Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order barring government and non-profit employees from a student loan forgiveness program if they engage in “improper activities”.
The order affects the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which employees of those organizations can have their federal student debt forgiven if they meet certain criteria. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the order will target employees of non-governmental organizations “that engage in illegal, or what we would consider to be improper activities, supporting, for example, illegal immigration or foreign terrorist organizations or otherwise law-breaking activities”.
The order will direct the treasury and education departments to ensure that people involved in those activities are not eligible for the forgiveness.
We will be wrapping the live blog for the 46th day of Trump’s second term.
Here is a look at some of the day’s developments:
The Trump administration announced that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.
The Trump administration fired the head of the US justice department office that handles presidential pardon requests, the official said in a social media post. Liz Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, said: “I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years.”
The Department of Homeland Security is ending the collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of airport transportation security officers. The agency, led by secretary Kristi Noem, also said it will stop deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a major setback for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA screeners and relies on $15m in annual payments.
The US Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety. The USDA eliminated the national advisory committee on microbiological criteria for foods and the national advisory committee on meat and poultry inspection, a spokesperson told Reuters.
About 4,000 defense department personnel received termination notices this week from their employers, a US official told ABC News. Last week, the department said that up to 5,400 employees could be affected in an initial round of job cuts.
After the New York Times reported that Elon Musk and Marco Rubio had argued in front of Trump on Thursday, the president said “no clash” had happened. “No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker and you’re not supposed to be asking that question, because we’re talking about the World Cup,” Trump said to a reporter.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is removing a previous requirement that banks had to get special approval before engaging in a range of cryptocurrency services. The government agency overseeing banks reaffirmed that US banks can legally offer certain cryptocurrency activities, like crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities, and participation in independent node verification networks.
Donald Trump held court in the Oval Office, where he again expressed sympathy for Russia, saying he found it “easier” to negotiate with them on achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump also threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs if it did not sign on to a ceasefire.
Trump cheered the latest employment numbers as proving the wisdom of his economic policies, and said he may soon target Canada with more tariffs to settle long-running disputes over their dairy and lumber industries.
The so-called “department of government efficiency” is reviewing $1.6tn in social security payments, which includes data on individuals’ names, birthdates, and earnings, in an anti-fraud initiative that has raised concerns among advocates, ABC News reports. They fear that the Trump administration may begin denying benefits to vulnerable older Americans.
Details of this initiative were confirmed in a recent letter to Congress by the acting social security administrator, Lee Dudek, and others officials.
Along with reviewing sensitive data, Doge staff have been looking into the Social Security Administration’s telephone service, which many beneficiaries use to file initial claims.
Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’
Donald Trump’s administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean-air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.
Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding, majority-Black neighborhoods.
The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 in a bid to substantially curb the plant’s emissions of a pollutant named chloroprene, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. A trial had been due to start in April 2025 following lengthy delays.
Community leaders in Reserve had expressed grave concerns about the case’s future following Trump’s return to the White House after the president moved to gut offices within the EPA and justice department responsible for civil rights and environmental justice.
Read Oliver Laughland’s full report from New Orleans here:
The US state department is conducting a review of all visa programs, a department spokesperson told CNN, following reports of a potential new travel ban. A US official told the news outlet that Afghanistan might be among the countries affected.
The ban could take effect as early as next week, though the final decisions regarding the included countries and the timing remain uncertain, according to the official.
On 20 January, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing cabinet members, including the secretary of state, to identify countries where vetting and screening processes are inadequate enough to justify a partial or full suspension of admissions.
A former campaign fundraiser for the ex-US representative George Santos was sentenced Friday to one year and one day in prison for impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide while raising cash for the disgraced New York Republican.
Sam Miele, speaking briefly in federal court on Long Island, apologized to everyone he had “let down”, including family and friends, the Associated Press reports.
“What I did was wrong. Plain and simple,” Miele said, vowing he would never be involved with the criminal justice system again.
Protesters demanding an in-person town hall from their western Michigan GOP representative chanted loudly Friday as honking drivers signaled support, the Associated Press reports.
Hours later, the representative Bill Huizenga held a town hall – by phone. The disruption seen outside his Holland office earlier in the day was absent, as the controlled setting allowed for questions from people who wrote and called in.
“I know this may not be satisfactory to some who would like to just create a scene and be, you know, be disruptive,” Huizenga said on the call. “But we know that this is extremely effective for reaching people.”
Some Republicans have opted to hold telephone town halls after GOP leaders in recent days advised lawmakers to skip town halls, which have been filled with protesters decrying Donald Trump’s administration’s slashing of the federal government.
The US Department of Labor has reinstated about 120 employees who had been facing termination as part of the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired workers, a union said on Friday.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, told Reuters that the probationary employees had been reinstated immediately and that the department was issuing letters telling them to report back to duty on Monday.
The New York representative Elise Stefanik praised Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University because of what the administration alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment. In a statement, Stefanik said:
President Trump is delivering on his promise to hold universities like Columbia accountable by defunding them for failing to protect their Jewish communities,” said Stefanik in a statement sent over email. “I’m proud of my efforts on the Education Committee which led to the FORMER Columbia University President’s resignation and I applaud President Trump for ensuring that hardworking taxpayer dollars do not fund these cesspools of antisemitism.
Here’s more context on the grant cancellations:
The Trump administration fired the head of the US Justice Department office that handles presidential pardon requests, the official said in a social media post.
Liz Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, posted on LinkedIn:
I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years. I am so proud of the team we built in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who will carry on our important work. I’m very grateful for the many extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with on this journey. Thank you for your partnership, your support, and your belief in second chances.
A pardon attorney runs the process by which people apply for and receive clemency.
Oyer’s termination comes two weeks after Donald Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as “pardon czar”, a role in which she will recommend people for presidential commutations.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that it is ending the collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of airport transportation security officers.
The agency, led by secretary Kristi Noem, also said it will stop deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a major setback for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA screeners and relies on $15m in annual payments.
“Thanks to Secretary Noem’s action, Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them,” reads a statement by a DHS spokesperson. “The Trump Administration is committed [to] returning to merit-based hiring and firing policies.”
The US Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety, the agency said on Friday.
The USDA eliminated the national advisory committee on microbiological criteria for foods and the national advisory committee on meat and poultry inspection, a spokesperson told Reuters.
These cuts raise concerns about government oversight of the food supply as the Trump administration seeks to downsize the federal bureaucracy and slash costs.
The committees provided scientific advice to the USDA and other federal agencies on public health issues related to food safety, said the non-profit consumer advocacy group Consumer Reports.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will allow crisis hotline responders to work remotely instead of in offices because of the lack of privacy, CNN reports.
The VA granted a full exemption for the Veterans Crisis Line from Donald Trump’s executive order requiring federal employees to return to the office.
The hotline staff no longer have their own office space because the buildings that housed the call center’s three national hubs – in Georgia, Kansas and New York – were all closed during the Covid pandemic.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
