Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 68 | Blog#42
Angry like a Turk
Turks protest, opposition defiant over Istanbul mayor's detention
Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, gather at Istanbul rally to protest against Erdogan
Turkish opposition holds mass protest in support of jailed Istanbul mayor • FRANCE 24 English
Yesterday’s post
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Yesterday’s news worth repeating
White House ordered firing of L.A. federal prosecutor on ex-Fatburger CEO case, sources say
A federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired Friday at the behest of the White House, after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials in Washington to drop all charges against him, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Adam Schleifer was terminated Friday morning, receiving an email informing him that the dismissal was “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” according to two of the sources, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from federal officials. Joseph T. McNally, the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California who is Schleifer’s boss, was not involved in the decision, the sources said.
Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP, said she heard Schleifer was fired via a “one line e-mail, and it came from a White House staff account.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles declined to comment. Schleifer declined a request to be interviewed. The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Continue reading at the Los Angeles Times
John Bolton on the Signal Leak: ‘A Very Primitive View of International Relations’
Trump’s former national security adviser lets loose on the leaked Signal group chat and the administration’s foreign policy factions.
Much of Washington is still waiting anxiously to learn who — if anyone — will be fired over the embarrassment now known as Signalgate. But the real battle underneath it all is which conservative faction will define Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Will it be old school hawks like national security adviser Michael Waltz, who made the mistake of inviting Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg into the chat, or America First types like Vice President JD Vance, who expressed skepticism about the strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.
One person who is no stranger to bureaucratic knife-fighting in a Trump administration is John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term before having an ugly falling out with the president.
In an interview for the Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Bolton discussed Signal disclosures, Trump’s approach to Vladimir Putin and what it’s like to be the subject of the president’s personal vendettas.
A longtime national security hawk, Bolton also had some choice words for Vance, who grumbled on Signal about the American military being needed to open up shipping lanes for Europeans.
The United States has been committed to “freedom of the seas” since the days of Thomas Jefferson, Bolton said. “It’s all out there, just open a book.”
Read the interview at Politico
Trump’s election order creates much confusion before the next federal election in 2026
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to change how U.S. elections are run is creating uncertainty for state and local election officials and worries about voter confusion before the next federal election, the 2026 midterms.
Election officials were already dealing with the loss of some cybersecurity assistance from the federal government and now face the potential for major changes that include a new voter registration requirement, decertification of certain voting systems and stricter ballot deadlines for many states.
In Connecticut, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas is hopeful that ballot scanners the state just bought for $20 million will be acceptable under the executive order, but she worries about other states.
“It’s not like states have millions and millions of dollars that they can just upgrade their election equipment every couple of years,” said Thomas, a Democrat. “Imagine people purchased new equipment and now it no longer can be used. There is no remedy for that in the order.”
Because Trump’s order is likely to face legal challenges, it’s unclear what will be required and when. That means more uncertainty for election officials.
“I have no idea what the timeline is for things in the executive order,” said Joseph Kirk, who oversees elections in Bartow County, Georgia. “I really hope we have some clarity on some of this stuff soon because no matter what the answers are, I need to take care of my voters.”
Continue reading at the AP
DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.
The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.
Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.
“Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se; [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” an SSA technologist tells WIRED.
The Social Security Administration did not immediately reply to WIRED’s request for comment.
Continue reading at Wired
Today’s news
Democratic News Corner
Democrats ramp up town halls in GOP districts
House Democrats are ramping up their aggressive strategy of conducting town halls in Republican-held districts, vying to exploit the GOP’s advised moratorium on the events to make inroads with frustrated voters, pick up battleground seats, and flip control of the House in next year’s midterms.
A number of Democrats who ventured this month into GOP territory said they liked what they saw: anxious voters who are up in arms over both President Trump’s dismantling of the federal government and the reluctance of the majority Republicans to provide a check on executive power.
Encouraged by their experiences, Democrats say they not only intend to return to those battleground districts, they’re also eyeing plans to broaden their range in the weeks and months to come. The Democrats’ campaign arms, in some cases, are helping to coordinate the effort.
“People are mad — they’re mad and fearful that their health care might be taken away. That’s the thing that I heard the most,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who recently staged town halls in three California districts held by Republican lawmakers — Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and David Valadao — where he estimated crowds of roughly 1,000 people.
“It was just frustration of: What are you going to do to stop this?”
Khanna acknowledged that the crowds were made up largely of Democrats and independents who reside in those purple districts. “But they’re angry and mobilized,” he said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Schumer, Democrats seek to get off the mat amid new Trump controversy
Instead of being besieged by questions about Democratic divisions — and Schumer’s vote to advance a GOP funding bill — the week was dominated by queries of how The Atlantic’s editor in chief ended up getting invited by Trump’s national security adviser to a group chat that included Vice President Vance and other top officials.
GOP senators were the ones fending off questions over why the Trump team, including officials traveling overseas, were discussing sensitive information on Signal, while Democrats were the ones going on offense.
What’s more, the Signal story broke just hours before members of the Senate were returning from recess to a Washington ready to pounce on Schumer and their party’s divide.
Democrats were generally hiding any glee over their fortune, but some acknowledged the shifting winds.
“None of it makes me happy,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said about the Signal chat. “But it certainly has changed the tenor of the discussion and it took the frustration and sense of loss that people in Colorado were feeling … and given it more of a focus.”
Continue reading at The Hill
The problem for the Bernie Sanders movement is what happens when he’s gone
Sanders isn’t interested in running for president again. It isn’t clear if Ocasio-Cortez wants to, either.
Bernie Sanders has built one of the most durable movements in American politics. But many inside and outside of it are worrying what happens when he’s gone.
Sanders, at 83, is not interested in running for president for a third time. And while his barnstorming across the country with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looked to some Democrats like a straightforward case of anointing his successor for the 2028 presidential campaign, progressives who know both elected officials said Sanders’ calculation — and hers — is far less clear.
Sanders confidants said he is not the type of politician to hand-pick his next in line. People who know Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she is non-committal or, as her friend former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) put it, “if the spirit moves her, she’ll do it — but she has to be moved by the spirit.” The result, to many progressives, is that for everything Sanders has done for the left, the independent senator from Vermont is also potentially leaving an agonizing vacuum behind him.
Saikat Chakrabarti, a former top aide to Ocasio-Cortez who has launched a campaign against Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said that Sanders has been “calling for people to run, and he’s calling for some sort of political revolution.”
But, he added, “I haven’t seen anything that’s indicating that he’s setting up infrastructure for something bigger than calling for it.”’
It’s a significant challenge for a wing of the Democratic Party that won the runner-up spot in two consecutive presidential primaries — and that has found renewed energy in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Continue reading at Politico
The Trump 2.0 resistance: Alive, but evolved
The resistance of 2025 may not be wearing a pink knitted cap — but it's alive in town halls, streets, campuses and car dealerships across the country.
The big picture: If the 2017 Women's March heralded a new era of protest, so too, have the days of DOGE and an empowered, zone-flooding Trump.
The early moves of President Trump's second term have pulled a wide range of Americans into the political crosshairs, from National Parks Service workers to Social Security recipients to the transgender community.
"One of the miscalculations ... in their flood-the-zone strategy is when you flood the zone, you hit everyone," said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the progressive Working Families Party.
That's brought previously uninvolved people into resistance efforts, Mitchell said.
Members of varied local labor organizations, parents concerned about education funding cuts, veterans and even some dissatisfied Trump voters, among others, have rallied behind shared frustrations, he said.
"These are pretty divergent communities of people who didn't have a cause to come together, but have a cause to come together now," he said.
Zoom in: Irate constituents pushing back directly against lawmakers in town halls (even when the lawmaker isn't present) has emerged as one of the signature protests of 2025.
Continue reading at Axios
Democrats reject advice to ‘play dead,’ vow hard fight against Trump’s domestic agenda
A month ago, James Carville, the highly influential Democratic strategist, advised his party to “play dead” and allow President Trump and his Republican allies who control Congress to self-destruct under the weight of unpopular policies.
House Democrats are rejecting the strategy outright.
Heading into the high-stakes battle over Trump’s sweeping domestic agenda, Democratic leaders are instead launching a forceful, in-your-face battle over the GOP’s plans for tax cuts, tougher immigration laws and steep reductions in federal spending, vowing to take the fight directly to the public in hopes that a voter backlash will sink the Republican wishlist before it can reach the president’s desk.
“We are going to fight every day, tooth-and-nail, to make sure that the American people get the benefits they have paid for, like Social Security, and that they deserve, like good public schools,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, who also singled out proposed cuts to veterans programs and health care benefits as particularly egregious.
“We are ready to match the fire we are hearing at home from people — the outrage and the fear — here in Congress.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Playbook newsletter
Playbook: Biden world braces for book storm
THE BIDEN BOOK DELUGE: The race to shape Joe Biden’s legacy is on. The former president’s extended orbit is bracing for a steady march of no fewer than four books dropping over the next few months that promise to excavate and relitigate not only the historic 2024 presidential campaign but the former president’s own physical and mental condition before dropping out.
Biden allies are already prebutting some of those books’ authors, challenging their framing and questioning their fact-checking approach in an attempt to protect the former president’s image. Dozens of former and current Biden aides have engaged on the books, according to a person with visibility into the process. Biden allies seem to be defining a satisfactory fact-checking process as one that includes readouts of dates, people, memos and meetings mentioned and a chance for Biden world to respond, item by item.
Kelly Scully, Biden’s spokesperson, declined to comment on the record on how Biden allies engaged in the book process.
Biden’s aides did not make him available to any of those books’ authors, Playbook has learned. According to a person close to the former president, he’s reserving the space to tell his story in his own book. That prospective work, whose existence was first reported by NBC, does not yet have a release date and could publish as early as 2026, this person said.
Starting Tuesday, the crush of books will begin with Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House” ($32). Already, the duo have produced reporting that depicts Biden’s decline in vivid detail, including that he forgot the identity of one of his 2020 rivals and that Democratic officials had “hush-hush talks” to game out Biden’s withdrawal as early as 2023, according to an excerpt in The Guardian.
Continue reading the Politico Playbook newsletter
National Security
Trump says military force not off the table for Greenland after Danish FM scolds his administration
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made the remarks in a video posted to social media after U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the strategic island. Later Saturday, though, U.S. President Donald Trump maintained an aggressive tone, telling NBC News that “I never take military force off the table” in regards to acquiring Greenland.
“Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course we are open to criticism,” Rasmussen said speaking in English. “But let me be completely honest: we do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.”
[…]
In Saturday’s interview, Trump allowed that “I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force.”
“This is world peace, this is international security,” he said, but added: “I don’t take anything off the table.”
Trump also said “I don’t care” when asked in the NBC interview what message it would send to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is trying to solidify his hold on Ukrainian territory three years after his invasion.
Continue reading at the AP
Trump doesn’t rule out military intervention in Greenland — again
U.S. president’s comments come on the heels of diplomatic tensions between Copenhagen and Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump hinted he could use military force to take over Greenland — in the latest sign of Washington's fixation with the autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark.
“We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,” Trump told NBC.
"There's a good possibility it could be done without military force," he said, adding however that "I don't take anything off the table."
On Friday, Greenland’s government announced a deal for a coalition between Greenland’s Democrats and other parties.
Trump's obsession with the strategic, mineral-rich island has grown stronger in the past weeks. He made the issue a top national security priority, and told journalists on Friday that “we have to have” the territory to secure the U.S.’s position in the Arctic.
The U.S. president's comments come after a week of diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Denmark, and on the heels of U.S. Vice President JD Vance's visit to Greenland.
Continue reading at Politico
Former leader of Denmark: ‘We have stood side by side with America for decades’
Helle Thorning-Schmidt doesn’t understand all the nasty language.
A former prime minister of Denmark said Sunday she is befuddled by President Donald Trump’s attitude toward her country and its territory of Greenland, given Denmark’s long alliance with the United States.
Speaking on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” former Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said, “This whole talk about Denmark not being a good ally, that is simply not true. And it is a little bit insulting, to be honest, that we have stood side by side with America for decades.”
She added: “We have deployed with America. We have veterans that have been under U.S. command. And I was also thinking of them when the vice president said that we had not contributed because we have been with America, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya.”
Trump has said that the United States needs to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark, for national security reasons — and has repeatedly said he would not rule out a military invasion to get it. On Friday, Vice President JD Vance scolded Denmark during a visit to Greenland, saying, “Denmark hasn’t done a good job at keeping Greenland safe.”
In response to Vance’s remarks, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Friday: “This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.” Greenland’s new prime minister urged unity in response to “the heavy pressure we are exposed to from outside.”
And Thorning-Schmidt said Sunday she was “taken aback” and “quite shocked” by Vance’s remarks.
Continue reading at Politico
Clip is set to begin with Thorning-Schmidt’s segment
Signal chat could have been costly, Mark Warner says
The Virginia Democrat laments the sloppiness of the now-infamous military discussion.
“If you had been a traditional military officer or a CIA caseworker and you were this sloppy and careless with this classified information, you would be fired,” Warner told host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.” “No doubt about it.”
On Monday, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published the bombshell report, revealing he’d been included in a Signal group chat in which the nation’s top defense officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, discussed plans for a military strike in Yemen. Waltz later acknowledged it was he who had inadvertently added Goldberg into the group chat.
The public backlash has been swift. But despite calls for Waltz’s firing, including from inside the White House, Trump has stuck by the national security adviser, calling the brouhaha “a witch hunt.” Most Republicans — though not all — have rallied around the White House, dismissing the incident.
Continue reading at Politico
Moskowitz quips that Bin Laden supports Lee’s bill to abolish the TSA
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) knocked Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) bill to abolish the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), suggesting only terrorists would support it.
Lee reposted a Fox News article about his legislation and asked, in a post on X, “Who supports my bill to abolish TSA?”
“Bin Laden,” Moskowitz responded, referring to the infamous al-Qaeda founder, Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Bin Laden was tracked down and killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in May 2011.
Lee, along with Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), unveiled last week the “Abolish TSA Act of 2025,” which would require the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) “to expeditiously eliminate or transfer all authorities, enforcement functions, and programs of the Administration.”
It would also require the DHS secretary “to privatize all commercial airport security to increase cost-efficiency and security.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Economics
‘Never been done’: Why Republicans might approve a budget whose numbers don’t match up
The planned House vs. Senate split sidesteps a thorny political problem but sets up a tricky path forward.
President Donald Trump wants action now, unity later, on his legislative agenda. The result is a budget with numbers that don’t match up.
Republican leaders are expected to embrace a novel strategy as they seek to push forward as soon as this coming week with their partisan package of tax cuts, border security enhancements, military spending and more. Rather than align House and Senate committees behind the same savings targets in the budget framework for that megabill, they want to set different numbers for each chamber.
The split screen could be stark, at least on paper. House committees will be asked to cut at least $2 trillion in spending from safety-net programs, while Senate committees might be directed to find a minimum of a few billion dollars in savings. It’s possible to write a final package that can bridge the difference, but it’s likely to be politically tricky — requiring trust between GOP lawmakers in the two chambers after months of cross-Capitol competition, along with substantial pressure from Trump.
Bill Hoagland, a former longtime top Senate GOP budget aide, said in an interview that the bifurcated approach Republican leaders are pursuing is “unique” and is “stretching” the process that has governed budget legislation for 50 years.
“Historically, that’s never been done,” he said.
But the approach is seen as necessary if Republicans are going to stay on the ambitious timeline they’ve set for passing their party-line legislation. Without unifying behind a budget blueprint that can clear both chambers, Republicans won’t be able to take advantage of reconciliation, which prevents the minority from halting the process with a filibuster. So threading the needle on the budget is a crucial task.
Continue reading at Politico
The s-word rippling through Wall Street and Main Street
Economic growth has flatlined so far this year. Inflation has picked up. And consumers expect both to get worse in the months ahead.
Why it matters: For the moment, it adds up to Wall Street's least-favorite "s-word," stagflation — stagnant growth mixed with elevated inflation.
That pattern, most vividly seen in the 1970s, is particularly painful because it means people experience pain from both lack of job opportunities and higher prices.
It also leaves the Fed and other economic policymakers with less ability to cushion the blow because a move that might address one side of the problem could worsen the other.
The big picture: The takeaway, from a slew of recent data, is that President Trump inherited a shakier economy than it seemed and is risking something worse with aggressive policy moves.
State of play: The backward-looking data lately has been distinctly stagflationary. Consumer spending in the first two months of 2025 has been soft, coming in 0.6% below its December rate (when adjusted for inflation).
Continue reading at Axios
Rand Paul’s advice to Trump on tariffs: ‘The more we trade … the less we fight’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke out against President Trump’s imbalance on tariffs arguing that established levies have kept the world a stable place with a secure market.
“International trade since World War II has made us phenomenally rich. President Trump paints it another way,” Paul said during a Sunday interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
“He says, ‘We’ve been taken advantage of.’ But I really strongly disagree because trade has made us so rich and really has made the world a better place. The more we trade … the less we fight.”
Trump made headlines this week as he announced sweeping tariffs on foreign-made cars and auto parts striking counterparts in China, Japan and Canada.
International leaders have promised to hit back with similar trade policies while bracing for the Republican administration’s April 2 date slated for an announcement on reciprocal tariffs.
Paul said his own constituents have opposed the encroaching tariff war citing the threat of skyrocketing prices for business owners and consumers as a reason for angst.
Continue reading at The Hill
Fewer Americans confident in Trump’s handling of economy: Poll
Americans in a new poll say they are not feeling confident in President Trump’s handling of the economy amid his administration’s escalation of his trade war through sweeping changes in regulations for imports and exports.
The CBS News poll found that 52 percent of Americans say they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 49 percent say they approve. Fifty-six percent also said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation, while 44 percent saying they approve.
Most respondents said Trump’s focus is on the wrong issue, with 55 percent saying the president is focusing on tariffs “too much,” while 38 percent say he is focusing the “right amount” on them. Only 7 percent say he isn’t giving tariffs enough focus.
The poll was conducted after Trump’s latest announcement of tariffs on foreign-made cars and auto parts. Last week, Trump announced he was imposing a 25 percent tariff on foreign-made vehicle imports.
Continue reading at The Hill
UAW president: ‘Deplorable’ that Trump stripped union rights for federal workers
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain said it is “deplorable” that President Trump moved to strip union rights from federal workers.
Fain joined CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, just after Trump signed an executive order limiting numerous federal agency employees from unionizing and telling the government it can’t participate in collective bargaining.
The UAW president celebrated Trump’s recent tariffs on car imports, noting that it would bring manufacturing and jobs back to the U.S. Fain’s embrace of Trump’s idea came just months after he campaigned against the president and worked with the Democratic Party on his striking workers’ picket line.
He was asked Sunday by host Major Garrett about what he finds more important, a president who walked the picket line or one who imposes tariffs.
“It’s both,” he said, noting that he supports a president that “supports organized labor and supports good working conditions.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: full interview below in the Video Features section
Trump team's message: Don't worry about prices, tax cuts are coming
Trump administration economic officials had mixed message for consumers Sunday: Tariffs won't raise prices, but even if they do you'll be fine when we cut taxes.
Why it matters: The administration is gambling an increasingly unhappy consumer will eat a few months of worsening conditions for the promise of something better down the road.
The big picture: Sentiment is plunging across the board — not just consumers, but also small businesses and some big ones too.
Anecdote-driven "soft" economic data has been negative for weeks, and now the "hard" data that shows the underlying performance of the economy is slipping too.
What they're saying: On Fox News Sunday, Trump's senior trade counselor Peter Navarro deflected multiple questions about the president's auto tariffs potentially raising the cost of cars by thousands of dollars.
"The reason why we're not going to see inflation is because the foreigners are going to eat most of it, they have to, we're the biggest market in the world," he said. "They have to be here. They have to be here, So they're going to cut their prices to absorb that."
Navarro stressed that whatever economic pain consumers feel in the short term will be offset by the tax bill the administration is negotiating — mostly extending Trump's 2017 cuts, but with some new benefits, like cutting or eliminating taxes on tips.
Continue reading at Axios
Senate GOP to start moving budget plan as soon as Wednesday
GOP leaders still need a critical ruling on their tax plan. But they’re racing to show progress after weeks of delays.
Senate GOP leaders will move as soon as Wednesday to begin advancing a budget plan — the next key step to unlock President Donald Trump’s massive agenda through a party-line bill.
Under the ambitious timeline being privately considered by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the Senate would adopt its budget resolution before heading home for the weekend. A marathon vote-a-rama could kick off Thursday, though four people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions cautioned it could slip to Friday depending how quickly the chamber moves.
In order to make this work, the Senate parliamentarian will need to sign off on Republicans’ plans to use a tactic known as the current policy baseline, which will allow them to pursue trillions of dollars in tax cut extensions while claiming it doesn’t cost anything. Senators believe they could secure such a ruling from the parliamentarian as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, though the meeting has yet to be scheduled. This ruling is crucial because Republicans can’t finalize their retooled budget resolution until they know if their accounting gambit will be approved.
Continue reading at Politico
France accuses US diplomats of meddling with a ‘diktat’ about Trump’s DEI policies
PARIS (AP) — A French minister on Sunday accused U.S. diplomats of interfering in the operations of French companies by sending them a letter reportedly telling them that U.S. President Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives could also apply outside of the United States.
French media said that the letter received by major French companies was signed by an officer of the U.S. State Department who is on the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. The embassy didn’t respond to questions this weekend from The Associated Press.
Le Figaro daily newspaper published what it said was a copy of the letter. The document said that an executive order that Trump signed in January terminating DEI programs within the federal government also “applies to all suppliers and service providers of the U.S. Government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate.”
The document asked recipients to complete, sign and return within five days a separate certification form to demonstrate that they are in compliance.
That form, also published by Le Figaro, said: “All Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws.”
Continue reading at the AP
Donald Trump : la lettre de chantage qui fait trembler les patrons français (Translation: The blackmail letter that is making French bosses tremble)
Note from Rima: This broadcast is in French. However, the translate feature in the video settings is pretty decent.
France, Belgium scoff at anti-DEI letter from Trump administration
“We have no lessons to learn from the boss of America,” said Belgian Deputy PM Jan Jambon.
PARIS — European government officials and business representatives have poured scorn on a request from the United States State Department for companies to drop diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures.
Ministers from France and Belgium pushed back strongly on the effort by the Trump administration to spread its anti-DEI policies, which have taken aim at universities, companies, government contractors and security services worldwide.
“It is out of the question that we will prevent our business from promoting additional social progress [and] social rights,” said French Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé in an interview with BFMTV Sunday. “Thankfully, a lot of French companies don’t plan to change their policies.”
“We have a culture of non-discrimination in Europe and we must continue that,” Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Jan Jambon said Sunday evening on the French-language TV channel RTL-TVi. “We have no lessons to learn from the boss of America.”
Several French companies received a letter — first reported by Les Echos and obtained by POLITICO — requiring them to certify that they don’t implement DEI or positive discrimination programs.
“If you do not agree to sign this document, we would appreciate it if you could provide detailed reasons, which we will forward to our legal teams,” reads the request sent to French companies and signed by Stanislas Parmentier, the contracting officer at the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Companies in other EU countries including Italy, Spain and Belgium reportedly received similar requests.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Ex-British Ambassador to US who criticized Trump urges Starmer not to concede on retaliatory tariffs
Former United Kingdom ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take a robust stance against President Trump’s threats of retaliatory tariffs, saying the UK should avoid giving Trump “wins.”
Darroch — who famously called Trump “inept” and “dysfunctional” as ambassador during Trump’s first term — warned that conceding to Trump will signal weakness and might invite additional threats of tariffs down the line.
“It’s understandable that, faced with deeply damaging US tariffs on British cars, steel and aluminium, the government should think about concessions like reducing digital tax,” Darroch said in an interview with the Observer, according to a Guardian report published Saturday.
“But they need to be wary of giving Trump wins,” Darroch added. “Tariffs are his all-purpose forcing mechanism, and he’ll use them again and again if he sees them working.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump, Bad Bunny and Puerto Rico’s Perennially Broken Power Grid
Puerto Rico has the least reliable energy system of any place in the U.S. Despite billions of federal dollars available for repairs, it’s still in shambles.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — On a hot summer evening the lights in Old San Juan suddenly powered off, darkening the cobblestone streets of this historic neighborhood. Luckily this dog-friendly bar had its own generator so the power kicked back on, making it attractive to the tourists and residents wandering by. The friendly bartender came over and urged us to order another round before the crowd flooded in.
For a visitor to this beautiful island, it was a bit disorienting to be plunged into darkness. The locals were unfazed. They’re used to apagones — blackouts in Spanish. Hurricane-induced outages are always a risk for islands in the Caribbean, but this was something else: Hardware and power line failures in the troubled energy system were to blame. About 350,000 of Puerto Rico’s 1.5 million electricity customers were left without power for hours that night.
Two even bigger power outages would follow over the next several months. Tropical storm Ernesto mostly passed north of the island but still managed to knock out the island’s fragile electrical system. On New Year’s Eve, an old cable failed, triggering a near-total blackout.
Puerto Rico has the least reliable energy system of any place in the U.S. Puerto Ricans experience about 15 percent more service interruptions and about 21 percent longer outages than their fellow Americans on the mainland. Aside from the widespread New Year’s Eve and storm-related blackouts, the island is prone to regional and local outages when equipment fails, as it did in early June in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The territory also suffers from frequent power losses due to shortfalls in available energy — the grid manager reported supply shortages caused the power to be turned off to certain areas 115 times last year. These shutoffs are done to avoid a catastrophic failure of Puerto Rico’s fragile system.
Continue reading at Politico Magazine
The Trump family is cashing in on crypto. It’s creating problems in Congress.
The latest Trump family crypto venture is becoming a hitch in GOP efforts to win Democratic support for digital assets legislation.
The Trump family’s latest cryptocurrency business venture could jeopardize bipartisan support for a GOP effort to lightly regulate the digital assets industry.
Republican lawmakers need Democratic votes to pass long-promised crypto legislation that they are rushing to send to President Donald Trump’s desk. But a company started by Trump’s eldest sons announced last week that it would launch a new digital coin, a move that could make it harder to get additional Democrats on board.
World Liberty Financial’s new stablecoin, a token pegged to the U.S. dollar, could allow Trump family members to profit off the GOP-led legislation that would help legitimize the assets and enact industry-friendly rules for how they are overseen by regulators.
Several Democrats in both chambers already support GOP-led stablecoin bills, but the Trump factor is poised to become a hitch. In the House, the ranking member of the Financial Services panel, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, is expected to oppose the legislation at a committee vote this week if it does not include language that would block Trump and Elon Musk from issuing stablecoins, according to a Democratic aide with knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to discuss a decision not yet public.
Democrats involved in crypto talks on Capitol Hill say the stablecoin announcement from the Trump family crypto firm is a detriment to their legislative efforts.
“I can’t think of anything quite so damaging to bipartisanship than that happening,” said Rep. Jim Himes, a senior Connecticut Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee who has backed stablecoin legislation in the past and said he hopes to again this week.
Continue reading at Politico
Health News
US at risk of losing health designation it’s had for 25 years
Measles was officially declared “eliminated” in the United States in 2000. If things keep going the way they’ve been going in 2025, that designation could soon change.
“Measles elimination status” is achieved in a country or region when there hasn’t been sustained transmission of the virus for a period of 12 months or longer, explained Dr. William Moss, an epidemiology professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the school’s International Vaccine Access Center, in a media briefing this month.
A country will lose that elimination status once an outbreak extends longer than a year, he said. We recently came close to crossing that threshold, but barely avoided it.
“We’ve gone a quarter of a century with our measles elimination status,” Moss said. “We almost lost that in 2019 when this large outbreak in New York state and New York City almost extended beyond 12 months. It was just shy of 12 months.”
Continue reading at The Hill
The Long Island iced tea may not be from that Long Island
If you’re familiar with a Long Island iced tea, you may be aware of a common misconception: there is no tea, iced or otherwise, in the cocktail. That may not be the only incorrect assumption made about the cocktail.
The Long Island iced tea is one of more than 100 official cocktails recognized by the International Bartenders Association. The IBA’s recipe calls for 15 mL each of vodka, tequila, white rum, gin, and Cointreau (orange-flavored triple sec), mixed with 25 mL of lemon juice, 30 mL of simple syrup, and a topping of cola in a highball glass with ice.
Variations can include adding whiskey (known as a Texas tea), swapping the cola for pineapple juice (Hawaiian iced tea), and using Tennessee whiskey in place of the gin while leaving out the tequila (Tennessee iced tea), among others.
Continue reading at The Hill
‘This is all wholly preventable,’ former Covid chief says of measles outbreak
Ashish Jha blames Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Former White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha on Sunday laid the blame for an ongoing measles outbreak currently centered on West Texas squarely at the feet of new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“This is all wholly preventable,” Jha told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’ve already had two people die. I’m worried we’re going to see more children get very, very sick and die. We should not be at this point in our country, and yet here we are because of bad information being spread by Secretary Kennedy and others.”
Kennedy has signaled an intention to reorient the mission of the country’s top health agencies toward fighting chronic disease, a seismic shift from past policy.
But the secretary has been criticized for his approach to the measles outbreak. Beyond that, last Thursday, HHS announced it was terminating 10,000 employees, roiling the health sector and blindsiding agency staffers. Then on Friday, key FDA vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks resigned — at odds with Kennedy over the benefits of vaccination.
“More and more recently he has been pushed to advocate for quack vitamins and cod liver oil and not the thing that we know works for measles, which is vaccines,” Jha told Raddatz on Marks’ departure. “And for someone with his scientific integrity, it just got to be too much.”
Continue reading at Politico
Segment begins with Dr. Ashish Jha
General News
Smell of death permeates Myanmar cities after quake kills over 1,600 and leaves countless buried
MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) — The smell of decaying bodies permeated the streets of Myanmar’s second-largest city on Sunday as people worked frantically by hand to clear rubble in the hope of finding someone still alive, two days after a massive earthquake struck that killed more than 1,600 people and left countless others buried.
The 7.7 magnitude quake hit midday Friday with an epicenter near Mandalay, bringing down scores of buildings and damaging other infrastructure like the city’s airport.
Relief efforts have been hampered by buckled roads, downed bridges, spotty communications and the challenges of operating in a country in the midst of a civil war.
Continue reading at the AP
Medical supplies in great need as international assistance flows into Myanmar after earthquake
BANGKOK (AP) — Emergency aid has streamed into Southeast Asia in the two days since a massive earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand. Relief efforts are focused on Myanmar, where the estimated death toll rose to 1,644 by Sunday afternoon.
The number of dead from Friday’s 7.7 magnitude quake is expected to increase, while the number of injured was 3,408 and 139 people were missing as of Sunday. The earthquake’s epicenter was near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city with 1.5 million people. In neighboring Thailand, the death toll rose to 17.
While food, medicine and other vital supplies have reached Myanmar, a report issued Saturday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said rescue efforts have been hampered by a severe shortage of medical supplies including trauma kits, blood bags, anesthetics, assistive devices, essential medicine and tents to house health workers.
Continue reading at the AP
Note from Rima: If you would like to help, please consider Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross and Red Crescent combined effort
Musk’s influence faces first big test in Wisconsin
Musk has spent $12 million through his America PAC to support Brad Schimel over liberal candidate Susan Crawford in a race that will determine the partisan tilt on the state Supreme Court. Building America’s Future, a group that has previously received funding from Musk, has added $4.7 million to the race. On top of that, he will speak in Wisconsin on Sunday night, days before voters are set to head to the polls.
The election has been seen as the first critical bellwether of President Trump’s second term, as Democratic energy appears to be growing on the grassroots level. But much of the attention has centered on Musk, whose role in the administration has received outsized attention and whose presence in the race has given fodder to Democrats supporting Crawford.
“We’re seeing a test of how much impact can one man have on a race in terms of bringing these kinds of resources to bear, which are gargantuan and which will kind of set a new benchmark that we’ve never really seen in terms of, you know, a person like him with groups like his spending in ways that they are,” said one Wisconsin GOP operative familiar with the strategy.
“It’s also true in the other direction with the Democrats, given how much they stake on having their messaging be about him,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
At least half of US states now outlaw devices that convert pistols into machine guns
In New Mexico, police and prosecutors backed an effort to outlaw devices that convert pistols into machine guns. In Alabama, the governor made it a priority.
Lawmakers in both states — one led by Democrats, the other by Republicans — responded this year with new laws making so-called Glock switches illegal.
At least half of U.S. states now have similar laws prohibiting the possession of such devices, a list that has grown over the past decade as law enforcement officers have found more of the tiny yet powerful devices attached to guns.
States are mimicking federal law, which for for decades has generally prohibited machine guns and any parts that can transform semiautomatic weapons into automatic ones.
What does federal law say?
U.S. law defines a machine gun as a weapon that automatically fires more than one shot with a single pull of a trigger. The definition also includes any parts designed to convert a weapon into a machine gun.
Continue reading at the AP
Turkey confirms Swedish journalist arrest
The journalist’s incarceration comes in the context of huge protests in Istanbul against the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu.
The Turkish authorities confirmed on Sunday the arrest of Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Wanted for the crimes of ‘belonging to an armed terrorist organization’ and ‘insulting the president,’ the individual was arrested on arrival at Istanbul airport on March 27 and incarcerated,” the Turkish government’s center for combating misinformation reportedly said.
The journalist’s incarceration comes in the context of huge protests in Istanbul against the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu. The Istanbul mayor — who is widely viewed as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — was arrested last week on corruption charges.
Medin’s arrest also comes on the heels of the deportation of Mark Lowen, a correspondent for the BBC, as well as the imprisonment of a dozen Turkish journalists covering the demonstrations.
However, the Turkish government said the warrant targeting the Swedish reporter has “nothing to do with journalistic activities.”
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump admin lays off most of Institute of Peace in latest federal purge
The Trump administration has reportedly fired a majority of employees at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) over the weekend, with termination letters landing in personal email accounts starting Friday evening.
Only senior officials and staffers abroad remain employed at the organization that used to tout 300 workers, according to the Associated Press.
“The dismissal of U.S. Institute of Peace employees in the dark of night is unconscionable and deeply troubling. The Institute’s employees are fiercely dedicated to their important work, and they don’t deserve to be treated with such disrespect,” George M. Foote, outside counsel for USIP, said in a statement to The Hill.
“The firings also put at serious risk the safety and welfare of those who work for and with the Institute in countries around the world. This action only adds urgency to the complaint that has been filed to halt and reverse the Administration’s unlawful attempt to dismantle the Institute,” he added.
Continue reading at The Hill
In response to Trump’s letter, Iran rejects direct negotiations
The remarks from President Masoud Pezeshkian represented the first official acknowledgment of how Iran responded to the president’s letter.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s president said Sunday that Tehran had rejected direct negotiations with the United States in response to a letter from President Donald Trump over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
The remarks from President Masoud Pezeshkian represented the first official acknowledgment of how Iran responded to Trump’s letter. It also suggests that tensions may further rise between Tehran and Washington.
Pezeshkian said: “Although the possibility of direct negotiations between the two sides has been rejected in this response, it has been emphasized that the path for indirect negotiations remains open.”
It’s unclear, however, whether Trump would accept indirect negotiations. Indirect negotiations for years since Trump initially withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 have been unsuccessful.
Continue reading at Politico
White House to take charge of briefing-room seating chart
The White House plans to impose its own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room in coming weeks, taking over a function long managed by the reporters themselves through the White House Correspondents' Association.
Why it matters: It's the latest — but likely not the last — effort by the White House to take a heavier hand in shaping who covers President Trump. In public and private, White House officials make it clear they are determined to upend decades-old press corps traditions.
Behind the scenes: Some members of the correspondents' association (WHCA) have been looking for ways to de-escalate. A senior White House official told Axios that a WHCA member had privately raised the possibility of changing the organization's bylaws so the sitting White House press secretary, currently Karoline Leavitt, always serves as WHCA president.
The tough-sell argument for the change: Rekindle collaboration between WHCA and the White House, and ensure buy-in from both.
Continue reading at Axios
Trump "pissed off" at Putin, threatens new tariffs
President Trump said in an interview with NBC News he is "pissed off" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and threatened to put secondary tariffs on Russian oil if he deems it to be "Russia's fault" that a deal is not struck to end the war in Ukraine.
The big picture: Trump's angry rhetoric is a shift from the softer approach the White House had taken toward Russia in ongoing talks to end the years-long war.
"I was very angry, pissed off" when Putin "started getting into [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky's credibility" and "started talking about new leadership" in Ukraine, Trump told NBC's Kristen Welker in a phone call.
He told Welker he plans to speak with Putin this week.
But Trump previously called Zelensky a "dictator without elections" as the U.S.-Ukraine relationship tumbled to a new low.
Driving the news: "If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia's fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia's fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs ... on all oil coming out of Russia," he said.
Continue reading at Axios
Lankford asks for ‘Signalgate’ investigation, dismisses Hegseth resignation calls as ‘overkill’
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said he believes there should be an investigation into the Trump administration’s use of a Signal chat for official business but stopped short of calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign, calling it “overkill.”
“It’s entirely appropriate for the inspector general to be able to look at it and be able to ask two questions,” Lankford said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“One is, obviously, how did a reporter get into this thread in the conversation, and the second part of the conversation is, when individuals in the administration are not sitting at their desk in a classified setting on a classified computer, how do they communicate to each other?” he said, questioning if encrypted apps were the right way to communicate.
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: See clips of his appearance on State of The Union in the Video Features section
Anti-DEI-Whitewashing Movement
Critics see Trump attacks on the ‘Black Smithsonian’ as an effort to sanitize racism in US history
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s order accusing the Smithsonian Institution of not reflecting American history notes correctly that the country’s Founding Fathers declared that “all men are created equal.”
But it doesn’t mention that the founders enshrined slavery into the U.S. Constitution and declared enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of the Census.
Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration’s latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation’s story.
“It seems like we’re headed in the direction where there’s even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred,” said historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the historically Black campus in Atlanta.
The Thursday executive order cites the National Museum of African American History and Culture by name and argues that the Smithsonian as a whole is engaging in a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history.”
Continue reading at the AP
Trump's "restoring truth" order could return toppled Confederate monuments
President Trump has ordered a federal review of monuments toppled in the wake of George Floyd's murder, targeting what he calls a "concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history."
Why it matters: The Trump administration is leaving no stone unturned in its push to erase the legacy of 2020's racial reckoning, including by restoring monuments to Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery.
Zoom in: Trump signed an executive order Thursday taking aim at what he called a "revisionist movement" that has infiltrated the Smithsonian Institution and other federal sites dedicated to America's history.
Besides purging "improper ideology" from Smithsonian facilities, Trump directed the Department of the Interior to determine whether "public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties" in its jurisdiction have been removed or changed "to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history."
The order directs the agency to reinstate those monuments and ensure they do not contain descriptions that "inappropriately disparage Americans past or living."
The big picture: Trump has long opposed the removal of Confederate monuments, famously wading into the debate after the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, in which protesters gathered to protect a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
Continue reading at Axios
DOGE’s Marko Elez is back on U.S. payroll
The software engineer fired over racist social media posts is now a Labor Department aide detailed to multiple agencies, according to a new court filing.
A member of Elon Musk’s DOGE team — fired from the Treasury Department after the discovery of racist social media posts — has been working for weeks on sensitive systems at the Department of Health and Human Services, new government disclosures revealed Saturday.
Marko Elez, whom Musk vowed to rehire after Trump allies pushed back on his termination, rejoined the administration in February as a Labor Department employee before he was detailed on March 5 to HHS, the administration acknowledged earlier this week in answers to a court-ordered demand for information in connection with a pending lawsuit.
In addition to HHS, Elez is detailed to the Department of Government Efficiency core staff at the White House, as well as at least four other government agencies, according to the documents filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Elez, 25, now has access to systems that help enforce child support orders, Medicare and Medicaid payments, and HHS contracts, the court filings indicate. Spokespeople for the White House, the Labor Department and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
The details about Elez were included in the most detailed description to date of DOGE’s access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive databases. They were disclosed after a federal judge required the administration to deliver details about DOGE’s work as part of a lawsuit brought in February on behalf of several labor unions and nonprofit groups.
Continue reading at Politico
Wes Moore: Trump order over Smithsonian museums is ‘deeply disrespectful’
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said President Trump’s order looking to control the “divisive narratives” at Smithsonian museums and federal sites is “deeply disrespectful.”
Moore joined CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, where host Dana Bash asked about Trump’s recent order, which cites an exhibit at the American Art Museum titled “Stories of Race and American Sculpture” and references the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“I just find it deeply disrespectful that their definition of making America great again is actually challenging some of the things that makes America great in the first place,” Moore said.
Moore said America is a place that was created by inviting people in from all around the world to be part of its journey.
“And loving your country does not mean lying about its history,” he said. “Loving your country does not mean dismantling those who have helped to make this country so powerful and make America so unique in world history in the first place.”
Continue reading at The Hill
The interview is set to begin with Moore’s segment
Trump won’t rule out a third term
Any push by Trump or his allies to get the president into the Oval for a third time would run directly counter to the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.
President Donald Trump on Sunday morning refused to rule out the idea of seeking a constitutionally prohibited third term in office, telling NBC News’ Kristen Welker in a phone call that “there are methods” for doing so.
“You have to start by saying, I have the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years,” Trump said. “We’re in the high 70s in many polls, in the real polls, and you see that. And, and you know, we’re very popular. And you know, a lot of people would like me to do that. But, I mean, I basically tell them, we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
Any push by Trump or his allies to get the President into the Oval for a third time would run directly counter to the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment, which decrees that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice” and makes no exception for presidents like Trump elected to non-consecutive terms. The amendment was enacted in 1951, largely at the behest of Republicans who had been displeased that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: A video clip will be added when NBC publishes it
Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so
President Donald Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call that he was “not joking” about a third term, adding that “it is far too early to think about it.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, saying in an exclusive interview with NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”
“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call with NBC News, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
“I’m focused on the current,” Trump added, in some of his most extensive comments to date about serving a third term.
When asked whether he wanted another term, the president responded, “I like working.”
“I’m not joking,” Trump said, when asked to clarify. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”
When asked whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, Trump said, “There are methods which you could do it.”
Continue reading at NBC News
Note from Rima: A video clip will be added as soon as available
The hidden 2024 trend that complicates the Latino shift toward Trump
Many of the Latino voters who broke for Donald Trump also backed Democrats for Congress. What that means will shape politics for elections to come.
Underlying the 2024 election results was a subtle trend that could signal a dramatic reshaping of the electorate: a surge in ticket-splitting among Latino voters who shifted sharply toward Donald Trump but also supported Democratic House and Senate candidates.
The rise in voters simultaneously backing both parties, revealed by a detailed new POLITICO analysis of results and voting records, complicates how both parties will approach next year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential race.
It also raises an urgent question: Were Trump’s gains with Latinos a sign of a fundamental break with the Democratic Party, or are voters who backed him in 2024 still largely Democrats who just preferred him over Kamala Harris?
The stakes are monumental. Heavily Hispanic and Latino areas that saw significant ticket-splitting are key to many swing districts and battleground states. The party that can win over those voters — Republicans converting Trump supporters into reliable GOP voters, or Democrats bringing them back into the fold more firmly — will have a clear electoral advantage in the years ahead.
“The working class of the future are Latinos in the southwest,” said Mike Madrid, a veteran Republican political consultant who authored a book on Latino voting trends. “Whichever party captures the votes and confidence of a multiethnic, aspirational working class will be the dominant party for the next generation.”
Continue reading at Politico
Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has blitzed its way through federal agencies over the last two months, spawning dozens of lawsuits in its effort to shrink the federal government.
As judges take a closer look at how DOGE is operating, and what authority it exercises across the federal bureaucracy, among the many questions they’re asking is whether DOGE is actually a government agency itself.
The answer to that question, pedantic as it may sound, could have major ramifications, including whether DOGE is subject to public records laws and other statutes that require some oversight of executive branch activity.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Harvard Law professors blast Trump crackdown in open letter
At least 94 professors at Harvard Law School signed a letter to students condemning the Trump administration's "severe" challenge to the rule of law and legal profession.
Why it matters: That's more than three-quarters of the elite school's active faculty, and the latest sign that some lawyers are pushing back on what are widely viewed as unprecedented attacks on the profession.
Zoom in: "[W]e are all acutely concerned that severe challenges to the rule of law are taking place," write the professors, including all of the school's deputy deans, as well as a few prominent names like Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe.
Interim dean John Goldberg did not sign.
What they're saying: "It's a lot of people with a lot of strong opinions about a lot of things," Sharon Block, a professor of labor law and one of the signatories, told Axios, emphasizing that the professors signed the letter in a personal capacity — and aren't speaking for the school.
It's addressed to students because they are scared, and to show professors share their concerns, she said.
Continue reading at Axios
Teachers warn AI is impacting students' critical thinking
Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly dominant role in how students navigate school, and some teachers are warning the technology could be hurting their critical thinking skills.
Why it matters: AI use among school-aged children has increased dramatically as the bots appear in everything from Google searches to Spotify playlists.
In fall 2023, a survey from Common Sense Media found that nearly half of young people had never used AI tools or didn't know what they were, but by Sept. 2024 70% of U.S. teens had used at least one type of generative AI tool.
More than half of respondents to the 2024 survey said they had used AI for homework help.
The big picture: Gina Parnaby, a 12th-grade English teacher at Atlanta's Marist school, told Axios that she has seen students using AI "as a way to outsource their thinking" and "flat-out cheat."
Continue reading at Axios
Note from Rima: Critical thinking skills and the teaching of it have been at the forefront of contentious topics for decades, but, more recently, in connection to the rise of the Tea Party, the book bans of recent years and the MAGA movement. My personal opinion is that AI is an add-on. See this WaPo blog from 2012:
Texas GOP rejects ‘critical thinking’ skills. Really
In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff department, here's what the Republican Party of Texas wrote into its 2012 platform as part of the section on education:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
Also see this 2017 article from Scientific American on the work of. psychologist Robert Sternberg:
Is the U.S. Education System Producing a Society of “Smart Fools”?
One distinguished psychologist explains why he believes this is so and how to reverse course
Ex-Danish leader: ‘Nothing is stopping the Americans’ from having more bases in Greenland
Former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said there is nothing that’s stopping the Americans from setting up more bases in Greenland amid the territory’s fight to not be acquired by the U.S.
Thorning-Schmidt joined CNN on Sunday, where she was asked about what it is the Trump administration is wanting from Greenland, the land owned by Denmark.
“There is a treaty from 1951 where it is very clear that the Americans have huge access to Greenland,” she said.
Thorning-Schmidt questioned if it was time for Denmark to “scale up” on the island.
“The irony of all this is that the Americans could do exactly the same,” she said. “Greenland is NATO territory. There’s nothing stopping the Americans from getting more engaged militarily in Greenland, having more bases, if that’s what they want.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: See the video of today’s Fareed Zakaria GPS in the Video Features section below
Republicans look to avert humiliation in Florida special election
Trump called into two tele-town halls for state Sen. Randy Fine (R) in an effort to drive out the Republican base ahead of Tuesday. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s America PAC spent roughly $10,200 in the race earlier this week and dropped another $66,000 into the race on Thursday.
The efforts come as Democratic candidate Josh Weil has outraised Fine, while an internal poll from the Republican firm Fabrizio Ward showed Weil holding a 3 point lead over Fine.
Democrats and Republicans continue to maintain that a Republican loss in the district is highly unlikely given its red lean. However, a narrow margin would give Democrats material to claim there is discontent among Republicans in Trump country. As for Republicans, Democrats’ overperformance in the polls and fundraising is too close for comfort as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) seeks to navigate a razor-thin House margin.
House Republicans control a narrow 218-213 majority, which does not allow Johnson a ton of flexibility to pass a budget reconciliation package that would combine border security, tax legislation, as well as energy and defense spending.
Continue reading at The Hill
Goldberg on risk of legal action from Trump administration: ‘I don’t get bullied’
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, brushed off the risk of a legal threat from the Trump administration after he reported on a Signal group chat featuring top Trump administration officials.
“Jeffrey, I don’t have to tell you this, the administration has taken legal action against news organizations,” NBC News’s Kristen Welker said Sunday on “Meet the Press,” following clips of Trump administration officials slamming Goldberg. “Are you concerned that this administration will come after you?”
“No. I don’t get bullied. I’m not worried about that,” Goldberg replied. “They’re obviously being very, very silly there. There’s a playbook that, and you know this as a journalist, I’m not the only journalist to be the target of these kind of attacks.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Note from Rima: Goldberg’s interview on Meet The Press is included in the Video Features section below
Greenland’s PM tells Trump: ‘We do not belong to others’
Jens-Frederik Nielsen rebuts U.S. president’s comments that the U.S. will ‘get’ Greenland.
Greenland’s new leader has responded to further belligerent rhetoric from Donald Trump by telling the American president there’s no way the country will become part of the United States.
Speaking on Sunday, Trump reinforced the possibility of the U.S. using military force to capture the mineral-rich Arctic island, which recently elected Jens-Frederik Nielsen as its prime minister.
Responding to reports that Trump had said “we’ll get Greenland,” Nielsen, who was sworn in on March 28, said: “Let me be clear: The United States will not get that. We do not belong to others. We decide our own future.”
Nielsen wants Greenland ultimately to achieve independence through economic self-reliance. The island is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which sends it hundreds of millions of euros a year in subsidies, but is not part of the European Union.
Meanwhile, Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, want to make Greenland American. On a visit to the icy realm last week, Vance made overtures to Greenlanders in his trademark diplomatic style, badmouthing Denmark and telling them that military intervention won’t be needed if they’ll “cut a deal” with the U.S.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Musk: Wisconsin Supreme Court race ‘might decide the future of America and Western Civilization’
Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday stressed the importance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, saying it could determine “the future of America and Western Civilization.”
Musk reposted a report from a right-wing account suggesting if Democrats won the Supreme Court seat, they would “redraw up districts and add seats for Democrats.”
“1000%,” Musk wrote on X, responding to the post. “What’s at issue here is control of the US House of Representatives.”
“This Wisconsin Supreme Court race might decide the future of America and Western Civilization!” he continued. “It’s a big deal.”
Musk’s remarks come just before he’s expected to speak at a town hall in Wisconsin, where voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to cast a vote in the closely watched Supreme Court race. Many voters have also opted to vote early or absentee.
Continue reading at The Hill
White House to remove magnolia tree dating to Andrew Jackson
The White House will remove from its property a magnolia tree planted nearly 200 years ago with seeds said to have been brought from former President Jackson’s home in Tennessee.
President Trump announced Sunday that, after consulting with the Executive Residence Staff and the National Park Service, the administration has decided to replace the tree, saying it poses a safety hazard.
“The bad news is that everything must come to an end, and this tree is in terrible condition, a very dangerous safety hazard, at the White House Entrance, no less, and must now be removed,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, noting that the “good news” is that his administration is “making tremendous enhancements to the White House.”
“This process will take place next week, and will be replaced by another, very beautiful tree,” Trump said.
Trump added that White House staff will preserve the Magnolia tree’s “Historic wood,” which, Trump said, “may be used for other high and noble purposes!!!”
Continue reading at The Hill
The MAGA ‘celebrity’ trying to turn New Jersey red in 2025
Scott Presler is bringing his “Pennsylvania model” to the Garden State to register more GOP voters.
New Jersey Republicans are riding a high in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s gains in the blue-leaning state last November.
Now, they think they have found the key to keep that momentum going as they seek to flip the governor’s mansion this year: A tall, long-haired, cowboy boot-wearing, former “stop the steal” organizer with millions of social media followers.
Scott Presler, the conservative activist who runs Republican voter registration-focused PAC Early Vote Action and has built his brand around promoting Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, is focusing on the Garden State this year after spending much of 2024 in Pennsylvania. In recent weeks, Presler has crossed New Jersey to implement what he calls “the Pennsylvania model”: registering Republicans in oft-overlooked places — like gun ranges, Amish communities and fly fishing conventions — in both red and Democratic-leaning counties, and encouraging them to vote early for Republicans up and down the ballot.
Presler boasts of helping Trump win Pennsylvania in 2024, a pickup that catapulted the president back to the White House. And Presler thinks New Jersey, with his help, will head in the same direction. Part of that plan? Making sure he looks “really cute for the Shore this summer.”
“We’re going to be going to the clubs, we’re going to be doing beach volleyball,” the 36-year-old said in an interview with POLITICO. “I say this very tongue in cheek, but I want to talk to as many guidos as possible, and I want to get them all registered to vote and out to vote this November.”
Continue reading at Politico
WATCH LIVE: Elon Musk holds rally in Green Bay, WI
Trump says he’s ‘not joking’ about seeking a third term
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen awaits court ruling that could end 2027 presidential bid
Trump to visit Saudi Arabia in May for first foreign trip, sources say
President Trump is planning to travel to Saudi Arabia in mid-May on his first foreign trip since returning to the White House, two U.S. officials and a source with knowledge of the president's travel said.
Why it matters: Trump's decision to go to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip signals how close the relationship between the Trump administration and Gulf countries has become, especially when it comes to economic cooperation and investment.
Planning for the trip is taking place as the Trump administration works to resume the ceasefire in Gaza and get Hamas to release more hostages.
U.S. and Israeli officials say at this point plans for a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been put on the back burner, in large part because the Saudis want an irreversible time-bound path for establishing a Palestinian state — something the Israeli government doesn't accept.
Flashback: Trump's first foreign trip during his previous term was also to Saudi Arabia at roughly the same time.
Continue reading at Axios
GOP New Mexico headquarters hit in suspected arson
The Republican Party of New Mexico's Albuquerque headquarters were struck in a suspected arson attack early Sunday that caused thousands of dollars of damage, authorities say.
The big picture: No one was hurt in the fire, which marked the third time since 2017 that vandals had targeted the New Mexico GOP offices.
Zoom in: Firefighters arrived at the headquarters just before 6am Sunday and put the fire out within a few minutes, authorities say.
Albuquerque Fire Rescue said the front entryway sustained fire and smoke damage throughout the building.
The words "ICE = KKK" were sprayed on the building, images from the scene show.
Continue reading at Axios
Reports: White House ordered firing of 2 DOJ prosecutors
Two career Department of Justice officials were fired in one-line emails stating the dismissals were "on behalf of" President Trump, multiple outlets report.
Why it matters: Trump has long railed against what he's called the "weaponization" of the justice system. Now, the White House, "in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 U.S. Attorneys and Deputies in the past few weeks," per an emailed statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The dismissals of Adam Schleifer in Los Angeles and Reagan Fondren in Memphis late last week underscore "aggressive" White House efforts targeting U.S. attorney offices across multiple states, per the New York Times' reporting on the firings that cited to three anonymous sources that Axios could not independently confirm.
Catch up quick: The Daily Memphian first reported that Fondren had been fired on Thursday "in a one-line email" from her position as acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee and also as a DOJ employee.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) announced in a statement Friday that Joe Murphy would serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the district, saying she had "worked with President Trump to ensure that Memphis' chief federal prosecutor is competent, tough-on-crime, and pro-law enforcement."
Representatives for Blackburn's office did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening on Fondren's firing.
Continue reading at Axios
Musk defends million-dollar giveaways in Wisconsin
The top aide to Trump took the stage in Green Bay to support the Republican in the state Supreme Court race.
GREEN BAY, Wisconsin — After taking the stage wearing an iconic Wisconsin cheesehead hat, Elon Musk laid out why he supports the Republican in Tuesday’s high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race — and why he awarded million-dollar checks to two Wisconsinites who signed an America PAC petition opposing “partisan” judges.
“It’s to call attention” to the important race, he told the crowd of about 2,000 gathered in a standing-room-only room at the KI Convention Center, just a few miles from Lambeau Field.
“It’s a super big deal,” Musk said of the race, acknowledging the contest might affect “the entire destiny of humanity” in part because of the ripple effect that could affect the 2026 congressional races.
Musk took the stage after the state Supreme Court refused to block his effort to give out the million-dollar checks. On Saturday, Wisconsin’s Democratic Attorney General Joshua Kaul had asked the state’s high court to halt the giveaways after two lower state courts declined to do so.
The giveaways have drawn criticism for potentially violating election laws that bar giveaways in order to persuade voters.
Continue reading at Politico
LIVE: Elon Musk at Wisconsin town hall; $1M checks, Q&A
Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Elon Musk gave out $1 million checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization.”
“It’s a super big deal,” he told a roughly 2,000-person crowd in Green Bay on Sunday night, taking the stage in a yellow cheesehead hat. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”
Continue reading at the AP
Ron Johnson calls on John Roberts to ‘rein’ in ‘activist judges’
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to “rein those judges in” who have issued orders blocking parts of President Trump’s agenda.
“You’ll notice the activist judges, that the radical leftists, that the super legislators on the courts are issuing national injunctions against what he’s [President Trump’s] trying to do, what we wanted him to do, what the people elected him to do,” Johnson said, speaking to a crowd of constituents who gathered to hear tech billionaire at a town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday evening.
“We can’t let that continue,” Johnson said. “Now, what should happen is, is John Roberts ought to rein those judges in. He ought to take care of his own branch of government.”
Continue reading at The Hill
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