Welcome to the first weekend of the second Trump administration, when no one should expect the past week’s chaotic, confusing political news to slow down. Overnight Friday, the Senate confirmed Donald Trump’s extra-controversial Defense Secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth; while around the same time, Trump terminated at least a dozen inspectors general across a range of federal agencies in what may have been an illegal purge. Below are updates, commentary, and analysis on the weekend’s developments as they happen.
It may be the first international bluster-off of the second Trump administration. Colombian president Gustavo Petro shared a long post on X responding to Trump’s threats — and announcing that he had ordered his foreign trade minister to “raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25 percent.”
“You can try carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you,” Petro said, among a lot of other contentious things. He also said that if Trump imposes a 50 percent tariff, he will match that as well.
The longtime U.S. ally’s president, Gustavo Petro, announced on social media on Sunday that the country would not accept U.S. military deportation flights and had already turned such planes away. Petro said he was open to accepting deportees on other flights, but not military ones: “I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them, but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.”
Colombia reportedly approved two military deportation flights, then rejected them mid-flight on Sunday:
Trump soon announced in a Truth Social post what amounted to an economic war on Colombia as retaliation. His threat included 25 percent (to soon as high as 50 percent) tariffs on Colombian exports, sanctions, harassment of Columbians at the border, and a variety of other measures:
I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people. Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures:
-Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.
-A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Colombian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.
-Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.
-Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.
-IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed.
These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!
Colombia exports more goods to the U.S. than it does to any other country, including 17 percent of U.S. coffee imports and a majority of U.S. cut flower imports.
The coordinated action began Sunday, involving agents from ICE and other other federal law enforcement agencies, CNN reports:
In a statement, ICE confirmed the “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago began Sunday.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with federal partners, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the U.S. Marshals Service, began conducting enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities,” the statement reads. The Chicago operation is part of a broader effort to add manpower to ICE, which has limited resources and agents, as the administration tries to ramp up arrests nationwide and amass a larger force to carry out the president’s deportation pledge.
There are no details about the actual raids and/or arrests thus far. Deputy attorney general Emil Bove and Trump “border czar” Tom Homan were both in Chicago on Sunday morning as part of the action.
As Politico notes:
The Central Intelligence Agency said Saturday that it’s more likely a lab leak caused the Covid-19 pandemic than an infected animal that spread the virus to people, changing the agency’s yearslong stance that it couldn’t conclude with certainty where the pandemic started.
The agency made its new assessment public two days after former Republican lawmaker John Ratcliffe was sworn in as its new leader.
“We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment,” an unnamed CIA spokesperson wrote in an email sent to reporters Saturday. …
A new CIA analysis of the intelligence it had on the virus’ origin was completed and published internally before Ratcliffe’s arrival, the U.S. official said. Ratcliffe authorized its public release, the official added.
Ratcliffe had previously suggested the CIA had been muzzled by “political and financial considerations.”
During his appearance on Face the Nation on Sunday morning, the VP reversed himself and justified Trump’s pardon of violent January 6 rioters:
Axios’ Marc Caputo reports on the adult efforts to prevent another Trump White House from being itself, emphasizing how “No modern president has done more — across more areas of American policy, culture and life — than Trump in the past six days.” These control measures will surely be successful for all four years, right?
President Trump is surprising — even frustrating — some longtime friends in his second administration’s early days with fewer leaks, a lack of exploitable rivalries, and tighter restrictions on access to him. …
“It’s a total black box,” a lobbyist close to the administration told Axios. “Nothing is leaking except what they want.” There’s a “strong silo system” that has kept advocates and special interests from forum-shopping and end-running administration officials, the lobbyist added.
The biggest change of all, Axios has learned, is that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and other aides have clamped down on the ability of random friends and reporters to call Trump directly. Until now, if you had his phone number and called, Trump would answer and talk to you — and maybe even act on whatever you suggested.Now, Trump wants to focus more on work and has less time for bull sessions so he’s less prone to answer his phone.
The president spoke with reporters on Air Force One and made a number of notable comments, including how he wanted to Egypt and Jordan to “take people” from Gaza so we “just clean out that whole thing.”
“It could be temporary or it could be long term,” he suggested:
And he once again pushed the idea of taking Greenland from Denmark, which should “allow that to happen”:
Asked about his Friday night purge of inspectors general, Trump dismissed any concerns, insisting “it’s a very common thing to do.”
As we saw during the first Trump administration, the president is typically happiest when doing campaign-style rallies away from D.C. — and he held one in downtown Las Vegas on Saturday. The rally was supposed to be about his Nevada-focused campaign pledge to eliminate taxes on tips. He didn’t have much to add about that plan on Saturday, but he did boast about his many accomplishments after less than a week back on the job. And he cracked some jokes:
And complained about not being able to ogle waitresses:
Also in attendance was Oath Keepers founder and convicted January 6 insurrectionist Stewart Rhodes, whose 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy Trump commuted shortly after taking office. Another point Trump made at the rally:
The Biden administration in May halted the shipment of MK-84 1,800 pound bombs to Israel following the Israeli invasion of Rafah, citing fears that targeting densely populated urban areas in Gaza with the massive bombs would be catastrophic for Palestinian civilians. The Trump White House has ordered the Pentagon to release the bombs to Israel again, Axios reports.
Per the Associated Press:
Negative social media posts have been enough to derail applications. Those seeking jobs have been told they will have to prove their “enthusiasm” to enact Trump’s agenda and have been asked when their moment of “MAGA revelation” occurred. One federal employee said they briefly considered buying Trump’s crypto meme coin in case the president’s team asked about their voting record.
The intense screening has led some federal workers to question whether Trump’s team cares more about loyalty than competence. There is concern that his team is ousting foreign policy and national security diplomats and others who could offer the administration expertise and institutional knowledge at a time of conflict worldwide.
The administration’s screening personnel have apparently made an impression:
Some officials have referred to the newcomers sent by the White House to federal agencies disparagingly as “MAGA commissars,” a reference to Communist Party officials from the former Soviet Union. They are generally young and many do not appear to have particular expertise or background in the portfolios of the agencies in which they are working, according to three U.S. officials, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Late Friday, the White House conducted a sweeping purge against more than a dozen inspectors general, who are the watchdogs guarding against waste, fraud, and abuse at federal agencies. The New York Times initially reported that a total of 17 inspectors general got the axe, then later revised that number down to “at least 12” — noting there were “competing lists circulating in Washington on Saturday morning” regarding who had been terminated. The Washington Post reports that at least 15 were fired, and that the purge was likely illegal, since federal law requires Congress be given at least 30 days notice of the intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general. No explanation was given for the terminations, either.
Per the Post, the fired inspectors general were from many of the largest agencies, including:
• Agriculture Department
• Commerce Department
• Defense Department
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Health and Human Services
• Housing and Urban Development
• Interior Department
• Small Business Administration
• Social Security Administration
• State Department
• Transportation Department
• Veterans Affairs Department
In addition:
The acting inspector general of the Treasury Department was also informed that he would be dismissed. But that person is a career civil servant who assumed the job in December after the appointed inspector general resigned, meaning he can be demoted but not fired outright, according to federal personnel rules, people familiar with the matter said.
Though the Trump team had been reportedly looking to target several inspectors general in its big opening blitz after Trump took power, the scale of Friday night’s purge still came as a surprise to many, as the Post notes:
Most of those dismissed were Trump appointees from his first term, which stunned the watchdog community. One prominent inspector general survived the purge — Michael Horowitz at the Justice Department, an appointee of President Barack Obama who has issued reports critical of both the Biden administration and Trump’s first administration.
“It’s a widespread massacre,” said one of the fired inspectors general. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”
The emails informing the watchdogs of their dismissals rippled across the agencies Friday. Another fired inspector general learned of his ouster by reading the email for the first time while on the phone with a Washington Post reporter who had called to ask about it. The person reacted by saying the new administration “does not want anyone in this role who is going to be independent.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren quickly warned that “Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.” One of the inspectors responded to the White House questioning the legality, as well:
It’s not clear if Senate GOP leaders will try to push back — or at least push back harder than this:
The Senate on Saturday voted 59-34 to confirm the now former South Dakota governor as Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, and has now moved onto to the process for confirming Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee, Scott Bessent.
As CNN reports:
The Trump administration on Friday abruptly halted services for refugees in the United States, including Afghans, according to a memo obtained by CNN, stunning agencies that provide critical support to recent arrivals.
It’s a sweeping move that prompted a scramble as refugee advocates tried to interpret the order. The memo stands to affect tens of thousands of refugees – including Afghans who aided the US during the war – by seemingly barring them from assistance, ranging from caseworker support to housing, that is afforded to arrivals in their first three months in the United States.
“We’ll have refugees going homeless,” a refugee advocate told CNN. “It’s completely unprecedented. Nothing like this has ever happened.”
He’s scheduled to speak at a rally for tax-exempt tips at the Circa Resort and Casino in downtown Las Vegas just after noon local time on Saturday. He arrived in the city on Friday night after disaster zone visits to Asheville, North Carolina, and Los Angeles County in California.
This post has been updated.
