Tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk was given a chainsaw as a gift as he appeared onstage at the CPAC conference.

The chainsaw was a gift from Argentina's President Javier Milei, who briefly appeared onstage with Musk and who shares Musk's views about slashing government spending and regulations. Musk held the chainsaw above his head as the CPAC crowd gave him a standing ovation.

"This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!" Musk said.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., delivered strong criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin in remarks on the Senate floor today, saying he is "a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime" in the wake of Trump's suggestion that Ukraine was to blame for Russia's invasion of its territory three years ago.

“So, look, I’m a Republican. I support President Trump, and I believe that most of his policies on national security are right," Tillis said.

"I believe his instincts are pretty good, but what I’m telling you, whoever believes that there is any space for Vladimir Putin in the future of a stable globe better go to Ukraine. They better go to Europe. They better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime," Tillis said.

Earlier this week, Trump said Ukraine "should have never started it” while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had expressed concern that his country was not included in talks between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia. Trump escalated those attacks yesterday by calling Zelenskyy a "dictator," mirroring Putin's questioning of the legitimacy of his ongoing leadership.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., plans to force a vote tonight on an amendment that would exempt federal firefighters from the ongoing hiring freeze launched by the Trump administration and reinstate firefighters who have been laid off as a result of cuts to the federal workforce, a spokesperson for the senator said.

Trump's federal hiring freeze halted the onboarding of thousands of federal firefighters, including some working for agencies that have helped battle the raging wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles-area earlier this year.

Schiff, following reporting from NBC News, previously called on several federal agencies to exempt federal firefighters from the hiring freeze, arguing it "detrimental to wildfire preparedness and readiness."

"Our constituents and communities rely on the hard work and sacrifice of our more than 15,000 seasonal federal wildland firefighters each year. Seasonal firefighters are essential to the public safety of those who live in fire-prone areas, and I am alarmed that federal firefighters are not party to this exemption," Schiff wrote in a letter to several federal agency heads.

A federal judge today denied a bid by labor unions to block the Trump administration from carrying out mass layoffs at federal agencies.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper indicated in his ruling that he was sympathetic to the National Treasury Employees’ Union and the four other unions that were seeking a restraining order to temporarily halt the layoffs, but said that federal court was not the appropriate venue for their lawsuit.

“NTEU fails to establish that it is likely to succeed on the merits because this Court likely lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the claims it asserts. The Court will therefore deny the unions’ motion for a temporary restraining order and, for the same reasons, deny their request for a preliminary injunction,” Cooper wrote in his order.

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The Trump administration has flown all or almost all of the migrants it had held in Guantanamo Bay out of the facility there and to Honduras, NBC News has learned from three sources familiar with the operation and flight data.

In a declaration in response to a lawsuit today, the Trump administration said there were 178 immigrants, all from Venezuela, housed at Guantanamo Bay as of early Thursday. 

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she won’t — for the time being — remove embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, but will instead impose limits on his power.

Hochul in recent weeks has been pressured to exercise her power to remove Adams from City Hall after the mayor’s indictment last year on a host of corruption allegations.

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Shortly after the Senate voted to install him as the nation’s ninth FBI director, Kash Patel said his mission for the agency is to “let good cops be cops — and rebuild trust in the FBI.” 

“The American people deserve an FBI that is transparent, accountable, and committed to justice. The politicalization of our justice system has eroded public trust — but that ends today,” Patel said in a post to X this afternoon. 

Trump said this afternoon that he had obtained "more votes from Black Americans than any Republican president ever. "

"Should I run again? You tell me," Trump said.

Trump said at today's White House event that he planned to honor Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man who was wounded while battling the British Army in 1775, in a new national garden of American heroes.

"The garden will predominantly feature incredible women like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin and Coretta Scott King," Trump said.

"We’re going to produce some of the most beautiful works of art in the form of a statue for men like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, what a great athlete," Trump added.

Trump made a similar proposal through an executive order in his first term. He reinstated that executive order when he returned to office last month.