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      All the executive orders Trump has signed so far

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      Donald Trump has signed dozens of executive orders in his first weeks back in office, including 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 what to know about the executive orders Trump has signed since retaking the White House.ICC sanctionsThe order: Trump signed an order authorizing economic sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC), accusing the body of “improperly targeting” the United States and its allies, such as Israel.What Trump said: Trump has been a vocal critic of the ICC and said the court had “abused its power” in issuing warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. “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,” Trump said.What it means: The order grants Trump broad powers to impose asset freezes and travel bans against ICC staff and their family members if the US determines that they are involved in efforts to investigate or prosecute citizens of the US and certain allies.Read moreEnding ‘anti-Christian bias’The order: Trump signed an executive order attempting to eliminate “anti-Christian bias” in the US government. The president announced the formation of a taskforce, led by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to end all forms of “anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” in the government.What Trump said: Trump said Bondi would work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide”.What it means: The order is meant to reverse alleged targeting of “peaceful Christians” under Biden. Critics say it changes the traditional understanding of religious liberty, with Americans United for Separation of Church and State saying in a statement that Trump’s taskforce would “misuse religious freedom to justify bigotry, discrimination and the subversion of our civil rights laws”.Read moreBanning trans athletes from women’s sportsThe order: Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sport. It directs federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, to interpret federal Title IX rules as the prohibition of trans girls and women from participating in any female sports categories.What Trump said: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”What it means: The order is the latest in a slew of Trump actions aimed at rolling back the rights of trans people. Trump also signed orders defining sex as “only male or female” and banning gender transitions for people under the age of 19.Read moreEnding Unrwa fundingThe order: Trump signed an executive order stopping funding for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and withdrawing US from the UN human rights council.What Trump said: The president criticized the entire United Nations as “not being well run” and “not doing the job”.What it means: In his first term, Trump cut Unrwa funding and withdrew from the UN’s human rights council. The Biden administration restored Unrwa funding and rejoined the council.Read moreImplementing tariffs on imports from Mexico, China, and CanadaThe orders: Trump signed three executive orders on 1 February placing tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada, to begin on 4 February.What the orders say: the Mexico order says that drug traffickers and the country’s government “have an intolerable alliance” that endangers US security. The China order says the country’s government allows criminal organizations to “launder the revenues from the production, shipment, and sale of illicit synthetic opioids”. The Canada order says that Mexican cartels are operating in that country, claiming the amount of fentanyl imported could kill “9.5 million Americans”.What it means: All three countries announced retaliatory actions. On 3 February, Trump agreed to postpone tariffs against Mexico and Canada for one month after they committed to increasing border enforcement. China has announced retaliatory tariffs on some American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google on 4 February after Trump’s tariffs took effect.Read moreCreation of a sovereign wealth fundThe order: Trump ordered the US treasury and commerce department to create a sovereign wealth fund. Such a fund, which requires congressional approval, would act as an investment fund for the country, operating outside the Federal Reserve and the treasury department.Trump offered few details about the fund, including where the cash would come from. His treasury secretary and the nominee for commerce secretary would spearhead efforts to create the fund. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the government would “stand this thing up within the next 12 months”.What Trump said: “We have tremendous potential,” Trump said. “I think in a short period of time, we’d have one of the biggest funds.”Trump also said that the fund could be used to facilitate the purchase of TikTok.What it means: More than 100 countries and 20 US states have sovereign wealth funds. Senior officials in the Biden administration had been quietly working on a sovereign wealth fund before the US election in November, according to multiple reports.Read moreMigrant detention center at Guantánamo BayThe order: Trump signed an executive order to prepare a huge detention facility at Guantánamo Bay that he said could be used to hold up to 30,000 immigrants deported from the US.What Trump said: Guantánamo could “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”, Trump said during the signing of the Laken Riley Act, another of his administration’s hardline immigration policies.What it means: The order is part of a broader effort to fulfill Trump’s promise to remove millions of people from the country.Read moreGender-affirming careThe order: Trump signed an order that attempts to end gender transitions for people under 19.What Trump said: “It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” reads the order.What it means: The order directs that federally run insurance programs, including Tricare for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care. The order calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.Read moreReshaping the militaryThe order: Trump signed three executive orders on 27 January that would reshape the military: removing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, eliminating “gender radicalism” from the military, and reinstating soldiers who were expelled for refusing Covid-19 vaccines.What Trump said: “To ensure we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military. It’s going to be gone,” Trump said in Florida, according to CBS.What it means: Trump’s order does not yet ban transgender soldiers from the military, but directs the Pentagon to create a policy for trans members of the military.Read moreStart a process to ‘develop an ‘American Iron Dome”’The order: Trump signed an executive order on 27 January that would begin the process of creating a “next-generation” missile defense shield, which the administration is referring to as the American Iron Dome.What Trump said: “The United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the Nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield,” the order said.What it means: Creating a short-range missile defense system akin to Israel’s Iron Dome would take years to build. The order calls for a plan from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, within 60 days.Read moreReview of disaster agency FemaThe order: Trump ordered a review of Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the disaster response agency, and suggested there is “political bias” in the agency. Trump previously criticized the agency’s response to Hurricane Helene.What Trump said: “Despite obligating nearly $30 billion in disaster aid each of the past three years, Fema has managed to leave vulnerable Americans without the resources or support they need when they need it most,” the order stated.What it means: A review council – which includes the secretaries of defense and homeland security, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem – will report to Trump within 180 days.Read moreDeclassifying MLK and JFK filesThe order: Trump ordered the release of thousands of classified documents on the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.What Trump said: “The federal government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events. Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” the order said.What it means: Trump made this promise during the election campaign and made a similar pledge in his first term, but ultimately heeded appeals from the CIA and FBI to withhold some documents.Read moreRemoving ‘barriers’ to AI innovation and investing in digital financial assetsThe order: During his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of all Biden policies on AI, to remove policies that “act as barriers to American AI innovation”. A second order called for a working group to start work on crypto regulations.What Trump said: “We must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas” to maintain the US’s dominant position in AI technology, the order states.What it means: Former PayPal executive David Sacks has been tasked with leading a group to develop an AI action plan. Meanwhile another working group will start work on crypto regulations.Ending birthright citizenshipThe order: On his first day in office, Trump targeted automatic citizenship for US-born children of both undocumented people and some legal immigrants.What Trump said: The order specifies that it would limit birthright citizenship if a person’s “mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth”, or “when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary”.What it means: Birthright citizenship, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on US soil, is protected by the 14th amendment and any attempt to revoke it will bring immediate legal challenges. The order was temporarily blocked on 23 January, with the judge calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.Read moreskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPut a freeze on refugee admissionsThe order: Trump signed an order suspending the country’s refugee resettlement program starting on 27 January. Refugees maybe only be admitted on a case-by-case basis so long as their entry is in the “national interest”.What Trump said: The order cited “record levels of migration” to the US and said the country did not have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees”.What it means: Advocates say the move put lives in danger and has left families devastated. Thousands of refugees now stranded around the globe.Read moreLeaving the World Health OrganizationThe order: Trump signed an order to have the US exit the World Health Organization (WHO).What Trump said: “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen any more,” Trump said at the signing. He accused the WHO of mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises.What it means: The US will leave the WHO in 12 months’ time and stop all financial contributions to its work. The US is the biggest financial backer to the United Nations health agency.Read moreRenaming the Gulf of MexicoThe order: Trump ordered two name changes: the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Mount Denali.What Trump said: “President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American Civilization,” the executive order said in part.What it means: Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America” and will rechristen Alaska’s Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.It will have no bearing on what names are used internationally.Read moreRevoking electric vehicle targetsThe order: Trump revoked a non-binding executive order signed by Joe Biden aimed at making half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 electric.What Trump said: “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said.What it means: Part of an effort to repeal Biden’s environmental protections, Trump has also promised to roll back auto pollution standards finalized by Biden’s administration last spring.Read moreReclassifying federal employees, making them easier to fireThe order: Trump’s executive order reclassified thousands of federal employees as political hires, making it much easier for them to be fired.What Trump said: Aides to the president have long heralded mass government firings as part of an attack on the so-called “administrative” or “deep” state.What it means: Trump in effect reinstates “Schedule F”, an executive order he signed in the last year of his first term, seeking to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers. (Biden rescinded the order.)Key aides to Trump have called for mass government firings. Project 2025 made attacks on the deep or administrative state a core part of Trump’s second term. The rightwing playbook called for civil servants deemed politically unreliable to be fired and replaced by conservatives.Read moreDeclaring a national energy emergency and ‘unleash’ oil production in AlaskaThe order: Trump declared a national energy emergency as part of a barrage of pro-fossil fuel actions and efforts to “unleash” already booming US energy production that included also rolling back restrictions in drilling in Alaska and undoing a pause on gas exports.What Trump said: The order means “you can do whatever you have to do to get out of that problem and we do have that kind of emergency,” Trump said. The order also says it is US policy for the country to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources”.What it means: The declaration would allow his administration to fast-track permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure. It is likely that the order, part of a broader effort to roll back climate policy, will face legal challenges.Read moreCreating a policy recognizing only two gendersThe order: Trump signed an order to remove “gender ideology guidance” from federal government communication, policies and forms. The order makes it official policy that there are “only two genders, male and female”.What Trump said: “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination,” the order states.What it means: The order reverses a Biden-era executive action on the acceptance of gender identity.Read morePausing the TikTok banThe order: Trump signed an executive order temporarily delaying the enforcement of a federal ban on TikTok for at least 75 days.What Trump said: “I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have originally,” Trump said at the White House, as he signed executive orders, according to the New York Times.What it means: Trump ordered his attorney general to not enforce the law requiring TikTok’s sale. Trump says the pause allows for time to chart an “appropriate course forward” to protect national security and not abruptly shut down the popular app. In his first term, Trump favored a TikTok ban, but has since changed his position due to factors including his own popularity on the app.Read moreRescinding 78 Biden-era executive actionsThe order: Trump ordered 78 Biden-era executive actions to be rescinded, including at least a dozen measures supporting racial equity and combating discrimination against gay and transgender people.What Trump said: “I’ll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump told a crowd in Washington after his inaugural speech. He also said he would end policy “trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life” and push for a “color blind and merit-based” society.What it means: The orders signal a reversal of Biden-era policy that prioritized implementing diversity measures across the federal government. Trump repealed orders signed by Biden advancing racial equity for underserved communities and the aforementioned order combating discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.Declaring a national border emergencyThe order: Trump signed an order at the White House declaring an emergency at the southern US border, along with several other immigration-related policies.What Trump said: “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.What it means: The executive action paves the way to send US troops to the southern border and makes good on campaign promises to implement hardline immigration policies. There are limited details about how the administration plans to execute its sprawling set of immigration actions that were all but certain to face legal and logistical challenges.Immigrant communities across the country are bracing for Trump’s promise to carry out the “largest deportation program in American history”, beginning as early as Tuesday morning.Read moreIssuing pardons for January 6 defendantsThe order: Trump issued pardons for offenders and commutations related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. He will direct the Department of Justice to dismiss cases currently in progress.What Trump said: “I’m going to be signing on the J6 hostages, pardons, to get them out,” Trump said during his rally speech. “We’ll be signing pardons for a lot of people, a lot of people.” Trump said he has pardoned about 1,500 defendants charged in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and issued six commutations.What it means: Trump made his pledge to issue pardons for those with convictions related to the January 6 Capitol attack a core part of his re-election campaign. On the campaign trail, Trump often featured the national anthem sung by prisoners in a Washington DC jail. There are more than 1,500 people federally charged with associated charges.With Trump back in the White House, justice department investigations into January 6 crimes are expected to cease.Read moreWithdrawing from the Paris climate agreementThe order: Trump issued an executive action withdrawing the US from the 2015 Paris agreement, along with a letter informing the United Nations of the decision.What Trump said: “I am immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Accord rip-off” Trump said during a rally at the Capital One Arena. In his inaugural speech, Trump said he would use executive action to “end the Green New Deal”.What it means: In 2017, Trump exited the Paris agreement. Upon taking office in 2021, Biden rejoined. Monday’s order makes good on a Trump election promise to withdraw from the 2015 global treaty seeking to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.Exiting the Paris agreement is part of Trump’s broader efforts to roll back climate protections and policy. Trump has described Biden’s efforts to grow the US’s clean energy sector as “the green new scam”.Read more This explainer was first published on 29 January 2025 and is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects latest news developments. The date of the most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy. This article was amended on 30 January 2025. A previous version said the birthright citizenship executive order affected children of immigrants in the country illegally. It applies to children both of undocumented people and some legal immigrants. The subheading of this article was amended on 6 February 2025. An earlier version incorrectly said Donald Trump had abolished the Department of Education. More

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      Trump’s taskforce order is latest in efforts to boost Christian nationalism

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      Donald Trump is reigniting his alliance with the Christian right, unveiling a flurry of actions that include an aggressive executive order establishing a dedicated taskforce to combat what he claims is “anti-Christian bias” across federal agencies.Addressing supporters at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump announced a far-reaching directive that empowers Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, to lead an effort to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism” in government institutions.“You’ve never had that before,” Trump said. “If we don’t have religious liberty, then we don’t have a free country.”The move represents a direct appeal to energize his Christian conservative base, and follows efforts including pardoning anti-abortion activists such as Paulette Harlow, who was convicted of blocking access to an abortion clinic – which his administration framed as persecution of Christian believers. Trump also signed orders to ban the legal recognition of transgender people by the US government.The president’s push for a religious conservative alliance also bridged domestic and international spheres this week, with his new taskforce announcement paralleling the visit of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Washington.At Blair House on Monday, Netanyahu met with key evangelical leaders, including the Christians United for Israel founder and pastor John Hagee and former governor Mike Huckabee – Trump’s ambassador-designate to Israel – drawing together Christian Zionists who form a critical geopolitical support network.These evangelical powerbrokers, who champion hardline annexation policies such as Trump’s surprise announcement to empty out and take ownership of Gaza, and reject traditional diplomatic language around the occupied Palestinian territories, represent a formidable political bloc through groups such as Christians United for Israel, which claims more than 10 million members.The recent executive order announcement takes direct aim at federal agencies including the FBI and IRS, which Trump accused of systematically targeting Christian believers. It includes the creation of a new White House faith office led by Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, the televangelist Paula White.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome critics were quick to condemn the initiative as a thinly veiled attempt to privilege evangelical Christianity over other religious minorities.“If Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he’d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities,” the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rachel Laser, said in a statement. “This taskforce is not a response to Christian persecution; it’s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian Nationalist nation.” More

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      Trump’s Gaza plan suggests his pro-settler advisers are in the ascendant

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      When Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington this week, his first stop was to meet evangelical Christian leaders, who have cheered on Israel in the war in Gaza in an alliance with the country’s pro-settler rightwing government. For both constituencies, Israel’s right to annex the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank is a matter of faith and, they hope, a matter of time.Both constituencies cheered this week as Donald Trump announced his half-baked plan to “take over” Gaza, an idea he had only tinkered with before Tuesday evening, when it tumbled out to the obvious surprise of his closest aides.While most observers were shocked that the US president was in effect advocating for the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, the conservative alliance of Israel and the United States sees an opportunity to accelerate the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and its eventual annexation.“What has changed now is that Trump has said that it is US policy to support this as an end goal,” Matt Duss, the executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy, said of the Trump proposal. “And then of course it will just hop over to the West Bank, no question.”Israel’s pro-settler right wing immediately hailed Trump’s announcement. Bezalel Smotrich, the country’s ultranationalist finance minister, quoted a biblical passage about the return of Jewish pilgrims to Israel, writing: “Thank you President Trump. Together, we will make the world great again.”Itamar Ben-Gvir, who left Benjamin Netanyahu’s shaky coalition government because of the ceasefire with Hamas, said: “When I said this time and again during the war, that this was the solution to Gaza, they mocked me.”Under Joe Biden, saying that Gaza had been rendered unliveable would have been seen as a condemnation of Israel’s military campaign. But Trump, ignoring the Israeli assault that has been described as a “domicide” and led to the hollowing out of Gaza’s cities, simply went ahead and said it.The New York Times reported that the idea had been germinating among Trump and his close allies for weeks, and accelerated after his envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to the area and said: “There is almost nothing left of Gaza.” Yet Trump surprised his aides and even Netanyahu with the proposal, the paper reported, calling it “little beyond an idea inside the president’s head”.Trump’s plan may be a nonstarter and a distraction from more immediate questions of the second round of ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. But it marks a serious shift towards some of the pro-settler advisers that he has elevated, including his nominee for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who said on Fox News in January: “There was a Palestinian state. It was called Gaza. Look how that turned out.”Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, has a record of hardline pro-Israel rhetoric and previously said Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank, which he refers to by its Hebrew and biblical name of Judea and Samaria. Huckabee has refused to call the settlements by that name, insisting they be called “communities” or neighbourhoods. He has denied that the West Bank, seized by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, is under military occupation.In a sign of growing ties between the US Christian right, the Israeli right and the pro-settler movement, Huckabee was in the audience when Netanyahu met leaders from America’s evangelical community during his trip to Washington this week.Also at the meeting with Netanyahu was John Hagee, the televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel who has backed Israel’s expansion as a route toward Armageddon, after which “there will be 1,000 years of perfect peace, no presidential elections, no fake news, none of all of this nonsense”.In the US, Christian Zionists have tied their support for Israel’s claim to Palestinian lands to the book of Genesis, in which it says that God blesses those who bless Israel, and curses those who curse it.Hagee once claimed he had persuaded Trump to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by telling him at a White House dinner that Jesus was coming back to Jerusalem to “set up His throne on the Temple Mount where He will sit and rule for 1,000 years of perfect peace”.Trump has offered other tokens to pro-settler groups, including the repeal of Biden administration sanctions against individuals and groups accused of expansion and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.The situation may indicate that in the circles of those who surround him, pro-settler figures are ascendant. They include Huckabee and Elise Stefanik, the US ambassador-designate to the UN, who during a confirmation hearing said she supported statements by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich that Israel had a “biblical right to the entire West Bank”.Others, including Witkoff, represent a wing of Trump’s supporters who are less hawkish on Israel and more focused on cutting transactional deals across the world.Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel organisation, said before the summit that Trump had two choices: the “dealmaker route” or the “screw-it path”. For Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, he said, Trump would have to at least seek to restrain Israel from expanding settlements in the West Bank.But, Ben-Ami said: “If he’s going down the screw-it path – ‘I don’t really care what anybody thinks, and I want Greenland and Panama and they can have the West Bank’ – then we’re in a different world.” More

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      Here’s how Democrats should fight back against Trump | Margaret Sullivan

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      It’s easy to be disgusted with the Democratic party right now. Donald Trump is running roughshod over the rule of law, treating the US constitution like toilet paper. His trusty pal Elon Musk is the arsonist in chief, burning down worthy democratic institutions and installing his minions in the heart of government where they have gained access to citizens’ private information. Much of what’s happening is illegal and unconstitutional.And the Democrats, mostly, look less like an opposition party and more like stunned bystanders. As my Guardian colleague Moira Donegan put it, they are “out of touch, opportunistic and cowardly”.But not all. Some Democrats in a new generation are punching back hard, and in so doing, showing their colleagues how to overcome their reputation for spineless dithering.Take Jasmine Crockett, for example, a 43-year-old congresswoman from Texas, who is defiantly feisty. You’ll find her everywhere – on social media, on cable TV and leading citizen protests in front of government office buildings.“We have a thug in charge of the White House,” she thundered in a TV appearance this week. And she didn’t spare her fellow citizens who elected Trump or who stayed home instead of voting in November. “Americans thought that it was OK to take a full-fledged criminal and make him the president of the United States, and then they want to act aghast when he does criminal things.”I’ve been talking with Sawyer Hackett, a strategist who worked in the Obama administration, about how Democrats can meet this terrifying moment. He praised Crockett as “an authentic source of righteous indignation when Democrats desperately need it”.The millions of anti-Trump Americans, he told me, aren’t interested in curated talking points or polished press conferences.“They want to see us fight and speak clearly about the threats we face,” Hackett said, and she has been delivering. As a Black woman, Crockett is particularly incensed about TrumpWorld’s racist attacks on diversity and has no hesitation in blasting the “mediocre white men” who benefit.The Connecticut senator Chris Murphy is at least as impressive. He has been relentless in calling out exactly what’s happening and why, especially in the shocking weeks since Trump took office.“We have days to stop the destruction of our democracy,” Murphy raged at a protest Tuesday in front of the US treasury building in Washington. “It’s the people who rule, not the billionaires. We are taking this country back from Elon Musk.”Murphy calls what’s happening a constitutional crisis. It is one that the public must play a role in fixing by putting pressure not only on Democrats but on the cowardly Republicans who hold a majority in both houses of Congress. Talk about spineless!“There’s been no better messenger in the first two weeks of Trump 2.0 than Chris Murphy,” in Hackett’s view. “At a time when too many Democrats are afraid of their shadow, Murphy is showing how to fight back with a compelling populist message that should be a blueprint for the Democrats moving forward.”As outraged and frightened Americans urge Democrats to “do something”, it’s not clear whether voices like Crockett’s and Murphy’s can really make a difference. What can be done? Lawsuits are cropping up all over, and a federal judge on Wednesday barred the enforcement of Trump’s executive order that would restrict birthright citizenship.And some in Congress are refusing to vote for anything Trump wants until the illegality ends and Musk is sent home. Their notion is simple: gum up the works.“Democrats need to throw every possible wrench into the plans of Trump, Musk and their Republican cultists in Congress,” argued scholar Norm Ornstein in the Contrarian newsletter. “Doing so will also underscore how serious the threat is to our system, thereby forcing media to cover it.” As the Virginia congressman Don Beyer suggested on Greg Sargent’s Daily Blast podcast from the New Republic: “Put those things that used to be routine and make them not routine until Trump stops breaking the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn other words, attack on multiple fronts, including through leveraging the power of Democratic state governments. Most of all, prepare for the midterms elections next year by honing a strong, populist message.And lead with convincing voices that can motivate the public. Crockett and Murphy surely are two of those. Though far from alone – Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, for example, is irreplaceable – they are notable because they are younger and savvy about how to communicate forcefully in today’s media environment. (Here’s Murphy’s clarity on the billionaire bonanza: “Why is Donald Trump engaged in this relentless campaign to try to silence journalists, media companies, and his political opposition? It’s because he’s trying to steal from you.”)They know how to put up their dukes.That’s important because one thing is certain: if the public believes there is no determination to fight back, Trump’s destruction will continue unabated.What’s giving me hope nowWhat’s giving me hope now is knowing so many talented young journalists, not only my students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, but others whose careers I have followed in recent years. Many of them are determined, honest, idealistic, energetic and unwilling to give up on their chosen craft despite all the headwinds and challenges that face them. Democracy demands journalism, so this is extremely important now and in the future.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      Seth Meyers on Elon Musk’s US takeover: ‘A billionaire coup’

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      Late-night hosts spoke about the damage being caused by Donald Trump’s new right-hand man as well as the president’s unconvincing attempts to show off his Christian side.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers started by saying that despite the recent election, “the real president is Elon Musk”, who has shown he is in control despite being “very unpopular” with voters.He said the billionaire has been launching a “de facto takeover of the federal government” with his “team of unaccountable hatchet men”.Recent polls have shown that Americans are unhappy with Musk’s increased control but Trump has been defending him during typically hard-to-understand rambles, resembling “a real-time version of Mad Libs”.Musk has been frantically figuring out what to keep and what to cut within the government, with Meyers showing that he ultimately wants a “wholesale removal of regulations”.Meyers called it “a billionaire coup”.Musk has been busy dismantling USAid, with elected senators recently being blocked from entering the agency’s headquarters. “I’d be so embarrassed if I was a senator and I couldn’t enter the building based on something called Doge,” he said.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also criticised Musk and his “crew of teenage mutant incels” who are busy trying to “tear apart 250 years of democracy like seagulls fighting over a bag of french fries”.They are trying to fire many people within the federal government and part of that has seen the White House ordering the CIA to send an unclassified email with the names of all employees hired over the last two years.Colbert calmed viewers by saying that according to an official, the people would be protected as the list only included the first names and first initial of the last name. “Well then we’re fine,” he said. “That is an uncrackable code.”He then joked that no one would be able to figure out who he was targeting if he said that it would be funny and good for the US if “obvious fascist Elon M got his junk stuck in a four slice toaster”.Colbert then said “Trump’s goons are also doing increasingly useless things just to scour the government clean of any trace of DEI” including taking down any reference to diversity or inclusion on walls or desks. “No federal agency is safe from the anti-compassion cyberdorks,” he said.They have also been ensuring that bathroom signs comply with Trump’s ruling. “What a waste of time,” he said. “The only bathroom signs that should be taken down are the confusing ones in theme restaurants.”He then continued by saying that “it’s not all bad news, some of it is also scary” as he spoke about a second bird flu strain that has now infected cattle. “This can mean only one thing: the birds are having sex with the cows,” he said. “Please no one tell the bees, they’re going to feel so betrayed.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host spoke about this weekend’s Super Bowl, “also known as ‘get drunk at a friend of a friend’s weird living room’ evening”.Kendrick Lamar is the half-time performer, which means that it will lead to the “largest group of people ever to see anyone call Drake a bitch ever”.Trump will be in attendance and Kimmel joked that “he said he’s gonna let Elon pick the winner this year”.This week also saw the president attend the National Prayer Breakfast because he “doesn’t like it when people worship anyone but him”.He added that “of all the unbelievable things about Donald Trump, religious people believing he is also a religious person might be the toughest one to understand”.Kimmel said that if Trump met Jesus, “he’d call him a loser, he’d tell him to get a haircut and put a shirt on”.He also said the only reason he is going to the Super Bowl is because “he can’t stand to have even one day when he’s on TV less than Taylor Swift”. More

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      ‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

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      A pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down.“They are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orbán,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut. “You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritise the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.”Orbán, who came to power in 2010, was once described as “Trump before Trump” by the US president’s former adviser Steve Bannon. His long-term dismantling of institutions and control of media in Hungary serves as a cautionary tale about how seemingly incremental changes can pave the way for authoritarianism.Orbán has described his country as “a petri dish for illiberalism”. His party used its two-thirds majority to rewrite the constitution, capture institutions and change electoral law. He reconfigured the judiciary and public universities to ensure long-term party loyalty.View image in fullscreenThe prime minister created a system of rewards and punishments, giving control of money and media to allies. An estimated 85% of media outlets are controlled by the Hungarian government, allowing Orbán to shape public opinion and marginalise dissent. Orbán has been also masterful at weaponising “family values” and anti-immigration rhetoric to mobilise his base.Orbán’s fans in the US include Vice-President JD Vance, the media personality Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, who once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” The Heritage Foundation produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term.Orbán has addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and two months ago travelled to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for talks with both Trump and Musk. He has claimed that “we have entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team” and “have deep involvement there”.But even Orbán might be taken aback – and somewhat envious – of the alacrity that Trump has shown since returning to power, attacking the foundations of democracy not with a chisel but a sledgehammer.On day one he pardoned about 1,500 people who took part in the 6 January 2021 insurrection, including those who violently attacked US Capitol police in an effort to overturn his election defeat. Driven by vengeance, he dismissed federal prosecutors involved in Trump-related investigations and hinted at a further targeting of thousands of FBI agents who worked on January 6-related cases.Bill Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together and a former official in the Ronald Reagan White House, said: “Flipping the narrative on January 6, becoming a pro-January 6 administration, then weaponising the justice department and talking at least of mass firings at the FBI – that’s further than the norm and very dangerous for obvious reasons.“If he could do that, he could do anything. Why can’t he order the justice department to investigate you and me and 50 other people? One assumes the lawyers at justice or the FBI agents wouldn’t do it, but if a couple of thousand have been cleared out and the rest are intimidated. I’m not hysterical but I do think the threat is much more real now than people anticipated it being a month ago.”Borrowing from Orbán’s playbook, Trump has mobilised the culture wars, issuing a series of executive orders and policy changes that target diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and education curricula. This week he signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and directed the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to lead a taskforce on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government.View image in fullscreenHe is also seeking to marginalise the mainstream media and supplant it with a rightwing ecosystem that includes armies of influencers and podcasters. A “new media” seat has been added to the White House press briefing room while Silicon Valley billionaires were prominent at his inauguration. Musk’s X is a powerful mouthpiece, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has abandoned factchecking and the Chinese-owned TikTok could become part-owned by the US.Trump has sued news organisations over stories or even interview edits; some have settled the cases. The Pentagon said it would “rotate” four major news outlets from their workspace and replace them with more Trump-friendly media. Jim Acosta, a former White House correspondent who often sparred with Trump, quit CNN while Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, was hired to host a new weekend show on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the most dramatic change has been the way in which Trump has brought disruption to the federal government on an unprecedented scale, firing at least 17 inspectors general, dismantling longstanding programmes, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills.Government workers are being pushed to resign, entire agencies are being shuttered and federal funding to states and non-profits was temporarily frozen. The most sensitive treasury department information of countless Americans was opened to Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team in a breach of privacy and protocol, raising concerns about potential misuse of federal funds.Musk’s allies orchestrated a physical takeover of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), locking out employees and vowing to shut it down, with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stepping in as acting administrator. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X.Musk’s team has also heavily influenced the office of personnel management (OPM), offering federal workers a “buyout” and installing loyalists into key positions. It is also pushing for a 50% budget cut and implementing “zero-based budgeting” at the General Services Administration (GSA), which controls federal properties and massive contracts.View image in fullscreenMusk, a private citizen who has tens of billions of dollars in government contracts, is slashing and burning his way through Washington with little accountability and has significant potential conflicts of interest. An array of lawsuits is demanding interventions to stop him unilaterally gutting government. Protests are erupting outside government agencies and jamming congressional phone lines.But critics aiming to sound the alarm that a shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover face intimidation or punishment. Edward Martin, the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, threatened legal action against anyone who “impedes” Doge’s work or “threatens” its people. Martin posted on X: “We are in contact with FBI and other law-enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing.”Murphy, the Democratic senator, said: “What’s most worrying to me right now is there’s a whole campaign under way to try to punish and suppress Trump and Musk’s political enemies. It started with the pardoning of the January 6 rioters; now everybody knows that they are at risk of having the shit beat out of them if they oppose Donald Trump.“It extended to the seizure of government funding. It’s clear now that Musk and Trump are going to fund entities and states and congressional districts that support them and will withhold funds from entities and states and congressional districts that don’t support them.”He added: “Now you have this lawyer who represented January 6 defendants, the new acting DC US attorney, trolling activists online, threatening them with federal prosecution. It’s dizzying campaign of political repression that looks more like Russia than the United States.”View image in fullscreenDemocrats such as Murphy are determined to fight back but, being in the minority, have few tools at their disposal. Republicans have mostly appeared content to cede their own power. The party’s fealty to Trump was demonstrated again this week when senators in committee voted to move forward with the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr as director of national intelligence and health secretary respectively – two mavericks whose selection would have been unthinkable just a year ago.Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “There had been some lingering optimism that at least some Republican senators would draw the line at some of the more absurd Maga appointees but that hasn’t happened. That also demoralises any potential opposition.”He added: “What Elon Musk represents is basically a hostile takeover of the government and the complete indifference of the Republican Congress to the ways that it is being stripped of its core constitutional functions is demoralising. It is this mood that nothing can be done or will be done to stop them. You’re seeing that in the business community, in the political community, and it’s a fundamental loss of faith in the rule of law and in our system of checks and balances.”One guardrail is holding for now. Courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, cull the government workforce and freeze federal funding. Even so, commentators warn that the blatant disregard for congressional authority, erosion of civil service protections and concentration of power in the executive branch pose a grave threat.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “You’d have to have your eyes fully closed not to be deeply concerned and outraged about the vacuum that Donald Trump is operating in now. In a real sense, US democracy has died this month. It doesn’t mean it’s dead for the long term but at this moment the idea of an accountable representative system, as the framers of the constitution wrote it, is no longer present.” More

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      Elon Musk’s journey from climate champion to backing EV-bashing Trump

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      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.Trump has said that he “will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American auto workers”.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.“Turning off the credits would affect a meaningful share of the EV market,” said Joseph Shapiro, a University of California, Berkeley, economist and co-author of the study, who added that while a growing number of people would still go electric, the total number of cars sold would shrink by more than 300,000 a year than if the incentives stayed in place.“You could say that it would be a speed bump in the road but if the US goes all electric in 2090 rather than 2050, say, that matters a lot for the planet,” he said. “A lot of carbon would be emitted in that time.”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.Musk has said, though, that removal of EV subsidies will hurt rivals such as Ford and General Motors more than Tesla. “Take away the subsidies,” Musk wrote on X, another of his companies, in July. “It will only help Tesla.”There is some logic to this, Shapiro said. Tesla is comfortably the largest EV brand in the US, accounting for nearly half of all sales, and makes more profit per car than its rivals, meaning the removal of incentives would be disproportionately felt by other manufacturers.View image in fullscreen“If the tax credit is removed Tesla could survive and have less competition, they have more headroom to withstand a decrease in the market size,” Shapiro said. Stock in Tesla surged following Trump’s election win.However, Tesla will still be affected. Weakening federal pollution rules, for example, could see a reduction in the amount of carbon credits Tesla sells to other car companies – amounting to $2.7bn just last year – to offset their emissions and avoid fines. Tesla’s sales dipped slightly for the first time in 2024, amid concern among some of its traditionally liberal customer base about Musk’s rightward political turn.“Tesla isn’t immune to sales being impacted, they have some brand loyalty although we don’t know what the impact Elon Musk has had on polarizing consumers yet, that’s still a bit of an unknown,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, which estimates EVs will have a 10% share of US car sales this year, up from 8% in 2024.Regardless, Musk’s focus has now seemingly shifted away from EVs to other areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence and his SpaceX venture, Valdez Streaty said. He has also embraced rightwing fixations shared by Trump. In a speech after the president was inaugurated, Musk made no mention of cars but said that the “future of civilization is assured” with “safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending, basic stuff”.He added: “We’re going to take Doge to Mars,” in reference to the “department of government efficiency” he heads in an effort to curb spending. “Can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time? Bam. Bam. Yeah. How inspiring would that be?”Concern over the climate crisis is seemingly no longer one of Musk’s priorities, despite previously saying he is “super pro-climate” and in 2016 calling for a “popular uprising” against the fossil fuel industry because the world was “unavoidably headed toward some level of harm and the sooner we can take action, the less harm will result”.When Trump removed the US from the Paris climate agreement in 2017, Musk said he was quitting a presidential advisory body in protest. “Climate change is real,” he tweeted at the time. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”But Musk has had little to say after Trump, who memorably called climate change “a giant hoax”, once again pulled the US from the Paris deal and issued a flurry of orders to ramp up oil and gas drilling and stymie renewable energy production. In January, Musk said: “Climate change risk is real, just much slower than alarmists claim.”Critics say it is unlikely Musk will reflect the growing alarm voiced by scientists, and the American public, over the impacts of dangerous global heating within the Trump administration.“It just shows he’s an opportunist, really,” said Paul Bledsoe, who was a climate adviser to Bill Clinton’s White House. “He now downplays the dangers of climate change, but I think in the back of his mind he’s thinking about using government contracts for geoengineering as the costs of climate change become so undeniably expensive.”Those who know Musk say that he soured on Democrats in part after not being invited to a major summit on electric cars held by the White House in 2021, after Joe Biden became president.“That was an unforced error by Biden,” said Robert Zubrin, a leading advocate for human exploration of Mars who said he helped introduce Musk to the idea of Martian expansion. “And in the past two years, Elon Musk has redefined himself from the white knight of environmentalists to a Bond villain.”Zubrin said that Musk’s “central motivation is the desire for eternal glory for doing great deeds. He wants to save civilization because he wants to be famous for saving civilization.“This desire for eternal glory for doing great deeds has motivated his primary accomplishments, Tesla and SpaceX,” he added. “But it also has a dark side to it, and this has been exploited.”Tesla was contacted about its stance towards the EV tax credits but did not respond. More

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      If Trump really cared about his ‘favourite’ US president, he would leave Gaza and Greenland alone | Simon Jenkins

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      Donald Trump’s favourite US president was William McKinley. Who he? In his inaugural address, Trump pledged to restore the name Mount McKinley to North America’s highest peak. It was an anti-woke dig at Barack Obama, who had given it the Alaskan native name of Denali. But why this idolatry?The answer has since become clear. McKinley was the president (1897-1901) who introduced super-tariffs in his first year in office to protect the US’s post-recessionary manufacturers. Some were as high as 57%, and were seen as an alternative fundraiser to income tax. McKinley was also appealing to Trump for presiding over the founding of a hesitant US empire beyond the North American continent, one from which it has since retreated. Apart from that, the man was unostentatious, intelligent and impeccably polite, faults that Trump is clearly ready to forgive. His only carelessness was to be assassinated six months into his second term.Trump has blatantly sought to mimic McKinley’s policies over the past fortnight. It is therefore worth studying what his hero actually did. Unlike Trump, McKinley made sure that his tariffs were approved by Congress. Indeed, the constitution then required it – and technically still does. He was emphatic that they should be based on treaties embracing reciprocity. They should be treaties.In the event, the tariffs were not seen as critical to economic recovery. They were also blamed for a 25% rise in the cost of living. McKinley lost enthusiasm for them and became instead a champion of global free trade. He formed a group of nations to pursue an open-door policy, aimed at strengthening trade with China. He never saw tariffs as tactical weapons of foreign policy, nor used Trump’s description of his trading partners as “atrocious”.As for seeking new colonies, historians regard McKinley as at best an accidental imperialist. A year after his 1897 tariffs were introduced, the US was faced with the effective collapse of the Spanish empire, with armed insurrections in Cuba and the Philippines. Like many Americans, McKinley welcomed the arrival of new and free states. But he was adamantly against aiding them in wars against Spain. His much-cited quote was that “war should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed”. He had seen the civil war, and never wanted to see another one.View image in fullscreenYet he was under pressure. This was a time when European nations were reaching their imperial limits. It was an opportunity for the US to spread its wings, and many of McKinley’s colleagues were eager for the challenge. Over the course of 1898, war fever against Spain became hysterical. The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers daily demanded intervention in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Showered with petitions, Congress demanded, in effect, that McKinley declare war on Spain.He did so under protest. His belligerent assistant navy secretary, the young Teddy Roosevelt, had already mobilised the navy, aiming it at Cuba and the Philippines. Roosevelt then formally resigned his position and led a volunteer regiment to fight in Cuba amid a blaze of publicity. He had accused McKinley of having “no more backbone than a chocolate eclair”. He was nonetheless chosen as McKinley’s vice-president in 1900.These interventions did not result from any threat to US territory or sovereignty. They were naked acts of aggression. They were spectacularly egged on by Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The White Man’s Burden, directed at the Philippines and published in the New York Sun. It challenged America to take over from the British empire, to fight “the savage wars of peace” against “sloth and heathen folly”.McKinley throughout was on the side of negotiation and peace. The Spanish war ended in a treaty signed in Paris in December 1898, which ceded America varying measures of control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. McKinley agreed with an anti-imperial majority in Congress that, once pacified, the US should deny any “intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control”. The government of the islands must be left to their people. The only “imperial” acquisition that McKinley did undertake was that of Hawaii, to prevent it falling into the hands of Japan.View image in fullscreenOn McKinley’s assassination in 1901, it was Roosevelt who assumed control of these territories, did not leave and retained them into the 20th century. It was also Roosevelt who backed rebels in seizing Panama from Colombia and giving the US control of the canal’s building and fortification. This was highly controversial. Roosevelt was challenged in Congress and by the New York Times for “an act of sordid conquest”. If Trump is seeking to emulate an earlier president, it is surely Roosevelt – described as the “bucking bronco” of American imperialism – he should be worshipping.Almost every president comes to office asserting if not isolationism, then a refusal to commit money or resources to setting the world to rights. Yet all are seduced by the power of office and the language of the founding fathers. They come to see the US’s “manifest destiny” as being to champion freedom and democracy wherever it is threatened. From Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt, from JFK to Johnson and the Bushes father and son, all came to see themselves as global crusaders for that cause.In 2016, Trump refreshingly described the interventionism of his predecessors as a “total disaster”. He stuck to his guns and almost entirely avoided troop deployments during his first term of office. The world at least knew where it stood.His emphasis on putting America’s interests first was repeated in 2024. But this time the prospect is uncertain. In his inaugural speech, he described his task as one that “expands our territory … and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons”. He even used the fell phrase, manifest destiny, as being one he would “pursue … into the stars … to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars”. Not content with Mars, he has set his sights on Panama, Greenland and Gaza.These territories might not match the ambitions of a Kipling or a Roosevelt, but Trump’s current intentions are hardly pacific. If he is to deify McKinley, he might first seek to find out a bit more about him.

      Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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