosen to call it the Gulf of America," AP executive editor Julie Pace says in a new op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. But ultimately it's about something much bigger: "Whether the government can control what you say."
Pace also points out that The AP "didn't ask for this fight." And she asks readers to "imagine this dispute outside the U.S. context. If you discovered that the AP caved to a different government trying to control its speech, would you ever again trust anything the AP reported from that country—or for that matter, from anywhere?"
Continue reading Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources on CNN.com
What’s next for Waltz and Hegseth
In today’s Playbook …
— Signalgate leaves Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz down but (maybe) not out.
— New automotive tariffs ratchet up America’s trade war tactics.
— Pressure on Chuck Schumer eases (somewhat).
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M DOING: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lands in Guam today with questions swirling about his judgment following yesterday’s part deux jaw-dropper from The Atlantic. The former Fox News host will be confident of hanging onto his job after maintaining the support of Donald Trump, despite having posted what the entire world can now see were detailed battle plans in an unsecured chat group — and then insisting this was somehow fine. Sadly for Hegseth the story has gone way too viral to actually disappear. At best, both he and national security adviser Mike Waltz — not to mention the White House comms operation — look damaged by a bruising week.
And to be clear: There is no administration in the world — beyond this one — where a blunder of these proportions happens and nobody gets fired or resigns. Not in London. Not in Moscow. Not in Tokyo. Not in Pyongyang. Nowhere.
First read this: POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Megan Messerly and Jack Detsch wrap up a disastrous few days in the White House which have unsettled plenty of Trump allies. “Some staunch Trump loyalists are frustrated at being spun by an administration they have long heralded for its commonsense, no-holds-barred approach,” they write. “While Trump rarely admits mistakes, many of his allies said Wednesday that’s exactly what the White House needed to do.”
But whatever: Trump’s America is a rare beast indeed, and it is absolutely in the president’s gift to let this pass. The president clearly loves his top team, and has his own media echo chamber to help out if he decides it’s all a “hoax.” (Sample chyron on last night’s Fox News: “DEMOCRATS ARE OVERPLAYING THE SIGNAL LEAK.”) Plus — the Houthi mission was indeed a success. U.S. military lives were not lost. And the rest of the media can’t write about this gaffe forever.
On that point … The White House was visibly keen to move things on yesterday, and the dramatic announcement of 25 percent tariffs on imported automobiles may just have done the trick. Such is the power of the bully pulpit, the tariff story was leading every major U.S. news site last night. So — job done?
Maybe: But that doesn’t mean Waltz and Hegseth are out of the woods. The president himself pinned the blame on Waltz yesterday, and there’s no doubt he’s damaged goods in parts of the White House. Especially worrying for Waltz are the persistent questions within MAGA world about his own relationship with Jeffrey Goldberg, despite his denials. And Goldberg’s pointed refusal to discuss their relationship at all is getting painful (for Waltz) to watch.
The juice on Waltz: “Waltz’s relationship with top White House staff was fraying before this,” POLITICO White House bureau chief Dasha Burns — who first revealed the internal push against Waltz — tells Playbook via email. “And between the substance of the story and his handling of the fallout, the walls are closing in. One person close to White House tells me: ‘He has no credibility because he continues to lie. Everyone is united against him. When you’re becoming a liability or a distraction for the president, it’s time to resign.’” Oof.
Continue reading the Politico Playbook newsletter
3 big moves for Trump’s agenda
Three big developments are poised to give Republican lawmakers long-sought clarity on how they can get moving on President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda — and when they need to finish.
Time to punt: As they rush to settle on a budget framework before Easter recess, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are signaling that they’ll move forward without resolving some major disputes over how to pay for Trump’s tax, border and energy policies — including controversial Medicaid cuts.
They’ll do that by approving a budget resolution that defers to each chamber’s respective committees for how much money they will need to trim from programs under their jurisdictions, and then try to merge the approaches later.
Tax clarity: The Senate parliamentarian is expected to decide in the coming days whether Republicans can use an accounting approach known as “current policy baseline” that would allow them to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in a costless fashion.
Thune said in an interview that Republicans need to know if the parliamentarian will green-light their strategy before taking their budget resolution to the floor, which they want to do as soon as next week.
Continue reading at Politico
NATO clarifies statement on missing soldiers: ‘The search is ongoing’
NATO seemingly walked back comments from the chief that suggested four U.S. soldiers who went missing while training in Lithuania had died, clarifying late Wednesday that the “search is ongoing.”
“On the 4 US soldiers missing in a military exercise in Lithuania, the search is ongoing,” NATO said in a post on social platform X. “We regret any confusion about remarks @SecGenNATO delivered on this today.”
Secretary General Mark Rutte signaled earlier Wednesday that the soldiers were dead. While speaking with reporters during a trip to Warsaw, Rutte said he received word that they had been killed, but it was “still early so we do not know the details.”
“This is really terrible news and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones,” he said at the time.
A NATO spokesperson said Rutte was referring to “emerging news reports” and not confirming the fate of the four soldiers, “which is still unknown.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump on deportation flight judge getting Signal chat case: ‘Disgraceful’
President Trump on Thursday doubled down on his criticism of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, calling him “disgraceful” after the judge was named to oversee the case involving a Signal group chat where Trump administration officials allegedly leaked war plans to The Atlantic’s top editor.
Boasberg has most recently been in the spotlight for his handling of the case involving the administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants that officials say were linked to the Tren de Aragua gang.
“How disgraceful is it that ‘Judge’ James Boasberg has just been given a fourth ‘Trump Case,’ something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE,” Trump wrote early Thursday in a post on Truth Social.
With the addition of the Signal-related lawsuit against top Trump officials, Boasberg now oversees four lawsuits against the second Trump administration.
Continue reading at The Hill
University of Alabama doctoral student arrested by ICE
The University of Alabama says one of its doctoral students has been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), adding to the growing list of foreign students targeted by the Trump administration.
“The University of Alabama recently learned that a doctoral student has been detained off campus by federal immigration authorities. Federal privacy laws limit what can be shared about an individual student,” the university said Wednesday.
The student, Iranian national Alireza Doroudi, was identified by The Crimson White, the university’s student newspaper. Doroudi, who has a student visa, was detained Tuesday, and it is not clear what if any charges he is facing.
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump admin restores funding for Radio Free Europe, Open Technology Fund after lawsuits
The Trump administration says it has restored funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Technology Fund after the groups sued.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) had cut off the funding as part of the administration’s broader effort to eliminate the agency, which also oversees Voice of America.
In a pair of new court filings, the Justice Department said the groups’ demands for injunctions are effectively moot now that the government has restored the funding.
“Plaintiff has secured the primary relief — the withdrawal of the termination of its grant agreement — that it requested in the complaint. Now that Plaintiff has received that relief, Defendants’ position is that this matter is now moot,” the Justice Department wrote Thursday in the Open Technology Fund case.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump urges Republicans to defund NPR, PBS
“NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social. “Republicans, don’t miss this opportunity to rid our Country of this giant SCAM, both being arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party. JUST SAY NO AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform’s Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee peppered NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS President Paula Kerger on Wednesday with accusations of bias against conservatives and questions about their funding.
NPR took in just over $11 million in federal funding last year, money Maher said is crucial to bringing public broadcasting to local communities, particularly in rural swaths of the country.
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: From yesterday’s news: Plurality of Americans say NPR, PBS should be federally funded: Survey
Trump touts arrest of alleged MS-13 leader in Virginia
President Trump touted the arrest of an alleged MS-13 leader, praising border czar Tom Homan amid the administration’s crackdown of migrants aligned with gangs in the United States.
“Just captured a major leader of MS13. Tom HOMAN is a superstar!” Trump said on Truth Social Thursday morning.
FBI director Kash Patel also confirmed the arrest, calling it a victory for the U.S.
“I can now confirm that earlier this morning, law enforcement personnel arrested a top MS-13 leader in Virginia. Outstanding work from @AGPamBondi, our brave agents, @CBP, @GovernorVA, and our state and local partners,” Patel wrote on social platform X.
“This is a massive victory for a safer America. Justice is coming,” he added.
The alleged MS-13 leader was captured in Woodbridge, Va., outside Washington, D.C., and, while his name hasn’t been released, he is considered one of the top three leaders of the gang in the U.S., Fox News reported.
Continue reading at The Hill
Even Republicans say Trump's Signalgate scandal is serious: poll
Three out of four Americans — including 60% of Republicans — say the Trump administration's use of a Signal group chat to discuss military strikes is a serious problem, according to the first poll out on the national security breach.
Why it matters: The White House's efforts to downplay the explosive report from The Atlantic have so far failed to quell the controversy, even as White House officials initially said they believed it would die down.
President Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Intelligence Chief Tulsi Gabbard have all denied that classified materials were shared in the chat that inadvertently included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
Driving the news: 74% of Americans say the group chat that discussed U.S. strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen was a very (53%) or somewhat (21%) serious problem, according to the YouGov online survey of 5,976 U.S. adults conducted this week.
Continue reading at Axios
U.S. egg producer Hillendale to be acquired for $1.1 billion
Hillendale Farms, one of America's largest egg producers, on Thursday agreed to be acquired for $1.1 billion by Global Eggs, a company controlled by Brazil's Ricardo Faria.
The big picture: This comes as U.S. egg prices are finally falling, at least on the wholesale side, and could receive regulatory scrutiny.
Zoom in: Hillendale is the third major egg merger announced so far in 2025.
Continue reading at Axios
Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.N. ambassador in jeopardy, sources say
Washington — Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is in jeopardy as GOP pressure mounts for her to back away from the position.
Multiple sources told CBS News there are ongoing discussions about whether she should withdraw from consideration. Stefanik has not resigned from her seat in Congress, and with the narrow majority in the House, Republicans need all the votes they can muster. House Speaker Mike Johnson was aware of some of the conversations about Stefanik that took place Thursday.
There's been little doubt Stefanik would have the votes to be confirmed. Her nomination was advanced by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 30. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House with 218 seats, while Democrats hold 213 seats. There are currently four vacant seats.
Republicans had discussed waiting to take further action on Stefanik's nomination to see how the Florida special elections go on April 1 for two vacant GOP seats. Both are expected to remain in Republican control.
Continue reading at CBS News
Detained Tufts student’s lawyer demands government produce her
A lawyer for a detained Ph.D. student at Tufts University has filed an emergency motion requesting the government produce her.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, is a Turkish national who was detained Tuesday by agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Video circulating online shows six masked people taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed.
The federal judge presiding over her case ordered lawyers representing the government to respond to Ozturk’s counsel’s motion Thursday morning, The Associated Press reported.
District Judge Indira Talwani initially issued an order giving the government until Friday to explain why the student was detained.
Ozturk was arrested outside an apartment building in Somerville, Mass. The university said it had no knowledge the detention would happen, noting it took place off campus.
Continue reading at The Hill
Why the Trump administration wants to try immigration cases in Louisiana
Louisiana has become ground zero for some of the Trump administration's most boundary-pushing immigration cases, including those of several international students and at least one U.S. green card holder.
Why it matters: The administration is pursuing high-profile cases against purportedly "pro-Hamas" activists legally in the U.S., which promise to define the limits of President Trump's deportation powers.
Driving the news: Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this week and the latest of the administration's efforts to remove certain individuals from the country under several executive orders signed by the president.
Ozturk, a Turkish national in the U.S. on a student visa, was sent to a detention facility in Louisiana within hours of her arrest according to ICE records obtained by the Boston Globe.
Her detainment follows those of Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident, and Georgetown University graduate student Badar Khan Suri. Both men were also quickly transferred by ICE to Louisiana facilities after their arrests.
Khalil has challenged his arrest and a federal judge agreed this week that his case should be moved to New Jersey, rebuffing the government's bid to try his case in Louisiana's Western District.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump administration investigating California law against ‘forced outing’
Trump’s education department could pull federal funding from the state.
Federal officials are probing the California Department of Education, claiming school districts are withholding information from parents about their child’s gender identity. A state law enacted last year bans transgender and gay students from being outed to their parents.
The U.S. Department of Education announced the investigation Thursday morning, noting concerns that state education officials “played a role” in violating federal law by helping to “socially transition children at school while hiding minors’ ‘gender identity’ from parents.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement that teachers and school counselors should not be advising students about their sexual identity and mental health. Instead, the matter should be left up to parents, she said.
“It is not only immoral but also potentially in contradiction with federal law for California schools to hide crucial information about a student’s wellbeing from parents and guardian,” McMahon said. ‘The agency launched today’s investigation to vigorously protect parents’ rights and ensure that students do not fall victim to a radical transgender ideology that often leads to family alienation and irreversible medical interventions.”
California Department of Education officials and a spokesperson for Superintendent Tony Thurmond did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump leads GOP cavalry effort in Florida amid election worries in Mike Waltz’s old district
The president is doing a tele-town hall in support of state Sen. Randy Fine before the April 1 special election.
President Donald Trump plans to make a personal appeal to Florida voters in a pair of congressional special elections, as one of the deep-crimson districts has national Republicans worried.
Trump will join tele-town halls Thursday evening for state Sen. Randy Fine (R-Melbourne Beach) and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
The events come as Republicans fear the Fine race — in the GOP-heavy 6th District — is closer than they’d anticipated. Trump backed Fine for the seat, but his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, raised $10 million for his campaign, largely leveraging anti-Trump messaging on social media to reach out-of-state donors.
Trump’s appearance is the latest in a string of actions being taken to make sure that Republicans turn out and vote in Florida’s 6th District, which includes areas like Daytona Beach and St. Augustine, and was the seat Gov. Ron DeSantis held when he was in Congress.
Continue reading at Politico
Judge: High heat in Texas prisons unconstitutional
A federal judge found the extreme heat in Texas prisons is “plainly unconstitutional,” but did not order the state to begin installing air conditioners.
While U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman affirmed some of the claims about incarcerated conditions in the state, advocates will have to continue pressing their lawsuit in a trial, The Associated Press reported.
“This case concerns the plainly unconstitutional treatment of some of the most vulnerable, marginalized members of our society,” Pitman said in his ruling, noting that he believes excessive heat is unconstitutional punishment.
The suit was originally filed in 2023 by Bernie Tiede, a former mortician serving a life sentence, until prisoner rights groups joined his effort.
The lawsuit argues the heat in Texas prisons can amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Summer heat can easily be above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the state, particularly as summers continue to get warmer due to climate change.
Continue reading at The Hill
NOAA folds Climate Prediction Center into larger group
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has moved the Climate Prediction Center underneath a larger entity, known as the Weather Prediction Center, according to an email viewed by Axios.
Why it matters: The move was partly motivated by a desire to protect CPC, which because of its name is considered vulnerable to the Trump administration's budget ax, according to NOAA sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Other federal agencies have ended funding for climate studies and taken climate change-related data sets offline based on President Trump's executive orders.
The intrigue: The email, sent Thursday morning, indicates that CPC will remain an independent center for a time during the merger period.
Despite its name, CPC is responsible for monitoring and producing El Niño and La Niña outlooks, along with seasonal forecasts and other products.
Continue reading at Axios
Federal judge sets first hearing in Signal chat case
The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit over the Trump administration's Signal chat scandal scheduled the case's first hearing for Thursday afternoon.
Why it matters: News that Trump officials discussed military plans over a Signal chat that inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic has rocked Washington, sparking calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to be ousted.
The saga raises legal questions about whether using Signal, which deletes messages after a set period of time, violates federal record preservation laws or potentially the Espionage Act.
Driving the news: Government watchdog group American Oversight sued members of the administration Tuesday, alleging the group chat violated the Federal Records Act.
Continue reading at Axios
Where Americans spend the most on health care
Long Island; Washington, D.C. and California's Bay Area had the country's highest health care spending per capita in 2019 — the most recent year covered by a new study.
Why it matters: Medical spending is surging nationwide, with demand and other factors pushing it to a projected $7.7 trillion by 2032 — but actual spending varies from county to county.
Driving the news: In a study published in the March 25 issue of JAMA, researchers analyzed Americans' health care spending using data from billions of insurance claims and hundreds of millions of hospital visits and admissions for 2010 through 2019.
The analysis includes health care spending via private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, plus out-of-pocket spending.
Some health care-related categories, including OTC drugs and medical transportation, were not included — nor was Veterans Affairs spending.
The result is a sweeping county-level view reflecting the personal health care spending of nearly the entire U.S. population.
By the numbers: Health care spending per capita in 2019 was highest in Nassau County, New York (about $13,300); Suffolk County, New York ($12,700) and Washington, D.C. ($12,500), the researchers found.
Continue reading at Axios
Fired FTC commissioners sue Trump
Two Federal Trade Commission (FTC) members fired by President Trump sued him Thursday, setting up another major test of his administration’s expansionist view of presidential authority over independent agencies.
Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya’s lawsuit seeks backpay and reinstatement under the Supreme Court’s 90-year-old precedent that has enabled for-cause removal protections for independent agency leaders.
“Plaintiffs will not and do not accept this unlawful action: Plaintiffs bring this action to vindicate their right to serve the remainder of their respective terms, defend the integrity of the Commission, and to continue their work for the American people,” the complaint reads.
Like Trump’s other firings of independent agency leaders, the administration did not claim to have cause for firing the two FTC commissioners.
In the termination letters, an administration official told the commissioners their continued service at the FTC was “inconsistent” with the administration’s policies but did not specify further.
Continue reading at The Hill
Danish TV reporter: Americans knocked on doors in Greenland’s capital; couldn’t find hosts
A Danish television reporter said that American officials knocked on doors in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, seeking local hosts for second lady Usha Vance’s planned visit, but that they largely got a cold shoulder.
Jesper Steinmetz, a correspondent for Denmark’s TV 2, said that the Greenlandic capital was recently traversed by representatives of the U.S. government, who were offering a stop-by from Vance, according to a report Wednesday.
Steinmetz said the offer received no acceptance, resulting in the shifting of plans for the Greenland visit, according to the report.
Usha Vance will now joined by her husband, and the second couple will visit a military installation, rather than previous plans to attend a dogsledding race and meet with Nuuk locals.
Officials in Greenland and Denmark have denounced the pressure campaign as the Trump administration insists it wants to take control of the Arctic territory, with President Trump calling it a strategic imperative.
Continue reading at The Hill
Justice Department proposes merging ATF with DEA, other major changes
The potential changes were outlined in a memo sent from the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
The Justice Department has proposed merging the Drug Enforcement Administration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as part of a dramatic shift in the operations of the department’s component agencies and headquarters divisions, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.
The memo — sent from the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche this week to top department leaders — also suggested transferring INTERPOL Washington, a part of the Justice Department that coordinates with law enforcement agencies around the world, to the U.S. Marshals Service.
There could also be reductions to the department’s tax enforcement division, with attorneys in the division transferred to U.S. attorneys’ offices across the nation.
The memo requested feedback on the proposals by Wednesday. Many of the proposals involve agencies and offices created by Congress, and it’s unclear how easily some of these changes could be executed without congressional approval.
Justice Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss proposals that have not been made public, stressed that they are intended to solicit feedback and are not a done deal.
The Justice Department oversees about a half-dozen component agencies whose leaders report to the attorney general. They include the FBI, ATF, DEA, the Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Continue reading at the Washington Post (Paywall)
Trump administration sets up portal for polluters to request exemptions to clean air rules
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set up a portal allowing polluters to request exemptions to nine Clean Air Act rules.
The Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt polluters from complying with regulations if he determines that the rules are based on technology that does not yet exist.
The EPA posted online this week that it had set up an email address allowing companies to more easily request such presidential exemptions.
The news comes after the EPA recently announced that it planned to roll back a large suite of Biden-era rules, including limits on mercury pollution from power plants and limits on emissions of cancer-causing ethylene oxide.
Presidential exemptions could be a way to curtail rules like these while the lengthy legal and regulatory process plays out to formally overturn them.
The EPA’s notice said that requesting an exemption does not necessarily mean a company will get one and that President Trump will make a decision “on the merits.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Bondi deflects on potential Signal probe: Information ‘not classified’
Attorney General Pam Bondi declined to say whether the Justice Department was investigating national security leaders’ use of Signal to discuss an airstrike, implying such an action may not be necessary given that the information discussed was unclassified.
Democrats and national security experts have disputed the claims from the Trump administration that discussions of an imminent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen would have been classified.
Bondi nonetheless pointed to that distinction in responding to a question from a reporter about whether DOJ was involved.
“First, it was sensitive information, not classified and inadvertently released. And what we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission,” she said Thursday.
Bondi’s comments come as the administration has otherwise said it plans to crack down on those who leak classified information.
Continue reading at The Hill
Top lawyers’ association condemns Trump’s attacks on the legal system
The biggest law firms around the country have largely kept quiet in the face of Trump’s attacks, fearing retribution from the executive branch.
The American Bar Association and dozens of other bar groups this week slammed President Donald Trump’s continued crackdown on the legal system as an attack on the rule of law.
“Words and actions matter,” the groups wrote in an open letter on Wednesday, which did not mention the president by name. “And the intimidating words and actions we have heard and seen must end. They are designed to cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession.”
Trump has attacked judges seen as stymieing his agenda and targeted several law offices he thinks have crossed him. The ABA — a voluntary professional organization for lawyers — has repeatedly criticized the second Trump administration early in his term, even as the country’s biggest law firms have been unwilling to cross the president.
Trump has come down hard on Democratic-leaning law firms, signing executive orders and memos suspending security clearances and barring the federal government from hiring employees from firms like Perkins Coie and Covington and Burling. One firm initially in Trump’s crosshairs — Paul, Weiss — saw its sanctions lifted after agreeing to perform pro bono legal work for conservative clients and ending diversity policies.
Continue reading at Politico
GOP leaders scramble to squelch vote on parental proxy voting
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s measure is turning into a big headache for Speaker Mike Johnson.
House GOP leaders are racing to head off a vote being pushed by one of their own members on a measure that would allow lawmakers who are new parents to vote by proxy.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) has already gathered enough member signatures on a discharge petition to force a vote. But Speaker Mike Johnson, who argues that proxy voting is unconstitutional, is considering several options to prevent it from happening as Luna mulls the way forward.
They include trying to kill the discharge petition in the Rules Committee next week, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter who, like others quoted in this story, were granted anonymity to discuss private talks. Some hard-liners are also floating a more drastic option: changing the House rules to effectively block future discharge petitions this Congress by making the process to trigger a fast-track floor vote much more burdensome, the three people said.
“There aren’t many good options here,” said one GOP lawmaker.
Continue reading at Politico
He took the iconic Trump fist-pump photo. Now he’s fighting Trump to be allowed back in the Oval Office.
Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci testified at a court hearing in the AP’s lawsuit over being kicked out of the White House press pool.
When a would-be assassin’s bullet struck Donald Trump’s ear, Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci — dodging bullets himself — captured the iconic image of a bloodied Trump, rising to his feet and pumping his fist.
But for the past six weeks, Vucci has been barred from covering many other historic moments in the Trump White House, thanks to the president’s decision to punish the AP for its refusal to embrace his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
Vucci told his story in federal court Thursday as the AP urged a judge to restore its position in the White House press pool. The AP says Trump violated its First Amendment and due process rights when he ejected the news organization from the pool and barred its journalists from some widely attended presidential events.
“It’s hurting us big time,” Vucci said, recounting recent events that the AP has been excluded from covering, from the tense confrontation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office to a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron. “It’s been a rough stretch for a photographer to sit around not doing anything.”
Continue reading at Politico
White House withdrawing Stefanik nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to UN
The White House has informed the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it is withdrawing Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, reflecting how critical her vote is in the House to passing President Trump’s agenda.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) received notice from the White House Thursday afternoon that it was pulling Stefanik’s nomination, confirming a rumor that circulated earlier in the day in the media.
“I got a call from the White House,” Risch said after walking out of a Senate Republican luncheon.
He said he was told “that they were pulling the nomination.”
“I was informed that just minutes ago,” he said, adding he hadn’t yet had “a chance” to formulate a reaction.
Continue reading at The Hill
Jeffries hammers Trump order on voting rules: ‘Not worth the paper it has been written on’
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Thursday denounced President Trump’s recent executive order to make voting rules more strict, saying it’s an illegal power grab that will quickly be rejected by the courts.
“The executive order that was recently issued by President Trump is not worth the paper it has been written on,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “It will be challenged in court, and it will be invalidated.”
Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order designed to overhaul how elections are conducted across the country. Central to the decree is a new proof-of-citizenship mandate, forcing states to require prospective voters to show passports, drivers licenses or other forms of government ID in order to register.
Under current federal law, prospective voters must swear an oath that they’re citizens to gain registration, but not produce an ID. Violators can face charges of perjury.
Trump and his GOP allies have cast the tougher rules as a common-sense change that’s critical in weeding out voter fraud, which the president and many Republicans have claimed was the only reason for former President Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020.
Continue reading at The Hill
Rubio defends detention of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention of a foreign Ph.D. student at Tufts University on Tuesday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was seen in a video arrested by plain-clothes federal officers and taken away in an unmarked van.
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa,” Rubio told reporters.
It is known Ozturk wrote an op-ed for her newspaper defending Palestine last year, but her protest activities or specifics around what actions led to her arrest are unclear.
Tufts University said it had no prior warning to her arrest, which happened off campus.
Continue reading at The Hill
Utah governor signs bill ending universal mail-in ballot system
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) has signed legislation that will end the state’s universal vote-by-mail system and instead require registered voters to sign up if they want to cast their ballots by mail after 2028.
Under the new law, which the GOP-controlled state Legislature passed earlier this month, counties will no longer send mail-in ballots to all voters on their rolls beginning in 2029.
Voters in Utah will have the option to sign up online to receive mail-in ballots, or they can make the selection at the time they register to vote, when they show up to cast their ballot at a polling location or when they obtain or renew driver’s licenses and identification cards. The mail ballot option will remain active for eight years if voters cast ballots in all regular elections during that period.
The new law also shortens the timeline for voters to return their mail-in ballots, putting the state in line with an aggressive push from President Trump.
Continue reading at The Hill
Gomez defends question about Hegseth’s drinking: ‘What happened doesn’t make sense’
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) on Thursday defended asking at a congressional hearing whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was drinking before sharing military attack plans in a Signal group chat of top-level national security officials, which mistakenly also included a prominent journalist.
In an interview with CNN anchor John Berman, Gomez said he asked about the secretary’s drinking habits because Hegseth sending the plans “doesn’t make sense” and he wanted to understand better why Hegseth did it. Gomez said he did not have any independent knowledge that would suggest Hegseth was drinking that day.
“It was a question that I wanted to ask because what’s going on — what happened — doesn’t make sense, at any level,” Gomez told Berman.
Continue reading at The Hill
Ethics Committee will investigate allegations against Florida Republican
The panel released a report detailing potential violations from Rep. Cory Mills.
Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican, allegedly held contracts with the federal government while serving in Congress, according to a report from the Office of Congressional Conduct, the nonpartisan entity tasked with receiving and reviewing ethics complaints against sitting House members.
The Office of Congressional Conduct — up until recently known as the Office of Congressional Ethics — found “substantial reason to believe that Rep. Mills may have entered into, held, or enjoyed contracts with federal agencies while serving in Congress.”
The House Ethics Committee received the OCC’s referral last year and announced on Thursday it plans to consider the allegations and make is own determination as to whether Mills acted in violation of House rules. In announcing those plans, it also published a 33-page report detailing Mills’ potential misconduct.
Continue reading at Politico
White House to DOGE employees: Preserve your Signal records
The recordkeeping instructions come amid fallout from the “Signalgate” scandal.
The White House, reeling from the revelation that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive military attack plans with colleagues on a private messaging app, sent some new instructions this week to DOGE staffers: Preserve your Signal messages.
The “records retention policy” was adopted for the Department of Government Efficiency on Monday, just as the Signal scandal was unfolding. It was revealed in a lawsuit challenging the DOGE initiative’s recordkeeping practices.
The new policy emphasizes that messages sent on personal devices and on Signal must be preserved, and that the app’s auto-delete feature should be disabled.
“If you happen to receive work-related messages on your personal device — whether via text, Signal, a personal email address, or otherwise — make sure to capture and transmit those messages to your work device (such as by screenshotting and forwarding),” the one-page policy reads.
Continue reading at Politico
Inroads: How China's BYD overtook Tesla as the global leader in electric cars
China’s BYD automaker surpassed US rival Tesla for the first time in 2024 to become the world's leading manufacturer of electric cars, an achievement that exceeded even the expectations of the brand’s CEO Wang Chuanfu, who predicted it would outsell its fiercest competitor sometime this year. For Elon Musk, it’s a hard pill to swallow.
As US President Donald Trump lashes out at vandals destroying Tesla vehicles as a political statement, Elon Musk is bracing for another threat to his empire.
The onetime king of electric cars – and far-right provocations – has acquired a new nemesis, this time from China, whose name can be summed up in three letters: BYD.
The Chinese automaker toppled Tesla this week to become the world's leading brand of electric cars. BYD, or Build Your Dreams, registered sales of $100 billion in 2024, exceeding Tesla's $97.7 billion for the first time.
From smartphone batteries to electric cars
Despite ranking as the world's new No. 1 in electric vehicles (EVs), BYD remains largely unknown internationally. For one, its main market is in China. “The domestic market would account for around 85 percent of its sales in 2023,” according to Gregor Sebastian, an electric car specialist with the Rhodium Group, one of the world's leading China consultancies.
Secondly, unlike Tesla, which had electric cars as part of its DNA from the outset, BYD seems to have taken the automotive route somewhat by accident. The group was founded in 1995 under the name Yadi Electronics – named after a street in Shenzhen, where its headquarters were located – by Wang Chuanfu, who borrowed just under a million dollars from a relative to get started.
At first, Wang wanted to make batteries for smartphones.
Continue reading at France 24
Musk announces $1 million for Wisconsin voter in Supreme Court race. Opposition calls it ‘corrupt’
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Billionaire Elon Musk says a Wisconsin voter has been awarded $1 million days before the conclusion of a fiercely contested state Supreme Court election that has broken spending records and become a referendum on Musk and the first months of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The payment to a Green Bay man, which Musk announced Wednesday night on his social media platform X, is similar to a lottery that Musk’s political action committee ran last year in Wisconsin and other battleground states before the presidential election in November.
The upcoming election on Tuesday, filling a seat held by a liberal justice who is retiring, will determine whether Wisconsin’s highest court will remain under 4-3 liberal control or flip to a conservative majority. The race has become a proxy battle over the nation’s politics, with Trump and Musk getting behind Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate in the officially nonpartisan contest.
Continue reading at the AP
Rubio says at least 300 foreign students’ visas have been revoked
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that at least 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, a far higher number than was previously known.
“Maybe more, it might be more than 300 at this point,” Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana when asked to confirm Axios reporting on the topic.
“We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” he added, saying he hopes it’s even more than the 300 estimate.
“I hope at some point we run out because we have gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.”
Axios was the first to report that 300 foreign students’ visas had been revoked and that administration officials are looking to block some colleges that have too many “pro-Hamas” foreign students from admitting any international individuals.
Continue reading at The Hill
Here are the international students and faculty known to be targeted by ICE
At least eight international students and professors, all of whom have had green cards or student visas, have been targeted by ICE, beginning at Columbia University and proceeding to schools including Georgetown, Cornell and the University of Alabama.
That number, however, could be a tiny fraction of the actual count after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the State Department has revoked the visas of at least 300 foreign students.
The federal government has pulled out a rarely used law that says the secretary of State can deport a noncitizen who threatens U.S. foreign policy, though only an immigration judge can take away a green card. The use of that obscure law is being challenged in court.
Here are the highest-profile cases among the Trump administration’s crackdown on college campuses:
Continue reading at The Hill
Bacon on legislation giving presidents temporary tariff authorities: ‘We made a mistake’
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested Congress take back its Constitutional authority to impose tariffs, saying lawmakers “made a mistake” in the past by increasingly delegating trade authority to the president.
In an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room” on Thursday, Bacon reiterated his support for free trade and criticized President Trump’s bold approach to tariffs.
He was asked what “leverage” likeminded Republicans have to push Trump to “deescalate his trade war.”
“Well, in Article I in the Constitution, really tariffs should be a congressional initiated action. So this should come from Congress,” Bacon told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“However, I think we made a mistake in the past,” he continued. “We passed legislation that gave the president some temporary tariff authorities, and I think we should look back and maybe restore the power back to Congress and take away the authorizations that we’ve allowed the presidents.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge refuses Cornell student’s ask to block Trump orders targeting pro-Palestinian protests
A district judge Thursday ruled against a Cornell University student who sued the Trump administration over the legality of two executive orders the administration is using in its crackdown on foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Judge Elizabeth Coombe ruled against Momodou Taal, the Cornell student whose visa has been revoked, saying the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction and the student did not show a clear threat to his constitutional rights that would be solved by the lawsuit.
“Jurisdictional issues aside, Plaintiffs Ngũgĩ and Parasurama have not established that there is an imminent or ongoing threat to their constitutional rights that could be appropriately remedied by the requested restraints,” Coombe wrote.
“Any future harm alleged in their affidavits appears to be speculative and even moot because of the revocation of Taal’s visa,” she added.
Continue reading at The Hill
US ramps up demands on Ukraine in latest mineral proposal
The new proposal, which was delivered to Ukraine’s officials on Sunday, reaches farther than the initial U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal that was left unsigned on Feb. 28 after Volodymyr Zelensky’s contentious meeting with Trump and Vice President Vance in the Oval Office.
The U.S. is looking to forge a a five-person board that would supervise an investment fund, consisting of three Washington and two Kyiv members, that would split the money made from mineral, gas and oil projects between the U.S. and Ukraine, according to copies of a proposal draft that were obtained by multiple outlets.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that the deal could be signed next week.
“We have passed along a completed document for the economic partnership [that] is currently being reviewed by Ukrainians, and we hope to go to full discussions and perhaps even get signatures next week,” Bessent said during his Wednesday appearance on Fox News.
Continue reading at The Hill
Putin predicts Trump will ‘systematically’ go after Greenland
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday the Trump administration will likely move to acquire Greenland “systemically” after months of swipes at the autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.
“It is obvious that the United States will continue to systematically promote its geostrategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic. As for Greenland, this is a matter that concerns two specific states and has nothing to do with us,” the Kremlin leader told a crowd during his address at the International Arctic Forum hosted in Russia.
“But at the same time, of course, we are only concerned about the fact that NATO countries as a whole are increasingly designating the High North as a springboard for possible conflicts and are practicing the use of troops in these conditions, including with the forces of their new recruits – Finland and Sweden, with which, by the way, until recently we had no problems at all,” Putin said according to translations.
His comments come just a day after President Trump reiterated his intent to acquire the Arctic territory.
Continue reading at The Hill
Withdrawal of Stefanik’s UN nomination prompts questions about her future in House
President Trump’s decision to yank Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations is prompting a plethora of questions about the New York Republican’s future on Capitol Hill.
In his statement announcing the move, Trump said the congresswoman would “rejoin the House Leadership Team.” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) echoed that plan, saying he would “invite her to return to the leadership table immediately.”
But it is unclear where Stefanik will fit in after relinquishing the position of House GOP conference chair, which she held for nearly four years, upon her nomination for UN ambassador.
Trump said he was pulling her as his pick to go to New York City because of the House’s razor-thin majority.
Continue reading at The Hill
McMahon threatens Newsom with federal funding cuts over transgender athletes
Education Secretary Linda McMahon is requesting clarity on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) position on whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete on girls’ and women’s sports teams after the progressive governor and likely 2028 presidential candidate surprised many by saying he found their participation “deeply unfair.”
Newsom made the comments early this month on the debut episode of his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” which featured a conversation with Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist and co-founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, an organization that brings conservative politics to high school and college campuses.
National and state LGBTQ rights groups admonished Newsom for the remarks, and some California Democrats accused the governor of caving to conservative talking points. “The Governor has had many courageous moments over the decades supporting LGBTQ people,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) said. “This is not one of those moments.”
McMahon, in a letter sent Thursday to Newsom, said “an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with you” that transgender athletes participating on female sports teams “is unfair and wrong.”
Continue reading at The Hill
NY court blocks Texas from filing summons against doctor who prescribed abortion pills
A New York county clerk used the state’s shield law to stop Texas from punishing a New York doctor for prescribing and sending abortion medication to a Texas woman.
The move is the latest escalation in an interstate battle between New York and Texas, their differing abortion laws and the future of Margaret Carpenter, a New York state doctor who works at a telemedicine abortion organization.
In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Carpenter for violating the state’s abortion ban after she allegedly prescribed and mailed abortion medication to a 20-year-old Texan woman.
Neither Carpenter nor her lawyer responded to the lawsuit or showed up to a hearing regarding the charges in Texas last month, according to The New York Times.
A Texas judge ordered Carpenter last month to pay more than $100,000 in penalties for prescribing abortion medication to the Texas woman. The Texas attorney general’s office then followed up with the New York clerk’s office to see if it would enforce the default civil judgment.
But the country clerk refused.
Continue reading at The Hill
Dozens of House Democrats push back on planned EPA research and development cuts
Dozens of House Democrats pushed back on planned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cuts in a Thursday letter to the agency.
“We are particularly concerned by the proposal to eliminate up to 75 percent of employees within EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD),” the letter, from Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and addressed to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, reads.
“Firing nearly 1,200 dedicated ORD public servants across the country would decimate the scientific backbone of EPA which provides independent, objective, and unparallelled research that informs Agency assessments and decision-making,” they added.
The letter featured the signatures of more than 60 House Democrats, including Reps. Nikema Williams (Ga.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Don Beyer (Va.), Joe Neguse (Colo.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.).
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge orders preservation of Signal group chat on Houthi strike
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to preserve all Signal communications over the span of several days as a lawsuit proceeds following revelations that officials discussed a military strike in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app – and unintentionally included a journalist.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg called his decision a “compromise order,” since the administration had said it would preserve any messages agencies find.
“We are still in the process of working with the agencies to determine what records they have, but we are also working with the agencies to preserve whatever records they have,” Justice Department trial attorney Amber Richer told the judge.
The ruling orders the agencies of the Trump officials who participated in the group chat that discussed a strike on the Houthis in Yemen — and unintentionally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic — to preserve all messages between March 11 to 15.
Continue reading at The Hill
Poll of scientists says large majority weighing leaving US
More than three-quarters of scientists in the U.S are weighing leaving the country and are looking at Europe and Canada as their top relocation spots, according to a new survey released on Thursday.
The scientific journal Nature poll found that 75.3 percent of scientists are considering leaving the U.S. after the administration cut funding for research. Nearly a quarter of respondents, 24.7 percent, disagreed.
The highest contingent of researchers who are looking to move out of the country are those who are early in their careers. Nearly 550, out of 690 who responded to the survey, said they are considering leaving the U.S. Out of the 340 PhD students, 255 shared the same inclination, the poll found.
The administration, along with tech billionaire and close Trump advisor Elon Musk, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, have terminated entire agencies and made cuts in the last two months in an effort to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.
Continue reading at The Hill and the journal Nature
Elon Musk, in first DOGE team interview: "This is a revolution"
Elon Musk described the Department of Government Efficiency's work as a "revolution" in his team's first interview on the department's behalf Thursday.
Why it matters: DOGE has forced out tens of thousands of employees, shuttered agencies, canceled grants and contracts and upended how the U.S. does business — changes the public tells pollsters they don't generally like.
What they're saying: "This is a revolution, and I think it might be the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution," Musk, flanked by seven DOGE colleagues, told Fox News.
Musk suggested the balance of that work could be done soon.
Zoom in: He holds "special government employee" status, which means he can work on government business for 130 days in every 365-day period. Fox host Bret Baier asked Musk if he had any plans to stay on past that 130-day window.
Continue reading at Axios
Duke objects to use of its branding in ‘White Lotus’
Duke University has objected to the use of its branding in the popular HBO show “The White Lotus.”
“White Lotus just blessed us w [with] an all-time meme if Duke loses early in the tournament (and for any brutal Duke loss thereafter),” a user on the social platform X captioned an image of a moment in the show in which actor Jason Isaacs’s character, Timothy Ratliff, holds a gun to his head while wearing a Duke shirt.
“Suicide is the second-leading cause of death on college campuses. Rivalry is part of March Madness, but some imagery goes too far. If you or someone you know needs support, call or text the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988,” Duke responded to the post on X.
The New York Times reported that there was no green light given by Duke for its “marks” to be used on “The White Lotus,” according to the school’s vice president for communications, marketing and public affairs, Frank Tramble.
Continue reading at The Hill
Susie Wiles on a changed Trump: ‘I think he’s a better leader now’
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles says in a new Fox News interview that President Trump is a very different — and, in her opinion, better — leader than he was when he took office eight years ago, but she’s not taking credit for it.
“He’s been through so much: the lawfare, having been the leader of the free world, having had an assassination attempt. He’s a different person than he was,” Wiles told the president’s daughter-in-law and Fox News personality Lara Trump in an interview that will air this weekend. “I think life experience and who he is changed him.”
“I think he’s a better leader now,” she continued. “I don’t know that I had anything to do with that, but I think the country benefits from it.”
Continue reading at The Hill
AP journalists testify over White House revoking access
A pair of top journalists for The Associated Press covering the White House testified on Thursday to the damage caused to the outlet by President Trump’s decision to revoke its access to key West Wing spaces over the organization’s refusal to use “Gulf of America” in its widely used stylebook.
AP chief White House correspondent Zeke Miller and Evan Vucci, the AP’s top photographer in Washington, D.C., described what they called “diminished” and delayed reporting because of the administration’s banning them from being part of the small group of journalists who document the president each day, otherwise known as the press pool.
The pair took the stand during a court hearing over whether to restore the wire service’s access to the pool, which is allowed in certain areas of the White House with limited space such as the Oval Office and their access to traveling with the president on Air Force One.
AP has a long tradition of having a reporter and photographer in the press pool each and every day both at the White House and when the president is traveling.
“AP’s barred time and again because of our journalism,” Miller said in open court Thursday.
Continue reading at The Hill
Senior Republican joins Dems in raising alarm over White House’s flouting of funding bill
“It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written — not as we would like it to be,” senators wrote.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Patty Murray of Washington — the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, respectively — sent a letter Thursday to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought raising alarm that the administration is not adhering to the funding measure’s spending directives.
They are specifically taking issue with the fact that the administration seems to be picking and choosing which programs and departments to fund from the 27 “emergency appropriations” outlined in the bill. Vought, in a memo to President Donald Trump on March 24, recommended the president “not designate” 11 of those emergency appropriations accounts.
“It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written — not as we would like it to be,” wrote Collins and Murray.
Collins’ comments were particularly striking given her past remarks that the Trump administration could find itself subject to lawsuits if it sought to disregard the will of Congress is deciding how federal dollars should and should not be spent.
Continue reading at Politico
McConnell slams Trump administration’s peace talks with Russia
The former Senate GOP leader delivered his critique to a pro-Ukraine gala in Washington.
Sen. Mitch McConnell warned Thursday that advisers to President Donald Trump are pursuing an “illusory peace” with Russia that “shreds America’s credibility, leaves Ukraine under threat, weakens our alliances and emboldens our enemies.”
They are among the most pointed words from any elected Republican since Trump ordered U.S. officials to begin direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government about bringing the Ukraine war to a close. And it is some of the most direct criticism McConnell has levied against the administration since giving up his top GOP leadership role and pledging to speak out against the isolationist wing of his party.
“When American officials court the favor of an adversary at the expense of allies, when they mock our friends to impress an enemy, they reveal their embarrassing naivete,” McConnell said, according to prepared remarks shared with POLITICO ahead of a U.S.-Ukraine Foundation event Thursday where he was honored.
“Unless we change course, the outcome we’re headed for today is the one we can least afford: a headline that reads ‘Russia wins, America loses,’” he added.
Continue reading at Politico
Putin says US push for Greenland rooted in history, vows to uphold Russian interest in the Arctic
“It can look surprising only at first glance and it would be wrong to believe that this is some sort of extravagant talk by the current U.S. administration,” the Russian president said.
MOSCOW — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s push for control over Greenland wasn’t surprising given longtime U.S. interest in the mineral-rich territory.
Speaking at a policy forum in the Arctic port of Murmansk, Putin noted that the United States first considered plans to win control over Greenland in the 19th century, and then offered to buy it from Denmark after World War II.
“It can look surprising only at first glance and it would be wrong to believe that this is some sort of extravagant talk by the current U.S. administration,” Putin said. “It’s obvious that the United States will continue to systematically advance its geostrategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic.”
Trump irked much of Europe by suggesting that the United States should in some form control the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of Denmark, a U.S. ally and NATO member. As the nautical gateway to the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America, Greenland has broader strategic value as both China and Russia seek access to its waterways and natural resources.
Continue reading at Politico
How Musk is building his own SpaceX-geared town in Texas
Voters in a small Texas village will be asked to weigh in on a ballot initiative asking whether Musk’s SpaceX base of operation should become its own municipality called Starbase.
Unincorporated Boca Chica Village, where Space X’s Starbase launchpad is located, has already changed dramatically over the past decade. Since Space X’s arrival in 2014, the vast majority of original residents sold their properties or moved away. Now, most of the 500-odd residents of what would become Starbase are company employees, and Teslas are parked in nearly every driveway. According to the Associated Press, only 10 of the about 250 lots of land within the proposed new city limits do not belong to the company.
In December, 70 of those residents (also SpaceX employees) submitted a petition to Cameron County asking for an election that would incorporate Starbase as its own municipality. Now, the home base for the human colonization of Mars is marching toward an election to determine if the humid little swath of land along the shoreline will become a company town.
SpaceX and Musk did little to conceal that eventual endgame. In their petition to the county government, Gunnar Milburn, Space X’s security manager, was designated as the town’s first mayor (his name has since been replaced by Robert Peden, SpaceX’s vice president of Texas Test and Launch, according to local outlets). Two other employees, the engineering manager and the senior director of environmental health and safety, would serve as city commissioners.
Continue reading at Politico
Carney says tariffs force new era for Canada-US ties
“The old relationship we had with the United States … is over,” the prime minister said after latest Trump threats.
OTTAWA — Canada’s traditional relationship with the United States is over, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday in response to President Donald Trump’s potentially crippling auto tariffs.
Carney said he expects to speak to Trump in the coming days. The president reached out to his office on Wednesday, but the Canadian leader has said Trump must first respect Canada’s sovereignty.
“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over,” Carney said on Parliament Hill after breaking from the federal campaign trail on Wednesday night in the face of Trump’s latest threats.
“We must fundamentally reimagine our economy. We will need to ensure that Canada can succeed in a drastically different world.”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump allies are starting to notice Hegseth’s growing pile of mistakes
Some White House and Pentagon officials now believe Hegseth is the one who messed up in the Signal chat scandal by sending sensitive details on his phone.
But Republican hawks, Pentagon officials and even some inside the White House now believe Hegseth also messed up by sending likely classified details from his phone. And that has the potential to undermine his credibility in the administration.
Because Trump clearly likes and has publicly exonerated Hegseth, “you’re not going to hear a huge public outcry,” said a senior GOP official on Capitol Hill who is close to the White House. “But, privately, there is a lot of concern about his judgment, more than with Waltz.”
Even for a Pentagon chief who has copied Trump’s pugilistic style — down to his Sharpie signature and campaign-style videos — Hegseth’s growing pile of mistakes are getting noticed, according to four officials and two people in touch with the administration.
“The problem is this is another example of inexperience,” said a person close to the White House, who like others, was granted anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive issue. “What happens when Hegseth needs to manage a real crisis?”
Continue reading at Politico
Trump order targets ‘divisive narratives’ in Smithsonian museums
The executive order claimed that the Smithsonian Institution, which operates numerous museums in the nation’s capital, “has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”
“This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive,” the order states.
The order cites an exhibit at the American Art Museum titled “Stories of Race and American Sculpture” and references at the National Museum of African American History and Culture that assert “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are parts of “white culture”;
“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” the order states.
The order directs Vice President Vance to lead efforts to eliminate content from Smithsonian museums that do not align with the administration’s vision to “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Internal White House document details layoff plans across U.S. agencies
While officials stressed the estimates were subject to change, the snapshot suggests how agencies are working to meet Trump’s mandate to shrink government.
Federal officials are preparing for agencies to cut between 8 and 50 percent of their employees in the first phase of a Trump administration push to shrink the federal government, according to an internal White House document obtained by The Washington Post that contains closely held draft plans for reshaping the 2.3-million-person bureaucracy.
The details are compiled from plans that President Donald Trump ordered agencies to submit, according to two people familiar with the document, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. The numbers, which have not been released to the public, show what could be next for the efforts that Trump says will make government more accountable, but have also upended agency functions and triggered restraining orders from the courts.
The document covers 22 agencies and doesn’t have information in some categories. Several people familiar with the document stressed that planning remains fluid and that the numbers do not necessarily reflect what agencies will ultimately cut.
Continue reading at the Washington Post
Meet the DOGE team
The tech billionaire and seven DOGE staffers sat for an interview with Fox News host Brett Baier on Thursday, where they discussed their push to slash $1 trillion worth of government spending.
Here’s who’s on the DOGE team:
Steve Davis
Steve Davis, who has worked alongside Musk for years, is serving as the “chief operating officer” of DOGE, Baier said. Davis described DOGE as an “inspiring mission” that was “worth doing.”
He has previously worked at several of Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, the Boring Company and Twitter, now X.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump administration moves to end union rights for many federal workers
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said Thursday that President Trump signed an executive order limiting numerous agency employees from unionizing and instructing the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
The OPM memo references an order from Trump that has yet to be publicly posted, but a fact sheet from the White House claims that the Civil Service Reform Act that allows government workers to unionize “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”
The order targets agencies it says have a national security mission but many of the departments don’t have a strict national security connection.
In addition to all agencies with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the order also covers the Treasury Department, all agencies with Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the General Services Administration, and many more.
The OPM memo instructs agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreement.
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump targets Robert Mueller’s former law firm in latest legal attack
WilmerHale “rewarded” Mueller for abusing his “prosecutorial power,” Trump claimed in new executive order.
President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to cut ties with law firm WilmerHale in an executive order Thursday, the latest salvo in his war on major U.S. law firms.
Washington-based WilmerHale is the latest firm Trump has taken aim at following separate actions targeting Perkins Coie, Covington and Burling, and Paul, Weiss for what he views as efforts to undermine his agenda.
The order suspends the firm’s security clearances, instructs government agencies to terminate their contracts with WilmerHale and blocks its employees from accessing federal buildings.
He called WilmerHale “yet another law firm that has abandoned the profession’s highest ideals and abused its pro bono practice,” accusing it of “obvious partisan representations to achieve political ends.”
Trump singled out the firm for hiring political foe Robert Mueller, who led the probe into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The president said WilmerHale “rewarded” Mueller for abusing his “prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process and distort justice.”
Continue reading at Politico
An ‘Apple Store’ government and other takeaways from Musk’s interview on Fox News
“In the context of the government we’re moving like lightning,” Musk said.
Elon Musk and his staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency defended their work in an hour long interview on Fox News as they look to cut down the size of the federal government and eliminate “fraud and waste.”
In the wide-ranging interview Thursday, Musk and his staffers — a group that has been notably out of the public spotlight amid ongoing controversies from DOGE — laid out their vision for efficiency across government agencies, from the Interior Department to the Small Business Administration.
“In the context of the government we’re moving like lightning,” Musk told Fox News host Bret Baier. But in terms of his expectations, it’s moving “slower than I’d like,” Musk said.
Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, Musk and his team at DOGE have cut down entire agencies and instituted mass layoffs and voluntary buy-outs. Musk said they’ve made progress, but that there’s more to do.
Here’s a few takeaways from Musk and his DOGE team.
Continue reading at Politico
University of Michigan closes its DEI office, ending multi-million dollar investment into diversity
The university’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs have long been a model for schools across the country
The University of Michigan — one of the leading academic bastions of diversity, equity and inclusion in the country — is shuttering the doors of its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and shutting down its model DEI program.
In an email on Thursday, the university’s leaders pointed to the court-order enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on “restoring merit-based opportunity” and ending DEI programs across the country, as well as the “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education that threatened to eliminate federal funding for universities that did not eliminate their DEI efforts.
As a result, the university’s DEI office — which launched in 2016, the start of the first Trump administration — and the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion will close. The university’s DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan, the reimagined version of their original umbrella strategy for DEI across their schools and colleges, will be discontinued.
“These decisions have not been made lightly. We recognize the changes are significant and will be challenging for many of us, especially those whose lives and careers have been enriched by and dedicated to programs that are now pivoting,” the announcement said.
Continue reading at Politico
Trump’s DOJ to investigate L.A. County Sheriff’s Department over long waits for gun permits
The DOJ announced Thursday afternoon that it was opening an investigation into the Sheriff’s Department’s possible abuse of 2nd Amendment rights, part of a broader review of “restrictive firearms-related laws” in California and other states.
The federal authorities cited a lawsuit that challenged the 18-month delay plaintiffs faced in receiving concealed carry licenses from LASD as a reason for the probe. A DOJ news release stated that it is likely others are “experiencing similarly long delays that are unduly burdening, or effectively denying, the Second Amendment rights of the people of Los Angeles.”
The Justice Department called California a “particularly egregious offender” that has resisted the Supreme Court’s recent pro-2nd Amendment rulings and enacted new legislation to further restrict the right to bear arms. Last month, Trump directed Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to launch a review of 2nd Amendment law and infringements nationwide.
“This Department of Justice will not stand idly by while States and localities infringe on the Second Amendment rights of ordinary, law-abiding Americans,” said Bondi in a statement about the LASD investigation. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and under my watch, the Department will actively enforce the Second Amendment just like it actively enforces other fundamental constitutional rights.”
Continue reading at the Los Angeles Times
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