Trump pauses certain tariffs and holds Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk

Two of Trump’s allies have launched bids for leadership roles with the D.C. Bar Association, an under-the-radar effort that would give them more control over the influential legal group.

The push comes amid bar associations’ confrontations with the Trump administration, and some federal attorneys have looked to their state groups for ethical guidance amid Trump’s rapid reshaping of government.

Bradley Bondi — a lawyer who is Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother — and Alicia Long — a deputy to Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — are running for president and treasurer. The election runs from April to June, according to the organization’s website.

While the general public may not pay much attention to bar associations, lawyers do. The nongovernmental groups decide who gets to be a lawyer — and who gets to stay a lawyer when misconduct allegations are involved. The D.C. Bar, as it is known, has more than 120,000 members, and, by virtue of its location, it is where a significant number of federal attorneys are licensed.

Read the full story here.

U.S.-China ties must be based on mutual respect, China’s foreign minister said today as he criticized U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.

“The China-U.S. economic and trade relationship is reciprocal and mutually beneficial,” Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi told reporters at the National People’s Congress, the annual gathering in Beijing of China’s rubber-stamp parliament. “If cooperation is chosen, both sides will benefit; if pressure is applied unilaterally, China will respond resolutely.”

Trump’s 10% tariff on Chinese goods was doubled Tuesday to 20%. China responded by imposing additional tariffs of up to 15% on some U.S. goods, as it did when the first 10% tariff took effect on Feb. 4.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., blasted a conservative political consultant with close ties to Trump’s orbit who questioned whether he could win re-election next year.

Tillis was responding to a post on X by Arthur Schwartz, who said Republicans will “need a new senate candidate in NC” in 2026, pointing to a poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that found Tillis trailing Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper in a hypothetical general election matchup.

“The president needs a majority to continue his agenda,” Tillis said in an interview today. “Behavior by people like this guy, it’s the thing that’s the single greatest threat to us to deliver the majority next year.”

Tillis said Schwartz “doesn’t have the temperament to be anywhere around the political circles that guarantee that we come back into a majority next year.”

Read the full story here.

Dr. Marty Makary, Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, said today that he would review a Biden-era rule that allowed patients to get mifepristone without seeing a health care provider in person.

The Biden administration initially eliminated the in-person dispensing requirement in 2021 and made the change permanent in 2023. The change expanded access to the drug, as people were allowed to use telemedicine to get prescriptions and the pill.

Makary appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for his hearing to be FDA commissioner.

“I do think it makes sense to review the totality of data and ongoing data,” Makary said, referring to how patients get mifepristone.

Read the full story here.

Trump signed an executive order today creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, marking a major shift in U.S. digital asset policy.

White House crypto and artificial intelligence czar David Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, wrote on X that the reserve will be funded exclusively with bitcoin seized in criminal and civil forfeiture cases, ensuring that taxpayers bear no financial burden.

According to estimates, the U.S. government controls 200,000 bitcoins, though no full audit has ever been conducted. Trump’s order mandates a comprehensive accounting of federal digital asset holdings and prohibits the sale of bitcoin from the reserve, positioning it as a permanent store of value.

In addition, the order establishes a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, managed by the Treasury Department, to hold other confiscated cryptocurrencies.

Read the full story here.

Ukrainian immigrants who fled the ongoing war with Russia and now live in the United States with temporary legal status told NBC News they are terrified they could soon face deportation back to an active war zone. In Ukraine, life as they once knew it has long been bombed away.

Trump said today that he would soon decide whether to revoke temporary legal status of Ukrainians who came to the United States during the war. “We’re certainly not looking to hurt them,” he said. “There were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making a decision pretty soon.”

Even before his comments, a sense of abandonment and dread had swept through the community given the administration’s targeting of legal programs for immigrants, as well as the growing hostility and withdrawal of support for Ukraine, they said. 

“It’s been like a nightmare. We are scared, and we feel uncertain of everything around us,” said Daria, 41, a Ukrainian immigrant and mother of four living in Florida who came to the United States after the war started in February 2022.

Read the full story here.

Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, this morning blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he was asked about the implications of Washington's stopping intelligence sharing with Kyiv.

"Very candidly, they brought it on themselves," Kellogg said in an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to last week's explosive clash between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House.

"You don't negotiate peace discussions in public. You don't try to challenge the president of the United States in the Oval Office," Kellogg said. "And he was forewarned."

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., argued this afternoon that Trump delayed tariffs on certain imports from Canada and Mexico today because of the financial and economic landscape.

“They’re not backing off out of the kindness of their heart. Trump's backing off of these tariffs because it’s a horrible idea. Economically, they’re looking at bad news in the stock market, bad news and inflation,” Kaine said in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace.

Trump signed an executive order this afternoon postponing his previously announced tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada until April 2. Yesterday, he said automobiles would be exempt from the tariffs following requests from the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers.

'They announced this charitable decision today, we’ll back off for the tariffs another month. ... They backed down because tariffs are a stupid idea that only hurt Americans,” Kaine said.

A day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called new U.S. tariffs "a very dumb thing to do," Trump struck an "abusive" tone in his call with Trudeau, according to a Western government official.

“I’m told that the meeting that [Trump] had with Mr. Trudeau yesterday, again it was a tag team — [Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick and the vice president — and I’m told that it was extremely abusive on the part of the president," the official said. "And everyone is asking themselves the question: How do we deal with this level of irrationality, and also this level of abuse?”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump today walked back some of the U.S. tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods.

The dean of Georgetown Law wrote in a letter today that the conservative activist whom Trump named as Washington's top federal prosecutor had launched “an attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution" by demanding explanations about Georgetown's DEI policies.

William M. Treanor, the dean and executive vice president of Georgetown Law, confirmed to NBC News that he sent a letter to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, writing that a letter from Martin that arrived this week "challenges Georgetown’s ability to define our mission as an educational institution" and violated "a bedrock principle of constitutional law."

Martin, a "Stop the Steal" organizer who advocated for Jan. 6 defendants and had no prosecutorial experience before Trump appointed him on Inauguration Day, wrote in a letter first published by a right-wing media outlet that he had "begun an inquiry" into Georgetown's policies and that the U.S. attorney's office would not hire anyone affiliated with a law school or university that continued to teach diversity, equity and inclusiveness principles.

Treanor wrote in his letter to Martin that the principle that "sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding" was "a moral and educational imperative" that "defines our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's post on X about a state employee who said he was fired after he refused to remove pronouns from his email signature drew praise from Trump adviser and tech billionaire Elon Musk today.

Abbott, a Republican, shared an Austin American-Statesman article yesterday about the employee, who had worked for the Texas Real Estate Commission, a state agency. Musk replied to Abbott’s post with two fire emojis.

Musk, who is leading the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, has lambasted those who share their gender pronouns or ask others for their pronouns. He also updated X's policy to allow users to freely misgender transgender people, or use the incorrect pronouns for them.

Trump, meanwhile, has issued an executive order declaring that the U.S. government will recognize only two unchangeable sexes. That has prompted federal agencies and recipients of government funding to roll back LGBTQ-inclusive policies, including those that allow employees to share their pronouns in their email signatures.

MAGA activists have turned against one of Trump’s own appointees to the Supreme Court: Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Appointed by Trump in 2020, Barrett is a staunch conservative who has joined major rulings in which the court has moved U.S. law to the right, including on abortion and affirmative action.

But that’s not enough for some of Trump’s most aggressive supporters, who think Barrett, a former Notre Dame Law School professor, has been a disappointment. MAGA supporters see what some call an independent streak as a sign that she isn’t sufficiently aligned with or loyal to Trump.

“She is a rattled law professor with her head up her a--,” said Mike Davis, who once clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Neil Gorsuch and described Barrett as “weak and timid.”

Read the full story here.

A federal judge today ordered the reinstatement of a National Labor Relations Board member and had harsh words for Trump in the process.

Senior Judge Beryl Howell, of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said Trump lacks the power to freely fire members of the NLRB, in this case Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board.

“The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law,” Howell wrote.

The NLRB polices unfair labor practices and mediates worker-management disputes. The Senate confirmed Wilcox for a second five-year term in 2023.

Read the full story here.

Trump, while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, did not say when he plans to sign an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, but reiterated his intention to do so.

"I want to just do it," Trump said. "We're starting the process. We're trying to get the schools back into the states, let the states run the schools."

Trump told reporters that the core functions of the Education Department, specifically the management of federal student loans and grants, would be absorbed by federal agencies.

“That would be brought into either Treasury, or the Small Business Administration or Commerce. We actually had that conversation today,” Trump said.

Asked in the Oval Office whether he plans to extend users' access to TikTok if there's no deal for a U.S. company to buy the app at the end of the current 90-day extension, Trump said he would "probably" do so.

"We have a lot of interest in TikTok," the president told reporters, adding that his administration is still working on a deal to allow the app to continue operating in the U.S.

“Right now we have at least another month, so we don’t need an extension," Trump said.

In response to reports that Trump planned to revoke legal status for Ukrainians who fled the war and are now living in the U.S., the president said it was something he's "looking at."

But Trump also said he wanted to minimize harm to Ukrainians, telling reporters in the Oval Office, "We're not looking to hurt anybody. We're certainly not looking to hurt them."

He added, "We don’t want to hurt people, especially Ukrainians. They’ve gone through a lot.”

During the signing of several executive orders in the Oval Office, Trump answered questions about a meeting he hosted today in which he told members of his Cabinet that they are in charge of cutting jobs at their agencies, not Elon Musk.

"I thought it was a really good meeting. It was about cutting," the president said.

"I want the Cabinet members to keep good people. I don’t want to see a big cut where good people are cut," Trump added, telling reporters that his directive to the Cabinet was: “Keep all the people you want, all the people that you need.”

“If they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting," Trump said.

U.S. immigration agents are planning a new operation to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown, according to three sources familiar with the planning. 

The operation will target adults and minor children who entered the country together and have orders of deportation, the source said. After the families are arrested, agents will place them into detention before they are removed.

A separate operation to find children who entered the United States unaccompanied and were released without court dates is also underway, the sources added.

The sources said lawyers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are now working to secure warrants to enter homes and conduct the arrests. 

Read the full story here.

Former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin criticized the Trump administration today for its plans to reduce staffing at the department to 2019 levels.

In an interview on CNN, Shulkin, who served as Trump's VA secretary during his first term, expressed concern with the administration's plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs at the VA. He said he also hasn't heard any proposals from the administration to improve the system, which is already bogged down by wait times, backlogs for benefits and a rise in suicide among veterans.

"We do need to take a look at how to improve the system, but I don't know any system that slashes its way to excellence," Shulkin said. "And what we haven't seen while we've heard about all the contracts being canceled, we've heard about employees that are going to be laid off, what we haven't really heard are the plans to make this system better."

The Senate voted 66-30 to advance Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination to be labor secretary. Fifteen Senate Democrats voted in favor of advancing Chavez-DeRemer, and one GOP senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against her. 

Chavez-DeRemer was the first of Trump’s Cabinet nominees to rely on Democratic support when she was voted out of the HELP committee last week.

Her final confirmation vote will be next week.

After voting with Republicans to censure fellow Democratic Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for his disruption of Trump's joint address to Congress on Tuesday, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said he did it to prevent the government from developing into a "MAGA cesspool."

"Unlike Republicans, I believe that rules, accountability and civility should not be torched. And certainly not just because the other side does so. If we cannot act with the principle and seriousness our nation deserves, our government will continue to develop into a MAGA cesspool," Himes wrote in a statement posted to X shortly after the vote.

Himes noted he voted to censure Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., after he interrupted then-President Barack Obama's 2009 joint address to Congress by yelling, "You lie," and said Green's disruption on Tuesday was far larger.

Himes was one of 10 House Democrats who voted with Republicans to censure Green this morning.

A group of Democratic senators are demanding answers from acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Cameron Hamilton about why hundreds of FEMA staffers were fired last month. 

“Our constituents … have experienced first-hand the shortcomings of the federal approach to disaster resilience and recovery. Instead of addressing their needs and concerns, the Trump Administration has taken a sledgehammer to the foundation of FEMA,” Sens. Peter Welch of Vermont, Alex Padilla of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Adam Schiff of California, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Chris van Hollen of Maryland wrote in a letter shared first with NBC News.

The letter included specific questions, like asking Hamilton whether FEMA conducted performance evaluations before they laid off staff, whether FEMA evaluated the impact of the firings on the “overall performance of FEMA operations” and asking for a list of positions that were eliminated in the agency under the Trump administration.

A spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed to NBC Washington that Bowser will remove Black Lives Matter Plaza and its ground mural will be painted over. There’s no timeline yet for the changes, but the street art will be replaced with a design created by D.C. schoolchildren.

Bowser said she made the decision several days ago. When pressed about why, she said it was fair to say the White House didn’t like it.

In 2020, the two-block stretch of 16th Street NW north of the White House was designated as Black Lives Matter Plaza after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked protests nationwide, including in the District.

Bowser unveiled the ground mural on June 5 of that year. It was paved over about a year later, but the mural was replaced, and Bowser announced the new mural would be a permanent installation in October 2021.

Read the full story here.

The Trump administration’s policy allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make arrests in schools is bringing down attendance and driving up fear and anxiety among students and teachers, a group representing 78 large school districts across the country is arguing in court. 

The group, the Council of Great City Schools, filed an amicus brief late last month supporting a lawsuit that the Denver public school system has filed against the Trump administration asking for relief from the policy. 

In a press release about the amicus brief, the council said it conducted a survey about the policy among its 78 member school districts and found that “they have already seen increased absenteeism, higher anxiety among students, increased bullying, less parental involvement, and heightened fear as a result of the change in guidance.” 

Read the full story here.

Federal student loan borrowers experiencing difficulties with their loans could find they have no recourse as Trump’s cuts to staff at the Department of Education are carried out, employees at the agency said.

Staffers at the Education Department tasked with fielding complaints from federal student loan holders and resolving their issues were let go in the recent job cuts, one employee told CNBC. At least eight of the fired staffers were working on a total of nearly 800 student loan borrower complaint cases, an employee said.

The remaining staff will likely have to take over these accounts. But, the employee said, “I have no idea when they’ll get reassigned.”

As a result, those borrowers “just have to continue to wait, and maybe they go into delinquency,” the staffer said.

Read the full story here.

U.S. immigration agents are planning a new operation to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown, according to three sources familiar with the planning. 

The operation will target adults and minor children who entered the country together and have orders of deportation, the source said. After the families are arrested, agents will place them into detention before they are removed.

A separate operation to find children who entered the United States unaccompanied and were released without court dates is also underway, the sources added.

The sources said lawyers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are now working to secure warrants to enter homes and conduct the arrests. 

Read the full story here.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., harshly responded to a conservative political consultant with ties to Trump world who questioned whether he could win re-election next year.

The consultant, Arthur Schwartz, said on X that Republicans will “need a new senate candidate in NC” in 2026, pointing to a poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that showed Tillis trailing former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in a hypothetical general election matchup.

“Well, actually, if you look, I think it’s a PPP poll, you ought to keep in mind the only poll I ever was up on was the Election Day poll, I was 2 points down in both of my Senate races,” Tillis said in response to a question from NBC News. “Arthur Schwartz is a political hack that should probably just keep on being a smart guy and a billionaire because he’s a s----- political consultant. Any other questions?”

“Hamilton” is pulling out of plans to perform at the Kennedy Center. The show’s producers cite Trump’s shake-up of the art institution’s leadership.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said today that she had a "respectful" call with Trump after he announced that Mexico won't have to pay tariffs covered under the USMCA agreement until April 2.

"Many thanks to President Donald Trump. We had an excellent and respectful call in which we agreed that our work and collaboration have yielded unprecedented results, within the framework of respect for our sovereignties," she wrote.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said in an announcement today that he wants fired federal workers to consider jobs in his state.

“In Minnesota, we value the experience and expertise of federal workers, even if Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE do not,” Walz said in a statement. “Government workers provide services each of us relies on — from park rangers to firefighters to medical personnel who care for our veterans. If the Trump administration turned you away, Minnesota wants you.”

Walz said that fired federal workers, including veterans, in his state can visit Minnesota's careers website for resources to help with their job searches and to apply for unemployment benefits.

According to the governor's office, Minnesota has around 18,000 federal employees.

The Trump administration is expected to process all outstanding payments to USAID contractors within the next 30 to 45 days, federal lawyers said in a new court filing this morning.

The filing was a joint status report submitted by the Trump administration and plaintiffs in two similar cases that represent USAID contractors. A preliminary injunction hearing for the cases is scheduled for this afternoon.

The plaintiffs said in the joint status report that the Trump administration hasn't complied with a court-issued temporary restraining order that blocked the federal government from holding up payments to USAID contractors and laid out deadlines for the administration to comply.

The administration, meanwhile, said that the government is continuing to process payments and said "it is expected that payments already requested by non-Plaintiffs will be processed within 2 weeks for State and 30-45 business days for USAID."

Trump reversed his position on tariffs again, saying in a post to Truth Social that after speaking with Mexico's president, he would issue an exemption on tariffs for most goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico.

Trump added that the tariff reprieve would last until April 2.

"Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl," Trump added. "Thank you to President Sheinbaum for your hard work and cooperation!"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, again criticized DOGE after saying she met with Alaskan USAID employees this week.

"They not only informed me of the confusing and callous handling of personnel matters by OPM and DOGE, but they also painted an incredibly troubling picture of what the world looks like without humanitarian assistance from the United States," she wrote in a post on X.

"Although I support measures to find inefficiencies within the agency, USAID’s mission to keep people healthy and safe in even the most remote corners of the world should not be eliminated," she continued.

Murkowski previously criticized DOGE's handling of government cuts. The administration and DOGE have zeroed in on USAID, hitting the agency with steep cuts.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested new action is coming from Trump to issue exemptions to the sweeping 25% tariffs he imposed Tuesday on most goods imported into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada.

No official decision has been made, but Lutnick said on CNBC that he was expecting an announcement later today on a broad exemption that would apply to goods compliant with the USMCA trade deal reached during Trump’s first term.

The commerce secretary said the exemption would last for one month and that additional tariffs would come on April 2, when Trump has said he will unveil a broad swath of reciprocal tariffs. 

“My expectation is the president will come to the agreement today, and hopefully we will announce this today, that USMCA-compliant goods will not have a tariff over the next month until April,” Lutnick said in an interview today on CNBC.

Read the full story here.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of Washington, D.C., has denied a motion for a temporary restraining order brought by a group representing contractors working with USAID that is seeking to halt the Trump administration's efforts to gut the agency.

Nichols, appointed by Trump, agreed with the government, saying that this was a contract dispute, not a dispute over constitutional powers, as the plaintiffs had claimed. He said the plaintiffs’ injuries are directly connected to a disruption in contracts, adding that this case lacks jurisdiction. 

The plaintiffs had requested that the contractors be returned to the terms and conditions of employment they had; the authorization for contractors to resume and continue the work they were previously performing; the reversal of the termination of contract notices sent to contractors; and the restoration of contractors' access to U.S. government facilities, security, email, computer and communications systems, while the case played out. 

This comes as the Trump administration and plaintiffs submitted a joint status report this morning in a similar case involving USAID contracts, with a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled in the case this afternoon before Judge Amir H. Ali in Washington, D.C.

The CIA has started to fire some recently hired officers, as the Trump administration’s effort to quickly slash the federal workforce has moved to the spy agency, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Some employees received word that they would be let go this week, the sources said. The officers were instructed to report to a location away from the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where they were told to hand over their credentials, the sources said.

It remained unclear how many intelligence officers would be sacked.

Read the full story here.

The decision by Canadian provinces to pull American liquor from store shelves is “worse than a tariff” and a “disproportionate response” to the 25% tariff on Canadian imports imposed by the Trump administration, the chief executive of the maker of Jack Daniel’s said.

Provincial governments across Canada, which control liquor sales, have said they will stop buying U.S. liquor products in protest of the U.S. tariff, which took effect on Tuesday. Canada immediately retaliated by imposing its own tariffs of up to 25% on some U.S. goods.

“A lot of American-made products have come off the shelves in Canada, which is tough. I mean, that’s worse than a tariff, because it’s literally taking your sales away,” Lawson Whiting, chief executive of Brown-Forman, said yesterday on an earnings call.

President Donald Trump is considering a major change to the U.S.’ participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to three current and former senior U.S. officials and one congressional official. 

Trump has discussed with aides the possibility of calibrating America’s NATO engagement in a way that favors members of the alliance that spend a set percentage of their gross domestic product on defense, the officials said.

As part of the potential policy shift, the U.S. might not defend a fellow NATO member that is attacked if the country doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold, the officials said. If Trump does make that change, it would mark a significant shift away from a core tenet of the alliance known as Article 5, that an attack on any NATO country is an attack on all of them. 

Read the full story here.

As Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., finished reading the censure to Rep. Al Green, several Republicans yelled “order” at the Congressional Black Caucus members who were singing “We Shall Overcome.” 

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, started yelling “Shame on you” back at Republicans, including Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., who was seated in the front row. 

Johnson called the House to order and told the Democrats to clear the well, which they did not. He then recessed the House. 

The Republican-controlled House today voted to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for disrupting Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday. 

The vote was 224-198, with 10 Democrats joining all Republicans in voting in favor of the censure resolution. Green voted present. As the vote proceeded, Green sat by himself along the center aisle.

Following the vote, Green will need to stand in the well of the House chamber while Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., reads the censure resolution to him. Starting in Trump’s first term, Green, an outspoken progressive, has repeatedly introduced resolutions to impeach Trump, and has threatened to do so again this year.

Read the full story.

The Social Security Administration wrote in an email this morning that employees can no longer read news websites on work devices.

“SSA is implementing additional restrictions to the categories of websites prohibited from government-furnished equipment,” the email, obtained by NBC News, began. “Effective today, March 6, 2025, the categories include: Online shopping, General News; and Sports.”

The email added that employees can request exceptions from their supervisor.

“These additional restrictions will help reduce risk and better protect the sensitive information entrusted to us in our many systems,” the email added.

Read the full story.

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a White House aide during Trump’s first term, grew “uncomfortable” with his former boss’ campaign last year, particularly when Trump raised baseless claims of Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, according to a forthcoming book.

After Trump announced his intention to visit the city, Miller was among the Republicans who urged him not to, Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt writes in “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” an excerpt of which was shared with NBC News.

Miller is a long-time Trump ally, having worked in several high-level White House positions. Trump also recruited him to run for Congress in 2022, in what started as a mission to defeat then-Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican who had voted to impeach Trump. (Gonzalez opted not to seek re-election.)

But Miller had concerns that a Springfield trip “would be a political disaster” and was “privately infuriated” over Trump’s rhetoric, Isenstadt writes in the book, scheduled to be released March 18. 

Trump never went to Springfield. Isenstadt writes that campaign officials instead scheduled visits to other cities Trump had cast as “war zones,” including Aurora, Colorado. 

In a phone interview today with NBC News, Miller acknowledged voicing his concerns directly to Trump and to co-campaign manager, Susie Wiles.

The president of Panama accused Trump of lying again after he told Congress that the U.S. is “reclaiming” the Panama Canal.

Trump’s remarks in his Tuesday address to a joint session of Congress were based on the announcement earlier that day that a company in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong had agreed to sell its stake in two ports on both ends of the strategically important canal.

Trump had argued without evidence that China was influencing the operation of the canal, whose neutrality is enshrined in Panama’s constitution, and pressured Panama over the issue.

In response, President José Raúl Mulino said yesterday in a post on X, “I reject in the name of Panama and all Panamanians this new affront to the truth and our dignity as a nation.”

New Zealand has fired its most senior envoy to Britain over comments seen as questioning Trump’s understanding of history, the country’s foreign ministry said.

Speaking from the audience Tuesday at an event on European security at the Chatham House think tank in London, Phil Goff, New Zealand’s high commissioner to the U.K., quoted British wartime leader Winston Churchill’s criticism of Britain's signing the 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. The agreement is widely considered a failed act of appeasement that paved the way for World War II.

“President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office,” Goff then said. “But do you think he really understands history?”

The guest speaker, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, said she would “limit myself” to saying that Churchill “has made very timeless remarks,” according to video of the event that Chatham House posted online.

The megahit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is pulling out of plans to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., next year, citing President Donald Trump’s shakeup of the art institution’s leadership.

“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement Wednesday.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, won the best new musical Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Grammy and the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. It also earned Miranda a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.

The show played the Kennedy Center in 2018 during Trump’s first administration and again in 2022 when Joe Biden was president. It was scheduled again March 3-April 26, 2026. Those plans are now off. Tickets had yet to go on sale.

Read the full story.

An unofficial measure of the labor market showed job cuts announcements surged in February, with the federal government leading the way.

U.S.-based employers shed 172,017 jobs in February altogether, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas consultancy. It’s the biggest count for any February since 2009. Combined with a smaller total announced in January, government agencies have announced a total of 62,530 cuts in February —  a gargantuan increase from the 151 cuts announced through February 2024.

Yet, hiring is also picking up somewhat, with plans for worker additions up 159% from the same period last year.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., said today that members of his party didn’t “always meet the decorum we expect from members of Congress” when asked if he agreed with an upcoming vote on censuring Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for an outburst during Trump's joint address to Congress on Tuesday. 

But Auchincloss added that "two wrongs don’t make it right" in an interview on "Way Too Early," referring additionally to Trump and Republicans' actions.

“I don’t think it was a good day for either party in that chamber," he said. "Where Democrats need to orient is that State of the Union response from Sen. Slotkin, who was brief and dignified, and said, ‘That was a 100-minute speech, part of it was entertaining, but it's all going to be expensive for Americans.’” 

Those expenses were Auchincloss’ focus. He made the point that costs — from health care to car insurance — could rise because of the actions of the Trump administration. The Marine veteran also spoke to the recent Department of Government Efficiency efforts to slash staff and spending at the Department of Veterans Affairs, saying he has already seen a negative impact on veterans in his state. 

For the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the choice was impossible: erase mentions of transgender people from its website or risk the ire of the Trump administration, which has required that groups receiving federal funding end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and recognize only two sexes.  

So the group reluctantly took down references to transgender people from its website, including mentions of services for transgender veterans and LGBTQ-focused book recommendations. It did so just as the nation’s largest group fighting sexual violence, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), also pulled down pages referring to transgender people.  

The backlash was swift. Local and national organizations that support women and sexual assault victims issued rare public criticisms of their allies, accusing them of abandoning trans victims, who face high rates of sexual violence, and urged other groups to “hold the line.” 

The conflict exposed a sharp divide in the ecosystem of nonprofit groups that work to address sexual violence, many of which rely heavily on government funding to operate. Leaders of such groups say they feel pressured to choose between protecting grants they need to serve people in crisis and taking a stand for vulnerable members of their constituency.  

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Elon Musk took aim at the National Security Agency in an overnight post to X.

"The NSA needs an overhaul," he wrote.

His DOGE efforts have led to various agencies and departments having programs and staffing slashed.

Hundreds of Department of Homeland Security employees have already been let go. A judge also ruled last week that the administration could fire dozens of workers from the CIA and other intelligence agencies who worked on diversity initiatives.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon invited Education Department employees to join her in "this historic final mission" in a message to staff earlier this week, comments that come as Trump targets it for cuts.

The president has said he wanted to dismantle the department.

McMahon said in her message that her "vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children."

"This restoration will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations here at the Department," she added later. "In coming months, we will partner with Congress and other federal agencies to determine the best path forward to fulfill the expectations of the President and the American people."

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine may have enough weapons to fight Russia unaffected for a few weeks at least, but Trump’s decision to stop sharing intelligence will cost civilian lives almost immediately, dismayed Ukrainians said today.

Trump’s decision to halt intelligence came as European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelenskyy, convened a summit in Brussels as they attempt to cope with an upended landscape in which the Trump administration appears to be treating them with hostility while seemingly warming to the Kremlin.

Miles away from these high-powered meetings, ordinary Ukrainians may have to confront the real-world consequences of the White House’s U-turn.

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Russia ruled out European proposals to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine and said today that French President Emmanuel Macron had threatened it by suggesting that Moscow was a grave menace to Europe.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation yesterday that he plans next week to hold a meeting of army chiefs from European countries willing to send troops to Ukraine after any eventual peace deal with Russia.

He also said France needs to be ready if the United States is no longer by its side.

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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency abandoned some of its plans to slash contract spending for veterans’ health care services this week after a revolt by front-line Veterans Health Administration employees who contended many of the cuts would imperil safety at the agency’s almost 1,400 hospitals and clinics. 

What had been a list of 875 VA contracts scheduled for termination a little over a week ago has now become 585 canceled contracts, the VA said Monday. The about-face is a rare public retreat by the so-called efficiency operation known as DOGE, which has come under fire for moving to ax crucial government services and overstating the value of some of its savings to taxpayers.

The list of contracts still on the chopping block has not been made public, and the VA declined to provide it. But VA employees have identified 200 of the remaining scheduled cancellations to NBC News, and some of them appear to be central to patient safety, those employees say.

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The U.S. apprehended a suspect in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members during the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021. NBC News’ Ken Dilanian reports on the new details on the suspect and the reaction from the families of those service members. 

Some U.S. allies are considering scaling back the intelligence they share with Washington in response to the Trump administration’s conciliatory approach to Russia, four sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told NBC News.

The allies are weighing the move because of concerns about safeguarding foreign assets whose identities could inadvertently be revealed, said the sources, who included a foreign official.

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