Republican-led House adopts budget blueprint in tight vote; Trump faces GOP criticism over DOGE

Reps. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., and Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., told reporters tonight why they showed up for tonight’s budget resolution vote in spite of challenges that included caring for a newborn and a discharge from the hospital after surgery.

Pettersen, who had her newborn son at tonight’s vote, said she knew her opposition to the Republican measure “could make the difference.”

“However hard it was, I wasn’t going to let their denial of my ability to vote by proxy get in the way,” Pettersen said after the 217-215 vote.

Pettersen added that she and her son, who is 4 weeks old, had traveled across the country for the vote. “We would prefer to be at home with our support system, but we were here to fight for all the kids in Colorado,” she said.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., announced tonight that he is running for governor of Florida next year.

"After a lot of prayer, a lot of thought with my family and my friends, I’m here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida," Donalds told Sean Hannity tonight on Fox News.

Donalds recently told donors of his intention to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is term-limited.

Trump endorsed Daniels last week, saying on Truth Social: “Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida and, should he decide to run, will have my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, BYRON, RUN!”

The U.S. Agency for International Development is giving employees 15 minutes to pack up their desks Thursday and Friday, according to an email sent to an employee who shared it on the condition of anonymity.

Employees seeking to collect their belongings will be asked to do so in strict windows of time after having reviewed an exhaustive list of restrictions and rules for doing so. They also will be required to undergo magnetometer and X-ray screening, and they will be escorted to their desks to pack up their belongings. Staff members must bring their own boxes, bags and tape for packing up their desks, the email says, and follow all record-preservation laws while doing so.

The email concludes with a lengthy list of items the employees are warned not to bring, including guns, realistic replicas of guns, cattle prods, axes, hatchets, bows and arrows, drills, knives, sabers, swords, daggers, utility knives, billy clubs, brass knuckles, crowbars, nunchucks, ski poles, fireworks, flares, gunpowder, grenades, gas torches, pool chlorine, bleach, pepper spray and helium balloons. The items, the email acknowledges, have always been banned from passing through security screening posts at the agency's headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.

As recently as last Wednesday, Trump made it clear: Elon Musk is in charge of DOGE.

“I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge,” Trump said in a speech to the Future Investment Initiative Institute in Miami Beach, Florida, according to video and the White House’s transcript. “Thank you, Elon, for doing it.”

Musk has done nothing to shake that idea. Musk helped coin the name of the office in September, before Trump won a second term, and Trump named him to the job a week after the election. Republican lawmakers have praised Musk’s performance at DOGE. Musk posts about DOGE daily on X, where he issues commands to the federal workforce on Trump’s behalf.

But this afternoon, the White House revealed that a little-known official, Amy Gleason, now holds the title of acting DOGE administrator — a job that implies she heads up the agency. The White House didn’t say when Gleason was appointed, but the decision appeared rushed; she was scheduled to be on vacation Tuesday in Mexico, The New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources.

Read the full story here.

Trump helped flip some of the last-minute Republican holdouts on the House GOP’s budget blueprint, according to House Majority Leader Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who called Trump "an incredible ally" throughout the process.

“Trump helped us with a number of members," Scalise told reporters.

He declined to identify specific members who had spoken with Trump but said Trump was "talking to anybody that we asked that really needed to clarify things."

Speaker Mike Johnson muscled a multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint through the House by the narrowest of margins tonight — a crucial step for Republicans as they embark on advancing Trump’s legislative agenda.

The vote was 217-215, with Republicans casting all of the votes in favor of the budget resolution. Just one Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined all Democrats in voting against it.

The vote came after a dramatic day of arm-twisting in the House, with Johnson, R-La., hosting multiple meetings in his office to win over GOP holdouts and Trump personally calling many of the same people.

Read the full story here.

The head of the Government Accountability Office told members of Congress today that the watchdog’s auditors have met with Department of Government Efficiency staffers at the Treasury Department as part of three ongoing DOGE projects that congressional Democrats have asked GAO to audit.

As a congressional agency, GAO audits every federal entity. Members of Congress typically ask it to audit programs such as DOGE.

The Democrats' requests include reviews of DOGE’s interactions with federal government payment systems and the IT systems for three government agencies, as well as a review of FEMA data and payment systems.

The House is scheduled to vote tonight on a Republican budget blueprint that seeks to reduce taxes by up to $4.5 trillion and aims to cut federal spending by $2 trillion.

The measure needs a simple majority to pass. Some conservative Republicans have threatened to torpedo the vote.

With one Democratic absence — Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona — and all GOP members in attendance, Republicans cannot afford more than one defection if they want to adopt the resolution this evening.

Trump signed an executive order today directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and other agency heads to suspend any active security clearances held by a law firm that assisted former special counsel Jack Smith in his investigations of Trump.

The order targets the Washington-based law firm Covington & Burling LLP, naming a firm partner and “all members, partners, and employees” who assisted Smith, “pending a review and determination of their roles and responsibilities, if any, in the weaponization of the judicial process.”

The order also directed the Office of Management and Budget to issue a memo asking all agencies to review federal contracts with the law firm.

Trump signed an executive order this afternoon that reinstated a policy during his first term that his administration has said is aimed at improving price transparency in the health care industry.

The order, first signed in 2019, requires hospitals "to maintain a consumer-friendly display of pricing information for up to 300 shoppable services and a machine-readable file with negotiated rates for every single service the hospital provides," and it includes requirements for health plans to post information about payments to providers, along with a "consumer-facing internet tool through which individuals can access price information."

The order directs the secretaries of the treasury, labor and health and human services to ensure compliance and require that the actual prices of items and services be disclosed within 90 days.

"It allows people to go out and negotiate," Trump said as he signed the order this afternoon. "You're not allowed to even talk about it when you go into a hospital or see a doctor, and this allows you to go out and talk about it."

The White House says it will decide which reporters are permitted to participate in the presidential pool in a move that will break from decades of precedent.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that the White House Correspondents Association would no longer get to say “which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States” at certain events.

“Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team,” she said. “Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join — fear not — but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.”

The pool is a group of reporters from various media outlets who share the president’s movements, activities and comments with the public and ask questions of him in places with limited access, such as the Oval Office. The idea is that even when an event is not open to the public or the media widely, there will be at least one reporter who can keep tabs on what the president is doing and then share that information with other media outlets.

Russia has proposed to the Trump administration a potential agreement under which the United States would gain some ownership of rare earth minerals and other valuable metals in parts of Ukraine controlled by the Russian military, according to two U.S. officials familiar with intelligence on the matter and another person briefed on the proposal.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a similar deal, which Zelenskyy initially rejected, frustrating Trump.

Top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin floated Russia’s idea with Trump administration officials last week at a meeting in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. officials and the person briefed on the proposal said.

Read the full story here.

Trump muddied the waters today in comments about whether it was necessary for government workers to respond to an Office of Personnel Management email.

“Well, it’s somewhat voluntary, but it’s also if you don’t answer I guess you get fired,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when he was asked whether responding to the email was voluntary.

Trump's remarks were at odds with OPM, which said yesterday that responding was voluntary.

A federal judge directed the Trump administration to release frozen foreign aid funds for a third time at a hearing today in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali had signed a restraining order on Feb. 13 unfreezing a blanket pause on aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development. He directed the government to comply with his order in a ruling last week after aid groups said they still couldn't access their money.

An attorney for the aid groups told Ali today that the money was still frozen. Ali then asked a Justice Department lawyer what steps had been taken to comply with his order, and the attorney said he was "not in a position to answer that question."

The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal of the judge’s order this evening.

Trump promised to make the federal government more efficient — to do more with less. He even deputized Musk to be the face of a new Department of Government Efficiency.

But critics say Musk’s chain saw approach to slashing government programs, contracts and workers is having the opposite effect, sowing such confusion that it has hamstrung the bureaucracy’s ability to serve the public and even carry out key parts of Trump’s own agenda.

“It’s leading to paralysis, and nothing is getting done,” said a Veterans Affairs official who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The official described “absolute chaos” at the agency, with even Trump political appointees afraid to misstep and incur backlash from either the White House or the public.

Read the full story here.

More than 700 employees at the National Park Service have resigned as part of the Trump administration's "fork in the road" buyout program, according to an internal memo obtained by NBC News.

That is on top of the 1,000 probationary staffers who were terminated on Feb. 14 from parks across the country. Probationary workers are often employees who have been in their positions for less than a year.

The NPS cutbacks have stunned and angered employees, triggering protests at park entrances and visitor centers. On Saturday, a group of Yosemite National Park rangers hung an American flag upside down off an iconic cliffside to protest the firings.

“Spring break is only days away, and staffing cuts could leave parks unable to handle emergencies, serve visitors or safeguard precious historic and natural treasures," said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. "If seasonal staff can’t be hired in time, smaller parks could be forced to close visitor centers and campgrounds or reduce park hours because there simply aren’t enough people to staff them."

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., threatened to have Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., forcibly removed from the committee room today if he did not refrain from speaking after he accused Trump of “grifting.”

Frost called Trump the “grifter in chief” at the markup. Comer twice invited Frost to revise his remarks, calling them disparaging and citing decorum.

Frost revised his remark while still saying Trump was “grifting.”

“I can say that Trump is grifting. What I will withdraw [is] members calling him grifter in chief,” Frost said.

A federal judge in Seattle today blocked Trump’s executive order pausing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, siding with arguments that the order most likely exceeded the president’s authority.

“The president has substantial discretion to suspend refugee admissions. But that authority is not limitless,” U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead said in his decision. “He cannot ignore Congress’ detailed framework for refugee admissions and the limits it places on the president’s ability to suspend the same.”

Between the halt in admissions, staff layoffs at refugee agencies and the indefinite suspension of family reunification, Whitehead said, there appeared to be an “effective nullification of congressional will.” Further, he said, implementing the order “likely violates bedrock principles of administrative law.”

Read the full story here.

A Department of Veterans Affairs human resource leader said emergency numbers are listed in her email signature for veterans who contact her when a Democratic lawmaker asked today whether the VA provided veterans with additional mental health support after it fired them.

“In my signature block, I have the 911 suicide prevention hotline. That information is always available to individuals who contact me,” Tracey Therit, the VA’s chief human capital officer, said at a congressional hearing. “If anybody has concerns about the action that the VA has taken, they are free to reach out to us or to others for answers to those questions.”

She was responding to Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., who said the recent VA layoffs contradict the agency’s top clinical priority of suicide prevention.

Trump Media and Musk's Tesla, which both experienced surges in their share prices leading up to Election Day, are having a rough time in the stock market this year.

Trump Media shares, which trade as DJT, fell more than 7% today, their seventh consecutive losing session. That's their longest negative streak since early September, according to a CNBC analysis. The stock is down about 40% since Trump, who has put his majority stake in a revocable trust, took office last month.

Tesla, meanwhile, fell around 8% today, bringing its losses for the year to about 25% as CEO Musk focuses on the Trump administration's cost-cutting DOGE initiative. The company's market value slipped under $1 trillion.

Twenty-one civil service employees have resigned en masse from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to a letter posted online and shared with media outlets today.

The letter said they refused to use their technical expertise to “compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” wrote the staffers, who joined when the agency was known as the United States Digital Service. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE Service.”

Read the full story here.

The White House confirmed today that Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump administration lawyers couldn’t name her in court yesterday.

Her LinkedIn profile has her listed as the senior adviser at the U.S. Digital Service since January. Musk morphed that agency into DOGE.

Gleason worked at the U.S. Digital Service during Trump's first term and into the first year of the Biden administration, according to her profile.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., railed against a human resources leader at the Department of Veterans Affairs today for terminating more than 2,000 employees through a termination letter she admitted she did not write.

In a fiery line of questioning, Takano, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, asked Tracey Therit, the VA’s chief human capital officer, if she wrote the memo herself and whether she confirmed that each terminated employee was a poor performer before sending the pink slips.

Therit said at the congressional hearing that she had signed the termination letters but did not write them. She said the termination order came from a directive from the Office of Personnel Management.

Phil Sussman, an Army veteran who worked for the United States Agency for International Development, said in an interview today that he felt “absolutely betrayed” after receiving a termination letter last night.

“This isn’t a meme. This isn’t a tweet. This is myself and my wife and my three children who don’t know how we’re gonna pay the mortgage next month,” Sussman said. He added that federal employees have “spent their entire lives dedicated to helping others, sacrificing for others.”

Sussman is medically retired from the Army, where he served for 10 years, including in northern Syria. After moving with his wife and three young children to Florida, his home in St. Petersburg was wiped out by Hurricane Helene. He then got a job with USAID’s Middle East Bureau as a desk officer for Syria, working as a liaison between the agency and its partners in the region. He had moved with his family to the D.C. region for the job.

A federal judge in Washington today ruled that the Trump administration is barred from reinstating the federal funding freeze put in place by the Office of Management and Budget.

“Many organizations had to resort to desperate measures just to stay operational,” Judge Loren AliKhan wrote in her order. “The pause placed critical programs for children, the elderly, and everyone in between in serious jeopardy. Because the public’s interest in not having trillions of dollars arbitrarily frozen cannot be overstated, Plaintiffs have more than met their burden here.”

“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning,” the judge wrote. “Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.”

In early February, OMB released, then rescinded its order pausing agency grant, loan and other financial assistance programs.

A group of former federal workers went from office to office on the Senate side of Capitol Hill today to request meetings with senators or their staff about the DOGE cuts that have left them jobless.

The group did not meet with any senators, but had brief conversations with staff in their offices or lobby areas. At one point, the former workers were escorted out of the office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, after the lobby got too crowded.

“I really loved the work that we were doing, and now I don’t know what to do, and I have cried every day,” Elizabeth Lidden, one of the fired employees, said. “I have a 15-month-old at home, and I’m looking at him and thinking, ‘Well, what’s this country that we’re now living in?’”

Lidden, who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, called the termination process “disorganized,” adding that she got two termination letters on the same day.

No charges will be filed against a woman dragged from an Idaho Republican town hall by security guards. The security firm’s license has also been revoked. KHQ’s John Webb reports.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed an executive order today directing state and local law enforcement agencies to partner with Customs and Border Protection to prevent border crimes such as drug and human trafficking, making Hobbs one of the first (if not the first) Democratic governors to partner with the Trump administration on immigration.

Immigration was top of mind for Arizona voters during the most recent presidential election, with about one-fifth of voters saying it was their top issue, according to the NBC News exit poll. Those voters broke near-unanimously for Trump.

Many Democratic governors, including JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York, have bucked the Trump administration’s early efforts to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in American history — a top campaign promise of Trump’s.

But Hobbs is in a unique situation: While other border states lean either solidly Republican or Democratic, Arizona is the only border state considered to be a presidential battleground. 

Read the full story here.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during today's briefing that the administration will now determine which outlets will be in the White House press pool, a smaller group of journalists who share information to a wider group when space is limited.

The White House Correspondents' Association, which operates independently of the White House, currently coordinates pool coverage.

Leavitt said that "legacy outlets" will still be allowed to join the pool, but noted that the administration will be allowing additional outlets to join. 

"I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows and who listen to your radio stations," she said.

The first White House tour group of the year got an unexpected surprise — an in-person greeting from President Donald Trump himself.

Trump said he came to say hello after being told the group was in the building.

"It’s a group of very smart looking people, I must say, very smart," Trump said in a video of his remarks posted on X by a White House communications aide. "Maybe someday you’ll be here as the president. Somebody in this room has a chance."

"Have a good time, have great tour," Trump told the visitors. As he turned to go, the crowd began to chant "U-S-A!"

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., was diagnosed with “a severe concussion, a seizure, and a slight brain bleed” after slipping on ice in his backyard and hitting the back of his head, he said in a Facebook post yesterday.

Cramer said that, at the request of his doctors, he will rest in North Dakota before returning to D.C., but he is “ready to return quickly if events require it.” He also posted photos of his head injury and the ice where he slipped.

“I’m happy to be recovering at home,” Cramer wrote in the Facebook post. “The head still hurts a bit, but I sleep a lot. Thank you to all of the folks praying for a full recovery. God is good!”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn't name DOGE's administrator when asked who it is at today’s press briefing.

A government court filing earlier this month said Elon Musk was "not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization." Instead, the filing identified Musk as a senior adviser to the president.

"The president tasked Elon Musk to oversee the DOGE effort," Leavitt said. "There are career officials and there are political appointees who are helping run DOGE on a day-to-day basis."

Leavitt did not respond to an immediate follow-up question about whether Musk was the administrator, but she was asked about the identity of the administrator again later in the briefing.

"I've been asked and answered this question. Elon Musk is overseeing DOGE," Leavitt said.

The White House said Elon Musk will participate in Trump’s first Cabinet meeting tomorrow, joining agency heads and leaders to discuss DOGE's efforts.

"Elon, considering he is working alongside the president and our Cabinet secretaries in this entire administration, will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE's efforts and how all of the Cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a press briefing.

Musk is serving in the Trump administration as a “special government employee,” launched on a cost-cutting mission across the federal government while overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The White House is attributing a large bruise on the back of Trump’s right hand to him shaking hands.

The bruise was visible during Trump’s visit with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House on Monday.

“President Trump is a man of the people,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, adding, “His commitment is unwavering and he proves that every single day.”

“President Trump has bruises on his hand because he’s constantly working and shaking hands all day every day,” Leavitt added in a follow-up statement.

Trump has had visible bruising or redness on his right hand on at least two other occasions, in August and November of last year, according to NBC News observations and wire service photos.

Read the full story here.

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees said he thinks Congress is not paying enough attention to federal workers’ concerns over the Department of Government Efficiency, urging lawmakers to “stand up.”

“It’s inhuman, it’s un-American to treat these federal employees the way that they’re being treated when they are patriotic employees wanting to provide the services for the American people,” the union head, Everett Kelley, said in an interview on MSNBC.

Kelley said he spoke to one federal employee yesterday who is pregnant but lost her insurance after being fired.

“These people are crying to us, and people need to feel that these are real human beings,” Kelley said. “The phone needs to ring off the hook. And I encourage every not just federal employee, but every American, to stand up with work in America to make sure that the democracy of this country stays intact.”

A central Massachusetts town administrator has been fired after he butted heads with the longtime police chief over a “Trump 2024” flag that had been flying inside the police station.

James Ryan, who was hired as the West Boylston town administrator in January, spotted the flag in the gym while touring the station and asked Police Chief Dennis Minnich to take it down, the local NBC News affiliate reported.

Minnich, who has worked in the town for decades, said he did and was unaware that some of his officers had replaced that flag with another until he learned that Ryan had sent over a town worker to make sure the first Trump flag was gone.

Angered by Ryan’s move, Minnich then filed a complaint against the town administrator for sending an unauthorized person into the police station.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said today that Republicans need to work on their messaging on the Department of Government Efficiency, which comes after people in his district lashed out at him last week over the mass terminations of federal workers by the Elon Musk-run effort.

“I’m all for trimming the government, but I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust in their lifestyle,” McCormick told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about the confrontation at his town hall.

When asked if DOGE needs to be more compassionate, McCormick noted that Musk had applauded Republicans a few years ago for coming across as “more compassionate,” but added there was a risk of losing that.

“We have a message that we’re for the little person ... getting out of the way of innovation, getting out of the way of holding your businesses back, getting out of the way of taxing you and overburdening you but, but then to lose that message just with one — one attitude," he said. "And if nothing else, we have to be careful how we message this so it doesn’t come across as discompassionate.”

Speaker Mike Johnson said today that he is plowing forward this week with a vote on House Republicans’ multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint, a crucial test for Trump’s legislative agenda.

Wary moderate Republicans appeared to be moving toward supporting the budget resolution after receiving some assurances from Johnson about Medicaid in a future package. But a band of unruly conservatives is threatening to tank the vote.

At least four GOP rabble-rousers — Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — emerged from a closed-door meeting of House Republicans this morning and said they would vote against the budget plan over concerns it doesn’t cut spending enough.

Read the full story here.

Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, is on Capitol Hill today to present his agency’s report on areas of government ripe for improvement and at high risk of waste, fraud and abuse — a more traditional perspective on a hot issue in the era of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

The updated report will cite $84 billion in savings over the last two years as Congress and the executive branch followed hundreds of GAO recommendations as to how billions more could be saved.  

DOGE has been firing off tweets about purported savings, cutting staff indiscriminately throughout the government and claiming inflated savings of $65 billion found over the last month, and Musk and his allies have been portraying the new effort as if no one in government is hunting for waste or ways things can be done more efficiently. 

But the GAO is the government’s long-established chief watchdog, with a team of more than 3,000 auditors and government analysts that regularly pumps out reports aimed at making the government run better and finding real risk of fraud and abuse.  

Read the full story here.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, cautioned today against ending the war in Ukraine on Russia's terms in an implicit criticism of the Trump administration's direction in working toward a peace deal.

“Three years ago, Russia launched its unprovoked war on Ukraine. Since then, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and millions of Ukrainians have been forced to live in perpetual terror,” Murkowski said in the post. “We all want this senseless war to end, but ending it on Russia’s terms would be a devastating mistake that plays right into Putin’s bloody hands.”

The post comes after Trump has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and blamed Ukraine for starting the war, which began when Russia invaded. The U.S. also sided with Russia yesterday in opposing a United Nations resolution that was backed by Ukraine.

Murkowski has also criticized the Trump administration's efforts under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to fire federal workers and root out government waste.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said this morning that Republicans in Congress need to start “being less pathetic” in raising the alarm over Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency group and “standing up for their constituents, for the country and for the Constitution.”

“They have turned the entire government over to the cult of personality that is Donald Trump and to some extent, Elon Musk. They have completely abdicated any responsibility because they are deathly afraid of saying anything that Donald Trump doesn't want to hear,” Smith told MSNBC. “They need to change that.”

Several House Republicans plan to press Trump about DOGE's cuts at a meeting today, according to Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga. McCormick, who along with some other House Republicans has faced criticism from constituents over the cuts, told NBC News that his biggest concern is that the Trump administration was not being “compassionate” in its firing of federal workers.

Smith said he was glad McCormick “put out that mild little statement,” but urged Republicans to do more.

“They need to stand up for representative democracy and say, ‘No, Donald Trump is not a king,’” Smith said. “If we don’t agree with things that Trump doing, we need to say it and push back against it.”

Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican, introduced a bill in the Legislature yesterday that would require state agencies to update geographic materials used in schools to reflect the president's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America."

The bill would require district school boards and charter schools to acquire new materials that recognize the new name. Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his new term making the name change, which has been rejected by Mexico’s government.

Gruters, a longtime Trump ally, was elected treasurer of the Republican National Committee in January after receiving Trump's endorsement.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said it fired another 1,400 probationary employees last night after dismissing more than 1,000 others earlier this month.

In a statement, the agency said it continues to hire for more than 300,000 "mission-critical" positions that are exempt from the federal hiring freeze, which includes Veterans Crisis Line responders.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., criticized the terminations during a joint House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees hearing today.

“I’m just going to be very blunt. Our VA is under assault, the veterans of America are under assault,” Blumenthal, the top Democratic on the Senate committee, said.

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerry Connolly, of Virginia, said he is looking into acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin for potential abuse of public office.

In a letter to Martin today, Connolly raised concerns about several actions Martin has taken since becoming the top prosecutor in D.C. In particular, Connolly said he was "deeply concerned" that Martin's efforts to investigate comments from Democratic members of Congress "may violate the First Amendment and chill legitimate political expression."

"They also raise the concern that you are using your office to carry out Elon Musk’s evident goal to silence media and other commentators who criticize him or DOGE," he said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appeared to take a jab this morning at the Trump administration's decision to oppose a United Nations resolution backed by Ukraine and other European allies.

The U.S. instead sided with Russia and North Korea, among other countries, on the vote. The resolution called for Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine's internationally recognized borders.

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole," Cassidy posted on X, citing the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. The post also highlighted an article about the United Nations vote.

The Supreme Court threw out Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip’s murder conviction this morning because a key witness lied in court and prosecutors withheld information about him.

The decision, a rare victory for a death row inmate at the conservative court, means prosecutors now have to decide whether to put Glossip on trial again. The court was divided 5-3 on throwing out Glossip’s conviction, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch not participating.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court, said the prosecution “violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.” As a result, “Glossip is entitled to a new trial,” she wrote.

Glossip, 62, was convicted of arranging the murder in 1997 of his boss at the Oklahoma City motel where they worked. He has been on death row since 1998 and has faced imminent execution on several occasions.

Read the full story.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., pushed back on some of DOGE's efforts to slash the federal workforce and government spending, calling some of the group's moves "rash" in an interview with CNN.

"We need to do this with a scalpel, I've said this repeatedly, not a sledgehammer," she said in the interview. "Some of the rash decisions that I've seen coming out of DOGE — which I do support finding efficiencies."

More than 230,000 Canadians have signed a parliamentary petition calling on the prime minister to revoke Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship for his role as a senior adviser to Trump, who has said he would like to make Canada “the 51st state” of the United States.

The petition, launched by British Columbia author Qualia Reed and sponsored by New Democrat parliamentary member Charlie Angus, claims Musk has “engaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada” and has “become a member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty.”

Musk was born in South Africa but has Canadian citizenship through his mother, who is from Saskatchewan’s capital, Regina.

The petition is set to close for signatures June 20.

The Trump administration is pausing work on tents to house migrants at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay as it considers scaling back its plans for the naval base amid its crackdown on illegal immigration, according to two U.S. officials.

The tents do not have electricity or air conditioning and aren’t currently up to Immigration and Customs Enforcement standards, the officials said. The military has not taken them down and is waiting on policy guidance on whether migrants will ever be housed in them.

“As this mission evolves, DoD will continue to work with DHS to evaluate requirements and the scope of illegal alien holding operations, and improve facilities,” a defense official said.

Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to house up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay. That target has been “scaled back,” according to one of the officials. Right now, there are more than 1,000 U.S. service members assigned to the mission at the base, although there are only 17 migrants there, the official said.

Students and staff at the University of Cincinnati are protesting the school's rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to a report from NBC affiliate WLWT.

WLWT reported that the university's board of trustees is meeting this morning.

Protesters inside and outside of the meeting held signs that read, "End complicity before it ends us," "We demand academic freedom now," and, "Defend your staff and students," videos posted by a WLWT reporter showed.

University President Neville Pinto said last week that the school would have to eliminate DEI initiatives to be in compliance with a Trump executive order.

After facing blowback from constituents, several House Republicans are returning to Washington this week on a mission to demand both more information and a more considerate approach from the Elon Musk-led effort to downsize the federal government.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., who was confronted during a testy town hall in his deep red district last week, said he plans to reach out to Musk and urge him to show more compassion amid the Department of Government Efficiency’s execution of federal budget cuts and layoffs.

Read the full story.

A Venezuelan migrant, Kevin Rodriguez, speaks on the conditions inside the military base Guantanamo Bay. NBC News’ Marissa Parra shares the details as the Trump administration halts the temporary protected status for Venezuelans in the United States. 

Rudy Giuliani has “fully satisfied” a judgment against him after defaming two former Georgia election workers by falsely accusing them of election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest, according to a federal court filing yesterday.

The judgment was satisfied Friday, the filing said, and comes after Giuliani reached a settlement agreement with Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, in January.

A jury had awarded the former election workers $148 million in damages after a four-day trial in December 2023. The award was subsequently reduced to $146 million by a judge.

Yesterday’s court filing listed interest and attorneys fees on top of that figure.

Read the full story.

Trump was incorrect when he said that Russia will accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin signaled Tuesday.

While Trump said Monday during a White House meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron that he had “specifically asked” Russian President Vladimir Putin about peacekeepers and that Putin “has no problem with it,” the Kremlin contradicted those comments early this morning.

When asked about Trump’s remarks in a media call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “the Russian foreign minister has already said everything about it, I’ve got nothing to add.”

Peskov was referring to comments Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made last week in a news conference following talks in Saudi Arabia with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lavrov said that “the deployment of troops ... [from] NATO countries, but under a foreign flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags ... is, of course, unacceptable to us.”

Read the full story.

House Republicans who are in their second term are expected to meet with Trump today.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., who faced angry attendees during a town hall in his deep red district last week, said he planned to talk with the president about the administration's Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump is scheduled to sign executive orders in the Oval Office at 3 p.m. today, according to the White House.

It did not indicate how many orders would be signed or what topics those would address.

NBC News previously reported that Trump had signed more than 70 executive orders during his first month in office, marking the most signed in a president’s first 100 days in more than 40 years.