Latest on Trump’s presidency as federal judge temporarily blocks putting USAID workers on leave – CNN

• USAID ruling: A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt its plans to put at least 2,200 employees at the US Agency for International Development on administrative leave tonight.

• Tasks for Musk: President Donald Trump said he’s directed Elon Musk to review “just about everything” in the US federal government, including the Pentagon and education spending. At a news conference with Japan’s prime minister, Trump also said he would continue to have relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his second term.

• Revoking clearance: In a social media post, Trump said he was removing former President Joe Biden’s access to classified information by revoking his security clearance and stopping his daily intelligence briefings.

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has moved here.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt its plans to put at least 2,200 of employees at the US Agency for International Development on administrative leave Friday night and required the agency to temporarily reinstate 500 other workers who had been suspended.

In a temporary restraining order issued late Friday, US District Judge Carl Nichols said the Trump administration may not place any USAID employees on administrative leave and said that the hundreds of others who have already been placed on leave must be reinstated through at least February 14 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

The order came just before the embattled agency was set to put thousands of employees on indefinite leave or fire them. CNN reported ahead of the judge’s ruling that USAID had planned to keep fewer than 300 people on as essential personnel as of 11:59 p.m. ET Friday.

The order from Nichols, an appointee of President Donald Trump, also said that no USAID workers “shall be evacuated from their host countries before February 14, 2025 at 11:59 PM” and it required the government to give the employees “complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date.”

The judge set a hearing on a request for a broader block on the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle the agency for February 12.

The seven-page order emphasized the “irreparable harm” that the USAID employees would face if they were put on leave under the original notice, particularly given the environments some of them work in around the globe.

“Many USAID personnel work in ‘high-risk environments where access to security resources is critical,’” Nichols wrote. “No future lawsuit could undo the physical harm that might result if USAID employees are not informed of imminent security threats occurring in the countries to which they have relocated in the course of their service to the United States.”

The emergency order came in a lawsuit brought on Thursday by a pair of labor groups representing USAID employees.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Alex Marquardt and Lauren Kent contributed reporting to this post, which has been updated with details from the judge’s written order.

The Washington Post, CNN, The Hill and The War Zone will lose workspace at the Pentagon this year under an expanded “media rotation program” instituted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s press office.

The rotation makes room for a number of right-wing and explicitly pro-Trump media outlets that have not had workspace at the Pentagon before.

The Friday night announcement was criticized by some journalists as a way to score political points and penalize tough-minded news outlets.

The changes only affect workspaces, not credentials, so journalists from the affected outlets will not lose access to military officials and press briefings.

Effective later this month, One America News Network will replace NBC News for the remainder of the year; Breitbart will replace National Public Radio; The New York Post will replace The New York Times; and HuffPost will replace Politico.

HuffPost has a progressive bent, but the other three beneficiaries are all Trump-boosting brands that are notably smaller than the outlets they are replacing.

Read more about reaction to the Pentagon’s “media rotation program.”

President Donald Trump demanded a “balanced budget” from Republican senators at a dinner Friday, one day after meeting with House Republicans to discuss a spending resolution as the clock continues to tick on a spending deadline next month.

Lawmakers have until March 14 to pass a plan to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Friday’s dinner came as Senate Republicans are charging ahead on their own plan, unveiling a blueprint earlier in the day even as House Republicans are spending the weekend nailing down the final details of their own budget agreement.

Addressing the Senate Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago club, the president reflected on his hourslong Thursday meeting with their House counterparts — calling it a “great meeting” with members “from all sides.”

“I said, ‘You know, why don’t we just balance the budget? Why don’t we cut certain things and balance the budget? Don’t touch Social Security, don’t touch Medicare, Medicaid. Just leave them alone,’” Trump said.

Trump expressed confidence in his Cabinet picks while candidly reflecting on his relationships in the Senate — including some that have proven frustrating to the president at times. He appeared to issue a subtle warning, emphasizing the importance of getting his candidates confirmed.

“The relationships have been good. And we don’t always agree on everything, but we get there. We get there. We had a couple of people that had to get a little bit — they had to study a little bit further to get some of our nominees. I think you’re going to find our nominees are very good. I think it’s very important,” Trump said.

The dinner, which is taking place during the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s annual winter meeting in the Palm Beach area, came at Trump’s invitation, according to a source familiar with the agenda.

US District Judge John Bates ruled Friday he will not limit Department of Government Efficiency representatives from accessing Labor Department data for now, rejecting an emergency request by labor unions and a think tank to put restrictions on DOGE’s access.

Bates said he had “concerns” about how DOGE was allegedly operating, but that the challengers had not shown the type of imminent harm known as standing that would make it appropriate for a court to intervene at this juncture.

Before the ruling, and a hearing Bates held on the matter Friday afternoon, a DOGE representative who has been detailed to the Department of Labor submitted a declaration asserting that he and the other DOGE associates at the department were following the relevant rules for handling the department’s data.

Court filings by the labor unions alleged that an unidentified Department of Labor employee had been told by their superiors that they were to do whatever the DOGE representatives asked, regardless of the security protocols. The challengers had asked for a temporary restraining order that would have placed limits on DOGE associates’ access to the data and would have blocked the Labor Department from taking adverse actions against any employee who denied DOGE representatives unlawful access to the data.

During Friday’s hearing, Bates expressed skepticism that the challengers had given him enough reason to issue a temporary restraining order.

“We don’t really know what records are being examined and how widely any information from these records is being disseminated,” Bates said. Still, he did not seem fully persuaded by the government’s assurances that the department’s data — which includes sensitive medical and employment records of Americans — was being adequately protected.

“You’re asking me, in this instance, to have a great deal of confidence … in a couple of people, who, according to public reports, are very young,” Bates said, and who “have never been in federal government.”

Lawyers for the challengers indicated at the hearing that they intend to expand their lawsuit to also challenge DOGE’s efforts to access data at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Multiple US Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers told CNN they were breathing a sigh of relief Friday night after a federal judge in Washington issued an order temporarily blocking more than 2,000 USAID officials from being placed on administrative leave.

The USAID employees spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing further retribution.

“Major happiness for the moment,” said one official, recognizing the temporary nature of the judge’s order.

“If it sticks, it’s a welcome reprieve,” said another employee who had been locked out of USAID’s systems. “It’s been a tumultuous week of seeing slander, vitriol, and lies lobbied at my colleagues and the work we are so dedicated about.”“It tops off a week of constantly living on the edge of what this all means for my job, humanitarian response community and industry we all care so deeply for,” the person added.

The acting leadership of USAID announced earlier this week that all direct hires would be placed on leave at 11:59 P.M. Friday, with some essential personnel exempt.

Sources told CNN that only around 300 of USAID’s 10,000-strong workforce would be kept on. The Trump administration later claimed the number is just over 600 after a second wave of notices went out informing some of their essential status.

“The fight is just beginning,” a third USAID official told CNN. “We just stopped the blitz.”

President Donald Trump’s administration announced it had dismissed Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan in a surprise move Friday evening.

“At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight,” White House Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gor wrote in a post on X. “We thank Colleen Shogan for her service.”

While Shogan had been told that Trump wanted to replace her, she did not expect her removal would happen as soon as today and was shocked when she was notified, a source familiar with the situation said.

Shogan, who was nominated to the position by President Joe Biden in 2022, was the first woman to hold the post as head and chief administrator of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and previously served as senior vice president and director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association.

Shogan had served as the archivist since 2023 and was not at the National Archives when FBI agents searched Trump’s home in 2022 looking for classified documents.

CNN has reached out to NARA for comment.

Some background: The role of the National Archives took on new prominence in recent years, coming under scrutiny from Republicans in the wake of the 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents.

At the time, the Archives asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records.

Trump has been critical of the National Archives, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview last month the previous archivist in place during the Mar-a-Lago raid, David Ferriero, “was a disaster,” before hinting he planned to replace Shogan.

“I think I can tell you that we will get somebody,” he told Hewitt. “Let me just put it – yeah, we will have a new archivist.”

Ellen Weintraub, who was sent a letter from President Donald Trump firing her as the chair of the Federal Election Commission, said Friday that her email and access to her office have been revoked.

Weintraub told CNN’s Erica Hill on “Erin Burnett Outfront” that she hasn’t had any further communication from the White House since getting the letter Thursday which removed her as a commissioner of the agency.

The former FEC chair, a Democrat, has maintained that her firing “just isn’t the way this works,” adding that the agency is bipartisan and a president cannot oust a chair.

“We’re not subject to the whims of the president in the same way that some other agencies are expecting to have a new head of agency appointed with a new administration,” Weintraub said. She explained that the agency is supposed to have six commissions — three from each party — with a chair elected every year, switching “back and forth from Democrat to Republican on an annual basis.” In December, Weintraub was elected chair for 2025.

Commissioners are meant to serve for a single 6-year term, but can effectively remain in their roles absent replacements.

“It may have aggravated the president that I was still there, that I hadn’t left,” Weintraub said when asked if tenure of about 22 years worked against her.

“But I made a commitment to the American people to stay in this job until I got replaced. And I regret that I was not able to fulfill that commitment,” she aded.

When asked if she plans to file a lawsuit for her job, Weintraub did not rule out taking legal action.

The White House told CNN in a statement, “Our message to Ellen Weintraub is simple. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Weintraub has long been a critic of Trump, calling out the president during his first term for his 2020 election lies while defending the results.

President Donald Trump used his executive power Friday night for a series of actions, including more executive orders and switching up the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees.

Here are some of the measures he took:

Revoked access: The president said he was removing former President Joe Biden’s access to classified information by revoking his security clearance and stopping his daily intelligence briefings. The practical effect of Trump’s claim to revoke Biden’s security clearance is an open question. Former presidents typically do not have security clearances. As president, they have access to all classified information. Upon leaving office, they do not.

Kennedy Center: Trump announced an aggressive plan to gut the existing board of trustees at the Kennedy Center and oust its chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein, a remarkable move aimed at remaking the nation’s cultural center. Trump said he would be appointing himself as chairman of the board.

And he took these executive actions:

The Federal Communication Commission has opened an investigation into San Francisco-based KCBS Radio over the station’s coverage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s actions, the FCC’s commissioner said.

Commissioner Anna Gomez confirmed the investigation in a statement to CNN after it was revealed by new FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee.

During a KCBS broadcast on January 26, host Bret Burkhart reported that the ICE agents were in unmarked vehicles and provided details about the specific makes and models of cars the agents were using, a recording of which was published by multiple conservative media outlets. Burkhart said during the broadcast that the information was given to him by San Jose’s mayor, a council member, and a rapid action network in the area that helps immigrants.

The investigation was disclosed by Carr during an interview with FOX News on Thursday. Carr called the broadcast “concerning” and said ICE agents were “doing undercover operation in East San Jose,” which is “a part of town known for gang activity.”

Carr said the FCC’s enforcement directorate has sent a letter of inquiry to the station as part of the investigation to determine if it violated its FCC license, which requires it to operate in the public interest. Carr added the station has a few days left to respond.

Gomez, who was appointed to the five-member commission by President Joe Biden, raised concerns about Carr publicly disclosing details of an investigation.

“We cannot allow our licensing authority to be weaponized to curtail freedom of the press,” Gomez told CNN in a statement. “In rare instances, the FCC may disclose that it has started an investigation. But it is not common practice to prosecute investigations in the public.”

Reaction: The Freedom of the Press Foundation slammed the FCC’s move, saying that government regulators “don’t get to decide what news the public is interested in hearing about,” and that there is “no law against identifying ICE agents.”

CNN has reached out to Carr’s office and KCBS for comment.

The Elon Musk-backed Department of Government Efficiency’s access to the Treasury Department’s sensitive payment system poses an “unprecedented insider threat risk” to Treasury information, according to an internal Treasury threat assessment.

“If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems,” the threat assessment says, according to a copy reviewed by CNN.

The assessment was prepared by a contractor for Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service and released to the bureau’s IT staff on Thursday.

A federal court on Wednesday allowed two Treasury Department employees affiliated with DOGE to keep “read-only” access to the payment system, which generally means they are not allowed to make changes.

But even read-only could be problematic, according to the threat assessment.

“Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read-only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of Fiscal Service has ever faced,” the assessment says.

Wired first reported on the internal Treasury assessment.

The assessment is made by risk-averse threat analysts and is not an official Treasury Department stance on DOGE access, sources familiar with the assessment said. But it’s the latest example of people within government raising significant concerns about DOGE’s rapid-fire access to government systems.

CNN is reaching out to Treasury for comment.

One employee at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was fired from an internship with a data security firm after leaking proprietary information, according to a company spokesperson.

Edward Coristine, 19, interned with Path Network in 2022, but his “brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure,” the spokesperson said. Bloomberg was first to report the firing.

CNN’s attempts to reach Coristine and his parents for comment by phone were unsuccessful.

DOGE’s effort: For the past couple of weeks, DOGE staffers have appeared without warning throughout the nation’s bureaucracy, seeking access to sensitive files, databases and computer systems. Their movements inside offices from Washington, DC, to Kansas City have been detailed by a frightened federal workforce and chronicled by media outlets seeking answers about their specific activities and intentions.

Some of the most pointed concerns were summed up in a letter this week from Democratic senators to the White House: “No information has been provided to Congress or the public as to who has been formally hired under DOGE, under what authority or regulations DOGE is operating, or how DOGE is vetting and monitoring its staff and representatives before providing them seemingly unfettered access to classified materials and Americans’ personal information.”

Although the slate of software engineers in their early 20s working under DOGE appear to lack government experience, their resumes detail impressive accomplishments in the tech field.

President Donald Trump announced an aggressive plan Friday evening to gut the existing board of trustees at the Kennedy Center and oust its chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein, a remarkable move aimed at remaking the nation’s cultural center.

Trump said he would be appointing himself as chairman of the board.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post announcing the moves on Truth Social Friday evening, adding that Rubenstein and the board did not share “our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”

Presidents appoint members to the board on a rolling basis. It was not immediately clear who would be impacted by the news.

Trump has sought to reshape the use of executive authority since taking office last month, and this effort amounts to a striking and personal example of retribution aimed at political enemies. Rubenstein, the board’s current chairman, is an ally of former President Joe Biden.

Trump’s move also dove directly into the culture wars as he called out the center’s programming, including past drag shows, in his post Friday.

CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center, as well as several members who were appointed by Democratic presidents for comment. One member of the board who was appointed by a Democratic president said they had not yet received any communication from the center about their status on the board.

CNN has also reached out to a spokesperson for Shonda Rhimes, who serves as the board’s treasurer.

Current members appointed by Trump include Lee Greenwood, Paolo Zampolli, and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center’s president, stepped down last week. The board had started a search for her replacement and retained a headhunter. Choosing her successor, it appears, will fall to the president.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

A recently surfaced memo instructing New York City employees on how to respond if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or other non-local law enforcement show up on city property has drawn the ire of advocates and lawmakers who say the guidelines create confusion and cede authority to federal agencies in violation of the city’s sanctuary city laws.

The memo, first reported by the digital publication Hell Gate, was distributed among the city’s public agencies last month. It advises city employees to request the officers’ name, badge number and business card; ask officers if they have a warrant and call a city lawyer for assistance. CNN has not independently obtained the memo but city officials have confirmed its contents.

While that guidance is not entirely different from what employees have been recently told to do as the Trump administration ramps its immigration enforcement, another instruction within the memo has caused added concern for advocates who say the directive will create confusion and further discourage immigrant communities from seeking services.

The memo specifically instructs workers to comply with an officers’ request or allow them to enter the site if at any time the employee feels “threatened” or if there is a “fear for your safety of the safety of others around you.”

The guidance also warns city employees against impeding the work of federal law enforcement, discourages employees from arguing with any law enforcement officer and makes it clear that harboring an undocumented person is a federal crime.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams called the memo’s directive a “betrayal” of New Yorkers in a Friday statement. Adams also urged New York City Mayor Eric Adams to rescind the guidance and suggested he is focused on catering to the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump on Friday said he was removing former President Joe Biden’s access to classified information by revoking his security clearance and stopping his daily intelligence briefings.

In a Truth Social post, Trump argued that Biden set a precedent in 2021 by instructing the Intelligence Community to limit his (Trump’s) access to national security details after leaving office, which Trump said he views as an unfair action.

The president also cited the Hur Report, which, although it did not charge Biden with a crime, painted a picture of a forgetful commander in chief who failed to properly protect highly sensitive classified information, as CNN reported.

Trump concluded by stating that he would prioritize protecting national security and sarcastically declared, “Joe, you’re fired,” ending with his signature slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Some background: Then-President Biden barred his predecessor from receiving intelligence briefings traditionally given to former presidents, citing concerns over Trump’s “erratic behavior” before the January 6 Capitol attack, claiming that he could not be trusted with sensitive information.

The move was the first instance of a former president being excluded from receiving the intelligence briefings, which are given both as a courtesy and for situations when a sitting president seeks guidance.

However, Trump is taking it one step further by claiming he wants to revoke Biden’s security clearance as well.

The practical effect of Trump’s claim to revoke Biden’s security clearance is an open question. Former presidents do not have security clearances unless they had one from a previous role. As president, they have access to all classified information. Upon leaving office, they do not.

Trump can, however, stop Biden’s access to daily intelligence briefings, as Biden did to Trump in 2021.

This post was updated with more details and background on Trump’s actions.

President Donald Trump signed more executive actions on Friday, aiming to review and potentially roll back policies that restrict Second Amendment rights and creating a new faith office at the White House.

Gun control: The order directs the attorney general to review and assess any actions taken by the federal government between January 2021 and January 2025 — during the Biden administration — that they view as infringing upon Second Amendment rights.

This includes evaluating regulations, international agreements and actions by agencies such as the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), as well as reports related to gun violence prevention.

After that review, the order states the attorney general should “present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”

Faith office: Another order establishes the White House Faith Office, aimed at strengthening the relationship between the federal government and faith-based entities. The office will be led by a senior adviser and will work closely with other offices in the executive branch, the order said.

“The executive branch is committed to ensuring that all executive departments and agencies (agencies) honor and enforce the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty and to ending any form of religious discrimination by the Federal Government,” the order said.

Aid to South Africa: Trump also signed an executive order to freeze assistance to South Africa over a law which allows the government to seize farmland from ethnic minorities without compensation. It also emphasized that US actions are in response to these human rights violations and the potential national security threats posed by South Africa’s foreign policy decisions, including its ties with Iran and its stance on Israel.

According to the order, the US will no longer support South Africa with foreign aid if these policies continue. It also directs the US to assist Afrikaners who are fleeing South Africa due to discrimination, including helping them resettle in the US through refugee programs. Additionally, US agencies are told to stop providing any aid to South Africa unless it’s deemed necessary for other reasons.

This post has been updated with details on the executive order on freezing aid to South Africa.

Ed Martin, the acting US Attorney for Washington DC, said on Friday he is planning to investigate a list of people referred to him by Elon Musk, according to a letter posted by Martin on X.

“Thank you for the referral of individuals and networks who appear to be stealing government property and/or threatening government employees,” Martin wrote. “After your referral, as is my practice, I will begin an inquiry.”

Martin emphasized in the letter that anyone who the Justice Department determines has broken the law or “acted simply unethically” will be investigated.

The letter comes as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has caused chaos and confusion for many government employees in the past few weeks, taking actions including gaining access to government software, encouraging mass resignations and seeking to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.

Martin concluded his letter to Musk by saying that he was “proud” to protect DOGE employees as they have been implementing the changes during the first weeks of the second Trump administration.

Last week, Martin also posted a letter addressed to Musk saying the Justice Department, “will protect DOGE and other workers no matter what.”

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Federal funding for education, environmental and health programs remains blocked despite a court order against President Donald Trump’s funding freeze, several Democratic states told a federal judge Friday.

The court, in Rhode Island, previously blocked the administration from implementing plans to freeze outgoing funds to states under an Office of Management and Budget memo. The court also told the Trump administration it can’t use any work-arounds.

But the states argued on Friday that’s what is happening — with them being deprived of funds that should have been received because of other initiatives, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act.

In particular, the states say Head Start programs, environmental initiatives and health programs are not receiving federal funding that was due to them this week.

“Plaintiff States and entities within the Plaintiff States continue to be denied access to federal funds,” lawyers for the states wrote to the court on Friday. “Jobs, lives, and the social fabric of life in the Plaintiff States are at risk from the disruptions and uncertainty that have continued now a full week after entry of the Order.“There has been an ever-changing kaleidoscope of federal financial assistance that has been suspended, deleted, in transit, under review, and more since entry of the Order. These conditions persist today,” the states added.

The Trump administration has been ordered to respond by Sunday.

A call between US President Donald Trump and his Panamanian counterpart José Raúl Mulino, was postponed on Friday because of changes in Trump’s schedule, according to a statement from Panama’s President’s Office.

The statement, posted on X on Friday, said that White House officials had communicated with the Panamanian Foreign Ministry to postpone the call “due to last minute changes in the American president’s agenda.”

“The Foreign Ministry will inform details about the new date once it is coordinated between the two countries,” the president’s office said in the statement.

Some background: The call was scheduled to take place days after the US State Department claimed that US government vessels were able to transit the Panama Canal without paying fees. The claim prompted a strong denial from Mulino, who called it an “intolerable” falsehood.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked back the State Department’s assertion on Thursday, saying that the US “expects” Panama to remove the fees but acknowledged that “Panama has a process of laws and procedures that they need to follow as it relates to the Panamanian port.”

Correction: An earlier version of the headline incorrectly attributed the statement of the postponement, which came from Panama’s President’s Office.

US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba held a joint news conference at the White House after meeting earlier this afternoon.

Trump said he and the prime minister spoke “long and hard about a vital economic relationship between our two countries and the continuance of that relationship.”

Ishiba is the first Asian leader to meet Trump since his return to office on January 20.

Here’s some of what was said at the news conference:

• Reciprocal tariffs: Trump reiterated he will be making an announcement on reciprocal tariffs on many countries next week, “so that we’re treated evenly with other countries.” Trump said reciprocal tariffs are the “only fair way to do it, that way nobody’s hurt.”

He said he expects to meet about them Monday or Tuesday and make an announcement. The statement shook financial markets Friday after what had been a relatively quiet week for stocks.

• Trump on Musk’s influence: Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he has directed Elon Musk to review “just about everything” including Pentagon and education spending. When pressed further by reporters on if there is anything Trump has told Musk that he cannot touch, the president said, “we haven’t discussed that much,” but that he does dictate what areas he wants Musk to work in.

• Comments on DOGE staffer: Trump said he agreed with Vice President JD Vance about bringing back a recent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer. Twenty-five-year-old recent employee Marko Elez, according to the Wall Street Journal, resigned from his role at DOGE following the newspaper’s reporting that linked him to a social media account with posts supporting racism and eugenics.

The staffer is returning to the department, Elon Musk said in a post on X Friday shortly after Trump publicly supported his reinstatement.

• FBI shakeup: Trump also said at the news conference that he plans to “fire some” of the FBI agents who worked on the January 6 insurrection investigations, because he claimed “some of them were corrupt.”

• North Korea relationship: Trump also said he plans to continue to have a relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his second term in office.

• Nippon Steel developments: Trump told reporters Friday that Nippon Steel is looking at an “investment rather than a purchase” of US Steel, though the president appeared to say Nissan instead of Nippon in his remarks.

President Donald Trump downplayed concerns around Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to complex, secure systems containing millions of Americans data, instead suggesting that such systems are not secure.

“I mean, we don’t have very good security in our country, and they get it very easily. And what we’re doing, if you look at what has just taken place with respect to some of the investments that have been made on another agency that people have been talking about for years, but nobody did anything about it. It’s absolutely obscene, dangerous, bad, very costly,” the president said at a news conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Key context: CNN has reported that multiple lawsuits have accused the Trump administration of violating privacy law and other protections in allegedly allowing affiliates of the Musk-led DOGE to take control of highly restricted government IT systems.

Judges have moved swiftly — sometimes scheduling hearings on just a few hours’ notice — to try to understand what the DOGE affiliates are up to in reaching into the digital infrastructure through which the government carries some of its most fundamental operations.

CNN’s Tierney Sneed, Hannah Rabinowitz and Katelyn Polantz contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump said he plans to “fire some” of the FBI agents who worked on the January 6 insurrection investigations, because he claimed, “some of them were corrupt.”

“Are you planning to fire the FBI agents who worked on those investigations?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collin asked the president at a joint news conference Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.“No, but I’ll fire some of them, because some of them were corrupt. I have no doubt about that. I got to know a lot about that business, that world. I got to know a lot about that world, and we had some corrupt agents, and those people are gone, or they will be gone, and it’ll be done quickly and very surgically,” Trump said.

Pressed to clarify if these agents where the ones who worked on the investigations into the Capitol riot, Trump answered, “I don’t know, I know we have some that are very corrupt, and we don’t like it.”

“We’re going to bring back the reputation of the FBI. Kash Patel is going to do a great job and we bring back the reputation of the FBI, which has been hurt very badly. It’s been devastated over the last four years,” the president said, referring to his nominee to lead the agency.

Some background: FBI employees and the Justice Department agreed to a court order Friday that bars the DOJ from releasing a list of FBI employees who worked on January 6 cases — including the one against Trump — publicly, to the White House or to any other government agency without two days’ notice. The agreement is the latest in a series of debates over how to protect more than 5,000 FBI employees’ information which was gathered as part of a survey and handed over to Justice Department leadership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that he is willing to strike a deal with US President Donald Trump that would exchange some of Ukraine’s mineral resources for security guarantees.

“These deposits are priceless, it is huge amounts of money, huge. That is why we need to protect it. So if we are talking about a deal, that’s what the Americans want, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it, let’s do the deal,” Zelensky told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Trump has said he wants access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits in exchange for future military aid for the embattled country.

Zelensky also told Reuters that in a previous meeting with Trump he said it would be in Trump’s interest to contribute to Ukraine’s defense in order to prevent Russia from mining these resources, as part of Zelensky’s so-called “victory plan.”

“We will prevent Russia from mining the minerals which will later be used to produce technologies for the three countries of the axis of evil,” he said.

Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 50 materials classed as “critical,” according to the Ukrainian government. The US largely depends on imports for these minerals.

While addressing the global interest in Ukraine’s mineral deposits from Trump and others, Zelensky stressed that a deal should entail a partnership.

“This is very rich land. This does not mean that we are giving it away to anyone, even to strategic partners. We are talking about partnership,” he said to Reuters. “Let’s develop this together.”

Zelensky also said that he is working to schedule a meeting with Trump.

“The coming weeks may be very intensive in diplomacy, and we will do what’s needed to make this time effective and productive,” Zelensky said on X.

“Weʼre also planning meetings and talks at the teams’ level. Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details. A solid, lasting peace shall become closer,” he said.

Zelensky said that it was important that this meeting takes place before Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It is very important. Otherwise it will look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he told Reuters.

Satellite imagery obtained from Planet Labs shows the expansion of the migrant detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

On Tuesday, a military flight carrying migrants landed in Guantanamo Bay, according to a social media post from US Transportation Command. It was carrying around 10 migrants with criminal records, according to a Homeland Security official.

On Thursday, another military flight carrying 13 migrants with criminal convictions left from the El Paso area to Guantanamo Bay, according to two officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said today she is headed to the base.

The American Civil Liberties Union is requesting immediate access to the migrants recently transferred from immigration detention centers to the base, according to a Friday letter obtained by CNN.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky contributed reporting to this post.

Tom Krause — the only remaining person affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency who is allowed access to the nation’s federal payments system — is now an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department, according to sources familiar with the matter.

A former tech executive with ties to Elon Musk, Krause has been installed in a top leadership position that has traditionally been filled by career civil servants.

Krause will be the first political appointee in modern history to oversee the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, an arcane but critical office within Treasury that processes more than $5 trillion in federal government payments a year, distributing everything from tax returns, to Social Security benefits, to bills other agencies need to pay.

The payments system has received significant attention and legal scrutiny over the past week as Krause and other DOGE personnel detailed to Treasury have sought to gain control over the critical piece of government infrastructure, which has traditionally been tightly managed by career civil servants, not political appointees.

Krause takes the role previously held by long-time career official David Lebryk, who departed last week after clashing with Krause and political leadership over their intentions of manipulating the BFS system to align with President Donald Trump’s political decisions.

Days after Trump took office, Krause pushed Lebryk to stop some USAID payments — a virtually unheard-of approach to using the system.

A federal judge earlier this week ordered that Krause and another DOGE-affiliated worker, who has apparently resigned from the department, were the only two working with Musk’s or the White House’s initiatives who could have access to the sensitive payment system records, in a “read-only” way, because of privacy needs around the information.

Litigation around the work of DOGE and its access to and intentions with sensitive government data continues.

Momentary relief was met with the stark reality Friday that President Donald Trump is not nearly done with his chaotic tariff regimen.

In remarks to reporters from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said he will announce new so-called reciprocal tariffs next week, perhaps fulfilling a campaign pledge and a long-held desire to match foreign countries’ import taxes dollar-for-dollar to restore what the president believes is fairness to international trade.

That statement shook financial markets Friday after what had been a relatively quiet week for stocks. Although Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariffs on China went into effect Tuesday, and China retaliated against the United States with expanded tariffs of its own, markets rose a bit this week on relief that Trump pushed back plans for 25% tariffs on all goods coming in from Mexico and Canada.

Friday’s announcement of new potential tariffs that could hit all corners of the world rattled investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 400 points, or 0.9%. The broader S&P 500 also fell 0.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was 1.4% lower.

Trump said reciprocal tariffs would ensure “that we’re treated evenly with other countries” and could help reduce America’s budget deficit. Tariffs have served as a key part of Trump’s pledge to raise revenue to pay for the extension of his 2017 tax cut on top of other promised tax cuts.

But the tariffs themselves could represent an enormous tax hike on American consumers, who economists say ultimately pay the cost of tariffs.

CNN’s Matt Egan, Elisabeth Buchwald and Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report.

Read more about Trump’s tariffs here.

President Donald Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Friday that he has directed Elon Musk to review “just about everything” including Pentagon and education spending.

“Have you directed Elon Musk to review Pentagon spending, given it’s the biggest discretionary spending?” Collins asked during Trump’s news conference with Japan’s prime minister.

“Yes, I have,” Trump told CNN.

“Pentagon, education, just about everything. We’re going to go through everything just as it was so bad with what we just went through, with this horrible situation we just went through. And I guess it’s 97% of the people have been dismissed,” the president said, seemingly referring to the dismantling of USAID.

“It was very, very unfortunate. You’re not going to find anything like that, but you’re going to find a lot. And I’ve instructed him to go check out education, to check out the Pentagon, which is the military. And, you know, sadly, you’ll find some things that are pretty bad. But I don’t think proportionately you’re going to see anything like we just saw,” Trump continued.

CNN reported that less than one-third of the federal budget in fiscal year 2024 consisted of discretionary spending, which Congress approves annually. Nearly half of discretionary spending goes toward defense programs.

When pressed further by reporters on if there is anything Trump has told Musk that he cannot touch, the president said, “we haven’t discussed that much,” but that he does dictate what areas he wants Musk to work in.

The president said that he will “pick out a target” and tell Musk and his staffers to look into it. “There could be areas that we won’t, but I think everything’s fertile,” he said.

“I’ve instructed him, go into education, go into military, go into other things as we go along, and they’re finding massive amounts of fraud, abuse, waste, all of these things,” Trump added.

This post has been updated with more comments from Trump.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he agreed with Vice President JD Vance about bringing back a recent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer.

The 25-year-old recent employee Marko Elez, according to the Wall Street Journal, resigned from his role at DOGE following the newspaper’s reporting that linked him to a social media account with posts supporting racism and eugenics.

When a reporter in the East Room asked, “The vice president says, ‘bring him back,’ what do you say?” Trump was quick to respond, “Well, I don’t know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, I’m with the vice president.”

Soon after, Elon Musk posted on X: “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Vance said on X earlier Friday said that he would support the rehiring of Elez.

“I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever,” Vance’s post read.

“So I say bring him back,” Vance continued. “If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that,” Vance concluded.

Some background: An account that appeared to be linked to Elez, who previously worked for Musk’s SpaceX company, posted a call to repeal the Civil Rights Act, an endorsement of a “eugenic” immigration policy and repeated anti-Indian screeds within the last year, archived posts show.

The racist messages were posted on an X account with the username @nullllptr, which has since been deleted, according to online archives of the site.

CNN has made multiple attempts to reach Elez to ask him about the postings, but has been unsuccessful.

CNN’s Casey Tolan and Andrew Kaczynski contributed reporting to this post, which has been updated with background on Elez’s posts.

Two foreign service officers stationed in Africa have detailed how the rapid dismantling of the US Agency for International Development will impact the work they are doing on the continent.

The USAID workers spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

One of the officers works in the health sector, specializing in HIV programming. She explained how USAID funds a global medical supply chain that runs through several countries in Africa, assisting in the dissemination of life-saving HIV and malaria medications, and antidiarrheals for children, with diarrhea being a leading cause of death in children in Africa.

“Life-saving medication depends on consistency,” she said. But now that USAID has pulled funding from the supply chain, none of these medications can be circulated.

The other officer specializes in democracy, human rights and governance, working to prevent and counter extremism in African countries. She has been working with government officials to provide resources and skills to people who recently defected from violent extremist groups, to reduce recruitment and weaken the groups overall.

But with the freeze on foreign aid, this assistance is expected to come to a halt, and she believes “the likelihood of people either being forcibly recruited or choosing to join the group would increase substantially because there’s no alternative in place.”

Both officers also helped answer contract or legal questions from partners on the ground, who work directly with aid recipients. They have now been cut off from their daily communication with those workers. The disconnect affects even high-ranking health officials from the countries where USAID is working, with the agency’s staff now unable to take calls from their own government.

“When we pull out of this abruptly, economies will crumble. Populations will crumble. It’s very scary,” one of the officers said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a gathering on Friday that US President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Canada “is a real thing,” two Canadian business leaders who were at the meeting confirmed to CNN.

Trudeau’s comments, first reported by the Toronto Star, were picked up on an open microphone when Trudeau believed the media had been escorted out.

“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on…,” Trudeau said, according to audio from the Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto shared by CBC News, before the microphone cut out.

Trudeau made the comments after delivering an opening address at the summit, and after journalists had left the room, CBC reported.

Some context: In an interview with CNN prior to Trump’s inauguration, Trudeau said that Trump’s comments about turning Canada into the United States’ 51st state were just a distraction from the consequences of his tariff threats.

Trump followed through with his threats last week, announcing new tariffs against Canada. But after Trudeau made commitments to bolster security at Canada’s border, Trump announced Monday a pause on the tariffs for at least a month.

President Donald Trump said he plans to continue to have a relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his second term in office.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Trump said he thinks “it’s a very big asset for everybody that I do get along with him.”

“I can tell you that Japan likes the idea because their relationship is not very good with him,” Trump said, referring to the idea of him having a relationship with North Korea.“If I can have a relationship with not only him but other people throughout the world where there seem to be difficulties, I think that’s a tremendous asset for the world, not just the United States,” the US president added.

At a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Donald Trump talked about how his administration will handle their relationship with North Korea. #trump #cnn #cnnnews #japan #northkorea
Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if he wanted Trump to resume contact with the North Korean leader, Ishiba said that was something the US needed to decide for itself.

He said that he thinks it would “be great” to resolve issues with the country and that Japan would “love to continue cooperation with them.” Ishiba added that Japan and the US will work toward the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea.

“Regarding North Korea, we affirmed the need to address its nuclear and missile program which poses a serious threat to Japan, the US and beyond,” Ishiba said, speaking through a translator, about Trump’s possible efforts on these issues.

Some context: Over the past year, the North Korean leader has raised international concern by breaking with decades of policy toward South Korea — classifying it as a “permanent enemy.” He’s called on his army to accelerate war preparations in response to “confrontation moves” by the US — actions that came as the Biden administration strengthened ties and increased military drills with South Korea and Japan.

And then there’s the deepening of ties with Russia. The North Korean leader has met with his “closest comrade” Russian President Vladimir Putin twice since last September and inked a major defense pact in June.

CNN’s Simone McCarthy and Caitlin Danaher contributed reporting to this post which has been updated with additional remarks from Ishiba.

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday that Japan’s Nippon Steel is looking at an “investment rather than a purchase” of US Steel, though the president appeared to say Nissan instead of Nippon in his remarks.

“Nissan is going to be doing something very exciting about US Steel. They will be looking at an investment rather than a purchase. U.S. Steel is a very important company to us. It was the greatest company in the world for 15 years, many years ago, 80 years ago. We didn’t want to see that leave, and it wouldn’t actually leave, but that concept psychologically not good. So they have agreed to invest heavily in U.S. Steel as opposed to own it and that sounds very exciting. We will meet with Nissan next week, the head of Nissan, a very great company. They will work out the details. I will be there to mediate and arbitrate,” Trump said.

Nippon Steel’s multibillion-dollar proposal to buy struggling US Steel was blocked by President Joe Biden in the waning days of his term.

Biden said he was blocking the controversial $14.3 billion acquisition, marking a significant use of executive authority. He cited the need to protect national security and supply chains.

More context: The Nippon deal for US Steel was announced in December 2023 and drew bipartisan opposition, including from Biden, Trump and then-Senator JD Vance, as well as strong opposition from the United Steelworkers union (USW). US Steel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks, and Nippon declined to comment. But the USW said it is still concerned and urged Trump to push for a US buyer rather than investment from Nippon.

“Our union has had no contact with either company or the administration,” said the union’s statement. “However, our concerns regarding Nippon’s continued interest in US Steel remain unchanged.”

The union has argued that Nippon Steel is not interested in keeping the US Steel’s mills that make steel from raw materials, such as iron ore. Those mills in Pennsylvania and Indiana employ 11,000 USW members. The union argues Nippon only wants the non-union operations US Steel has in Texas where steel scrap is melted to make new steel.

But Nippon said it has promised to invest $2.7 billion in US Steel’s operations, including $1.3 billion in the mills in Pennsylvania and Indiana. US Steel has said without Nippon’s investment, it may have to close the unionized mills. But a rival American steelmaker, Cleveland-Cliffs, has offered to buy those mills and keep them operating.

This post has been updated with more details on the Nippon deal.

In remarks to reporters from the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump said he will be making an announcement on reciprocal tariffs on many countries next week, “so that we’re treated evenly with other countries.”

“I’ll be announcing that next week, reciprocal trade, so that we’re treated evenly with other countries, we don’t want any more, any less. So, I’ll be announcing that next week,” Trump said in a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan Shigeru Ishiba.

Trump added that the additional levies would help shrink the nation’s budget deficit.

Later, during a joint news conference with Ishiba, Trump reiterated that reciprocal tariffs is the “only fair way to do it, that way nobody’s hurt.” He said he expects to meet about it Monday or Tuesday and make an announcement on it.

“They charge us, we charge them. It’s the same thing,” Trump said, answering a question from a reporter about whether the US president would impose tariffs on Japan. Trump did not directly answer that question.

The move on reciprocal trade was one of Trump’s 2024 campaign promises. Trump ran on imposing tariffs on American imports with equal rates that trading partners place on American exports.

Some analysis on what this means: Unlike retaliatory tariffs, which tend to occur in response to one nation imposing tariffs on another, reciprocal tariffs are enacted as a means for one nation to attempt to get even with another, typically matching foreign nations’ tariffs dollar for dollar.

For instance, Trump has previously discussed employing reciprocal tariffs on nations that the US runs trade deficits with, meaning US imports from them exceed what America exports to them.

If Trump moves forward with reciprocal tariffs, however, it could prompt a series of retaliatory tariffs from impacted nations. That could ignite a trade war, prompting ever-higher taxes that ultimately hurt consumers, who economists note typically get stuck with the bill at the end.

This post has been updated with more details about the tariffs and more of Trump’s remarks.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday announced it is switching positions in a major Supreme Court case on transgender rights, backing away from the Biden administration’s opposition to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

The appeal over Tennessee’s ban is the most significant LGBTQ+ case the Supreme Court has considered in years. The Biden administration had challenged the state’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy. A federal appeals court allowed the ban to take effect in 2023 and the court heard oral arguments in December.

While the Biden administration sued over the law, officials in the Trump administration told the Supreme Court they believe that lawsuit was a mistake and that they support the state’s ability to ban gender affirming care for minors.

But Justice Department officials also stressed that the high court should still decide the case, even though the administration no longer believes in the appeal.

“The department has now determined that SB1 does not deny equal protection on account of sex or any other characteristic,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court. “Accordingly, the new administration would not have intervened to challenge SB1 – let alone sought this court’s review of the court of appeals’ decision reversing the preliminary injunction against SB1.”

Tennessee’s SB 1 bans hormone therapy and puberty blockers for minors in the state and imposes civil penalties for doctors who violate the prohibitions. The law also bans gender-affirming surgeries, though that provision is not at issue in the case.

During oral arguments in December, several of the court’s conservatives appeared ready to back the law, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

The signage at the US Agency for International Development is being taped over and potentially removed entirely.

Remember: The future of USAID hangs in the balance. President Donald Trump is racing to shut it down, declaring it a waste of money and run by “lunatics.”

On Thursday, it was revealed the administration plans to slash the 10,000-strong workforce to fewer than 300 people.

But experts warn this plays straight into the hands of the very country he considers to be the biggest threat to US interests — China.

On Thursday, a pair of labor groups representing USAID employees sued Trump over his efforts to dismantle the decades-old humanitarian agency.

The lawsuit also takes aim at the administration’s freeze on almost all foreign assistance – a move that has brought critical humanitarian work around the world to a halt and has led to thousands of contractors being furloughed or laid off.

US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba are holding a joint news conference at the White House after meeting earlier this afternoon.

Trump said he and the prime minister spoke “long and hard about a vital economic relationship between our two countries and the continuance of that relationship.”

Ishiba is the first Asian leader to meet Trump since his return to office on January 20.

The visit comes at a time of heightened tensions among US allies as the Trump administration threatens tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, and as the president calls for partners to boost defense spending.

Ishiba told reporters before his departure to Washington, DC, that he wanted to talk to Trump about Japanese investments in the US, as well as the two countries’ security alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, among other topics, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

After the news conference, Trump is scheduled to make a “Faith Office announcement” and sign executive orders.

This post has been updated with Trump’s remarks. CNN’s Alex Stambaugh, Junko Ogura and Hanako Montgomery contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he sees “no rush to do anything” in Gaza and insisted there would be no US “boots on the ground.”

“Where basically the United States would view it as a real estate transaction, where we’ll be an investor in that part of the world. And no rush to do anything,” Trump said. “We wouldn’t need anybody there. It would be supplied and given to us by Israel. They’ll watch it, in terms of security. We’re not talking about boots on the ground or anything, but I think we’ll — the fact that we’re there, that we have an investment there, I think would go a long way to creating peace.”

Remember: Trump said the US “will take over” Gaza in a news conference earlier this week, prompting swift condemnation for one of the most stunning recent foreign policy suggestions by a sitting US president.

The White House press secretary said Wednesday that Trump was advocating for a “temporary” resettlement of Palestinians, a view that, on its surface, appeared at odds with the plan Trump revealed a day earlier to “resettle people permanently” in a different area. He has suggested redeveloping the coastal enclave into a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”

More from Trump: The president said in his comments Friday that the idea has been “very well-received,” but didn’t offer specifics. His suggestion has been roundly criticized by leaders in the Middle East and Europe.

Trump said he just wanted “to see stability” in Gaza and that it would “lead to great stability in the area for very little money, very little price.”

“We wouldn’t need soldiers at all, that would be taken care of by others,” he said.

President Donald Trump said on Friday he would “probably” meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week and hinted at a talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I will probably be meeting with President Zelensky next week, and I will probably be talking to President Putin. I’d like to see that war end,” Trump told reporters from the White House.

When asked if the meeting would take place in Washington, DC, Trump replied, “could be Washington well, I’m not going there,” meaning Kyiv.

Trump also referred to discussions he wants to have about the financial and military support the US provides Ukraine, in the ongoing conflict with Russia.

“One of the things we’re looking at with President Zelensky is having the security of their assets,” he said, “we’re also asking President Zelensky for the security of putting all this money up,” Trump added.

Zelensky will lead Ukraine’s delegation at the Munich Security Conference next week, which Vice President JD Vance and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, are also scheduled to attend, but not President Trump.

Last week, Trump told reporters that Russia “should want to make a deal” with Ukraine and claimed he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “immediately.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker strongly denounced the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state’s sanctuary policies, calling it a “massive effort to distract” from other pressing issues affecting working families.

“They want you to pay attention to a bunch of lawsuits that are about something that, frankly, is unlawful,” Pritzker said Friday, framing the administration’s legal action as an attempt to divert attention from potential cuts to federal programs.

The Trump administration sued officials in Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County on Thursday over policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities, accusing them of obstructing its immigration crackdown.

It’s the first major challenge from the administration against Democratic-led cities and states that have opposed the use of local law enforcement to help the federal government enforce civil immigration laws.

“I think it’s a massive effort to distract from what they are doing across the country, to take away things that working class, middle-class people, families, the most vulnerable, really need,” Pritzker said.

Asked whether his team had any communication prior to the filing of the lawsuit, Pritzker said the legal filing took his entire team by surprise.

“This administration is opaque, not transparent at all,” he said.

CNN’s Devan Cole and Priscilla Alvarez contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday that Elon Musk is “doing a great job” when he was asked about the newly released Time magazine cover showing Musk seated behind the Resolute Desk.

“Is Time magazine still in business?” Trump quipped. “I didn’t even know that.”

Trump was named Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2024.

“Elon is doing a great job. He’s finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID, but you’re going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government. He’s got a staff that’s fantastic. He’s wanted to be able to do this for a long time,” Trump said.

The president claimed that in the case of USAID — the US Agency for International Development — that “the whole thing is fraud,” without providing evidence. On Thursday, it was revealed the administration plans to slash the 10,000-strong workforce to fewer than 300 people.

The move will leave billions of dollars in aid in limbo, which will impact lifesaving global health programs, early warning systems and food security efforts.

“Every single line that I look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous, and we’re going to be doing that throughout government, and I think we’re going to be very close to balancing budgets for the first time in many years,” Trump said, adding that Musk is “doing a very good job. I’m very happy with him.”

Pressed if the president will make Musk available for questions from the press, the president said that Elon is “not shy.”

Top career supervisors at the federal agencies are being asked to help determine which employees are worth saving and which are not, CNN has learned, as the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) effort aimed at dramatically shrinking the government turns its attention to firing probationary workers.

To that end, supervisors at several agencies are now being asked to evaluate workers with an eye toward whether or not particular workers should be retained or not, a process that often happens in private industry, but is now rapidly playing out in the federal government.

Notably, supervisors have been asked to make these decisions on a very short timeline, under “immense pressure” and in one case with the threat that the entire list of employees could be laid off if the supervisor doesn’t comply, according to one federal employee.

CNN has reviewed emails sent to managers at the Environmental Protection Agency and the General Services Administration. In addition, an employee at the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN about the ongoing efforts.

Supervisors are being asked to advocate for either “retaining” or “releasing” employees who are in their probationary period with less than two years of federal service.

One source at a government agency, who was tasked with the exercise, tells CNN, “We had to justify the critical nature of their role and what the impacts would be if they were released.”

The source received a list of names with positions and in a sentence or two had to rank whether the employee should be released or retained.

FBI employees and the Justice Department agreed to a court order Friday that bars the DOJ from releasing a list of FBI employees who worked on January 6 cases — including the one against Donald Trump — publicly, to the White House or to any other government agency without two days’ notice.

The agreement is the latest in a series of debates over how to protect more than 5,000 FBI employees’ information from being leaked. The data was gathered as part of a survey and handed over to Justice Department leadership.

Several FBI employees, along with the agency’s union, sued, saying they feared for their safety should their identities be made public. The employees specifically feared that the list would be handed over to either the White House or DOGE, which they said raised the likelihood that would happen.

Friday’s consent order, signed District Judge Jia M. Cobb, was reached one day after the FBI provided the employees’ names to the Justice Department through a classified system. Cobb had initially resisted instituting a temporary restraining order because the employees were only identified on the survey through and employee ID number.

“The Government will not disseminate the list at issue in these consolidated cases (and any subsequent versions of that list, including any record pairing the unique identifiers on the list to names) to the public, directly or indirectly, before the Court rules on Plaintiffs’ anticipated motions for a preliminary injunction,” the order reads.

Keep reading.

As House Republicans are planning to spend the weekend trying to nail down the final details of their budget agreement, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham just unveiled the Senate’s version, a sign that GOP lawmakers in that chamber are not going to yield as House Republicans finish their work.

Graham also noticed that the markup on this budget resolution will take place Wednesday and Thursday. The committee expects to be finished Wednesday but traditionally they give themselves two days just to make sure they have enough time.

More context: The move is yet another indication that Senate Republicans are charging ahead on their own path despite pleas from GOP leadership in the House that the Senate wait for them to go first given their narrow majority and virtually no room for error.

As Graham laid out earlier this week, this will aim for Republicans to spend $150 billion on defense and $175 billion for immigration, both of which they promise will be fully offset.

Graham’s budget resolution is merely the first step for Senators to begin the process knowns as reconciliation. It sets up a blueprint for how committees will draft their policy bill and gives certain committees jurisdiction and parameters to do the work.

The Trump administration delayed the suspension of the so-called de minimis provision, which allowed packages worth less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, until the Commerce Department has “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue,” according to a new executive action announced on Friday.

The executive order did not say how long the delay would last.

Why this matters: The suspension of the long-standing provision would have dire effects on Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein, Temu and Aliexpress — along with goods shipped in from Amazon, eBay, Etsy and other retailers that ship from China.

Chinese e-commerce sites have built their gargantuan business models around this exemption. The relaxed restrictions and tax exemptions on cheap products has allowed more than a billion packages to pour in at a low-cost price for consumers looking for a deals on clothing to household goods.

In the first weeks of the new Trump administration, the White House has boasted about the arrests of thousands of undocumented immigrants. But behind the scenes, senior officials have expressed frustration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in tense calls for not meeting its marks, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

“They’re treading water. They’re way behind,” a Trump administration official told CNN, referring to ICE. The calls have included White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, along with various federal agencies.

President Donald Trump kicked off his second term in office with an ambitious immigration agenda, promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and seal off the US southern border. Since then, Trump administration officials have swiftly moved to strip temporary protections for migrants and delegate more authority to federal and state partners.

More than 8,000 people have been arrested by federal immigration authorities since Trump’s inauguration. Administration officials haven’t shared exactly how many undocumented immigrants they’re aiming to arrest this year, but daily apprehensions have already surpassed last year’s daily average under then-President Joe Biden.

But Trump’s stated goals are also meeting the on-the-ground realities and challenges that have bogged down federal immigration enforcement authorities for years.

Multiple sources described tremendous pressure on ICE officers to deliver results, including ramping up efforts to target and detain undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Miller has previously described quotas on ICE field offices as a “floor, not a ceiling.”

Read the full story.

The American Civil Liberties Union is requesting immediate access to nearly two dozen migrants recently transferred from immigration detention centers to the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

Addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the letter raises concerns over detainees’ legal rights, living conditions, and access to due process.

“The Constitution, and federal and international law prohibit the government from using Guantánamo as a legal black hole,” according to the letter.

“We therefore request that the government provide our organizations access to the noncitizens detained at Guantánamo so that those individuals will have access to legal counsel, and so advocates and the public can understand the conditions under which the government is detaining them,” it continues.

Remember: This week, the Trump administration transported migrants to Guantanamo Bay on US military aircraft, a move that sparked backlash from immigrant advocates and prompted fears of prolonged detention without legal representation.

The ACLU warned Friday of potential human rights violations and called for transparency regarding the treatment of those being held.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited House Speaker Mike Johnson to visit Jerusalem later this year, after the two met this morning.

Johnson was supposed to meet with Netanyahu Thursday, but they were forced to reschedule due to an extensive meeting at the White House between House Republicans, President Donald Trump and top officials to discuss their plans to advance Trump’s agenda.

Netanyahu was full of praise for the Trump administration’s support for Israel, though he did not reference Trump’s proposal to take over and “develop” Gaza. The prime minister highlighted Trump’s executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and thanked Trump for ensuring more weapons would be sent to Israel.

“He issued, yesterday, these sanctions on this scandalous and corrupt organization, the ICC, that threatens the right of all democracies to defend themselves by themselves,” said Netanyahu.

“I was, deeply moved by the reception that we got, the substantive things that we discussed — making sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, and also making sure that Hamas is destroyed. We’re not going to have a future for Gaza or for a future for peace in our part of the world if Hamas remains there,” he added. “We agreed on many things, but I think it sets the tone for this great strengthening of the American-Israeli alliance. It’s not only an alliance between governments. It’s an alliance between peoples.”

He added that he has developed a “warm, personal bond” with Johnson, and praised the speaker’s leadership.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Germany and the Middle East next week, according to a senior State Department official.

Rubio will attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany and then to Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, February 13 to 18th, the official said.

The secretary’s trip to the Middle East comes after President Donald Trump’s recent suggestion that nearly 2 million Palestinians should be relocated from battle-leveled Gaza to new homes elsewhere and for the US to take ownership of Gaza and develop it into “Riviera of the Middle East.”

The trip which has not been formally announced will be Rubio’s second trip abroad following multiple stops across Central America earlier this week.

The Trump administration is effectively freezing a $5 billion bipartisan grant program that helps states build electric vehicle chargers along highways and roadways, according to a new Department of Transportation memo.

The letter suspends state plans that were approved by former President Joe Biden’s administration to build out charging networks, until the new administration can change its guidance for it, which is due out sometime in the spring. It also means no federal grant money will flow to states that were building charging stations.

“Since FHWA is suspending the existing State plans, States will be held harmless for not implementing their existing plans,” the DOT memo reads. “Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.”

The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, also knowns as NEVI, was created as a result of the infrastructure law passed with both Republican and Democratic votes in 2021. It was part of Biden’s climate and clean energy policies to get more electric vehicles on the road.

Clean energy groups said the new move created “great uncertainty” for states and companies, putting billions of dollars in limbo.

“States are under no obligation to stop these projects based solely on this announcement,” Ryan Gallentine, managing director of trade group Advanced Energy United, said in a statement. “We call on state DOTs and program administrators to continue executing this program until new guidance is finalized.”

The White House says Friday’s jobs report showing a slower-than-expected pace of hiring reflected poorly on the previous administration.

“Today’s jobs report reveals the Biden economy was far worse than anyone thought, and underscores the necessity of President Trump’s pro-growth policies,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.

“During his first weeks in office, President Trump declared a national energy emergency to Make America Energy Dominant Again, pledged to cut ten regulations for every new regulatory action, and outlined a plan to deliver the largest tax cut in history for hardworking Americans,” she went on. “President Trump is delivering on his promise to restore our broken economy, revive small business optimism, create jobs, and ignite a new Golden Age for America.”

The statement came after a government report showed 143,000 jobs added in January, fewer than expected; with the unemployment rate dipping to 4%,

Economists were projecting the unemployment rate would stay at 4.1% and 170,000 jobs would be added, according to FactSet estimates.

More context: The Trump administration pointed to an annual benchmark revision released Friday showing there were 589,000 fewer jobs added to the economy in 2024 than previously tallied.

But the annual revision is a routine review of the surveys that generate monthly employment data, which are then reconciled with estimates from other statistical sources that weren’t available when the numbers were first reported.

The latest annual revision was indeed larger than usual, but not unusually so. In fact, there was a downward revision of 514,000 jobs (-0.3%) for the year ended in March 2019 during Trump’s first term before the Covid-19 pandemic.

And while federal government surveys have become less robust because of plummeting response rates in recent years, the numbers still present a vital snapshot of the world’s biggest economy.

The US job market these days isn’t running at the same red-hot pace coming out of the pandemic, but it remains solid.

This post has been updated with more information.

Americans fear faster inflation is on the horizon.

The University of Michigan’s latest consumer survey, released Friday, showed that Americans’ inflation expectations for the year ahead surged this month to 4.3%, up a full percentage point from January to the highest level since November 2023.

“This is only the fifth time in 14 years we have seen such a large one-month rise (one percentage point or more) in year-ahead inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, in a release.

The survey’s sentiment index also declined in February for the second consecutive month, down 5% from January to its lowest reading since July 2024.

“The decrease was pervasive, with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats all posting sentiment declines from January, along with consumers across age and wealth groups,” Hsu said.

President Donald Trump’s shake-up of federal agencies — aimed at slashing spending and getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion — continued Thursday at full tilt.

However, a federal judge paused the deadline for federal employees to accept the administration’s deferred resignation offer while more proceedings on the program’s legality play out.

The administration sent an email to employees just after 5 p.m. ET informing them of the court-ordered pause and saying that the deadline for the “buyouts” would be extended to Monday. The email did not acknowledge the possibility that the judge might further halt the program at a hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are supporting Elon Musk’s growing influence in how Trump is wielding executive power and dramatically slashing federal agencies. They argue it is simply a function of how the administration is addressing the need to cut waste.

Here’s the latest on Trump’s changes:

USAID: The Trump administration is expected to keep fewer than 300 people at the US Agency for International Development, an enormous reduction in the workforce, according to multiple USAID sources. A pair of labor groups representing employees at USAID sued Trump over his efforts to dismantle the decades-old humanitarian agency. Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning that “USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY, AND THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT.”

EPA: More than 160 employees in the Environmental Protection Agency’s office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights have been told they are being placed on paid administrative leave as the agency executes the administration’s executive order to wipe out all program offices it deems as tied to diversity, equity and inclusion, CNN has learned from multiple sources.

NIH: The process for awarding new research funds at the National Institutes of Health is still being held up even after guidance this week saying some closed review meetings could proceed, five sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

FEC: Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub said she received a letter from Trump removing her from her role.

Energy Department: A 23-year-old former SpaceX intern representative from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was granted access to the Energy Department’s IT system Wednesday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, two people with knowledge of the situation told CNN. Luke Farritor — a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern — was granted access even over objections from members of the department’s general counsel and chief information offices, the sources told CNN.

One is a 23-year-old software engineer from Nebraska who helped decipher an ancient scroll buried for centuries. Another was the runner-up in a “hackathon” contest last year as a Harvard senior. A third is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar start-up.

These are among the operatives linked to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) whose work to slash public spending and reshape the federal bureaucracy have sent shockwaves through government agencies.

For the past couple of weeks, DOGE staffers have appeared without warning throughout the nation’s bureaucracy, seeking access to sensitive files, databases and computer systems. Their movements inside offices from Washington, DC, to Kansas City have been detailed by a frightened federal workforce and chronicled by media outlets seeking answers about their specific activities and intentions.

Some of the most pointed concerns were summed up in a letter this week from Democratic senators to the White House: “No information has been provided to Congress or the public as to who has been formally hired under DOGE, under what authority or regulations DOGE is operating, or how DOGE is vetting and monitoring its staff and representatives before providing them seemingly unfettered access to classified materials and Americans’ personal information.”

Although the slate of software engineers in their early 20s working under DOGE appear to lack government experience, their resumes detail impressive accomplishments in tech.

Meanwhile, on X, Musk’s social media platform, DOGE itself has been boasting of alleged accomplishments: “DOGE is saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day,” the account claimed in a post last week. “A good start, though this number needs to increase to > $3 billion/day.”

Read more on the DOGE team here.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that his conference is leaning toward addressing the looming debt limit deadline as part of their budget blueprint, but said details won’t be announced until later this weekend.

Asked by CNN about including a debt limit hike in the budget bill, Johnson said: “I think that probably will be part of it.”

This new push to include the debt limit is a shift for the House GOP, after Johnson himself told members at their GOP policy retreat in Florida that they likely didn’t have the votes to pass the debt limit as part of Trump’s already-costly agenda. It comes after a marathon White House meeting Thursday, in which the debt limit was a key point of discussion.

Johnson had previously said he hoped to release details of the GOP’s budget plan on Friday. But he told reporters that they will take more days to finalize that proposal.

“There won’t be any details announced at least until the end of the weekend, probably closer to Monday,” Johnson said, though he continued to sound upbeat about the push forward. “It’s going well, I’m very excited.”

Johnson also declined to comment, when asked by CNN, about the size of spending cuts the GOP is considering.

“Stay tuned, it’s moving forward,” Johnson said.

President Donald Trump will speak with leaders from Japan and Panama on Friday as a deadline to slash the US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s workforce looms and additional executive orders are to come.

Here’s the latest on what’s happening on Friday:

Meeting with Japanese prime minister: Trump will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and hold a news conference. The two are expected to discuss deepening cooperation on defense and the economy. The summit scheduled for Friday makes Ishiba the first Asian leader to meet Trump since his return to office.

More executive orders: Trump will then make “a Faith Office announcement” and sign executive orders in the afternoon before departing to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the weekend.

Panama phone call: Trump is also expected to speak by phone with Panama’s President Raúl Mulino on Friday as tensions rise between both nations over the Panama Canal. Trump has repeated and publicly stated desire for the US to retake control of the canal.

USAID deadline: The Trump administration is expected to reduce USAID’s global workforce to under 300 agency employees Friday, with other employees placed on administrative leave and ordered to return to the US.

A pair of labor groups representing employees at USAID sued Trump on Thursday over his efforts to dismantle the decades-old humanitarian agency. It’s unclear if the court will step in on an emergency basis before Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET, when USAID has said all of their direct hire personnel, excluding the exceptions, will be put on leave.

Guantanamo Bay trip: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to go to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Friday to assess the migrant operations center amid plans to dramatically expand the number of people temporarily housed there, according to a DHS official.

Meanwhile, a federal judge this morning in Boston will hear a challenge to Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.

The US economy kicked off 2025 by adding 143,000 jobs in January, fewer than expected; but the unemployment rate dipped to 4%, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Economists were projecting the unemployment rate would stay at 4.1% and for the economy to add 170,000 jobs, according to FactSet estimates. Cold and severe weather as well as the wildfires in Los Angeles were expected to be influential factors on January’s report, economists told CNN.

Friday’s report also provided more clarity on recent labor market trends, indicating that job growth last year was weaker than previously estimated.

The latest benchmark revision — an annual process that squares up estimates — showed there were 589,000 fewer jobs added to the economy in 2024.

The next target in President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul the federal workforce: Less than “fully successful” performers.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent a memo to federal department leaders Thursday asking for details on all employees who received less than “fully successful” performance ratings over the last three years.

Among the information being requested are employees’ names, job titles, pay plans, agencies, grades and duty stations. OPM also wants to know if the employees completed performance improvement plans within the last year.

In addition, according to the memo, agencies should report whether they’ve tried to take action against the employees for poor performance under civil service laws and whether the workers are currently challenging those efforts before the US Merit Systems Protection Board or other bodies.

OPM is also asking for any regulations, policies or collective bargaining agreement terms that would impede agencies’ ability to make meaningful distinctions on relative employee performance on agency performance plans or agencies’ ability to “swiftly separate low-performing employees.”

The deadline to send the information to OPM is March 7.

The memo says it is aimed at helping OPM develop “new metrics for evaluating the federal workforce that aligns with the priorities and standards in the President’s recent Executive Orders.”

Some background: The Trump administration is undertaking sweeping reforms of the federal workforce, including offering a deferred resignation package, jettisoning workers involved in diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives, making it easier to fire career policy staffers and laying off employees still in their probationary periods, among other actions.

As thousands of FBI employees brace for possible political retribution from Donald Trump’s administration, one special agent penned an anonymous open letter circulating across the bureau in defense of colleagues who took part in the sprawling January 6, 2021, Capitol riot investigation.

CNN has obtained a copy of the letter and confirmed its authenticity.

“Currently, there is an effort to cull a significant number of career Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is an unthinkable action that will gravely undermine the security of the nation well beyond what many of our citizens are aware,” the agent wrote.

They went on to describe their past work with the agency and ended the letter by saying: “I am now sitting in my home, listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days. Fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation. Fired for doing the job that he was hired to do. I have to wonder, when I am gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor?”

CNN reported Thursday that the FBI provided the Justice Department with names of employees who worked on January 6-related cases after a new demand from the acting deputy attorney general, capping a weeklong back-and-forth between bureau leadership – who had sought to protect agent and staff identities – and the department.

The Trump administration is expected to keep fewer than 300 people at the US Agency for International Development, drastically reducing the workforces at the agency, according to multiple USAID sources.

The rest of the direct hires will be put on leave as of Friday at midnight.

USAID has about 10,000 personnel around the world, which includes thousands of contractors, many of whom have been furloughed or fired.

Those sources told CNN 294 essential workers are expected to retain access. The rest are being cut off from USAID systems, including email.

Three officials told CNN that only one officer would be left in multiple missions.

“It’s the worst-case scenario of essentially one person for each field mission and a few folks in DC,” one USAID official overseas said.

Another USAID official said their overseas mission went from having more than 20 foreign service officers to only one.

USAID leadership announced this week that “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”

The FBI has given the Justice Department names of employees who worked on January 6-related cases after a new demand from the acting deputy attorney general, capping a weeklong back-and-forth between bureau leadership — who had sought to protect agent and staff identities — and the department.

The FBI complied by providing the names through a classified system to protect employees from being publicly identified, acting Director Brian Driscoll told employees in an email Thursday.

“I want to be clear that as of now we do not have information indicating the Department of Justice intends to disseminate these lists publicly, and they are fully aware of the risks we believe are inherent in doing so,” Driscoll wrote in the email.

The Justice Department’s Thursday demand comes after the bureau earlier this week withheld the names of thousands of employees and instead relayed information based only on employee ID numbers, according to an email obtained by CNN.

Over the past several days, FBI and Justice Department leadership have gone back and forth over how to protect the information gathered as part of a review of January 6-related investigations, including the one into President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, the FBI handed over information on more than 5,000 employees, including employee ID numbers, job titles and their role in the January 6 investigations — but not their names.

At least 65,000 federal workers have now opted into the deferred resignation program, a White House official told CNN, as a federal judge halted President Donald Trump’s midnight deadline to accept until at least Monday.

The 65,000 figure represents more than 3% of the roughly 2 million federal employees who received the incentive.

CNN reported earlier Thursday that at least 50,000 employees had already accepted the package, which would generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.

The Senate has voted to confirm Russ Vought as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, after Senate Democrats held the floor overnight in a marathon of speeches to protest Vought’s nomination.

The vote was 53-47, on party lines.

Vought has drawn Democrats’ ire over his ties to the controversial conservative policy blueprint Project 2025, as well as his claim that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Democrats have also argued that OMB’s memo freezing federal funding last month — which was eventually rescinded — was a warning sign of how the office will operate with Vought in charge. As OMB director, Vought will be a key player in implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Vought is Trump’s 13th nominee confirmed since he took office on January 20.

Marathon protest: Beginning at 2:17 p.m. ET on Wednesday, after a key procedural vote limiting debate on Vought’s nomination to 30 hours, Democrats organized hours of speeches, holding the floor overnight and all day on Thursday to protest Vought’s nomination. The Senate eventually voted to confirm Vought after the 30 hours expired.

Democrats also gathered on the floor just ahead of the confirmation vote, and as their names were read in the roll call, they each stood up and cast their vote for a group. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, for example, said his vote against confirming Vought was “for New Jersey first responders.” Each time they spoke, they were reprimanded by the presiding officer, GOP Sen. Ashley Moody, for breaking Senate rules and debating during a vote.

There was some consternation in the chamber when Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said he was voting for Vought’s confirmation on behalf of taxpayers and was not reprimanded by Moody. In response, Democrats banged their fists on their desks and called for “regular order.”

President Donald Trump signed a series of executive actions Thursday evening.

Here’s a look at some of those actions:

Fighting against “anti-Christian bias”: Trump signed an executive action that creates a new task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias,” and halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government.

“My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians. The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms. My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified,” the action read.

Trump previously announced his executive action on anti-Christian bias during remarks earlier Thursday.

“Today, I’m signing an executive order to make our attorney general — who’s a great person, she’s going to be a great attorney general — Pam Bondi, the head of a task force brand new to eradicate anti-Christian bias,” he said, as CNN’s Betsy Klein previously reported.

Reviewing NGO funding: Trump also signed an executive memorandum directing a comprehensive review of the funding allocated to all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that depend on federal financial support, the White House told CNN.

This action is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reassess federal spending.

International Criminal Court sanctions: Trump later signed another executive action Thursday that targets the International Criminal Court.

“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,” the action reads.

The action is expected to impose financial and visa sanctions on “individuals and their family members who aid in ICC investigations involving US citizens or our allies,” as CNN previously reported. This move aims to punish the court for issuing arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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