Closing summary
We will be wrapping the live blog for the 24th day of Trump’s second term. But we will return to chronicle what unfolds in a Valentine’s Day edition of US politics live on Friday.
Here is a look at some of the day’s developments:
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Antonio Delgado, New York’s lieutenant governor, called on New York city’s mayor, Eric Adams, to resign on Thursday after Adams changed city policy to cooperate with federal immigration agents in an apparent quid pro quo for the dropping of federal corruption charges against him.
More than 200,000 federal workers could be fired, after the office of personnel management directed federal agencies to lay off all their probationary employees.
Donald Trump admitted that he did not know if Elon Musk had met India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, in his private capacity as a businessperson or as a representative of the US government.
At a joint press conference, Modi said that India was “fully prepared” to take back the estimated 725,000 Indian citizens who are living in the US without legal status.
The acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, conservative lawyer Danielle Sassoon, sent a scathing resignation letter to the Department of Justice after she was asked to drop federal charges against New York’s mayor for what she called improper political reasons.
A federal judge put on hold Trump’s executive order banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth, after finding the policy “seems to deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist”.
Robert F Kennedy Jr was confirmed and sworn in as health secretary, despite grave reservations from Democrats and scientists over his anti-vaccine activism. He thanked God for Trump and went on to trash the United States Agency for International Development, which was set up by his uncle, John F Kennedy.
Trump announced he signed a memorandum ordering reciprocal tariffs, asking his trade advisers to calculate new tariff levels for all countries.
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Top New York Democrats call for mayor Eric Adams to resign after permitting Ice agents to operate on Rikers Island
Two of New York’s leading Democrats, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Antonio Delgado, the state’s lieutenant governor, called on New York city’s mayor, Eric Adams, to resign on Thursday after Adams changed city policy to cooperate with federal immigration agents carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy.
Adams announced on Thursday that he would issue an executive order to allow US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to operate on Rikers Island, undermining the city’s 2014 sanctuary laws that banned immigration agents from the jail complex.
Adams said that he had acted after meeting Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Thursday.
The move was unpopular with immigrants rights groups. “Allowing ICE access to Rikers Island, where New Yorkers – including noncitizens entitled to the presumption of innocence and their day in court – are detained, is an egregious violation of NY’s commitment as a sanctuary city and undermines constitutional due process protections,” New York’s Legal Aid Society said in a statement.
Both Ocasio-Cortez and Delgado focused on the fact that Adams seemed to acting as a part of a quid pro quo arrangement with Trump, cooperating with the crackdown in return for federal corruption charges against him being dropped.
“New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President,” Delgado posted on social media. “Mayor Adams should step down.”
Ocasio-Cortez called the revelation, in a resignation letter from the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, that lawyers for Adams had explicitly offered to cooperate in the crackdown on undocumented immigrants in exchange for having the charges dropped, “explosive”.
The prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, wrote in a footnote to her letter that acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove – who was previously Trump’s criminal defense lawyer – had confiscated notes on a meeting with the Adams legal team she attended that made the political nature of the deal clear.
“I attended a meeting on January 31, 2025, with Mr. Bove, Adams’s counsel, and members of my office. Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion,” Sassoon wrote.
“Mayor Adams is putting the City of New York and its people at risk in exchange for escaping charges,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in response to Sassoon’s letter. “As long as Trump wields this leverage over Adams, the city is endangered. We cannot be governed under coercion. If Adams won’t resign, he must be removed.”
Later on Thursday, Homan appeared on Fox to discuss the crackdown and told host Laura Ingraham that he had sent an email to the acting deputy attorney general to ask if Ocasio-Cortez was “impeding our law enforcement efforts” by using social media to advise citizen and non-citizen New Yorkers to know their rights when confronted by immigration agents. “Maybe AOC’s going to be in trouble now,” Homan said.
“Maybe he can learn to read”, Ocasio-Cortez responded on social media. “The Constitution would be a good place to start”.
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Federal agencies ordered to fire all probationary employees
The office of personnel management has directed federal agencies to lay off all their probationary employees, who generally have less than a year on the job and don’t have full civil service protection, the Associated Press reports.
The notification, sent on Thursday afternoon, was confirmed to the news agency by a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The move expands on previous directions from OPM, which told agencies earlier this week that probationary employees should be fired if they weren’t meeting high standards.
The mass firing of federal workers could affect more than 200,000 workers.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers, pledged in a statement to “fight these firings every step of the way” and pursue “every legal challenge available”.
“This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office” Kelley said.
“Employees were given no notice, no due process, and no opportunity to defend themselves in a blatant violation of the principles of fairness and merit that are supposed to govern federal employment,” the union president added.
“The probationary period is a continuation of the job application process, not an entitlement for permanent employment,” an OPM spokesperson said in a statement sent to NBC News.
“Agencies are taking independent action in light of the recent hiring freeze and in support of the president’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to better serve the American people at the highest possible standard.”
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Trump and Modi dodge questions about Musk's meeting with Indian leader
At the Trump-Modi news conference, India’s prime minister was asked if he had discussed business in his meeting earlier in the day with Elon Musk, the billionaire who is playing a leading role, if not the leading role, in the second Trump administration.
Modi had shared an image of the meeting with Musk at Blair House, where visiting leaders stay, on X, the social media platform owned by Musk. The image showed the unusual scene of a row of Indian officials facing off with Musk’s entourage, which included three of his small children.
Modi dodged the question, saying just: “I have known him for a very long time. I was not even Prime Minister at the time, when I first met him, I was chief minister, and today he came to meet me, along with all his family, with his children, and so we had a nice discussion”.
In the Oval office earlier, Trump was asked about the nature of the meeting. “When Elon Musk met with Prime Minister Modi”, a reporter asked, “did he do so as an American CEO or did he do so as a representative of the US government?”
“I don’t know” Trump replied. “They met, and I assume he wants to do business in India”.
“So how is Mr Modi supposed to know if he’s meeting with a CEO or with a representative of your government?” the reporter asked Trump.
“Well, he’s meeting with me in a little while, so I’m going to ask him that question” Trump replied, confusingly.
The exchange seemed to undermine Trump’s claim, in response to another reporter’s question, that he was personally checking to make sure Musk had no conflicts of interest in his dual role as a “special government employee” and the world’s richest man.
Modi says India is 'fully prepared' to take back any Indians living in the US without legal status
Standing across from Donald Trump in the White House, Indian’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was asked by an Indian reporter to comment on the US “push to curb illegal immigration”.
According to a simultaneous translation, he replied: “We are of the opinion that anybody who enters another country illegally has absolutely no right to be in that country.”
“Any verified Indian who is in the US illegally,” Modi added, “we are fully prepared to take them back.”
The prime minister did, however, express sympathy for children who were brought to the US and others “lured by big dreams”.
Last week, a US military plane carrying 104 deported Indian migrants arrived in India, as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.
That was, however, just a tiny sliver of the estimated 725,000 Indians who were living in the US without legal status in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center study.
India, Pew found, was the third largest source of unauthorized immigrants in the US, after Mexico and El Salvador.
As of November, the Indian Express reported, there were 20,407 undocumented Indians either facing final removal orders or are currently in detention centers of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Indian outlets were appalled by the fact that Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, whose wife is an Indian American, had advocated the re-hiring of a young engineer working for Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” who had posted racist comments about Indians, including “normalize Indian hate”, on the social media platform X.
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Trump announces extradition of accused Mumbai terror attack plotter
At the start of his just completed White House news conference with Narendra Modi, Donald Trump said that Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian of Pakistani descent, would be sent to India to face charges related to the terrorist attack in Mumbai on 26 November 2008.
“I am pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters, and one of the very evil people of the world, having to do with the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, to face justice in India”, Trump said.
Rana is a former military doctor who served in the Pakistani army. He moved to Canada in 1997 and became an immigration service businessman. After gaining Canadian citizenship in 2001, Rana moved to Chicago.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years in US federal prison in 2013 for providing material support to overseas terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai in 2008.
In 2011, jurors convicted Rana of providing support for Lashkar-e-Taiba, and for supporting a plot to attack a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. The Denmark plot was never carried out. Rana was cleared of the more serious charge of helping to plot the Mumbai attacks. The government’s main witness was David Coleman Headley, who had pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks.
The US supreme court had turned down Rana’s appeal against extradition last month.
An Associated Press reporter was just blocked from attending the Trump-Modi news conference in the White House, continuing the administration’s attempt to strong-arm the global news collective into changing its decision to not call the Gulf of Mexico by the new name Trump has given it: the Gulf of America.
In a statement, AP executive editor Julie Pace called the move, “a deeply troubling escalation of the administration’s continued efforts to punish the Associated Press for its editorial decisions”.
“It is a plain violation of the first amendment … an incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on the Associated Press for nonpartisan news,” Pace wrote.
One odd aspect of the ban is that it seems to apply to AP reporters but not AP photographers, who continue to be allowed to cover Trump in the White House.
Here, for instance, is an AP photo of Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, where he appears to have ordered his staff to keep a drawing of the “Gulf of America” on an easel behind his desk, so that it appears in news photographs, including those captured and distributed by the Associated Press.
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Here is live video of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi – they’re speaking at a news conference in the White House:
Protesters against Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown marched across downtown Manhattan, with at least one arrest being made by NYPD.
As they made their way through New York’s Soho neighborhood, the marchers were flanked by a heavy presence of NYPD officers on either side.
Approximately 100 protesters marched, beating drums and chanting in solidarity with the migrant communities, with a police presence that appeared to be at least double that size.
Several protesters are holding a sign that reads “to get our neighbors, you have to get through us.”
Several individuals wearing blue jerseys that say “ACLU New York City protest monitor” are also walking along with the demonstrators.
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Trump falsely claims top federal prosecutor in New York, who refused to drop charges against mayor Eric Adams, was fired
During a brief exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, alongside Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, Donald Trump was asked about the dramatic resignation of Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York.
Sassoon, a conservative lawyer and a member of the Federalist Society who once clerked for supreme court justice Antonin Scalia, offered her resignation on Wednesday in a scathing letter to Pam Bondi, the new attorney general, in which she explained that she could not, in good conscience, comply with an order from acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, to drop corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams, in return for the mayor’s help in executing Trump’s immigration policies.
Trump told reporters that Sassoon did not resign, but was fired.
That is not true. Multiple news organizations, including ABC News, obtained copies of Bove’s letter accepting Sassoon’s resignation on Thursday.
“The reasons advanced by Mr Bove for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend as in the public interest and as consistent with the principles of impartiality and fairness that guide my decision-making,” Sassoon wrote in her letter.
“Mr Bove proposes dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws, analogizing to the prisoner exchange in which the United States freed notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Bout in return for an American prisoner in Russia.”
She added: “Such an exchange with Adams violates commonsense beliefs in the equal administration of justice, the Justice Manual, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. Adams has argued in substance – and Mr Bove appears prepared to concede – that Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the administration’s policy priorities.”
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Protesters have started chanting and beating drums in Foley Square as part of the rally against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns.
“Deny, defend, depose, all Nazis got to go,” they chanted.
Other chants include “every gender, every race, punch a Nazi in the face”.
Some protesters held signs that read “Chinga la migra” or “Fuck ice.”
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A handful of protestors donning green bandanas have gathered at Foley Square in downtown Manhattan ahead of an immigration rally in response to Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdowns.
Some are holding handwritten signs that say “Melt Ice” – a reference to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Another person is holding a sign with a message to New York City’s mayor Eric Adams who has in recent months taken on a hardened stance against immigration.
“Immigrants are not your get out of jail card!” the sign read, in reference to Adams’ own federal charges of corruption which the newest Trump-appointed justice department has ordered prosecutors to drop.
Another protester held up a sign that read “No family separation!”
Trump hails 'great friendship' with Modi
Donald Trump is hosting at the White House the Indian PM Narendra Modi, who has heaped praise on him in hopes of avoiding the additional tariffs that the new administration has slapped on other countries in its opening weeks.
Trump and Modi greeted each with a hug in the lobby of the West Wing before meeting on Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office. Trump called Modi a “great friend” hours after signing an order to increase tariffs to match the tax rates that other countries charge on imports, which affects American trading partners around the world, including India.
“We have great friendship, he and I and our countries, and I think it’s only going to get closer,” Trump said.
The Indian leader was looking to improve relations with Washington and the West overall, which have been frosty lately after Modi refused to condemn Russia for its war on Ukraine.
“The world had this thinking that India somehow is a neutral country in this whole process,” Modi said, praising Trump for speaking with Russia and Ukraine’s leaders on Wednesday. “But this is not true. India has a side, and that side is of peace.”
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Trump meets Modi at White House
Donald Trump and Narendra Modi are meeting in the Oval Office. You can follow it live here:
Speaking to reporters earlier in the Oval office, Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on the fact that Senator Mitch McConnell had polio as a child.
McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, mentioned his childhood illness to explain his vote against Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine activist, as health secretary. “I’m a survivor of childhood polio”, McConnell said. “In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures”.
Asked about McConnell’s vote in the Oval office before Kennedy’s swearing-in, Trump first cast doubt on the senator’s mental competence, and then scoffed at the idea that he had survived polio.
When Kaitlin Collins of CNN said, “he had polio, obviously,” Trump replied, “I don’t know anything about, ‘He had polio’. He had polio” in a sarcastic tone that implied McConnell might have been lying about having had the illness in his youth.
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, has rejected a request from Louisiana to extradite a doctor who was charged there with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor, the Associated Press reports.
The case against Dr Maggie Carpenter, a family medicine doctor in New Paltz, New York, who was indicted on criminal charges by a grand jury in Louisiana last month after prescribing the medication in a telemedicine appointment, sets up a potential court battle over laws that protect physicians who prescribe such medications to patients in states with bans.
Hochul, a Democrat, told reporters she will not honor Louisiana’s request to arrest and send the doctor to Louisiana after she was charged with violating the southern state’s strict anti-abortion law.
“I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana,” Hochul said at a news conference in Manhattan. “Not now, not ever.”
She also said she sent out a notice to law enforcement in New York that instructed them to not cooperate with out-of-state warrants for such charges.
Pills have become the most common method of abortion in the US and are at the epicenter of political and legal fights over abortion access following the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
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Issa Rae cancelled a sold-out show at the Kennedy Center scheduled for next month after Donald Trump purged Democratic appointees to its board and had himself elected chairman.
The actress, writer and director announced the cancellation in a letter to her “DC Fam” posted on Instagram on Thursday. After thanking fans for buying tickets, she wrote:
Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue.
The White House released of 14 new board members appointed by the president on Thursday, including himself, Usha Vance, the vice president’s wife; Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff; Dan Scavino, Trump’s former golf caddy and current deputy chief of staff overseeing social media; Allison Lutnick, the wife of Trump’s commerce secretary.
The board named Richard Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, interim president.
Rae’s decision comes after the television producer and writer Shonda Rhimes resigned as the board’s treasurer on Wednesday and Renée Fleming, a renowned opera singer, stepped down as an artistic adviser to the center
The musician Ben Folds announced on Wednesday that he had resigned as an adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, which is overseen by the Kennedy center, “given developments at the Kennedy Center”.
Top prosecutor, justice department officials resign over order to drop charges against New York mayor Eric Adams
The top federal prosecutor in New York City and two justice department officials have resigned after being ordered to drop charges against the city’s mayor Eric Adams, Reuters reports.
Adams was last year indicted on charges related to accepting bribes from Turkish officials. The decision to drop the charges was reportedly made by Emil Bove, a former defense attorney for Donald Trump who is now acting deputy attorney general at the justice department. Here’s more about the resignations, from Reuters:
Manhattan US attorney Danielle Sassoon, the Trump administration’s recent pick to temporarily lead the office prosecuting New York mayor Eric Adams, resigned her post on Thursday without giving a reason, a spokesperson for the office said.
John Keller, the acting head of the justice department’s public corruption unit, also resigned, two people familiar with the matter said. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department’s criminal division, has also resigned, one of the people said.
The resignations come after acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove on Monday ordered Sassoon to drop corruption charges against Adams, a Democrat who has forged ties with Donald Trump, in what former prosecutors called a sign of political interference.
According to a person briefed on the matter, Sassoon refused to comply with the directive to dismiss the case, and Trump’s administration then directed Keller’s office to do so. Keller resigned rather than comply, the person said.
The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Federal judge blocks Trump order restricting gender-affirming care for minors
A federal judge has put on hold Donald Trump’s executive order banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth, after finding the policy “seems to deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist”, the Associated Press reports.
Trump signed the order shortly after taking office, which threatened to revoke federal funding from facilities that provide treatments like hormone therapy and puberty blockers. The ruling by judge Brendan Hurson, an appointee of Joe Biden based in Baltimore, came in a challenge to the order filed by families of transgender and non-binary youth, and supporting advocacy groups.
The order is now on hold while the lawsuit proceeds. Here’s more about the concerns among transgender healthcare providers about Trump’s ban:
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Trump acknowledges new tariffs may cause 'short-term' price increases
Tariffs have a tendency to cause price increases that consumers must bear, and as he announced his “reciprocal” levies on countries that impose tariffs on American goods, Donald Trump acknowledged that could be the case.
“I think what’s going to go up is jobs are going to go up, and prices could go up somewhat short term, but prices will also go down,” Trump said. He added that “the farmers are going to be helped by this very much” because “product is being dumped into our country”.
An increase in prices, even if it’s short term, could be an unwelcome development in the fight against inflation, which has proved to be stubborn:
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Robert F Kennedy Jr sworn in as health secretary
Robert F Kennedy Jr is officially the secretary of health and human services, after supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch administered the oath in the Oval Office.
Donald Trump was also in attendance.
Here’s more about Kennedy’s path from vaccine conspiracy theorist to Democratic presidential contender to Trump ally, and what he may do at the federal health department:
In a new post on Truth Social, Trump elaborated on his new executive order on reciprocal tariffs, saying that other taxes like value-added tax (VAT) are “far more punitive than a tariff”.
“It is fair to all, no other Country can complain and, in some cases, if a County feels that the United States would be getting too high a Tariff, all they have to do is reduce or terminate their Tariff against us,” Trump wrote.
Trump said that the reciprocal tariffs will “immediately bring Fairness and Prosperity back into the previously complex and unfair System of Trade”.
The president’s announcement is a dramatic departure from how trade in the US has worked for decades. It amounts to a dismissal of international bodies like the World Trade Organization, which helps countries negotiate trade policies.
Trump said that cabinet members secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of commerce nominee Howard Lutnick, treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer will work to calculate the new tariffs on a country-by-country basis.
Though Trump announced new reciprocal tariffs on Thursday, nothing new is going into effect – yet.
It will probably take some time to know exactly what changes the Trump administration will make in response to Trump’s new reciprocal tariff order.
Trump’s economic advisers told reporters today, after Trump’s announcement, that they will be coming up with new numbers country by country.
Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said the administration will finish crunching the numbers by 1 April, according to the Reuters.
The president said his priorities are the most “egregious” examples of unfairness in trade, including countries that have big trade surpluses and high tariff rates.
An administration official, who spoke without attribution, said that Trump “is more than happy to lower tariffs if countries want to lower tariffs”.
But the administration said they would be considering things beyond tariffs, which means they could consider other taxes countries put on foreign goods. Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, spoke out on Thursday against the European Union’s value-added tax (VAT) as the “poster child” for what the administration sees as an unfair tax, the New York Times reported.
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Trump announces reciprocal tariffs
Donald Trump announced he signed a memorandum ordering reciprocal tariffs, asking his trade advisers to calculate new tariff levels for all countries.
The order is a big ask, what could be a major overhaul of the current trade system.
“Whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Thursday. “Very simple. Nobody knows what that number is. If you go by individual country … and you look at what they’re charging us, in almost all cases they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them.
“Those days are over,” he said.
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Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, defended his vote in support of Robert F Kennedy‘s nomination to lead the department of health and human services, as Democrats condemned the new cabinet member over his past anti-vaccine comments.
“Every president deserves their team,” Graham said in a statement. “I look forward to working with RFK Jr to improve our quality of life and health in America.”
Graham and 51 other Senate Republicans pushed Kennedy’s nomination across the finish line, as Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joined every Senate Democrat in opposing his confirmation.
We’re still waiting on Trump to announce his slate of new tariffs. Keep in mind that the announcement was originally promised for Tuesday or Wednesday, and had to be pushed back.
Trump said earlier today that “TODAY IS THE BIG ONE” and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed earlier this morning that Trump would be speaking at 1pm and said that “this is something he believes strongly in”.
But still, precise details on what these tariffs would be have been vague. Trump trade advisers Peter Navarro even told CNN that the announcement could be an investigation into how to implement reciprocal tariffs.
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Trump expected to announce reciprocal tariffs
Trump is expected to speak to reporters about new reciprocal tariffs in a few minutes, at 1pm ET.
Though he hasn’t given much detail about these new tariffs, Trump has said he sees reciprocal tariffs being “where a country pays so much or charges us so much and we do the same”.
“They charge us, we charge them,” Trump said, during a press conference with Japanese prime minister Shigaru Ishiba.
A little refresher on the tariffs that Trump has already put in place: there is a new 10% tariff on all imports from China and a global 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports. Trump paused 25% tariffs that were supposed to apply to all Canadian and Mexican imports until 4 March.
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Progressives blast House GOP plan for big spending cuts, bigger tax cuts
Progressive lawmakers are lambasting House Republicans’ newly released budget blueprint, which calls for slashing federal funding by $2tn and cutting taxes by $4.5tn.
On a press call hosted by the group Families Over Billionaires this morning, representative Greg Casar, a Democrat of Texas and chair of the congressional progressive caucus, described Republicans’ proposal as a “theft from working class Americans to hand our money over to the ultra-rich”.
“House Republicans will take health care and food from people who need it in order to give massive tax breaks to billionaires,” Casar said. “Republicans are picking a fight with working Americans, and that’s a fight I believe Republicans are doomed to lose.”
Given Republicans’ razor-thin majority, it remains very unclear whether they will be able to advance their budget proposal, as hard-right lawmakers are demanding more spending cuts and Democrats appear unified in their opposition to the plan.
The White House said it was targeting 5% to 10% of the federal workforce accepting a buyout, which would have amounted to hundreds of thousands of buyout acceptances.
Still, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in brief comments to reporters on Thursday morning appeared to say that White House “hit the numbers we wanted” after the office of personnel management announced 75,000 federal employees accepted buyout offers.
“That’s going to save millions of dollars for the American taxpayers, and that’s exactly what we wanted,” Leavitt said.
On Wednesday, a federal judge lifted a pause to the program, nicknamed “Fork in the Road”, after the labor union representing federal employees sued the Trump administration for lack of standing.
The buyout offer was sent to the 2.3 million employees working for the federal government. Those working for the military or the US Postal Service were excluded from the program.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, attacked her Republican colleagues for confirming Robert F Kennedy Jr as the next secretary of health and human services.
“Putting Kennedy in charge of the nation’s public health is a huge mistake,” Warren said in a new statement.
“When dangerous diseases resurface and people can’t access lifesaving vaccines, all Americans will suffer. And thanks to his serious, unresolved conflicts of interest, RFK Jr’s family could continue getting richer from his anti-vaccine crusade while he’s in office.”
Warren raised serious concerns about Kennedy’s potential conflicts of interest during his confirmation hearings, but every Senate Republican, except for Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, still supported his nomination.
Polio survivor Mitch McConnell says he opposed Kennedy over vaccine views
Former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he refused to vote for the confirmation of Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary over his skepticism of vaccines.
“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the relitigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,” said McConnell, the lone Republican to vote against confirming Kennedy.
“Individuals, parents, and families have a right to push for a healthier nation and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness. But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.”
This is the second time in as many days that McConnell has opposed one of Trump’s nominees. Yesterday, he voted against confirming Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, again the sole Republican to do so.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr confirmed as health secretary
The Senate has confirmed Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services, with Republican lawmakers ignoring Democrat’s objections over his embrace of conspiracy theories around vaccines and nutrition.
The vote broke nearly along party lines, with 52 Republicans in favor, and 48 Democrats opposed. Former GOP leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican to vote no.
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Senate judiciary committee advances Kash Patel's nomination to lead FBI
The Senate judiciary committee has voted advance Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director, despite concerns from Democrats that he would use the bureau to investigate Donald Trump’s opponents.
The vote broke along party lines, with all 12 Republicans voting in favor, and all 10 Democrats against. Patel must now be confirmed by the full Senate.
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Democratic senators held the floor from yesterday into the early hours of this morning to voice their outrage over the nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as the next secretary of health and human services.
In a floor speech delivered after midnight, Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat of California, warned that Kennedy would not “make America healthy again,” as he and Donald Trump have promised.
“But his ignorance of science might make people sick again, might deprive them of the treatment they need again, might cause hospitals to close again, might discourage young people from entering the sciences again,” Schiff said.
“He just might. We cannot confirm a man who so willingly endeavors to be the enemy of the truth when it comes to our health. We need to vote like our lives depend on it because, for a great many Americans, it will.”
As she held the floor yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, argued that Americans “didn’t vote to bring back measles,” attacking Kennedy over his past anti-vaccine comments.
“Kennedy’s actions speak louder than his latest words,” Warren said. “And time and time again, Kennedy has shown us who he is: an anti-science conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with American lives. We know who he is; we need to pay attention.”
Hegseth to hold press conference at meeting of Nato defense ministers
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is set to take questions in a few minutes from Brussels, where he’s been meeting with his counterparts from Nato allies.
Hegseth is sure to be asked about Donald Trump’s announcement yesterday that he has agreed to negotiate with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. We have a separate live blog covering the press conference (and European news in general), and you can follow it here:
Senate begins voting to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr as top US health administrator
The Senate has started voting on Robert F Kennedy’s nomination to lead the department of health and human services.
He is expected to be confirmed by a party line vote in the Republican-controlled chamber. Democrats have vowed to reject Kennedy for his embrace of conspiracy theories, including several dealing with the efficacy of vaccines:
Trade tensions loom as Trump welcomes Modi to White House
Donald Trump will this afternoon meet with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at the White House, the latest US ally to journey to Washington since he was inaugurated as president.
US presidents in recent years have tried to cultivate a positive relationship with India, viewing it as a counterweight to China in Asia. That dynamic will undoubtedly hang over Trump and Modi’s meeting, but so, too, will Trump’s plans for tariffs on all kinds of imports.
Modi is due at the White House at 4pm, with a meeting, joint press conference and then dinner between the two leaders to follow. Here’s more about the brewing trade tensions:
Earlier this morning, Elon Musk made clear just how far he is willing to go in his Donald Trump-sanctioned quest to reform the US government. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo:
Elon Musk said on Thursday that the US should “delete entire agencies” from the federal government as a part of his extraordinary strategy under the Trump administration to make huge cost cuts with the stated goal of boosting efficiency.
Musk made the latest suggestion on a video call to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in response to a question about what changes he planned to execute under Donald Trump’s direction.
“I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind,” said Musk, adding: “If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed, it doesn’t stop weeds from ever going back, but it makes it harder.”
Back at the judiciary committee, the Democratic ranking member Dick Durbin is giving his own lengthy counterargument as to why Kash Patel should not be confirmed as FBI director.
Durbin singled out Patel’s book Government Gangsters, where he said the nominee laid out a list of government officials that he would investigate.
“Mr Patel clearly lacks the temperament to lead the FBI. Don’t take it from me – read his own words,” Durbin said.
“In this book, Mr Patel published an enemies list of 60 people whom he calls ‘members of the deep state’, whatever the hell that is, and accuses of being ‘corrupt actors of the first order’. This list includes many distinguished public servants, both Democrats and Republicans alike. What they share in common is the misfortune of having crossed paths with Patel.”
Durbin has accused Patel of orchestrating the firings of senior FBI officials, and planning to let go of more. He closed with this:
Mr Patel’s directives have already thrown the bureau into chaos. Senior executives who collectively have hundreds of years of experience have been forced out. Thousands of line agents across the country are living in fear of losing their jobs simply because they did the job they were assigned to do. How does any of this make America safer? The American people need an FBI Director focused on keeping the public safe from terrorism, drug trafficking and violent crime, not petty personal grievances.
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Trump to announce new tariffs today
Donald Trump says he will announce another round of tariffs today from the Oval Office.
The president made the news in a brief message on Truth Social:
NEWS CONFERENCE ON RECIPROCAL TARIFFS TODAY, 1:00 P.M., THE OVAL OFFICE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
The new tariffs come after Trump earlier this week ordered levies on imports of foreign steel and aluminum:
At its hearing to advance Kash Patel’s nomination out of committee, judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley is making the case for his candidacy to be FBI director.
“The FBI has fallen into really old habits and is long overdue for massive reform. Mr Patel is the man to do it, and that’s why he’s being attacked so viciously right now,” Grassley said, continuing:
Before we even had a hearing, committee members called Mr. Patel by these adjectives: dishonest, untrustworthy, lacking in character, a wolf at the door, a conspiracy theorist, a staunch political loyalist. Lastly, a nightmare.
Since his nomination was announced, committee Democrats have sent at least 11 letters to 11 different agencies and parties demanding records and urging investigation into Mr. Patel. Each letter breathlessly accuses Mr. Patel of something new, often citing “highly credible” anonymous sources that don’t fit the facts. Some accused him of not following hostage rescue protocol. Others suggest that he is secretly directing FBI personnel decisions, and some accused him of promoting conspiracy theories. The purpose of this campaign is quite obvious. Throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. I’m not falling for it, and I don’t believe the American people will likewise.
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Senate committee to vote on advancing Kash Patel's nomination as FBI director
The Senate judiciary committee will at 10am convene to vote on advancing Kash Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI.
The vote is excepted to succeed, despite concerns from Democrats that Patel would direct a purge of the FBI and use its powers to retaliate against Donald Trump’s political enemies. This week, Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said that he has evidence Patel directed the firing of top FBI officials, and lied to the committee about it. But the Republican judiciary committee chair Chuck Grassley has shown no interest in those allegations, writing on X in his signature style:
Another day another attack against Kash Patel by the Democrats These latest allegations r nothing more than hearsay & dont hold a candle to Patel’s character+ credibility which over half a million law enforcement officers hv vouched for
Here’s more about what Durbin says Patel has been doing:
Top Senate Democrat calls Kennedy 'of the least qualified people' for job of health chief
All signs point to the Senate’s Republican majority confirming Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services. But Democratic senators nonetheless used their floor time yesterday to decry his nomination, with Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, describing Kennedy as a terrible choice for the job.
“Robert F Kennedy Jr is not remotely qualified to become the next secretary of health and human services. In fact, I might go further. Robert F Kennedy Jr might be one of the least qualified people the president could have chosen for the job,” Schumer said.
He continued:
It’s almost as if Mr Kennedy’s beliefs, history, and background were tailor-made to be the exact opposite of what the job demands.
A few weeks ago, it seemed like maybe Senate Republicans would have drawn the line on nominees like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard.
But the past few days have been a stunning capitulation by Senate Republicans. At this point they’re just rubber-stamping people, no matter how fringe they are.
If the Senate had a secret ballot, I bet you that Robert F Kennedy Jr would never have come close to confirmation.
His unfitness for the job is simply too obvious and too glaring.
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The Senate is expected to vote on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at 10.30am.
Brooke Rollins, Donald Trump’s nominee as agriculture secretary, will also have her confirmation vote around then.
Both nominees are expected to be confirmed, though in Kennedy’s case, only after substantial controversy.
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Nato is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe – without direct US assistance – as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine.
The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest Nato operation planned this year.
The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the Trump administration’s commitment to common defence and demands for increased European military spending, the Associated Press reports.
Greek and Spanish marines led Thursday’s military demonstration, an amphibious assault near the central Greek city of Volos, in the first full-scale operational deployment of Nato’s new Allied Reaction Force.
Established last July, the force represents Nato’s latest strategic evolution, designed to deploy at scale within 10 days and combining conventional forces with cyber and space-based technologies.
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Trump and Musk’s attack on USAid is causing global chaos. Millions of lives are now at risk
Amid the daily troubling news coming from the United States are the ongoing and increasingly damaging efforts by President Donald Trump, supported by secretary of state Marco Rubio and Elon Musk, to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAid). Musk has called it a “criminal organization” and said that it was “time for it to die”. The agency website is down, so little official information is available. But in the week since funding to the agency was frozen, and the majority of staff placed on leave, thousands of public health and development programmes worldwide have been thrown into turmoil, and now face an uncertain future.
USAid is the main federal agency that works to provide foreign aid assistance to the poorest countries and people in the world. On Friday, a US judge prevented about 2,000 USAid employees from being placed on leave, and ordered the reinstatement of about 500 more. But Trump and Musk appear to want to move forward with a plan that would see its global workforce reduced from about 10,000 staff and contractors, to just over 600.
It’s hard to overstate how disruptive this has already been to humanitarian work worldwide: most programmes have just been shut overnight with staff laid off, drugs and food left in warehouses, and patients and others not able to access services. The people affected live in some of the most vulnerable countries like Ukraine, Jordan, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan.
You can read the full opinion piece here:
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Donald Trump said he plans to unveil reciprocal tariffs on Thursday but gave no other details, Reuters reports.
“Today is the big one: reciprocal tariffs,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Guardian columnist and former economics editor Larry Elliott writes today that Donald Trump sees his trade war as a show of strength, but, in fact, it’s the opposite.
You can read the opinion piece here: Larry Elliot – Donald Trump sees his trade war as a show of strength. In fact, it’s the opposite
A group representing China’s steel industry has warned that a new 25% tariff on imports of the product into the United States would have an “adverse impact” on the sector, Chinese state media reported Thursday.
Donald Trump signed executive orders on Monday slapping new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium, due to come into effect on 12 March.
“The US move is essentially an act of trade protectionism,” the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said in a statement published by state broadcaster CCTV, Agence France-Presse reports. “In the short term, the impact on [China’s] steel exports is limited,” the CISA said in the report.
“But in the long term, the US move could lead other countries to follow suit, thereby reducing [(China’s] steel export competitiveness,” it added.
Despite being the world’s top producer of steel, China last year accounted for only a small proportion of US steel imports.
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‘No to ethnic cleansing’: over 350 rabbis sign US ad assailing Trump’s Gaza plan
More than 350 rabbis, alongside additional signatories including Jewish creatives and activists, have signed an ad in the New York Times in which they condemn Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
The ad, which was signed by rabbis including Sharon Brous, Roly Matalon and Alissa Wise, as well as Jewish creatives and activists including Tony Kushner, Ilana Glazer, Naomi Klein and Joaquin Phoenix, says: “Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say no to ethnic cleansing!”
The ad follows Trump’s proposal to “take over Gaza” and leave 2 million Palestinians who have survived Israel’s deadly onslaught against the narrow strip with “no alternative” but to leave their homes.
Trump has called on Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries to take in Palestinians – a proposal that has been met with widespread criticism from Arab countries and other allies while being condemned as an ethnic-cleansing plan.
Robert F Kennedy Jr has mass appeal despite his extreme ideas. This theory explains why
“Back at home in the United States, the newspapers are saying that I came here today to speak to about 5,000 Nazis,” Robert F Kennedy Jr told a large crowd in Berlin. Estimated at 38,000 people, the crowd was a mix of hippies, anti-war types, Green party voters and anti-vaxxers, rubbing shoulders with a smattering of skinheads. It was late August 2020 and a group called Querdenken had rallied this motley crew together in defiance of Covid-19 restrictions.
“Governments love pandemics,” Kennedy said. “They love pandemics for the same reason they love war – it gives them the ability to impose controls that the population would otherwise never accept.”
Last month, in Senate confirmation hearings for his appointment as the US secretary of health and human services, Kennedy was questioned on having previously compared the Center for Disease Control’s work to that of “Nazi death camps”, calling Covid-19 a bioweapon genetically engineered to target black and white people while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, and blaming school shootings on antidepressants. “He has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines,” said the Democratic senator Ron Wyden. “It has been lucrative for him and put him on the verge of immense power.”
Read the full piece here:
Peace push 'not a betrayal' of Ukraine, US defence secretary Hegseth insists
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has been speaking to reporters before today’s Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels, where he denied that Donald Trump’s peace push with Vladimir Putin was a “betrayal” of Ukraine.
Hegeseth said that the Russian aggression on Ukraine was “a factory reset for Nato,” and a moment of “realisation that this alliance needs to be robust, strong, and real.”
“That is why president Trump has called for increased defence spending across the board for Nato, for European countries to recognise this is an urgent, real threat to the continent and this aggression needs to be a wake up call,” he said.
He said that standing up to Russian aggression is “an important European responsibility.”
Confronted by reporters with suggestions that the rapid push to peace and talks with the Russian president who annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in 2022 could be seen as amounting to a betrayal of Ukraine, Hegseth insisted “That is your language, not mine. Certainly not a betrayal.”
“There is no betrayal; there is a recognition that the whole world and the US is invested in peace, in a negotiated peace,” he says.
Jakub Krupa is following developments with Ukraine on our Europe live blog here: Trump-Putin call ‘not a betrayal’ of Ukraine, insists US’s Hegseth as he heads for Nato showdown
Denver Public Schools became the first US school district Wednesday to sue the Trump administration challenging its policy allowing ICE immigration agents in schools.
Colorado’s largest public school district argued in the federal lawsuit that the policy has forced schools to divert vital educational resources and caused attendance to plummet, Associated Press reports.
“DPS is hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds,” the lawsuit states.
Senate expected to vote on Robert F Kennedy Jr's bid to be health secretary
The Senate is expected to vote today on the confirmation of Robert F Kennedy Jr – a prominent lawyer and vocal vaccine critic – as the nation’s health secretary, controlling $1.7tn in spending for vaccines, food safety and health insurance programs for roughly half the country.
Despite several Republicans expressing deep skepticism about his views on vaccines, Kennedy is expected to win confirmation.
Writing for CBS News, Kaia Hubbard noted that “Kennedy’s path to confirmation was once considered among the most fragile of president Trump’s nominees,” but the Senate has cleared the final hurdle to a vote on his appointment 53 to 47 along party lines.
Last week Republican Sen Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, despite having expressed doubts about Kennedy Jr’s votes on vaccines, supported the appointment at the committee stage, and Republican Sen Susan Collins from Maine, who has expressed some disquiet about Trump nominations, also vowed to support Kennedy Jr.
During the pandemic, Kennedy Jr, 71, devoted much of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode trust in vaccines as well as the government agencies that promote them. He has said he is “uniquely positioned” to revive trust in public health agencies.
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75,000 federal workers sign up for Trump's buyout as judge clears path for workforce cuts
About 75,000 federal workers accepted the offer to quit in return for being paid until 30 September, according to McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson for the office of personnel management, Associated Press reports.
She said the deferred resignation program “provides generous benefits so federal workers can plan for their futures,” and it was now closed to additional workers.
A federal judge on Wednesday removed a key legal hurdle stalling president Donald Trump’s plan to downsize the federal workforce. The Boston-based judge’s order in the challenge filed by a group of labor unions was a significant legal victory for the Republican president after a string of courtroom setbacks.
American Federation of Government Employees National president Everett Kelley said in a statement that the union’s lawyers are assessing the next steps.
Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it’s not the end of that fight. Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.
She said the union continues to maintain that it is illegal to force citizens to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about “whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk.”
In a “factsheet” issued by the White House earlier this week, the Trump administration claimed that “excluding active-duty military and Postal Service employees, the federal workforce exceeds 2.4 million” people, and that “only 6% of federal workers report to work in-person on a full-time basis.”
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the second Donald Trump administration and US politics. Here are the headlines …
Donald Trump’s buyout program for federal employees can proceed, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. The move paves a path forward for the about 75,000 government workers who have volunteered to resign under the president’s plan to shrink the federal workforce
Robert F Kennedy Jr is set to face a vote on his confirmation as secretary of health and human services early in the Senate, as does Howard Lutnick to be secretary of commerce
Elon Musk’s so-called Doge “efficiency” agency website has added data from a controversial rightwing thinktank
Social media platform X –owned by Musk – will pay Trump $10m to settle a lawsuit the president filed after he was banned from the platform following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a report
The US attorney general announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration is suing New York state over its immigration policies, accusing state officials of choosing “to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens”
Trump said he is willing to accept Russia’s longstanding objection to Ukraine joining Nato. “They’ve been saying that for a long time, that Ukraine cannot go into Nato, and I’m OK with that”
Tulsi Gabbard has been sworn in as Trump’s director of national intelligence
The White House has again barred an Associated Press reporter from the Oval Office for the agency refusing to adopt the name “Gulf of America” for the Gulf of Mexico
