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      Fired USAid workers and HIV activists hold ‘die-in’ to protest Trump and Musk

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      Fired USAid employees and advocates for people with HIV staged a protest in a Capitol office building on Wednesday, warning that Donald Trump’s drive to dismantle the agency tasked with implementing Washington’s foreign aid agenda imperils the fight against the virus.Wearing white T-shirts that read “Aids funding cuts kill” and chanting “Congress has blood on its hands, unfreeze aid now”, around three dozen protesters lay down in the rotunda of the Cannon House office building, home to the offices of representatives from both parties. Capitol police said about 20 arrests were made of demonstrators who defied their orders to disperse.“What we are demanding of Congress is that they stop behaving like doormats in the face of this attack on humanitarian assistance that truly is highly effective and life-saving,” Asia Russell, executive director of Health Gap, a global advocacy group fighting against HIV, said prior to the protest.“It’s very hard to overstate what’s at stake regarding humanitarian assistance.”The protest came as USAid remained frozen by the Trump administration’s rapid moves to close the agency. Over the weekend, the agency announced that it was placing all but a small number of its employees worldwide, as well as nearly 2,000 staffers based in the United States, on paid leave. Those working in Washington DC have been invited to retrieve their belongings from its headquarters, which is set to be turned into office space for US Customs and Border Protection, one of the agencies implementing Trump’s hardline immigration policies.On Tuesday, a federal judge reportedly gave the government a two-day deadline to release billions of dollars in foreign aid funds that had been held back after Trump ordered USAid to stop work. If those funds are not restored, former USAid employees who attended the protest at the Capitol warned, the global fight against HIV will be set back.The United States has been a leader in the campaign against the virus that causes Aids through Pepfar, a program that provides medication to 20 million people worldwide and was established during Republican George W Bush’s presidency. But USAid’s abrupt closure has stopped payments to providers working with the program worldwide.“This is not controversial, and what is happening is not government efficiency, it’s government fraud, waste and abuse when it comes to what Doge is doing,” said the fired USAid contractor Van Credle, referring to Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, which spearheaded the dismantling of her agency as well as other deep cuts to federal services.The Republican majorities elected to both the Senate and House last November have thus far shown little interest in saving USAid and even supported its closure, despite the fact that foreign assistance has in the past enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle. Kelsey Crow, a contractor at the agency’s bureau of global health who lost her job, said the protest was meant to encourage lawmakers who previously supported USAid to step up.“So much of our work at USAid is mandated by Congress, and so for Congress to not be taking action, for Congress to be holding hearings that are pushing out lies and falsehoods about USAid to say that the waivers are back when we know that they’re actually not turned on and the money’s not actually flowing, it’s incredibly disappointing,” Crow said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPeter Kerndt, a physician who spent five years with USAid coordinating the fight against tuberculosis in African and Asian countries, said it will be “impossible” to achieve a global goal of eliminating the virus by 2030 if the agency goes away.“For this administration, for Elon Musk to call USAid a criminal organization that should die and to gleefully celebrate that he spent the weekend putting USAid in the wood chipper instead of going to a party is such an insult to all of the workers, both here and in the country,” he said. “But most of all, the people that suffer are the people that we were there to help.”Andrew Roth contributed reporting More

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      USAid workers to be ‘escorted’ back to collect belongings amid Trump shutdown bid

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      Workers at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have been invited back to its office “to retrieve their personal belongings” as the Trump administration continues its bid to shut down the foreign aid agency.An email seen by the Guardian described how staff in Washington would be allowed to briefly return on Thursday or Friday of this week. They would be “escorted to their workspace” and granted “approximately 15 minutes” to gather their items, it said.All of the nearly 10,000 employees at USAid, aside from personnel deemed essential, have been placed on administrative leave. The Trump administration has signaled it plans to cut 2,000 positions.The move comes after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, in a setback for unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle the agency.Staff who spoke to the Guardian sounded the alarm over the impact of these moves on global security, warning that closing USAid and withdrawing foreign aid is “only leaving war on the table”.The agency is “the canary in the coal mine” as Trump seeks to test the limits of his executive powers, said one USAid official, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation and harassment. “We see us as the most acute and boldest example of overreach, that checks and balances ought to restrain the powers of the president and the president should abide by the powers of Congress and the courts.“Can the president act like a king? We’re a glaring flare for all of those things.”The agency has been subjected to attacks and conspiracy theories about its work, with Elon Musk and his supporters making false claims about funding, including a baseless claim about the agency sending $50m to Gaza for condoms, and false claims about grants such as the suggestion by the so-called “department of government efficiency” that $21m had been sent to India to influence elections.Musk has called the agency “a criminal organization” and argued that it was “time for it to die”. Pushed on his false condoms claim earlier this month, he responded: “Some of the things I say will be incorrect.”Health clinics reliant on USAid grants in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Iraq and other countries around the world have been forced to shut down and international aid groups have already cut thousands of jobs due to the funding freeze.The Trump administration is fighting challenges in court to freeze all USAid funding, place nearly all employees on leave.“USAid was established by act of Congress. It needs to be un-established by act of Congress. They are ignoring that rule,” the USAid official said. “I would guess around 500 workers, no one has provided specifics, senior leaders, HR and IT people, are left behind to participate in the dismantling of the agency.”Contracts and grants are still being cut and terminated, with only a small fraction of the agency’s work abroad still continuing, they said. “We’re a lifesaving agency. They certainly have done damage that will take years to undo, but even though they’ve closed the building and banned us from it, we’re not done. We still exist,” they said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother USAid employee, who received a reduction-in-force notice, said: “They are not being above board. Nothing is following the law. The level of impunity that is occurring has our own domestic lawyers confused about what’s happening with the courts.”They criticized misinformation and allegations made against USAid, noting their funding is approved and constantly assessed by Congress, with no discretion for employees on how those funds are used. They argued the agency’s dismantling will result in a debt of diplomacy and hurt America’s standing around the world, and said other countries or bad actors will fill the void.“USAid will save you exponentially more money in bullets and blood. We are only leaving war on the table,” the worker said. “We don’t exist as an isolationist country. Our partners clearly don’t appreciate what is happening and are reconsidering how dependable we are, which has been to our benefit for 60 years. How does that make us safe, more secure, or more prosperous?”People “think this is about efficiency”, they added. “It’s a fundamental aspect of democratic governance for people to understand what is happening, and the current administration is taking great lengths to divorce the public from that and let people do whatever they want.”USAid deferred comment to the state department, who were contacted for comment. The White House was also contacted for comment. More

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      Judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups – live

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      A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.

      Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.

      The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.

      Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.

      Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.

      A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
      Although a US-based Associated Press reporter was barred from the joint news conference between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, a France-based AP reporter was allowed it.The French press corps decided the France-based AP reporter should be allowed to ask the first question.The administration blocked AP reporters from the White House press pool after the news agency said it would continue to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” in its articles, instead referring to the body of water as the “Gulf of America,” following Trump’s order to rename it.The AP has sued over its exclusion from the press conferences, but a judge denied the AP’s emergency motion to restore its access.A federal judge who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington said the court “sees no reason to change its legal conclusions” from its previous order. On 4 February, Lambeth issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to erode trans rights behind bars.My colleague Sam Levin reported earlier this month:
      Lambeth ruled that Trump’s order discriminates against transgender people and violates their constitutional rights.
      The Federal Bureau of Prisons must “maintain and continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20”, he wrote.
      The judge said the trans women had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” if they are denied healthcare and forced into men’s institutions.
      US officials “have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them”, the judge added. The family of one plaintiff said her life would be threatened if she were moved.
      The judge said there were only 16 trans women housed in women’s facilities, and the ruling applies to all of them.
      On 26 January, a federal judge in Boston issued a restraining order in a separate challenge to the same executive order. That order was limited to one transgender woman in a woman’s prison.
      The Washington Post reports that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) which functions as the the government’s HR department, has told federal agency leaders they can ignore Elon Musk’s threat to fire employees who do not send in the bullet-pointed list of accomplishments that he requested.The Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that OPM told agency chief human capital officers on a Monday call that they could ignore Musk’s threat. Per the Post:
      Another person briefed on the call said that OPM is also looking at weekly reporting for government departments, the person said. But the person said that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far, and had “no plans” to analyze them.
      As my colleagues at the Guardian reported earlier, Musk’s ultimatum to federal workers has been causing chaos.
      Musk’s ultimatum was sent out on Saturday in a mass email to federal employees from the office of personnel management (OPM), one of the first federal organs Musk and his team on the so-called “department of government efficiency” infiltrated after Trump was sworn in. The message gave all the US government’s more than 2 million workers barely 48 hours to itemize their accomplishments in the past week in five bullet points, and in a post on X, Musk indicated that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
      The order provoked instant chaos across the government, with Trump’s own appointed leadership in federal agencies responding in starkly different ways. Workers in the Social Security Administration and the health and human services department were told to comply with the email, and CNN reported that the Department of Transportation ordered all its employees to respond to the Musk email by its deadline. That included air traffic controllers who are currently struggling with severe understaffing and a spate of recent accidents.

      A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.

      Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.

      The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.

      Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.

      Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.

      A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
      House Republicans face a major test this week as the fractured and narrow caucus tries to unify around a plan to advance Donald Trump’s agenda for trillions in tax cuts and new spending on defense and border security, Reuters reports.With only a 218-215 majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just one vote on any measure that all Democrats vote against. He faces resistance from as many as a dozen Republicans over a budget resolution that would allow congressional committees to begin crafting full-scale legislation to enact the Trump agenda.The House budget Ccmmittee was due to take up the measure on Monday, with the possibility of a floor vote as early as Tuesday. But Johnson said timing would also depend on the outcome of Monday night meetings with wavering lawmakers.“We expect to get it done this week,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters in the Capitol. “There’s a couple of folks who just have lingering questions. But I think all those questions could be answered and we’ll be able to move forward,” he added. “We’re very optimistic. We’ll get this thing done.”The House resolution calls for $4.5tn in tax cuts – a concern to lawmakers worried about the nation’s growing $36tn in debt – and calls for $2tn in cuts to spending, which have worried some lawmakers that their constituents could lose out on key services.Republicans in both the House and Senate need to pass the measure to unlock a key part of their strategy: a parliamentary tool allowing them to circumvent the Senate filibuster and opposition from Democrats.But that is only one feat awaiting lawmakers over the coming weeks. Congress also needs to avert a partial government shutdown after 14 March, when funding runs out and then raise the nation’s debt ceiling or risk a catastrophic default at mid-year.Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leapt on to the back of John F Kennedy’s limousine after the then president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, died on Friday. He was 93.Although few may recognize his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder’s chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on 22 November 1963.Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy’s death, saying he didn’t react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save Kennedy.In an interview with David Smith in 2023, Hill recalled:
      From that point on, my life changed. Before that day, before I attempted to put my body up on top of the car to protect President Kennedy and Mrs Kennedy, I was just Clint Hill. But afterward, because of photographs and the Zapruder film, I was no longer just Clint Hill. I was that guy that got on to the back of the presidential vehicle and I went through life from that point on with that being said about me and of me.
      It has bothered me a great deal. I had a serious guilt complex about not being able to help him more than I did and that just grew and grew and grew from that point on.
      It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.You can read more on the remarkable story here:*scrambles to change the subject* Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron are now holding a joint news conference following bilateral talks at the White House. Trump said his meeting with Macron was an “important step forward” to achieving a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.I will post a summary here with the main lines once it’s over, but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong is posting live updates here:An AI-generated video of Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes briefly played on video screens at a US government office as staff returned to work on Monday.With a caption emblazoned over it reading “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING”, the fake footage, played on loop for several minutes throughout the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Washington headquarters, according to Marisa Kabas, an independent journalist who posted a video of the incident to social media citing an agency source.Washington Post journalist Jeff Stein also said on social media that the department’s televisions had been hijacked.Reuters was unable to establish the provenance of the video.“Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved,” department spokesperson Kasey Lovett said in an email.Just an observation; if you look closely at the fake footage, you can see it features two left feet. Was this deliberate, multi-layered messaging? I mean, equally, if you just want to keep scrolling and try to forget you ever saw this, that’s okay too.A group of Democratic and Republican US senators will offer a resolution backing Ukraine on Monday, amid fears that Donald Trump could make a deal with Moscow that leaves Kyiv on the sidelines three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.The resolution, seen by Reuters, expresses solidarity with the people of Ukraine, offers condolences for the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens and seeks a role for Kyiv in any ceasefire talks.The resolution was led by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations committee, and Republican Senator Thom Tillis. The two lawmakers visited Ukraine last week, along with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet.It has at least 12 backers, including such senior Republicans as Mitch McConnell, the party’s former Senate leader; Roger Wicker, chairman of the armed services committee, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee, as well as Democrats Dick Durbin, a member of the party’s leadership, and Bennet, a Democratic foreign relations committee aide said.The resolution says:
      The Senate emphasizes that Ukraine must be a participant in discussions with the Russian Federation about Ukraine’s future.
      The measure does not specifically back Nato membership, but reaffirms US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and “supports Ukraine’s efforts to integrate into Euro-Atlantic structures”.In an emailed statement, Shaheen said:
      As Vladimir Putin’s illegal and brutal full-scale invasion enters its fourth year, I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan resolution that clearly states our unwavering support for and solidarity with the Ukrainian people and condemns Russia’s aggression.
      In a loss for abortion opponents, the US supreme court on Monday declined to take up two cases involving “buffer zone” ordinances, which limit protests around abortion clinics and which anti-abortion activists have spent years trying to dismantle.The two cases dealt with buffer zone ordinances passed by the cities of Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey. In filings to the supreme court, which is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, anti-abortion activists argued that these ordinances ran afoul of the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech. They also asked the justices to overturn a 2000 ruling called Hill v Colorado, which upheld a buffer zone law in Colorado.The justices didn’t explain why they declined to hear arguments in the cases, but the far-right justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have preferred to take them up. In a dissent outlining his desire to take the Carbondale case, Thomas wrote that he believed Hill “lacks continuing force”, in part due to recent rulings such as Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the federal right to abortion.“I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill,” he wrote. “Following our repudiation in Dobbs, I do not see what is left of Hill. Yet, lower courts continue to feel bound by it. The court today declines an invitation to set the record straight on Hill’s defunct status.”Here is more detail on our earlier post on Donald Trump’s remarks in defence of Elon Musk’s chaos-inducing demand that federal workers document what they do, from the AP.Trump voiced support for Musk’s demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce.“What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.”The president claimed that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud” as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims.“If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person, or they aren’t working,” Trump said. More

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      Trump administration eliminating 2,000 USAid positions in US, notice says

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      The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAid direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” the notice said.“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is “beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force” affecting about 2,000 USAid personnel in the US.The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US“soft power” for winning influence abroad.On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was appointed acting USAid administrator by Donald Trump earlier this month. The unsigned notice came from “the office of the administrator”.Two former senior USAid officials told Reuters that a majority of some 4,600 agency personnel, career US Civil Service and Foreign Service staffers, would be placed on administrative leave.“This administration and Secretary Rubio are shortsighted in cutting into the expertise and unique crisis response capacity of the US”, said Marcia Wong, one of the former officials. “When disease outbreaks occur, populations displaced, these USAid experts are on the ground and first deployed to help stabilize and provide aid?” In a post on Musk’s social-media platform, Wong was even more blunt, calling the job cuts “a shortsighted, high risk and frankly stupid act”.“Unsigned notices like this are not self-implementing. They must be followed up by an individual personnel action or at least an approved leave slip, properly executed by someone with that authority”, a second former official, who asked not to be further identified, told Reuters.The US president ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe.Trump, his press secretary and Musk have all tried to justify the cuts by pointing to wildly mischaracterized or wholly invented spending on overseas aid projects.The administration has approved exceptions to the freeze totaling $5.3 billion, mostly for security and counter-narcotics programs, according to a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters that included limited humanitarian relief.USAid programs received less than $100 million in exemptions, according to the list. That compares to roughly $40bn in USAid programs administered annually before the freeze.Trump’s ally, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, joined the campaign to smear USAid, posting video on Musk’s social media platform of a speech in which he attacked the agency in conspiratorial terms for supporting “pseudo-civil organizations” to promote democracy and human rights.“USAID was the heart of a robust financial and power machine. A monster created to crush, crumble and erode the freedom and independence of nations so that the liberal-globalist empire could thrive,” Orban wrote. Trump, he added, “drove a stake through the heart of the empire”. More

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      The courts are a crucial bastion against Trump. What if he ignores their orders?

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      Years before he became the US vice-president and openly advocated defiance of the courts over the Trump administration’s blitz through the federal bureaucracy and constitution, JD Vance revealed his contempt for legal constraints.In 2021, Vance predicted that Donald Trump would again be elected president and advised him to “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people”.“Then when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it,’” he told the Jack Murphy Live podcast.Whether the seventh American president actually said that remains disputed, but the sentiment is alive and well as the Trump administration defies federal court orders to at least pause its subversion of the constitution and destructive rampage through the federal bureaucracy led by Elon Musk.In the absence of action by Congress to defend its powers, it has been government workers, state attorneys general and unions who have counterattacked, with a flurry of lawsuits – challenging presidential orders to limit the constitutional right of anyone born in the US to be a citizen, a federal funding freeze, and the dismissal of corruption watchdogs, among other measures. Nearly 50 legal challenges have been filed in the last three weeks, an unprecedented pushback in the courts against a new administration.The lawsuits have resulted in a string of court rulings. They have put a hold on some of Trump’s executive orders freezing some spending. They have also restricted Musk, head of the so-called “department of government efficiency”, from sending his staff to rifle through the financial records of federal agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and the education department as a means to restrict their work or even close them down.But it quickly became apparent that the administration was defying some of the court orders, while its supporters attacked what they called “rogue judges” for ruling against Trump – and Vance portrayed the courts as just another bureaucratic obstacle to the president implementing the people’s will.That has prompted warnings from legal scholars, including Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley law school, of a constitutional crisis in the making.“It’s very frightening to think that they will disobey court orders. If they don’t, it will be a constitutional crisis unlike anything this country has seen, because if the president can violate constitutional laws and disobey court orders then the name for that is a dictatorship,” he said.“This isn’t the realm of normal. What we’ve seen in the first three weeks is unprecedented in American history.”The judge John McConnell has accused the Trump administration of deliberately disobeying an order obliging the government to reinstate billions of dollars in grants. Another judge, Loren AliKhan, accused the administration of defying its legal obligations after she ordered the office for budget and management (OMB) to halt a spending freeze.Vance pushed back against the rulings on X.“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” he wrote.“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”Musk called for one of the judges involved to be impeached.Trump won a victory on Thursday when a judge ruled in favour of Musk’s offer to almost all of the 2 million-strong federal workforce of eight months of pay for not working if they resign now. The email’s subject line, “Fork in the Road”, was the same as one he used in a message to employees when he bought Twitter in 2022 and got rid of about 80% of its staff. Shortly after the deadline set by the email for voluntary redundancy, which was accepted by about 65,000 federal workers, unions said involuntary dismissals had begun.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, praised the rare court victory.“This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” she said.But mostly the courts have so far ruled against the Trump administration as it pursues a power grab.The American Bar Association, which represents hundreds of thousands of lawyers in the US, has condemned what it called the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself”.“We have seen attempts at wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law,” it said.The ABA also condemned “efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit” and social media posts intended “to inflame”.“This is chaotic. It may appeal to a few. But it is wrong. And most Americans recognize it is wrong. It is also contrary to the rule of law,” it said.It’s likely that at least some of the flood of lawsuits will end up before the supreme court. The administration may in fact want to see some cases reach the highest court, which has a solid conservative majority after Trump appointed three of its nine justices during his first term, as it seeks to consolidate even more power in the presidency over issues such as who has final control over spending allocated by Congress.But the process of moving through district and appeals courts before making it to the supreme court is unlikely to be swift, by which time Musk may already have achieved much of what he aims to do in wrecking the work of USAid, the education department and other federal agencies.Then there is the unpredictability of a supreme court that has already overturned precedent in striking down the right to abortion.Chemerinsky believes the Trump administration is all but certain to lose cases on birthright citizenship, the freeze on spending and the dismissals of commissioners that oversee labour rights, consumer protection and equal employment opportunities, because they are in breach of federal law. He said the court was also likely to order the administration to back down from attempts to eliminate individual agencies created by Congress.But what if the administration follows Vance’s call to openly defy the courts? Chemerinsky said that would set up “a constitutional confrontation unlike any we’ve seen”.“The courts have limited ability to enforce their orders. They could hold individuals other than the president in contempt of court. They could figure out who’s responsible for carrying out the court order and hold that person in contempt with fines or jail for civil contempt. But the idea of the courts holding a cabinet secretary, an attorney general, a secretary of defence in contempt is just unheard of in the United States,” he said.“It’s so hard to imagine where we’ll be in four years. When you think about what’s going on in just three weeks, it’s certain Donald Trump is claiming expansive executive power beyond what any president has ever asserted. How much will the courts allow that? There’s no way to know.” More

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      The Guardian view on supporting vaccines: humans can work miracles – so why wouldn’t we? | Editorial

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      It is easy to become so used to scientific and social advances that we take them for granted. But sometimes we should pause to celebrate – to feel genuine awe – at the wonders that we have seen. Amid all the wars, the disasters and the crimes of the last half century, we have witnessed nothing short of a miracle.Vaccination, in addition to clean water, sanitation and improved nutrition, has been one of the greatest contributors to global health. It is responsible for much of the astounding fall in child mortality, which plummeted by 59% between 1990 and 2022. It has saved more than 150 million lives, mostly of infants, since the Expanded Programme on Immunisation was launched by the World Health Organization in 1974. Initially designed to protect children against diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, polio and measles, the scheme has since been extended to cover more pathogens. Then, in 2000, came the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), a public-private organisation that provides financial and technical support for vaccination in poorer countries and negotiates with manufacturers to lower costs.The results have been remarkable. Prevention is better – and cheaper and easier – than cure. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. Almost all the world is now polio-free. Cases of many other diseases have been slashed. Much more can be done: an estimated 5 million children have been protected against malaria since routine vaccinations were launched a year ago. And from a scientific perspective, we are entering a golden age of vaccines.Yet this is a dangerous moment in other ways. The climate crisis is spurring disease outbreaks. Conflict has dramatically increased the number of unprotected children. Vaccine scepticism has grown. Now cuts to funding threaten to turn the clock back. The trashing of USAid will hinder delivery and has halted a groundbreaking programme to create new malaria vaccines. Robert F Kennedy Jr – who once claimed that “no vaccine is safe and effective” and who tried to persuade the US government to rescind authorisation for the coronavirus vaccine at the height of the pandemic – was confirmed this week as health secretary.Now the UK, one of Gavi’s founding donors and the country which has given most to its core programme, is considering a significant cut to its support. This would be a grave error. While some aspects of Gavi’s approach have faced sensible scrutiny in the past, it has vaccinated over 1 billion children and done so cost-effectively: 97 pence in every pound it is given goes on vaccine programmes. Its success is also evident in the number of countries which have graduated from being beneficiaries to paying their own way; some, including Indonesia, are becoming donors in turn. And Gavi’s stockpiles help to keep people safe in wealthier countries too, as well as ensuring that poorer nations are healthier and more stable.For all these reasons, Gavi has long enjoyed bipartisan support in the UK, which has given it more than £2bn over the last four years. Now, more than ever, its funding must be sustained. The world is full of apparently intractable conflicts and complex moral dilemmas. Few decisions are truly simple for governments. But this one is a no-brainer. It should astonish us that we can so easily save lives. It should be self-evident that we must continue to seize that opportunity. More

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      Trump and Musk’s attack on USAid is causing global chaos. Millions of lives are now at risk | Devi Sridhar

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      Amid the daily troubling news coming from the United States are the ongoing and increasingly damaging efforts by President Donald Trump, supported by secretary of state Marco Rubio and Elon Musk, to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAid). Musk has called it a “criminal organization” and said that it was “time for it to die”. The agency website is down, so little official information is available. But in the week since funding to the agency was frozen, and the majority of staff placed on leave, thousands of public health and development programmes worldwide have been thrown into turmoil, and now face an uncertain future.USAid is the main federal agency that works to provide foreign aid assistance to the poorest countries and people in the world. On Friday, a US judge prevented around 2,000 USAid employees from being placed on leave, and ordered the reinstatement of about 500 more. But Trump and Musk appear to want to move forward with a plan that would see its global workforce reduced from about 10,000 staff and contractors, to just over 600.It’s hard to overstate how disruptive this has already been to humanitarian work worldwide: most programmes have just been shut overnight with staff laid off, drugs and food left in warehouses, and patients and others not able to access services. The people affected live in some of the most vulnerable countries like Ukraine, Jordan, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan.Although we don’t know the full extent of the damage, specific reports suggest that vital services have been thrown into chaos. Some walk-in sexual health and HIV services in South Africa shuttered overnight without notice, Ethiopia’s health ministry has reportedly laid off 5,000 healthcare professionals who were hired with US funding, and nearly half a billion dollars worth of food aid overseen by the agency and currently in ports, transit or storage is destined to spoil.USAid’s overall contribution is immense. It is the largest humanitarian operator globally – in 2023, the US provided 42% of all humanitarian assistance or about $68bn (£55bn), of which USAid spending made up about $40bn. And yet at the same time, both foreign aid and USAid specifically make up a tiny fraction of federal government spending: less than 1%. Cutting back makes little difference to overall US government spending, but is massively destructive to programmes reliant on this funding to deliver their on-the-ground work.What does that less than 1% of federal spending buy the US public? This argument has been re-hashed in presidency after presidency, and the answers are clear.Foreign aid can reduce instability, conflict and extreme poverty, which are major causes of mass displacement. Supporting programmes that keep more places safe and stable means fewer people needing to flee persecution, dire poverty or violence. With all the concerns over illegal immigration, reducing aid could make this challenge even harder to manage. Foreign aid can support countries to grow economically and create new markets and opportunities. Think of places like India, which have managed to create a vibrant and growing middle class.In the world of global health, foreign aid is vital to support countries in managing health challenges, including outbreaks of infectious diseases. Just think back to the west Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014. Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone struggled to contain Ebola spreading and were reliant on international partners to assist them. It was in the interest of all countries to help them given that the global spread of Ebola was imminent. In addition, the US builds vital soft power and influence in countries in which it provides help. Russia and China have learned this lesson – and will probably step into the aid vacuum left by the US.And beyond any of those “enlightened self-interest” arguments above is the simple fact that foreign aid helps other human beings who are struggling, including some of the poorest and most vulnerable in the world. It’s good to do because it’s simply good to do. Cutting programmes overnight means that women who might have lived are more likely to die in childbirth; those with HIV face not having access to clinics for lifesaving antiretroviral treatment; and hungry children no longer get nutritional supplements and food.Foreign aid shouldn’t be a partisan issue. The largest global health programme for a single disease, Pepfar, was launched by a Republican president, George W Bush, and is estimated to have prevented 25 million Aids deaths since its creation. I think back to a poll of Americans in 2016 by the Kaiser Family Foundation, where more than 60% of respondents said that the US was spending either the right amount or too little on global health, and only about 30% thought it was spending too much. It’s not clear that the US public actually supports these drastic cuts and freezes.Perhaps many now think that the US needs to worry more about its own domestic financial troubles than sending money overseas. A recent study found that the US economy is performing better than any of its peer countries, but performs worse on other metrics like health, happiness and social trust. “Wealthy but unhappy” is what the study’s authors found. Maybe the lesson here is that Americans need to reject Trump’s discourse and embrace being part of a global community and engaging with the world through agencies like USAid. That could lead to an America that is still wealthy, but just a bit more healthy and happy.

      Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh More

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      USAid cuts sow feeling of betrayal among Yazidis, 10 years after IS genocide

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      During the first Trump administration, Mike Pence, the vice-president, pledged hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly through USAid and the state department, to help Christians and other religious minorities who were persecuted by Islamic State and – in the case of the Yazidis – suffered a genocide.But under the second Trump administration, the same figures who championed the rights of religious minorities have fallen silent or actively participated in the destruction of USAid, cutting crucial aid to support the same communities they once helped – who now feel abandoned by the US.That has had an immediate effect on the ground, according to activists and current and former USAid employees, who said the cutoff in aid has paused work among still traumatised communities and sown a feeling of betrayal 10 years after the genocide.View image in fullscreenIn Sinjar, the Iraqi town where thousands were massacred by IS, the freeze has halted operations to provide water and electricity, primary healthcare centres, the construction of schools, community centres and other basic infrastructure at a time when thousands of Yazidis are returning home after more than a decade in Syrian refugee camps. In one case, electricity transformers already delivered had to be put into storage because of the stop-work order, leaving a community without reliable electricity.“It was a shock that USAid was frozen for helping those communities that the US had helped to survive. [Before], US help was omnipresent,” said Mirza Dinnayi, a prominent Yazidi human rights activists who runs the House of Co-Existence (HOC) multicultural community center in Sinjar.He said that USAid, which provided the vast majority of humanitarian funding to the area, had been was a “pillar of stabilisation and normalisation”.“They had a crucial role in his first administration for recognising the Yazidi genocide and supporting US aid to help Iraq,” said Dinnayi. “Minority rights and religious freedoms were supported in the first administration. I’m wondering why the second administration is not aware about that.”View image in fullscreenCharities supporting Christian minorities, such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), have also been directly affected by the work stoppage, including their programs in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains area and among Christian communities, according to people familiar with their work in the area. CRS, a top recipient of funds from USAid, is facing up to 50% layoffs this year and has begun shutting down programs that account for half of the organization’s $1.5bn budget, according to an email obtained by the National Catholic Reporter.“I see a lot of harm in the abrupt way that this assistance has stopped,” said a former USAid employee in Iraq.Meanwhile in Washington, a coterie of conservatives – many with former ties to Pence and USAid – have now allied with Elon Musk’s effort to take down the agency.One of them is Max Primorac, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, who authored Project 2025’s chapter on USAid recommending a blueprint to downsize the agency. He is set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee on Thursday at a hearing titled the “USAid betrayal”.Primorac did not respond to a request for an interview sent through the Heritage Foundation.View image in fullscreenPrimorac is one of a number of prominent conservatives who supported Pence’s initiative to support religious minorities but have now gone on record backing the aid freeze. Others include Pence himself, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and Pete Marocco, the Trump ally and USAid skeptic who nonetheless protected funding to religious initiatives under Pence. Marocco even reportedly led operations with his Patriot Group International to exfiltrate Yazidis in 2016.From late 2018 to early 2019, Primorac traveled to Erbil and northern Iraq as Pence’s special envoy, “overseeing a multi-agency genocide recovery effort to assist religious minority returns”, according to his current biography on the Heritage Foundation’s website.Colleagues said he arrived with a dim view of USAid but that he came to support at least some of the efforts the agency was making in the field.“He had a couple of visits to areas where we worked and I think that changed him a bit in a positive way,” said a USAid employee.Now, the person said, “for someone who really believed in his mission supporting religious minorities, he does not seem to be paying attention or advocating for a way forward.”Primorac later boasted that he had led a “$400m counter-genocide program… to spur the return of Iraqi Christians to their ancient homeland” and excoriated the Biden administration for turning its back on Iraq’s “traumatised” Christians.“Under the Trump administration, I led a counter-genocide program in Iraq to help Christian and Yazidi victims recover from IS’s campaign of extermination,” he wrote in another article for Newsweek. “We provided these traumatized religious minorities with humanitarian aid, [and] psycho-social help.”Now he has become one of the leading voices calling for the agency’s dissolution, authoring a recent Fox News editorial “how USAid went woke and destroyed itself”. An advance copy of his testimony to the House set for Thursday did not reference his work in Iraq.Former colleagues say they share some of Primorac’s criticisms of USAid but were perplexed by his full-scale repudiation of their work, the programs he previously cooperated with.View image in fullscreen“If we are going to achieve meaningful reform in the foreign assistance system, we need honest dialogue, and it’s important for me to acknowledge that I share some of his critiques about USAid,” said a person who leads a major USAid funded project in Iraq.“I only wish that [Primorac] would approach the conversation in a similar way, acknowledging all of the great work that USAid has achieved – especially in Iraq.”The change reflects how top Republicans are hedging their views under the Trump administration and a campaign led by Musk to eviscerate the agency, which he has called “criminal” and “corrupt”.Current and former USAid members in the field said that they have heard nothing from their former supporters in the US, and have effectively been cut out of systems that would give crucial information on budgets and projects meant to support communities.“It’s quite puzzling, to be honest,” said one former USAid employee in Iraq.Meanwhile, the onslaught in Washington has continued. At the International Religious Freedom Summit last week, vice-president JD Vance denounced USAid for promoting “atheism” while boasting of “bringing relief to Yazidis, Christians and other faith communities facing genocidal terror from Isis” in the past.“It was perplexing to hear the vice president champion these initiatives while, at the same time, funds for efforts like these are literally being turned off,” wrote Adam Nicholas Phillips, the lead administration official at USAid working on faith-based partnerships during the Biden administration.“Maybe the attacks on USAid are just misinformed and will be righted. Maybe there is a bold plan to invest in foreign assistance. I take administration officials at their word and I’m praying these decisions are reversed with haste.” More