Summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
The Associated Press has sued three Trump administration officials over access to presidential events, citing the first amendment. “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit, which names the White House chief of staff, Susan Wiles; deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; and the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
The White House is working to develop a network of military bases where immigrants will be held prior to deportation, the New York Times reports. The first hub is expected to be at Fort Bliss in Texas, near the border with Mexico, but further sites are being considered at bases across the US.
Donald Trump has ordered the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) out of the job, after data showed deportations lagged during his first month in office, Reuters reports, citing an administration official and two other sources. The president’s decision to reassign Caleb Vitello, who took over as acting Ice director when Trump was sworn in, came after government data showed that 37,660 people had been deported in his first month in office, below the 57,000 monthly average during the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency.
After the US Department of Justice asked federal judge Dale Ho to dismiss Adams’s corruption charges, Ho responded with a decision that he would not immediately dismiss the case, but delay his trial indefinitely. Ho is also appointing an outside lawyer, Paul Clement from the law firm Clement & Murphy PLLC, to present arguments against the prosecutors’ bid to dismiss to help him make a decision.
Donald Trump repeated his criticisms of Ukraine in remarks to a group of governors, while also speaking fondly of his interactions with Vladimir Putin. “I’ve had very good talks with Putin” and “not such good talks with Ukraine”, the president told a meeting of the National Governors Association, which featured Democratic and Republican leaders of states nationwide.
National security adviser Mike Waltz told a crowd of Donald Trump loyalists that he believes the president will receive the Nobel peace prize. “This is the presidency of peace. He’s going to end the war in Europe. He is going to end the wars in the Middle East. He is going to reinvest the United States and our leadership in our own hemisphere, from the Arctic to the border to Panama all the way down to our good friends in Argentina,” Waltz told the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The Senate’s Republican majority has passed a budget plan that will pay for Donald Trump’s mass deportations and other hardline immigration policies, the Associated Press reports. The resolution, approved after a longer series of amendment votes that stretched all night on Thursday and into Friday morning, is the first step in Congress approving funding for one of Trump’s campaign planks. It comes in tandem with a plan moving through the House of Representatives, which the GOP also controls, to extend tax cuts enacted under Trump’s first term and make dramatic cuts to the federal social safety net.
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A US federal judge denied labor groups’ request to issue a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down operations at USAid.
In an order issued on Thursday, US district judge Carl Nichols wrote:
Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges.
Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction.
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The Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children, just three days after it told government-funded attorneys across the country they should immediately stop their work.
Legal aid groups, including the Acacia Center for Justice confirmed that the stop-work order affecting non-profits that provide legal counsel for about 26,000 unaccompanied minors had been lifted.
“We welcome the news that the stop-work order on Acacia’s Unaccompanied Children Program has been lifted,” Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, said in the statement. “We will continue working alongside the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that these critical services upholding the basic due process rights of vulnerable children are fully restored and our partners in the legal field – legal lifelines safeguarding the rights and well-being of children seeking safety – can resume their work without future disruption or delay.”
The administration’s stop-work order on Tuesday shocked non-profits that work with unaccompanied children, some of whom are less than a year old. Many lawyers, including at Acadia and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, had continued to represent and work with clients despite the order, saying that absurdly leaving children without legal representation could have dire consequences and would violate the ethical codes stipulated in their legal licenses.
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AP sues Trump administration officials over first amendment
The Associated Press has sued three Trump administration officials over access to presidential events, citing the first amendment.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit, which names the White House chief of staff, Susan Wiles; deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; and the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
“This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the first amendment … This court should remedy it immediately,” the AP said.
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A Washington DC judge has denied a preliminary injunction in a suit over the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down operations at USAid, Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman reports.
As a result, a temporary restraining order that paused placing thousands of workers on paid leave is no longer in effect.
“The Court will accordingly deny plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, ECF No 9, and will dissolve its previously issued temporary restraining order, ECF No 15,” US district judge Carl Nicholas wrote.
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The Guardian’s Joan E Greve went and checked out the Principles First summit, the anti-Trump conservative response to the Maga-loving Conservative Political Action Conference. Here’s what she found:
While Donald Trump and his acolytes take a victory lap at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, some of the president’s staunchest right-leaning critics will convene for their own event just 10 miles away.
The Principles First summit, which will be held in Washington from Friday to Sunday, has become a venue for anti-Trump conservatives to voice their deep-seated concerns about the “Make America great again” faction of the Republican party, and the gathering has now grown in size and scope. As its organizers confront another four years of Trump’s leadership, they are stretching beyond party lines with speakers such as the billionaire Mark Cuban and Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, to craft their vision for a new approach to US politics.
That vision looks quite different than it did six years ago, when the conservative attorney Heath Mayo founded Principles First. At the time, Mayo, formerly a rank-and-file Republican who supported the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio, hoped to present an anti-Trump alternative to fellow conservatives.
“It started as disgruntled Republicans and conservatives, but that was back in 2019 when that objective seemed to be perhaps more realistic or people were holding out hope that the party would come to its senses,” Mayo said. “Over the years, it’s grown.”
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Trump administration preparing to house immigrants at military bases before deportation – report
The White House is working to develop a network of military bases where immigrants will be held prior to deportation, the New York Times reports.
The first hub is expected to be at Fort Bliss in Texas, near the border with Mexico, but further sites are being considered at bases across the US. Here’s more on the plan, from the Times:
Fort Bliss would serve as a model as the administration aims to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country – from Utah to the area near Niagara Falls – to hold potentially thousands more people and make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a plan that is still in its early stages and has not yet been finalized.
Previous administrations have held some immigrants at military bases, most recently children who would then be released into the country to the care of relatives or friends. The bases served as an emergency backup when the federal government’s shelter system for migrant children reached capacity.
But the Trump administration plan would expand that practice by establishing a nationwide network of military detention facilities for immigrants who are subject to deportation. The proposal would mark a major escalation in the militarization of immigration enforcement after Mr Trump made clear when he came into office that he wanted to rely even more on the Pentagon to curtail immigration.
For Trump officials, the plan helps address a shortage of space for holding the vast number of people they hope to arrest and deport. But it also raises serious questions about the possibility of redirecting military resources and training schedules. Military officials say the impact would depend on the scale of arrests and how long detainees remained in custody. And advocates for immigrants point to a history of poor conditions for immigrants held in military facilities.
Gil Kerlikowske, the former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said military facilities are not designed for a project like this.
“It’s beyond odd,” Mr Kerlikowske said. “Securing the people is labor intensive and it could also be resource intensive.”
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Trump reassigns acting Ice director after deportations lag
Donald Trump has ordered the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) out of the job, after data showed deportations lagged during his first month in office, Reuters reports, citing an administration official and two other sources.
The president’s decision to reassign Caleb Vitello, who took over as acting Ice director when Trump was sworn in, came after government data showed that 37,660 people had been deported in his first month in office, below the 57,000 monthly average during the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency. The homeland security department said that Biden’s numbers were “artificially high” because of the large number of people crossing the southern border.
Reuters reports that Vitello was under pressure to increase the pace of deportations.
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As bad as Donald Trump’s feud with Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be, the Guardian’s Luke Harding reports that the president’s opinions do not appear to be shared by everyone in his administration:
The US envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, has praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, striking a dramatically different tone from Donald Trump, who has called Ukraine’s president a “dictator”.
Kellogg left Kyiv on Friday after a three-day visit. Posting on social media, he said he had engaged in “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelenskyy and his “talented national security team”. “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” he said.
The general’s upbeat remarks are in glaring contrast to those of the US president and his entourage, who have heaped abuse on Zelenskyy during a tumultuous week. Trump claimed Ukraine was to blame for starting the war with Russia, and accused Zelenskyy of doing “a terrible job”.
On Friday, Trump returned to the theme, saying he did not consider it essential for the Ukrainian president to be present at negotiations. “I don’t think he’s very important to be in meetings,” Trump told Fox News. “He’s been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals.”
The Trump administration wants Ukraine to sign a deal that will allow the United States access to its supply of critical minerals, as a way of paying Washington back for its support against the Russian invasion.
But Democratic senator Adam Schiff views the proposed deal a different way. Writing on X, Schiff said:
Translation:
That’s a nice country you’ve got there.
Would be a shame if something happened to it.
The justice department is investigating one of America’s largest health insurers for potentially bilking Medicare, the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports:
The US Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the insurance giant UnitedHealthcare for its Medicare billing practices.
The federal government is examining whether UnitedHealthcare is using patient diagnoses to illegally increase the lump sum monthly payments received through the Medicare Advantage program, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Although it is best known for its insurance operations, UnitedHealthcare is one of the largest corporations in the world with a $457bn market capitalization. Its businesses touch health technology, pharmacy benefits and physician practices.
The company is so large that one industry analyst estimated 5% of US gross domestic product flowed through its infrastructure each day. It is the largest employer of doctors in the US with more than 90,000 physicians in 2023, or nearly one in 10 American doctors.
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This Valentine’s Day, a new political power couple took their vows on the plush white couches of Fox & Friends in midtown Manhattan: Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, and the New York City mayor, Eric Adams.
The pair appeared on the conservative TV show to discuss an agreement they had reached the day before. Their deal reversed longstanding New York City policy by letting federal immigration agents back on to Rikers Island, the city’s jail complex that largely holds people who have been charged with but have not yet been convicted of crimes. The surprise agreement came as the newly installed leaders of Trump’s Department of Justice were making an extraordinary push to dismiss criminal corruption charges that the agency had been pursuing against Adams.
As Adams grinned beside him, Homan said that allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to once again roam the city’s jail complex was just “step one”.
“We’re working on some other things that we don’t really want to talk about,” Homan said, alluding to their joint efforts to circumvent New York’s “sanctuary city” law.
Then Adams, a Democrat who had risen to power vowing to protect immigrants from the president’s agenda, publicly pledged his acquiescence to the White House’s hardline immigration enforcement agenda: “Let’s be clear: I’m not standing in the way. I’m collaborating.”
You can read the full story here:
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A federal judge has indefinitely adjourned the trial of New York Mayor Eric Adams
After the US Department of Justice asked federal judge Dale Ho to dismiss Adams’ corruption charges, Ho responded with a decision that he would not immediately dismiss the case, but delay his trial indefinitely.
Ho is also appointing an outside lawyer, Paul Clement from the law firm Clement & Murphy PLLC, to present arguments against the prosecutors’ bid to dismiss to help him make a decision.
Adams stands accused of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal campaign donations from Turkish foreign nationals.
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Things got heated between Donald Trump and Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, after the president threatened to withhold federal funds from the state if it continues allowing transgender athletes to compete in female sports.
Trump recently signed an recent executive order which seeks to prevent trans girls and women from participating in female sports teams.
“We will see you in court,” the Democratic governor said as she stood up and confronted Trump during a White House event.
Here’s video of the exchange:
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The day so far
Senate Republicans had a late one, staying up all night and into the morning to approve a budget framework that will fund Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, despite howls from Democrats. It was a key step on the Republican-controlled Congress’s path to implementing Trump’s agenda, even as signs of discontent over the president’s aggressive moves against the federal government have emerged. A Republican congressman was condemned by his constituents in a deep-red district, another GOP lawmaker publicly objected to the rapid pace of Trump’s executive orders, and the Pentagon reportedly had to pause plans to fire civilian employees en masse over concerns the move could harm military readiness. Meanwhile, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said Trump would win the Nobel peace prize for all the wars he plans to end, even as he simultaneously threatened military action against Mexican drug cartels.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Trump continued his feud with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing Ukraine of talking “tough” but not having much leverage, while saying he enjoyed his talk with Vladimir Putin.
Two polls show Americans are becoming worried that Trump is overreaching, though he still remains more popular than he was in his first term.
The United States might actually be serious about airstrikes on Mexican drug cartels, but experts don’t think they’d make much of a difference, the Los Angeles Times reports.
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The Trump administration is pressuring Ukraine to sign an agreement that will allow the United States access to the country’s critical minerals, and the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports that national security adviser Mike Waltz today said he expected Volodymyr Zelenskyy to soon agree to its terms:
The White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Friday that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was expected to sign a minerals agreement with the United States imminently, as part of broader negotiations to end the war with Russia.
“Here’s the bottom line: President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term,” Waltz said during remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
The statement comes amid an increasingly public dispute between Zelenskyy and Trump, with Waltz telling Fox News this week that the Ukrainian leader needs to “tone it down” and sign the proposed agreement.
The proposed partnership would give the United States access to Ukraine’s deposits of critical minerals including aluminum, gallium and tritium, Waltz said – materials that are essential for advanced technology manufacturing such as nuclear research and semiconductors, and have significant military applications. The so-called agreement is also being positioned as a way for American taxpayers to recoup some of their investment in Ukraine’s defense, with US aid to Ukraine having exceeded $175bn, according to Waltz.
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Trump says he 'had very good talks with Putin', again criticizes Ukraine
Donald Trump repeated his criticisms of Ukraine in remarks to a group of governors, while also speaking fondly of his interactions with Vladimir Putin.
“I’ve had very good talks with Putin” and “not such good talks with Ukraine”, the president told a meeting of the National Governors Association, which featured Democratic and Republican leaders of states nationwide.
He went on to accuse Kyiv of talking “tough” but having little in the way of bargaining chips.
The remarks are the latest swings in the feud that began earlier this week between Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Here’s more about that:
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Here’s more from the Guardian’s Robert Tait on the budget resolution Senate Republicans passed early this morning, which will fund mass deportations and other top priorities of the president:
The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that paves the way for funding Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan after his “border czar” said there weren’t enough funds for the operation.
A 10-hour marathon session – dubbed a “vote-a-rama” – concluded in the early hours of Friday morning with a 52-48 vote almost entirely on party lines in favor of a spending structure that would see $175bn reserved for border security, including Trump’s prized border wall with Mexico, and a $150bn boost to the Pentagon budget.
Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, was the sole Republican to vote against the package at the end of a session that saw Democrats place numerous roadblocks in the form of amendments.
Friday’s vote came ahead of an attempt by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to fashion legislation that would roll Trump’s agenda – including a mass tax cut – into what the president has called “one big beautiful bill”.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the United States is considering military actions such as airstrikes on drug cartel operations in Mexico – and that experts don’t think such a strategy would change much.
Were Washington to go that route – as threatened by national security adviser Mike Waltz earlier today – it would mark a major shift in US policy towards Mexico, and the criminal organizations that hold great sway in the country. The Times reports that military action is being seriously considered:
Todd Zimmerman, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special agent in Mexico City, said in an interview that the administration’s decision this week to label drug cartels as terrorist organizations was a pointed message to their leadership that US military action is on the table.
‘They’re worried because they know the might and the strength of the US military,’ he said. ‘They know that at any time, they could be anywhere – if it comes to that, if it comes to that – they could be in a car, they could be in a house, and they could be vaporized. They’ve seen it in the Afghan and Iraq wars. So they know the potential that’s out there.’
…
Other experts pointed out that past efforts to deploy military might against drug traffickers have failed to slow the flow of drugs into the United States. When the Mexican government declared war on cartels in 2006 and sent soldiers into the streets to fight them, the clearest result was a massive increase in homicides.
‘It doesn’t work,’ said Elisabeth Malkin, deputy program director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group. ‘A whole constellation of actions are needed: to pursue proper investigations, to create cases that hold up in court, to dismantle whole networks rather than just going after the big drug kingpin, who is paraded before the cameras.’
Mike Vigil, a former head of international operations at the DEA, described Trump’s efforts as ‘all for show.’
‘The military aircraft, the troops at the border, the talk of drones: It’s all a flash in the pan,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to have an impact.’
Using multimillion-dollar munitions to strike primitive drug laboratories would be a laughable waste of resources, Vigil said.
‘You’re not talking about sophisticated laboratories. We’re talking about some tubs and pots and pans, kitchenware,’ he said. ‘And the labs are not fixed, they’re mobile. They move them around, they’re not operational 24/7. And these labs are easily replaced. So you’re not accomplishing anything.’
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The annual Conservative Political Action Conference is the biggest gathering of its type in the United States, attracting Donald Trump, JD Vance and fellow travelers from countries across the world.
But after Trump ally Steve Bannon threw up what looks like a Nazi salute (something powerful people in the president’s orbit seem to like doing), the leader of a far-right party in France canceled his appearance. We have more on that, and all other news happening in Europe, at our live blog covering the continent:
National security adviser Mike Waltz also upped the rhetoric against Mexican cartels, after the Trump administration earlier this week named six of them as foreign terrorist organizations.
“We are going to unleash holy hell on the cartels. Enough is enough. We are securing our border, and the cartels are on notice,” Waltz said.
It’s unclear what practical effect designating cartels as terrorist groups will have on US policy, but experts worry it could be a first step towards the United States taking military action against the criminal organizations:
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National security adviser believes Trump will be awarded Nobel peace price
National security adviser Mike Waltz told a crowd of Donald Trump loyalists that he believes the president will receive the Nobel peace prize.
“This is the presidency of peace. He’s going to end the war in Europe. He is going to end the wars in the Middle East. He is going to reinvest the United States and our leadership in our own hemisphere, from the Arctic to the border to Panama all the way down to our good friends in Argentina,” Waltz told the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“And you know what? By the end of this all, we’re going to have the Nobel peace prize sitting next to the name of Donald J Trump. And who opposes peace? Like, I mean, how do the Democrats oppose peace?”
Waltz’s comments come days after Trump upended US policy on Ukraine by calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator” and opened negotiations with Russia. Here’s more on the spat, which has rattled Washington’s European allies:
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Pentagon delays mass firings of civilian employees – report
The defense department will delay a plan to fire civilian employees on probation as it assess whether the move complies with the law and if it affects military readiness, CNN reports.
The cuts were to be made as part of Donald Trump’s effort to dramatically downsize the federal government, which is being led by Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. Here’s more, from CNN:
The pause comes after CNN reported on Wednesday that the mass terminations, which could affect over 50,000 civilian employees across the Pentagon, could run afoul of Title 10 section 129a of the US code. Following that report, Pentagon lawyers began reviewing the legality of the planned terminations more closely, the officials said.
That law says that the secretary of defense “may not reduce the civilian workforce programmed full-time equivalent levels unless the Secretary conducts an appropriate analysis” of how those firings could impact the US military’s lethality and readiness. The law also says that mitigating risk to US military readiness takes precedence over cost.
A senior defense official told CNN on Wednesday that such an analysis had not been carried out before military leaders were ordered to make lists of employees to fire.
The office of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declined to comment.
Throughout this week, defense officials had been scrambling and working late into the night to create lists of individual workers who should be exempted from the firings because they are critical to ongoing mission support, including those who work in cybersecurity, intelligence, operations, foreign military sales and other critical national security roles, several defense officials said.
Hegseth said in a video posted to X on Thursday that the department was focusing on terminating lower-performing employees first. But defense officials told CNN that the Office of Personnel Management is using a broad justification for the firings, arguing to DoD that these probationary employees don’t contribute positively to the Pentagon’s overall performance because they are no longer needed.
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Further evidence has emerged that Donald Trump’s legally questionable government downsizing effort may not be the hit with voters that he hopes it will be.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that a narrow majority of voters fear the president has grown too big for his britches:
President Donald Trump has opened his second term with a flurry of actions designed to radically disrupt and shrink the federal bureaucracy, but reviews from Americans are mixed to negative on many of his specific initiatives, and 57 percent say he has exceeded his authority since taking office, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
Overall, 43 percent of Americans say they support what the president has done during his first month in office, with 48 percent saying they oppose. Those who strongly oppose outnumber those who strongly support by 37 percent to 27 percent.
CNN and SSRS reported similar concerns among voters over Trump’s offensive against government agencies far and wide. His overall approval is dipping too, though he still remains more popular than during his first term:
There are signs in the poll, though, that the warmer welcome Trump has received this time around could be fleeting, as optimism about his return to office has slipped since December. A broad majority feel the president isn’t doing enough to address the high prices of everyday goods. And 52% say he’s gone too far in using his presidential power, with similar majorities wary of his push to shutter federal agencies and elevate Elon Musk to a prominent role in his efforts to reshape the government.
Americans divide on Trump’s performance in office thus far, with 47% approving and 52% disapproving, below the start-of-term ratings for any recent presidency other than his own. For most of the public, Trump’s actions are lining up with their expectations: Three-quarters say his handling of the presidency has been in line with what they expected while 25% say he’s handled it in an unexpected way, similar to how people felt a few weeks into his first term.
All told, 41% say both that Trump is handling the presidency as expected and that his living up to their expectations is a positive. Nearly all of those who feel caught off guard describe that as a bad thing, but the group who feels surprised in a bad way by Trump’s actions makes up only 21% of all Americans.
Most adults nationwide, 55%, say that Trump has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems and 62% feel he has not gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods. Sizable shares across party lines share the latter view, including 47% of Republicans, 65% of independents and 73% of Democrats. In CNN’s January polling, the economy eclipsed all other issues as Americans’ top concern.
More describe themselves as pessimistic or afraid when looking ahead to the rest of Trump’s second term (54%) than say they feel enthusiastic or optimistic about it (46%). In December, 52% were on the positive side, 48% negative. Notably, the share saying they feel “afraid” has climbed 6 points to 35%, rising by a roughly equal share across partisan lines.
Senate Republicans approve budget that funds Trump's mass deportations
The Senate’s Republican majority has passed a budget plan that will pay for Donald Trump’s mass deportations and other hardline immigration policies, the Associated Press reports.
The resolution, approved after a longer series of amendment votes that stretched all night on Thursday and into Friday morning, is the first step in Congress approving funding for one of Trump’s campaign planks. It comes in tandem with a plan moving through the House of Representatives, which the GOP also controls, to extend tax cuts enacted under Trump’s first term and make dramatic cuts to the federal social safety net.
Here’s more on the budget resolution, from the AP:
The hours-long “vote-a-rama” rambled along in a dreaded but crucial part of the budget process, as senators considered one amendment after another, largely from Democrats trying to halt it. But Republicans used their majority power to muscle the package to approval on a largely party-line vote, 52-48, with all Democrats and one GOP senator opposing it.
“What we’re doing today is jumpstarting a process that will allow the Republican Party to meet President Trump’s immigration agenda,” Senate Budget Committee chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said while opening the debate.
Graham said President Donald Trump’s top immigration czar, Tom Homan, told senators that the administration’s deportation operations are “out of money” and need more funding from Congress to detain and deport immigrants.
With little power in the minority to stop the onslaught, Democrats instead used the all-night debate to force GOP senators into potentially embarrassing votes — including the first one, on blocking tax breaks to billionaires. It was turned back on procedural grounds. So were many others.
“This is going to be a long, drawn-out fight,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned. Hours later, Schumer said it “was only the beginning” of what could become a months-long debate.
The package is what Republicans view as a down payment on Trump’s agenda, part of a broader effort that will eventually include legislation to extend some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and other priorities. That’s being assembled by House Speaker Mike Johnson in a separate budget package that also seeks up to $2 trillion in reductions to health care and other programs.
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Over in Ohio, Republican congressman Troy Balderson told constituents that he was concerned about the scope of Donald Trump’s executive orders, particularly when it comes to doing away with federal agencies.
Balderson represents a very red district, but the Columbus Dispatch reports that he told voters Trump’s rapid pace of orders was “getting out of control” and undercutting responsibilities delegates to Congress. Here’s more:
Balderson, whose district includes the central and southeastern Ohio counties like Licking, Fairfield and parts of Delaware County, expressed some pushback to the idea of sole decision-making power lying with Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk.
“Congress has to decide whether or not the Department of Education goes away,” Balderson asserted. “Not the president, not Elon Musk. Congress decides.”
While the Zanesville native said he respects Trump and the need for executive orders, and that the executive branch has every right to look into government agencies like those dealing with education and Medicaid, “Congress has to do their work.”
Constituents in deep red Georgia district take Republican congressman to task over Doge cuts – report
Republican congressman Rich McCormick’s Georgia district voted for Donald Trump by a 60% margin last November, but many residents are not pleased with the president allowing the “department of government efficiency” to gut federal agencies.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that McCormick learned this the hard way last night, when he held a very well-attended town hall in which constituents aired their grievances over what they feared were haphazard and damaging cuts to programs that did not deserve to meet such a fate.
Here’s more:
The Suwanee Republican’s staff expected a robust turnout for his first town hall since Trump took office. But they seemed caught off guard by the massive crowd of hundreds that gathered outside Roswell City Hall.
Attendees set the tone early, with one accusing McCormick of “doing us a disservice” for supporting the budget-slashing initiatives by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that have torn through all corners of federal government.
“You don’t think I’m going to stand up for you?” asked McCormick, as the crowd responded with loud boos.
Pressed on what he’ll do to “rein in the megalomaniac in the White House,” McCormick brought up President Joe Biden’s tenure.
“When you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.”
He then compared the attendees to “Jan. 6ers who are yelling just as loud as you” – a reference to the pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol. That triggered a fresh outburst from crowd members insulted by the comparison.
Pushed to answer the question, McCormick later added: “I don’t want to see any president be too powerful.”
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We expect Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer to soon visit Donald Trump, at a moment when the American president is upending much of US foreign policy with his embrace of Russia’s position in the war in Ukraine. The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour looks at whether Starmer’s visit might reassure a rattled Europe:
In November 1940, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt expressing relief both at the US president’s re-election and the victory of his anti-appeasement policy. “Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.
As Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepare to meet a very different US president, things are once again afoot that will live long in the memory – but this time the lights seem to be going out on a ship adrift in a sea of chaos.
In his Arsenal of Democracy speech, Roosevelt spurned those who asked to “throw the US weight on the scale in favour of a dictated peace”. He also saw past Nazi Germany’s “parade of pious purpose” to observe “in the background the concentration camps and ‘servants of God’ in chains”.
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As Donald Trump swings his sights from one region to the next, upturning diplomatic relations and confounding allies, leaders of former US partners have clashed with him and come off much the worse.
But so far, one – Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum – has emerged relatively unscathed.
With the US-Mexico border and the trade, drugs and migrants that cross it a focus of the Trump administration, Mexico is under intense pressure. Yet while Sheinbaum has made some concessions, she has also charmed Trump and won plaudits at home, with approval ratings that touch 80%.
The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”
The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development.
Trump, who has said that the climate crisis is a “giant hoax”, has already stripped mentions of climate change and global heating from government websites and ordered a halt to programs that reference diversity, equity and inclusion. A widespread funding freeze for federally backed scientific work also has been imposed, throwing the US scientific community into chaos.
Federal workers brace for more firings after judge lifts block on Trump administration job cuts
Good morning US politics readers. Federal workers are bracing for more mass firings after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can continue its job-cutting drive.
The ruling came as a blow to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and four other unions, who sued last week to block the administration from firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and granting buyouts to employees who quit voluntarily.
The ruling by the US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington DC federal court is temporary while the litigation plays out.
Meanwhile, as Trump and his lieutenants have been touting supposed cost-savings, a top labor lawyer has warned that instead the mass downsizing of the federal workforce could tally up into a “monumental” bill and could be breaking the law.
Officials have cited “poor performance” when terminating thousands of federal workers. In many cases it’s not true, according to employees embroiled in the blitz, many of whom are now seeking legal advice.
Jacob Malcom was acting deputy assistant secretary for policy and environmental management, and director of the office of policy analysis at the US Department of Interior – until this week, when he resigned in protest against the mass firings of probationary employees.
“This is being done under the guise of ‘poor performance’ or ‘skills not aligned with needs’ but neither are true,” he told the Guardian. “First, no evidence was provided that would suggest that poor performance; in fact, I know some of the individuals that were down my chain of supervision and know they were among the best performers.
You can read the full report by Michael Sainato here:
Here’s what’s happening today:
Donald Trump is due to address national governors at 11am ET.
CPAC continues apace. Speakers today include NSA chief Mike Waltz – who told Zelenskyy to “tone down” Trump criticism – at 9.55am, Sebastian Gorka at 11.05am, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at 5pm and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem at 7.30pm.
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