First to NBC News: Campaign finance complaint filed against Musk-associated group's involvement in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
A bipartisan coalition alleges that a political group affiliated with Elon Musk violated state campaign finance laws as part of its spending efforts in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, according to a complaint filed today.
The complaint, filed by longtime Wisconsin Republican activist Tracy Mangold with the support of a Democratic strategist-led group that's focused on supporting the party’s legal efforts around election protection, alleges that Building America’s Future violated campaign finance laws in failing to properly disclose various expenditures and disbursements related to the “Progress 2028” campaign.
Representatives for Musk and for Building America’s Future didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the complaint.
The complaint is related to a series of digital ads put out by a group identifying itself as Progress 2028 that have tied the liberal candidate in the technically nonpartisan race, Susan Crawford, to a variety of liberal policy ideas. Some ads, for example, call Crawford a “progressive champion,” while others contend she will “stand up for immigrants” and give convicted criminals “second chances.”
The Associated Press and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have reported that the ads, which appear largely on Facebook and other social media sites, were funded by Building America’s Future, a Musk-aligned group. (Building America’s Future isn’t required to disclose its donations, but Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have reported that Musk helped fund it in the past.) The group is one of two associated with Musk — the other is Musk's America PAC — that have together spent more than $8 million to boost the conservative candidate in the race, Brad Schimel.
Today's complaint alleges that Building America’s Future hasn’t properly disclosed the disbursements to fund the campaign — known as express advocacy disbursements — as would be required under Wisconsin campaign finance law.
The complaint asks the Wisconsin Ethics Commission to review and investigate the alleged violations.
“Elon Musk’s PAC has dumped millions into this race in an apparent attempt to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — and now it appears the PAC has broken the law while doing it,” Norm Eisen, a co-founder of State Democracy Defenders Action, the group involved in filing the complaint, said in a statement today.
The April 1 election will determine the state Supreme Court’s ideological balance for the second time in two years. Early voting kicks off tomorrow.
Trump teases release of all remaining JFK files
During a tour of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Trump said his administration tomorrow will release “all of the Kennedy files,” about 80,000 pages of records related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination. The Kennedy Center was named after JFK in 1964.
"We have a tremendous amount of paper. You've got a lot of reading," Trump told reporters. "I don't believe we're going to redact anything. I said, 'Just don't redact. You can't redact.'"
Trump, who made the release a campaign promise, added, “I’m a man of my word.”
The hearing on Trump's deportations is starting
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., is about to begin hearing arguments on the Trump administration's decision to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of people suspected of being members of a Venezuelan gang.
Earlier today, the court denied the government’s request to vacate the hearing.
Are we heading into a recession? Here’s what the data shows
Trade tensions have torn into the markets. With stocks sliding into correction territory in the last week, a question emerges: Is a recession next?
Traders on prediction markets — where people wager on such events as the likelihood of a recession — are increasingly betting on an economic downturn. Polymarket, for example, places the odds on a recession this year at 40% — a sharp jump of nearly 20 percentage points in under a month.
Trump admin expels South African ambassador, saying he must leave this week
The United States is expelling the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, over comments he made about Trump and his political movement, the State Department said.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X. “Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS.”
A State Department spokesperson said that “we made the embassy aware that Ambassador Rasool has been found unacceptable by the United States to be a representative of his country” and that “he must depart by March 21.”
In his post on X, Rubio linked to a Breitbart article detailing the ambassador's remarks to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection in Johannesburg analyzing the best approach to dealing with the Trump administration and its own approach to South Africa.
During the discussion, Rasool, who was an anti-apartheid activist, attributed some of the MAGA movement's hard immigration policies to fears about changes in U.S. demographics.
"We see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white," he said. "And that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon."
He added: "That needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things. I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement."
The State Department spokesperson also criticized the South African government’s “aggressive positions” toward the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice.
Rubio boycotted the G20 ministerial in Johannesburg last month, accusing South Africa of doing “very bad things” and saying the forum would be used to promote “DEI and climate change.”
The South African Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Trump faces new legal battle after deporting Venezuelan immigrants
Trump is defending his administration’s controversial deportation of around 300 people accused of being members of a Venezuelan gang to a prison in El Salvador. The White House claimed authority for the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a statute last invoked during World War II. NBC News’ Garrett Haake reports for "TODAY."
Chinese state media cheer Trump’s decision to ax Voice of America
Chinese state media is celebrating Trump’s move to gut Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded news outlets that push back against authoritarian regimes.
His executive order Friday dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other outlets has been criticized as another blow to long-standing U.S. soft power efforts, amid fears that eroding U.S. influence abroad could create opportunities for governments such as those of China and Russia to promote their values, instead.
FDA staffers describe 'chaos' in return to office
Food and Drug Administration staff members face long lines and overcrowded buses, with some even being turned away, as they return to White Oak, the agency’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, today, according to two employees. The campus has around 10,000 workers.
Today is the first official day of the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate for FDA employees, requiring all staff members living within 50 miles of an agency facility to work on-site. Employees have been concerned about the availability of space as some office sites were shuttered during the pandemic.
One employee reported that the shuttle taking FDA staffers to campus was completely full by 7 a.m., including all standing room. The employee reported never having seen the shuttle more than 40% full before.
An employee described a “tidal wave” of workers trying to enter the White Oak campus from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET, with a line beginning to form around 6:30 a.m. Some teams had to find chairs for staffers.
“This is completely inadequate preparation,” the employee said.
Parking has also become an issue, the employees said, with some staff members resorting to parking in unpaved areas because of a lack of available spots. People may have trouble leaving the lot, they fear, once the workday is over.
“It’s chaos,” an employee said. “People are parking in the grass like we’re here for a Beyoncé concert.”
Chuck Schumer postpones book events due to ‘security concerns’ amid Democratic backlash over shutdown fight
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is postponing several events across the country this week to promote his new book amid Democratic backlash to his handling of last week’s government funding fight.
“Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled,” said a statement provided by Risa Heller, who is handling communications for Schumer’s book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.”
Hearing over deportation of a Brown professor of medicine is canceled
A hearing over the deportation of a Brown professor of medicine, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, will no longer take place today, according to a court filing.
The delay came after a request from Alawieh's side, as her team of lawyers is changing and requested more time to submit filings and respond.
Alawieh's team filed a lawsuit alleging that she was deported after returning from a trip to Lebanon, despite having a U.S. visa — and after a judge ordered Friday that authorities should not deport Alawieh without 48 hours' notice and a reason for doing so that the court could consider.
But a lawyer for Alawieh confirmed that she is now back in Lebanon, which filings from her lawyers alleged were in violation of the court order.