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Democratic Senator Says He Will Stall Trump Nominees Until USAID Is Back — Schatz said he would hold up Trump's diplomatic confirmations — WASHINGTON—Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii) said he would place a “blanket hold” on all of President Trump's State Department nominees until …
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USAID workers at Washington HQ told to stay home on Monday in unexpected, early-morning email — The main office of the US Agency for International Development in Washington was unexpectedly closed Monday and workers were emailed shortly after midnight that they should not come in …

Democrats push back after Musk says Trump agrees to close USAID and workers are kept out — Democrats have delivered a strong rebuke against the Trump administration's attempts to gut an agency that provides crucial aid overseas to fund education and fight starvation and disease …
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Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz puts a hold on Trump's State Department nominees — The move comes after Elon Musk said he and Trump would shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. — WASHINGTON — Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said Monday he's placing a “blanket hold” …

Trump Advisers Weigh Plan to Dismantle Education Department — Administration officials are discussing executive order that could shut down key functions of the agency — Trump administration officials are weighing executive actions to dismantle the Education Department as part of the campaign …
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Politico, Reuters, ABC News, Washington Examiner, Scripps News, Townhall and Jewish Insider

Trump Administration Closes USAID Headquarters
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Axios, NOTUS, ABC News, NBC News, Daily Mail, The Gateway Pundit, CBS News and Fox News
Bloomberg:
Behind DOGE's Standoff at USAID: Desk Searches and Elon Musk Calling
Behind DOGE's Standoff at USAID: Desk Searches and Elon Musk Calling
Discussion:
NBC News, CNN, CBS News, Reuters, Letters from an American, Axios, Associated Press, New York Post, DNyuz and The Post Millennial
Andrew Perez / Rolling Stone:
Elon Musk Is Permanently Deleting Government Agencies
Elon Musk Is Permanently Deleting Government Agencies
Discussion:
Reuters, Public, Financial Times, New York Times, USA Today, Breitbart, DNyuz and CBS News, more at Techmeme »
Andrew Freedman / Axios:
Ending USAID climate programs could increase security risks
Ending USAID climate programs could increase security risks
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Truthout, more at Mediagazer »
Matt Young / The Daily Beast:
Musk: I'm Closing Entire Federal Agency Down Right Now
Musk: I'm Closing Entire Federal Agency Down Right Now
Discussion:
Daily Mail, New Republic, Baltimore Sun and Blaze Media

White House: Mexico is ‘serious’, Canada appears to have ‘misunderstood’ Trump's executive order — The White House said on Monday it has noticed that Mexico is “serious” about President Donald Trump's executive order on tariffs but Canada has “misunderstood” it.
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Associated Press, The Daily Wire, Ars Technica, Retail Dive and The Free Press
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Trump backs down on Mexico tariffs after Mexican president pledges border troops — President Donald Trump agreed to temporarily back down on a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo reportedly agreed to send troops to the U.S. border.

Live Updates: Mexico Reaches Deal With U.S. to Delay Trump Tariffs
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Kevin Shalvey / ABC News:
Trump 2nd term live updates: Marco Rubio made acting administrator of USAID: Sources
Trump 2nd term live updates: Marco Rubio made acting administrator of USAID: Sources
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New York Times, CBS News, Raw Story, Fox News, New York Post, Baltimore Sun, Twitchy, Forbes, The Guardian, DNyuz and The Post Millennial
Bloomberg:
Trump Delays Mexico Tariffs by a Month After Sheinbaum Talk
Trump Delays Mexico Tariffs by a Month After Sheinbaum Talk
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Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
McConnell: Trump tariffs ‘will drive the cost of everything up’
McConnell: Trump tariffs ‘will drive the cost of everything up’
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Financial Times, CBS News, The Guardian, Washington Examiner, Digby's Hullabaloo, Business Insider and HuffPost
Associated Press:
Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Mexico, but import taxes still in place for Canada and China
Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Mexico, but import taxes still in place for Canada and China
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Politico, New York Times, New Republic, The Guardian, NPR, New York Post, Fox News, Tangle, Townhall, Reason, Daily Kos, KSNT 27 News, Associated Press, RedState, Fox Business, CNBC, MPR News, Breitbart, Al Jazeera, Quartz, The Texas Tribune, CBS News, 19FortyFive, WHYY, WTOP News, Global News, Kansas Reflector, The Daily Wire, The Message Box, NBC News, DNyuz, New York Daily News and E&E News

I'm a Federal Worker. Elon Musk's Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame. — On Friday night, reports emerged that Elon Musk's aides had tussled with Office of Personnel Management and Treasury staffers while demanding access to troves of information about federal employees.
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Vox and DCMediaGroup, more at Techmeme »
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Musk's superteam of former iPad babies — Read to the end for Plimbo … Many other government websites faced outages throughout the weekend as they scrambled to figure out exactly how to comply with the instructions being sent out by the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Musk associates given unfettered access to private data of government employees — Several of Elon Musk's associates installed at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have received unprecedented access to federal human resources databases containing sensitive personal information for millions of federal employees.
Discussion:
New Republic, USA Today and Raw Story

‘Trump will screw up’: Schumer plots the Democratic comeback — Chuck Schumer's advice for Democrats staring at a long two or more years out of power: Just wait. — “Trump will screw up,” he told Semafor in an interview. — The Senate minority leader and his 47-member caucus finally got …
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Moira Donegan / The Guardian:
Why are the Democrats so spineless? — No wonder the American public thinks of Democrats …
Why are the Democrats so spineless? — No wonder the American public thinks of Democrats …
Discussion:
The Hill
Nicholas Wu / Politico:
Hakeem Jeffries wants funding freeze ‘choked off’ in spending deal
Hakeem Jeffries wants funding freeze ‘choked off’ in spending deal
Discussion:
Axios

DOJ Says Trump Administration Doesn't Have to Follow Court Order Halting Funding Freeze — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued Monday that a federal court order blocking President Donald Trump's federal funding freeze doesn't halt the administration's efforts.
Discussion:
New York Times, USA Today and Law & Crime
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Warren Questions Bessent Over Musk Access to Treasury Payment System — In a letter to the Treasury secretary, the Democratic senator warned against meddling with a system that processes trillions of dollars of transactions. — Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sent a letter …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, The Verge, Fortune, MeidasTouch News and Robert Reich
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Trump orders creation of US sovereign wealth fund, says it could buy TikTok — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday ordering the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments to create a sovereign wealth fund and said it may purchase TikTok. — “We're going to stand this thing up within the next 12 months.
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TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, The Hollywood Reporter, The Post Millennial and New Republic
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CFPB halts work after Trump appoints Bessent as acting head — The consumer watchdog agency was formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Elon Musk wants to “delete” it. — President Donald Trump on Monday appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting director …
Discussion:
Politico, NBC News, CNBC, Bloomberg Law, Roll Call, RedState, Fox Business and Common Dreams, more at Techmeme »
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Laurel Wamsley / NPR:
Treasury Secretary Bessent, tapped to run CFPB, orders staff to halt work
Treasury Secretary Bessent, tapped to run CFPB, orders staff to halt work
Discussion:
Consumer Financial …, New York Times, UPI, Wall Street Journal, Daily Kos and Bloomberg

Trump plans to invoke obscure 18th century wartime law in bid for mass deportations — President Donald Trump is set to test the limits of his immigration crackdown by invoking a wartime law to deport immigrants alleged to be gang members without court hearings, a broad authority …
Discussion:
The Independent and Reuters

Ford ‘ripping up’ Ontario's $100M contract with Elon Musk's Starlink in wake of U.S. tariffs — Musk part of President Donald Trump's team that wants to destroy families, Ford says — Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is “ripping up” Ontario's nearly $100 million contract …

E.P.A. Tells More Than 1,000 They Could Be Fired ‘Immediately’ — A spokeswoman for Lee Zeldin, the new head of the agency, said the goal was to create an “effective and efficient” federal work force. — The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees …
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Washington Examiner, The Hill and New York Post
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The Twitter Files Playbook Comes For The US Government — Remember the Twitter Files? That carefully orchestrated “exposé” where incredibly gullible hand-picked journalists were given selective access to internal documents to manufacture misleading outrage about Twitter's content moderation?
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Advocate

No, Elon: It Isn't Illegal To Boycott X — While news cycles in the first Donald Trump presidency were dominated by Trump's erratic social media pretense, news cycles during Trump 2.0 seem so far to be dominated by the erratic social media titan Elon Musk. The X CEO and leader …
Discussion:
Breitbart and Adweek, more at Mediagazer »