Closing summary
We will be wrapping the live blog for the 46th day of Trump’s second term.
Here is a look at some of the day’s developments:
The Trump administration announced that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.
The Trump administration fired the head of the US justice department office that handles presidential pardon requests, the official said in a social media post. Liz Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, said: “I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years.”
The Department of Homeland Security is ending the collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of airport transportation security officers. The agency, led by secretary Kristi Noem, also said it will stop deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a major setback for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA screeners and relies on $15m in annual payments.
The US Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety. The USDA eliminated the national advisory committee on microbiological criteria for foods and the national advisory committee on meat and poultry inspection, a spokesperson told Reuters.
About 4,000 defense department personnel received termination notices this week from their employers, a US official told ABC News. Last week, the department said that up to 5,400 employees could be affected in an initial round of job cuts.
After the New York Times reported that Elon Musk and Marco Rubio had argued in front of Trump on Thursday, the president said “no clash” had happened. “No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker and you’re not supposed to be asking that question, because we’re talking about the World Cup,” Trump said to a reporter.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is removing a previous requirement that banks had to get special approval before engaging in a range of cryptocurrency services. The government agency overseeing banks reaffirmed that US banks can legally offer certain cryptocurrency activities, like crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in independent node verification networks.
Donald Trump held court in the Oval Office, where he again expressed sympathy for Russia, saying he found it “easier” to negotiate with them on achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump also threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs if it did not sign on to a ceasefire.
Trump cheered the latest employment numbers as proving the wisdom of his economic policies, and said he may soon target Canada with more tariffs to settle long-running disputes over their dairy and lumber industries.
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Doge reviewing $1.6tn in social security payments, alarming advocates
The so-called “department of government efficiency” is reviewing $1.6tn in social security payments, which includes data on individuals’ names, birthdates, and earnings, in an anti-fraud initiative that has raised concerns among advocates, ABC News reports. They fear that the Trump administration may begin denying benefits to vulnerable older Americans.
Details of this initiative were confirmed in a recent letter to Congress by the acting social security administrator, Lee Dudek, and others officials.
Along with reviewing sensitive data, Doge staff have been looking into the Social Security Administration’s telephone service, which many beneficiaries use to file initial claims.
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Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’
Donald Trump’s administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean-air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.
Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding, majority-Black neighborhoods.
The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 in a bid to substantially curb the plant’s emissions of a pollutant named chloroprene, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. A trial had been due to start in April 2025 following lengthy delays.
Community leaders in Reserve had expressed grave concerns about the case’s future following Trump’s return to the White House after the president moved to gut offices within the EPA and justice department responsible for civil rights and environmental justice.
Read Oliver Laughland’s full report from New Orleans here:
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US state department to review all visa programs
The US state department is conducting a review of all visa programs, a department spokesperson told CNN, following reports of a potential new travel ban. A US official told the news outlet that Afghanistan might be among the countries affected.
The ban could take effect as early as next week, though the final decisions regarding the included countries and the timing remain uncertain, according to the official.
On 20 January, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing cabinet members, including the secretary of state, to identify countries where vetting and screening processes are inadequate enough to justify a partial or full suspension of admissions.
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Former fundraiser for disgraced ex-US representative George Santos sentenced to prison
A former campaign fundraiser for the ex-US representative George Santos was sentenced Friday to one year and one day in prison for impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide while raising cash for the disgraced New York Republican.
Sam Miele, speaking briefly in federal court on Long Island, apologized to everyone he had “let down”, including family and friends, the Associated Press reports.
“What I did was wrong. Plain and simple,” Miele said, vowing he would never be involved with the criminal justice system again.
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Protesters demanding an in-person town hall from their western Michigan GOP representative chanted loudly Friday as honking drivers signaled support, the Associated Press reports.
Hours later, the representative Bill Huizenga held a town hall – by phone. The disruption seen outside his Holland office earlier in the day was absent, as the controlled setting allowed for questions from people who wrote and called in.
“I know this may not be satisfactory to some who would like to just create a scene and be, you know, be disruptive,” Huizenga said on the call. “But we know that this is extremely effective for reaching people.”
Some Republicans have opted to hold telephone town halls after GOP leaders in recent days advised lawmakers to skip town halls, which have been filled with protesters decrying Donald Trump’s administration’s slashing of the federal government.
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The US Department of Labor has reinstated about 120 employees who had been facing termination as part of the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired workers, a union said on Friday.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, told Reuters that the probationary employees had been reinstated immediately and that the department was issuing letters telling them to report back to duty on Monday.
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The New York representative Elise Stefanik praised Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University because of what the administration alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment. In a statement, Stefanik said:
President Trump is delivering on his promise to hold universities like Columbia accountable by defunding them for failing to protect their Jewish communities,” said Stefanik in a statement sent over email. “I’m proud of my efforts on the Education Committee which led to the FORMER Columbia University President’s resignation and I applaud President Trump for ensuring that hardworking taxpayer dollars do not fund these cesspools of antisemitism.
Here’s more context on the grant cancellations:
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DoJ official in charge of pardon requests fired by Trump
The Trump administration fired the head of the US Justice Department office that handles presidential pardon requests, the official said in a social media post.
Liz Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, posted on LinkedIn:
I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years. I am so proud of the team we built in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who will carry on our important work. I’m very grateful for the many extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with on this journey. Thank you for your partnership, your support, and your belief in second chances.
A pardon attorney runs the process by which people apply for and receive clemency.
Oyer’s termination comes two weeks after Donald Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as “pardon czar”, a role in which she will recommend people for presidential commutations.
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DHS announces end of collective bargaining agreement with TSA workers
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that it is ending the collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of airport transportation security officers.
The agency, led by secretary Kristi Noem, also said it will stop deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a major setback for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA screeners and relies on $15m in annual payments.
“Thanks to Secretary Noem’s action, Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them,” reads a statement by a DHS spokesperson. “The Trump Administration is committed [to] returning to merit-based hiring and firing policies.”
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USDA eliminates two committees on food safety
The US Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety, the agency said on Friday.
The USDA eliminated the national advisory committee on microbiological criteria for foods and the national advisory committee on meat and poultry inspection, a spokesperson told Reuters.
These cuts raise concerns about government oversight of the food supply as the Trump administration seeks to downsize the federal bureaucracy and slash costs.
The committees provided scientific advice to the USDA and other federal agencies on public health issues related to food safety, said the non-profit consumer advocacy group Consumer Reports.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs will allow crisis hotline responders to work remotely instead of in offices because of the lack of privacy, CNN reports.
The VA granted a full exemption for the Veterans Crisis Line from Donald Trump’s executive order requiring federal employees to return to the office.
The hotline staff no longer have their own office space because the buildings that housed the call center’s three national hubs – in Georgia, Kansas and New York – were all closed during the Covid pandemic.
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A court-appointed lawyer advised a judge to end New York City mayor Eric Adams’s criminal case.
Paul D Clement, the lawyer tasked with reviewing the federal case, said the case should be dismissed with prejudice based on the legal arguments brought by the Department of Justice.
“A dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial sword of Damocles over the accused,” Clement wrote in his filing.
NBC News reports that two federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York who worked on the Adams case had been placed on leave on Friday and escorted out of the building by federal law enforcement officials.
Adams was indicted in September on charges alleging he accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence while he was the Brooklyn borough president.
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The Guardian’s Robert Tait reports on the latest guidance by the EPA, directing all spending of $50,000 or more to gain approval from Doge first:
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued new guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 now require approval from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), even as Donald Trump begins putting some distance between Musk’s reach and the power of government department heads – at least over job cuts.
“Any assistance agreement, contract or interagency agreement transaction [valued at] $50,000 or greater must receive approval from an EPA DOGE team member,” the EPA guidance says, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The EPA did not respond to a request from the news agency on Friday for comment.
The senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works committee, called the new directive “troubling”, adding that it means agency actions, including routine contracts and grant awards, “now face unnecessary bureaucratic delays”.
Whitehouse added that the involvement of Musk’s “unvetted, inexperienced team raises serious concerns about improper external influence on specialized agency decision-making”.
The latest development came after Donald Trump on Thursday gave a clear sign of admitting that drastic government cuts spearheaded by his ally Musk had gone too far. The US president’s views after an explosive, closed-door cabinet confrontation involving Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, exposed simmering anger over the billionaire entrepreneur’s key role; Musk had attended the meetingeven though he is not a cabinet member.
After weeks of turmoil in the federal bureaucracy wreaked by the Doge team, Trump issued a call for a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet” to be applied to the task of reducing the federal bureaucracy.
The president’s comment in a social media post followed a volatile encounter that saw Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla owner who has assumed a central role in Trump’s fledgling administration, face off against Rubio, whom he accused of “firing nobody”, according to the New York Times. Rubio, who had been furious over Musk’s role in shutting down the main US foreign assistance body, USAid – over which the secretary of state supposedly has control – hit back vigorously, according to the report.
Read the full story here:
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About 4,000 defense department personnel receive pink slips
About 4,000 defense department personnel received termination notices this week from their employers, a US official told ABC News.
Last week, the department said that up to 5,400 employees could be affected in an initial round of job cuts.
These cuts may affect 5% to 8% of its 878,000 civilian workers. The agency did not provide an explanation for the difference in numbers.
The US official told the news outlet that 31,000 civilian employees submitted a resignation request per the Office of Personnel Management email.
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US comptroller office says banks don't need approval for some cryptocurrency services
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a statement on Friday that it is removing a previous requirement that banks had to get special approval before engaging in a range of cryptocurrency services.
The government agency overseeing banks reaffirmed that US banks can legally offer certain cryptocurrency activities, like crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in independent node verification networks.
“Today’s action will reduce the burden on banks to engage in crypto-related activities and ensure that these bank activities are treated consistently by the OCC, regardless of the underlying technology,” said acting comptroller of the currency Rodney E Hood. “I will continue to work diligently to ensure regulations are effective and not excessive, while maintaining a strong federal banking system.”
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A South Carolina man has been detained after allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump.
Travis Keith Lang, 47, pleaded not guilty on Friday during an appearance at the federal courthouse, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reports. He is being detained pending a bond hearing scheduled for14 March. The Secret Service is investigating.
A single-paragraph indictment was filed in federal court on Tuesday. It says Lang threatened to “take the life of, to kidnap, and to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States”.
Lang filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president as a Republican in 2024. According to FEC filings, his only campaign donation was $6,000 he gave himself.
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Scientists and lawmakers are gathering across the US for “Stand Up for Science” rallies. Science educator Bill Nye, former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, the senator Chris Van Hollen and the representative Jamie Raskin joined the rally at Washington’s DC’s Lincoln Memorial.
Demonstrators are rallying against firings, budget cuts and reduced grants affecting health, climate, science and other research agencies during the first months of the Trump administration.
Here are some photos coming in from the wires:
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Donald Trump is now hosting leaders in the cryptocurrency industry for the first-ever White House Digital Assets Summit.
“Last year, I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet, and we’re taking historic action to deliver on that promise, as you know,” the president said as the meeting began.
Here’s more about the president’s embrace of digital assets, which marks a sharp turnaround from Joe Biden’s skeptical approach to the currencies:
The 2026 World Cup will be hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico and Canada – the two neighbors with whom Donald Trump just started a trade war.
Canada and Mexico are very unhappy with Trump for the tariffs he imposed this week (though he later exempted many products). The US president was asked about those feelings in the Oval Office, where he signed an executive order establishing a taskforce to coordinate the World Cup alongside Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
Trump replied:
I think it’s going to make it more exciting. Tension’s a good thing.
Here’s more about how the continental trade rivalry could affect the international soccer tournament:
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Trump says 'no clash' happened between Rubio and Musk at cabinet meeting
Donald Trump just invited reporters back in to the Oval Office to talk about his preparations for next year’s World Cup. But the press, of course, had other things they wanted to know about, specifically the New York Times’s reporting that Elon Musk and Marco Rubio had argued in front of him yesterday.
“No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker and you’re not supposed to be asking that question, because we’re talking about the World Cup,” Trump told a reporter who inquired about the reported spat. “But Elon gets along great with Marco and they’re both doing a fantastic job. But there is no clash.”
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The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, has warned that Donald Trump’s administration has created so much uncertainty among consumers and businesses that it could affect the economy:
The US economy faces a potential slowdown in consumer spending amid “heightened uncertainty about the economic outlook” among businesses, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said on Friday.
The central bank chief said the Fed will be in no rush to cut interest rates while it waits for more clarity on how the policies of the new Trump administration affect the economy.
“The new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas: trade, immigration, fiscal policy and regulation,” Powell said in remarks prepared for a University of Chicago Booth School of Business economic forum in New York City. “Uncertainty around the changes and their likely effects remains high.
“We are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves. We do not need to be in a hurry and are well-positioned to wait for greater clarity.”
Powell spoke at a volatile time, with stock markets and bond yields both declining in the wake of Donald Trump’s whiplash announcements of steep import tariffs on major trading partners Mexico and Canada, followed by delays in implementing them. Trump has also doubled tariffs on imports from China.
Though Powell said the economy “continues to be in a good place”, he added: “It remains to be seen how these developments might affect future spending and investment.”
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Musk squabbled with Trump cabinet secretaries over firings - report
Yesterday, reports emerged that Donald Trump had told cabinet secretaries that they were in charge of hiring and firing at their agencies, and that Elon Musk, whose so-called “department of government efficiency” has ordered disruptive staff cuts, would play an advisory role.
It was a concrete sign of the president looking to rein in Musk in his unorthodox position, and the New York Times reports that the meeting was quite tense. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Musk reportedly went at it for a while in front of Trump:
Mr Rubio had been privately furious with Mr Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting in front of President Trump and around 20 others – details of which have not been reported before – Mr Rubio got his grievances off his chest.
Mr Musk was not being truthful, Mr Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department.
The atmosphere also grew heated again when Musk turned to the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, whose department is dealing with the aftermath of the first major plane crash in 15 years:
Just moments before the blowup with Mr Rubio, Mr Musk and the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, went back and forth about the state of the Federal Aviation Administration’s equipment for tracking airplanes and what kind of fix was needed. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, jumped in to support Mr Musk.
Mr Duffy said the young staff of Mr Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?
Here’s more on Musk’s newly fractious relationship with Trump’s cabinet, as well as Republican senators:
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Trump order will bar student loan forgiveness for public servants engaged in ' improper activities'
Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order barring government and non-profit employees from a student loan forgiveness program if they engage in “improper activities”.
The order affects the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which employees of those organizations can have their federal student debt forgiven if they meet certain criteria. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the order will target employees of non-governmental organizations “that engage in illegal, or what we would consider to be improper activities, supporting, for example, illegal immigration or foreign terrorist organizations or otherwise law-breaking activities”.
The order will direct the treasury and education departments to ensure that people involved in those activities are not eligible for the forgiveness.
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The news of Columbia University’s federal grants and contract cancellations comes just two days after a fake bomb threat resulted in the evacuations of students protesting in support of Palestinians by NYPD at the university’s women’s college, Barnard.
Many students continue to fight back against what they view as the university’s crackdown on free speech and protest.
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A Columbia University spokesperson wrote in a statement to school’s newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, that it is “reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding”.
“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson wrote.
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Trump administration cancels $400m in grants and contracts to Columbia University
Columbia University just had $400m worth of federal grants and contracts terminated, the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Education, and the US General Services Administration announced.
A press release from the Department of Education said the contracts were cancelled “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”.
The university, which has more than $5bn in federal grant commitments, has been a target of the Trump administration as it was the birthplace of the Gaza encampment protests that swept the country last year, in which students pitched tents and camped out on their colleges’ lawns in protest of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Republican lawmakers viewed the protests as antisemitic, despite the fact many protesters vehemently denied the accusations or are even Jewish themselves.
This is the first of of many cancellations and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a chilling warning to other colleges who allow for such protests: “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus.
“Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”
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The Trump administration has withdrawn the US from a global agreement under which developed nations most responsible for the climate crisis pledged to partly compensate developing countries for irreversible harms caused by global heating.
The loss and damage fund was agreed at the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai – a hard-won victory after years of diplomatic and grassroots advocacy by developing nations that bear the brunt of the climate crisis despite having contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions. The fund signalled a commitment by developed, polluting countries to provide financial support for some of the irreversible economic and noneconomic losses from sea level rise, desertification, drought and floods already happening.
The US has a long record of delay tactics and obstructionism, and had so far pledged only $17.5m (£13.5m) to the loss and damage fund, which became operational on 1 January this year. Now the US, the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, will no longer participate in the initiative.
“On behalf of the United States Department of the Treasury, I write to inform you that the United States is withdrawing from the board for the fund for responding to loss and damage, effective immediately,” said Rebecca Lawlor, the deputy director at the US Office of Climate and Environment, in a letter to the fund.
The decision to abandon the loss and damage fund was condemned by climate advocates from the global north and south.
Here’s more on this story:
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The day so far
Donald Trump just held court in the Oval Office, where he again expressed sympathy for Russia, saying he found it “easier” to negotiate with them on achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine. He also cheered the latest employment numbers as proving the wisdom of his economic policies, and said he may soon target Canada with more tariffs to settle long-running disputes over their dairy and lumber industries. The president sounded a bit different earlier in the day, when he threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs if it did not sign on to a ceasefire. Trump is scheduled to sign executive orders at 2.30pm, before heading to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Democrats are no fan of Trump’s tariffs, but one congressman told his party not to ignore their appeal to voters in deindustrialized areas of the country.
The latest attempt by the “department of government efficiency” to take over a federal agency was stopped by a judge, for now.
Justin Trudeau’s recent call with Trump ended with tense and profane words, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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Trump says 'easier' dealing with Russia to negotiate ceasefire in Ukraine
Donald Trump kept up his streak of sounding partial to the US’s historic enemy Russia, by acknowledging that he viewed them as an “easier” negotiating partner in finding a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“I find that in terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia, which is surprising, because they have all the cards, and they’re bombing the hell out of them right now,” Trump said.
Asked whether he believes Vladimir Putin wants peace, Trump said:
I believe him. I think we’re doing very well with Russia, and right now they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine. I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. They don’t have the cards.
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Trump says he plans to impose tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy
The United States has had a long-running trade dispute with Canada over its dairy and lumber exports, and Donald Trump just said he would be willing to explicitly sanction imports of those products from the US’s northern neighbor.
“Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “That’s not going to happen anymore … they’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it, and that’s what reciprocal [means]. And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to charge the same thing.”
Concerns about Canada’s management of its dairy and lumber industries have persisted for years and across administrations. Here’s a look back at the disputes from 2021, when Joe Biden was in office:
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Trump touts private sector job growth in latest employment data
Donald Trump is speaking in the Oval Office now, where he’s singing his praises of the February employment data the labor department released this morning, noting it showed more hiring in the private sector.
“Under the final two years of Biden, one in every four jobs created in America was a government job. That’s a tremendous percentage,” the president said. “But under the first full month of President Trump, which we haven’t even gotten started yet, an incredible 93% of all job gains were in the private sector.”
The comments come as Trump has vowed to dramatically downsize government, including with mass firings of federal employees. The February data from the labor department showed a 10,000 position decrease in employment in the federal government. Here’s more on the report:
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In an interview with CNN earlier today, top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Donald Trump was waging “a drug war, not a trade war”.
Hassett, who chairs the National Economic Council, also said the president was looking to negotiate with Canada and Mexico, particularly when it comes to stopping the flows of fentanyl into the United States.
“This is a drug war, not a trade war. And the bottom line is it’s a negotiation,” Hassett said.
“I could tell you that I’ve been in the Situation Room looking at photos of places that we think are producing fentanyl. And so President Trump has adjusted the parameters over time as he’s seen progress, because, you know, we need to have some progress. Tens of thousands of Americans are dying of fentanyl. And we’ve seen the Canadians and the Mexicans crack down in a good way.”
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Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that at the Pentagon, Donald Trump’s purge of DEI related materials has swept up just about anything associated with the word “gay” – even the Enola Gay, which was the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb:
References to a second world war Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and the first women to pass US marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion at the Pentagon.
The preparations come as the US defense department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content, according to a database obtained by the Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by US officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for content deemed to be related to DEI, which the Trump administration has officially turned against. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
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In an alternate universe, we would be awaiting a speech from the president, Kamala Harris, right now. But we live in this reality, and thus, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports that the former vice-president is considering a run for governor of her home state:
Kamala Harris is considering a run to be governor of California and has given herself until the end of the summer to make a final decision, sources close to her have told Politico.
The former US vice-president has been weighing up a gubernatorial campaign in her home state as one option for remaining in the political arena since her presidential election defeat to Donald Trump last November.
Now allies have told Politico that she is close to throwing her hat in the ring after she turned up at a pre-Oscar parties last weekend in Los Angeles at which she reportedly rubbed shoulders with wealthy Democratic power brokers.
The party’s nomination for the governor’s candidacy in 2026 is up for grabs because term limits prevent the current incumbent, Gavin Newsom, from running again.
Harris has retained her tightly knit team of advisers since leaving the vice-presidency in January and attended a series of political events, repeatedly telling people: “I am staying in this fight,” according to Politico.
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Chris Deluzio, the Democratic congressman, has a warning for his party: don’t ignore the appeal of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
In an essay for the New York Times, Deluzio writes that for deindustrialized areas of the United States, such as his western Pennsylvania district, voters are hopeful tariffs will restore the prosperity they view as being lost to free trade deals that shipped jobs abroad:
If you oppose all tariffs, you are essentially signaling that you are comfortable with exploited foreign workers making your stuff at the expense of American workers. I am not and neither are most voters. Many polls show that Americans – especially the three-fifths without college degrees – support tariffs in part, economists have suggested, because communities harmed by global competition view them “as a sign of political solidarity”. The Biden administration, to its credit, tripled tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. So, why is the Democrats’ only message on tariffs that they raise prices? That was the play during the 2024 election and it flopped.
That being said, Deluzio criticizes Trump for a haphazard approach to imposing the levies. The president has alternated between slapping tariffs on countries, then announcing temporary pauses and exemptions, which Deluzio said will undermine their effectiveness, particularly if Trump supports the repeal of legislation intended to stimulate domestic manufacturing:
For one thing, tariffs are effective only when used in a predictable and stable way – and the Trump administration’s approach has been anything but. On Feb. 1, Mr. Trump announced he was imposing new 10 percent tariffs on China and fixing part of a trade scam that allows four million packages to enter the United States daily without facing tariffs, taxes or meaningful inspection – simply because they’re labeled “low value.” Not only does this “de minimis” loophole undermine U.S. producers and retailers, but traffickers also often exploit it to sneak in deadly fentanyl-laced pills and fentanyl precursor chemicals. Days after his announcement, Mr. Trump flip-flopped and reopened the loophole. He raised China tariffs another 10 percent on March 4 – good! But still, the loophole means billions in Chinese imports can evade tariffs and inspections.
Mr. Trump’s chaotic tariff two-step – imposing, delaying, threatening and then again imposing tariffs, including on allies like Canada with whom we mainly have balanced trade – is bad business for America. Entrepreneurs ready to invest in production here sit on the sidelines, wondering where the tariff roller coaster will stop.
Democrats should emphasize that tariffs alone will not create jobs or build new plants.
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Trump to make unscheduled address from Oval Office
The White House just announced that Donald Trump will soon speak from the Oval Office.
He was scheduled to talk at 11am, but the Associated Press now expects it to begin an hour late.
The White House did not specify the subject of the unscheduled address. We’ll let you know what the president has to say when he begins speaking.
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Trump says exempting many Canadian and Mexican products from tariffs is 'a fair thing to do'
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Donald Trump vowed to press on with tariffs on a wide range of countries beginning next month, but said he decided to temporarily exempt many Canadian and Mexican imports from tariffs to give US businesses relief.
“I wanted to help Mexico and Canada to a certain extent. We’re a big, big country, and they do a lot of their business with us, whereas in our case, it’s much less significant. We do very little with Canada by comparison. And I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2nd. April 2nd, it becomes all reciprocal,” Trump said, referring to his plan to place levies on foreign imports equal to what they put on American products.
“But this is short-term. And I felt that for the good of the American carmakers … I thought it would be a fair thing to do. And so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time.”
While Trump talks a big game on tariffs, he has repeatedly delayed or lessened levies on Mexico and Canada, two of the United States’s largest trading partners. Here’s the latest on that:
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On Tuesday night, a federal judge temporarily blocked an attempt by Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to takeover a small federal agency that promotes economic development in Africa, after a tense standoff between staff and the billionaire’s cost-cutting team ensued earlier this week.
The ruling by US district court in Washington judge Richard Leon, an George W Bush appointee, was an initial victory for the United States African Development Foundation, whose CEO and president, Ward Brehm, filed a lawsuit on Thursday, after Doge, with the White House’s blessing, attempted to remove him and install the Trump loyalist Peter Marocco. The agency’s dissent has inspired federal workers across the government, as it fights efforts to effectively shutter its operations.
Democracy Forward filed the legal challenge on Brehm’s behalf. The ruling means that, for now, Brehm remains in charge of the agency, which has roughly 50 staff. A hearing will take place next week.
The complaint accuses Doge and Marocco, a state department official tasked with dismantling USAid, of violating the agency’s founding statute and asserts that Congress, not the White House, can eliminate it.
Doge’s team, accompanied by US marshals and Marocco, gained access to the building on Thursday, after staffers prevented them from entering on Wednesday. In the complaint, the foundation details the incident that led to Wednesday’s showdown. It says Doge members attempted to enter the building under “false pretenses of modernizing and streamlining USADF’s computer systems”. When staffers refused to grant them access, the Doge officials responded by threatening to terminate the foundation’s board of directors.
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Randomly enough, Donald Trump also took time out of his morning to attack South Africa, writing on Truth Social:
South Africa is being terrible, plus, to long time Farmers in the country. They are confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT. A bad place to be right now, and we are stopping all Federal Funding. To go a step further, any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship. This process will begin immediately!
“Long time Farmers” appears to be code for white South Africans, who control most of the country’s land and wealth. They are a group Trump cares for quite a bit, as opposed to, say, the estimated 500,000 people in South Africa who could die in the next decade due to his cuts to US-funded HIV programs.
Here’s more about Trump’s latest salvo against South Africa:
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Trump threatens tariffs and sanctions on Russia until ceasefire is reached in Ukraine
Donald Trump says he is considering imposing sanctions and tariffs on Russia to encourage the country to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, noting that they have stepped up their attacks on their neighbor recently.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said:
Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!
The president’s threat came after Moscow mounted a major attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure. We have the latest on that in our live blog covering European news:
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While the February employment report showed no significant changes to the labor market, there was at least one sign that Donald Trump’s often haphazard government downsizing effort was having an effect.
The labor department’s data showed federal government employment decreased by 10,000 overall, with 3,500 fewer jobs in the postal service and 6,700 in the rest of the government. Those numbers could increase, perhaps dramatically, in the months to come, if Trump’s mass firing efforts continue.
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Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has scrambled to convince Donald Trump to lift tariffs on his country, which together with Mexico and China is one of the US’s largest trading partners.
That effort included a phone call between the two leaders on Wednesday, which appears to have had some effect – on Thursday, Trump exempted Canada from some of the tariffs he had imposed, along with Mexico.
But relations between Trump and Trudeau, who is expected to leave office soon, are tense. The Wall Street Journal has some details of just how tense:
Trudeau responded Tuesday by placing tariffs on the US, and he questioned whether further negotiations would make any difference, accusing Trump of acting in “bad faith.” The two leaders eventually spoke Wednesday morning, an exchange Trump said ended in a “somewhat” friendly manner. A person familiar with the matter said the call grew heated and included profanity.
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US sees slightly less than expected job growth in February
Hiring in the United States remained steady in February, the first full month of Donald Trump’s term, albeit at a rate just under what economists had expected, according to government data.
Employment rose by 151,000 positions last month and the unemployment rate ticked higher by a small amount to 4.1%. Economists had forecast slightly better payroll growth and a flat unemployment rate, but the report was nonetheless a sign that the labor market remained on steady footing.
Whether that will last remains to be seen, as Trump threatens to intensify tariffs on US trading partners, and continues his plans to fire federal employees. Indeed, The data from the labor department showed that one of the sectors that lost the most jobs last month was the federal government.
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Donald Trump will receive the first employment data of his new term at 8.30am, when the labor department releases its jobs report for February.
Hiring has been steady for months, and economists expect that it remained so in February. But surprises are always possible, including those sparked by his campaign to lay off federal workers en masse. Either way, the monthly jobs report is a closely watched sign of economic health, and the White House will no doubt weigh in on it.
Here’s a look back at last month’s release, which covered the transition period between Joe Biden and Trump’s administration:
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Tens of thousands of US federal employees could lose their jobs after the Trump administration moves to reduce the size of the federal workforce dramatically.
With Elon Musk at the helm of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), which is overseeing efforts to cull federal employment, the White House has embarked on multiple plans to cut down on virtually all areas of federal employment.
There are no official numbers of how many federal employees will be affected, and many of Donald Trump and Musk’s efforts have been stalled in court, but the impact could be big and long-lasting.
To understand what the cuts will do to federal operations, we first have to understand who works for the federal government and what they do. Here’s what we know about the federal workforce.
As deadly severe storms swept the US this week, recent Donald Trump administration staffing cuts have left key parts of weather monitoring and disaster preparedness systems severely understaffed, the Guardian has learned.
March typically signals the start of a four-month tornado season across the eastern two-thirds of the US. Last year’s tornado season was one of the most prolific on record, and this year’s tornado season is getting off to an early active start.
A multi-day tornado outbreak tore across several southern states, with significant damage reported near Ada, Oklahoma, including part of an elementary school. Dangerous storms then spread eastward into the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic. Strong winds in Mississippi killed and injured multiple people in separate incidents.
The period of unsettled weather raised concerns internally among National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists that the newly downsized agency could be stretched thin.
Trump says he sent letter to Iranian leader to negotiate deal
Donald Trump said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran and sent a letter to its leadership on Thursday saying he hoped they would agree to talk.
“I said I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,” the US president said in the interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Friday.
“I think they want to get that letter. The other alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let another nuclear weapon.”
The letter appeared to have been addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The White House did not immediately respond to a request about that, Reuters reported.
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, discussed international efforts to resolve the situation around Iran’s nuclear program with the Iranian ambassador, Kazem Jalali, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.
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Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California believed to be eyeing a run for president in 2028, is facing fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates after his suggestion that the participation of transgender women and girls in female sports was “deeply unfair”.
In the inaugural episode of his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, the governor hosted conservative political activist and Maga darling Charlie Kirk. The co-founder and executive director of the rightwing Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based organization that operates on school campuses, told Newsom: “You, right now, should come out and be like: ‘You know what? The young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports – that shouldn’t happen.’ You, as the governor, should step out and say: ‘No.’”
The governor responded: “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that … it’s deeply unfair.”
Members of his own party in California quickly condemned the comments.
“We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks,” assembly member Chris Ward and senator Caroline Menjivar, of the California legislative LGBTQ+ caucus, said in a statement. “All students deserve the academic and health benefits of sports activity, and until Donald Trump began obsessing about it, playing on a team consistent with one’s gender has not been a problem since the standard was passed in 2013.”
California law has long protected trans youth’s rights to participate in school activities that match their gender.
US president Donald Trump said US tariffs could go up over time but gave no other details, according to an excerpt of a Fox Business interview taped on Thursday that aired on Friday.
Asked whether businesses could get clarity about his tariff plan, Trump said:
Well, I think so. But, you know, the terms could go up as time goes by, and they may go up and, you know, I don’t know if it’s predictability.
Staff on hundreds of foreign aid projects left in limbo by the Trump administration’s funding freeze have received a survey that asks them to justify their work under an eccentric list of criteria that meet the White House’s new national security priorities.
The survey, copies of which have been obtained by the Guardian, asks foreign aid programme staff to detail whether they contribute to limiting illegal immigration or securing US borders, “combatting Christian prosecution”,and whether they help the US secure access to rare earth minerals.
It also includes a litmus test on several controversial issues banned under the Trump administration. “Can you confirm this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project or include such elements? [yes/no],” the survey asks. It also asks: “Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equality and inclusion] project or DEI elements of the project? [yes /no].”
The questionnaire, which was distributed eight weeks after the US president issued a foreign aid funding freeze, comes as thousands of projects have already laid off staff and cut ties with local partners, meaning that even if stop-work orders are lifted the programmes may remain shuttered.
The administration has claimed that it has restored funding for life-saving programmes and has developed a rigorous criteria for reviewing all foreign aid spending. But staff have described a chaotic process or a complete lack of communication with USAid and State Department officials meant to review their programmes.
Opening summary: China to continue retaliation against US tariffs
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the coming hours.
We start with news that the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said China will continue to retaliate against the United States’ “arbitrary tariffs”. Donald Trump is continuing with his action against China despite pausing similar measures against Canada and Mexico.
In a press conference on Friday, Wang said China’s efforts to help the US contain its fentanyl crisis have been met with punitive tariffs, which are straining the ties between the countries.
“No country should fantasise that it can suppress China and maintain a good relationship with China at the same time,” Wang said. “Such two-faced acts are not good for the stability of bilateral relations or for building mutual trust.”
The two countries have been engaging in tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs since Trump’s return to office in January.
The US has imposed flat tariffs of 20% on all Chinese imports, while Beijing has countered with additional 15% duties on US imports including chicken, pork, soy and beef, as well as expanded controls on doing business with key US companies.
It comes as Trump once again put a central part of his trade war on pause, temporarily exempting from tariffs Mexican and Canadian goods covered by the continental free trade agreement he negotiated in his first term.
However, the president said he was still ready to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on both Canada and Mexico next month.
In other news:
Trump told his cabinet secretaries that they are in charge of hiring and firings at their agencies, not Elon Musk.
The House has voted to censure Democratic congressman Al Green for disrupting Trump’s address to this week’s joint session of Congress. The motion was approved with 224 votes in favor and 198 opposed, with 10 Democrats in support.
In an escalation of his pressure campaign, Trump said the US will not fight for Nato allies who don’t spend enough on their own defense.
US district judge Beryl Howell ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s firing of a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board was illegal and ordered that she be reinstated to her post.
Axios reports that the state department is hunting for evidence that foreign students who express support for Palestinians under Israeli occupation while studying in the US are “pro-Hamas”, and can have their visas revoked, based on an AI review of their social media accounts.
Trump thanked a reporter for the partisan outlet Breitbart for asking him a friendly question in the Oval Office, which teed him up to attack Democrats. The White House excluded non-partisan reporters from Reuters and the Associated Press to make room for Breitbart and One America News, two pro-Trump outlets.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday evening to establish a “strategic bitcoin reserve”, a day before meeting with executives from the cryptocurrency industry at the White House.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who reportedly endured a profanity-laced tirade from Trump, was asked about his foreign minister’s comment that dealing with the US was now “a psychodrama”. “How would you characterize it?” a reporter asked. “Thursday”, Trudeau replied.
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