From 3h ago
Trump issues executive order to expand his power over agencies Congress made independent
Jessica Glenza
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
In a fact sheet, the White House described the move as, “ensuring that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the constitution”.
“The order notes that article II of the US constitution vests all executive power in the president, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision,” the fact sheet said. The order will also apply to the Federal Reserve but will exempt the central bank’s authority over monetary policy.
The latest apparent power grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies – including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023:
What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.
You can read more here:
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The Trump administration said in a court filing late on Tuesday night that it is not disbursing funds for thousands of foreign aid contracts and grants despite a federal judge’s order last week to lift a widespread freeze on foreign aid funding, Reuters reports.
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and women looking at piles of food aid","caption":"Officials from USAid and WFP inspect a donation of $11m worth of food aid in Harare, Zimbabwe.","credit":"Photograph: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
The administration said in the filing that it was complying with US district judge Amir Ali’s temporary restraining order, pointing to a line in the order saying that the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and the state department were not barred from “enforcing the terms of contracts and grants”.
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It said it was reviewing the frozen agreements and had determined that all of them allowed the administration to terminate or suspend them, either on their own terms or “implicitly”.
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It also said that USAid and the state department had legal authority to halt payments that did not depend on Donald Trump’s 20 January executive order freezing foreign aid, which Ali’s order barred the administration from enforcing.
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The administration asked that, if it had “misunderstood” Ali’s temporary order, the judge convert it into a longer-term injunction that it would be able to appeal immediately.
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Peter Maybarduk of the legal group Public Citizen, which represents the non-profit plaintiffs, called the filing “outrageous” and said that “people who long have been partners of the United States, in vulnerable situations around the world, will suffer as a result of this failure to restore funding, funding the US already had promised, and that a court last week ordered the government provide”.
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Dozens of Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s actions towards USAid on Friday, the Hill reports. In their letter, addressed to the president, they said:
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\n
The repercussions of these actions will be felt in the form of increased maternal and child mortality, reduced access to education, economic hardship, and heightened vulnerabilities to gender-based violence and exploitation of women.
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At a time when women and girls are disproportionately affected by global conflicts, climate crises, and economic instability, continued programmatic and financial support in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, and Democratic Republic of Congo amongst many others are essential to combatting global health challenges.
\n
Despite long-standing bipartisan support for USAid initiatives that fight violence against women and girls, the proposed elimination of USAid and its funding would roll back years of progress across the globe and violate US law.
\n
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To find out more about USAid’s reach and what it means for those around the world who receive it, I’d recommend this episode of Today In Focus with my colleague Nesrine Malik:
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A federal judge refused on Tuesday to immediately block Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs, the Associated Press reports.
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The US district judge Tanya Chutkan found that there were legitimate questions about the billionaire’s authority but said there was not enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order.
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The decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states challenging Doge’s authority to access sensitive government data. The attorneys general argued that Musk was wielding the kind of power that the constitution says can be held only by those elected or confirmed by the Senate.
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The Trump administration has maintained that layoffs are ordered by agency heads and asserted that despite his public cheering of the effort, Musk is not running Doge’s day-to-day operations himself.
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Doge has tapped into computer systems across multiple agencies with Trump’s blessing, digging into budgets and searching for what he calls waste, fraud and abuse, even as a growing number of lawsuits allege Doge is violating the law.
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Chutkan recognized the concerns of the states, which include New Mexico and Arizona.
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“Doge’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion,” she wrote. The states’ questions about Musk’s apparent “unchecked authority” and lack of congressional oversight for Doge are legitimate and they may be able to successfully argue them later, she found.
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Still, at this point, it remains unclear exactly how Doge’s work will affect the states, and judges can only issue orders to block specific, immediate harms, she found.
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In a Truth Social post Donald Trump wrote that Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast” or he won’t have a country left and called the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections”.
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The Ukrainian leader earlier on Wednesday accused Trump of being trapped in a “disinformation bubble” after the US president blamed Ukraine for Russia’s illegal invasion and falsely suggested Zelenskyy was unpopular in Ukraine and blocking elections in the country, which he repeats here:
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Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’ A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..
\n
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For more on this head over to our Europe live blog:
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Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
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Trump at a podium","caption":"Donald Trump delivers remarks after signing executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort on 18 February.","credit":"Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
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In a fact sheet, the White House described the move as, “ensuring that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the constitution”.
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“The order notes that article II of the US constitution vests all executive power in the president, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision,” the fact sheet said. The order will also apply to the Federal Reserve but will exempt the central bank’s authority over monetary policy.
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The latest apparent power grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies – including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
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The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023:
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What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.
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You can read more here:
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The Trump administration’s planned cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) not only threaten essential biomedical research in the US, but the livelihoods of researchers – and some are seriously considering leaving the country.
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A 27 January memo from the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to pause funding allocations to ensure they serve Donald Trump’s goals, including “ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again”.
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On 7 February, the administration implemented a policy that would cut NIH funding to research institutions by over two-thirds. A federal judge has since blocked the cuts – for now.
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Biomedical scientists depend on the NIH to fund their employment. Many are expected to cover a large proportion of their own salaries with NIH grants. Scientists studying neuroscience, diabetes, autism and bird flu became emotional as they spoke to the Guardian about the possibility of losing their life’s work.
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Read the full report here:
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The state department has reportedly ordered its outposts around the world to cancel all subscriptions to news and media outlets that are supposedly “non-mission critical” in another extraordinary Trump administration crackdown on normal information channels.
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An email memo was circulated to embassies and consulates earlier this month explaining that the move was a further effort to cut costs by the federal government, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday.
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The newspaper cited the 11 February directive to foreign posts as reading: “Posts are asked to immediately place Stop Work Orders on all non-mission critical contracts/purchase orders for media subscriptions (publications, periodicals, and newspaper subscriptions) that are not academic or professional journals.”
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The state department did not respond to a request for comment by the Washington Post. The Guardian has submitted a request for comment.
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The reported directive to cancel news subscriptions will apply at hundreds of US diplomatic offices across the globe and a state department official who asked not to be named while discussing internal departmental matters told the Post that embassy teams around the world would be hindered by having media subscriptions cut off, especially for important activities such as examining threats to US national security and arranging trips in risky areas for diplomats and staff.
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The restrictions apply to outlets such as national newspapers and global news agencies.
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Another reported memo, sent on 14 February, told relevant staff to make it a priority to cancel such mainstream media outlets as the Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and Reuters, the Post said.
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Staff who object to canceling a subscription can apply to keep it but must briefly put forward strong justifications.
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A state department employee who spoke anonymously to the Post described access to the news as necessary and said of the directive: “This will endanger American lives overseas because we are being cut off from news sources that are needed on a daily basis.”
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Vladimir Putin has reportedly said Donald Trump told him Ukraine would take part in future peace talks.
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Putin in front of a flag","caption":"Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on Tuesday.","credit":"Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AFP/Getty Images"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
The Russian president is quoted by Interfax and Tass agencies as saying he is ready to get back to negotiations on Ukraine, which is a priority for Russia. He also praised the US-Russia talks, saying their purpose was to increase trust between the two countries, and that the two sides acted without “bias or judgment”.
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He reportedly said that he would be happy to meet Trump, but that meeting still needs to be prepared.
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My colleague Jane Clinton has more over on our Europe live blog:
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Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, moving with ruthless efficiency last week to dismiss the corruption case against the New York mayor, Eric Adams, appeared to reflect the new praxis at the justice department where Trump’s political agenda will guide prosecutorial decisions.
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Bove sitting in a courtroom","caption":"Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, has ruthlessly pushed for dropping Adams case.","credit":"Photograph: Jeenah Moon/AP"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
The department filed the motion to dismiss on Friday with the signatures of Bove and two trial attorneys – the public integrity section’s senior litigation counsel Edward Sullivan and the acting head of the criminal division Antoinette Bacon – that cemented the decision.
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While the presiding US district judge Dale Ho has ordered an evidentiary hearing to examine the circumstances under which the charges were withdrawn, including the protest resignation of the acting US attorney in Manhattan, the case is widely seen as over in practical terms.
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The move to force through the dismissal showed the new course that Bove is charting as the justice department’s number-two official, implementing Donald Trump’s vision of the unitary executive theory, where the president directs the decisions of every agency.
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In ordering the case be dropped, Bove wrote that “continuing these proceedings would interfere with the defendant’s ability to govern in New York City, which poses unacceptable threats to public safety, national security and related federal immigration initiatives and policies” to deport undocumented immigrants.
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The memo made clear that aiding a mayor who wanted to help with the immigration crackdown, a national priority, outweighed continuing to bring bribery charges against a local mayor, and the justice department in future will balance policy priorities against the merits of a case.
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And Bove’s effort to press forward with the dismissal also reflected his determination to bring the justice department to heel after weathering resignations in protest from seven prosecutors that appeared to verge on insubordination, according to people familiar with the situation.
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Read more here:
","elementId":"441b0f53-22f7-4b90-aee5-b728e44a9510"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement","prefix":"Related: ","text":"Emil Bove takes leading role in implementing Trump takeover of DoJ","elementId":"2066af99-89ec-414c-90fe-abdfd0091a63","role":"thumbnail","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/19/donald-trump-eric-adams-justice-department"}],"attributes":{"pinned":false,"keyEvent":true,"summary":false},"blockCreatedOn":1739973064000,"blockCreatedOnDisplay":"13.51 GMT","blockLastUpdated":1739974216000,"blockLastUpdatedDisplay":"14.10 GMT","blockFirstPublished":1739973467000,"blockFirstPublishedDisplay":"13.57 GMT","blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone":"13.57","title":"Emil Bove takes leading role in implementing Trump takeover of DoJ","contributors":[{"name":"Hugo Lowell","imageUrl":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/Hugo_Lowell.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=84872dbbdd0d129b2e072ae43017e201","largeImageUrl":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/Hugo_Lowell.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=caefea5e156841f14b7ee37aa2e5f6ab"}],"primaryDateLine":"Wed 19 Feb 2025 18.30 GMT","secondaryDateLine":"First published on Wed 19 Feb 2025 12.56 GMT"},{"id":"67b5d9698f08b0743e4c18c3","elements":[{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Donald Trump is “living in a disinformation bubble” after the US president last night appeared to blame Ukraine for Russia’s illegal 2022 invasion.
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Zelenskyy in front of a flag","caption":"Volodymyr Zelenskyy answers questions from the press in Ankara on 18 February.","credit":"Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"
Trump’s comments, made last night in Florida, were his first on Ukraine since the US held peace talks with Russia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier on Tuesday. He said he was “very disappointed” that Zelenskyy had complained about Ukraine not being invited to the talks, adding:
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You’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.
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The comments parrot one of Vladimir Putin’s main talking points which is that Ukraine was somehow to blame for Russia’s invasion.
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Trump also falsely suggested that Zelenskyy is unpopular at home with a 4% approval rating and is blocking elections in Ukraine. In fact Zelenskyy declared martial law after Russia invaded and the latest polls show 57% of Ukrainians trust his leadership.
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Zelenskyy accused the US of bringing Russia out of diplomatic isolation by holding the bilateral talks in Riyadh, and warned of “a lot of disinformation coming out of Russia” as he called out Trump’s misleading statements.
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Unfortunately, President Trump, with all due respect for him as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly … is living in this disinformation bubble.
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Zelenskyy added that the focus is on what support Europe can provide to Ukraine if there is a reduction in US assistance. He also pointedly rejected the current US draft deal on minerals saying it was “not ready”, drafted under US law, and offering inadequate compensation.
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I can’t sell it away, I can’t sell our state.
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The Ukrainian president rejected any suggestion of making broad concessions to Russia, saying any such idea was widely rejected by Ukrainians, and challenged the US Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, visiting Kyiv today, to go and talk to ordinary Ukrainians about their reception of Trump’s comments.
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Zelenskyy also opposed the use of the word “conflict” to describe Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, saying it is a deliberate attempt to soften the perception of the aggression.
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For all the latest on Ukraine and Europe, head over to our Europe live blog:
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by Léonie Chao-Fong and Carter Sherman
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Donald Trump has signed an executive order to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).
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The order directs the domestic policy council to make recommendations to “aggressively” reduce the costs for accessing IVF, according to a White House fact sheet. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on X that the order was evidence of the president’s “promises kept” – even though the order does not directly change any policy and does not, on its own, fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to make the government or insurance companies cover IVF.
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“Americans need reliable access to IVF and more affordable treatment options, as the cost per cycle can range from $12,000 to $25,000,” the fact sheet reads.
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“It is the policy of my administration to ensure reliable access to IVF treatment, including by easing unnecessary statutory or regulatory burdens to make IVF treatment drastically more affordable.”
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During the 2024 presidential election, Trump recast his position on IVF as a strong supporter of the treatment, declaring himself the “father of IVF” while at the same time admitting he only recently discovered what the procedure involved.
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Read the full report here:
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Key events
Donald Trump rejected a plan by Senate Republicans on Wednesday to kickstart his agenda with a bill tackling immigration, energy and defense, instead calling for a larger effort that would also include trillions of dollars in tax cuts, Reuters reports.
Trump came down firmly in favor of House of Representatives Republicans’ plan for one sweeping bill. Backers of that plan fear that passing an immigration bill first could diminish their chances of extending Trump’s tax cuts in that chamber where his party holds a narrow and fractious 218-215 majority.
“We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ‘ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’,” the president wrote on social media.
Republican lawmakers in recent weeks have backed away from concerns that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts could add to the nation’s fast-growing $36tn in debt. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s full tax cut agenda could cost more than $5tn over the next decade.
Trump’s message today came as a surprise to Senate Republicans, who were poised to vote this week on a “skinny” plan that would address only Trump’s border, energy and defense priorities and leave the thornier issue of tax cuts for later in the year.
“As they say, did not see that one coming,” said the Senate majority leader, John Thune, telling reporters that he hoped to gain further clarity from a lunch meeting between JD Vance and his 53-member Republican conference.
Thune and other Republican leaders said they remained on schedule to vote on their own resolution this week.
But House Republicans welcomed Trump’s intervention as they try to forge unity for a floor vote on their own budget blueprint that is expected next week.
The difference between the House and Senate strategies comes down to Trump’s proposed tax cuts.
House Republicans fear the two-step Senate approach could lead to a stalled standalone tax cut bill if lawmakers cannot agree on offsetting cuts in spending. Senate Republicans worry that the rush for all-encompassing legislation may not provide enough time to adequately handle the intricacies of the tax component.
The House and Senate must adopt the same budget plan to unlock a parliamentary tool that will allow them to circumvent Democratic opposition and the Senate filibuster, and pass Trump’s legislative agenda.
Senate Republicans began moving forward with their own budget resolution last week in response to what they described as a plea for border and immigration funding from Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, and the White House budget director, Russ Vought.
NBC News has more on this.
Adrian Horton
Donald Trump’s efforts to influence US cultural institutions received more pushback on Tuesday, as a group of more than 400 artists sent a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) calling on the organization to resist the president’s restrictions on funding for projects promoting diversity or “gender ideology”.
The letter, first reported by the New York Times, comes after the NEA declared that federal grant applicants – which include colleges and universities, non-profit groups, individual artists and more – must comply with regulations stipulated by Trump’s executive orders. The new measures bar federal funds from going toward programs focused on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or used to “promote gender ideology”.
“While the arts community stands in solidarity with the NEA, we oppose this betrayal of the Endowment’s mission to ‘foster and sustain an environment in which the arts benefit everyone in the United States’,” the letter reads. “We ask that the NEA reverse those changes to the compliance requirements.”
Here’s more on that story:
A group of labor and taxpayer advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration over the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge)’s access to Internal Revenue Service files.
The complaint, filed in federal court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, argues Doge should not have access to highly sensitive information like social security numbers, income, net worth and bank account information.
“The results have already been catastrophic,” the complaint says. “Doge has seized control of some of the most carefully protected information systems housed at the treasury department, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and taken hold of all sensitive personnel information at the office of personnel management.
“Doge’s spread through the government continues to be rapid, now reaching the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This case seeks to protect the privacy and the legal rights of millions of Americans, and thousands of small business owners, who depend upon the IRS.”
Donald Trump has signed more than 50 executive orders since returning to the presidency in January, including enacting steep tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and “gender radicalism” in the military and pardoning January 6 rioters.
The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a “complete restoration of America”.
Here’s a handy explainer about all the executive orders Trump has signed since retaking the White House:
After firing more than 1,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Trump administration is reversing course in one area and reinstating about nearly a dozen people who worked on the Veterans Crisis Line, a confidential toll-free hotline and online chat and or text support for veterans experiencing a mental health crisis and considering self-harm.
The dismissals, which were effective immediately, were made to save the department more than $98m a year.
US senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told CNN that many of those who were reinstated weren’t new Veterans Affairs employees, but rather had served in the US government for up to 18 years.
Trump administration keeps USAid contracts frozen despite court order
The Trump administration said in a court filing late on Tuesday night that it is not disbursing funds for thousands of foreign aid contracts and grants despite a federal judge’s order last week to lift a widespread freeze on foreign aid funding, Reuters reports.
The administration said in the filing that it was complying with US district judge Amir Ali’s temporary restraining order, pointing to a line in the order saying that the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and the state department were not barred from “enforcing the terms of contracts and grants”.
It said it was reviewing the frozen agreements and had determined that all of them allowed the administration to terminate or suspend them, either on their own terms or “implicitly”.
It also said that USAid and the state department had legal authority to halt payments that did not depend on Donald Trump’s 20 January executive order freezing foreign aid, which Ali’s order barred the administration from enforcing.
The administration asked that, if it had “misunderstood” Ali’s temporary order, the judge convert it into a longer-term injunction that it would be able to appeal immediately.
Peter Maybarduk of the legal group Public Citizen, which represents the non-profit plaintiffs, called the filing “outrageous” and said that “people who long have been partners of the United States, in vulnerable situations around the world, will suffer as a result of this failure to restore funding, funding the US already had promised, and that a court last week ordered the government provide”.
Dozens of Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s actions towards USAid on Friday, the Hill reports. In their letter, addressed to the president, they said:
The repercussions of these actions will be felt in the form of increased maternal and child mortality, reduced access to education, economic hardship, and heightened vulnerabilities to gender-based violence and exploitation of women.
At a time when women and girls are disproportionately affected by global conflicts, climate crises, and economic instability, continued programmatic and financial support in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, and Democratic Republic of Congo amongst many others are essential to combatting global health challenges.
Despite long-standing bipartisan support for USAid initiatives that fight violence against women and girls, the proposed elimination of USAid and its funding would roll back years of progress across the globe and violate US law.
To find out more about USAid’s reach and what it means for those around the world who receive it, I’d recommend this episode of Today In Focus with my colleague Nesrine Malik:
Federal judge refuses to block Musk team’s access to US government data
A federal judge refused on Tuesday to immediately block Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs, the Associated Press reports.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan found that there were legitimate questions about the billionaire’s authority but said there was not enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order.
The decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states challenging Doge’s authority to access sensitive government data. The attorneys general argued that Musk was wielding the kind of power that the constitution says can be held only by those elected or confirmed by the Senate.
The Trump administration has maintained that layoffs are ordered by agency heads and asserted that despite his public cheering of the effort, Musk is not running Doge’s day-to-day operations himself.
Doge has tapped into computer systems across multiple agencies with Trump’s blessing, digging into budgets and searching for what he calls waste, fraud and abuse, even as a growing number of lawsuits allege Doge is violating the law.
Chutkan recognized the concerns of the states, which include New Mexico and Arizona.
“Doge’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion,” she wrote. The states’ questions about Musk’s apparent “unchecked authority” and lack of congressional oversight for Doge are legitimate and they may be able to successfully argue them later, she found.
Still, at this point, it remains unclear exactly how Doge’s work will affect the states, and judges can only issue orders to block specific, immediate harms, she found.
Trump calls Zelenskyy a ‘dictator without elections’ and tells him to ‘move fast’ or lose country
In a Truth Social post Donald Trump wrote that Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast” or he won’t have a country left and called the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections”.
The Ukrainian leader earlier on Wednesday accused Trump of being trapped in a “disinformation bubble” after the US president blamed Ukraine for Russia’s illegal invasion and falsely suggested Zelenskyy was unpopular in Ukraine and blocking elections in the country, which he repeats here:
Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’ A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..
For more on this head over to our Europe live blog:
Donald Trump said that he has directed the Department of Justice to fire all remaining former Biden-era US attorneys, claiming the department “has been politicized like never before”, the Hill reports.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the president wrote:
Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before. Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ U.S. Attorneys. We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!
While it is standard for US attorneys to resign following a change in administration, justice department lawyers – both current and former – note that incoming administrations typically request resignations rather than issuing abrupt termination letters, according to Reuters.
On Monday, several Biden-appointed US attorneys announced their resignations, while others had already left the government the previous week.
The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, resigned on Thursday rather than obey a justice department order to drop corruption charges against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams. Denise Cheung, the top criminal prosecutor in Washington, resigned on Tuesday after refusing to launch what she called a politically driven investigation into Biden-era climate spending.
Donald Trump intends to nominate advisers from his first term to top justice department posts, including John Eisenberg to lead the national security division and Brett Shumate for the civil division, Reuters reports.
Shumate is already acting head of the civil division and managing the department’s defense of the administration against a slew of lawsuits over federal worker firings, the dismantling of federal agencies and the attempts by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” to access sensitive data.
Shumate, who was a partner in the Jones Day law firm that has longstanding ties to Trump, unsuccessfully defended the Republican president’s executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US, which a federal judge last month ruled was “blatantly unconstitutional”.
He was a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil division’s federal programs branch during Trump’s first term from 2017-2021.
Eisenberg was legal adviser to the national security council during Trump’s first White House term, as well as an assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs.
He also held senior positions in the justice department including a deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel. Eisenberg clerked for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the high court’s conservative majority.
Patrick Davis will be nominated to lead the office of legislative affairs, the department said in a statement, in what would be his third stint there. During Trump’s first term, he served as deputy associate attorney general.
All three posts require confirmation by the Senate. The announcement comes a day after Trump said he has instructed the justice department to terminate all remaining US attorneys from the previous administration of Joe Biden, asserting without evidence that the department had been “politicized like never before”.
Trump issues executive order to expand his power over agencies Congress made independent
Jessica Glenza
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
In a fact sheet, the White House described the move as, “ensuring that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the constitution”.
“The order notes that article II of the US constitution vests all executive power in the president, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision,” the fact sheet said. The order will also apply to the Federal Reserve but will exempt the central bank’s authority over monetary policy.
The latest apparent power grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies – including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023:
What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.
You can read more here:
Trump administration officials scrambled over the weekend to rehire hundreds of employees they fired last Thursday at the National Nuclear Security Administration, CNN reported on Tuesday.
More than 300 employees were initially fired at the agency, which manages the US’s arsenal of nuclear weapons. All but around 25 have since been reinstated, two current NNSA employees with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
Officials backtracked on the terminations on Friday after multiple members of Congress petitioned the energy secretary, Chris Wright, to reverse course, explaining the dire national security implications.
Rob Plonski, a deputy division director at NNSA, wrote on LinkedIn on Friday:
We cannot expect to project strength, deterrence, and world dominance while simultaneously stripping away the federal workforce that provides strategic oversight to ensure our nuclear enterprise remains safe, secure, and effective.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was not concerned about the firings. He told reporters traveling with him in West Palm Beach, Florida:
No, not at all, I think we have to just do what we have to do. It’s amazing what’s being found right now – it’s amazing. Some, if we feel that, in some cases, they’ll fire people and then they’ll put some people back, not all of them, because a lot of people were let go.
You can read CNN’s report here.