Some Republicans plan to raise DOGE concerns during meeting with Trump tomorrow

Hours after he officially declared his candidacy for governor of Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy scored Trump's endorsement for the job.

"I know him well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL," Trump wrote of his one-time rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in a post on Truth Social. "He’s Young, Strong, and Smart! Vivek is also a very good person, who truly loves our Country. He will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio, will never let you down, and has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!"

Ramaswamy helped draw up plans for Trump's Department of Government of Efficiency, or DOGE, a cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk. But Ramaswamy left the project before its work kicked off last month to return home to Ohio and prepare for the governor's race.

Musk offered his own "full endorsement" in a post on X tonight.

Some employees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were greeted by an unusual sight in their offices today: a fake video of Trump with his mouth on the toes of his billionaire adviser Elon Musk.

The video was displayed on internal television monitors at the HUD headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to two HUD employees who confirmed the prank to NBC News.

The video appeared to have been created with the help of artificial intelligence and poked fun at the power dynamic between Musk and Trump. It showed an AI likeness of Trump massaging and kissing the feet of someone resembling Musk, with a caption superimposed over the video: “Long live the real king.”

Read the full story here.

The Justice Department appealed a federal judge’s ruling that blocks the Trump administration from terminating DEI-related grants. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is being asked to weigh in.

U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson issued a ruling Friday, blocking the Trump administration from requiring federal contractors and grant recipients to certify they do not engage in “equity-related” programs.

The Maryland judge deemed the term too nebulous to enforce, writing: “The possibilities are almost endless, and many are pernicious.”

Members and supporters of the National Association of Letter Carriers rallied today in Washington, D.C., to fight back against the potential privatization and dismantling of the U.S. Postal Service with a clear message: "Hell no!"

“We’re not going to privatize the Postal Service,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told the crowd.

“Irrespective of political identification, the American people understand the criticality of the Postal Service in their lives, and they’re not going to allow Donald Trump and Elon Musk to mess with it,” Connolly, D-Va., added.

NALC President Brian Renfoe told NBC News that not only would threatening the independence of the USPS "clearly violate" federal law, but privatization could also adversely affect rural Americans.

"Private businesses exist to make money," said Renfroe. "So where it would be profitable, they’d be interested in delivering; where it was not profitable, they would not. And in rural areas, it’s not going to be profitable for a private service to do what this public service does, so it would harm them disproportionately."

The USPS employs 640,000 staffers who help deliver 376 million pieces of mail to 169 million addresses nationwide each day — without it, 51 million rural households and businesses would be at risk of not having guaranteed postal delivery service.

The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service has retained outside counsel to fight any executive order by Trump aimed at trying to take over USPS, according to two sources with knowledge of the board’s plans. Trump said last week that his new commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, “will be looking” at the U.S. Postal Service.

"I think it’s very clear this administration has no interest in protecting public service, working people, or really the public good — they want to throw us away to create an unreliable, inefficient, expensive, private delivery service," Renfroe told a fired-up crowd of dozens, arguing that defending the Postal Service should be a nonpartisan issue.

"These ideas are, of course, dangerous. They’re anti-worker. You could say they’re anti-American. You know what else they are? Illegal," he said.

Dan Bongino, the conservative podcaster named deputy director of the FBI, has spent the past seven years publicly criticizing the agency he will now help run, pushing conspiracy theories about corrupt FBI leadership and agents who were out to get Trump.

A survey of Bongino’s podcast transcripts by NBC News from 2017 to 2025 found that he made the FBI a regular target on his show, routinely claiming that the bureau colluded with the so-called deep state, an alleged shadowy network of entrenched federal and military operatives. Those themes figured heavily on “The Dan Bongino Show,” a syndicated radio show and daily podcast that is among the most popular in the U.S.

Along the way, Bongino has gone from a relatively unknown conservative pundit to one of the most followed and recognizable pro-Trump voices in all of media, commanding an audience of millions across various platforms.

Read the full story here.

The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s office on Friday, a spokesperson for MPD told NBC News, but the warrant has not been signed by the federal prosecutor.

The case could essentially die at this point, the spokesperson said, meaning it may never result in criminal charges. The status of the warrant was first reported by NBC Washington.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment this evening. Trump appointed Martin to his position on interim basis and has since nominated him to hold it in a permanent capacity.

Metropolitan Police said last week they were investigating Mills over a report of an alleged assault at an apartment building. Mills, who was not arrested, denied wrongdoing, saying law enforcement was called for help to “resolve a private matter” at his home and was “confident investigation will clear this matter quickly.”

Several House Republicans said they want more compassion and information from the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency after they were confronted by angry constituents at town halls last week over the speed and scope of federal budget cuts. Some say they plan to press Trump on the issue during a meeting tomorrow.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told NBC News wants to use a previously scheduled meeting at the White House tomorrow to “bend” Trump’s ear on the issue. The entire House Republican sophomore class is meeting with Trump tomorrow, according to McCormick.

“If we have layoffs at the CDC, some people are going to be affected. The question is, do we give people time to adjust to their lives? And I think that’s my biggest concern, is that we’re being compassionate,” said McCormick, who represents a congressional district near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta.

McCormick also said he plans to urge Elon Musk to show more compassion when executing federal budget cuts and layoffs.

A senior official at the Department of Justice confirmed to NBC News that Paul Ingrassia, the White House’s liaison to the DOJ, has been reassigned.

The move was first reported by ABC News after Ingrassia clashed with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle.

The official said Mizelle fell out with Ingrassia over Ingrassia’s belief that anyone who worked under former Attorney General Merrick Garland, including career employees, could not be trusted. Ingrassia also sought to hire people who were loyal to Trump.

Ingrassia’s LinkedIn says he is now the White House liaison for Department of Homeland Security.

Protesters filled the Iowa state capitol as House lawmakers began fast-tracking a bill that would remove civil rights protections for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

Vivek Ramaswamy formally announced his candidacy in the Ohio governor's race today, saying he will lead it to be "the state of excellence in America.”

"I am honored to officially announce my candidacy to serve as the next Governor of Ohio," Ramaswamy said in a post on X alongside a video clip that shows him making the announcement at a campaign event in Cincinnati.

"President Trump is reviving our conviction in America. We require a leader here at home who will revive our conviction in Ohio," Ramaswamy, who ran in the GOP presidential primary last year before dropping out and endorsing Trump, said at the event. "I will lead Ohio to be the top state in the country where patriots across America actually flock to instead of Florida and Texas. I will lead Ohio to be the state of excellence in America."

NBC News previewed Ramaswamy's plans to make a bid for governor. He had previously opted to step aside from co-directing the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency with Musk.

The Trump administration is considering eliminating U.S. Africa Command as part of a downsizing of the Pentagon, according to two U.S. officials and another person familiar with the discussions.

The idea under consideration is to move AFRICOM to a subcommand position under European Command, the two U.S. officials said. EUCOM and AFRICOM already work closely together.

Defense officials who are in favor of the move have argued it would eliminate bureaucracy, the U.S. officials said. It also could make it easier for Trump to withdraw U.S. troops out of certain places in Africa, such as Somalia. The U.S. launched an air strike in Somalia on Feb. 16 and another one over the weekend.

But a smaller U.S. presence in Africa could create a vacuum that U.S. adversaries like Russia and China can fill, one U.S. official warned.

A Republican lawmaker confronted by constituents on federal cuts during an event in his district last week said he is “sticking” with his support of DOGE.

Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said his constituents are supportive of the DOGE mission but have an issue with the man at the center of the slash-and-burn effort: Elon Musk.

“I’ve not heard anyone say they don’t want to cut anything. It’s just that they don’t like Elon. That it’s,” Hern told NBC News. “We’re moving forward with the cuts.”

Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced articles of impeachment today against a federal judge who ruled this month that the Trump administration had to restore health-related webpages and databases that had been scrubbed to comply with the president's executive order targeting “gender ideology.”

The pages included information about HIV prevention, emergency contraception and information about the LGBT community, including suggestions on how to develop clinical trials. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order against removing the pages in response to a suit from the nonprofit group Doctors for America.

In the articles of impeachment, Ogles accused Bates, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001, of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The lawmaker’s filing follows rhetoric from Trump allies seeking to discredit judges, with experts warning of a potential “constitutional crisis” if the administration refuses to comply with court rulings. Musk appeared to celebrate Ogles’ filing on X, saying, “Time to impeach judges who violate the law.”

The Department of Health and Human Services sent agency employees an email Monday afternoon warning them that any responses to Elon Musk’s request that they share their accomplishments from the past week might “be read by malign foreign actors.”

Four HHS employees shared the email with NBC News.

“On Saturday, you received an email from [the U.S. Office of Personnel Management] entitled ‘What did you do last week,’” the email, which came from [email protected], began. “The directive stated employees were to submit five bullets detailing their accomplishments in the past week. In discussions with OPM Officials yesterday and today OPM has now rescinded that mandatory requirement.”

Read the full story here.

The Trump administration is reinstating some employees in the Food and Drug Administration’s medical devices division after dozens were laid off as part of a government-wide cost-cutting initiative led by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Around 180 employees from the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, including physicians and cybersecurity experts, were let go on Feb. 15, two workers said they were told by their supervisors.

“These people are indispensable,” one said. “Many of these roles require so much training and specialization and are so important for keeping people alive.”

Read the full story here.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., praised Elon Musk today saying the tech billionaire leading the Trump administration's newly created Department of Government Efficiency had “cracked the code” to bypass the so-called deep state in government.

"How many of you know that bureaucracy was not forthcoming, right? They're not transparent. That's the whole point. That's the problem. That's the deep state we talk about," Johnson said at an event in Washington, D.C., hosted by the conservative political advocacy group Americans For Prosperity.

"But Elon has cracked the code. He is now inside the agencies. He's created these algorithms that are constantly crawling through the data. And as he told me in his office, the data doesn't lie. We're going to be able to get the information. We're going to be able to transform the way the federal government works at the end of this, and that is a very exciting prospect. It is truly a revolutionary moment for the nation," Johnson added.

Many House Republicans have been confronted by constituents in their districts over Musk's approach to cutting agency budgets and federal jobs. Much of their anger has been on display at town halls and other local events.

French President Emmanuel Macron is meeting with a bipartisan group of senators in the Capitol.

The lawmakers meeting with Macron are Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and fellow Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jim Risch of Idaho, and Susan Collins of Maine.

They are joined by Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mark Warner of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Chris Coons of Delaware.

The meeting comes after Macron and Trump held a bilateral meeting at the White House today.

Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they’d accomplished over the past week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary or not, according to three sources with knowledge of the system.

The information will go into an LLM (Large Language Model), an advanced AI system that looks at huge amounts of text data to understand, generate, and process human language, the sources said. The AI system will determine whether someone’s work is mission-critical or not.

Read the full story here.

A federal judge today declined to issue a temporary restraining order for The Associated Press in its effort to gain full access to the Trump administration, asking for a fuller briefing before making a decision.

The Associated Press has accused Trump administration officials of violating its First Amendment protections by refusing it access because of its style policy.

The AP was barred indefinitely from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One, as it had in the past, because of its refusal to change its style for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

Read the full story here.

Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has gained access to the internal emails and Microsoft Teams chats of employees at the country’s top cybersecurity agency, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Division leaders at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency informed some senior CISA staffers about the access late last week.

As is generally the case at other agencies, DOGE’s activities at CISA are largely unclear. At least one DOGE employee, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, is listed in CISA’s agency directory as a senior adviser, an agency employee confirmed to NBC News.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., today criticized a statement from the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia that characterized federal prosecutors as Trump's lawyers.

"This is insane. If you wonder why some of us think the rule of law is about to fall, it’s this," Murphy said. "The U.S. Attorney for DC is not 'President Trump’s lawyer' and its job is not to 'protect his leadership' nor prosecute people who 'refuse to put America first.'"

Edward R. Martin Jr., the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement posted on X today that federal prosecutors stood against The Associated Press, which has sued three Trump administration officials over its media access to presidential events.

“As President Trumps' lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first,” Martin said.

Managers within the Environmental Protection Agency sent employees model responses today to Musk’s demand for bulleted-list explanations of what work they did last week.

“As empathy for their staff, they sent examples,” said one agency employee who shared two of the managers’ own responses with NBC News. The employee asked NBC News not to publish the managers’ messages in full out of fear of reprisal.

One portion of the message discussed work done to answer questions from lawmakers about specific EPA-related issues, and others included developing a timeline for revising regulations and assessing program budgets.

Current and former FBI officials expressed shock and dismay today over the news that Trump has selected a right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic to be the bureau’s deputy director, even as the man picked for the job said he was ready to put partisanship aside.

On his podcast, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino — who once called the FBI “irredeemably corrupt”— thanked the president for the appointment and suggested that he was prepared to step out of his role as a MAGA warrior. But even as he did so, he repeated the baseless charge that the Justice Department had been “weaponized,” a claim he has frequently brandished to criticize the agency he will now help lead.

“I get it if you are a political opponent of mine that has been involved with proudly celebrating a weaponized justice system, how you don’t understand how a guy like me who discusses partisan content in an opinion show and go and do (an) unquestionably nonpartisan job,” Bongino, a former Fox News host, said. “I’m going to ask you a simple question: Have you seen what I did before I came here?”

Read the full story here.

Trump indicated this afternoon that his administration plans to proceed with tariffs on key U.S. trading partners Canada and Mexico.

The president was asked about an upcoming deadline he set this month in which he delayed implementation of tariffs on the two countries for 30 days.

"We’re on time with the tariffs, and it seems like that’s moving along very rapidly. We’ve been mistreated very badly by many countries, not just Canada and Mexico. We’ve been taken advantage of," Trump said at the joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House.

"The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule," Trump said. "So the tariffs will go forward, yes, and we’re going to make up a lot of territory. All we want is reciprocal. We want reciprocity."

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on the third anniversary of Russia's war in Ukraine, said today that Vladimir Putin alone is responsible for the conflict.

“Blame for this human catastrophe rests solely on Vladimir Putin. Here’s how we know: If Russian forces laid down their arms, Europe would be at peace. If Ukrainian forces laid down theirs, Putin’s aims would not stop with Kyiv. Mistaking this fact is as embarrassing as it is costly," McConnell said in a statement.

The comment from the former GOP leader, who announced last week that's not seeking re-election, comes as Trump has made favorable comments about Putin and critical ones of Zelenskyy.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., indirectly criticized Trump for saying Ukraine "started" the war with Russia, posting an article about the president's comments and writing, "This is all embarrassing."

"We are better than this," Bacon continued. "Moral clarity: Russian invaded its neighbor because it wanted its territory and couldn’t stand the thought of an Ukraine run by a democracy."

The post did not directly name Trump, but the article highlighted the president's comments condemning Ukraine and its president, Zelenskyy.

Trump told reporters today that "European troops may go into Ukraine as peacemakers" to ensure that parties comply with any ultimate agreement, adding later that he believed Putin would accept the move.

"I think that'll be a very good day when we can go in as peacekeepers, as opposed to what's going on right now with everybody being killed," he said.

When asked whether he would persuade Putin to accept European troops as peacekeepers, Trump said, "Yeah, he will accept that."

"I've asked him that question," Trump said, adding that Putin is "not looking for world war."

Macron pushed back on some of Trump's remarks at the White House this afternoon when the U.S. president suggested that Europe was offering a loan to Ukraine.

"Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office alongside Macron before their bilateral meeting. "They get their money back."

Macron responded by correcting Trump, saying that, in fact, Europe had paid.

"No, in fact, to be, to be frank, we paid," Macron said. "We paid 60% of the total efforts."

Trump told reporters during a visit with Macron that the U.S. and Ukraine are "very close to a final deal" on rare earth minerals.

The Trump administration has pitched that the U.S. have partial ownership of Ukraine's rare earth minerals. The country's president, Zelenskyy, had declined to immediately sign a document presented by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the issue.

Trump was also asked by a reporter whether he would call Russian President Vladimir Putin a dictator, a term he has falsely used to describe Zelenskyy.

"I don't use those words lightly. I think that we're going to see how it all works out," he said. "Let's see what happens."

Trump told reporters today that Elon Musk's directive to federal employees over the weekend telling them to share five things they had accomplished in their jobs last week was "genius."

"We have people that don’t show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government," he said in an appearance with Macron in the Oval Office.

He continued, "They’re trying to find out who’s working for the government. Are we paying other people that aren’t working? ... Where’s the money going?"

"There was a lot of genius in sending it," he added. "We’re trying to find out if people are working, and so we’re sending a letter to people: Please tell us what you did last week. If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working."

An Elon Musk ultimatum demanding that federal workers report what they had accomplished last week or lose their jobs is facing pushback leading up to a midnight deadline to respond.

A coalition of unions and groups that have been fighting the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of probationary workers amended its lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management over the weekend to allege that the agency's email directing workers to justify their workweek was unlawful.

Some agencies, including ones led by close Trump allies, have told their employees to ignore the directive.

Read the full story.

A federal judge in Maryland has blocked the Department of Education and Office of Personnel Management from sharing the personal information of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Trump administration with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a temporary restraining order Monday on both agencies and wrote in an opinion that the plaintiffs in the case, which include members of several major unions, showed that the Education Department and OPM “likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent.”

Boardman wrote that the plaintiffs “met their burden for the extraordinary relief they seek” by clearly showing that they are “likely to suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief.”

Read the full story.

Judicial branch employees have received the Office of Personnel Management email requesting that federal workers send bulleted list of what they accomplished last week. 

Other news outlets previously reported that judicial employees had received the email. The email was sent en masse to executive branch workers, NBC News and other organizations have reported. 

It is unclear how many judiciary employees nationwide have received the email, but spokespeople for federal courts in Manhattan and the Northern District of Illinois confirmed to NBC News that “some” had gotten it.

When asked whether judges or other judicial employees received the email, a spokesperson for the Manhattan federal court told NBC News that “both received the email,” adding that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which supports the federal judiciary, sent an email about it over the weekend.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that his administration will launch a task force modeled after the Department of Government Efficiency created by President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk.

"We are creating a state DOGE task force that will implement a multipronged approach to eliminating bureaucratic bloat and modernizing our state government to best serve the people of Florida in the years ahead," DeSantis said today at a press conference in Tampa.

DeSantis said the task force would be "similar to the federal DOGE" and that it would exist only for a "limited amount of time."

The United States is lobbying countries around the world to oppose a resolution brought forward at the U.N. General Assembly by Ukraine and European countries on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine and support a U.S. draft resolution instead.

The brief U.S. resolution seen by NBC News is three sentences calling for a “swift end to the conflict” between Ukraine and Russia.

An internal memo sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts Saturday instructed the head of each U.S. mission to “engage host governments at the highest possible levels,” and urge them to support the U.S. resolution and encourage Ukraine to withdraw their own resolution, “which does not advance the United States’ goal of achieving a lasting peace.”

Read the full story.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced today that the city will close the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center at the Roosevelt Hotel, the target of frequent criticism from Elon Musk and the Trump administration.

Over 173,000 migrants completed registrations at the Manhattan hotel since its opening in May 2023, accounting for nearly three quarters of the 232,000 migrants who entered the city since the spring of 2022, the Adams administration reported.

“While we’re not done caring for those who come into our care, today marks another milestone in demonstrating the immense progress we have achieved in turning the corner on an unprecedented  international humanitarian effort,” Adams said Monday in a statement.

Read the full story.

Elon Musk faces new resistance from inside the Trump administration over an ultimatum he sent to more than 2 million federal workers, asking them to justify their work or resign. Some agencies told employees to either delay responding or not to respond at all. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for "TODAY."

The Supreme Court declined to consider overturning a 25-year-old precedent that upheld “buffer zone” laws limiting how close protesters can get to abortion clinic entrances.

In a setback for abortion opponents, the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority hostile to abortion rights, opted against weighing whether such laws violate the free speech rights of protesters under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Read the full story.

Dan Bongino, who will serve as the deputy director of the FBI, has called for everyone “from the management down to the agents” to be fired over their involvement in the 2022 search of Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago. 

“EVERYONE involved in this DOJ/FBI abomination, from the management down to the agents, must be immediately terminated when the tyrants are thrown out of office,” Bongino posted to X in 2022.

Bongino, a conservative podcaster, has also given air time to people who mischaracterized the FBI’s standard use-of-force documentation in connection with the classified documents case against Trump, which has since been dismissed.

“It was not a standard op," Bongino claimed in a post in May of last year. "The MAL raid was an unprecedented action with significant potential for confusion and blue on blue issues and conflict. It also involved competing equities between federal agencies (FBI & USSS) with equal statutory claims to interrupt the other’s activities.

Conservative media personality Dan Bongino said today that he has accepted Trump's appointment as deputy FBI director.

In a statement posted to X, Bongino thanked Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, adding that his decision to accept the role "is driven solely by a commitment to service and a belief that law enforcement and national security institutions must be strengthened."

"There are dedicated people in the FBI who take their oath to the constitution seriously," he said in the statement. "They deserve leadership that will back them up, protect their mission, and ensure they can do their jobs."

Deputy directors traditionally have a history as career FBI agents, but Bongino has never served in the FBI. Bongino has instead touted baseless theories about the bureau he will now help lead.

The treasurer of Australia is headed to Washington to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for talks on trade policy, including potential exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs.

“Trade and tariffs will be part of the conversation, but not the whole conversation,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, adding that he does not expect to reach a final agreement during his visit.

Trump said this month that he would consider exempting Australia from 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, citing the U.S. trade surplus with the country. Australia, a key U.S. security ally in the Indo-Pacific, received an exemption from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs during Trump’s first term.

“We will meet at an important time for the global economic outlook,” Chalmers said in a statement yesterday. “The United States-Australian economic partnership brings significant benefits to both sides.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was surrounded by allies on Monday as he marked three years since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded his country. There was one notable absence: a representative from Washington.

Although backed by much of Europe, Ukraine faces an increasingly uncertain future as President Donald Trump dramatically breaks with traditional United States foreign policy and is increasingly sympathetic to the Russian invaders.

As Ukraine’s allies lamented the conflict’s toll, they also extolled the defence of the liberal European project and its centrality to the war in Ukraine.

Read the full story.

A new bill in Congress marks another long-shot effort from Democrats to discipline DOGE.

The pithily-titled “Bad DOGE Act” — evoking the dog meme that ultimately evolved into an actual government group — targets the government efficiency entity for operating outside its scope while demanding, in part, greater data protection standards and basic proof of Elon Musk’s "special government employee" status.

“It’s meant to address the abuses of power, the illegalities, the blatant attacks on our Constitution that Elon Musk and DOGE are engaged in right now,” freshman Democratic Rep. Dave Min said of the bill he plans to introduce on MSNBC's "Way Too Early."

The White House executive order that created DOGE authorizes it to perform a project of data modernization, which Min says it has overstepped with federal firings and attempts to close entire agencies without the say-so of Congress.

Trump on Sunday announced the selection of conservative commentator and former Fox News host Dan Bongino to serve as deputy FBI director, filling a position typically held by a career FBI agent with an influential media personality who has called for mass firings at the bureau.

Bongino will lead the bureau alongside Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed as FBI director by the Senate last week.

“Dan Bongino, a man of incredible love and passion for our Country, has just been named the next DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FBI, by the man who will be the best ever Director, Kash Patel,” Trump said in a social media post. “Working with our great new United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and Director Patel, Fairness, Justice, Law and Order will be brought back to America, and quickly.”

Read the full story.

Thousands of federal workers fired in recent days by the Trump administration may be able to use an appeals process to get reinstated in their jobs — and potentially receive back pay. But the process could take months and come with future challenges from the White House.

Fired workers can appeal their terminations to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which was created in the 1970s to help ensure a merit-based employment system for the federal workforce. The obscure body consists of around 60 administrative judges who adjudicate cases brought by federal workers who claim they were wrongly terminated. Three Senate-confirmed board members hear challenges to rulings by those judges.

Read the full story here.

Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron will start their day with a call with the heads of the Group of Seven leading economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

According to the White House, the call will mark the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine and will come as Trump moves to directly negotiate an end to the war with Russia.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called reports that the U.S. is not consulting Ukraine and European leaders as it seeks an end to the war untrue, saying in an interview that he personally has kept G7 leaders up to date.

"I met with the foreign ministers of all of the key countries and our allies in Europe, both in the G7 setting, G7+1 with the EU, and then a separate meeting with what they call the Quint, which is the key countries involved," Rubio told Catherine Herridge in an interview Friday.