Steve Bannon suggests Elon Musk isn’t doing enough as head of DOGE
Bannon suggested in the interview that Musk wasn’t doing enough to promote cost-cutting in his new role at the “Department of Government Efficiency.”
“I thought Elon promised the president to bring down the deficit by cutting costs by $1 trillion this year,” Bannon said. He pointed to the mid-March deadline to avoid a government shutdown, adding that “there won’t be another” short-term spending measure.
“Now we have to deliver, and I’m afraid we’re burning daylight,” he said.
Bannon added that proposed cuts to government spending “have to be part of a national discussion and debate on this year’s budget. We have 30 days to put this in front of the American people, I think.”
Steve Bannon says Trump’s chief of staff has to tell Elon Musk to stay in his lane
Trump ally Steve Bannon laid into tech billionaire Elon Musk over his comments about Trump’s artificial intelligence initiative. Musk had argued on X that tech companies didn’t have enough money to fulfill their commitment to invest up to $500 billion in domestic AI infrastructure.
“The president didn’t mandate you to opine on President Trump’s bringing investments into the United States,” Bannon said in an interview. “When the president says it’s $500 billion, it’s $500 billion.”
Bannon said White House chief of staff Susie Wiles “has to sit down with Elon Musk and say, ‘Here’s your lane.’”
“Your lane is a superhighway. Stay in it,” Bannon added.
It isn’t the first time a Bannon-Musk feud has spilled into the open. During an intra-GOP debate over H-1B visas, which allow U.S. employers to temporarily hire noncitizens for highly skilled jobs, Musk publicly backed the program, while Bannon opposed it.
After Trump orders Denali renamed, a McKinley descendant promotes a compromise
When Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office to rename North America’s tallest peak, known as Denali in Alaska, after President William McKinley, one descendant of the 25th president was beyond elated.
“He deserves to have the mountain named after him,” Massee McKinley, a great-great nephew, said today. “He had unparalleled integrity. People respected him.”
But Trump’s decision is being met with resistance, as many Alaska lawmakers, including its two Republican senators, have voiced opposition to the change. So Massee McKinley is backing a compromise: call it Mount McKinley, but keep Denali National Park and Preserve.
Conservative AGs say corporations that adhere to DEI and ESG practices could face legal consequences
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote a letter to several major financial institutions and companies, warning that corporations that adhere to diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental and social governance practices could face legal “enforcement actions” if they continue to operate the programs.
The letter, which attorneys general of nine other red states also signed, comes as Trump ordered an end to federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs and took aim at the private sector by rolling back a directive that required private federal contractors to adhere to anti-discrimination criteria.
Paxton alleged that BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley’s continued commitment to DEI and ESG programs prioritizes “politics over consumers and investors.”
“You appear to have embraced race- and sex-based quotas and to have made business and investment decisions based not on maximizing shareholder and asset value, but in the furtherance of political agendas,” Paxton wrote . “We, the undersigned Attorneys General, are concerned this may violate federal and State laws.”
Major banks have said they use ESG criteria to determine how to minimize risk on investments.
Paxton has long been a sponsor of anti-ESG legislation, arguing regulators and corporations should not sacrifice investment return to prioritize nonfinancial ESG factors in business and financial dealings.
Paxton ordered the companies to “avoid a lengthy enforcement action” by answering a series of questions and subjecting employees to interviews to determine whether “violations” have occurred and “the necessity of enforcement actions to vindicate federal or State laws.”
The questions in the letter, which differed by company, hinged heavily on information about the financial institutions' DEI targets and engagements on DEI issues.
Paxton asked them to respond within 45 days.
Government memo ends 'know your rights' presentations at ICE detention facilities
The Justice Department issued a stop work memo yesterday to legal aid organizations that provide "know your rights" presentations to migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NBC News.
Previously, migrants were given a presentation upon arrival so that they understood their rights, including the right to claim asylum, within the United States. ABC News first reported the memo.
NBC News has learned from two sources that in addition to the stop work memo, posters around detention facilities informing migrants of their rights, how to reach the Immigration Court Help Desk and their right to complain about treatment in detention have been taken down in several locations.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, confirmed the reports.
“This is devastating and will leave asylum-seekers completely in the dark with no government information to help them navigate the extremely complicated immigration legal system. It deeply undermines the fairness of our immigration legal and judicial system,” Chen told NBC News.
Trump pardons anti-abortion protesters a day before annual March for Life rally
Trump signed an executive order pardoning 23 anti-abortion-rights activists today, one day before he is expected to address thousands of anti-abortion-rights demonstrators at their annual march in Washington.
“Twenty-three people were prosecuted; they should not have been prosecuted,” Trump said at the Oval Office signing ceremony, noting that “many of them” are elderly. “This is a great honor to sign. They will be very happy.”
Some are in jail, White House staff secretary Will Scharf told Trump as he stood next to him. None of their names were immediately released. Conservatives have charged the Biden administration with using a 1994 law protecting abortion clinics, providers and patients to target peaceful protesters.
RFK Jr. thanks Trump for order to declassify JFK and RFK docs
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is "very grateful to President Trump" when NBC News him about Trump’s signing an executive order today to declassify documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his late uncle, and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, his father.
“I think it’s a great move, because they need to have more transparency in our government, and he’s keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy was on Capitol Hill for meetings with senators ahead of his confirmation hearing next week.
House passes 'born-alive' legislation
The House passed legislation tonight to require health care providers to provide the same degree of care to a baby who survives an attempted abortion that they would for a newborn child.
The legislation passed with one Democrat — Henry Cuellar of Texas — voting in favor along with all Republicans.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, sponsored by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”
The bill would also require health care workers to report any failures to comply with the law. And health care practitioners could face legal punishment for not complying.
The Senate failed yesterday to advance its version of the bill on a 52-47 party line vote, with all Democrats opposing the legislation. The legislation needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Customs and Border Protection blocks migrants from claiming asylum at legal entry point
There are reports from multiple locations across the southern border that migrants are being turned back before they can make asylum claims at legal ports of entry.
Three sources familiar with the matter say migrants are not allowed to come to the ports of entry to make asylum claims and are being turned back into Mexico.
Widespread blocking would mean the Trump administration has entirely shut down any routes for migrants to claim asylum at the U.S. southern border, including those who present themselves legally at ports of entry.
Trump previously ended the use of the CBP One app, the legal pathway for migrants to set up asylum appointments, and the Biden administration made it nearly impossible for migrants to claim asylum if they crossed the southern border between legal ports of entry.
Making asylum claims at ports of entry was the last option, and now that appears to no longer be an option at multiple locations along the border.
Lindsay Toczylowski, an immigration attorney based in California who works with migrant shelters in Tijuana, Mexico, said she doesn’t have an answer for desperate migrants right now. She says, in effect, the U.S. asylum system is shut down.
“Right now, we have not been given any indication that there is an alternative now that the CBP One system has been shut down,” she said.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection referred NBC News to the White House, which has not responded to a request for comment.
DHS and other federal employees instructed to report DEI programs
The acting secretary of homeland security sent a memo yesterday directing DHS to close all diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility offices and contracts, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NBC News.
The document also instructs employees to report programs operating in “disguise.”
"We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language," the memo said. Failure to report information about such programs within 10 days “will result in adverse consequences.”
NBC News has reported that similar memos were sent across multiple agencies and departments yesterday.