Today’s recap
A federal judge said he will issue a temporary order to halt the dismantling of USAid. Judge Carl Nichols, a Donald Trump appointee, said federal employees should not be put on administrative leave until legal proceedings come to a close. Two unions representing federal and foreign service workers brought the lawsuit on behalf of USAid’s workers on Friday. This came after a renewed offensive on USAid earlier in the day, which saw the agency’s headquarters being shuttered. Trump also announced a new barrage of tariffs on unspecified countries to come next week.
Here’s what else happened today:
Trump followed Joe Biden’s lead by revoking the former president’s access to classified government information and removing his security clearance and daily intelligence briefings.
Trump appointed himself as chair of the John F Kennedy Center for the performing arts saying he was immediately terminating multiple people from the board of trustees.
Alaskan lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution to halt the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley.
Trump signed an executive order targeting South Africa, after Marco Rubio accused the country of “anti-Americanism”.
Trump said he is in “no rush” to make his plan to put the United States in charge of the Gaza Strip a reality.
The Health and Human Services Department and agencies under its umbrella – such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – may be the next targets of Trump’s mass layoffs.
Trump said he would soon be signing an executive order to end federal support for paper straws, saying they don’t work and to “BRING BACK PLASTIC!”
Job creation across the US slowed, according to new data from the labor department.
Updated
Donald Trump announced on Friday that he was revoking Joe Biden’s access to classified government information. This means Biden will no longer have security clearance or daily intelligence briefings.
“JOE, YOU’RE FIRED,” Trump posted on Truth Social. He referenced a report by the special counsel Robert Hur from last year that described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. Trump said Biden could not be trusted with sensitive information.
When Biden came in to office in early 2021, he did the same thing to Trump. He said Trump shouldn’t get intelligence briefings because of his “erratic behavior”.
In the past, former presidents were granted the ability to continue to receive security clearance and intelligence briefings. On Friday, Trump blamed Biden for setting this new precedent.
Updated
Donald Trump said Friday that he is appointing himself as chairman of the John F Kennedy Center for the performing arts.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
The Kennedy Center is the country’s national cultural center and is run through a public-private partnership. The idea for such a center began with Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s and was authorized by Congress in 1958 under the National Cultural Center Act. It’s known for hosting music, theater, dance, artwork and performance art; and has hosted acts ranging from Tina Turner to Led Zeppelin.
Trump said he is immediately terminating multiple people from the Board of Trustees, including the chairman, saying they don’t “share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”. The president also brought up the topic of queer people, something he’s repeatedly harped on since being sworn into office, saying that the Kennedy Center “featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth – THIS WILL STOP”.
With what seemed like a hat tip to Kimberly Guilfoyle’s famous 2020 campaign speech for Trump, he signed off his Truth Social post saying: “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
During his first term, after artists’ protests and threats to boycott, Trump didn’t attend a single annual gala event at the Kennedy Center.
Updated
Alaskan lawmakers are aiming to halt the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley.
The state senate unanimously voted on Friday to pass a resolution that urges Donald Trump to stop his plans to change the name of the highest peak in North America. The senate followed a similar vote of 31-8 in the state house last week.
Trump signed an executive order to rename Denali during his first week of office, saying it was to honor the former president. “President McKinley is honored for giving his life for our great nation,” the order reads.
Barack Obama changed the name of the mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015. That name change was to “recognize the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives”.
Reverting the name to Mount McKinley has been unpopular even with Republicans. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, said that she “strongly disagreed” with Trump’s decision.
Updated
Judge who ordered temporary order to halt dismantling of USAid is Donald Trump appointee.
In 2019, Trump appointed Judge Carl Nichols to the US district court for the District of Columbia. Nichols blocked Marco Rubio from putting 2,200 USAid employees on leave starting midnight tonight, so that the legal proceedings could play out.
“They should not put those 2,200 people on administrative leave,” Nichols said during an emergency hearing on Friday. Nichols could also order Rubio to reinstate 500 employees who’ve already been put on leave, he said he was still weighing that decision. The judge said he would formalize his decision later tonight.
Two unions representing federal and foreign service workers brought the lawsuit against the government. They said dismantling the aid agency is “unconstitutional and illegal” and had “generated a global humanitarian crisis”. They argue that only Congress has the power to lawfully disassemble USAid.
Updated
A US Treasury threat intelligence analysis has reportedly designated staff from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) as an “insider threat”.
Wired obtained an internal email on Friday that said Doge’s access to government payment systems is “the single biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced”.
Musk has brought a group on young men onto his team to reportedly work to gain access to the government’s computer systems, causing outcry among democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer has called the group “an unelected shadow government … conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government”.
The young men, who are all under the age of 26, have little government experience and have been working at the behest of Musk to tap into internal systems at various federal agencies, including the Department of Education, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Treasury Department.
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US judge to enter 'limited' temporary order to block Trump from moving to dismantle USAid
A US judge on Friday said he will enter a “very limited” temporary order blocking Donald Trump’s administration from taking certain steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USaid), according to Reuters.
US district judge Carl Nichols in Washington said he would issue the order following a lawsuit by the largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers, who sued on Thursday to stop the administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency.
In a notice sent to the foreign aid agency’s workers on Thursday, the administration said it will keep 611 essential workers onboard at USaid out of a worldwide workforce that totals more than 10,000. This move has largely been directed by Elon Musk, who’s spearheading the president’s effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy.
A justice department official, Brett Shumate, told Nichols that about 2,200 USAid employees would be put on paid leave under the administration’s plans, saying: “The president has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAid.”
Updated
Pentagon is amassing more soldiers on the southern border
A US official said the agency will deploy about 1,500 more active-duty troops, bringing the total number to about 3,600, according to the Associated Press.
Moving troops south is part of Donald Trump’s plans to crack down on immigration and beef up security at the border. Trump signed several executive orders during his first week in office addressing immigration, including one declaring a national emergency at the southern border.
Roughly 1,600 active-duty troops have already been deployed, according to the Associated Press, and about 500 more are anticipated to head south within the next few days.
Updated
Trump signs executive order targeting South Africa
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to address “serious human rights violations occurring in South Africa”, Reuters reports, in the latest sign of worsening relations between the United States and Africa’s largest economy.
It was not yet clear how the order would affect South Africa, but it comes after secretary of state Marco Rubio accused the country of “anti-Americanism”, while Trump announced he would cut funding to the country over its efforts to reform land ownership.
Here’s more on the spat:
The shuttering of USAid continues apace, with its name taped over on a building directory outside its Washington DC headquarters:
Only a few hundred staffers are set to remain at the organization that facilitates the US foreign aid strategy:
The day so far
Donald Trump has made clear he will fire “some” of the FBI agents who investigated the January 6 US Capitol attack, after the bureau turned over their names to a justice department official who was previously one of the president’s attorneys. Speaking at a joint press conference with Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, the president also again backed dismantling the Department of Education and said he was “very proud” of the work of the “department of government efficiency”, despite objections from Democrats and advocacy groups. Earlier in the day, he renewed his offensive against USAid, and said he’d announce a new barrage of tariffs on unspecified countries next week.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Trump said he is in “no rush” to make his plan to put the United States in charge of the Gaza Strip a reality.
USAid’s dismantling may be a boon for China’s global influence, analysts say.
The health and human services department and agencies under its umbrella – such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control – may be the next targets of Trump’s mass layoffs, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Updated
Just before he wrapped up his press conference with the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, Donald Trump was asked if he had given Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” any particular orders of where to find areas to cut spending.
“We haven’t discussed that much. I’ll tell him to go here, go there. He does it. He’s got a very capable group of people, very, very, very, very capable. They know what they’re doing. They’ll ask questions, and they’ll see immediately, as somebody gets tongue-tied, that they’re either crooked or don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump said.
“I’ve instructed him go into education, go into military, go into other things as we go along, and they’re finding massive amounts of fraud, abuse, waste, all of these things,” the president added, without offering details.
The reporter speaking to Trump noted that social security and Medicare make up the bulk of federal spending. “Social security will not be touched, it’ll only be strengthened,” Trump replied, again without providing details of how he would do that and then pivoting to accusations that undocumented immigrants are accessing those benefits.
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Trump says he will fire 'some' FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases
Donald Trump said he will fire an unspecified number of the FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases, after the justice department sought the names of bureau employees involved in investigations related to the Capitol attack.
“I’ll fire some of them because some of them were corrupt,” Trump replied, when asked at his press conference if he would fire all the agents who investigated January 6.
“I have no doubt about that. I got to know a lot about that business, that world. I got to know a lot about that world, and we had some corrupt agents, and those people are gone, or they will be gone, and it’ll be done quickly and very surgically.”
Trump again backs dismantling education department
Donald Trump then signaled he remained serious about closing the Department of Education, saying regulations around schooling would be better left to the states.
“We’re ranked dead last,” Trump said. “I want to see it go back to the states where great states that do so well have no debt, they’re operated brilliantly. They’ll be as good as Norway or Denmark or Sweden or any of the other highly ranked countries … 35 to 38 states will be right at the top, and the rest will come along. They’ll have to come along competitively. And by the way, we’ll be spending a lot less money, and we’ll have great education.”
Updated
Trump says 'very proud' of Doge's work, says they're acting 'at my insistence'
Donald Trump has defended Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), saying their work is necessary to root out unspecified “corruption”.
“I’m very proud of the job that this group of young people, generally young people, but very smart people, they’re doing,” Trump said, referring to the reportedly young engineers Musk has staffed Doge with. “They’re doing it at my insistence. It would be a lot easier not to do it, but we have to take some of these things apart to find the corruption.”
Democrats have condemned the effort, saying Musk and his employees are unqualified and have put America’s privacy at risk by accessing sensitive government systems, among other concerns.
The last time Donald Trump was in office, Shinzo Abe was Japan’s prime minister, and the rapport the two leaders developed looms over Shigeru Ishiba’s visit to Washington DC, the Guardian’s Justin McCurry reports:
Donald Trump had yet to get his feet under the Oval Office desk when he held his first meeting with a foreign leader in late 2016. Shinzo Abe, then Japan’s prime minister, arrived at Trump Tower in November that year bearing a gift of a gold-plated golf club and harbouring a determination to get the Japan-US relationship under Trump off to the best possible start.
The success, or otherwise, of Abe’s charm offensive had potentially serious repercussions. During the election campaign, Trump had suggested he would withdraw US troops from Japan, contingent on Tokyo’s willingness to make a bigger financial contribution to their countries’ postwar alliance.
The gambit worked. During Trump’s five-nation visit to Asia in late 2017, he and Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, bonded over a round of golf – a sport for which the Japanese leader had apparently developed a sudden passion – and gourmet hamburgers.
For the remainder of Trump’s term, Abe supported the US administration with a fervour that eluded many of his contemporaries. US troops remained in Japan, and the bilateral security treaty – the cornerstone of Japan’s postwar foreign policy – survived unscathed.
As he prepares to fly to Washington on a three-day visit, all eyes are on whether Japan’s current leader, Shigeru Ishiba, will be able to re-create Abe’s personal rapport with Trump, although golf diplomacy is unlikely to play a part for the cigarette-smoking plastic-modelling enthusiast.
The press conference is now underway and Donald Trump is currently giving compliments to his counterpart.
Just before the two leaders came out, US vice-president JD Vance turned up in the room.
Trump said the US worked well together with Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe.
Updated
The scene is set at the White House for the forthcoming press conference between Donald Trump and Shigeru Ishiba.
The press has gathered in the East Room and podium sound checks are complete as the US president and the Japanese prime minister prepare to make remarks and take questions from media representatives.
The countries’ respective flags alternate behind the area where the leaders will station themselves and senior aides are chatting nearby.
The press conference was due to get under way an hour ago. The two are having a working lunch. Ishiba is the second foreign leader to visit Trump here since he became the 47th president. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was the first, earlier this week, and the visit made huge waves with Trump’s comments that the US should take over Gaza.
Updated
Democratic lawmakers turned away from Department of Education
Around a dozen Democratic members of Congress attempted to enter the Department of Education today in response to reports that Donald Trump would soon order it dismantled, but were denied access.
“Today we went to the Department of Education and demanded answers in defense of our students, in defense of our teachers, in defense of families and communities that are built around public education. We’re not going to let them destroy our public school system and destroy the futures of millions of kids across this country,” said congressman Maxwell Frost, who was part of the group.
The group tried for about 10 minutes to get in, but were informed they would not be allowed access. Police were called, and were positioned inside the building’s lobby.
You can see video of the attempt here.
Updated
Only a few hundred employees will remain at USAid once Donald Trump’s dismantling of the aid agency is complete, the Guardian’s Anna Betts reports:
Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly planning to keep just more than 600 essential workers at USAid, according to a notice sent to employees of the US foreign aid agency on Thursday night.
The notice, shared with Reuters by an administration official on Friday, reportedly stated that 611 essential workers would be retained at USAid, which had more than 10,000 employees globally.
Earlier, it was reported that the administration intended to retain fewer than 300 staff members at USAid.
The USAid staff reductions are set to take effect at midnight on Friday, as indicated on the agency’s website. But a lawsuit filed on Thursday by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) seeks to prevent the administration from dismantling USAid, which was established as an independent agency by a law passed by Congress in 1998.
Updated
Trump says he will announce reciprocal tariffs next week
Donald Trump said he plans to announce reciprocal tariffs on many countries next week.
Trump was asked about his plans for further restrictions on trading partners during a bilateral meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba. Trump replied:
I’ll be announcing that next week, reciprocal trade, so that we’re treated evenly with other countries, we don’t want any more, any less.
Trump warned repeatedly during his campaign that he would impose a universal tariff on imports into the US.
Trump also threatened tariffs on Japanese goods if the US trade deficit with Japan is not equalized.
“Should be pretty easy to do,” he said, according to Reuters. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem whatsoever. They want fairness too.”
Updated
The Trump administration has agreed not to publicly release the names of FBI agents and employees who investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The justice department agreed to a temporary deal not to immediately make public the names of agents who worked on investigations related to the 6 January 2021 insurrection until at least late March.
The deal was struck after acting head of the FBI, Brian Driscoll, turned over to the justice department a list of FBI employees involved in the January 6 investigations.
The data, submitted to at least partially comply with an order from the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, last month demanding information, included employee numbers, job titles and job roles.
The demand prompted days of internal resistance from Driscoll and the bureau and prompted two lawsuits from groups of anonymous FBI agents who said the move endangered their safety.
Trump says he is in 'no rush' on his Gaza plan
Donald Trump said he is in no rush to implement his plan for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and move out its Palestinian population.
“We’re in no rush on it,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Despite once calling cryptocurrency “a scam”, Donald Trump made a theoretical fortune of billions after launching a self-named and highly controversial meme coin immediately before his second inauguration in January.
Now an army of digital imposters is trying to cash in on the president’s name and online presence to make their own crypto killing, according to a report in the Financial Times that details hundreds of “copycat and spam coins” uploaded to Trump’s official wallet in cyberspace.
Creators sent more than 700 new meme coins to the wallet in recent weeks, many named after Trump or his family members – but none of them have any formal connection.
Experts say speculators can be easily duped by names that make it seem the fake coins are allied to the real $Trump cryptocurrency – which itself has seen a precipitous collapse in value – and risk the digital equivalent of being taken to the cleaners.
Immigrant rights groups demand immediate access to migrants deported to Guantánamo Bay
Immigrant rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have sent a letter to the Trump administration demanding immediate access to immigrants recently transferred to Guantánamo Bay.
The Trump administration has transferred nearly two dozen migrants from immigration detention centers to the US naval base in Cuba.
It comes after Trump signed an executive order to prepare a huge detention camp at the navy base at Guantánamo that he said could house up to 30,000 people deported from the US.
“The Constitution, and federal and international law prohibit the government from using Guantánamo as a legal black hole,” the letter says.
We therefore request that the government provide our organizations access to the noncitizens detained at Guantánamo so that those individuals will have access to legal counsel, and so advocates and the public can understand the conditions under which the government is detaining them.
The letter comes ahead of homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s planned visit to Guantánamo on Friday.
“It is unlawful for our government to use Guantánamo as a legal black hole, yet that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing,” ACLU deputy director of the immigrants’ rights project, Lee Gelernt, said.
Updated
Netanyahu invites House speaker Johnson to Israel
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has invited House speaker Mike Johnson to visit Jerusalem this year.
“I know you’re busy but find space to do that. You’ll be welcomed with a red carpet,” Netanyahu told Johnson during a press conference following their meeting at the Capitol.
Netanyahu said he had developed a “close personal bond” with Johnson, and noted Donald Trump’s executive order on Thursday sanctioning the international criminal court (ICC) over its arrest warrants for him and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Johnson thanked the Israeli leader for his “unrelenting commitment to making the region and the world a safer place”, adding:
What Israel has done in the past seven months really is a testament to what can be accomplished when we do not let the enemy set the rules.
Updated
Some extremists who were recently the targets of the FBI are applauding Donald Trump’s appointment of Maga loyalist Kash Patel as its new director.
Experts are warning their support is a sign of an emboldened far right now seen as a diminishing existential threat inside the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
In what was a fraught and contentious Senate confirmation hearing last week, Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI, made a point to describe some of the racism he has faced in the US as the son of Indian Gujarati immigrants.
But Patel is garnering some unlikely fans among the racist and xenophobic far right.
“I like Kash fr, he is based af,” wrote one Telegram user on a post about Patel from a neo-Nazi account with thousands of followers. “I’d buy him curry anytime.”
Patel is known for peddling various conspiracy theories on podcasts popular among Maga followers, and he is a polarizing figure. He’s not expected to garner any Democratic votes on the way to a likely confirmation as the new head of the FBI.
Updated
Donald Trump said he will sign an executive order to end federal support for paper straws, a Biden-era policy that was part of a broader plan to phase out single-plastics.
In a Truth Social post this morning, Trump wrote:
I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!
Trump has previously railed against paper straws, selling thousands of Trump-branded plastic straws during his 2020 presidential campaign as an alternative to “liberal” paper straws.
Job creation across the US has slowed at the start of Donald Trump’s second term, after a blistering finish to 2024.
New data from the labor department released on Friday showed 143,000 jobs added to the economy in January, short of the 168,000 expected by economists.
It is also a sharp slowdown on December, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revised up its estimates and now says payrolls rose by 307,000, 51,000 more than its initial estimate of 256,000.
The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, blamed the pace of hiring on Joe Biden’s administration in a statement.
“Today’s jobs report reveals the Biden economy was far worse than anyone thought, and underscores the necessity of President Trump’s pro-growth policies,” she wrote.
Senior Democrat demands inquiry into Musk’s government blitz
Elon Musk’s blitz through the federal government has triggered a “constitutional emergency”, a senior Democrat has warned, demanding the launch of an impartial investigation into billionaire tycoon’s access to sensitive data.
Robert C “Bobby” Scott, ranking member of the House committee on education and workforce and the Democratic leader on the committee, sounded the alarm over a “void of oversight” as the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), led by the world’s richest man, accesses information within a string of agencies including the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, Scott demanded that the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency, launch an immediate investigation into “interventions” by Musk and his team into the departments’ IT systems, the legality of such moves and what it means “for children and vulnerable workers”.
Scott calls for the agency to provide answers into the legality and impacts of Doge infiltrating private and sensitive data at these federal departments. It comes after senior Democrats on the House oversight committee demanded an investigation into potential national security breaches by the unit.
Updated
As we reported earlier, the largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration on Thursday over “catastrophic” cuts to USAid.
Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are among the named defendants, but the text of the suit focuses extensively on actions, and statements on social media, by Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” initiative.
Among the actions called illegal are Trump’s order on 20 January, the day he was inaugurated, pausing all US foreign aid. That was followed by orders from the state department halting USAid projects around the world, agency computer systems going offline and staff abruptly laid off or placed on leave.
The gutting of the agency has largely been overseen by Musk, the world’s richest man and a close Trump ally spearheading the president’s effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy and replace career civil servants with politically loyal appointees.
USAid shutdown has ripple effects on aid around the world and cedes ground to China - analysts
If there’s an immediate beneficiary to Donald Trump’s shutdown of USAid, it’s probably China, the Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Amy Hawkins reports:
Donald Trump’s shutdown of USAid has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US’s chief rival, China, analysts have said.
The result of the sudden 90-day suspension of USAid funding – which accounts for 40% of global foreign aid – has been chaos: employees locked out of offices, humanitarian shipments left to rot, and lifesaving assistance stopped.
Around the world, development programmes previously assisted by the USAid are panicking, warning of disastrous risks of escalating famine, death and disease.
Trump’s plan involves the merger of the more than 60-year-old USAid into the state department, shrinking its workforce and aligning its spending with his priorities. But analysts say it is working against one key priority – countering China.
“[The US is handing] on a silver platter to China the perfect opportunity to expand its influence, at a time when China’s economy is not doing very well,” said Prof Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
What Trump is doing is basically providing China a perfect opportunity to rethink, to renew soft power projects, and get back on track to transglobal leadership.
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Alleging corruption at USAid, Trump says: 'CLOSE IT DOWN!'
Donald Trump has renewed his assault on USAid this morning, accusing the US government foreign assistance facilitator of corruption and saying “CLOSE IT DOWN”.
The Trump administration is doing just that, with the firing of all but a few hundred of its staff, a move that has prompted a lawsuit to stop it and fears that the United States is undermining critical humanitarian and health programs worldwide while ceding influence to rivals like China.
Trump appears unbothered, writing on Truth Social:
USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY, AND THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT BECAUSE THE WAY IN WHICH THE MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT, SO MUCH OF IT FRAUDULENTLY, IS TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE. THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!
Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is reported to have also gained access to the Treasury’s payment system, which Democrats view as an alarming development because it contains data on millions of Americans.
In an interview with Bloomberg News yesterday, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the risks of Doge’s access.
“These are highly trained professionals, this is not some roving band running around doing things,” he said.
Bessent described Doge’s investigation into Treasury operations as “an operational review. It’s not an ideological review … At Treasury, we move deliberately and we fix things. That’s the way we work. So everyone should know that all the payments are going to be made. They’re going to be in good order.”
Student association sues over Doge accessing education department database
An association of university students has filed a lawsuit over Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reported access of a department of education database containing information about student loan program enrollees.
“The Department of Education has tens of millions of Americans’ sensitive personal information – everything from income history to Social Security numbers to banking information,” said Alex Elson, vice president of Student Defense, which is representing the University of California Student Association in the lawsuit filed along with Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy group.
“They collect that data with a promise to keep it safe and use it to help students secure financial aid and make informed decisions about their future. Turning around and handing it over to political operatives with an axe to grind is a fundamental violation of both Americans’ trust and federal law. We urge the Court to quickly stop it.”
The lawsuit comes after the Washington Post this week reported accessed the database at the education department, even as the Trump administration considers shutting down the federal agency.
Donald Trump may order the dismantling of the education department after its secretary, Linda McMahon, is confirmed by the Senate, Axios reports.
McMahon will have her confirmation hearing next week. Doing away with the department of education is a longtime goal of the political right, and one Donald Trump endorsed this week when he said that he hopes McMahon puts herself out of a job.
Trump administration considering mass layoffs at health and human services department - report
The Trump administration is planning an executive order that will lead to mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Thousands of federal workers at the department and agencies it oversees, including the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, could be let go by the order, the Journal reports. Here’s more:
The order could come as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said, after workers have an opportunity to take a buyout. The terms of the order haven’t been finalized, however, and the White House could still decide against going forward with the plans.
The job cuts under consideration would affect the Department of Health and Human Services, which employs more than 80,000 people and includes the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in addition to the FDA and CDC.
The agencies are responsible for a range of functions, from approving new drugs to tracing bird-flu outbreaks and researching cancer. A loss of staff could affect the efforts depending on which workers are cut and whether they are concentrated in particular areas.
The White House on Thursday denied that there is an executive order related to HHS coming.
Agency officials have been told to prepare lists of probationary workers who have essential roles and must be retained, and of employees who don’t, according to people familiar with the instructions. Generally, probationary employees have served less than one year, or two years for “excepted service” and can be let go more easily than other workers.
Updated
Donald Trump will today welcome Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba to the White House, with his arrival due at 11.30am.
In the afternoon, the president will make an unspecified “Faith Office” announcement, the White House says, and sign executive orders, before heading to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.
Both events will provide reporters the opportunity to ask questions of the president, who will perhaps make news.
A total of 611 essential workers will be kept on at USAID following cuts to the agency’s funding, according to an update sent to staff late on Thursday and shared with Reuters by a Trump administration official on Friday.
Under initial plans, fewer than 300 of the agency’s 10,000-strong worldwide workforce was reportedly to be kept on.
Trump has signed an executive order imposing a 90-day suspension on all US foreign assistance, with an exemption for life-saving treatment.
UK will not follow US on ICC sanctions
The UK has no plans to sanction international criminal court (ICC) officials and supports the court’s independence, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson has said.
It follows an executive order issued by president Trump authorising sanctions against people who have worked on ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies such as Israel.
Updated
Donald Trump’s attempts to slash incentives for electric cars would cause sales of the vehicles to plummet, with this effort cheered on by a seemingly confounding supporter – Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and erstwhile champion for action on the climate crisis.
The US president, who previously suggested supporters of EVs “rot in hell” before somewhat tempering his rhetoric, has already ditched an aspirational goal for half of all car sales to be electric by the end of the decade, halted some funding for EV chargers and began reversing vehicle pollution standards that prod auto companies to shift away from gasoline models.
A key tax credit for Americans buying an EV, worth up to $7,500, is also a major target for elimination, although to overturn this Trump will require Republicans in Congress. Should he succeed, though, the impact would be significant, with a recent study finding that electric car sales could fall by 27% without the incentive.
Trump’s agenda has been enthusiastically backed by Musk, despite the world’s richest person heading Tesla, the market-leading EV company that also relies upon some parts made in China that may be targeted by tariffs imposed by Trump.
Read the full story here:
More now on that lawsuit brought by two government workers’ unions to try to stop the Trump administration from dismantling USAID.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest such union, and the American Foreign Service Association argued in the suit that the administration’s actions were “unconstitutional and illegal”.
They said Congress was the “only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency” but that “not a single one of defendants’ actions” were taken with congressional approval.
The suit added that “the agency’s collapse has had disastrous humanitarian consequences”, including the disruption of services to treat malaria and HIV.
“Already, 300 babies that would not have had HIV, now do. Thousands of girls and women will die from pregnancy and childbirth,” it said.
Updated
ICC 'stands firmly' by staff after US sanctions
The International Criminal Court has condemned US sanctions against its staff, saying the move was part of an attempt to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work”.
“The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the court said in a statement.
“We call on our 125 States Parties, civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights,” it said.
The executive order announcing the sanctions said they were in response to “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.
Officials facing sanctions may see any assets they have in the US frozen or be banned from entering the country altogether.
The US Treasury and State Department will decide which officials are to be sanctioned.
Aids cuts are causing carnage, writes Gordon Brown
An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or above could not have caused more carnage. Recent floods in Asia and droughts in Africa have been catastrophic, yet they have inflicted less damage and affected fewer people than the sudden withdrawal of billions of dollars of US aid from the world’s most volatile hotspots and its most vulnerable people.
Coming alongside President Trump’s plan for a US takeover of Gaza, the US administration’s resolve to shut down its international aid agency sends a clear message that the era when American leaders valued their soft power is coming to an end.
But while the Gaza plan is as yet only on the drawing board, USAid cuts – which will see funding slashed and just 290 of the more than 10,000 employees worldwide retained, according to the New York Times - have already begun to bite this week. We have seen the halting of landmine-clearing work in Asia, support for war veterans and independent media in Ukraine, and assistance for Rohingya refugees on the border of Bangladesh.
US generosity is often seen as mere charity, but it is in the country’s self-interest to be generous because the creation of a more stable world benefits us all. We all gain if USAid can mitigate the spread of infectious diseases, prevent malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, halt the upsurge of IS in Syria and support a fair, humanitarian reconstruction of Gaza and Ukraine. Only the narrowest and most blinkered view of what constitutes “America first” can justify the disaster America has unloaded on the world.
Read the full piece from the former prime minister here:
Updated
The UN’s main programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) has said the freeze on US foreign aid is causing “a lot of confusion” despite a waiver being placed on HIV/AIDS programmes.
Last month, President Trump announced an immediate 90-day pause on all foreign aid, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio later announced a waiver for “life-saving humanitarian assistance”, including HIV treatment.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Friday, Christine Stegling, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, said there was still “a lot of confusion especially on the community level”.
“Community delivery of medication of transport services, community health workers, all of these services are currently still impacted,” Stegling said.
Aid agencies have spoken previously about the damage a 90-day pause would do to their services.
Among the treatments provided by PEPFAR, the US’ global programme for combatting AIDS, are anti-retroviral treatments for 679,936 pregnant women living with HIV, both for their own health and to prevent transmission to their children, according to analysis by the Foundation for AIDS Research.
“During a 90-day stoppage, we estimate that this would mean 135,987 babies acquiring HIV,” it said.
Donald Trump has restated his proposal to take over Gaza amid widespread opposition – even from his own supporters – saying the territory would be “turned over” to the US by Israel after it concludes its military offensive against Hamas.
Trump reinforced his commitment to the idea in a rambling post on his Truth Social network on Thursday, even as it emerged that the proposal – announced without warning during a White House visit by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister – was purely his own and had not been subject to detailed discussion with aides.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he wrote.
Read the full story here:
“The humanitarian consequences of defendants’ actions have already been catastrophic,” the plaintiffs said. “USAid provides life-saving food, medicine, and support to hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Without agency partners to implement this mission, US-led medical clinics, soup kitchens, refugee assistance programs, and countless other programs shuddered to an immediate halt.”
Among the actions called illegal are Trump’s order on 20 January, the day he was inaugurated, pausing all US foreign aid. That was followed by orders from the state department halting USAid projects around the world, agency computer systems going offline and staff abruptly laid off or placed on leave.
The White House and the departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment…
Bill Gates says Elon Musk calling the US Agency for International Development (USAID) a criminal organisation was “a mistake.”
The Microsoft founder was referring to Musk’s comments on X, which compared foreign aid to “money laundering.” Musk also posted that USAID employees are an “arm of the radical-left globalists.”
Gates said he doesn’t object to Musk’s plan to make the government run more efficiently but said, “going in very quickly and calling all these people a criminal organisation is a mistake, and that is not quite as subtle as you’d hope to see.”
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Gates said he was surprised by Musk’s support of far-right political organisations like the AFD party in Germany.
Gates said, “I’m very careful to say Elon’s super smart, his private sector work is fantastic, I’m surprised [by] the number of things he states opinions on. I’ve always had friends around me that make sure I don’t spout off on too many things all at the same time.”
Between Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US could take control of the Gaza Strip, forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes, and Elon Musk’s continued efforts to dismantle the US federal government, the critics are lining up. The Democrat senator Andy Kim is one of them. But what can he, his party, or anybody else do to stop the president and his non-elected billionaire pal? He speaks to Jonathan Freedland…
Iran’s supreme leader says that negotiations with America 'are not intelligent, wise or honorable'
After President Donald Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that “there should be no negotiations with such a government”, but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington, the Associated Press reports.
Khamenei’s comments in Tehran seemed to contradict earlier remarks that opened the door to talks. Khamenei. Even after signing an executive order to put “maximum pressure on Iran” on Tuesday, Trump suggested he wanted to deal with Tehran.
“I’m going to sign it, but hopefully we’re not going to have to use it very much,” he said from the Oval Office. “We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal with Iran.”
“We don’t want to be tough on Iran. We don’t want to be tough on anybody,” Trump added. “But they just can’t have a nuclear bomb.”
Trump followed with another online message on Wednesday, saying: “Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.”
“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed.”
Updated
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, strongly applauded Trump’s move, posting: “Thank you, President Trump, for your bold ICC executive order. It will defend America and Israel from the anti-American and antisemetic corrupt court that has no jurisdiction or basis to engage in lawfare against us.”
Trump said the US “will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC’s transgressions” including by blocking property and assets and suspending entry into the US of ICC officials and their family members.
It was unclear if the Trump administration would announce the names of specific individuals targeted by the sanctions. ICC officials have prepared for sanctions to impact senior figures at the court including its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan…
Opening summary
Good morning,
Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorising unprecedented and aggressive sanctions against the international criminal court (ICC), accusing the body of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the US and Israel.
The US president effectively gifted himself broad powers to impose asset freezes and travel bans against ICC staff and their family members if the US thinks they are intent on investigating or prosecuting US citizens and certain allies.
In the order, Trump said the ICC had “abused its power” by issuing the warrants which he claimed had “set a dangerous precedent” that endangered US citizens and its military personnel. “This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel,” he added.
Responding to Trump’s move, the secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, said the order “sends the message that Israel is above the law and the universal principles of international justice”.
“Today’s executive order is vindictive. It is aggressive. It is a brutal step that seeks to undermine and destroy what the international community has painstakingly constructed over decades, if not centuries: global rules that are applicable to everyone and aim to deliver justice for all,” she added.
In other news:
Leaders of the southern California city of San Clemente, which lies between Los Angeles and San Diego, are partnering with US Customs and Border Protection to place surveillance cameras along the city’s beach to detect boats carrying passengers attempting to enter the country without authorization. “People have observed pangas crammed with illegal aliens, hitting our beach, and then scattering in the community or jumping into a van, which is parked nearby and ready to receive them,” Knoblock told the LA Times.
The largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration on Thursday in an effort to reverse its aggressive dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC federal court by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, seeks an order blocking what it says are “unconstitutional and illegal actions” that have created a “global humanitarian crisis”
Donald Trump demanded the “termination” of 60 Minutes, a staple of US broadcast news. The move is a continuation of the president’s vendetta against the media that also included baseless claims that money from the country’s beleaguered foreign aid body had been illicitly funding news organisations. Trump said: “CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at 60 Minutes should all be thrown out, and this disreputable ‘NEWS’ show should be immediately terminated.”
Donald Trump’s shutdown of USAid has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US’s chief rival, China, analysts have said. “[The US is handing] on a silver platter to China the perfect opportunity to expand its influence, at a time when China’s economy is not doing very well,” said professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes on Thursday, limiting competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. The move came one day after Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly gave Donald Trump a “golden pager” during their meeting in Washington DC this week, in an apparent reference to Israel’s deadly attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon last year.In photos circulating online, the golden pager can be seen mounted on a piece of wood, accompanied by a golden plaque that reads in black lettering: “To President Donald J. Trump, Our greatest friend and greatest ally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
