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      Senate G.O.P. Passes Budget Resolution, and Punts on Tough Questions

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      The budget plan that Republicans pushed through the Senate early Friday was a necessary first step toward enacting President Trump’s ambitious domestic goals, but it punted the most difficult and divisive questions about how Congress will do so.On a largely party-line vote, 52-48, Senate Republicans won adoption of a blueprint that calls for a $150 billion increase in military spending and $175 billion more for border security over the next decade.How will they pay for it? That’s a question for another day. What about the huge tax cuts they and Mr. Trump have promised? We’ll figure that out later, senators say.Over in the House, Republicans have been agonizing to come up with at least $2 trillion in spending cuts to pay for Mr. Trump’s fiscal agenda and placate their most conservative members. Their plan, which G.O.P. leaders hope to put to a vote as early as next week, loads vast tax cuts and policy changes into one huge package and calls for slashing government programs deeply to finance it all. But it faces a perilous road through the closely divided House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.Republicans in the Senate have essentially delayed any decision on those thorny details, focusing instead on delivering an early win to Mr. Trump in the form of money for his hard-line anti-immigration agenda. They said they would address questions of spending and tax cuts later in a separate bill.“We’ve decided to front-end load security,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the chairman of the Budget Committee. “We want to make the tax cuts permanent. We’re going to work with our House colleagues to do that. They expire at the end of the year, but we have time to do that. It is the view of the Republican Senate that when it comes to border security, we need not fail. We should have the money now to keep that momentum going.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump blindsides Senate Republicans by endorsing rival House budget plan

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      Donald Trump has derailed Senate Republicans’ budget strategy by endorsing a competing House option, leaving GOP leaders scrambling to save their agenda just weeks before a potential government shutdown.The president’s surprise intervention came just hours after Senate Republicans moved to advance their own two-track proposal, as he declared instead that he wants “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” through the House’s reconciliation process.“Unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda,” Trump posted on Truth Social.The announcement forces Senate Republicans to reconsider their carefully planned schedule of votes this week on a slimmer package that was meant to cover defense, border security and energy provisions.While the Senate majority leader, John Thune, admitted being blindsided, he told reporters his side was still full steam ahead on a Thursday vote for its version of a bill.“If the House can produce one big, beautiful bill, we’re prepared to work with them to get that across the finish line,” Thune said. “But we believe that the president also likes optionality.”The House proposal Trump is backing would add $4.5tn to the deficit through tax cuts while demanding enormous cuts to federal benefits programs. Under the plan’s strict rules, Republicans must either slash $2tn from mandatory programs (which could include Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance) or scale back their proposed tax breaks by an equal amount.The timing is already tight, as Congress is barreling down a 14 March deadline to pass the bill that would avoid a shutdown forcing hundreds of thousands of federal employees to go without pay. Although Republicans control both chambers, the majorities are so thin they will need Democratic votes to pass any funding measure.In the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats, at least 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, working with a slim 218-215 majority, faces similar math problems and internal drama.Johnson immediately claimed victory over Trump’s endorsement of the House plan, saying on X that House Republicans are “working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it”.But his proposal faces resistance from Republicans worried about proposed entitlement cuts – cuts Trump himself rejected on Tuesday on Fox News, saying: “Medicare, Medicaid – none of that stuff is going to be touched.”“If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it,” the freshman Republican congressman Rob Bresnahan said on X.The White House dispatched the vice-president, JD Vance, to meet Senate Republicans on Wednesday afternoon, attempting to smooth tensions as both chambers grapple with how to advance Trump’s agenda. But it’s clear that some senators will be hard to convince.“I’m not sure [the House budget could] pass the House or that it could pass the Senate,” the Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson told reporters.The House remains in recess until next week, leaving Senate Republicans alone on Capitol Hill to plot their next move. More

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      Democrats in Congress see potential shutdown as leverage to counter Trump

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      With the US federal government expected to shut down in one month unless Congress approves a funding bill, Democratic lawmakers are wrestling with just how far they are willing to go to push back against Donald Trump’s radical rightwing agenda that has thrown American politics into turmoil.Specifically, Democrats appear divided on the question of whether they would be willing to endure a shutdown to demonstrate their outrage over the president’s attempted overhaul of the federal government.The stakes are high; unless Congress passes a bill to extend funding beyond 14 March, hundreds of thousands of federal employees may be forced to go without pay at a time when they already feel under attack by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”. And given Trump’s eagerness to flex his presidential authority, the fallout could be particularly severe, depending on how the office of management and budget (OMB) handled a shutdown.To be sure, Republicans are taking the lead on reaching a funding deal, as they control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but party leaders will absolutely need Democrats’ assistance to pass a bill. While Republicans hold a 53-to-47 advantage in the Senate, any funding bill will need the support of at least 60 senators to overcome the filibuster.In the House, Republicans hold a razor-thin majority of 218 to 215, and hard-right lawmakers’ demands for steeper spending cuts will likely force the speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to also rely on Democratic support to pass a funding bill.“There’s no reasonable funding bill that could make its way through the Senate that wouldn’t cause uproar in the Republican party on the House side,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible. “That is the fault of the Republicans in the House, not anybody else. But because of that, it is something that is giving Democrats in the House leverage.”In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of congressional appropriators from both chambers have met to hash out the details of a potential funding agreement, but Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, suggested on Thursday that Johnson had instructed his conference members to “walk away” from the talks.“At this moment, there is no discussion because the speaker of the House has apparently ordered House Republican appropriators to walk away from the negotiating table,” Jeffries told reporters. “They are marching America toward a reckless Republican shutdown.”Johnson shot back that Democrats appeared “not interested in keeping the government funded”, adding: “So we will get the job done. We’re not going to shut the government down. We’ll figure out a path through this.”The dynamics of the funding fight have empowered some Democrats to suggest that the negotiations could become a powerful piece of political leverage as they scramble to disrupt Trump’s efforts to freeze federal funding, unilaterally shutter the foreign-aid agency USAid and carry out mass firings across the government.“I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we’re seeing when it comes to this administration’s actions,” Andy Kim, a Democratic senator of New Jersey, said on NBC’s Meet the Press last weekend. “And for us to be able to support government funding in that way, only for them to turn it around, to dismantle the government – that is not something that should be allowed.”Progressive organizers have called on Democratic lawmakers to hold the line in the negotiations to ensure Congress passes a clean funding bill that Trump will be required to faithfully implement.On Monday, prominent congressional Democrats rallied with progressive groups outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington, and 15 of them pledged to withhold their support from a funding deal until Trump’s “constitutional crisis” comes to an end.“We’re not just looking for statements. We’re not looking for protest votes. We’re also asking them to identify where they have power, where they have leverage and use that power,” Levin said. “And because of the nature of this funding fight, this is a clear opportunity.”Other Democrats have appeared much more cautious when it comes to the possibility of a shutdown, even as they insist that Republicans should shoulder the blame for any funding lapse.The senator Cory Booker, a Democrat of New Jersey, argued that Democrats must now embrace their role as “a party of protecting residents, protecting veterans, protecting first responders, protecting American safety from [Trump’s] illegal actions”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The Republican party has shown year after year that they’re the party of shutdowns. They’re the party of government chaos,” Booker said on CNN’s State of the Union last weekend. “So we’re not looking to shut down the government. We’re looking actually to protect people.”The political fallout of past shutdowns may give Democrats pause as well.The last shutdown occurred during Trump’s first term and began in December 2018, eventually stretching on for 35 days and becoming the longest shutdown in US history. It started after Trump demanded that Congress approve billions of dollars in funding to construct a wall along the US-Mexico border, and it ended with Trump signing a bipartisan bill that included no money for the wall. At the time, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed 50% of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown, while 37% said congressional Democrats were responsible.“Historically, I think it has been the case that shutdowns are costly, and they’re disruptive. When they conclude, you look back and wonder, what did we get for all of that? The answer is usually nothing,” said Gordon Gray, executive director of Pinpoint Policy Institute and a former Republican staffer for the Senate budget committee. “For people who have to interact with the government during a shutdown [and] for the workforce, there’s real downsides. Politically, there just seems to be more downside than upside.”This shutdown, if it occurs, could be unlike any other.Trump has shown an extraordinary willingness to test the bounds of executive power, and while past presidents have taken steps to alleviate the pain caused by shutdowns, he may choose not to do so. Considering his apparent fixation on eliminating government “waste”, some fear Trump and the new OMB director, Russell Vought, might use the shutdown as an opportunity to sideline federal agencies and departments that the president deems unimportant.“There’s a tremendous degree of discretion that OMB can exert in its interpretation of this,” Gray said. “Clearly this administration is willing to contemplate its discretion more expansively than we’ve seen. It would not surprise me if we saw novel developments under Trump.”Levin agreed that it is entirely possible Trump and some of his congressional allies may want to “shut down the government so that they can more easily steamroll” federal agencies. He expects some House Republicans to propose funding provisions that will be absolute non-starters with Democrats, such as eliminating the health insurance program Medicaid, to potentially derail negotiations.“I absolutely think it’s possible that the Republicans’ plan is to drive us into shutdown. I think that it is giving them the benefit of the doubt to say that they are interested in making any kind of deal,” Levin said. “Democrats have some amount of leverage here, but if we head into shutdown, there should be no illusion of who benefits and whose grand plan this is.” More

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      Defying Johnson, Graham and Senate G.O.P. Push Their Own Budget Plan

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      For days, Speaker Mike Johnson had called and texted Senator Lindsey Graham, imploring him to wait for the House to take the lead in the legislative drive to enact President Trump’s sweeping tax, budget and immigration agenda.When the three men converged in New Orleans on Sunday in the president’s suite at the Super Bowl, Mr. Graham shut him down in person.“I’m a huge fan, and nothing would please me more than one big, beautiful bill passing the House,” Mr. Graham recounted telling the speaker, a Louisiana Republican. But, he said, the Senate would press ahead with its own bill, adding, “We are living on borrowed time.”Senate Republicans have waited for weeks for their House colleagues to resolve their differences and agree to a budget blueprint that could unlock the party’s push to pass a vast fiscal package with only a simple majority vote. But House Republicans have remained divided over major issues, including how deeply to cut federal programs to pay for the bill, and have blown past several self-imposed deadlines.Enter Mr. Graham, the fast-talking fourth-term Republican senator from South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.A loyal Trump ally who has long relished the opportunity to be in the middle of the action, Mr. Graham has made it clear in recent days that he has no intention of waiting for the House. Instead, Mr. Graham has advanced a budget plan that his committee is set to take up on Wednesday that would increase spending for the military and border security measures. He has promised that another bill extending the 2017 tax cuts will come later.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mace Takes to House Floor With Charges of Rape and Sexual Predation

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      The South Carolina Republican used her floor privileges to lodge shocking accusations against her former fiancé and three other men.Representative Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who in recent weeks has floated a run for governor, on Monday night accused her former fiancé and three other men of having drugged and raped her and other women, and of filming and taking lewd photographs of women and underage girls without their consent.In a stunningly graphic speech on the House floor that had little precedent, Ms. Mace said the men, whom she named and displayed photographs of on a placard where lawmakers more typically display charts and graphs on policy issues, were involved in the “premeditated, calculated exploitation of innocent women and girls in my district.”“You’ve booked yourself a one-way ticket to hell,” she said, referring to the men directly at one point in a speech that lasted close to an hour. “It is nonstop. There are no connections. So I and all of your victims can watch you rot into eternity.”On the floor of the House, Ms. Mace was protected by the speech and debate clause, even as she accused the men of repeatedly assaulting incapacitated women and filming it. The clause provides lawmakers immunity from criminal prosecutions or civil suits, such as for slander, when they are acting “within the legislative sphere.” Ms. Mace offered no evidence to support the accusations, although she said she had plenty of such material.She refused to answer any follow-up questions from reporters outside the Capitol on Monday night and did not respond to a separate request to provide corroboration. The New York Times has not independently verified any of the allegations.In a statement not long after Ms. Mace finished speaking, Patrick Bryant, the former fiancé whom she accused by name, denied her account.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      White House Forces Showdown Over Congress’s Power of the Purse

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      The confirmation of Russell T. Vought to lead the powerful White House budget office is likely to escalate the funding fights roiling Washington and the nation.Susan Collins was a Senate intern in 1974 when Congress, in response to President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to spend on projects he opposed, passed a sweeping budget law to bar presidents from overriding lawmakers when it came to doling out dollars.The resulting law, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, is “very clear, and it re-emphasizes the power of the purse that Congress has under the Constitution,” Ms. Collins, now a 72-year-old Republican senator from Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said in an interview this week.She and her fellow appropriators in both parties will have a fight on their hands if they hope to retain supremacy in federal spending. The question of who has the final word is emerging as a central point of contention between members of Congress and the White House, a clash that is likely to escalate after the confirmation on Thursday of Russell T. Vought as the director of President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.Mr. Vought has flatly declared that he — and Mr. Trump — consider the budget act to be unconstitutional. They contend that the White House can choose what gets money and what doesn’t even if it conflicts with specific directions from Congress through appropriations measures signed into law. Others on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, vehemently dispute that idea.The disagreement is spurring the uproar over Mr. Trump’s move to suspend trillions of dollars in federal spending while the executive branch reviews it to determine whether it complies with the his newly issued policy dictates, as well as the president’s efforts to gut the United States Agency for International Development.Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Democrats of Virginia, at a rally in support of U.S.A.I.D. at the Capitol on Wednesday. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Musk’s Doge reportedly keeps attempting to push out federal workers despite judge blocking buyout deadline – live

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      Attorney general Pam Bondi dissolved an FBI taskforce aimed at combatting foreign influence operations on Wednesday, the same day that a hoax news report linked to Russia was shared by Donald Trump’s ally, Elon Musk, and his son, Donald Trump Jr.“To free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion,” Bondi wrote in a memo to all Justice department employees after she was sworn in on Wednesday, “the Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded.”The FBI website explains that former director Christopher Wray established the taskforce in 2017 to combat “covert actions by foreign governments to influence US political sentiment or public discourse”.“The goal of these foreign influence operations directed against the United States is to spread disinformation, sow discord, and, ultimately, undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values,” according to the FBI.As Olga Robinson and Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC Verify report, Elon Musk shared a viral video with more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X that falsely claims the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) paid more than $40m to Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Orlando Bloom and Ben Stiller to get them to visit Ukraine.The video, which carries the branding of the NBCUniversal outlet E! News, and follows the style of its celebrity reports, never appeared on any of that outlet’s social media accounts.The hoax, Robinson reports, “is extremely similar in style” to a Russian influence operation BBC Verify previously exposed that use fictional social media news reports to impersonate media outlets and push anti-Ukraine narratives.One of the named stars, Stiller, made an effort to combat the disinformation running rampant on Musk’s social-media platform by writing in a post there: “These are lies coming from Russian media. I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind. 100 percent false”.Despite Stiller’s effort to halt the spread of the hoax news report, it was also shared by Donald Trump Jr and Sidney Powell, known for her leading role in spreading wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Donald Trump has signed an executive order sanctioning the international criminal court (ICC), the White House has confirmed.The text of the order, posted on the White House website, accuses the ICC of having “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” and abused its power by issuing “baseless arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant”.According to the order:
      The United States will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC’s transgressions, some of which may include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the United States of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members, as their entry into our Nation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.
      Our colleagues on the Middle East live blog are tracking reaction to the order.Attorney general Pam Bondi dissolved an FBI taskforce aimed at combatting foreign influence operations on Wednesday, the same day that a hoax news report linked to Russia was shared by Donald Trump’s ally, Elon Musk, and his son, Donald Trump Jr.“To free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion,” Bondi wrote in a memo to all Justice department employees after she was sworn in on Wednesday, “the Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded.”The FBI website explains that former director Christopher Wray established the taskforce in 2017 to combat “covert actions by foreign governments to influence US political sentiment or public discourse”.“The goal of these foreign influence operations directed against the United States is to spread disinformation, sow discord, and, ultimately, undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values,” according to the FBI.As Olga Robinson and Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC Verify report, Elon Musk shared a viral video with more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X that falsely claims the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) paid more than $40m to Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Orlando Bloom and Ben Stiller to get them to visit Ukraine.The video, which carries the branding of the NBCUniversal outlet E! News, and follows the style of its celebrity reports, never appeared on any of that outlet’s social media accounts.The hoax, Robinson reports, “is extremely similar in style” to a Russian influence operation BBC Verify previously exposed that use fictional social media news reports to impersonate media outlets and push anti-Ukraine narratives.One of the named stars, Stiller, made an effort to combat the disinformation running rampant on Musk’s social-media platform by writing in a post there: “These are lies coming from Russian media. I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind. 100 percent false”.Despite Stiller’s effort to halt the spread of the hoax news report, it was also shared by Donald Trump Jr and Sidney Powell, known for her leading role in spreading wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Doge staffer installed at treasury resigns after Wall Street Journal uncovers racist posts.Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer who obtained access to a treasury department payments system as part of his work for Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” initiative, reportedly resigned on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about a deleted social media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.According to the Journal, recent posts on an account that once used the handle @marko_elez called for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act and supported a “eugenic immigration policy” just before Trump returned to office and empowered Musk to take a sledgehammer to federal agencies.
      ‘You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,’ the account wrote on X in September, according to a Wall Street Journal review of archived posts. ‘Normalize Indian hate,’ the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley.
      “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool”, the account holder posted in July.A lawyer for the government confirmed in federal court on Wednesday that Elez, who had previously worked for Musk at SpaceX, Starlink and X, had access to US treasury payment systems that contain the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.Sources told Wired earlier this week, that Elez had been granted the ability “not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). Housed on a secure mainframe, these systems control, on a granular level, government payments that in their totality amount to more than a fifth of the US economy.”Here’s what has been in the news this afternoon:

      A “DEI watch list” targeting federal employees who work in health equity-related positions spurred fear for the workers’ safety and jobs. Most of the workers included on the list are Black.

      A budget dispute among congressional Republicans could slow their efforts to enact Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. Trump was scheduled to meet with Republican lawmakers on Thursday as they craft a spending bill that could avert a government shutdown in March.

      For the second time in two days, a judge moved Thursday to block Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The Seattle judge said Trump viewed the rule of law simply as an “impediment to his policy goals.”

      A judge also temporarily limited Elon Musk’s access to the Treasury’s payment system. The order allows for two of Musk’s associates to access the system – but on a read-only basis.

      Even after a judge delayed a buyout offer for federal employees, Musk’s self-styled Department of Government Accountability (DOGE), continued to pressure workers to quit. Agencies under Musk’s unofficial purview threatened workers with layoffs and implied their jobs could be replaced with artificial intelligence.

      DOGE reportedly accessed sensitive data from the Department of Education and used artificial intelligence to analyze it. The data reportedly included personal and financial information.

      The Trump administration has dropped efforts to sanction oligarchs close to Putin. The Joe Biden administration had implemented sanctions on Russian oligarchs in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
      After Donald Trump issued an executive order to ban diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, dozens of workers have been fired from their positions in the civil service.In an attempt to aid in the purge, a Heritage Foundation-linked group published a list of employees who work in health equity, most of whom are Black, and asked Trump to fire them.The “DEI watch list,” created by the rightwing nonprofit American Accountability Foundation, included the photos and work history of the employees it targeted – causing the workers to fear for their safety.Donald Trump is disbanding an effort started after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin, Reuters reports. A memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi, issued on Wednesday during a wave of orders on her first day in office but not previously reported, said the effort, known as Task Force KleptoCapture, will end as part of a shift in focus and funding to combating drug cartels and international gangs.“This policy requires a fundamental change in mindset and approach,” Bondi wrote in the directive, adding that resources now devoted to enforcing sanctions and seizing the assets of oligarchs will be redirected to countering cartels.The effort, launched during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, was designed to strain the finances of wealthy associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin and punish those facilitating sanctions and export control violations.In a statement, Politico’s CEO and editor-in-chief responded to rightwing claims, echoed by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, that the outlet is bankrolled by the US government.The outlet clarified that Politico does not receive any government funding, while private companies, organizations and government agencies may pay to subscribe to Politico Pro for specialized reports.“They subscribe because it makes them better at their jobs — helping them track policy, legislation, and regulations in real-time with news, intelligence, and a suite of data products,” they wrote in the statement.Elon Musk’s associates at the tech billionaire’s self-styled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have reportedly used artificial intelligence to process sensitive data from the Department of Education.According to the Washington Post, the operatives used AI to analyze spending by the Department of Education. Some of the information included sensitive employee and financial data.Meanwhile, Donald Trump is reportedly considering executive actions to dismantle the Department of Education, including one proposal to abolish the department entirely. Dozens of employees of the education department were reportedly put on leave following Trump’s orders to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programming in the federal government.Democratic lawmakers are seeking an inquiry into possible security breaches by Elon Musk and his operatives, reports the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:Democrats are demanding an investigation into potential national security breaches created by Elon Musk’s takeover of certain federal agencies through his self-styled “department of government efficiency” (Doge).In a letter published on Thursday, the members of the House oversight committee say they are worried that Musk and his operatives have illegally accessed classified information and sensitive personal data at agencies including the office of personnel management (OPM), the US treasury and the US Agency for International Development (USAid).“There is no evidence that he, or any of his associates working under the ‘Doge team’ moniker, are entitled to access our government systems, nor is there any evidence that they have undergone the proper vetting to ensure the security of taxpayer and government data,” the letter said.Even as a judge blocked a buyout offer for federal employees, Elon Musk has continued his effort to push federal workers out of their jobs. According to a new report by Politico, officials at the agencies now overseen by Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have peppered employees with messages urging them to take the offer – or brace for layoffs. In one email, an official suggested the government would cut “redundant business functions and associated staffing” and was considering implementing artificial intelligence.Meanwhile, Musk has continued to regularly share posts throughout the day on X promoting DOGE and the idea that the civil service is rife with fraud.A judge has temporarily limited the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)’s ability to access the highly-sensitive payment system of the US Treasury that Musk’s associates reportedly attempted to use to block USAID payments.The ruling marks the first time that the courts have limited DOGE, which, in the last two weeks, has dug into the federal bureaucracy, pushing to shut down USAID and sowing chaos in the civil service.It comes in response to unions that represent federal employees accusing the Treasury of unlawfully sharing personal employee data with DOGE. The ruling named two DOGE associates who could be given access to the payment system – but on a read-only basis.A judge has moved to block Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the US, the second such ruling in two days.On Thursday, the Seattle judge, John Coughenour, told reporters, “It has become ever more apparent that to our president the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals.”Wednesday, a judge temporarily paused Trump’s order, which sought to prevent the US-born children of undocumented immigrants from obtaining automatic citizenship. The fourteenth amendment protects birthright citizenship, a right that was recognized by the US supreme court in 1898.Donald Trump is meeting with congressional Republican leadership Thursday to discuss a budget bill that has generated conflict within the GOP caucus.The proposed spending bill will attempt to turn Trump’s agenda into legislation, touching on immigration, energy and taxes, and while the senate Republican leadership has signaled they are ready to move forward with a two-part piece of legislation, Trump has suggested he prefers a single measure to deliver his agenda.The conflict underscores how narrow the Republicans’ majority in the house is: with 218 Republicans to 215 Democrats, the Republicans need nearly every vote to pass legislation.The Heritage Foundation funded the group compiling a list of federal employees to be targeted for firing under the Trump administration, the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports: A rightwing group that has created a series of blacklists to target federal workers it believes the Trump administration should fire has received funding for the project by the thinktank behind Project 2025.A recent list created by the American Accountability Foundation called the “DEI Watch List” includes mostly Black people with roles in government health roles alleged to have some tie to diversity initiatives. Another targets education department employees in career roles who “cannot be trusted to faithfully execute the agenda of the elected President of the United States”. One calls out the “most subversive immigration bureaucrats”.Tom Jones, the president of the American Accountability Foundation, said the organization had plans to add to its existing lists and create more. The group was designed to go after the “DC bureaucrats and leftist organizations” that had been allowed “to subvert, obstruct, and sabotage the America First agenda”, according to its website.Here’s a recap of developing news today so far:

      The Senate appears poised to confirm the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the powerful Office of Management and Budget, despite intense Democratic opposition. Senate Democrats held an overnight floor session in the senate to deliver speeches decrying Vought, an architect of Project 2025 who would likely attempt to further consolidate executive authority under Trump if confirmed.

      Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, an annual gala, where he said he had plans to create a task force to root out “anti-Christian bias” and floated possible changes to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

      The deadline for federal workers to accept offered buyouts approaches tonight, leaving federal employees to wonder whether the promised benefits are really on offer, and whether they will be laid off if they choose to stay – a possibility floated to the press by top Trump officials.

      CNN reported that top associates of Elon Musk sought to use the highly-sensitive Treasury payment system to block funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), sparking fears of overreach by the unelected government employee and his staff.

      Trump is expected to sanction the International Criminal Court in an executive order, accusing the court of improperly investigating the US and Israel. In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Hamas leadership.

      A federal judge said he stood ready to enforce his order for the Trump administration to end its freeze on federal grant funding. States have reported programs like Head Start still struggling to access their funding despite the Trump administration rescinding its pause on such funding and a court order to do the same.
      A federal judge on Thursday said he stood ready to enforce an order he issued blocking Donald Trump’s administration from freezing federal grants, loans and other financial assistance after Democratic-led states said billions of dollars in funding was still being tied up, Reuters reports. US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, during a virtual court hearing, said state agencies had a “rightful concern” that they were still not able to fully access money nearly a week after he issued his temporary restraining order.He issued that 31 January order at the behest of Democratic attorneys generals from 22 states and the District of Columbia, determining it was necessary even after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget rescinded its wide-ranging directive that had announced the funding freeze. More

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      Trump Says He Supports an End to Daylight Savings Time

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump said on social media that the time change is “inconvenient” and that the Republican Party would try to put an end to it.President-elect Donald J. Trump called daylight saving time “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation” in a social media post on Friday and said the Republican Party would try to “eliminate” it, in the latest effort to end the twice-yearly time change.Most states change their time by one hour — in March, when clocks spring forward, and in November, when clocks fall back.Over the years, many elected officials, including Mr. Trump, have expressed support for ending the changes.“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!” Mr. Trump posted on social media in March 2019.He reiterated his support to end the time switches on Friday, posting on X, “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”On social media, there was support for Mr. Trump’s post.Many people called the time changes antiquated. Some noted that daylight saving time would most likely not be eliminated, as his post suggested, but rather would be made permanent, and the time changes would be eliminated.Ending the clock change would require the approval of Congress. There have been many bipartisan efforts to pass such a bill, but all have failed. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but it died in the House. An effort to pass a similar bill in 2023 also failed.The idea behind daylight saving time is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning to the evening, so that people can make more use of daylight.William Willet, an English builder, is credited with popularizing daylight saving time in the early 1900s, when he urged British lawmakers to shift the clocks to benefit the economy. Parliament rejected the proposal in 1909, but then embraced it a few years later under the pressures of World War I.Other countries followed suit in an effort to cut energy costs, including the United States starting in March 1918. But there is no consensus on whether daylight saving time actually does reduce energy use.Small-business owners say that when it stays light after work, people are more likely to go out and spend money. But many Americans consider the time switch a nuisance.Parents say it throws off bedtimes for their children. And no one likes losing an hour of sleep when clocks move forward in March.In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine called for an end to daylight saving time, saying that the change disrupts the body’s natural clock and can cause health issues. More