Today's recap
We’re ending our live coverage at this time. Here’s a rundown of what happened today:
A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.
The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59pm ET tonight. But the US transport department has told workers they should respond to the demand by the key Trump adviser.
The US office of personnel management has told government HR officials that employees should not feel obliged to respond to the email asking them to justify their jobs, undermining Musk’s ultimatum.
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US education department and the US office of personnel management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
A federal judge has extended protections for trans women in prison. The judge, who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.
As we’ve mentioned on the blog, a federal judge denied the Associated Press’s request to immediately restore its access to presidential events.
From the Guardian staff and agencies:
The US district judge Trevor McFadden declined to grant the AP’s request for a temporary injunction restoring its access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House. The Trump administration barred the outlet earlier this month for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage after the president renamed it the “Gulf of America”.
McFadden, a Trump appointee, said the restriction on “more private areas” used by Trump was different from prior instances in which courts have blocked government officials from revoking access to journalists.
“I can’t say the AP has shown a likelihood of success here,” McFadden said.
But he also described the ban as “problematic” and advised the government that “case law in this circuit is uniformly unhelpful to the White House”. McFadden said the issue required more exploration before ruling. Another hearing in the case has been set for next month.
The AP filed a lawsuit over the ban last week, in which it named three senior Trump aides and argued that the decision to block its reporters from certain locations violates the US constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of speech by trying to dictate the language they use in reporting the news.
“The constitution prevents the president of the United States or any other government official from coercing journalists or anyone else into using official government vocabulary to report the news,” Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the AP, said during a court hearing.
The outlet’s attorneys argued the AP would face “irreparable harm” if the ban was not immediately lifted.
Updated
Musk's Doge targets agency that funds homelessness relief
The federal department that funds housing and support for unhoused people is expected to lose 84% of its staff, according to an NPR report published this weekend.
According to NPR, the Office of Community Planning and Development is set to see the deepest cuts of any office within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud). The cuts would come amid an escalating homelessness crisis. A Hud report counted 18% more unhoused people during its annual tally in January 2024 than the year before, finding that the number of unhoused people nationally was larger the population of Seattle.
Overall, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, an entity known as DOGE and overseen by Elon Musk, plans to reduce HUD’s staffing by about half.
The Community Planning and Development office at HUD disburses more than $3.6 billion in federal funding for rental assistance, mental health and substance use treatment, and outreach to try and get those living outside into shelter or housing. It’s the “backbone” of local communities’ response to homelessness, Oliva said, “in blue states and red states alike.”
Cutting so much staff would mean firing not only people at headquarters in Washington, D.C., but also those in field offices around the country, she said. And that means it would likely take longer to get funding to the thousands of local nonprofits who provide housing and other support.
Updated
Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Republican leader, has said that the Trump administration’s refusal to name Russia as the aggressor in the conflict “reflects a gross misunderstanding of the nature of negotiations and leverage”.
In a statement today, he said:
Blame for this human catastrophe rests solely on Vladimir Putin. Here’s how we know: If Russian forces laid down their arms, Europe would be at peace. If Ukrainian forces laid down theirs, Putin’s aims would not stop with Kyiv. Mistaking this fact is as embarrassing as it is costly.
McConnell was part of a group of Democratic and Republican US senators offering a resolution backing Ukraine.
Updated
Office of personnel management says Musk ultimatum will not hold
The US office of personnel management has told government HR officials that employees should not feel obliged to respond to email asking them to justify their jobs, undermining billionaire Elon Musk’s ultimatum to federal workers, Reuters reports.
Over the weekend, Musk sent out an email via the OPM to millions of employees demanding that federal workers detail what they do at their jobs in bullet-pointed list or face dismissal. Agency heads have since given workers conflicting advice about whether or not to respond.
As my Guardian colleagues reported earlier:
Musk’s ultimatum was sent out on Saturday in a mass email to federal employees from the office of personnel management (OPM), one of the first federal organs Musk and his team on the so-called “department of government efficiency” infiltrated after Trump was sworn in. The message gave all the US government’s more than 2 million workers barely 48 hours to itemize their accomplishments in the past week in five bullet points, and in a post on X, Musk indicated that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
The order provoked instant chaos across the government, with Trump’s own appointed leadership in federal agencies responding in starkly different ways. Workers in the Social Security Administration and the health and human services department were told to comply with the email, and CNN reported that the Department of Transportation ordered all its employees to respond to the Musk email by its deadline. That included air traffic controllers who are currently struggling with severe understaffing and a spate of recent accidents.
Several others agencies told their employees to refrain, including the FBI, where the new director, Trump loyalist Kash Patel, asked agents to “please pause any responses”. At the homeland security department, employees were similarly informed that “no reporting action from you is needed at this time”.
All employees at the Department of Defense, who now answer to the former Fox News host and Trump acolyte Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, were ordered to pause responding to the OPM missive. Employees in other federal departments were told to await further orders or to simply ignore Musk’s edict.
Updated
Although a US-based Associated Press reporter was barred from the joint news conference between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, a France-based AP reporter was allowed it.
The French press corps decided the France-based AP reporter should be allowed to ask the first question.
The administration blocked AP reporters from the White House press pool after the news agency said it would continue to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” in its articles, instead referring to the body of water as the “Gulf of America”, following Trump’s order to rename it.
The AP has sued over its exclusion from the press conferences, but a judge denied the AP’s emergency motion to restore its access.
Updated
Judge blocks transfer of nine more incarcerated trans women to men’s prisons
A federal judge who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.
US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington said the court “sees no reason to change its legal conclusions” from its previous order. On 4 February, Lambeth issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to erode trans rights behind bars.
My colleague Sam Levin reported earlier this month:
Lambeth ruled that Trump’s order discriminates against transgender people and violates their constitutional rights.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons must “maintain and continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20”, he wrote.
The judge said the trans women had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” if they are denied healthcare and forced into men’s institutions.
US officials “have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them”, the judge added. The family of one plaintiff said her life would be threatened if she were moved.
The judge said there were only 16 trans women housed in women’s facilities, and the ruling applies to all of them.
On 26 January, a federal judge in Boston issued a restraining order in a separate challenge to the same executive order. That order was limited to one transgender woman in a woman’s prison.
Updated
The Washington Post reports that the office of personnel management (OPM), which functions as the government’s HR department, has told federal agency leaders they can ignore Elon Musk’s threat to fire employees who do not send in the bullet-pointed list of accomplishments that he requested.
The Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that OPM told agency chief human capital officers on a Monday call that they could ignore Musk’s threat. Per the Post:
Another person briefed on the call said that OPM is also looking at weekly reporting for government departments, the person said. But the person said that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far, and had “no plans” to analyze them.
As my colleagues at the Guardian reported earlier, Musk’s ultimatum to federal workers has been causing chaos.
Musk’s ultimatum was sent out on Saturday in a mass email to federal employees from the office of personnel management (OPM), one of the first federal organs Musk and his team on the so-called “department of government efficiency” infiltrated after Trump was sworn in. The message gave all the US government’s more than 2 million workers barely 48 hours to itemize their accomplishments in the past week in five bullet points, and in a post on X, Musk indicated that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
The order provoked instant chaos across the government, with Trump’s own appointed leadership in federal agencies responding in starkly different ways. Workers in the Social Security Administration and the health and human services department were told to comply with the email, and CNN reported that the Department of Transportation ordered all its employees to respond to the Musk email by its deadline. That included air traffic controllers who are currently struggling with severe understaffing and a spate of recent accidents.
Updated
The day so far
A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.
The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
House Republicans face a major test this week as the fractured and narrow caucus tries to unify around a plan to advance Donald Trump’s agenda for trillions in tax cuts and new spending on defense and border security, Reuters reports.
With only a 218-215 majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just one vote on any measure that all Democrats vote against. He faces resistance from as many as a dozen Republicans over a budget resolution that would allow congressional committees to begin crafting full-scale legislation to enact the Trump agenda.
The House budget Ccmmittee was due to take up the measure on Monday, with the possibility of a floor vote as early as Tuesday. But Johnson said timing would also depend on the outcome of Monday night meetings with wavering lawmakers.
“We expect to get it done this week,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters in the Capitol. “There’s a couple of folks who just have lingering questions. But I think all those questions could be answered and we’ll be able to move forward,” he added. “We’re very optimistic. We’ll get this thing done.”
The House resolution calls for $4.5tn in tax cuts – a concern to lawmakers worried about the nation’s growing $36tn in debt – and calls for $2tn in cuts to spending, which have worried some lawmakers that their constituents could lose out on key services.
Republicans in both the House and Senate need to pass the measure to unlock a key part of their strategy: a parliamentary tool allowing them to circumvent the Senate filibuster and opposition from Democrats.
But that is only one feat awaiting lawmakers over the coming weeks. Congress also needs to avert a partial government shutdown after 14 March, when funding runs out and then raise the nation’s debt ceiling or risk a catastrophic default at mid-year.
Updated
Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leapt on to the back of John F Kennedy’s limousine after the then president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, died on Friday. He was 93.
Although few may recognize his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder’s chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on 22 November 1963.
Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy’s death, saying he didn’t react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save Kennedy.
In an interview with David Smith in 2023, Hill recalled:
From that point on, my life changed. Before that day, before I attempted to put my body up on top of the car to protect President Kennedy and Mrs Kennedy, I was just Clint Hill. But afterward, because of photographs and the Zapruder film, I was no longer just Clint Hill. I was that guy that got on to the back of the presidential vehicle and I went through life from that point on with that being said about me and of me.
It has bothered me a great deal. I had a serious guilt complex about not being able to help him more than I did and that just grew and grew and grew from that point on.
It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.
You can read more on the remarkable story here:
Updated
*scrambles to change the subject* Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron are now holding a joint news conference following bilateral talks at the White House. Trump said his meeting with Macron was an “important step forward” to achieving a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
I will post a summary here with the main lines once it’s over, but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong is posting live updates here:
An AI-generated video of Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes briefly played on video screens at a US government office as staff returned to work on Monday.
With a caption emblazoned over it reading “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING”, the fake footage, played on loop for several minutes throughout the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Washington headquarters, according to Marisa Kabas, an independent journalist who posted a video of the incident to social media citing an agency source.
Washington Post journalist Jeff Stein also said on social media that the department’s televisions had been hijacked.
Reuters was unable to establish the provenance of the video.
“Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved,” department spokesperson Kasey Lovett said in an email.
Just an observation; if you look closely at the fake footage, you can see it features two left feet. Was this deliberate, multi-layered messaging? I mean, equally, if you just want to keep scrolling and try to forget you ever saw this, that’s okay too.
Someone apparently hacked the televisions at HUD today —> pic.twitter.com/QJQKNhOYA7
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) February 24, 2025
Updated
A group of Democratic and Republican US senators will offer a resolution backing Ukraine on Monday, amid fears that Donald Trump could make a deal with Moscow that leaves Kyiv on the sidelines three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
The resolution, seen by Reuters, expresses solidarity with the people of Ukraine, offers condolences for the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens and seeks a role for Kyiv in any ceasefire talks.
The resolution was led by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations committee, and Republican Senator Thom Tillis. The two lawmakers visited Ukraine last week, along with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet.
It has at least 12 backers, including such senior Republicans as Mitch McConnell, the party’s former Senate leader; Roger Wicker, chairman of the armed services committee, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee, as well as Democrats Dick Durbin, a member of the party’s leadership, and Bennet, a Democratic foreign relations committee aide said.
The resolution says:
The Senate emphasizes that Ukraine must be a participant in discussions with the Russian Federation about Ukraine’s future.
The measure does not specifically back Nato membership, but reaffirms US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and “supports Ukraine’s efforts to integrate into Euro-Atlantic structures”.
In an emailed statement, Shaheen said:
As Vladimir Putin’s illegal and brutal full-scale invasion enters its fourth year, I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan resolution that clearly states our unwavering support for and solidarity with the Ukrainian people and condemns Russia’s aggression.
US supreme court rejects anti-abortion challenges to clinic ‘buffer zones’
In a loss for abortion opponents, the US supreme court on Monday declined to take up two cases involving “buffer zone” ordinances, which limit protests around abortion clinics and which anti-abortion activists have spent years trying to dismantle.
The two cases dealt with buffer zone ordinances passed by the cities of Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey. In filings to the supreme court, which is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, anti-abortion activists argued that these ordinances ran afoul of the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech. They also asked the justices to overturn a 2000 ruling called Hill v Colorado, which upheld a buffer zone law in Colorado.
The justices didn’t explain why they declined to hear arguments in the cases, but the far-right justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have preferred to take them up. In a dissent outlining his desire to take the Carbondale case, Thomas wrote that he believed Hill “lacks continuing force”, in part due to recent rulings such as Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the federal right to abortion.
“I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill,” he wrote. “Following our repudiation in Dobbs, I do not see what is left of Hill. Yet, lower courts continue to feel bound by it. The court today declines an invitation to set the record straight on Hill’s defunct status.”
Here is more detail on our earlier post on Donald Trump’s remarks in defence of Elon Musk’s chaos-inducing demand that federal workers document what they do, from the AP.
Trump voiced support for Musk’s demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce.
“What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.”
The president claimed that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud” as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims.
“If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person, or they aren’t working,” Trump said.
Apple announced it would invest $500bn in the US over the next four years, including plans to open a manufacturing hub in Texas, accelerate investments in AI, and hire 20,000 people.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement:
We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future.
From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.
After meeting with Donald Trump last week, Cook’s moves appear to be intended to dodge the impact of Trump’s tariffs on goods imported from China. “They’re going to build here instead because they don’t want to pay the tariffs,” Trump said in a speech on Friday.
Judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups
A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious groups, the Associated Press reports.
US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
The preliminary injunction from the Maryland-based judge only applies to the plaintiffs, which also include a Georgia-based network of Baptist churches and a Sikh temple in California.
They sued after the Trump administration threw out Department of Homeland Security policies limiting where migrant arrests could happen as Donald Trump seeks to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations.
The policy change said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” can conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the new DHS directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas,” or “sensitive locations.”
Five Quaker congregations from Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia sued DHS and its secretary, Kristi Noem, on 27 January less than a week after the new policy was announced.
Many immigrants are afraid to attend religious services while the government enforces the new rule, lawyers for the congregations said in a court filing.
“It’s a fear that people are experiencing across the county,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Girard told the judge during a February hearing. “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.”
Government lawyers claim the plaintiffs are asking the court to interfere with law-enforcement activities based on mere speculation.
“Plaintiffs have provided no evidence indicating that any of their religious organizations have been targeted,” Justice Department attorney Kristina Wolfe told the judge.
More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans have also filed a similar but separate lawsuit in the state of Washington.
Plaintiffs in the Maryland case are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation, whose lawyers asked the judge to block DHS enforcement of the policy on a nationwide basis.
Trump says 'very close' to reaching Ukraine mineral deal
Donald Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement.
Trump was joined at the White House by France’s president Emmanuel Macron where the two leaders were holding bilateral talks to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
“It looks like we’re getting very close,” Trump told reporters at the start of his meeting with Macron.
He added that Ukrainian president Voloydmyr Zelenskyy could potentially visit Washington this week or next to sign the deal.
Trump, however, did not say whether the emerging deal would include American security guarantees. “Europe is going to make sure nothing happens,” he said.
Updated
The US was forced to abstain in a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution it drafted to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine after the 193-member body agreed to amendments proposed by European states.
The amendments made to the US resolution included adding references to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in line with the founding UN Charter and reaffirming the UN’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.
The amended US-drafted resolution won 93 votes in favor, while 73 states abstained and eight voted no, Reuters reports.
The US put forward its text on Friday, pitting it against Ukraine and European allies who spent the past month negotiating with their own resolution.
The General Assembly also adopted the resolution drafted by Ukraine and European countries on Monday with 93 votes in favor, 65 abstentions and 18 no votes.
Donald Trump has been speaking with reporters at the White House ahead of his meeting there with French president Emmanuel Macron and has been asked about the mass firings of federal workers by adviser Elon Musk.
He was asked about the notorious email sent by Musk yesterday with a directive to 2.3m federal employees across multiple departments to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59pm ET tonight or consider themselves out of a job.
Some departments are pushing back, but Trump just said the email was necessary “to find the workers who are not working.” More on this as soon as it comes through.
New FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn in today as acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), taking the helm of two separate and sprawling Justice Department agencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Patel was sworn in at ATF headquarters just days after he became director of the FBI, the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter told the Associated Press.
It’s not immediately clear if Donald Trump intends to nominate Patel for the ATF post. Justice Department and White House officials didn’t immediately respond.
The ATF is responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Democrats raised alarm at Patel’s nomination for FBI director over his lack of management experience and incendiary past statements, including calling investigators who scrutinized Trump “government gangsters.”
Today’s move follows US attorney general Pam Bondi’s firing of the bureau’s top lawyer last week. Bondi said Friday in a Fox News interview that she fired chief counsel Pamela Hicks because the agency was “targeting gun owners.” Hicks spent more than 20 years as a Justice Department lawyer.
French president Emmanuel Macron has just been greeted by US president Donald Trump at the White House.
The two leaders have a crucial meeting at which Macron is expected to talk turkey with Trump about the vital need to include Ukraine and European leaders in talks to end the war in Ukraine, three years today since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its smaller neighbor.
Macron is likely to push back on Trump’s talking point from last week, borrowed straight from the Kremlin, that Ukraine “started it” and also talk to him about the NATO alliance. We will be covering the news on this and the press conference due at 2pm ET via our Ukraine/Europe blog and our Washington bureau chief David Smith’s reporting from the scene.
Here’s a friendlier shot:
Interim summary
Another busy day in US politics continues with significant domestic and international drama. There’s a lot of news to come, so stick with this blog and our Ukraine/Europe blog and we’ll bring you all the developments as they happen.
Here’s where things stand in Washington so far:
The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
Ukraine and the US are working productively on an economic deal at the centre of an effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Follow this and all related news, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, live, here. That blog, and the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, will cover the visit to the White House by French president Emmanuel Macron this afternoon.
Many federal government departments are telling staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid off 4% of its staff as part of the government-wide slashing of probationary employees’ jobs. Coincidentally, the agency has pending investigations into deadly crashes involving Tesla cars, the electric vehicle maker owned by Musk.
As the work of the very busy judiciary continues, in its constitutional role as a co-equal power base and check on the executive branch, a federal judge is set to consider this afternoon a request by the Associated Press (AP) to restore full access for the news agency’s journalists after the Trump administration barred them from certain governmental access for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in coverage. National media and hundreds of local media outlets rely on the AP.
The Trump administration has blocked a crucial step in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) process for funding medical research, likely in violation of a federal judge’s temporary restraining order on federal funding freezes.
Elon Musk’s email demanding all 2.3 million government workers justify their work has caused confusion, with several administration officials telling workers not to reply to the missive. On Saturday the tech billionaire sent an email titled: “What did you do last week?” requesting a bullet-point summary of what they had achieved in their working week.
Updated
Here is more on the appointment of far-right podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI, from my colleague Robert Tait.
Bongino’s appointment as deputy to the newly confirmed director, Kash Patel, marks the first time in the bureau’s 117-year history that the second-in-command post has not been held by one of its senior agents.
It further increased fears – already high following Patel’s confirmation as director – that the administration would attempt to use the bureau to pursue its political enemies.
“Donald Trump just named far-right MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino, a notorious conspiracy theorist who promoted the lie that the 2020 election was ‘stolen,’ to serve as Deputy Director of the FBI. God help us all,” posted the X account Republicans Against Trump.
There is a clear Trump doctrine, writes Nesrine Malik, and those who can’t see it won’t have a say in reshaping the world.
Part of the problem is that people are reluctant to imbue Trump with any sort of coherence. But a Trump doctrine is emerging, most sharply in foreign policy. It has clear features, contours and a sort of unified theory of conflict. First, it is transactional, particularly when it comes to warfare in which the US is playing a role. Nothing has a history or any objective sense of right and wrong. Time starts with Trump, and his role is to end things, ideally while securing some bonus for the US.
That upside is the second feature of the Trump doctrine: financialisation, or the reduction of politics to how much things cost, what is the return and how it can be maximised. Trump sees conflicts and financial assistance that have not produced anything tangible for the US. From the Gaza war, some sort of real estate deal can be salvaged. In Ukraine, a proposal for almost four times the value of US assistance so far in minerals is like the stripping of a distressed company by a new investment manager trying to recoup the funds disbursed by predecessors.
The third feature is the junking of any notions of “soft power” – something that is seen as expensive, with questionable benefits that are abstract and unquantifiable. Soft power might even be a myth altogether, a fiction that flattered previously gullible regimes, giving them some sense of control while others fed off the US’s resources. In Gaza or Ukraine, the US was going through the motions of action without a definitive breakthrough. Where others saw soft power, Trump sees quagmires.
There are now two options for the US’s former close friends and security partners: shed everything, dispense with notions of European solidarity, fast-forward the end of the postwar order, and make peace with defence vulnerability and political subordination. Or embark on a colossal power-mapping exercise. This entails rapid, closely coordinated action on a political, bureaucratic and military level to either replace the US, or at least demonstrate that they constitute a bloc that has some power, agency and agility – and challenge Trump in the only language he understands.
You can read Nesrine’s column here:
Here is my colleague Joseph Gedeon’s story on federal judge temporarily blocking Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.
Dealing a quick blow to the second Trump administration’s controversial government downsizing goals, US district judge Deborah Boardman ruled that the Department of Education and office of personnel management – the government’s HR department – must stop sharing federal employees’ and student borrowers’ personal data with Doge officials, stating that such access appears to violate federal privacy laws.
Further to that, Reuters is now reporting that the United States intends to use its veto at the UN Security Council if any amendments are made to the resolution it put forward, a State Department official said on Monday.
The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the Trump administration was focused on getting the parties to the war in Ukraine to the table, amid criticism over the US resolution omitting any reference to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The official said:
We’re going to veto a Russian amendment if it comes to us in the Security Council. We will veto the Europeans’... amendments if they come to us in the Security Council.
Updated
Zelenskyy’s comments come as the UN General Assembly are meeting to vote on two draft resolutions on Ukraine.
The US has pressured Ukraine to withdraw its European-backed resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine in favor of an American proposal that does not mention Moscow’s invasion, AP reports.
The US believes “this is the moment to commit to ending the war. This is our opportunity to build real momentum toward peace,” secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement late on Friday.
He said that “while challenges may arise, the goal of lasting peace remains achievable” and that the resolution would “affirm that this conflict is awful, that the UN can help end it, and that peace is possible”.
The Ukraine resolution, co-sponsored by the EU-27, refers to “the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation” and recalls the need to implement all previous assembly resolutions “adopted in response to the aggression against Ukraine”.
It singles out the General Assembly’s demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders” and its demand to immediately halt all hostilities.
And it calls for “a de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine”.
The very brief US draft resolution acknowledges “the tragic loss of life throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.” It never mentions Moscow’s invasion.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told reporters last week that the US resolution was “a good move”.
Both resolutions will now be voted on in turn and we’ll bring you more as we get it.
Updated
Ukraine and US working 'productively' on economic deal - Zelenskyy
Ukraine and the US are working productively on an economic deal at the centre of an effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
The Ukrainian president made the remark in Kyiv during an address through video link to the leaders of G7 countries, including US president Donald Trump, during which he repeated that both Europe and Ukraine should be involved in a peace process.
Trump’s main focus on Ukraine has appeared to be extracting concessions via a deal allowing the US to exploit the country’s vast mineral wealth. Zelenskyy rejected an initial proposal for a $500bn minerals deal and said he did not recognise the sum demanded by the White House as apparent “payback” for previous US military assistance, where for every $1 of any future military aid Kyiv has to pay back $2 – an interest rate, Zelenskyy noted, of 100%. What is more, the US’s opening offer came without security guarantees for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said in a press conference on Sunday:
I don’t want something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent - who delivered the original proposal to Zelenskyy - told Fox News yesterday he was “quite hopeful” an agreement will be struck this week, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak said on social media that the ongoing conversation was “constructive”, adding: “We are making progress.”
My colleague Jane Clinton is covering all the latest on Ukraine here:
Updated
Elon Musk called the co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to congratulate her on the party’s performance in Sunday’s election after it doubled its support from the last election, my colleagues Deborah Cole and Helen Sullivan report.
Alice Weidel hinted she had slept through an overnight attempt to reach her by the Trump adviser and Tesla CEO, who had repeatedly intervened in the German campaign on her behalf.
“When I turned on my telephone this morning or rather looked at it, I had missed calls from the US including from Elon Musk who personally congratulated [me],” she told reporters.
The party was endorsed by Musk and the US vice-president, JD Vance, during the election campaign. Musk, who had described the AfD in January as the “best hope for the future” in Germany, shared a post showing the party’s gains since 2021, with the caption “Holy shit!”.
Updated
Trump administration eliminating 2,000 USAid positions in US, notice says
The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAid direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” reads the notice sent to agency workers and posted online on Sunday.
“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is “beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force” affecting about 2,000 USAid personnel in the US.
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US “soft power” for winning influence abroad.
On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.
The full story is here:
Federal workers sue over Elon Musk's threat to fire them if they don't explain their accomplishments
Attorneys for federal workers said on Monday in a lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, the AP reports.
The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and president Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday.
The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.
“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.
The US Transportation Department told workers they should respond to a demand by Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET on Monday.
USDOT has a workforce of about 57,000 people that includes the Federal Aviation Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Railroad Administration regulating companies including Boeing and Tesla.
The department’s email to employees on Monday said they should include about five bullet points of accomplishments but exclude classified information. In response to criticism of the order, Musk wrote on X: “This email is a basic pulse check.”
Some other agencies have told employees not to respond, even the FBI which is now headed by fierce Trump loyalist Kash Patel. Patel instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” in an email obtained by Politico.
Leadership at the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department, FBI, NIH, Energy Department, DHS, HHS, Office of the DNI, NOAA and NSA have all told employees they should not or did not need to respond to the email as yet.
Judge blocks Musk's Doge team from accessing Education Department and OPM data
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team created by Donald Trump and spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management, Reuters reports.
US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions who argued the agencies wrongly granted Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” access to records containing personal information on millions of Americans.
The judge said the plaintiffs had established that both agencies had likely violated federal law by granting Doge “sweeping access” to sensitive personal information in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
That information included social security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status and disability status for current and former federal employees and student aid recipients.
The Trump administration had argued that a ruling blocking Doge from accessing the information would impede the Republican president’s ability to fulfil his agenda by limiting what information his advisors can access.
But Boardman said her order prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to Doge affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Updated
Auto safety agency laying off staff at agency that investigated Tesla crashes
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid off 4% of its staff as part of a government-wide trimming of probationary employees, a spokesperson said on Monday.
The agency has pending investigations into deadly crashes involving Tesla cars. Elon Musk is CEO of the automaker and president Donald Trump’s senior adviser on a crusade to shrink the federal government.
NHTSA said under former president Joe Biden the agency grew by 30% and is still considerably larger after the job cuts earlier this month. Its workforce was about 800 before the job cuts.
In addition to investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles, NHTSA has mandated that Tesla and other automakers using self-driving technology report crash data on vehicles, a requirement that Tesla has criticized and that watchdogs fear could be eliminated.
Updated
Here’s a little more on Dan Bongino, the Maga podcaster Donald Trump has named as deputy director of the FBI and who will oversee the bureau alongside newly appointed director Kash Patel.
The president announced the appointment on Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform, praising Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our country”. He called the announcement “great news for law enforcement and American justice”.
Bongino, 49, is a former police officer and Secret Service agent who served on the presidential details for then-presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, before becoming a popular rightwing figure. He became one of the leading personalities in the Maga political movement to spread false information about the 2020 election. According to NPR, Bongino becomes the 20th ex-Fox News host, journalist or commentator to be given a senior job in the new Trump administration.
The deputy director serves as the FBI’s second-in-command and is traditionally a career agent responsible for the bureau’s day-to-day law enforcement operations. The role does not request Senate confirmation.
Marco Rubio’s former general counsel, Gregg Nunziata, took to X to criticize the decision:
Kash Patel should have been a redline. Bongino is what you get when R Senators fail to do their jobs and say no to Patel. The Trump Admin is turning federal law enforcement over to unqualified, unprincipled, partisan henchmen. It’s unacceptable and conservatives need to say so.
Updated
Musk’s ‘Doge’ claim about USAid funds for India sets off political firestorm
Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has been accused of setting off a political firestorm in India after it claimed that the US government had been sending millions of dollars to support the Indian elections.
In a list published on Musk’s social media platform X last week, Doge, a special group that Donald Trump created, claimed that a $21m grant distributed by USAid – the US agency for international development – to help “voter turnout in India” had been cancelled, as part of the president’s sweeping cuts to foreign aid.
However, records accessed by the Indian Express newspaper have found that no such funds were ever distributed in India and USAid staff have also denied the existence of such a programme.
Instead, documents show that USAid had allocated $21m for a non-profit promoting political engagement in neighbouring Bangladesh, amid a draconian crackdown on the political opposition in the country.
Nonetheless, the claim was seized upon with gusto by Trump, as he sought to discredit USAid and its global development programmes and justify gutting the agency. Musk too has boasted that Doge is “feeding USAid into the wood chipper”.
The full story is here:
Friedrich Merz, whose mainstream conservative party has won Germany’s national election, has vowed to do everything in his power to continue a good transatlantic relationship with the US, even if the Trump administration appears to have waning interest in Europe, the AP reports.
“If those who really do not just make ‘America First,’ but almost ‘America Alone’ their motto prevail, then it will be difficult,” he told reporters on Monday in his first post-election news conference. “But I remain hopeful that we will succeed in maintaining the transatlantic relationship.”
He warned that if the good relationship “is destroyed, it will not only be to the detriment of Europe, it will also be to the detriment of America.”
The election took place against a background of growing uncertainty over the future of Ukraine and Europe’s alliance with the US. In a week that left European leaders reeling, Trump launched a shocking attack on Volodymyr Zelesnkyy whom he called “a dictator” after the Ukrainian president called him out for repeating disinformation and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. That had followed a crisis meeting of European leaders after the US took the seismic step of holding bilateral talks with Russia in Riyadh on ending the war in Ukraine and on future cooperation between the two countries, with neither Ukraine nor Europe offered a seat at the table.
European leaders have been left scrambling to make the continent relevant to the Trump administration, with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, holding talks with Trump at the White House today and British prime minister Keir Starmer following suit on Thursday.
Merz said his top priority is to unify Europe in the face of challenges coming from the US and Russia. Both US vice-president JD Vance and Trump ally Elon Musk openly supported the far right AfD, which came second in the national election, and Vance left the Munich Security Conference stunned as he launched an ideological attack on Europe, with his remarks condemned by the EU and Germany and praised on Russian state TV.
Merz said he remains “hopeful that the Americans will see it as in their own interests to be involved in Europe as well.”
Still, he warned that it would be unacceptable “if the Americans strike a deal with Russia over the heads of the Europeans, over the heads of Ukraine.”
For more on the aftermath of the German election head to our Europe live blog:
Updated
Donald Trump will meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the White House today, on the third anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and in a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of the transatlantic alliance.
In the first visit to the White House by a European leader since Trump’s inauguration and amid alarm in Europe over Trump’s hardening stance toward Ukraine and overtures to Moscow on the three-year war, Macron will use the meeting to try to convince the US president not to rush to a ceasefire deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin, to keep Europe involved, and to maintain some degree of military involvement in Ukraine – and indeed across Europe.
In a call on Sunday, Macron and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who will also meet Trump at the White House on Thursday, agreed to “show leadership in support of Ukraine” and on the importance of Ukraine being at the centre of any peace negotiations.
Macron will make the case for Europe to have a seat at the negotiating table, and float proposals for a 30,000-strong European peacekeeping force in Ukraine once the fighting ends. Starmer has urged Trump to provide a US “backstop” to any such force in Ukraine, saying it is the only way to deter Russia from attacking the country again, and Macron will emphasise this at the meeting. The US president has so far refused to offer any postwar security guarantees to Ukraine.
Macron has said agreeing to a bad deal with Russia would amount to a capitulation of Ukraine and would signal weakness to the US’ foes, including China and Iran. In an hour-long Q&A session on social media ahead of his trip to the White House, the French president said:
I will tell him: deep down you cannot be weak in the face of President [Putin]. It’s not you, it’s not what you’re made of and it’s not in your interests.
Macron and Trump are due to hold bilateral talks and a working lunch ahead of a joint press conference at 2pm ET. We’ll bring you more on what comes out of the meeting as we get it.
Updated
‘A true free-speech emergency’: alarm over Trump’s ‘chilling’ attacks on media
The Trump administration is waging a “disturbing” attack on the freedom of the press that amounts to a “true free-speech emergency”, media experts have warned, as the Federal Communications Commission recently launched an investigation into a series of media organizations, including the owner of NBC News.
The FCC, led by Donald Trump appointee and Project 2025 author Brendan Carr, has ordered investigations into NPR and PBS in the first month since Trump took office, while also scrutinizing a CBS News interview and a San Francisco radio station.
In a letter to Comcast, which owns NBC News, Carr said he had asked the FCC’s enforcement bureau to “open an investigation” into the corporation, stating: “I am concerned that Comcast and NBCUniversal may be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.”
It came after Carr, who was appointed to FCC chair by Trump, said he did not “see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars” to PBS and NPR, publicly funded organizations Trump has threatened to defund.
“It’s really quite disturbing,” said Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, a watchdog group.
What we’re seeing is really an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press from all aspects of the Trump administration right now.
You can read Adam’s full story here.
Donald Trump’s sweeping foreign aid freeze has stalled a United Nations programme in Mexico aimed at stopping imported fentanyl chemicals from reaching the country’s drug cartels, according to eight people familiar with the situation, Reuters reports.
It is one of several US counternarcotics efforts in Mexico derailed in recent weeks by the stop-work order.
The initiative provided Mexico’s navy with training and equipment to improve screening of cargo entering and exiting the Port of Manzanillo, the nation’s busiest container port.
Two additional Mexican seaports — Lázaro Cárdenas and Veracruz — were to be added this month, a rollout that’s now on hold due to the funding cutoff, six of the people said.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly did not answer emailed questions from the news agency about the administration’s decision to halt funding for the Mexican port programme. She did say that Trump is acting to secure the border and cut federal spending.
A federal judge on Monday is set to consider a request by the Associated Press (AP) to restore full access for the news agency’s journalists after Donald Trump’s administration barred them for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in coverage.
US District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, is scheduled to hear the AP’s motion for a temporary restraining order against the administration at 3pm ET in Washington federal court.
The AP sued three senior Trump aides on Friday, arguing that the decision to block its reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One violates the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections against government abridgment of speech by trying to dictate the language they use in reporting the news.
The news agency is seeking to immediately restore its access to all areas available to the White House press pool.
The AP said in January it would continue to use the gulf’s long-established name in stories while also acknowledging Trump’s efforts to change it.
The White House banned AP reporters in response. The ban prevents the AP’s journalists from seeing and hearing Trump and other top White House officials as they take newsworthy actions or respond in real time to news events.
Updated
Trump halts medical research funding in apparent violation of judge’s order
The Trump administration has blocked a crucial step in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) process for funding medical research, likely in violation of a federal judge’s temporary restraining order on federal funding freezes.
The NIH has stopped submitting study sections – meetings in which scientists peer review NIH grant funding proposals – to the Federal Register after the Trump administration paused health agency communications. By law, study sections must appear on the register 15 days in advance of meetings.
“The idea is that the public has the right to know who’s giving advice to the federal government and when they’re meeting,” said Jeremy Berg, a biochemist who has overseen NIH funding in the past.
These meetings are integral in the funding process for scientists at institutions around the country researching virtually all elements of disease and medicine, including drug development, cancer, heart disease and aging.
You can read the full report here:
Government workers to be put on administrative leave if they fail to return to the office - Musk
Elon Musk said on Monday that starting this week, government workers would be put on administrative leave if they fail to return to the office.
Musk, who is leading a downsizing effort at the US government wrote on X:
Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning.
Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.
Confusion at US agencies over whether to comply with Elon Musk email demanding workers justify their jobs
Hello and welcome to our US politics rolling coverage.
Elon Musk’s email demanding all 2.3 million government workers justify their work has caused confusion with several administration officials telling workers not to reply to the missive.
On Saturday the tech billionaire sent an email titled: “What did you do last week?” requesting a bullet-point summary of what they had achieved in their working week. It gave employees a deadline of 11.59pm ET on Monday and was the latest move by Musk to slash the size of federal government.
The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees to comply. But many others, including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, have ordered workers not to respond, Reuters reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services told its workers to cooperate, then later told them to hold off while it figured out how to “best meet the intent” of Musk’s directive.
Meanwhile, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) issued a statement criticising Elon Musk and the Trump Administration, for “their utter disdain” for federal employees.
He added it was “cruel and disrespectful” for staff to be forced to justify their job duties to “this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life.”
In other news:
French President Emmanuel Macron will meet with Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, saying he will present “proposals for action” to counter the “Russian threat” in Europe and ensure peace in Ukraine.
Conservative podcaster Dan Bongino has been appointed as FBI deputy director. Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer turned conservative radio host, puts a second Trump ally at the top of the agency. Trump announced the appointment on Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform, praising Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our country”.
The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.
More than 150,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.
Updated
