What's happening today
- President Donald Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term, which was attended by Elon Musk, who heads the administration's Department of Government Efficiency and isn't a Cabinet member.
- At the meeting, Trump backed Musk's message that all federal employees send an email about their accomplishments last week or be fired. Separately, his administration told federal agencies today to come up with plans in the next few weeks for additional layoffs and reorganization.
- Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are close to a final agreement on Ukraine's provision of rare earth minerals to the U.S. in return for security guarantees.
- The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case brought by a straight woman from Ohio who filed a reverse discrimination claim, which the justices appear likely to allow her to pursue.
Commerce secretary suggests postal workers could collect census data
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested during an interview tonight that postal workers could replace those tasked with collecting census data to potentially cut costs.
"We’ll do a better job," Lutnick said during a Fox News interview with Bret Baier.
NBC News previously reported that the Postal Service was preparing for potential takeover by the Commerce Department after Trump said Lutnick “will be looking” at the U.S. Postal Service.
Lutnick also suggested that the U.S. Postal Service could play a role in delivering Social Security forms, which he said would eliminate the need for thousands of Social Security Administration workers.
"We just don’t need them. We actually can do real customer service," he said.
Lutnick says he thinks Trump's tariffs will cut costs for Americans
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a Fox News interview this evening that he believes Trump's pro-tariff stance will ultimately cut costs.
Asked during a Fox News interview with Bret Baier if he thinks Trump's approach to tariffs will lower costs for Americans, Lutnick said he did.
"I do believe it," Lutnick said, adding that while moving car manufacturing abroad lowers costs, it has negative consequences for those living in states like Michigan and Ohio.
"You're going to see unbelievable growth from the American economy and you're going to balance the budget," he said.
NBC News previously reported that some companies have already indicated that shoppers are likely to see some prices rise amid Trump's tariff plans and that auto insurance premiums could also go up.
Forest Service chief announces retirement amid flurry of staff cuts
Citing frustration over the recent staff cuts, U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore announced today he is retiring after 45 years with the department effective March 3.
The announcement comes on the heels of the Trump administration firing roughly 2,000 probationary staffers at the Forest Service. That’s on top of the 1,000 people fired at the National Park Service and 700 rangers taking the Trump administration's “fork in the road” buyout offer.
The terminations have left employees and supervisors bewildered and anxious about the future of the agencies, and short-staffed going into the busy spring tourism season.
"The past several weeks has been incredibly difficult," Moore wrote in a memo to staff. "As part of a broader effort to reduce the size of the federal government, we parted ways with colleagues we worked alongside, who successfully contributed to our mission, and who were valued members of our Forest Service team."
In 2021, Moore became the first Black person to lead the agency after overseeing 18 national forests in California. The Forest Service plays a pivotal role in maintaining public lands amid increasingly deadly fire seasons and deploys elite firefighters to conflagrations across the U.S.
Most recently, wildland firefighters helped contain the Palisades and Eaton fires in the greater Los Angeles area, and Forest Service investigators are helping determine what sparked the Palisades Fire.
“I have been silent these last few weeks because these decisions are being made at a level above our organization, and I was and am learning about the changes the same time as many of you,” Moore went on. “Our focus now is on how we respond and adapt to new priorities and continue delivering on our mission with the workforce we have.”
"Take care of yourselves and each other," he added.
Trump signs executive order directing agencies to 'terminate or modify' contracts, justify payments and freeze employees' credit cards
Trump signed an executive order today that directs the heads of agencies to, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, "build a centralized technological system within the agency to seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment."
The order also directs agencies to review contracts and grants and, in accord with applicable law, "terminate or modify" those contracts and grants to cut federal spending "or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration."
The order also moves to freeze agency employees' credit cards for 30 days, with exceptions for credit cards for employees involved in disaster relief "or other critical services" identified by the agency head in consultation with DOGE.
EPA in 'lock step' with Trump as he talks of 65% cut to agency staff
President Donald Trump said the Environmental Protection Agency could cut about 65% of its workforce during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“I spoke with Lee Zeldin, he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental and we’re going to speed up the process, too,” Trump said, referring to EPA’s administrator.
The EPA has already terminated many employees who had probationary status and put hundreds more environmental justice workers on leave.
The agency's website says the EPA had more than 15,000 employees in 2024. A 65% cut could leave roughly 10,000 workers out of a job.
The EPA did not directly respond to questions from NBC News about the agency’s plans and when a cut might take place.
“President Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin are in lock step in creating a more efficient and effective federal government,” an EPA spokesperson wrote in an email. “Compared to 2024, the total amount spent year over year at EPA will deliver significant efficiencies to American taxpayers by cutting wasteful grants, reassessing the agency’s real estate footprint, and delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure.”
Trump administration mulls merging two combatant commands
The Trump administration is considering merging the Defense Department’s two combatant commands that cover North and South America into one and renaming it America Command, according to five current and former U.S. officials.
The proposal under discussion would merge U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command to create AMERICOM to reduce costs and streamline operations in the Defense Department, the officials said.
NORTHCOM is currently headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., and SOUTHCOM’s headquarters is in Doral, Fla., and it is possible the new command could use one of the two existing locations. Alabama has also been discussed as a possible location for a new AMERICOM headquarters, two of the current and former U.S. officials said.
Merging the two commands would put a sprawling scope of regions under a single post — from Central America, South America and the Caribbean to aerospace and maritime activity across Canada, Alaska and the continental U.S.
The Trump administration is looking at the structuring of other military commands to determine if there could be budget savings there. NBC News previously reported that the administration is considering getting rid of U.S. Africa Command and housing it under U.S. European Command, which has been the structure in the past.
SOUTHCOM, which has more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel, also includes the defense of the Panama Canal and oversees operations of Naval Station Guantanamo, which has recently begun housing and detaining migrants transported from the southern U.S. via military aircraft.
NORTHCOM, charged with defense of the U.S., also assists in relief efforts after natural disasters and counter-drug operations. The Commander of NORTHCOM also commands North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which defends the airspace over North America, and was in the spotlight in 2023 after an alleged Chinese spy balloon floated across U.S. airspace. While NORTHCOM and NORAD work together for homeland defense, NORAD is a binational military command with the U.S. and Canada.
Merging the two commands could have bipartisan support in Congress. Pentagon appointees from both parties have considered the idea several times over the past decade, according to two congressional officials and a former U.S. official, though those discussions repeatedly landed on keeping NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM separate.
The idea of a singular command for the two operation centers was discussed during the first Trump administration, according to three people with knowledge of conversations.
One of the people with knowledge of the conversations said that the NORTHCOM commander in the first Trump administration pushed the idea with Republican senators during Trump’s first term.
The general view among Republicans in Congress who serve on committees with oversight of the commands is that SOUTHCOM is largely overlooked and underfunded, so they would support merging it with NORTHCOM, according to this person.
Merging the two commands could also eliminate a four-star billet. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he intends to eliminate inflation in the ranks, or general officer positions being inflated to higher ranks, and to shrink the size of headquarters units in the military to eliminate bureaucracy.
Judge extends order temporarily blocking Trump administration from firing head of the Office of Special Counsel
A temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from firing Hampton Dellinger who leads the Office of Special Counsel has been extended three days to Saturday, March 1, while Judge Amy Berman Jackson writes a full opinion stemming from today’s hearing.
The extension comes after Dellinger had filed a lawsuit this month alleging the Trump administration fired him illegally and he was temporarily reinstated. The Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to step in to keep him off the job. The high court kept the pause in place, saying it would not immediately act due to rapidly moving proceedings in lower courts.
“The Court is well aware that the case is in the very unusual posture of being the subject of an application before the Supreme Court before a final order has been issued and before the United States Court of Appeals for the District Columbia has had the opportunity to review that final order,” Berman Jackson wrote in today's order.
“It recognizes that the Supreme Court — with the understanding that the TRO expires at midnight tonight — is holding the application in abeyance until that time. So it is incumbent upon this Court to resolve this matter even more expeditiously,” she added.
Trump says he'll reinstate Venezuela sanctions that were eased under Biden
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that his administration is "hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to [President] Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime."
The president added that the agreement, which included the Biden administration easing sanctions against Venezuela after Maduro agreed to restart negotiations with his political opposition party, would be terminated on March 1.
Demonstrators stage sit-in at Capitol Rotunda to protest AIDS funding cuts
Demonstrators, some of them former PEPFAR and USAID employees, protest AIDS funding cuts on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda today. Organized by ActUp's Health Global Access Project, the protesters temporarily occupied the floor of the rotunda before Capitol Police arrested 21 of the demonstrators.
Jeffries: Some NYC voters 'would be very interested in checking out' Cuomo's mayoral campaign
In an interview on Capitol Hill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he hasn't yet spoken to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo about his possible run for mayor in New York City, telling NBC News, "I do look forward to speaking with him sooner rather than later, if, in fact, he’s going to jump into the mayor’s race, and then we’ll take it from there."
Asked whether it would be good for New York if Cuomo, who resigned his old post in 2021 after multiple allegations of sexual harassment, ran for mayor, Jeffries said, "I think it’d be a candidate that a lot of people, as I’ve heard from the district that I represent, would be very interested in checking out."
As Trump fires workers from cyber agency, former director tries to find them new jobs
As layoffs rock the top federal cyber watchdog, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, its former director is trying to help laid-off workers find new jobs.
Earlier this month, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, CISA’s parent agency, told NBC News that its initial round of terminations at the agency included more than 130 at CISA. The agency had around 3,300 employees at the end Joe Biden’s term.
CISA’s director during the Biden administration, Jen Easterly, posted on LinkedIn Saturday: “To my former teammates who have lost jobs without justification, please reach out, and I’ll aim to highlight you on this platform to help advance your job search.”
Easterly has also created a Google Form for former CISA employees to share with companies hiring in cybersecurity roles.
Dozens of DOGE ‘receipts’ saved no money and killed contracts meant to boost efficiency
Take a quick look at the Department of Government Efficiency’s list of canceled contracts and you’d think the Agriculture Department spent $25 million on diversity trainings four separate times, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau spent $600 million on management consultants.
DOGE’s “wall of savings” and list of canceled contracts include many eye-popping “receipts” like those. There’s just one problem: Many of the so-called receipts aren’t receipts at all. They’re negotiated agreements with known government contractors, who might provide future services.
“This is a way to make it easier for the government to order, if it does order, and to set up good prices that they can order. It doesn’t mean they buy it,” Steve Kelman, who ran the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget in the 1990s, said of the contracts.
Federal agencies told to start planning for large-scale layoffs
The Trump administration directed federal agencies today to prepare for mass layoffs, according to the heads of the White House budget and personnel management offices.
Budget Director Russell Vought and Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a memo to the heads of these agencies that the federal government is “costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt.”
“At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens,” they said.
The memo notes Trump has required “large-scale reductions in force,” and to implement that, it calls on the heads of departments and agencies to submit the first phase of reorganization plans by March 13, which “shall focus on initial agency cuts and reductions.”
A.G. Bondi urges 3 states to keep transgender women out of women's sports
Attorney General Pam Bondi has sent letters to officials in California, Minnesota and Maine urging the states to comply with Trump's executive order preventing transgender women and girls from competing in women's and girls' sports.
“This Department of Justice will defend women and does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law,” Bondi said in a statement. “We will leverage every legal option necessary to ensure state compliance with federal law and President Trump’s executive order protecting women’s sports.”
The letters come after a tense exchange over the issue between Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills last week.
Trump on Friday threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding if it refused to comply with his executive order.
Mills had a simple response: “See you in court.”
21 DOGE staffers resign over refusal to ‘dismantle’ public services
The Trump administration’s efforts to slash the federal workforce is encountering resistance with a group of DOGE staffers who are resigning in protest, anonymously posting online that they won’t “compromise core government systems ... or dismantle critical public services.” Meanwhile, Elon Musk attended Trump’s first Cabinet meeting today. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports for "TODAY."
Trump and Elon Musk dominate his first Cabinet meeting
Trump convened his Cabinet secretaries for the first meeting of his new term today, gathering agency leaders who are working to implement his agenda at a spitfire pace — and the billionaire adviser whose work on Trump’s behalf is touching all of their agencies.
The group, which included nominees who haven’t yet been confirmed, was joined by Elon Musk, whose early actions to reshape the federal bureaucracy have stoked rancor and unease among government employees, as well as early murmurs of concern among some Republicans in Congress.
“He’s sacrificing a lot,” Trump said as he introduced Musk. “He’s getting a lot of praise, I’ll tell you, but he’s also getting hit.”
Musk’s efforts have prompted resistance from some Cabinet secretaries, including several who recently instructed staff to put aside a directive coming from Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency that required a five-point response to the question, “What did you do last week?”
In deporting Asians to Central America, Trump is strong-arming weaker nations, policy experts say
Dozens of mostly Asian migrants were put on a deportation flight from San Antonio on Tuesday. But instead of landing near their home countries, the migrants eventually arrived in the Costa Rican capital of San José, where they were then shuttled off to the southern part of the country to await their fates.
The flight is among the latest in a series of U.S. deportations that have made a stopover in Central America, with Panama similarly serving as a bridge in recent weeks. Immigration and legal researchers said the Trump administration has pressured these countries to take in undocumented migrants, particularly those who are from countries like China and India that have been traditionally more reluctant to accept people back.
Immigration and legal researchers and advocates say political and economic pressures from the Trump administration have strong-armed Panama and Costa Rica into repatriation agreements, making them a stopover for the U.S. in the deportation process. They mention the new method allows the other countries to bear the brunt of processing the migrants, and removes them from protections under U.S. law.
Trump says peace deal between Russia and Ukraine may not work out
Trump said it's possible he won't be able to work out peace between Ukraine and Russia.
"You have a lot of confidence in us because you assume there's going to be peace," Trump said. "You know it's possible it doesn't work out. There is a possibility, but I hope it does for the sake of humanity."
Trump had previously said he could end the war within 24 hours or even before taking office.
Trump says U.S. will enact 25% tariff on E.U. on 'cars and all other things'
Trump said that the U.S. would enact a 25% tariff on the European Union "generally speaking," adding that the tariffs would be "on cars and all other things."
He criticized the E.U. as having been "formed in order to screw the United States."
The E.U. was created when the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992, "setting clear rules for the future single currency as well as for foreign and security policy and closer cooperation in justice and home affairs," the E.U. website said.
Trump confirms he expects Cabinet secretaries to follow his orders
Trump said he expects Cabinet secretaries to follow his orders, responding to a question about his control over the executive branch.
"Oh yeah, they'll follow the orders," Trump said.
"Of course no exceptions," Trump added when asked by a reporter whether he would allow any exceptions of Cabinet members not obeying him.
Trump touts plan for $5M payment for a path to citizenship
Trump again touted what he has referred to as a "gold card," a plan for foreign investors to pay $5 million and get a path to citizenship.
"For $5 million, they'll get a license from the Department of Commerce, then they'll make a proper investment on the EB-5," said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, referring to a visa program that provides foreign nationals who invest in the U.S. legal permanent residency and a path to citizenship.
Earlier, Trump said that people who are able to pay $5 million are "going to create jobs, they're going to spend a lot of money on jobs."
He also said that "not all these people are going to be job builders" and suggested that companies would buy the cards for employees.
"They'll be successful people, or they'll be people that were hired from colleges, sort of like paying an athlete a bonus," Trump said. "Apple or one of the companies will go out and they'll spend five — they'll buy five of them, and they're going to get five people."
Trump says tariffs on Canada and Mexico will move forward
Trump said that he would allow the paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico to move forward.
"I'm not stopping the tariffs," he said, pointing to how people have died due to fentanyl crossing the border.
"The damage has been done," he said.
Trump said that many tariffs would be implemented on April 2.
Trump says employees who don't respond to OPM email could 'be gone'
Musk said "we're going to send another email," referring to the one the Office of Personnel Management sent asking federal employees to respond with five accomplishments in the last week. Musk had said people who do not respond would be terminated, though the office later said responses were voluntary.
"We want to give people every opportunity to send an email," he added.
Trump added that people who have not responded are "on the bubble" and questioned if some federal agency employees exist.
"I wouldn't say that we're thrilled about it. They haven't responded," Trump said.
"Maybe they're going to be gone," Trump added.
Trump asks Musk to speak first at Cabinet meeting
Trump asked Elon Musk to be the first speaker at the Cabinet meeting after saying he has been "a tremendously successful guy."
"He's sacrificing a lot, and getting a lot of praise, I'll tell you, but he's also getting hit, and we would expect that, and that's the way it works," Trump said.
Musk laid out his DOGE priorities and noted that "we will make mistakes."
"We won't be perfect," he said. "But when we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly."
He said DOGE "accidentally" briefly canceled Ebola prevention efforts at USAID, but then restored the program.
Trump says Zelenskyy is coming to the U.S. on Friday
Trump said at his Cabinet meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the U.S. on Friday.
"We're going to be signing an agreement which will be a very big agreement," he said. Trump added that the agreement would be regarding rare earth minerals.
Trump begins first Cabinet meeting
Trump has started the first Cabinet meeting of his second term.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is not a Cabinet member, is in attendance.
California Gov. Newsom to host podcast on hot-button issues
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is launching a new podcast, which he is describing as "anything but that ordinary 'politician' podcast."
Newsom announced the podcast in a post on X, including a promo video in which he says, "I'm going to be talking to people directly that I disagree with, as well as people I looks up to, but more important than anything else, I'll be talking directly to you, the listener."
He lists egg prices, tariffs, executive orders and DOGE as topics he'll be discussing.
Agriculture secretary outlines 'five-pronged' approach to curbing rising egg prices
In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal this morning, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote about the Trump administration's efforts to curb rising egg prices, which are expected to keep increasing this year due to widespread outbreaks of avian influenza.
Rollins first blasted the Biden administration, alleging that the former president and his staff "did little to address the repeated outbreaks and high egg prices that followed."
"By contrast, the Trump administration is taking the issue seriously," she added.
Rollins wrote that she and the Agriculture Department "will invest up to $1 billion to curb this crisis and make eggs affordable again" by working with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to reallocate any identified "wasteful spending" to "long-term solutions to avian flu."
The secretary wrote that "there’s no silver bullet to eradicating avian flu," but outlined a "five-pronged strategy" that includes allocating resources for biosecurity measures at egg-production farms, increasing financial relief for farmers whose flocks are affected, and exploring vaccines for hens.
The actions would seek to address egg prices by removing "unnecessary regulatory burdens on egg producers where possible" and considering "temporary import options" for eggs in the short term, she wrote.
Trump administration appeals USAID aid freeze order
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. to pause a lower court's order to resume payments to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Justice Department wrote that the district court's order was made "without regard to payment-integrity systems that would ensure that the monies claimed are properly owed, without regard to the federal government’s meritorious arguments to the contrary, and without so much as addressing the government’s sovereign-immunity defense."
A stay pending appeal is needed "to prevent grave and irreparable harm to the government," the DOJ said.
The administration requested that the appeals court take action by 1 p.m. ET today.
NYC mayor calls for dismissal of charges against him because of 'prosecutorial misconduct'
New York City Mayor Eric Adams called on a federal court today to dismiss the criminal charges against him, alleging "prosecutorial misconduct and resulting prejudice."
"Leaks regarding the government’s investigation, the evidence and witness testimony sought by the grand jury, and the prosecution’s working theories of Mayor Adams’s wrongdoing began nearly a year before the grand jury returned an indictment and have dominated news cycles since," the court filing said.
His legal team argued in the motion that a letter from Feb. 12 from the former interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to the attorney general was leaked.
The letter disclosed the former U.S. attorney's "self-proclaimed confidence in Mayor Adams’s guilt," the filing said, and that prosecutors were planning to re-indict Adams and "the wildly inflammatory and false accusation that Mayor Adams and his counsel had, in essence, offered a quid to the Department of Justice in exchange for the quo of dismissal."
"The leak has compromised Mayor Adams’s right to a fair trial and violated multiple clear rules governing what prosecutors can and cannot disclose to the media," his lawyers argued.
House narrowly adopts budget plan to advance Trump’s agenda
The House narrowly passes the Republican’s budget plan and moves one step closer to a sweeping bill that could cut close to $2 trillion from the federal budget in a big victory for Trump as he looks to move full steam ahead on slashing the federal workforce. NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports for "TODAY."
Trump threatens to sue journalists or create 'nice new law'
Trump today threatened to sue journalists, authors and book publishers who use anonymous sources.
Granting certain sources anonymity is a common journalistic practice, especially when sources fear retribution.
"At some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these 'anonymous sources' even exist, which they largely do not," he said on Truth Social, without providing evidence. "They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty."
"I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!" he added.
Trump has already sued outlets for news coverage, including CBS over an interview with Kamala Harris, the Des Moines Register newspaper over a poll that showed Harris leading in Iowa, and CNN over its coverage of the president's unfounded election fraud claims, although that case was dismissed. In another case, ABC decided to pay $15 million to settle a defamation claim by Trump.
Trump and Musk’s slash-and-burn tactics are a sticking point in talks to prevent a shutdown
Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk are taking a hatchet to federal agencies, using executive power to impose spending and job cuts that have sparked a polarizing debate in the nation’s capital and across the country.
The clash has stalled negotiations on Capitol Hill ahead of the March 14 deadline to avert a government shutdown, as Republicans who control the House and the Senate are making it clear they won’t accept constraints on Trump’s authority.
But Democrats have leverage even as the minority party, and they are using it to demand guardrails in the bill to limit the executive branch’s discretion — and require the administration to carry out spending directed by Congress.
“If they want our votes, they need to work with us,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, told reporters Tuesday. “We are close on top-line spending. We need to know Republicans are willing to work with us to protect Congress’ power of the purse — and I welcome any and all ideas they may have on how we can work together to do just that.
Walz will not run for Senate seat
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will not run for the Senate next year after Sen. Tina Smith decided not to seek re-election, according to spokesperson Teddy Tschann.
"He loves his job as Governor and he’s exploring the possibility of another term to continue his work to make Minnesota the best state in the country for kids," Tschann said.
Walz, whose term ends in 2026 and who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, does not plan to endorse a candidate in the Senate primary race, according to a source close to the governor. His lieutenant governor, Penny Flanagan, has already announced her candidacy.
Smith, a Democrat, announced earlier this month that she would not seek re-election in 2026, noting that "this job has been the honor of a lifetime."
Trump posts AI video depicting 'Trump Gaza'
Trump posted an artificial intelligence video depicting his name and face heavily featured in a future, redeveloped Gaza.
The video begins with scenes of destruction in the territory before the words "Whats next?" flashed onto the screen in red, white and blue. Then the video transitions to images of skyscrapers, Elon Musk smiling while eating food, and a boy holding a golden balloon depicting Trump's head.
Thumping music plays in the background of the video, with the lyrics: "Donald Trump will set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here. Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new life."
Later in the video, Trump dances with a scantily clothed woman and Musk dances as money rains down on him. The video cuts to an image of "Trump Gaza" emblazoned on the front of a fancy building, moments later showing an image of a towering golden statue of Trump.
The penultimate image depicts Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lounging with drinks in front of a small "Trump Gaza" sign.
Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “As President Trump has said, Gaza in its current state is uninhabitable for any human being."
"President Trump is a visionary, and his plan to have the United States involved in Gaza’s rebuilding will allow for Palestinians to resettle in new, beautiful communities while improving conditions in the region for generations to come," she continued.
Trump has proposed that the U.S. take control of Gaza, even though it is home to Palestinians.
Trump to hold Cabinet meeting in the morning, sign executive orders this afternoon
Trump will participate in the first Cabinet meeting of his second term at 11 a.m. ET, the White House said. Musk is expected to attend.
In the afternoon, at 3 p.m., Trump is scheduled to sign more executive orders.
Trump keeps toying with a third term — even though the Constitution forbids it
Reporting from Washington
A coterie of Trump loyalists is in the early phase of a campaign to rewrite the Constitution so he can serve another term — an idea that Trump has done nothing to discourage.
First as a candidate last year and since taking office, Trump has teased, stoked, nurtured, fed and, if nothing else, kept alive the improbable notion that he might run and serve one more time.
“Am I allowed to run again?” Trump said last month at a meeting with House Republicans in south Florida.
The Constitution is clear on that point: He’s not. Under the 22nd Amendment, no one may be elected president more than twice. That rules out Trump.
U.S. and Ukraine prepare final version of minerals agreement, Ukrainian PM says
Ukraine and the United States have prepared a draft agreement that would give Washington access to Kyiv’s rare-earth minerals in exchange for unspecified security guarantees, the Ukrainian government said today.
“The U.S. government supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees necessary to create lasting peace,” Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in an address.
His comments came after a senior administration official engaged in negotiations told NBC News today that the agreement was “at the 99 yard line with one inch to go.”
According to earlier reports in the Financial Times and elsewhere, the agreement involved concessions on both sides.
Supreme Court weighs straight woman’s reverse discrimination claim
Reporting from Washington
The Supreme Court today considers the novel legal question of whether a woman can pursue a workplace sex discrimination case over claims she was discriminated against because she is straight.
The court’s ultimate ruling could lower the bar for people belonging to majority groups to bring so-called reverse discrimination claims.
Marlean Ames brought a claim against the Ohio Department of Youth Services under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, after a lesbian woman obtained a promotion she was also seeking. She was then demoted, and her old position was taken by a gay man.
Three Trump DOJ picks to have confirmation hearing this morning
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing this morning for three of Trump’s nominees for top posts at the Justice Department.
- D. John Sauer — Trump’s choice for solicitor general of the United States, who successfully argued Trump’s immunity case before the Supreme Court last year.
- Aaron Reitz — Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, who is the chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a former Texas deputy attorney general. Trump touted him as a "true MAGA attorney" in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination in December.
- Harmeet Dhillon — Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, who emerged as a Republican advocate in California in litigation involving Trump's supporters and filed lawsuits over the state's stay-at-home orders during the Covid pandemic.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, questioned Dhillon's record in a statement yesterday after having met with her, referring to "her role in advocating for overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election," which he said raised concerns over her ability to serve as an "independent voice" to protect freedoms.
“I pressed Ms. Dhillon on the importance of protecting civil rights for all Americans, including voting rights, reproductive rights, the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, and marriage equality," Durbin said.