Trump imposes tariffs on steel and aluminum; judge accuses administration of defying court order

In an interview that aired tonight on Fox News, Trump referred to the United States as having a trade deficit with China "of over a trillion dollars a year."

Statement

Biden allowed China to go crazy, and we have a deficit with China of over a trillion dollars a year. Can you believe it?

Several Senate Republicans told NBC News today that the executive branch must adhere to federal court rulings, even if it doesn’t agree with them, but that it is well within its rights to appeal the decisions to higher courts.

“That’s why God made courts of appeal. That’s why God made the U.S. Supreme Court,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said after Vance wrote on X yesterday" “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

Some legal experts have suggested that the Trump administration’s ignoring federal court orders would pose a constitutional crisis. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said: “I don’t think that’s a risk. I honestly don’t.”

Cornyn said that some cases are appealed to higher courts, including the Supreme Court, and that he "would expect those decisions to be honored.”

The nation may be edging closer to a constitutional crisis as senior White House officials bristle over a string of court orders stymieing Trump’s agenda, sparking fears that they may ignore judicial decisions.

A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled today that the Trump administration failed to comply with his previous directive temporarily halting a sweeping funding freeze, reminding Trump and his top officials in stark terms that “those who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt.”

District Judge John McConnell’s order follows other legal setbacks that throw into question Trump’s plans to shrink and remake the federal government, end birthright citizenship and rein in spending, as he has pledged to do.

Read the full story here.

Trump said tonight that he had agreed to consider exempting Australia from tariffs on steel and aluminum imports after he spoke by phone with the Australian prime minister, citing the U.S. trade surplus with the key American ally.

“We actually have a surplus. It’s one of the only countries which we do,” Trump, who had said there would be no exemptions, told reporters in the Oval Office. “And I told him that that’s something that we will give great consideration to.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier told reporters in Canberra that during their call, he and Trump had “agreed on wording to say publicly, which is that the ‘U.S. president agreed that an exemption was under consideration in the interests of both of our countries.’”

Australia, which received an exemption from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs during Trump's first term, imported $27.1 billion more in U.S. goods and services than it exported to the United States in 2022, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Trump is resorting to an unofficial shutting down of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because Republicans don’t want to vote on the issue.

“A lot of them don’t actually want to stand next to exactly what they’re trying to do, and that is shut down the agency that has handled more than 6 million consumer complaints by people who got cheated by their credit card companies, by payday loan companies,” Warren told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. "They don’t want to admit what they’re trying to do."

Warren, who spearheaded the formation of the CFPB, was at a protest at the bureau’s headquarters today, blasting the agency’s acting director for issuing directives halting much of its activity.

A federal judge temporarily halted the Trump administration’s radical changes to how the National Institutes of Health pays for biomedical research, putting on hold a plan to slash research funding the federal government pays out.

Twenty-two state attorneys general filed a lawsuit today against the plan, which would limit how it pays universities and research institutes for “indirect costs.”

The lawsuit, which lists both the NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services as defendants, said the effect of the indirect rate changes announced Friday would be “immediate and devastating.”

Read the full story here.

The Hong Kong postal service said it would resume shipping packages to the United States starting tomorrow after U.S. authorities confirmed they would not impose additional duties.

In a surprise move last week, the U.S. Postal Service said it was suspending acceptance of packages from China and Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, after a 10% U.S. tariff on all Chinese goods imports went into effect. Though the ban was reversed 12 hours later, the Hong Kong postal service had said it would continue to suspend the shipment of packages pending further clarification.

The Hong Kong government reiterated its strong disapproval of additional U.S. duties on Hong Kong products.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo today changing the name of Fort Liberty, an Army installation in North Carolina, back to Fort Bragg.

The name refers to Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II veteran who received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart during the Battle of the Bulge, the Defense Department said in a news release.

"Bragg is back! I just signed a memorandum reversing the naming of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg," Hegseth wrote on X.

Speaking today about his attendance at Super Bowl, Trump made a dig at pop star Taylor Swift and the boos she received from by the Philadelphia Eagles-heavy crowd after she first appeared on the jumbotron at the stadium.

“Well, I think the worst moment was probably endured by Taylor Swift, who got practically booed out of the stadium,” Trump said on "The Mark Levin Show."

Swift, whose boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris during the campaign.

The Trump administration has asked the FBI for a list of probationary employees and individual justifications for keeping anyone who has been at the bureau for less than two years, sparking a new round of fears within a bureau that has been rocked by the first three weeks of Trump’s presidency.

The news comes amid an ongoing dispute over an effort to gather names of FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases. A federal judge signed off Friday on an agreement that forbids the public release of the list of FBI employees who worked on the sprawling probe, which grew to be the largest in FBI history, with more than 1,500 defendants.

Read the full story here.

Four groups representing workers and retirees in the United States and six military veterans sued today to stop the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the Education Department from giving Musk and DOGE unprecedented access to federal computer systems with sensitive data.

The labor groups filing the suit to stop DOGE’s incursion into the Education Department included the American Federation of Teachers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, that International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the National Federation of Federal Employees.

In their complaint, attorneys for the groups argued that federal agencies do have “valid purposes” for maintaining detailed employee records but that Musk and other DOGE representatives are not allowed “unlimited access” to them and that granting it violates the Privacy Act.

Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a senior Justice Department official said tonight.

The order is for all charges to be dismissed, and the dismissal is without prejudice, the official said, meaning charges could be refiled in the future.

The charges have not yet been dismissed, and federal prosecutors in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A dismissal would have to come in a motion from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where the charges were brought. A motion to dismiss would also have to be reviewed by a judge.

Read the full story here.

Trump said tonight that if Hamas does not return all the hostages it is holding by noon Saturday, “all hell is going to break out.”

Trump said he thinks Israel should “cancel” the ceasefire if all hostages are not returned by then.

“If they’re not returned, all of them — not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12 o’clock. And after that, I would say all hell is going to break out,” Trump told reporters as he signed executive orders in the Oval Office.

Asked to elaborate on what he meant, he said: “You’ll find out, and they’ll find out, too. Hamas will find out what I mean. ... These are sick people, and they’ll find out what I mean Saturday at 12.”

Trump was asked in an interview that aired tonight whether he needs to impose guardrails on Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

"I think I have guardrails. Yeah, Elon is somebody that I have a lot of respect for, but you have to have guardrails. He reports to me, and he’s doing a fantastic job," Trump told Fox News' Bret Baier in an interview that was taped over the weekend. "I wanted somebody who’s extremely intelligent. He’s that. He’s also a good cost-cutter."

Trump has praised maneuvers by DOGE to dismantle government agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Many of those efforts have already hit legal roadblocks.

The Trump administration is not fully complying with a court order to reinstate U.S. Agency for International Development employees who were abruptly placed on administrative leave, their attorneys alleged in a court filing today.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols' order Friday had temporarily directed that "USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated" and "shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems."

The unions representing the employees in the lawsuit said they "understand that, in some cases, members have had systems access restored consistent with this Court’s order. But Plaintiffs and their attorneys understand that access has not been restored to many others. Those members, therefore, cannot assess whether they have been reinstated from leave."

They asked the judge to hold an emergency hearing. Both sides are due in Nichols' Washington, D.C., courtroom Wednesday for a hearing on extending restraining order.

Trump today signed an order that imposes a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports to the United States.

“This is a big deal,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office. “The beginning of making America rich again.”

The tariffs come just a week after Trump promised to suspend tariffs on Canada and Mexico. They echo steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed during his first administration, though at that point they were imposed explicitly on national security grounds.

Read the full story here.

The GOP-controlled Senate tonight voted to advance Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be Trump’s director of national intelligence, putting her on a path to be confirmed this week.

The party-line vote was 52-46, with all Republicans present voting in favor of Gabbard. Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., did not vote. Last week, Gabbard’s nomination to be the nation’s top-ranking intelligence official squeaked through the Senate Intelligence Committee on a party-line 9-8 vote.

“The intelligence community needs to refocus on its core mission, collecting intelligence and providing unbiased analysis of that information,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a floor speech today. “That’s what Tulsi Gabbard is committed to ensuring if she is confirmed to be DNI, and I believe she has the knowledge and leadership capabilities to get it done.”

Read the full story here.

Trump signed an executive order meant to return to widespread use of plastic straws, reversing an environmental effort by former President Joe Biden to increase the use of paper straws within the federal government.

“We’re going back to plastic straws. These things don’t work. I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode. If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation. So we’re going back to plastic straws. I think it’s OK,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office.

Elon Musk’s government efficiency initiative, DOGE, has been operating within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to correspondence viewed by CNBC and NBC News.

A senior adviser to DOGE, Scott Langmack, sent out an e-mail widely within the agency to inform employees the Musk-led group would be conducting a “comprehensive contract review” across HUD and would need employees to personally vouch for every single contractor or vendor they work with, as well.

Langmack and HUD were not immediately available for comment when CNBC asked.

DOGE also sought information about whether there were any “DEI components” to contracts held by the department.

Trump has named Richard Grenell interim executive director of Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

“I am pleased to announce that Ric Grenell will serve as the Interim Executive Director of The Kennedy Center. Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA — ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump announced he was dismissing several trustees from the Kennedy Center’s board last week and named himself the center’s chair.

Trump issued a full pardon to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich today.

Blagojevich, 68, who was a Democrat while he was in office, had served eight years in prison on charges stemming from his effort to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after Obama won the 2008 presidential election.

“It’s my pleasure,” Trump said in remarks in the Oval Office, adding, “I think he’s a very fine person. This shouldn't have happened to him.” 

Read the full story here.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters this evening that she plans to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be health and human services secretary.

She had been skeptical about Kennedy, citing his anti-vaccination stances as an area of concern.

Collins also told reporters that she spoke with Kennedy about announced cuts to the National Institutes of Health.

Elon Musk said today that his Department of Government Efficiency had uncovered a $59-million payment to hotels in New York City to house migrants — spending that was already public and appropriated by Congress.

“That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals! A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds,” he wrote in a post on X, the social media platform he owns.

No clawback request has been made as this afternoon, said Liz Garcia, deputy press secretary in the New York City mayor's office, and the money isn't a new expenditure, either.

FEMA has been a growing target of conservative ire, with Trump recently saying he thinks states should shoulder the burden of disaster recovery. The agency’s spending was also the subject of far-right misinformation and conspiracy theories, particularly around Hurricane Helene and the ensuing recovery.

The $59 million Musk mentioned is part of the $237 million FEMA awarded the city last year, reimbursing it for expenses incurred housing migrants from mid-November 2023 to late October 2024, according to data from the city. Some $19 million of it was spent on hotels, while $26 million was spent on services including food and security for migrants in those hotels. For shelter-related expenditures, $13 million covered the cost for migrants and services. The money was appropriated by Congress, with support of the previous administration.

The city has spent $7 billion on housing migrants in the last few years, many of whom are seeking asylum in the U.S. The city started housing migrants in hotels — often vacant following the pandemic — in addition to existing emergency shelters. Garcia said the hotels are not luxury accommodations, as Musk claimed, and that those housed there are typically families with children.

The average cost for a hotel room in New York City topped $400 last fall, while the average daily hotel rate for certain migrants was $156 according to a July 2024 Comptroller report, though security and food costs drive the nightly cost to the city to be more than double that total.

An industry group representing U.S. equipment manufacturers says Trump's plan to impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports represents "a clear and present danger" to the American businesses that rely on those materials.

In an interview with NBC News, Kip Eideberg, senior vice president for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, said the steel tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term caused equipment prices to surge as much as 8%, with projections for as many as 20,000 jobs lost over a 10-year period.

"It did absolutely the opposite of what the president said they would do," said Eideberg, whose trade group represents farm equipment and tractor producers, mining equipment makers, construction segments and forestry firms.

A group of former national security officials who worked for or with the CIA has sent an anonymous letter to the leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees warning that the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal workforce could lead to the loss of experienced intelligence personnel and damage intelligence sharing with allied spy services.

The letter is titled “The Steady State,” a retort to Trump supporters’ portrayal of a “deep state” of federal civil servants who have allegedly plotted to sabotage him in the past.

“The Steady State is made up of approximately 200 former national security officials, who have worked for or with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to protect our nation,” the letter says. It focuses on the Trump administration’s “buyout” options to employees at the CIA, offering the workforce eight months pay if they resign immediately or take early retirement. 

A federal judge in Rhode Island said that the Trump administration violated his order halting a sweeping federal funding freeze and ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding.” 

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell handed down the order after the plaintiffs in the case, a coalition of 22 states, said the government had not restored funding in several programs despite his Jan. 31 order temporarily halting the wide-ranging Office of Management and Budget directive that had caused chaos and confusion across the country.

“The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell wrote, even though his order lifting the freeze had been “clear and unambiguous.”

Read the full story.

FBI field offices and headquarters have been asked to provide a list of their probationary employees and justifications for keeping them, multiple sources told NBC News.

Getting rid of probationary employees would be a tremendous blow to the bureau, which laid out a lot of money to train agents who went through Quantico. It would also affect a wide array of nonagents, including intelligence analysts, which could have yearslong consequences, especially given that the bureau has long struggled to recruit employees with technological skills.

Trump said Friday that he plans to fire some of the FBI personnel involved in Jan. 6 cases. No evidence of misconduct by any of those agents has surfaced, and the majority of the cases resulted in convictions before Trump pardoned the rioters. 

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sharply criticized the Trump administration's cuts to indirect funding for medical and public health research, calling the idea "poorly conceived" in a statement.

The cuts, which impose an arbitrary cap on the indirect costs included in NIH grants, "would be devastating, stopping vital biomedical research and leading to the loss of jobs," Collins said.

Collins said she has contacted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose nomination for health and human services secretary is pending before the Senate, to express her "strong opposition to these arbitrary cuts in funding for vital research at our Maine institutions, which are known for their excellence."

"He has promised that as soon as he is confirmed, he will re-examine this initiative that was implemented prior to his confirmation," Collins said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, detailed how his caucus will respond to the Trump administration’s executive actions "across multiple fronts." 

“Senate Democrats have a responsibility to fight back on behalf of American families as Republicans look the other way in obedience to Donald Trump. And we are,” Schumer said in a letter to Senate Democrats this morning. He cited Trump's efforts to cut the federal workforce, revoke birthright citizenship, fire inspectors general and target consumer protection agencies as some of the areas of concern.

Schumer relayed a plan that hinges on four areas: increasing oversight aimed at protecting federal workers, supporting litigation that challenges Trump’s agenda, using the government funding fight as leverage, and encouraging grassroots mobilization. 

Twenty-two state attorneys general filed a lawsuit today against the Trump administration’s decision to slash research funding by limiting how it pays out universities and research institutes for “indirect costs.” 

The lawsuit, which lists both the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services as plaintiffs, said the effect of the indirect rate changes announced Friday would be “immediate and devastating.” 

The NIH announced the cuts Friday as the Trump administration tries to shrink the size of government and cut federal spending, stating that the amount of indirect funding allowed for research projects would be capped at just 15%, cutting it by a little more than half from the average percentage for such funds.

The lawsuit, filed at the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts this morning, argues that the cuts violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which it said prohibits the NIH from making large-scale or categorical cuts to its indirect cost reimbursements.

"These reimbursements cover expenses to facilitate biomedical research, like lab, faculty, infrastructure, and utility costs," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said in a release. "Without them, the lifesaving and life-changing medical research in which the United States has long been a leader, could be compromised."

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has nominated Jim Tressel, a former star college football coach who guided Ohio State University to a national championship, to be his next lieutenant governor.

“I want someone who every single day is working to come up with ideas, and this is a guy with ideas,” DeWine, a Republican, said at a news conference today. “And they’re thoughtful and they’re based on what he has seen and what he has learned.”

Tressel, 72, must first be confirmed by the state Legislature. He would succeed Sen. Jon Husted, whom the governor recently appointed to fill the Senate vacancy left by Vice President JD Vance.

Read the full story.

Trump said Palestinians wouldn’t be permitted to return to Gaza as part of his plan for the U.S. to take ownership of the war-torn territory.

In a pre-taped interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, a clip of which was released Monday, Trump was asked about his proposal to “own” and rebuild Gaza, first announced last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.

Trump has signed an executive order cutting U.S. aid to South Africa, following claims he has made about the country discriminating against white farmers.

“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” the president said in an initial post on his social media platform Truth Social earlier this month. “Massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see.”

The president’s executive order on Friday included an offer to resettle white South Africans whom he called “victims of unjust racial discrimination.” A White House summary of the order said that “as long as South Africa ... allows violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country.”

Read the full story.

NBC News’ Danny Cevallos breaks down the pending court cases against the Trump administration and NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell reports on the expected tariffs and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shutdown in the upcoming week. 

A New Hampshire judge has issued an immediate injunction pausing Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.

Other judges have also issued temporary restraining orders on the executive order nationwide, saying it is unconstitutional.

District Judge Joseph N. Laplante said he would issue a longer preliminary injunction later explaining his reasoning, The Associated Press reported.

Luis Fernando says his brother was taken into custody by ICE agents and is being held despite showing them court paperwork showing he is an asylum-seeker. KUSA’s Angeline McCall reports.

House Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with House Democratic leadership, today accused House Republicans of spending years “squawking about egg prices under the Biden-Harris administration.”

“But now that the price of eggs is soaring to new highs under the Trump Administration, they haven’t made a peep,” said their release, which was shared first with NBC News.

During the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Republicans often cited rising egg prices as a key metric they were looking at while explaining their plans to lower inflation.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social this morning that he's dismissing members of the boards of visitors for U.S. military academies.

"Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years," Trump wrote, without elaborating.

"I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard," he said. "We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump didn't provide additional details or specific reasons for the dismissals.

Trump could seek to address persistently rising costs in the economy by reducing overall demand and increasing the labor supply, his chief economist said this morning.

In an appearance on CNBC, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Trump would try to increase the supply of workers in the labor force by lowering businesses' taxes to make it easier for them to hire.

"He wants inflation under control," Hassett said. "To do that, you have to increase supply and reduce aggregate demand. So you got to cut spending and you got to increase supply."

SYDNEY — Australia’s trade minister said its steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. create “good paying American jobs” and are key to shared defense interests, as Canberra presses Washington for an exemption to Trump’s planned tariffs.

Trump said yesterday that he would introduce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S., on top of existing metals duties, in another major escalation of his trade policy overhaul.

Trade Minister Don Farrell said today that Australia, a key U.S. security ally in the Indo-Pacific, was making the case for “free and fair trade, including access into the U.S. market for Australian steel and aluminum” in meetings with the Trump administration.

“Australian steel and aluminum is creating thousands of good paying American jobs, and are key for our shared defense interests,” he said in a statement.

A federal judge in Boston will hold a hearing on Elon Musk’s DOGE’s “Fork directive” today, which offers buyouts for federal workers.  

The buyout’s deadline was originally last Thursday, but the judge stayed the deadline until today. Several labor unions are challenging the buyout program’s legality.

At least 65,000 federal workers have agreed to take buyouts so far, out of a workforce of over 2 million people. The Trump administration hopes to get 10% of the workforce to take buyouts.

Five former Democratic Treasury secretaries have published an op-ed in The New York Times warning Elon Musk's DOGE effort poses a threat to democracy.

Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew and Janet L. Yellen say DOGE may violate the Constitution if it attempts to halt payments previously appropriated by Congress.

"We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy," they say.

Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a post last night on his Truth Social site. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”

The move by Trump is the latest in what has been a rapid-fire effort by his new administration to enact sweeping change through executive order and proclamation on issues ranging from immigration, to gender and diversity, to the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story here.

Legal and constitutional experts warned yesterday that the United States could be headed toward a “constitutional crisis” or a “breakdown of the system” after Vice President JD Vance suggested judges don’t have jurisdiction over President Donald Trump’s “legitimate power.”

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance wrote on X, adding, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

It wasn’t clear what judge or court order Vance was referring to or whether he was making a broad statement. Several of Trump’s sweeping agenda items have met legal roadblocks since he took office.

Read the full story.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and another top Senate Democrat have launched an online portal for whistleblowers to submit complaints in an effort to oversee the Trump administration.

Schumer and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent an open public letter to federal workers and public servants encouraging them to report “wrongdoing, abuses of power, and threats to public safety.”

"As Senate Republicans refuse to fulfill their constitutional duty to provide a check on the Executive Branch, Senate Democrats remain steadfast in our commitment to uncovering the truth," their open letter says. "We are prepared to issue demand letters, preserve public records, conduct public hearings, and pursue legal action where necessary. If you would like to submit a whistleblower complaint."

The letter notes that the Whistleblower Protection Act prohibits retaliation against federal employees who disclose evidence of wrongdoing.

The Trump administration asked a federal court in New York last night to lift an order that restricts political appointees' access to Treasury Department payment databases.

"Limiting access by Treasury’s senior leadership, as just described, is overbroad and unnecessary to maintain the status quo," lawyers at the Justice Department wrote in a memo filed in court.

They continued, "Nonetheless, it is important that high-level political appointees, such as the Secretary, his Chief of Staff, the Deputy Secretary, and the Undersecretaries, can receive data from such systems to the extent necessary for the performance of their job duties."

The lawyers wrote that banning political appointees from staying informed about issues within their jurisdiction would "significantly interfere with these officials’ ability to conduct their duties as they pertain to emergent issues related to Treasury’s payment systems."

A union filed two lawsuits against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s acting director, Russell Vought, yesterday after Vought issued a series of directives halting much of the bureau’s activity.

The filings cap a tumultuous weekend for the CFPB as bureau functions were ordered paused and employees were told that the headquarters building in Washington will be closed this week, according to an email NBC News obtained from two current employees.

One lawsuit urged a judge to block the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing employee information, while the other asked a judge to block Vought’s directives. Vought had instructed employees in an email Saturday to “cease all supervision and examination activity,” “cease all stakeholder engagement” and pause all pending investigations, among other orders.

Read the full story.

Retaliatory Chinese tariffs on some U.S. products take effect today, raising concern about a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

The tariffs affect $14 billion worth of U.S. goods, including a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas, and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural equipment and some vehicles. They were announced last week minutes after a 10% U.S. tariff on all Chinese goods imports went into effect in what Trump called an “opening salvo” against what he says are Beijing's unfair trade practices.

The fact that the Chinese tariffs targeted only some U.S. products had raised hopes that the two countries could reach a deal similar to those the U.S. struck with Canada and Mexico before pausing 25% tariffs on goods from the two U.S. allies. But no agreement appears to have been reached before the Chinese tariffs went into effect at 12:01 a.m. today Beijing time (11:01 a.m. yesterday ET).

Trump said yesterday that he will announce reciprocal tariffs this week, as well as a 25% blanket tariff on steel and aluminum imports.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, adding that the same tariff would be applied to aluminum.

“Aluminum, too,” Trump added, when a reporter asked him whether it would also be subject to tariffs.

Trump said he would most likely make a formal announcement tomorrow or Wednesday about reciprocal tariffs on “every country,” while an announcement about steel tariffs would happen today. Reciprocal tariffs would go into effect “almost immediately,” he said.

Read the full story.

Pete Hegseth is traveling abroad for the first time as defense secretary, making his way to Europe.

Hegseth will begin a five-day trip during which he will participate in a meeting with NATO defense ministers in Belgium, visit troops in Germany and hold meetings with senior leaders in Poland.

His trip comes during tension between the United States and NATO as Trump demands that allies to pay more toward defense.

Vice President JD Vance is traveling overseas for the first time since he was sworn in, leading U.S. delegations to an artificial intelligence summit in Paris.