Summary
That’s all our live coverage for the day, thanks for following along. Some links and key stories from the day:
The US has ordered consular offices to significantly expand their screening processes for student visa applicants, including through comprehensive social media investigations.
Columbia University’s interim president has stepped down, the latest leadership shakeup at the Ivy League school, which has been aggressively targeted by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to intervene to allow the government to continue to deport immigrants using the obscure Alien Enemies Act.
A Tufts University student who was detained by US immigration authorities this week, in an arrest that caused widespread outrage, cannot be deported without a court order, a US judge ordered on Friday.
Two prominent law firms sued the Trump administration on Friday, seeking to block executive orders that would halt the firms’ business with the government and revoke the security clearances of its attorneys.
JD Vance told troops in Greenland that the US has to gain control of the Arctic island to stop the threat of China and Russia as he doubled down on criticising Denmark, which he said has “not done a good job”.
Hillary Clinton on Friday called the Trump administration’s approach to governing both dumb and dangerous in an essay excoriating the Signal chat scandal.
US barred from deporting Tufts student without court order
A Tufts University student who was detained by immigration authorities this week, in an arrest that caused widespread outrage, cannot be deported to Turkey without a court order, a US judge ordered on Friday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was detained by masked plainclothes officers as she walked in the Boston area on Tuesday, an incident that was captured on surveillance footage that has since gone viral. Ozturk is pursuing her doctorate in philosophy and is a Fulbright scholar.
The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk’s visa was terminated, accusing her of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, but providing no evidence to substantiate that claim. Ozturk and three other students co-wrote an opinion piece in the student newspaper last year urging the university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel”.
Ozturk was taken to a detention center in Louisiana. The US district judge Denise Casper said on Friday the government had until Tuesday evening to respond to the latest complaint by Ozturk’s legal team, the AP reported.
“To allow the court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” Casper said.
The Trump administration has increasingly sought to deport students and academics who had varying degrees of involvement in pro-Palestinian campus activism last year, including permanent residents with green cards.
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Judge blocks Trump effort to shutter Voice of America
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the Voice of America, the US’s oldest and largest international broadcaster, which is government-funded.
The judge James Paul Oetken called the president’s push to defund Voice of America (VoA) a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision-making”, according to the AP. The judge also criticized the Trump administration for “taking a sledgehammer to an agency that has been statutorily authorized and funded by Congress”.
Oetken’s temporary restraining order issued on Friday prevents the US Agency for Global Media, the independent federal agency that oversees VoA, from terminating more than 1,200 employees, including journalists and engineers. The ruling also prohibits “any further attempt to terminate, reduce-in-force, place on leave, or furlough” employees or contractors. The agency is further barred from closing offices or requiring employees stationed overseas to return to the US, the AP reported.
The president’s attacks on the US Agency for Global Media have caused chaos for employees, including international workers who said the cuts put them at risk of deportation to home countries, including to nations where they could face violence from authoritarian governments.
The US Agency for Global Media provides grants to a range of outlets, including Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe, and some of the journalists are particularly vulnerable. “If their own government knew they worked for RFA [Radio Free Asia] and they went back to their own country, their lives would be at risk,” Jaewoo Park, a journalist for RFA, recently told the Guardian.
Oetken’s ruling prohibits the termination of grant funding for Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Afghanistan and other outlets.
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Doge can continue cuts at US Agency for International Development, appeals court rules
A US appeals court has lifted an order blocking Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from making additional cuts at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by former USAID employees against Musk, alleging Doge’s actions were unconstitutional given that Musk was not in a Senate-approved position or elected to office, the AP reports. A judge in a lower court ruled against Musk, finding Doge’s efforts to dismantle USAID were likely unconstitutional, but the fourth US circuit court of appeals disagreed, finding that while Doge played a role, the cuts were approved by government officials.
Musk had posted on social media that he “fed USAID into the wood chipper”, but the appeals court said that comment wasn’t legal proof that he was making the orders.
“While defendants’ role and actions related to USAID are not conventional, unconventional does not necessarily equal unconstitutional,” wrote Marvin Quattlebaum, a circuit judge appointed by Trump.
The lower court ruling by the US district judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland had ordered the Trump administration to restore computer access to USAID employees, but did not reverse firings.
Updated
An Iranian doctoral student who was detained by US immigration authorities this week amid the Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on campuses had no involvement in protests, his lawyer said.
Alireza Doroudi, a 32-year-old University of Alabama student, was arrested at his apartment in the middle of the night earlier this week, according to his attorneys. His visa had been revoked in 2023, but he was authorized to stay in the US while he remained a student, David Rozas, his lawyer, told the AP. Rozas said:
He has not been arrested for any crime, nor has he participated in any anti-government protests. He is legally present in the US, pursuing his American dream by working towards his doctorate in mechanical engineering.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed Doroudi “posed significant national security concerns”, according to the AP, but declined to elaborate. Doroudi’s lawyer said he was unaware of any specific security allegations against his client.
A string of students on visas and permanent residents with green cards have been arrested and threatened with deportation in recent days, many of them with some ties to pro-Palestinian activism. Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University in Boston, who was detained by plainclothes officers in masks, had co-written an op-ed about the university’s response to the war in Gaza.
Here’s our earlier coverage of Doroudi’s case and the reaction at the University of Alabama:
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Wisconsin attorney general seeks to block Elon Musk's $1m check giveaways
The Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin has asked a court to block Elon Musk from giving $1m checks to voters as he seeks to influence a critical state supreme court race, the AP reports.
Musk, who has been railing against judges blocking Trump administration policies, initially said in a social media post that he planned to “personally hand over” $2m to a pair of voters who had cast ballots in the race. He later claimed the money would go to people who will be “spokesmen” for an online petition targeting “activist” judges.
On Friday, Musk’s political action committee identified the recipient of the first $1m giveaway – a man who had donated to the conservative candidate in the court race and who has posted in support of Trump, the AP said.
The race will determine the ideological tilt of the court, which is expected to consider abortion rights, union cases, congressional redistricting and voting rules.
Josh Kaul, the state’s attorney general, urged a court to prevent Musk from making future payments to Wisconsin voters and to cease promoting a giveaway event this week. He argued the payments violated state law. Musk has deleted his post promising a giveaway, and a spokesperson for his Pac declined to comment to AP.
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Judge blocks Trump from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
A US judge has just issued a ruling blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a vital watchdog agency, the AP reports.
The US district judge Amy Berman Jackson’s ruling puts in place a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency’s existence while she considers the arguments of a lawsuit seeking to prevent the president’s decimation of the bureau. The judge said the court “can and must act” to save the CFPB from being shuttered, according to the AP.
The CFPB had been targeted for mass terminations, and employees were ordered to stop working last month after Donald Trump fired the bureau’s director. The current chief operating officer has said the agency was in “wind-down mode”. The president’s attacks on the bureau, which included canceling $100m in contracts and ordering immediate suspension of CFPB operations, have caused chaos, workers have testified.
The consumer watchdog is a popular US agency known for recovering more than $21bn for defrauded Americans. It was created after the 2008 financial crisis.
The judge on Friday ordered the CFPB to maintain a hotline for consumer complaints and provide office space for its employees or allow them to work remotely, according to Reuters.
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US judge blocks Trump's fast-tracked deportations
A US judge has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from swiftly deporting people to countries with which they have no relationship, Reuters reports.
The ruling from the US district judge Brian Murphy in Boston is a nationwide temporary restraining order, stipulating that immigrants threatened with deportation to a third country must have a chance to raise claims that they would face persecution or torture if they were deported. The order is designed to “protect migrants subject to final orders of removal from being swiftly deported to countries other than those that had already been identified during immigration proceedings”, Reuters said.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights advocates challenging an 18 February directive that instructed officers to review cases of individuals previously released from detention, and to consider re-arresting and deporting them to third countries. The judge told a US justice department attorney at a hearing:
If your position today is that we don’t have to give them any notice, and we can send them to any country other than the country to which the immigration court has said no, that’s a very surprising thing to hear the government say.
Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the immigrants at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, praised the ruling, saying: “We’re relieved the judge saw the urgency of this situation both for our named plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals.”
The order comes as the Trump administration continues to face widespread scrutiny over its rushed deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador.
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Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers call for his release and criticize 'Kafkaesque' treatment
Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist facing deportation due to his involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, urged a US judge on Friday to free their client, a green-card holder.
Khalil was detained earlier this month in New York and transferred to immigration detention in Louisiana, even though he is a permanent resident and has not been accused of a crime.
According to the AP, Baher Azmy, one of Khalil’s attorneys, argued in court that the case should be moved back to New York, saying: “They keep passing around the body in an almost Kafkaesque way.” The attorney argued that the US was chilling Khalil’s free speech: “The longer we wait, the more chill there is … Everyone knows about this case and is wondering if they’re going to get picked off the street for opposing US foreign policy.”
The attorneys and the US justice department were appearing in court in New Jersey to debate which court should have jurisdiction over the case as Khalil fights to be released. The US district judge Michael Farbiarz said he would issue a written decision.
Khalil recently spoke out from detention, saying in a statement shared with the Guardian: “I am a political prisoner.” More background on Khalil here:
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Trump administration investigating Maine over trans rights policies
The US Department of Education said Friday it had launched an investigation into Maine over school districts’ trans rights policies.
The Trump administration has accused some Maine school districts of “prohibiting parents from accessing records relating to their child’s ‘gender transition’”, claiming this violates federal laws protecting parents’ rights.
Some school districts in Maine and across the country have adopted policies meant to protect the privacy of LGBTQ+ students who may be out at school, but not at home where it could be unsafe or they may be unsupported by parents. Some policies are meant to stop the “forced outing” of students to their families.
The US education department said in a statement it had received reports alleging that some Maine districts have policies that allow schools to “create ‘gender plans’ supporting a student’s ‘transgender identity’”, but then withhold those records from parents, according to the AP. Maine school officials declined to comment to the AP.
The investigation, along with a similar one announced targeting California schools, is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive attack on trans youth rights.
During his campaign last year, Trump repeatedly spread misinformation and falsehoods suggesting students were getting gender-affirming medical care and surgeries in school without parents’ involvement. The LGBTQ+ rights policies in question, however, generally involve respecting trans students’ pronouns and names and allowing them to use facilities that match their gender.
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US consular offices ordered to vet student visas for 'terrorist activity'
The US state department has ordered consular officers to conduct expanded screening processes for student visa applicants, including through comprehensive social media investigations, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports.
A 25 March cable describes a new standard for visa denials based on a broad definition of what constitutes support for “terrorist activity”. The directive states that “evidence that an applicant advocates for terrorist activity, or otherwise demonstrates a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization” can be grounds for visa rejection.
It specifically targets new and renewing F, M and J student visa applications, providing explicit instructions for consular officers to conduct mandatory social media reviews digging into applicants’ lives online. Officers are directed to examine the social media of all students applying for a visa for evidence of activities the administration defines as a threat to national security or terrorism.
The move comes as the Trump administration has been aggressively targeting students on college campuses across the country deemed to have ties to pro-Palestinian activism. This week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Fulbright scholar at Tufts University in Boston, was detained by agents, who were wearing plainclothes and masks, an arrest caught on video that sparked widespread outrage. She had a student visa and had co-written an op-ed last year supporting calls for the university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.
More here:
Updated
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s younger brother is serving in a key position inside the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser, Hegseth’s office confirmed.
The high-profile job has meant meetings with a UFC fighting champion, a trip to Guantánamo Bay and, right now, traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as Hegseth makes his first trip as defense secretary to the Indo-Pacific.
Phil Hegseth’s official title is senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the defense department, spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said in a statement Thursday.
“Phil Hegseth, one of a number of talented DHS liaisons to DOD, is conducting touch points with US Coast Guard officials on the Secretary’s Indo-Pacific trip,” which includes stops in Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Japan, Wilson said in response to a query by the Associated Press.
It’s common for the defense department and other federal agencies to have liaisons. Each military branch sends liaisons to Capitol Hill. The Pentagon, state department and others all use interagency liaisons to more closely coordinate and keep tabs on policy.
But it is not common for those senior-level positions to be filled by family members of the cabinet heads, said Michael Fallings, a managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, which specializes in federal employment law.
It’s not the first time Phil Hegseth has worked alongside his older brother. When Pete Hegseth was CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a non-profit that fell into financial difficulty during his time there, he paid his brother $108,000 to do media relations for the organization, according to federal tax records.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Phil Hegseth’s job title and said this “interagency mission is part of Mr Hegseth’s preview”, presumably meaning “purview”.
DHS said Phil Hegseth, while on the Indo-Pacific trip, has been meeting with representatives from Homeland Security Investigations, the law enforcement arm of the department, “and other DHS components and interagency partners”.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request to interview Phil Hegseth. Neither the Pentagon nor the Department of Homeland Security has responded to queries about his qualifications for the job.
Updated
Federal judge extends block on Trump use of wartime law for deportations
A US federal judge on Friday extended his temporary halt to Donald Trump’s use of a 200-year-old wartime law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, dealing a setback to the president’s push to speed up the deportations.
Reuters reports that US district judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order will put Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act on hold until 12 April while litigation plays out. Boasberg issued a two-week freeze on the use of the law during an emergency 15 March hearing after Trump invoked the act.
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s use of the act to rapidly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador. The ACLU argues the law denies the immigrants due process to contest allegations of gang membership.
The US circuit court of appeals for the DC circuit on Wednesday upheld Boasberg’s initial pause on Trump’s use of the law, with a Trump-appointed judge dissenting in a 2-1 decision.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the supreme court to lift Boasberg’s halt on the deportations.
Related: White House asks supreme court to allow deportations under wartime law
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US needs control over Greenland and 'can't do without it', Trump says
Donald Trump has just repeated that the US needs control over Greenland for “world peace”, adding that he hopes Denmark and the EU would understand and saying “if they don’t, we are going to have to explain it to them”.
“Do you think we can do without it? We can’t,” he said.
“We need Greenland. Very importantly, for international security, we have to have Greenland.
“If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place, and we’re not going to be able to do that.
“We’re not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation.
“And we’re not talking about peace for the United States. We’re talking about world peace. We’re talking about international security.”
He said that “modern-day weaponry makes Greenland” more important than it was 100 years ago, particularly with new “water roadways” opening up.
“Greenland’s very important for the peace of the world, not us, the peace of the entire world, and I think Denmark understands it, I think the European Union understands it.
“And if they don’t, we’re going to have to explain it to them.”
Trump spoke on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony for the US attorney for New Jersey – just minutes before his vice-president, JD Vance, is due to speak from Greenland.
You can follow his speech here:
Updated
'Essentially a settlement': law firm Skadden strikes deal with Trump administration to avert an executive order
Donald Trump announced that the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has agreed to provide at least $100m in pro bono legal services to the federal government during this administration.
It is the latest example of legal firms caving in to pressure from the Trump administration, and appears to be the first instance where a firm has pre-emptively struck a deal to avoid Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and attorneys who challenge his priorities, per the New York Times (paywall). It was unclear why Skadden drew Trump’s ire but Elon Musk has criticised the firm over its work in a lawsuit against a rightwing media critic, Dinesh D’Souza, according to the Times.
Announcing the deal on Friday, Trump said:
This was essentially a settlement. We appreciate their coming to the table.
As my colleague Sam Levine reported on Wednesday, scholars and experts say there is little doubt that Trump’s executive orders are a thinly veiled effort to intimidate lawyers who might otherwise challenge the administration. The actions undermine a key element of the American democratic system by limiting the ability of potential adversaries to access the judicial system, one of the most powerful checks on executive power.
Trump got a huge boost last week when the law firm Paul Weiss accepted his demands in exchange for withdrawing the executive order targeting the firm. Paul Weiss agreed to perform $40m worth of pro bono legal work for causes the president supports. The White House was gleeful at that result and the administration reportedly has a list of other firms it may subject to similar treatment.
Earlier on Friday, we reported that two targeted law firms, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, filed federal lawsuits against the Trump administration over the executive orders targeting them. A third targeted firm, Perkins Coie, sued the administration earlier this month.
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US pauses financial contributions to World Trade Organization, according to reports
The US has paused contributions to the World Trade Organization, three trade sources told Reuters, as Donald Trump’s administration ramps up efforts to cut government spending.
In its retreat from global institutions it sees as at odds with Trump’s “America first” economic policies, the administration plans to quit some, such as the World Health Organization, and has cut contributions to others as part of a broad review of federal spending.
The WTO was already compromised by a US move in 2019 during Trump’s first term to block new judge appointments to its top appeals court, which left its key dispute settlement system only partially functional. Washington had accused the WTO appellate body of judicial overreach in trade disputes.
The Geneva-based trade watchdog had an annual budget of 205m Swiss francs ($232.06m) in 2024. The US was due to contribute about 11% of that based on a fees system that is proportionate to its share of global trade, according to public WTO documents.
A US delegate told a 4 March WTO budget meeting that its payments to the 2024 and 2025 budgets were on hold pending a review of contributions to international organisations and that it would inform the WTO of the outcome at an unspecified date, two trade sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.
A third trade source confirmed their account and said the WTO was coming up with a “plan B” in case of a prolonged funding pause, without elaborating.
All three sources asked for confidentiality because the budget meeting was private and the US funding pause has not been formally announced.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A state department spokesperson said Trump last month signed an executive order directing the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to review within 180 days all international organizations the US is a member of “to determine if they are contrary to US interests”.
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JD Vance says he will talk about US ‘interest in Greenland’ during visit
JD Vance landed in Greenland about an hour ago. Going into his lunch with soldiers, Vance noted that he is the first US vice-president to ever visit the country.
He said that with the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, they will “talk to the command and some of the guardians about what exactly the base does and all the important ways to contribute to national security”, and get a briefing on what the base does.
And, in a nightmare scenario for Danish officials watching from Copenhagen, he added:
“And then we’re gonna talk just about, as you’ve heard, we have some interest in Greenland from the Trump administration, so we’re gonna talk a little bit about that with our friends in the media.”
He went on:
“The Trump administration, the president is really interested in Arctic security. As you all know, it’s a big issue, and it’s only gonna get bigger over the coming decades.”
You can follow the Guardian’s Jakub Krupa’s coverage of the latest from the visit and from Europe more widely here:
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Carney tells Trump Canada will implement retaliatory tariffs in 'constructive' phone call
Canada will implement retaliatory tariffs “to protect Canadian workers and our economy” in response to US trade actions, Mark Carney told Donald Trump during their first conversation as leaders earlier on Friday.
In a statement issued by the Canadian PM’s office, Carney said the call had been “extremely constructive” and “the leaders agreed to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election”.
Earlier, Trump called the conversation “productive” and said the two leaders would meet after Canada’s election.
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State Department notified Congress of intent to reorganize USAID, Rubio says
This report is from Reuters.
The State Department notified Congress on Friday of its intent to reorganize the US Agency for International Development and discontinue remaining functions that do not align with administration priorities, secretary of state Marco Rubio said.
A statement from Rubio said USAID had “strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high”. It reads:
Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over. We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens.
The statement said the State Department and USAID had notified Congress on their intent to undertake a reorganization “that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1 ... and discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities”.
From the start of Trump’s second term, billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) launched a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department. The administration has since fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depended.
On 18 March a federal judge ruled that Musk and Doge had likely violated the US constitution by shutting down USAid, and ordered the Trump administration to reverse some of the actions it took to dismantle the agency.
Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80% of all USAID programs had been canceled.
Related: Musk and Doge’s USAid shutdown likely violated US constitution, judge rules
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Trump administration says the president, not the judiciary, decides how to conduct sensitive national security related operations
In its emergency appeal on Friday to the supreme court seeking to lift an order barring deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, the justice department said in its that the case presents the question of who decides how to conduct sensitive national security related operations, the president or the judiciary.
The department wrote:
The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice.
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s use of the act to rapidly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador. The ACLU argues the law denies the migrants the due process to contest the basis for their removal.
In Friday’s filing, the justice department added that the administration had designated members of the gang “through a rigorous process”.
Updated
As Donald Trump and his top officials scrabble to respond to the Signal leak scandal, my colleague Jonathan Freedland and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser discuss the fallout of the jaw-dropping security breach, and why the US president is attacking the media instead of the people who let a journalist read potentially classified material.
It’s all in the latest edition of Politics Weekly America which you can listen to here:
Trump says he had productive call with Canadian PM Mark Carney
This report is from Reuters.
Donald Trump said he had a productive call on Friday with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and that the two leaders would meet after Canada’s election, which is scheduled for next month amid increased tensions between the neighboring allies.
“It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
That work “will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada”, he added.
Carney and his office have not yet released their take on the call, which comes the day after the prime minister vowed to transform Canada’s economy to be less dependent on the US and ahead of Trump’s 25% tariffs on cars from overseas expected to come into effect on 2 April, which Carney described as a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.
My colleague Jon Henley has more on that here:
Relations have deteriorated since Trump upended the relationship with tariff threats and repeated comments about making it the 51st US state.
Carney, who took office in mid-March, called for a snap election to be held on 28 April, in which US relations will factor heavily.
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Hillary Clinton on Friday called the Trump administration’s approach to governing both dumb and dangerous in an essay excoriating the Signal chat scandal and the Elon Musk-led mission to slash the federal workforce, and concluding that Trump would make the US “feeble and friendless”.
The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that has been given the headline: “How much dumber will this get?” and opens: “It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity.”
Clinton starts with the Signal chat group scandal, when Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, mistakenly added a top US journalist to a small group of government leaders on the encrypted but unclassified app and then the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, proceeded to discuss intricate details of a forthcoming airstrike on Houthi militants in Yemen and report back to the group on the deadly results.
The US vice-president, JD Vance, was included, who took another swipe at European reliance on US military security, and so was the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Hegseth relayed times that US fighter jets would take off and his updates on death and destruction on the ground elicited triumphant comments and emojis from some others in the group.
Here is more from Donald Trump’s administration’s request to the supreme court to lift its order barring deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
Writing in their request, federal lawyers said:
“That order is forcing the United States to harbor individuals whom national-security officials have identified as members of a foreign terrorist organization bent upon grievously harming Americans.”
They went on to add:
“Those orders—which are likely to extend additional weeks—now jeopardize sensitive diplomatic negotiations and delicate national-security operations, which were designed to extirpate TdA’s [Tren de Aragua] presence in our country before it gains a greater foothold.”
Trump administration asks the supreme court to lift an order barring deportations under wartime law
This reported is from the Associated Press.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the supreme court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, while a court fight continues.
The emergency appeal to the high court follows a rejection of the administration’s plea to the federal appeals court in Washington. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of appellate judges left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
The Justice Department argued in court papers that federal courts shouldn’t interfere with sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It also claimed that migrants should make their case in a federal court in Texas, where they are being detained.
The order temporarily blocking the deportations was issued by US district judge James Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.
Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war to justify the swift deportation of hundreds of people he alleged to be gang members under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
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US consumer confidence hit by tariff fears
Donald Trump’s trade wars are hurting US consumer sentiment, a new survey shows, as Americans anticipate high prices from new tariffs.
US consumer sentiment has fallen to its lowest in over two years, the latest poll from the University of Michigan shows.
Its index of Consumer Sentiment fell to 57.0 this month, down from 64.7 in February, and 28% lower than a year ago. A measure of consumer expectations for the economy fell particularly sharply.
Surveys of Consumers director Joanne Hsu explains:
The expectations index plunged a precipitous 18% and has now lost more than 30% since November 2024. This month’s decline reflects a clear consensus across all demographic and political affiliations; Republicans joined independents and Democrats in expressing worsening expectations since February for their personal finances, business conditions, unemployment, and inflation.
The survey also showed a jump in long-term inflation expectations:
The University of Michigan sentiment index shows a bigger-than-expected drop to 57, the lowest since November 2022. Their long-term #inflation expectation, meanwhile, jumps to 4.1%, a 32-year high—a bullish view on inflation that is not shared by either the bond market or the… pic.twitter.com/4RX0SXjNBV
— Ole S Hansen (@Ole_S_Hansen) March 28, 2025
Hsu added that consumers continue to worry about the potential for pain amid “ongoing economic policy developments”, a nod to Donald Trump’s push to raise tariffs on imported goods.
Notably, two-thirds of consumers expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, the highest reading since 2009. This trend reveals a key vulnerability for consumers, given that strong labor markets and incomes have been the primary source of strength supporting consumer spending in recent years.
You can follow my colleague Graeme Wearden’s business live blog here:
Organizers accuse Trump of trying to silence federal workers with union order
Union leaders have accused Donald Trump of union busting in a “blatant” attempt to silence them after the president stepped up his attacks on government unions on Thursday, signing an executive order that attempts to eliminate collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
The order limits the departments and classifications of federal workers who can organize a union and instructs the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
The office of personnel management issued a memo following the directive, providing guidance to the departments and subdivisions on the order, which included terminating their collective bargaining agreements and end voluntary union dues collection through payrolls.
Following the order the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in a Texas court to support its move to end collective bargaining, claiming collective bargaining agreements “significantly constrain” the executive branch.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, said the move was “straight out of Project 2025”, the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s manifesto to remake the federal government.
This executive order is the very definition of union busting. It strips the fundamental right to unionize and collectively bargain from workers across the federal government at more than 30 agencies. It’s clear that this order is punishment for unions who are leading the fight against the administration’s illegal actions in court – and a blatant attempt to silence us.”
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, said:
These threats will not work. Americans will not be intimidated or silenced. AFGE isn’t going anywhere. Our members have bravely served this nation, often putting themselves in harm’s way, and they deserve far better than this blatant attempt at political punishment.
“President Trump’s attempt to unlawfully eliminate the right to collectively bargain for hundreds of thousands of federal workers is blatant retribution,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
This attack is meant to silence their voices, so Elon Musk and his minions can shred the services that working people depend on the federal government to do.
You can read the rest of the story here:
Updated
Global anti-Elon Musk protests planned at nearly 200 Tesla showroom locations
Hundreds of protests at Tesla showrooms are planned across the US and internationally on Saturday.
Organizers have dubbed it Tesla Takedown’s Global Day of Action, the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations that began shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated. Organizers say the rallies will take place in front of more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide, including nearly 50 in California alone.
The protesters’ goal is to send a message to the Trump administration that they’re against what the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, is doing with the US federal government – laying off thousands of workers, cutting department budgets, giving fascist salutes and getting rid of entire agencies.
Vickie Mueller Olvera, who has been organizing Tesla Takedown protests in the Bay Area, said:
Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon. He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.
Olvera said that demonstrators were asking people to do three things: don’t buy a Tesla, sell off Tesla stock and join the Tesla Takedown protest movement.
More on this story here:
‘A capitalistic cowardice’: big law firms being threatened by Trump face pressure to speak out
Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and attorneys who challenge his priorities are roiling the legal community, with some capitulating to the administration’s demands amid mounting pressure on the US’s biggest firms to speak out.
The president signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting the firm Jenner & Block over its previous employment of Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia. The order came after Trump issued similar executive orders targeting three other firms – Covington and Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss – over their representation of his political rivals. As we’ve reported, Jenner & Block on Friday sued the US government seeking to block an executive order that would halt the firm’s business with the government and revoke the security clearances of its attorneys.
Indeed not only do Trump’s executive orders threaten to cripple the firms by revoking the security clearances of their lawyers and ending access to government buildings, they would force clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firm. Trump also issued a separate executive order on Friday directing US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers taking actions to block the administration’s priorities.
Scholars and experts say there is little doubt that Trump’s executive orders are a thinly-veiled effort to intimidate lawyers who might otherwise challenge the administration. The actions undermine a key element of the American democratic system by limiting the ability of potential adversaries to access the judicial system, one of the most powerful checks on executive power.
Trump got a huge boost last week when the firm Paul Weiss accepted demands from Trump in exchange for withdrawing the executive order targeting the firm. The White House was gleeful at that result and the administration reportedly already has a list of other firms it may subject to similar treatment.
David Perez, a partner at Perkins Coie, wrote in a post on Sunday on LinkedIn:
Paul Weiss’s deal emboldened him to ratchet up his attack on one of the strongest checks on his power: lawyers and the rule of law. Now more than ever law firms and lawyers across the political spectrum have to stand up for our timeless values.
Perkins Coie is also suing the administration over the order and won a temporary restraining order blocking it.
Read the full story here:
Earlier, we reported on Donald Trump issuing a proclamation on Thursday targeting law firm WilmerHale, the fifth time the president has taken aim at a major firm with connections to his legal or political adversaries.
The proclamation cited WilmerHale’s ties to Robert Mueller, the former US special counsel who investigated Russian contacts with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
It also accused the firm of donating free legal work to support “destructive” causes related to immigration and voting, and said it discriminated based on race.
Like three earlier executive orders issued by Trump against other firms, the proclamation suspended security clearances held by lawyers at WilmerHale, restricted their access to government officials and ordered a review meant to terminate federal contracts held by the firm’s clients.
A WilmerHale spokesperson said Trump’s proclamation resembled an earlier executive order that was suspended by a judge. “We look forward to pursuing all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order,” the firm said.
Trump has vowed to target more law firms, accusing them of “weaponizing” the legal system against him and his allies.
WilmerHale, Covington, Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block, another firm named in an executive order earlier this week, are each representing clients in lawsuits against the Trump administration over issues such as immigration, transgender rights and firings of government workers.
In WilmerHale’s case, the firm represents a group of inspectors general who allege the administration illegally ousted them. The firm also played a key role in lawsuits against the first Trump administration.
You can read the full story here:
Another law firm targeted by Trump sues to block punishing executive order
The law firm Jenner & Block sued the Trump administration on Friday, seeking to block an executive order that would halt the firm’s business with the government and revoke the security clearances of its attorneys.
Trump has issued similar orders against five firms, all in retaliation for employing or representing political enemies: Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Paul, Weiss, Covington and Burling, and Perkins Coie. Only Perkins Coie has challenged the order in court and successfully convinced a US district judge in Washington to block it.
Jenner & Block’s suit is significant because it comes at a moment when there is deep concern that the legal community isn’t doing enough to push back against Trump’s efforts to target firms. Lawyers and other experts see Trump’s executive orders targeting firms as an anti-democratic program to intimidate adversaries and make it more difficult to challenge him and his administration in court.
That concern escalated after Paul, Weiss reached an agreement with the Trump administration to withdraw the executive order against it. Another major firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is reportedly in talks with the Trump administration to avoid having an executive order issued against it, the New York Times reported (paywall) Thursday evening.
Trump targeted Jenner & Block over the firm’s employment of Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Weissmann hasn’t worked at the firm since 2021 and has been a prominent Trump critic, frequently appearing on television.
Jenner & Block’s suit, filed in the federal district court in Washington DC, details how the order cripples the firm. Over the last five years, 40% of its revenue have come from clients who are government contractors, subcontractors, or affiliated with the government. It also says it harms the firm’s pro-bono practice because it may represent clients and take positions that are at odds with the administration.
Lawyers from Cooley LLP, which is representing Jenner & Block, say that the executive order targeting the firm is blatantly unconstitutional.
“The Constitution, top to bottom, protects against such attempts by the government to target citizens and lawyers based on the opinions they voice, the people with whom they associate, and the clients they represent,” it says. Creating a list of disfavored law firms, it says, is “ is anathema to our scheme of ordered liberty.”
Updated
Democrats raise regulatory concerns over Trump family crypto venture and ask financial watchdogs how they plan to oversee the family’s cryptocurrency activities.
Five Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren, sought answers regarding World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by Donald Trump and his family, and its newly announced plans to issue a stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported on Friday citing a letter.
The lawmakers warned US financial regulators of a potential “extraordinary conflict of interest” in overseeing the cryptocurrency entity.
The letter was sent early on Friday, addressed to the Federal Reserve’s vice chair of bank supervision Michelle Bowman and acting comptroller of the currency Rodney Hood.
The senators questioned how regulators would manage oversight given the company’s ties to the sitting president.
Legislation moving through Congress would set up a regulatory structure for stablecoins, digital currencies that act as dollar-like instruments for storing value or purchasing other crypto assets. The bill would designate the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) as overseers, while laying out specific standards for reserves and consumer protections, the report added.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment. The White House and OCC didn’t immediately respond to Reuters request for comments.
Founded two months before Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, World Liberty’s creation was announced by Trump, his three sons and the wealthy real estate businessman Steve Witkoff, who is now Trump’s Middle East envoy.
Trump’s aides have said he has handed over control of his business ventures, which are being reviewed by outside ethics lawyers.
On Tuesday, World Liberty Financial said it will launch a stablecoin, called USD1, adding that it will be fully backed by US Treasuries, dollars and other cash equivalents and is designed to keep a value of $1.
Related: US rise of cryptocurrency and fall of regulation pose ‘profound risks’ – report
Trump to speak to new Canadian PM in first call - reports
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump’s first phone call will take place this morning, a source with knowledge of the matter has told Radio-Canada.
It will be their first conversation as leaders and comes days after Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas, a move Carney condemned as a “direct attack” on Canadian workers. Trump later threatened further tariffs if the EU worked with Canada “in order to do economic harm to the USA”. Carney said:
We will defend our workers, we will defend our companies, we will defend our country, and we will defend it together.
Earlier this week, the Canadian PM had said he was available for a call with Trump but would do so “on our terms as a sovereign country”. He said:
I’m available for a call, but you know, we’re going to talk on our terms as a sovereign country, not as what he pretends we are.
Trump has figured prominently into Canada’s political narrative, now making good on his threats to wage economic war on the US’s closest ally and one of its largest trading partners, and has repeatedly mused about annexing Canada and making it the US’s 51st state.
Updated
Who are the people behind Doge?
Since Donald Trump took office just a few months ago (yes, really), Elon Musk and his team at the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have come up against public backlash and concern over their cuts to and rapidly accumulated power across federal agencies. They have led the dismantling of USAID, the world’s largest single source of humanitarian aid, as well as fired thousands of government workers. Doge staffers and Musk allies have also gained access to sensitive government data, as well as been placed in key positions at major government agencies.
But a key question this whole time has been - who are these people? Helpfully, the team at Wired have done a deep-dive mapping out the people behind Doge and where they have come from. The short answer is, they’ve largely come from Musk’s world, through his Silicon Valley and corporate connections. Here is an extract:
The Doge world, as it stands, seems to break down into roughly three categories: former Trump officials, conservative lawyers, and imports from the Silicon Valley area (funders, founders, technologists, or people connected to them). In that first category we find people like Doge spokesperson Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller. The two of them have been Musk’s guides to DC.
In that second category are people like James Burnham and Austin Raynor, both former clerks for conservative supreme court justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, respectively. Jacob Altik, another conservative lawyer on the Doge squad, has been selected to clerk for Gorsuch. Jeremy Lewin, who was part of Doge dismantling of USAID, worked with second lady Usha Vance’s former law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, a firm that has also represented Tesla.
Then, the biggest throughline of all: Of those Silicon Valley imports, one of the most clear themes across Doge’s ranks is fairly obvious: a connection to Elon Musk. Forty-nine people on our list have connections to Musk, his companies, or his greater network. This connection is most often through one of his allies or one of his companies. There are the obvious people like Steve Davis, president of Musk’s Boring Company, who have followed Musk across his various ventures. (Davis previously worked at SpaceX and assisted Musk in his overhaul of X, formerly Twitter.) Davis spearheaded the Doge recruitment efforts before inauguration day and has continued to play a pivotal role in the organization. Similarly, SpaceX employee Brian Bjelde, who is now at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), also helped Musk downsize Twitter’s staff in 2022.
There are people like the young engineers who were given the keys to different government agencies, like Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, and Edward Coristine, who were all interns or employees at one of Musk’s companies: SpaceX, Tesla, xAI, X, and Neuralink. (Musk has been involved in others, but these are the ones he controls.)
More than any other company, SpaceX has significant representation in Doge, with 16 of the 80 listed Doge operatives having worked there in some capacity.
Then there are the second-degree connections to people in Musk’s network. Connections to billionaire and PayPal Mafia member Peter Thiel and to Palantir, the defense-focused tech company he cofounded, pop up frequently. Several other Doge members have also worked for Palantir. Thiel was an early Trump supporter and helped bankroll the 2022 Senate campaign of vice-president JD Vance. He has also invested in several of Musk’s companies.
The Musk connection reaches beyond the tech industry. Doge also contains a cohort of people from the finance industry, including Michael Grimes and Anthony Armstrong, who both worked to help Musk structure the deal to buy Twitter while at Morgan Stanley (Armstrong has since left the firm). Antonio Gracias, CEO of Valor Equity Partners, was an early investor in Tesla (and a donor to Musk’s America PAC) and is also part of Doge, along with two other people who have been employed there, Jon Koval and Payton Rehling.
And then there are those with personal connections to the Musk network. Stephen Ehikian, Doge’s lead at GSA, is married to Andrea Conway, who was a designer at X. Kathryn Armstrong Loving, who has appeared as part of Doge at the Environmental Protection Agency, is the sister of Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the crypto company Coinbase. The relationship here comes through Marc Andreessen and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, which has invested in Coinbase as well as the defense startup Anduril. Before inauguration, there were reports that Andreessen was helping to interview Doge candidates, and he jokingly described himself as an “unpaid intern” for Doge. Ryan Wunderly, who is slated to be the new Doge member at the Treasury, according to lawsuits, comes from Anduril.
You can read the full Wired piece, which makes for fascinating reading, here.
Updated
The day so far
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order limiting numerous federal workers from unionising and ordering the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) references an order from Trump but also provides a fact sheet, setting out the rationale for such a move, The Hill reports. It reads: “President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people.”
The memo also says “agencies should cease participating in grievance procedures after terminating their CBA [collective bargaining agreements].” It has been condemned by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in an email to members, which said the Trump administration was “illegally strip[ping] collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers”.
Donald Trump revealed his intentions to reshape the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order on Thursday that targets funding to programs with “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology”. The president said there has been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite US history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth”. He signed an executive order putting JD Vance in charge of an effort to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
Donald Trump’s appointment of a career health researcher to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provoked a serious rightwing backlash for the new administration. Dozens of Maga influencers, along with many rank-and-file Trump supporters, have taken to social media to denounce Susan Monarez to spin false conspiracy theories about her connections to the CIA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). On X, Truth Social, across rightwing “alt-tech” sites and in segments of rightwing media, there was a vociferous response to the announcement this week that Monarez would continue in the position she has been acting in at the CDC, following the withdrawal of Trump’s initial nominee, David Weldon, who unlike Monarez has a history of supporting fringe theories which oppose vaccination.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration would boost military ties with the Philippines to strengthen deterrence against “threats from the communist Chinese” and ensure freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea. Hegseth spoke on Friday during a meeting with president Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines, his first stop in his first trip to Asia, to reaffirm Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to the region under Trump. Ahead of the visit, China called the United States a “predator” and an unreliable ally, AP reported.
The US is in the midst of an extraordinary battle between “the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires”, a top Democratic government official and attorney has warned, after his unprecedented firing by Donald Trump. Alvaro Bedoya, abruptly terminated as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, sounded a “blinking red alarm” over backroom “quid pro quo” deal making he said appears to be taking place inside the Trump administration.
Lawmakers sent a bipartisan letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general asking for an investigation into the Signal group chat in which the defense secretary texted attack plans on a non-secure device.
Fearing the loss of her seat in the House, Donald Trump withdrew the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik as US Ambassador to the UN.
Judge James Boasberg ordered all relevant government agencies to retain the Signal group chat messages that are now the subject of litigation.
Asked about reports that 300 student visas had been revoked, US secretary of state Marco Rubio replied: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”
Attorney general Pamela Jo Bondi directed the justice department’s civil rights division to ensure that four California universities – Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and University of California, Irvine – are not using “illegal DEI policies” in admissions.
Trump signed an executive order directing his vice-president, JD Vance, to eliminate “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
A Russian scientist working at Harvard has been detained by Ice and threatened with deportation back to Russia, where she faces jail for protesting the war on Ukraine.
Updated
Vance to visit US military base in Greenland
US vice-president JD Vance and his wife are due to visit an American military base in Greenland in a trip that was scaled back after an uproar by Greenlanders and Danes who were irked that the original itinerary was planned without consulting them.
The couple’s revised trip to the semi-autonomous Danish territory comes as relations between the US and the Nordic country have soured after US president Donald Trump repeatedly suggested that the United States should, in some form, control the mineral-rich territory of Denmark – a traditional US ally and Nato member.
Friday’s one-day visit to the US Space Force outpost at Pituffik, on the north-west coast of Greenland, has removed the risk of violating potential diplomatic taboos by sending a delegation to another country without an official invitation.
It will also reduce the likelihood that Vance and his wife will cross paths with residents angered by Trump’s annexation announcements.
You can follow Vance’s visit in full in our Europe blog:
Updated
Donald Trump’s appointment of a career health researcher to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provoked a serious rightwing backlash for the new administration.
Dozens of Maga influencers, along with many rank-and-file Trump supporters, have taken to social media to denounce Susan Monarez to spin false conspiracy theories about her connections to the CIA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).
On X, Truth Social, across rightwing “alt-tech” sites and in segments of rightwing media, there was a vociferous response to the announcement this week that Monarez would continue in the position she has been acting in at the CDC, following the withdrawal of Trump’s initial nominee, David Weldon, who unlike Monarez has a history of supporting fringe theories which oppose vaccination.
The firestorm among the conspiracy theorists and science deniers of the anti-vaccine set shows the power of that constituency among Trump’s circle as it quickly forced Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy, to defend the hire in a post on X.
Kennedy wrote: “X posts that erroneously attribute Biden-era tweets supporting masks, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, etc. to my @CDCgov Director nominee, Susan Monarez, have understandably provoked agita within the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] movement.”
He continued, “I handpicked Susan for this job because she is a longtime champion of MAHA values, and a caring, compassionate and brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard who will reorient CDC toward public health and gold-standard science.”
The US is in the midst of an extraordinary battle between “the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires”, a top Democratic government official and attorney has warned, after his unprecedented firing by Donald Trump.
Alvaro Bedoya, abruptly terminated as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, sounded a “blinking red alarm” over backroom “quid pro quo” deal making he said appears to be taking place inside the Trump administration.
Bedoya and his colleague, commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, another Democrat, were fired from the FTC, Washington’s top antitrust watchdog. Both Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the administration over their respective dismissals, which they argue were illegal.
In an interview with the Guardian, Bedoya expressed fear that his firing is a sign of billionaires’ growing power over the federal government. “This isn’t about progressive versus conservative,” he said. “This is about the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires.”
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration would boost military ties with the Philippines to strengthen deterrence against “threats from the communist Chinese” and ensure freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea.
Hegseth spoke on Friday during a meeting with president Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines, his first stop in his first trip to Asia, to reaffirm Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to the region under Trump.
Ahead of the visit, China called the United States a “predator” and an unreliable ally, AP reported.
Trump’s “America First” foreign policy thrust has triggered concerns in Asia about the scale and depth of the US commitment to the region.
Hegseth’s decision to make the Philippines his first stop in Asia, followed by Japan – both US treaty allies facing territorial disputes with China – was the strongest assurance yet by the US under Trump to maintain a security presence in the region.
Updated
For beleaguered and divided congressional Democrats desperate to find an effective line of attack against Donald Trump, news that the US president’s national security team discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a widely available messaging app in the presence of a journalist came at just the right time.
The leak has put the White House and the Republicans on the defensive, generated multiple days of aggressive media coverage and forced top officials to publicly twist themselves in knots as they seek to explain – or downplay – the blunder.
It has also unified the Democrats at a time when they have seemed split on how to combat the Trump administration’s radical agenda and has even allowed some Republicans to join them in criticizing the White House. On Thursday, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate armed services committee jointly asked the defense department’s acting inspector general to investigate the leak.
“If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” the Republican Roger Wicker and the Democrat Jack Reed wrote.
Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding for ‘improper ideology’
Donald Trump revealed his intentions to reshape the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order on Thursday that targets funding to programs with “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology”.
The president said there has been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite US history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth”.
He signed an executive order putting JD Vance in charge of an effort to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
Trump’s order specifically names the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Women’s history museum, which is in development.
“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn – not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” the order said.
Linda St Thomas, the Smithsonian Institution’s chief spokesperson, said in an email late on Thursday: “We have no comment for now.”
White House moves to end union rights for many government agency employees
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all the latest news lines through this morning.
We start with news that president Donald Trump has signed an executive order limiting numerous federal workers from unionising and ordering the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
A memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) references an order from Trump but also provides a fact sheet, setting out the rationale for such a move, The Hill reports.
It reads: “President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people.”
The Hill reports today:
The order targets agencies it says have a national security mission but many of the departments don’t have a strict national security connection.
In addition to all agencies with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the order also covers the Treasury Department, all agencies with Health and Human Services (HHS), the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the General Services Administration, and many more.
In total the OPM memo references 18 departments while also including numerous component agencies. The OPM memo instructs agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreement.
“Consequently, those agencies and subdivisions are no longer required to collectively bargain with Federal unions,” OPM states in its memo.
Because the statutory authority underlying the original recognition of the relevant unions no longer applies, unions lose their status as the ‘exclusive[ly] recogni[zed]’ labor organizations for employees of the agencies.
The memo also says “agencies should cease participating in grievance procedures after terminating their CBA [collective bargaining agreements].”
It has been condemned by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in an email to members, which said the Trump administration was “illegally strip[ping] collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers”.
The AFGE added:
Let’s be clear. National security is not the reason for this action. This is retaliation because our union is standing up for AFGE members – and a warning to every union: fall in line, or else.
AFGE is not going anywhere. We are fighting back. We are preparing legal action.
In other news:
Lawmakers sent a bipartisan letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general asking for an investigation into the Signal group chat in which the defense secretary texted attack plans on a non-secure device.
Fearing the loss of her seat in the House, Donald Trump withdrew the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik as US Ambassador to the UN.
Judge James Boasberg ordered all relevant government agencies to retain the Signal group chat messages tat are now the subject of litigation.
Asked about reports that 300 student visas had been revoked, US secretary of state Marco Rubio replied: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”
Attorney general Pamela Jo Bondi directed the justice department’s civil rights division to ensure that four California universities – Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and University of California, Irvine – are not using “illegal DEI policies” in admissions.
Trump signed an executive order directing his vice-president, JD Vance, to eliminate “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
A Russian scientist working at Harvard has been detained by Ice and threatened with deportation back to Russia, where she faces jail for protesting the war on Ukraine.
