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Summary
Here is a summary of the key developments from the last few hours:
Donald Trump’s assault on Washington DC’s institutions continues, with employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being told today by a Project 2025 architect who now works in the White House not to come to the office, or otherwise do their jobs.
The Trump administration must lift its broad federal funding freeze, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered on Monday. “The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country,” the order says.
A reporter has asked Trump what he means by the phrase “all hell will break loose”, his threat to Hamas if all hostages are not released by this week Saturday.The reporter asked whether he meant retaliation. Trump responded: “You’ll find out. And they’ll find out too. Hamas will find out what I mean. They’re going to find out what I mean. These are sick people and they’ll find out what I mean.”
Donald Trump raised aluminum and steel tariffs to 25%, from a previous 10%, while signing a series of executive orders Monday. The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to government and American Iron and Steel Institute data.
Trump said he agreed to consider a tariff exemption on Australian steel and aluminum imports after a telephone call on Tuesday with Australia’s prime minister. Prime minister Anthony Albanese argued for an exemption during the call, which was scheduled before Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Monday. Trump said the United States trade surplus with Australia was one of the reasons he was considering an exemption from the tariffs.
Hours later, Donald Trump said there will be no exceptions or exemptions.“We were being pummeled by both friend and foe alike,” Trump said. “It’s time for our great industries to come back to America.” It was unclear what this meant for his consideration of Australia.
A group of investors led by Musk has offered $97.4bn to buy the non-profit that operates OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. The consortium includes Musk’s AI firm X.AI, Baron Capital, Valor Management, Altreides Management, Vy Fund III, Emanuel Capital Management and Eight Partners VC. The funds would be used to purchase all assets of OpenAI, and further the non-profit’s “original charitable mission”.
Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, has responded to Trump’s aluminium and steel tariff announcement, calling them “totally unjustified”. “We are consulting with our international partners as we examine the results,” he wrote in a statement posted to X. “Our response will be clear and calibrated.”
Hundreds of angry protesters rallied against the Trump administration’s decision to suspend all operations at the US’s top financial watchdog – an agency that has clawed back more than $21bn from Wall Street for defrauded consumers.
The acting head of the federal agency responsible for responding to disasters said Monday that he’s suspending payments sent to New York City to house migrants and that staff who made them will be held accountable, after Elon Musk blasted the transactions on his social media platform.
A top official at the US Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has cultivated a warm relationship with President Donald Trump.
In Congress, House Democrats have put together a “rapid response task force” to counter the administration, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would use spending negotiations as leverage against Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, five former Treasury secretaries warned that Elon Musk’s meddling in the department’s payment system could have regrettable consequences.
Hong Kong will file a complaint on the tariffs imposed on the city to the World Trade Organization, claiming the US has completely ignored the city’s status as a separate customs territory, chief secretary Eric Chan said on Tuesday.
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, told Pentagon leaders not to take on recruits with gender dysphoria, and banned gender-affirming care for service members.
A third federal judge struck down Trump’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Democratic attorneys general from 22 states sued over a Trump administration policy that could drastically curb funding for medical research.
The president has fired the director of the office of government ethics, according to the agency’s website. The office oversees ethics requirements and compliance for more than 140 agencies within the executive branch, including reviewing conflicts of interest and financial disclosures for federal employees.
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What are the tariffs on steel and aluminum Trump announced?
In an Oval Office signing ceremony Monday, Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, to be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”. The executive actions were the latest in a series of aggressive trade policies Trump has undertaken since re-taking office last month.
Here’s what we know about the steel and aluminium tariffs so far:
On Monday, Donald Trump took aim at a “ridiculous situation” that directly affects his daily life: paper straws.
He signed an executive order that rolls back a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.
“It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the order. “These things don’t work,” he said, referring to paper straws. “I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode.”
But Trump, such a fan of drinking Diet Coke that he has installed a button in the Oval Office in order to summon staff to deliver the drink, has long railed against any restrictions upon plastic straws. When attempting to gain re-election in 2020, his campaign sold reusable straws on its website claiming that “liberal paper straws don’t work”.
Stephen Moore, a longtime external Trump advisor, sees tariffs as a way to “incentivize” countries to act in US interests, saying that partners like Canada, Mexico and China risk bigger losses economically than the United States.
While he believes Trump’s approach has been effective, he conceded it could be dangerous if it triggered escalating trade tensions with partners like Canada.
Similarly, Washington would want a “strong and stable economy in Mexico,” added Moore, a senior visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, warns that Trump’s tariffs could backfire.
Besides threatening tit-for-tat tariffs, Canadians also offered a “cultural response,” with people booing the US national anthem at sporting events, she said.
“This is really damaging the United States’ reputation, and I think that’s something we need to be concerned about in the long term,” she said.
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To McDaniel, the risk of unilateral tariffs may upend global trade.
“What is the use of WTO membership when one of the biggest countries in the world can threaten tariffs for national security reasons in such an aggressive way?” she asked, referring to the World Trade Organization.
“It’s definitely upsetting the applecart in terms of how we’ve been thinking about the role of international trade institutions, international trade rules and trade agreements,” she said.
Trump’s reasons for levies on Canada and Mexico – as well as a lower additional rate on China – go beyond trade.
“It’s not a tariff per se, it is an action of domestic policy,” Trump’s commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick told lawmakers at his confirmation hearing last month.
“I don’t think anyone should be surprised about these tariffs or tariff threats,” said Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center.
Trump “has been very clear that he sees them as an important tool in his toolkit,” added McDaniel, a former official in George W Bush’s administration.
“He views this as much of a negotiating tool, as he does in trying to balance trade.”
Trump’s use of tariffs as a blunt weapon to extract concessions on everything from commerce to immigration and drug trafficking could redraw global trading norms, analysts have told the AFO.
Since his inauguration on 20 January, Trump has unveiled and paused blanket tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods over migration and illegal fentanyl, and hiked duties on Chinese imports in the same breath, triggering retaliation.
And on Monday he imposed sweeping steel and aluminum levies, drawing comparisons to his first term when he imposed duties across both sectors before allowing exemptions.
Trump sees tariffs as a way to raise revenue, remedy trade imbalances and pressure countries to act on US concerns.
But “the degree of uncertainty about trade policy has basically exploded,” said Maurice Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Analysts can try to predict where tariffs might be imposed based on economic variables, he told AFP, but basing trade policy on non-economic objectives could throw things into a tailspin.
Trump’s tactics could lead to a “retraction of global supply chains,” he warned, or countries seeking to decouple from the US market if risk levels are deemed too high.
Hong Kong to file complaint with World Trade Organization over Trump tariff
Hong Kong will file a complaint on recent US tariffs imposed on the city to the World Trade Organization, claiming the US has completely ignored the city’s status as a separate customs territory, chief secretary Eric Chan said on Tuesday.
Trump’s decision to impose the tariff has alarmed the steel industry in South Korea, the fourth-biggest exporter of steel to the US after Canada, Brazil and Mexico. The country’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, this week called in top government officials to discuss the potential impact the move will have on Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, and well as possible responses, the Yonhap news agency reported.
An official from Posco, South Korea’s leading steelmaker, said the firm was keeping a close watch on the tariff’s impact. “South Korea already operates under a strict quota system, so there is a chance that the full 25 percent tariff Trump announced would only apply to non-quota countries,” the official told the Korea Herald. “Since no final decision has been made, we have no choice but to wait and carefully evaluate the situation.”
South Korea’s aluminium industry is also holding its breath. Exports of aluminium foil to the US account for almost a third of the country’s aluminium shipments.
Chants of “let us work!” rang out across the courtyard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) blocks away from the White House on Monday, as hundreds of angry protesters rallied against the Trump administration’s decision to suspend all operations at the US’s top financial watchdog – an agency that has clawed back more than $21bn from Wall Street for defrauded consumers.
The demonstration came after Russell Vought, Trump’s newly installed acting director of the agency, ordered all CFPB staff to stand down and stay away from the office in what critics are calling a brazen attempt to defang financial industry oversight.
“This is like a bank robber trying to fire the cops and turn off the alarm just before he strolls into the lobby,” Senator Elizabeth Warren told the crowd. “We are here to fight back.”
The shutdown order has thrown the agency into chaos, with employees reporting confusion over basic questions such as whether they can check their work email or complete routine training. The agency’s staff union filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Vought’s stop-work order.
Canada industry minister: US tariffs on steel and aluminium 'totally unjustified'
Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, has responded to Trump’s aluminium and steel tariff announcement, calling them “totally unjustified”.
“We are consulting with our international partners as we examine the results,” he wrote in a statement posted to X. “Our response will be clear and calibrated.”
Here is the video of Trump saying “all hell is going to break out” if the remaining Israeli hostages are not freed by Saturday this week:
Here is some reaction to the news that a consortium led by Elon Musk saying it has offered $97.4bn to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.
“This (bid) is definitely throwing a wrench in things,” Jonathan Macey, a Yale Law School professor specializing in corporate governance, told Reuters.
“The nonprofit is supposed to take money to do whatever good deeds, and if OpenAI prefers to sell it to somebody else for less money, it’s a concern for protecting the interests of the beneficiaries of the not-for-profit.”
OpenAI was valued at $157bn in its last funding round, cementing its status as one of the most valuable private companies in the world. SoftBank Group is in talks to lead a funding round of up to $40bn in OpenAI at a valuation of $300bn, including the new funds, Reuters reported in January.
Aside from any antitrust implications, a deal this size would need Musk and his consortium to raise enormous funds.
Musk’s stock in Tesla is valued at roughly $165bn, according to LSEG data, but his leverage with banks is likely to be thin after his $44bn buyout of what was then called Twitter in 2022.
To finance such a bid, Musk could sell part of his stake in Tesla or take a loan against his stake, or use his stake in rocket company SpaceX that is worth tens of billions of dollars as collateral, according to an uninvolved investment banker, who requested anonymity.
“Musk’s offer to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit should significantly complicate OpenAI’s current fundraising and the process of converting into a for-profit corporation,” said Gil Luria, analyst at DA Davidson.
“The offer seems to be backed by more credible investors … OpenAI may not be able to ignore it. It will be the fiduciary responsibility of OpenAI’s board to decide whether this is a better offer, which could call into question the offer from SoftBank.”
More now on the DOJ seeking to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The development comes after months of speculation that Trump’s justice department would take steps to end the criminal case against Adams, who was accused of accepting bribes of free or discounted travel and illegal campaign contributions.
The president had hinted at the possibility of a pardon in December, telling reporters that the mayor had been “treated pretty unfairly”. He had also claimed, without offering evidence, that Adams was being persecuted for criticizing Joe Biden’s policies on immigration.
After Trump’s inauguration, Adams’ lawyers had approached senior justice department officials, asking them to intervene and drop the case.
Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro, did not immediately return a request for comment. A mayoral spokesperson and a representative of his campaign all did not return inquiries.
After Adams was indicted in September, he shifted his tone on Trump, rankling some in his own party for his public praise of the Republican and his hardline immigration agenda.
DPJ official orders federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams
A top official at the US Department of Justice has ordered federal prosecutors to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has cultivated a warm relationship with President Donald Trump.
In a two-page memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Deputy attorney general Emil Bove said the decision to dismiss the charges was reached without an assessment of the strength of the prosecution and was not meant to call into question the attorneys who filed the case.
But, Bove said, that the timing of the charges and “more recent actions” by the former US attorney who led the office, Damian Williams, “have threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity that risks affecting potential witnesses and the jury pool.”
Bove also wrote that the pending prosecution has “unduly restricted” Adams’ ability to “devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that has escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.”
The Justice Department’s order directs that the case be dismissed without prejudice, which conceivably means that it could be refiled later.
A reporter has asked Trump what he means by the phrase “all hell will break loose”, his threat to Hamas if all hostages are not released by this week Saturday.
The reporter asked whether he meant retaliation.
Trump responded: “You’ll find out. And they’ll find out too. Hamas will find out what I mean. They’re going to find out what I mean. These are sick people and they’ll find out what I mean.”
The comments were aired on the far-right streaming channel ‘Real America’s Voice’ and shared on X by Aaron Rupar.
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FEMA says it's halting payments for migrant housing in New York after Musk criticism
The acting head of the federal agency responsible for responding to disasters said Monday that he’s suspending payments sent to New York City to house migrants and that staff who made them will be held accountable, after Elon Musk blasted the transactions on his social media platform.
Musk, who as head of the Department of Government Efficiency has consolidated control over much of the federal government and is working to cut costs and shrink the workforce, posted on X that his team “just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.” He said the money is intended for disaster relief and would be clawed back.
Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reposted Musk’s comments and said the payments were suspended as of Sunday.
Musk gave no evidence to support his claim, and information from the city of New York indicated that money it’s received to care for migrants was appropriated by Congress and allocated to the city last year by FEMA, the Associated Press reports.
The city hasn’t been notified of any pause in funding, spokesperson Liz Garcia said. A statement noted that the city has received federal government reimbursements through the past week and said the matter would be discussed directly with federal officials.
Neither Hamilton nor Musk specified what kind of payments were involved. But the comments on X – reposted thousands of times – likely referred to payments made by the Shelter and Services Program, which gives money to reimburse cities, towns or organizations for immigration-related expenses.
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Trump says there will be no exceptions or exemptions on tariffs
Announcing 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum today, Donald Trump said there will be no exceptions or exemptions.
“We were being pummeled by both friend and foe alike,” Trump said. “It’s time for our great industries to come back to America.”
Hours earlier, however, he’d promised an exemption was “under consideration” for Australia during a call with the country’s prime minister.
The moves are part of an aggressive push by Trump to reset global trade, as the president also eyes resources in countries such as Greenland, Panama and Canada.
Announcing the tariffs today, Trump told reporters: “It’s 25% without exceptions or exemptions, and that’s all countries, no matter where it comes from, all countries made in the United States. However, United States of America, there is no tariff, zero … We don’t need it to be made in Canada. We’ll have the jobs. That’s why Canada should be our 51st state.”
By a large margin, Canada is the largest supplier of primary aluminum metal to the US, accounting for 79% of total imports in the first 11 months of 2024.
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Alongside raising steel and aluminum tariffs, Donald Trump is issuing other executive actions from the Oval Office this evening. Those include relaxing a foreign corruption law, pardoning ex-Illinois governor Rod R Blagojevich and calling for a return to plastic straws.
The first executive order directs the attorney general Pam Bondi to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which prohibits American companies operating abroad from using bribery and other illegal methods – while she issues new guidance that “promotes American competitiveness and efficient use of federal law enforcement resources”, according to a White House fact sheet about the order obtained by the AP.
Another order pardons Blagojevich, a Democrat who served eight years in prison on public corruption charges. The Chicago politician had been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison, but Trump commuted his sentence in 2020 after only eight years. Blagojevich had been a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice and supported Trump’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns.
Finally, another executive order directs the federal government to revert to using plastic straws instead of paper alternatives, which Trump said “don’t work”, “break” and “explode”. The move targets a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.
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Trump raises aluminum and steel tariffs
Donald Trump raised aluminum and steel tariffs to 25%, from a previous 10%, while signing a series of executive orders Monday.
The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to government and American Iron and Steel Institute data.
By a large margin, Canada is the largest supplier of primary aluminum metal to the US, accounting for 79% of total imports in the first 11 months of 2024. Mexico is a major supplier of aluminum scrap and aluminum alloy.
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Republican senator Susan Collins will back Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, CNN reports.
Collins – famously a swing vote – had previously declined to say how she would vote on Kennedy’s nomination. However, after speaking with Kennedy about her “strong opposition” to “arbitrary” cuts to parts of the National Institutes of Health budget earlier today, Collins said Kennedy had promised to “re-examine” the cuts.
Her statement suggests that the former presidential candidate, who has no training in public health, may clear his confirmation vote before the Senate.
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Donald Trump is expected to sign more executive orders in the Oval Office shortly, according to the White House. The president has signed dozens of such orders during his second term so far. During his first term, Trump signed 220 executive orders.
The US Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2bn in unspent humanitarian aid, a government watchdog said Monday.
The new administration’s rapid dismantling of USAid has left oversight of the humanitarian aid “largely nonoperational”, the inspector general’s office for USAid said. That includes the agency’s greatly reduced ability to ensure no aid falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in conflict zones.
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Donald Trump said he does not see JD Vance as his successor in a pre-taped interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. A preview for the interview – which is expected to air at 6pm ET today – shows the president declining to endorse Vance as a potential Republican nominee in 2028.
“I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early, we’re just starting,” Trump said.
Sam Altman, OpenAI co-founder and CEO, has responded to an Elon Musk-backed offer to purchase the non-profit.
In a social media post Monday, Altman wrote, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Earlier today, a consortium of investors led by Musk and his AI company xAI, offered $97.4bn to purchase OpenAI. If such a deal went through, xAI could merge with OpenAI, raising potential antitrust questions. OpenAI was valued at $157bn in its latest funding round in October, cementing its status as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said that “some serious people” from the Trump administration will visit Ukraine this week, though he did not specify who. Speaking during his weekly address from Kyiv on Monday, Zelenskyy added: “Our teams are also working on… [a] meeting between me and President Trump.”
Zelenskyy said he planned to meet JD Vance and other members of the Trump administration at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this week, where he expects to negotiate Ukraine’s security and financial needs with US and European allies.
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Donald Trump fires head of government ethics office
The president has fired the director of the office of government ethics, according to the agency’s website. The office oversees ethics requirements and compliance for more than 140 agencies within the executive branch, including reviewing conflicts of interest and financial disclosures for federal employees.
A one-sentence statement on the group’s website read that it “has been notified that the President is removing David Huitema” and that it would revert to its acting director, Shelley K Finlayson.
Huitema had been confirmed in December for a five-year term.
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Today so far
Thanks for joining our coverage of US politics, and the second Trump administration, so far today. Here are the top headlines we’ve been following this afternoon:
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must lift its broad federal funding freeze, which had thrown non-profit organizations, educational institutions and tribal nations in a panic over the uncertainty of their funding. Over the weekend, however, JD Vance signaled that the White House was considering ignoring court orders it disagreed with, potentially in a case such as its attempts to restrain spending authorized by Congress.
The Internal Revenue Service has been asked by the US Department of Homeland Security to help crack down on immigration.
A federal judge has prolonged his hold on Donald Trump’s offer of deferred resignations for millions of federal workers. The temporary restraining order will remain in place until the judge decides if he should indefinitely pause the offer’s deadline pending further court proceedings over the legality of the buyout program.
The Trump administration confirmed to The Associated Press that it had taken USAid off the lease of the building, which it had occupied for decades
Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Monday that would relax enforcement of a foreign corruption law in a move the White House claims would allow American companies to be more competitive, the Associated Press reports.
Donald Trump is expected to sign more executive orders this afternoon. Although press have not been invited, we’ll let you know as news emerges on their contents.
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Elon Musk-led investor group offers $97bn to buy OpenAI
A group of investors led by Musk has offered $97.4bn to buy the non-profit that operates OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
The consortium includes Musk’s AI firm X.AI, Baron Capital, Valor Management, Altreides Management, Vy Fund III, Emanuel Capital Management and Eight Partners VC. The funds would be used to purchase all assets of OpenAI, and further the non-profit’s “original charitable mission”.
Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman cofounded OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 – but the two have been engaged in a months-long legal battle over the future of the organization as Altman has attempted to transition OpenAI into a for-profit company. Altman became chief executive of the company in 2019, after Musk left the company.
“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” said Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing the investors. “As the co-founder of OpenAI and the most innovative and successful tech industry leader in history, Musk is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI’s technology.”
If such a deal goes through, Musk’s X.AI could merge with OpenAI, raising potential antitrust questions.
“At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators,” said Musk. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.”
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Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Monday that would relax enforcement of a foreign corruption law. The White House claims the order will allow American companies to be more competitive, the Associated Press reports.
The executive order will direct the attorney general Pam Bondi to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which prohibits American companies operating abroad from using bribery and other illegal methods – while she issues new guidance that “promotes American competitiveness and efficient use of federal law enforcement resources”, according to a White House fact sheet about the order obtained by the AP.
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Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAid continues, despite a court order that temporarily paused his plans to lay off thousands of employees.
The Associated Press reports that the aid agency has lost its lease at its Washington DC headquarters, while an unidentified official told employees who showed up today to “just go”. Here’s more:
The Trump administration confirmed to The Associated Press that it had taken USAID off the lease of the building, which it had occupied for decades.
USAID’s eviction from its headquarters marks the latest in the swift dismantling of the aid agency and its programs by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk. Both have targeted agency spending that they call wasteful and accuse its work around the world of being out of line with Trump’s agenda.
A steady stream of agency staffers — dressed in business clothes or USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts — were told by a front desk officer Monday that he had a list of no more than 10 names of people allowed to enter the building. Tarps covered USAID’s interior signs.
A man who earlier identified himself as a USAID official took a harsher tone, telling staffers “just go” and “why are you here?”
USAID staff were denied entry to their offices to retrieve belongings and were told the lease had been turned over to the General Services Administration, which manages federal government buildings.
A GSA spokesperson confirmed that USAID had been removed from the lease and the building would be repurposed for other government uses.
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Federal judge maintains hold on Trump's employee resignation plan
A federal judge has prolonged his hold on Donald Trump’s offer of deferred resignations for millions of federal workers, Reuters reports.
The unheard-of offer that is billed as allowing federal workers to resign their jobs and continue getting paid until September was made by the Trump administration last month, and linked to Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. Labor unions sued over the program, and succeeded in getting a deadline for workers to accept paused.
Here’s more from Reuters on the latest ruling in the case:
The decision by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston prevents Trump’s administration from implementing the buyout plan for now, giving a temporary victory to labor unions that have sued to stop it entirely.
More than 2 million federal civilian employees had faced a midnight deadline to accept the proposal. It is unclear when O’Toole will rule on the unions’ request.
The buyout effort is part of a far-reaching plan by Republican President Donald Trump and his allies to reduce the size and rein in the actions of the federal bureaucracy. Trump, who returned to the presidency on January 20, has accused the federal workforce of undercutting his agenda during his first term in office, from 2017-2021.
Unions have urged their members not to accept the buyout offer - saying Trump’s administration cannot be trusted to honor it - but about 65,000 federal employees had signed up for the buyouts as of Friday, according to a White House official.
Reuters has been unable to independently verify that number, which does not include a breakdown of workers from each agency.
The offer promises to pay employees their regular salaries and benefits until October without requiring them to work, but that may not be ironclad. Current spending laws expire on March 14 and there is no guarantee that salaries would be funded beyond that point.
The White House has said employees could submit plans to leave through 11:59 p.m. ET Monday.
In his three weeks in office, Donald Trump has signed executive orders that appear to fly in the face of the constitution and federal law.
The New York Times reports that legal scholars believe the president has put the United States on the road to a constitutional crisis – or perhaps already created one:
There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.
It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.
“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”
His ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.
That is a partial list, Professor Chemerinsky said, and it grows by the day. “Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” he said.
The distinctive feature of the current situation, several legal scholars said, is its chaotic flood of activity that collectively amounts to a radically new conception of presidential power. But the volume and speed of those actions may overwhelm and thus thwart sober and measured judicial consideration.
It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of Mr. Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. So far he has not openly flouted lower court rulings temporarily halting some of his initiatives, and it remains to be seen whether he would defy a ruling against him by the justices.
“It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution,” said Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “At least so far, it hasn’t been.”
JD Vance suggests Trump administration may not comply with court orders
The Trump administration has been ordered to lift its freeze on federal funding – but will it?
Over the weekend, JD Vance signaled that the White House was considering ignoring court orders it disagreed with, potentially in a case such as its attempts to restrain spending authorized by Congress. Vance wrote on X:
If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.
Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.
It remains to be seen if the White House will follow through on Vance’s threat.
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The Internal Revenue Service has been asked by the US Department of Homeland Security to help crack down on immigration.
A memo sent on Friday obtained by the New York Times revealed homeland security secretary Kristi Noem asked treasury secretary Scott Bessent to deputize IRS agents to help with nationwide immigration enforcement efforts, including by auditing employers believed to have hired unauthorized migrants and human trafficking investigations.
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Trump administration ordered to comply with court order lifting federal funding freeze
The Trump administration must lift its broad federal funding freeze, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered on Monday.
“The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country,” the order says.
The order comes after Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and DC said the Trump administration violated another judge’s earlier ruling which temporarily blocked the freezing of federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance. These attorneys general said despite the ruling, some funds remain frozen.
Trump’s proposed freeze has put groups including non-profit organizations, educational institutions and tribal nations in a panic over the uncertainty of their funding.
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When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend.
But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his rightwing agenda.
“We might have a few less seats in Congress,” Maxwell Frost, a representative from Florida, thundered into the microphone. “But we’re not going to be the minority. We’re going to be the opposition.”
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The day so far
Donald Trump’s assault on Washington DC’s institutions continues, with employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being told today by a Project 2025 architect who now works in the White House not to come to the office, or otherwise do their jobs. The president has also said he’ll be announcing a round of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports at some point, the prospect of which has raised fresh concerns of market havoc and unpredictable retaliatory measures. In Congress, House Democrats have put together a “rapid response task force” to counter the administration, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would use spending negotiations as leverage against Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, five former Treasury secretaries warned that Elon Musk’s meddling in the department’s payment system could have regrettable consequences.
Here’s what else has been going on today:
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, told Pentagon leaders not to take on recruits with gender dysphoria, and banned gender-affirming care for service members.
A third federal judge struck down Trump’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Democratic attorneys general from 22 states sued over a Trump administration policy that could drastically curb funding for medical research.
Defense secretary Hegseth bans recruitment of troops with gender dysphoria, pauses gender-affirming care
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered military branches not to accept recruits with gender dysphoria, and to pause gender-affirming care for service members, Reuters reports.
The decision by the newly installed Pentagon chief is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to curtail transgender rights, but does allow soldiers with gender dysphoria to continue serving.
“Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused, and all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members are paused,” Hegseth wrote in a memo to defense department leaders. “Individuals with gender dysphoria have volunteered to serve our country and will be treated with dignity and respect.”
By way of justification, Hegseth wrote:
The Department must ensure it is building “One Force” without subgroups defined by anything other than ability or mission adherence. Efforts to split our troops along lines of identity weaken our Force and make us vulnerable. Such efforts must not be tolerated or accommodated.
The decision appears to line up with an executive order Donald Trump signed a week after taking office:
Democratic-led states sue Trump administration over plan to slash medical research funding
Twenty-two Democratic state attorneys general have sued the Trump administration over a plan that would dramatically cut medical research funding for hospitals, universities and other research facilities.
The lawsuit came after the National Institutes of Health announced it would cap at 15% the amount of each grant that could be spent on costs associated with medical research, staff, equipment and building-related costs.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts argues the new policy would threaten research and run afoul of pre-existing agreements.
“We will not allow the Trump Administration to unlawfully undermine our economy, hamstring our competitiveness, or play politics with our public health,” said Andrea Joy Campbell, Massachusetts’s attorney general, who is leading the suit along with top prosecutors from Michigan and Illinois. States including California, North Carolina and Wisconsin have also signed on.
Here’s more about the funding cuts:
Elon Musk responded in typical fashion to the criticism levelled by five former treasury secretaries against the meddling done by his “department of government efficiency” in its payment systems:
Listen Larry, we need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt. That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it. Too bad. Deal with it.
That was on X, naturally, to Larry Summers, who served as treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.
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Top Senate Democrat announces plan to 'fight back' against Trump administration
Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has debuted steps the party will take to hold the Trump administration accountable, including holding independent hearings into its policies and leveraging their influence in government spending negotiations.
“Senate Democrats have a responsibility to fight back on behalf of American families as Republicans look the other way in obedience to Donald Trump. And we are,” Schumer wrote in a letter to Democratic senators.
His plan has four planks, the first being so-called “spotlight” hearings in which Democrats will highlight the harm done by Trump’s policies. These will likely be Democrat-only events that will lack the subpoena power of typical committee hearings, since the party is presently in the minority in the Senate:
Senate Democrats are prepared to hold independent “spotlight” hearings to expose the rampant wrongdoing of the Trump Administration – wrongdoing that our Republican counterparts, for the time being, refuse to acknowledge. These hearings will shed light on the harm inflicted by Trump’s policies on the American people while applying public pressure on Congressional Republicans to answer for their unwavering complicity.
Schumer also encouraged lawmakers to work with state attorneys general and other groups that are suing the Trump administration:
Our committees and my office are in regular communication with litigants across the country, including plaintiffs, and are actively exploring opportunities for the Democratic Caucus to file amici curiae that support their lawsuits. I encourage you to meet with your constituents and relay their stories to your state Attorneys General, highlighting how the lawless actions from the Trump Administration are harming their communities. This information will be invaluable as the AGs and advocates continue developing their cases.
And told senators to do lots of public outreach:
Through a relentless messaging push, we are exposing how their policies will drive up everyday expenses, strip essential protections, and prioritize the wealthy over working Americans.
Perhaps the biggest news here is Schumer’s allusion to the government funding negotiations that will need to reach an agreement soon, if a shutdown is to be avoided in early March. The Senate filibuster gives the party some leverage in preventing legislation Democrats disapprove of from passing, and Schumer makes clear they are willing to use it:
Democrats stand ready to support legislation that will prevent a government shutdown. Congressional Republicans, despite their bluster, know full well that governing requires bipartisan negotiation and cooperation. Of course, legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes and Senate Democrats will use our votes to help steady the ship for the American people in these turbulent times. It is incumbent on responsible Republicans to get serious and work in a bipartisan fashion to avoid a Trump Shutdown.
Trump rules out Palestinian return to Gaza under US takeover plan
Donald Trump has said Palestinians will not be able to return to Gaza, if his plan for the United States to take control of the territory comes to fruition.
The comment came in an interview with Fox News, and is the latest controversial aspect of his plan for deeper American involvement in one of the longest running conflicts in the Middle East. We have a live blog covering the latest on the crisis in the region, and you can follow it here:
Democratic congresswoman Val Hoyle says she has quit the congressional caucus supporting Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) over what she describes as its destructive assault on core government functions.
“As the legislative branch, we came here to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, to make good policy, and, again, work in good faith to find efficiencies, whether that’s investing in IT or, you know, combining agencies or departments, you know, making sure we don’t have too much bureaucracy,” Hoyle told CNN.
“But fundamentally, you can’t do that while government is being blown up from the inside. And let’s be clear, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a different mission. They say it’s about efficiency and saving taxpayer dollars. It isn’t. It’s about intimidating workers, breaking our government and installing loyalists that are loyal to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and not to the American people or the constitution.”
Only a handful of Democrats joined the Doge caucus, with most saying they were doing so because of their support for reforming aspects of the federal government’s operations.
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House Democrats have announced the creation of a “Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group” to handle their counterattack to the Trump administration’s efforts to transform the federal government.
“We are engaged in a multifaceted struggle to protect and defend everyday Americans from the harm being inflicted by this administration. As outlined last week, it’s an all hands on deck effort simultaneously underway in Congress, the Courts and the Community,” Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter to colleagues.
Congressman Joe Neguse will chair the effort, along with representatives Rosa DeLauro, Gerry Connolly and Jamie Raskin as co-chairs.
Former treasury secretaries warn of risks from Doge's access of payment system
Five former secretaries of the treasury warn that by accessing the department’s secure payment system, the Donald Trump-sanctioned “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is putting Americans’ privacy at risk.
Writing in the New York Times, the five former secretaries, all of whom served under Democratic presidents, say that foreign actors could benefit from any data breaches that result from Doge’s meddling. Here’s what they wrote:
The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. One has been appointed fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.
These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest. They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury’s payments system, noting the risk of “irreparable harm.”
They also note that the Trump administration’s efforts to unilaterally prevent the Treasury from disbursing government funds are unconstitutional. “The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates, as administrations before it have done as well. And should the law change, it will be the role of the executive branch to execute those changes. But it is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside,” the former secretaries write.
Here’s more about Doge’s activities at the Treasury department, and the concerns they have created:
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Third federal judge rules against Trump birthright citizenship ban
A federal judge has found Donald Trump’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants unconstitutional, in the third such setback for the order, the Associated Press reports.
The ban was among the executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office, but has been losing in court ever since. Today’s ruling comes from a US district court judge in New Hampshire, and follows similar decisions by judges in Seattle and Maryland. The Trump administration is appealing the Seattle judge’s ruling.
Here’s more on the attempted ban, and its poor showing (thus far) in courtrooms nationwide:
Here’s more on the Trump administration’s legal offensive against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is being headed up by an architect of Project 2025 who is now a top White House official:
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s newly installed acting head of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced on Saturday he had cut off the agency’s budget and reportedly instructed staff to suspend all activities including the supervision of companies overseen by the agency.
Reuters and NBC News reported that Vought wrote a memo to employees saying he had taken on the role of acting head of the agency, an independent watchdog that was founded in 2011 as an arm of the Federal Reserve to promote fairness in the financial sector.
Vought, who was confirmed on a party line vote last week to lead the office of management and budget, also announced on Saturday evening on Elon Musk’s social media platform X that he was zeroing out the CFPB’s funding for the next fiscal quarter, saying the more than $700m in cash on hand was sufficient.
In his Saturday missive, Vought ordered staff to “cease all supervision and examination activity”, going a step further than a directive issued last week by the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, whom Trump had briefly put in charge after firing Rohit Chopra.
According to an internal email obtained by Reuters, the Washington CFPB headquarters will be closed for the coming week and all employees are to work remotely.
Trump targets consumer protection bureau with order for employees to stop work
Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have been ordered to stop all work and not come into the office by Russell Vought, a top White House official and Project 2025 architect who was recently named the bureau’s acting head, Reuters reports.
The email to employees comes as the Trump administration, with the help of Elon Musk, targets agencies across the government that it believes are wasting government funds, or are at odds with its administration’s policies. Here’s more on the offensive against the CFPB, a longtime target of conservatives including Musk, from Reuters:
The move, which followed a weekend decision to shutter the agency’s Washington headquarters, idled a federal agency of nearly 2,000 workers entrusted with enforcing consumer financial laws nationwide.
“Employees should not come into the office. Please do not perform any work tasks,” Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought said in an email to all staff.
The move underscored tumult at the federal regulator since Vought, a longtime budget hawk and architect of the right-wing policy manifesto known as Project 2025, which called for the CFPB’s abolition, took control of the agency on Friday.
The Trump administration’s efforts to neutralize the agency escalated rapidly over the weekend as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gained full access to CFPB computer systems and Vought ordered a stop to all oversight of consumer financial companies.
Musk has publicly vowed to destroy the CFPB. The agency could otherwise regulate one of his planned business ventures with payments giant Visa.
Donald Trump’s new battery of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports may cause economic turbulence for industries worldwide, but they’re not yet having much of an effect on US markets.
Wall Street will begin trading in about three minutes, and stock futures point to major indices like the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average making slight gains at the open.
That said, the mood is not so cheery elsewhere. Follow our business blog for the latest as the world reacts to Trump’s trade threat:
Donald Trump will sign more executive orders at 1pm today, but the press is not invited, the White House said.
They also did not reveal what those orders will cover. On Friday, the president ordered the establishment of the White House Faith Office, which is meant to coordinate outreach with houses of worship nationwide.
Ontario’s Super Bowl foray could not be better timed. In an interview with Fox News broadcast before the big game, Donald Trump repeated his desire to see Canada made America’s 51st state.
Here’s the clip:
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Viewers of the Super Bowl were treated to advertisements for many things in between play, including something not often exhibited during the annual sports/entertainment ritual: the province of Ontario.
No doubt heeding Donald Trump’s unprecedented attacks on the US-Canada relationship, the province bought itself some Super Bowl ad time to remind Americans of the importance of their good relationship with Canada’s most-populous province. The Toronto Sun has the footage:
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Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s director of management and budget, once said he wanted to put federal workers “in trauma”. He’s now in a position to make good on that promise, the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports:
If federal employees are feeling traumatized right now, Russell Vought, the new head of the office of management and budget (OMB), probably has something to do with it.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a video revealed by ProPublica and the research group Documented in October. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
Vought’s words, delivered at an event hosted by his thinktank, Center for Renewing America, were striking. They reflected a view, long-espoused by Vought, that the government should be brought to heel by a sweepingly powerful executive branch.
Now the head of the office of management and budget – the powerful agency in the executive branch that oversees federal agencies and administers the budget – Vought is positioned to help Donald Trump do just that.
Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports:
Donald Trump’s proposed “land grabs” mean the US is no longer perceived as “an anchor of stability, but rather a risk to be hedged against”, the organisers of the Munich Security Conference have said in their pre-summit report.
The report, which takes as its theme the shift from a US-led, unipolar post-cold war era towards a multipolar world in which no single ideological outlook dominates, will form the backdrop to this year’s conference.
Since his inauguration, the US president has mooted acquiring land for the US in Greenland and Panama, and suggested Canada could be a 51st US state. The signals from Washington increasingly indicate that the US no longer wants to be the guardian of the liberal international order, but it is far from clear which other countries may be willing and able to provide much-needed global public goods.
The report’s authors suggest a US withdrawal from a global leadership role has implications beyond issues of war and peace: “Without global leadership of the kind provided by the United States for the past several decades, it is hard to imagine the international community providing global public goods like freedom of navigation or tackling even some of the many grave threats confronting humanity.”
Read more from Patrick Wintour here: Trump’s proposed ‘land grabs’ mean US now seen as a risk, says Munich security report
Muted reaction from China after Trump announces another set of tariffs
There has been muted direct reaction from China to Donald Trump’s pre-announcement of another wave of tariffs on steel and aluminium.
The New York Times reports than in its daily briefing, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said “Let me stress that protectionism leads nowhere. Trade and tariff wars have no winners.”
The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, although China dominates global production volumes.
Trump’s pre-announcement came as China’s retaliatory tariffs to his first wave of new charges came into effect. The measures target $14bn worth of products with a 15% tariff on coal and LNG, and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment and some vehicles.
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Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees US relations and arms control, said on Monday that the outlook for Russia-US talks on nuclear strategic stability did not look promising. The US has been pressing for three-way talks involving China, but Russia has said it wants Britain and France also included in any new arms control talks.
European Commission says Trump's tariff proposals are unjustified
A European Commission spokesperson has said that all of Donald Trump proposed tariff measures are unjustified.
“We believe that none of the potential measures outlined by the U.S. administration to date are justified,” Reuters reports the spokesperson said at a daily briefing.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose trade tariffs on goods originating from Europe, and some European manufacturers fear the impact on supply chains of tariffs Trump has already imposed on China. On Sunday the US president pre-announced a new round of 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium.
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Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he does not “take seriously” Donald Trump’s proposal that Palestinians be forcibly expelled from Gaza.
Speaking in Malaysia, Reuters reports Erdoğan, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in the region, said “We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously. No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba.”
During a press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week the US president claimed that “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it.”
On Thursday Trump appeared to double down on the idea, despite widespread international condemnation of the remarks.
Last week the Trump administration announced the approval of the sale of more than $7.4bn in bombs, missiles and related equipment to Israel.
Republicans in Congress have been backing Donald Trump’s controversial picks for senior positions in the administration out of fear of facing Elon Musk-funded opponents in future elections, one senator has claimed.
An anonymous Republican senator told Alexander Bolton for The Hill website that “That’s one of the reasons why you see people who are close to an election voting for certain nominees. The White House hasn’t been too subtle about that. I think they’ve been fairly threatening.”
Back in December Musk appeared to suggest he was keeping a “naughty list” of Republicans who were not supporting Trump’s agenda.
Ben Makuch writes for the Guardian today examining the legality of Elon Musk’s actions in attempting to gut the US federal government operation:
In 2025, as a “special government employee” heading up the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Elon Musk is going to war with government diversity and inclusion programs and slashing whatever he sees as a “waste” of public coffers.
But legal resistance is mounting, as Doge faces countless lawsuits alleging everything from privacy concerns to free speech violations, which all leads to one important question: is any of this even legal?
Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s leading and preeminent constitutional scholars and a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, has already argued that much of Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive orders on the day of his inauguration disregards the US constitution. He told the Guardian he saw Musk’s actions as furthering that culture.
On whether or not Doge and Musk can legally have this much power over an array of government departments, Tribe was emphatic: “NO.”
Musk has applied a buckshot method across the government, offering CIA agents walking papers while appraising the Department of Education – all at the same time.
Tribe said the lack of guardrails being placed on Doge’s maverick initiatives, raises “both” questions of illegality and ethical wrongdoing that can be challenged in court. As for Musk’s status as a federal contractor (such as his StarLink work with the Pentagon) and now a government employee, Tribe sees it as “absolutely” a legal conflict of interest.
Read more from Ben Makuch here: Elon Musk’s gutting of US agencies is illegal, experts say. How do you muzzle Doge?
Kremlin coy on whether Trump and Putin have held phone conversation
The Kremlin was coy on Monday morning on whether US president Donald Trump has spoken directly with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Speaking during his regular daily press briefing, Reuters reports Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he was unable to say more about the subject, adding “I made a statement to that effect yesterday. And there is nothing else I can say. I can neither confirm nor deny it.”
Asked by reporters onboard Air Force One on Sunday whether he had held a call with Putin since becoming president on 20 January or before, the US president said: “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it. And I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended. If we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations.”
Federal judge halts Trump administration bid to move detained Venezuelan men to Guantánamo Bay
A federal judge has barred the US government from sending three detained Venezuelan men to the navy base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, according to the men’s lawyer.
Associated Press reports a legal filing to a US district court in New Mexico was granted during a brief hearing by Judge Kenneth J Gonzales. The lawyers for the men argued that the detainees “fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantánamo … [and] the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction.”
Jessica Vosburgh, an attorney for the three men, said “It’s short term. This will get revisited and further fleshed out in the weeks to come.”
The government opposed the action.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that more than 8,000 people have been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump’s inauguration, and Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said last week that flights of detainees had already landed at Guantánamo. Immigrant rights groups fear the site will become a “legal black hole.”
Trump says he is ordering US treasury to stop minting pennies
Donald Trump has said he will stop the US treasury issuing pennies, stating that the one cent coins are a waste of money.
In a message on the Truth Social platform that he owns, Trump said:
For far too long the US has minted pennies which literally cost us more than two cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.
The penny was first issued by the US government in 1793. The Hill website reports that, according to the US mint’s annual reports, the cost of manufacturing one cent pieces has been above its face value for 19 consecutive years.
Reuters reports that Germany’s government has said it was working to prevent the Trump administration imposing tariffs on trade with Europe.
An economy ministry spokesperson said Berlin is “working towards ensuring that these measures do not materialise”, adding that economy minister Robert Habeck had met with EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič to discuss the issue on Monday.
In our business blog today, my colleague Graeme Wearden reports that Donald Trump’s tariff interventions are leading some to describe the markets experiencing a “febrile February” with volatility high on the agenda.
He quotes Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, who said “Tariffs remain central to the uncertainty, with President Trump’s latest announcement on Sunday likely to keep investors on edge this week. He has threatened reciprocal tariffs across the board to equal the rates being charged to the US, quite apart from a 25% levy on the import of steel and aluminium.”
As David Goldman and Chris Isidore note for CNN:
While the US is not the manufacturing-focused economy it once was, it still consumes tens of millions of tons of steel and aluminum a year, feeding industries such as automaking, aerospace, oil production, construction and infrastructure, such as roads and bridges. Tariffs would increase the cost of production in those industries both because of the increased cost of the imported steel, and because domestic steel and aluminum makers could raise the price of their products due to the reduced competition from low-priced imports. Canada and Mexico are the largest and third largest exporters of steel to the US, respectively.
It wasn’t entirely clear from Trump’s interview on Sunday when new tariffs would be expected to come into effect, and whether they were on top of his previously announced measures against Canada, Mexico and China.
Trump to announce 25% aluminum and steel tariffs as China’s levies against US come into effect
Donald Trump has said he will announce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US on Monday that would affect “everybody’, including its largest trading partners Canada and Mexico.
Trump’s pre-announcement came as China’s retaliatory tariffs, announced last week, came into effect. The measures target $14bn worth of products with a 15% tariff on coal and LNG, and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment and some vehicles.
The move on steel and aluminum brought a swift reaction from Doug Ford, the premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, who accused the US president of “shifting goalposts and constant chaos” that would put the economy at risk.
Monday’s tariffs would come on top of existing metals duties.
The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to government and American Iron and Steel Institute data.
The US president, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, also said he would announce reciprocal tariffs – raising US tariff rates to match those of trading partners – on Tuesday or Wednesday, which would take effect “almost immediately”.
“And very simply, it’s, if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said of the reciprocal tariff plan.
You can read Helen Davidson’s report in full here: Trump to announce 25% aluminum and steel tariffs as China’s levies against US come into effect
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 has said he will announce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US on Monday that would affect “everybody”, including its largest trading partners Canada and Mexico.
A federal court has blocked the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants held in New Mexico to Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Russell Vought, Trump’s newly installed acting head of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced at the weekend he had cut off the agency’s budget and reportedly instructed staff to suspend all activities.
Trump said that he expects Elon Musk to find “billions” of dollars of abuse and fraud in the Pentagon during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier that aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Trump also said during the interview that he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state.
