Politics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, who stepped down last year as the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, said on Thursday that he will not seek reelection in 2026, ending his decades-long role as political power player in Washington.

McConnell unveiled his plan to retire on his 83rd birthday, saying in prepared remarks for a Senate floor speech that representing Kentucky in the Senate since 1985 has been “the honor of a lifetime.”

“I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last,” McConnell said in remarks published in advance by the Associated Press.

“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” he said. “Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business here.”

(Reporting by David Morgan and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone)

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By Nathan Layne and Andy Sullivan

(Reuters) -A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6% of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the critical tax-filing season.

The cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s radical downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign donor.

Christy Armstrong, the IRS’ director of talent acquisition, teared up as she announced the layoffs on a phone call and told workers to support each other during a difficult time, said an employee on the call.

“She was pretty emotional,” the source said.

The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. The agency now employs roughly 100,000 people, up from 80,000 when he took office.

Independent budget analysts estimate the expansion could boost government revenue and help narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits. Trump’s Republicans say the expansion would lead to more harassment of ordinary American taxpayers. 

The workers being cut are in their probationary period and have fewer protections than career employees.

The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than other agencies given that it is in the middle of its busiest period, with the April 15 tax filing deadline just two months away.

The IRS expects over 140 million individual returns by that deadline.

ALL 50 STATES

The dismissals target workers across all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., including hundreds at large offices in Pennsylvania, New York, Utah, California and Kentucky, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those fired include revenue agents, customer-service workers, independent specialists who hear appeals of tax disputes, and IT workers, the sources said.

The IRS will retain several thousand employees deemed critical for processing tax returns, including those involved in supporting and advocating for taxpayers, one source said.

The White House has not said how many of the nation’s 2.3 million civil-service workers it wants to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs. Roughly 75,000 took a buyout offer last week.

The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business and collect taxes — including those that oversee Musk’s companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has also canceled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump.

Both men have set a goal of cutting at least $1 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget, though Trump has said he will not touch popular benefit programs that make up roughly one-third of that total.

Democratic critics say Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.

Some agencies have struggled to comply with the rapid-fire directives Trump has issued since taking office a month ago. Workers that oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons have been fired and then recalled, while medicines and food exports have been stranded in warehouses by Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.

Contractors that do business with the government have furloughed workers as their contracts have been canceled.

Some workers were told they were fired for poor performance, despite receiving glowing reviews.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told scientists to stop using the words “woman,” “disabled” and “elderly” in external communications, sources said. The White House said this was an error based on a misinterpretation of an order by the president.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne; additional reporting by Andy Sullivan; writing by Andy Sullivan, editing by Ross Colvin, Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Thursday that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decadeslong tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump.

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends. He informed The Associated Press of his decision before he addressed colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor.

“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said, as aides lined the back chamber and senators listened from seats. “Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business right here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.”

His announcement begins the epilogue of a storied career as a master strategist, one in which he helped forge a conservative Supreme Court and steered the Senate through tax cuts, presidential impeachment trials and fierce political fights. Yet with his powerful perch atop committees, and nearly two years remaining in his term, McConnell vowed to complete his work on several remaining fronts.

“I have some unfinished business to attend to,” he said.

Once he finished his speech, a fellow GOP senator rose to ask permission for applause in the chamber, which is usually not allowed under Senate rules, and the senators, staff and guests in the gallery clapped for the long-serving leader.

McConnell, first elected in 1984, intends to serve the remainder of his term ending in January 2027. The Kentuckian has dealt with a series of medical episodes in recent years, including injuries sustained from falls and times when his face briefly froze while he was speaking.

The senator delivered his speech in a chamber the famously taciturn McConnell revered as a young intern long before joining its back benches as a freshman lawmaker in the mid-1980s. His dramatic announcement comes almost a year after his decision to relinquish his leadership post after the November 2024 election. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a top McConnell deputy, replaced him as majority leader.

McConnell’s looming departure reflects the changing dynamics of the Trump-led GOP. He’s seen his power diminish on a parallel track with both his health and his relationship with Trump, who once praised him as an ally but has taken to criticizing him in caustic terms.

In Kentucky, McConnell’s departure will mark the loss of a powerful advocate and will set off a competitive GOP primary next year for what will now be an open Senate seat. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, seen as a rising star in his party for winning statewide office in Republican territory, has said he has no interest in the Senate, though he is widely viewed as a contender for higher office.

McConnell, a diehard adherent to Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and muscular foreign policy, increasingly found himself out of step with a GOP shifting toward the fiery, often isolationist populism espoused by Trump.

McConnell still champions providing Ukraine with weapons and other aid to fend off Russia’s invasion, even as Trump ratchets up criticism of the country and its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The senator plans to make it clear Thursday that national defense remains at the forefront of his agenda.

“Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s determination, the work of strengthening American hard power was well underway when I arrived in the Senate,” McConnell said in his prepared remarks. “But since then, we’ve allowed that power to atrophy. And today, a dangerous world threatens to outpace the work of rebuilding it. So, lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term: I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

McConnell and Trump were partners during Trump’s first term, but the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by his supporters. A momentary thaw in 2024 when McConnell endorsed Trump didn’t last.

Last week, Trump referred to McConnell as a “very bitter guy” after McConnell, who battled polio as a child, opposed vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as the nation’s top health official. McConnell referred to Trump as a “despicable human being” and a “narcissist” in a biography of the senator by The Associated Press’ deputy Washington bureau chief, Michael Tackett.

Before their falling out, Trump and McConnell pushed through a tax overhaul largely focused on reductions for businesses and higher-earning taxpayers. They joined forces to reshape the Supreme Court when Trump nominated three justices and McConnell guided them to Senate confirmation, tilting the high court to the right.

McConnell set a new precedent for hardball partisan tactics in 2016 by refusing to even give a hearing to Democratic President Barack Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Putting the brakes on the Senate’s “advise and consent” role for judicial nominees, McConnell said the vacancy should be filled by the next president so voters could have their say. Trump filled the vacancy once he took office, and McConnell later called the stonewalling of Garland’s nomination his “most consequential” achievement.

Later, when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died weeks before the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden, McConnell rushed Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation through the Senate, waving off allegations of hypocrisy.

McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals.

In the second impeachment, weeks after the deadly Capitol attack by a mob hoping to overturn Trump’s 2020 reelection defeat, McConnell joined all but seven Republicans in voting to acquit. McConnell said he believed Trump couldn’t be convicted because he’d already left office, but the senator also condemned Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection.

McConnell over the years swung back and forth from majority to minority leader, depending on which party held power. He defended President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and failed to block Obama’s health care overhaul.

McConnell, the longest-serving senator ever from Kentucky, ensured that the Bluegrass State received plenty of federal funding. Back home he was a key architect in his party’s rise to power in a state long dominated by Democrats.

He is married to Elaine Chao, and they have long been a power couple in Washington. The senator referred to her as his “ultimate teammate and confidante.” Chao was labor secretary for Bush and transportation secretary during Trump’s first term, though she resigned after the Capitol insurrection, saying it had “deeply troubled” her.

McConnell’s parting words reflected his devotion to the Senate and his disdain for his detractors.

“The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence,” he said. “And, to the disappointment of my critics, I’m still here on the job.”

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Schreiner reported from Louisville, Ky.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of Mitch McConnell at https://apnews.com/hub/mitch-mcconnell.

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The Senate is set to vote on whether to confirm Patel as FBI director, a decision that could place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite concerns from Democrats over his qualifications and the prospect that he would do President Donald Trump’s bidding.

Here’s the latest:

Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Congress needs to “stand up” against efforts by Trump that exceed his authority, including any attempts to withhold federal funds that Congress has already appropriated.

If Congress permits that, it effectively cedes some of its authority, the centrist Republican and frequent critic of Trump told a tele-town hall attended by more than 1,000 people late Wednesday.

“We have to stand up. Now, the ‘we’ has to be more than just me. And this is where it becomes more of a challenge, but it requires speaking out. It requires saying, ‘That violates the law, that violates the authorities of the executive.’”

It also requires using relationships that have been built within the administration “to go back to the executive and say, ‘There is a way to accomplish what you are seeking, but you have to do it within the confines of the law.’” she said.

Murkowski said some Alaskans will want her to “raise hell” and fight the administration while others want her to back the president.

Roughly 100 people have lost their jobs at the U.S. government agency devoted to preventing overdose deaths and suicides, according to a Health and Human Services official who wasn’t authorized to disclose the figure and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The dismissals last weekend – part of the White House’s efforts to shrink the government workforce – amounted to about 10% of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration staff, the official said.

SAMHSA provides expertise and grant money to communities to prevent overdoses and suicides, operates treatment locators where people can find addiction treatment providers, and supports efforts to enhance mental health. The agency operates and promotes awareness of the 988 suicide and crisis hotline.

President Donald Trump made the opioid crisis a priority during his first term. In 2017, Trump became the first president to declare the opioid crisis a national health emergency. In 2018, he signed a bill increasing federal opioid funding to record levels.

About 20 senators from both sides of the political aisle gathered in the Senate chamber as McConnell paid tribute to his family, his home state and to the Senate itself, having announced he will not seek reelection.

“The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence,” he told them. “And, to the disappointment of my critics, I’m still here on the job.”

As he concluded, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. motioned that the audience of senators, staff and Capitol visitors be allowed to applaud for up to 30 seconds.

Then, the Republican senators in attendance lined up to greet McConnell and gathered around him.

He took out a tissue and made a joke, prompting the group to laugh. Senate Majority Leader John Thune then gave him a warm handshake and a dozen other senators soon did so as well.

A group of Venezuelans is suing the Trump administration over its decision to end temporary protections that shield hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the South American country from deportation.

The lawsuit by the National TPS Alliance and eight Venezuelans alleges that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem illegally revoked an 18-month extension of Temporary Protection Status, or TPS, for Venezuelans that was granted by the Biden administration in January.

Noem’s order affects 348,202 Venezuelans living in the U.S. with TPS slated to expire in April. That’s about half of the approximately 600,000 who have the protection. The remaining protections are set to expire at the end of September.

“Venezuelan TPS holders, like all TPS holders, are lawfully present here pursuant to protection granted because it is not safe for them to return to their country,” said Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance.

The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, at Federal Court in the Northern District of California.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has become Trump’s close adviser spearheading a massive effort to cut spending and downsize the federal government, is set to meet with Argentine President Javier Milei, who is in Washington to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Musk was announced as a speaker for the conference earlier on Thursday by Mercedes Schlapp, a CPAC organizer. The scheduled meeting between Musk and Milei was confirmed by a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss an event that hadn’t yet been announced publicly and said the meeting was private and had been planned for weeks.

Milei was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after he won the election, but before he took office. He was also invited to the inauguration. A self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Milei has received praise frequently from Musk for implementing a series of austerity measures, laying off tens of thousands of government workers, freezing public infrastructure projects to fix Argentina’s long mismanaged economy.

-By Adriana Gomez Licon

Vance told conservatives that American culture is sending a message that is diminishing masculinity.

“I think that it wants to turn everybody into, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same, and act the same. We actually think God made male and female for a purpose,” Vance said.

He told the CPAC audience that when it comes to the Trump administration, “We want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women and we’re going to help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.”

He said Trump appeals in particular to young men because “He doesn’t allow the media to tell him he can’t make a joke or he can’t have an original thought.”

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is announcing on Thursday that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decades-long tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump.

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends. He informed The Associated Press of his decision before he was set to address colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor.

His announcement begins the epilogue of a storied career as a master strategist, one in which he helped forge a conservative Supreme Court and steered the Senate through tax cuts, presidential impeachment trials and fierce political fights.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett will address reporters at the White House on Thursday as part of the press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced.

Leavitt said in a post on X that the officials will be there “to discuss the President’s accomplishments so far.”

People are gathering in a Washington suburb for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where Vice President JD Vance will open as the first speaker.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear on Saturday, the organization announced.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and House Speaker Mike Johnson will be speaking later Thursday as well as Steve Bannon, a popular Trump ally. Other international figures such as former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and Argentine President Javier Milei are also appearing at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni is scheduled to address attendees at the conference, but her office said it will be a video appearance.

A Kyiv official says a news conference after talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy was cancelled Thursday at the request of the U.S.

The scheduled comments to the media by Zelenskyy and retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, were called off after their meeting, the Ukrainian president’s spokesman Serhii Nikiforov said.

Kellogg’s trip to Kyiv coincided with recent feuding between Trump and Zelenskyy that has bruised their personal relations and cast further doubt on the future of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort.

He’s expected to host a reception for Black History Month in the afternoon, and then go to the National Building Museum to give a speech to a meeting of the Republican Governors Association.

Also on tap is a press briefing with the White House press secretary and other administration officials.

The Resolute Desk, an Oval Office mainstay, “is being lightly refinished,” Trump posted on social media. The desk was built from oak used in the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute, and Queen Victoria gave it as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.

In the meantime, Trump said he would sit at the “C&O” desk previously used by President George H.W. Bush. It was originally built around 1920 for the owners of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, hence the name.

“This is a beautiful, but temporary replacement!” Trump said.

He listed four targets in his executive order on Wednesday, including the United States Institute of Peace, which promotes conflict resolution around the world, and the Presidio Trust, which manages a park in San Francisco.

Both organizations were created by Congress. The executive order said they “shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

Trump also directed the elimination of various advisory panels, including the Health Equity Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee on Long COVID and the Community Bank Advisory Council.

Trump on Wednesday threw his support behind congressional efforts for a federal takeover of the nation’s capital, saying he approves putting the District of Columbia back under direct federal control.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump complained about crime and homelessness in the district, saying, “I think we should take over Washington, D.C. — make it safe.” He added, “I think that we should govern District of Columbia.”

Under terms of the city’s Home Rule authority, Congress already vets all D.C. laws and can outright overturn them. Some congressional Republicans have sought to go further, eroding decades of the city’s limited autonomy and putting it back under direct federal control, as it was at its founding.

▶ Read more about Trump’s suggestion for the federal government to take over DC

The Senate was set to vote Thursday on whether to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, a decision that could place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite concerns from Democrats over his qualifications and the prospect that he would do President Donald Trump’s bidding.

Patel cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by a 12-10, party-line vote.

He is expected to be confirmed unless more than three Republican senators defy Trump’s will and vote against him, which is seen as unlikely.

Patel, a Trump loyalist who has fiercely criticized the agency that he is poised to lead, would inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil. The Justice Department in the last month has forced out a group of senior FBI officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to Jan. 6.

Trump has said that he expects some of those agents will be fired.

▶ Read more about Patel’s expected confirmation

It’s been a burning political question for weeks: How long will Trump — who doesn’t like sharing the spotlight — be able to do just that with Musk, a billionaire also overly fond of attention?

In a joint Fox News Channel interview that aired Tuesday, both insisted they like each other a lot and would stick with their arrangement despite what Trump said were attempts by the media to “drive us apart.”

At times, Trump sat back as Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity heaped praise on Musk in an attempt to counteract a Democratic narrative that he’s a callous and unelected force out to destroy the government and upend civil society.

There were also moments when Trump and Musk were all but finishing each other’s sentences, as if they were part of a buddy comedy and not the president and his most powerful aide.

▶ Read more about Trump and Musk’s friendship

Trump said at an investment conference in Miami on Wednesday that he likes the idea of giving some of the savings from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency back to U.S. citizens as a kind of dividend, and that the administration is considering a concept in which 20% of the savings produced by DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts goes to American citizens and another 20% goes to paying down the national debt.

Trump also said the potential for dividend payments would incentivize people to report wasteful spending.

▶ Read more about Musk’s plan to give DOGE savings to Americans

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By Jonathan Stempel and Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – Several labor groups sued the Trump administration for allegedly firing tens of thousands of probationary employees illegally, as part of its drive to overhaul the federal government.

In a complaint filed on Wednesday night in San Francisco federal court, the groups said the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal civilian workforce, lacked authority to direct federal agencies on February 13 to fire the employees en masse, ostensibly for performance reasons.

The labor groups said Congress controls and authorizes federal employment and related spending by U.S. administrative agencies, and the Office of Personnel Management has no authority to fire federal employees other than those within its own agency.

“OPM, the federal agency charged with implementing this nation’s employment laws, in one fell swoop has perpetrated one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country, telling tens of thousands of workers that they are being fired for performance reasons, when they most certainly were not,” the complaint said.

The Office of Personnel Management on Thursday referred a request for comment to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who oversees the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, are spearheading an unprecedented effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including through job cuts.

The first round of mass firings that began last week mainly focused on probationary employees, who typically have less than one year of service or, for some jobs, two years. The recently hired workers have fewer legal protections than other federal employees, but can still only be fired for poor performance or misconduct.

The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s lawsuit include the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE); the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; AFGE Local 1216 in San Francisco, and the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.

They are seeking to set aside the February 13 directive, and rescind the firings of probationary employees.

Unions have filed several lawsuits challenging Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal workforce in the month since he took office, and are likely to face procedural hurdles in pursuing them. So far, at least two judges have ruled that unions did not have legal standing to challenge Trump administration initiatives because they could not show how they had been directly harmed.

The unions in Wednesday’s lawsuit said they have standing to sue because they represent many probationary employees and OPM’s actions have undermined their ability to assist those workers in vindicating their rights.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Daniel Wiessner in New York, Editing by Franklin Paul, Alexia Garamfalvi and Lisa Shumaker)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Wednesday it was directing the military to draw up a list of potential cuts totaling about $50 billion from the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2026 to be redirected into President Donald Trump’s priorities for national defense.

“The Department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the Department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars,” according to a statement from Robert Salesses, who is performing the duties of the deputy defense secretary.

  “The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Chris Reese)

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By Sarah N. Lynch and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top U.S. prosecutor in Washington launched an investigation on Wednesday into threats against federal workers, and said the department would probe Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, after people working in Elon Musk’s drive to downsize and overhaul the government said they had been threatened.

Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin said in an email seen by Reuters that the probe was inspired by a conversation with an employee of billionaire Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an entity created by Republican President Donald Trump. 

DOGE has triggered a wave of layoffs across the federal government.

“Late last night I took a call from a senior DOGE staffer. We spoke about some pressing tech issues and then he told me about threats against DOGE workers. It is despicable that these men and women are being threatened,” Martin said in the email.

Martin named the initiative “Operation Whirlwind,” saying Schumer, the top Democrat in the Republican-led U.S. Senate, is the subject of a threats investigation. Schumer spoke out against Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh at a 2020 abortion rights rally by saying: “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.”

“I reached out to Senator Schumer to investigate his threats,” Martin said. “He has not yet responded to me.”

A spokesperson for Schumer said his office received Martin’s letter, dated January 21, on February 4 and responded to the inquiry on February 6.

That response, which was written by Schumer’s Chief of Staff Michael Lynch, was reviewed by Reuters.

“On March 5, 2020, the day after the comments referenced in your letter, Senator Schumer made the following remarks on the floor of the Senate,” Lynch wrote to Martin:

“I should not have used the words I used yesterday,” Schumer was quoted saying in a Senate speech. “My point was that there would be political consequences,” the senator added. “I am from Brooklyn. We speak in strong language. I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat.”

Martin this month announced on social media that he was launching a criminal investigation based on a referral from Musk alleging government workers were stealing property and making threats. His post on Musk’s X platform ran afoul of numerous Justice Department rules governing the use of social media and prohibitions against publicly discussing sensitive non-public information.

Prior to being nominated by Trump as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Martin vocally advocated for the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump. Trump last month gave clemency to about 1,600 people charged in the riot.

On Tuesday, the top prosecutor in Martin’s office overseeing criminal cases resigned after she said Martin pressured her to investigate a contract awarded during Biden’s tenure and freeze the assets of the contract’s recipient, even though there was not enough evidence to do so.

In his email on Wednesday, Martin said that his office has been “flooded with threats against those who helped free the January 6 prisoners.”

However, Martin failed to mention the threats that federal prosecutors, FBI agents and judges are continuing to receive online from January 6 defendants after Trump granted them clemency on his first day back in office.

A spokesperson for Martin’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Richard Cowan; editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Lisa Shumaker)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been a burning political question for weeks: How long will President Donald Trump — who doesn’t like sharing the spotlight — be able to do just that with Elon Musk, a billionaire also overly fond of attention?

In a joint Fox News Channel interview that aired Tuesday, both insisted they like each other a lot and would stick with their arrangement despite what Trump said were attempts by the media to “drive us apart.”

At times, Trump sat back as Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity heaped praise on Musk in an attempt to counteract a Democratic narrative that he’s a callous and unelected force out to destroy the government and upend civil society through sweeping cuts being imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency.

There were also moments when Trump and Musk were all but finishing each other’s sentences, as if they were part of a buddy comedy and not the president and his most powerful aide.

Here’s a look at how the friendship formed, what it means for them both and why Trump’s history suggests it may not last:

Trump told Hannity that he wasn’t really acquainted with Musk until recently, saying, “I knew him a little bit through the White House originally” but didn’t know him before that.

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and became a U.S. citizen in 2002. He’s the world’s richest man, with a net worth exceeding $400 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His vast business holdings include X, Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the satellite internet service provider Starlink.

Musk said he voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Musk has recently said that Tesla was being unfairly targeted by regulations in its original home state of California. Musk and the company’s headquarters moved to Austin, Texas, in 2021, and he increasingly soured on Biden with the then-president’s embrace of unions that clashed frequently with Tesla.

In the past, Musk butted heads with Trump over climate change. They feuded as recently as July 2022 — with Trump calling Musk a “bulls—- artist.” He also suggested then that Musk came to the White House during his first term seeking federal subsidies for “electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere.”

“I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump previously said on his social media site.

Musk originally backed Ron DeSantis in last year’s Republican presidential primary, even helping the Florida governor launch his White House bid in a glitch-marred presentation on X. But Musk met with Trump at his Florida residence last March and endorsed the then-candidate in July, after the first assassination attempt.

“I was going to do it anyway, but that was a precipitating event,” Musk told Hannity.

Musk appeared at his first Trump rally in early October, and his super PAC spent around $200 million to boost the Republican’s campaign. X also amplified messaging — and often disinformation — promoted by Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement.

The pair spent election night at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club. Less than a week after securing victory, Trump announced that Musk would lead DOGE, the new push to shrink government, alongside former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who left the commission by Inauguration Day.

The affection continued Wednesday, when Trump traveled to a Saudi-backed investment meeting in Miami, where Musk was in attendance. Trump asked the billionaire to stand up so the crowd could applaud him.

“He’s doing a great job,” Trump said. The president also suggested that the ratings for Tuesday night’s interview were high, telling the crowd: “You coulda seen him last night. He’s a very committed person, a very serious person.”

“He’s a seriously high IQ individual,” Trump added. “He’s got his faults also, I’ll tell you that. But not too many of them.”

Trump has empowered Musk to help him keep a campaign promise to “ shatter the deep state ” by firing scores of federal workers, shrinking or shuttering agencies and slashing the size of government.

“There’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the the president,” Musk said during the Hannity interview. He added, “What we’re seeing here is the sort of the thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people.”

Tesla and SpaceX have benefited from lucrative government contracts from the Defense Department, NASA and other federal entities, as well as plenty of tax breaks and subsidies over the years. The Trump administration could also take a lot of regulatory heat off Musk, including dismissing crash investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles and a Justice Department criminal probe examining whether Musk and Tesla have overstated their cars’ self-driving capabilities.

Musk nonetheless insisted to Hannity, “I haven’t asked the president for anything, ever.” Trump said the billionaire “won’t be involved” in areas where his government efforts and business concerns overlap — though that seems dubious given that Musk’s team has already begun scrutinizing federal contracts in areas that would seem to present conflict-of-interest concerns.

Trump and Musk say they won’t turn on each other. But those closest to Trump often end up as his fiercest critics.

His former vice president, Mike Pence, said Trump endangered his family in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and attempted to bully him into violating the Constitution. His former attorney general, Bill Barr, refuted Trump’s falsehoods about widespread fraud in the 2020 election and has since said he “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer who testified against him in a hush money case, told a House committee in 2019, “People that follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”

More recently, Trump shrugged off potential security risks while ending Secret Service protection for former top officials in his first administration, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Trump also has shown repeatedly that he doesn’t like being overshadowed, even hinting at such where Musk is concerned. Asked recently about Musk appearing on the cover of Time from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Trump quipped, “Is Time Magazine still in business?”

But Trump has also been fiercely loyal to those he perceives as having stood by him.

Former White House adviser Peter Navarro, who served time in prison related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, is back helping dictate Trump trade policy. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, is working anew at the White House after once being a codefendant with Trump in the classified documents case. Trump has also said he’d offered “about 10 jobs” to his former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, whom he pardoned after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Throughout the interview, Hannity was friendly and his questions were mostly fawning. But what came through most clearly was how complimentary Trump and Musk were of each other — even amid skepticism about how their friendship enduring.

“He’s an amazing person,” Trump said of Musk.

“I love the president, I just want to be clear about that,” Musk offered of Trump.

“I feel like I’m interviewing two brothers here,” Hannity finally said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia businesswoman and former senator, to lead the Small Business Administration, returning a stalwart supporter of President Donald Trump to Washington.

At SBA, Loeffler will oversee the entity that describes itself as the only Cabinet-level federal agency “fully dedicated to small business” by providing “counseling, capital, and contracting expertise as the nation’s only go-to resource and voice for small businesses.” Typically, the agency — which was founded in 1953 — offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by a disaster, loans that can be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other expenses that would have been met if not for the disaster.

The Senate confirmed Loeffler on a 52-46 vote.

Loeffler, who co-chaired Trump’s second inaugural committee, served briefly in the U.S. Senate in the final year of the president’s first term. Appointing her to the Senate to fill out the term of Johnny Isakson, Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp touted Loeffler as a successor in the Republican’s moderate mold. But facing an immediate reelection campaign in 2020, Loeffler hewed closely to Trump to stave off challengers from her right flank, characterizing herself as “more conservative than Attila the Hun.”

She and fellow Republican incumbent David Perdue, another Trump ally, advanced to the January 2021 runoffs following a November election in which Biden narrowly beat Trump in Georgia. Trump infamously pressured Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the results, then blasted Raffensperger and Kemp for not helping overturn the election.

Loeffler called for Raffensperger’s resignation after he certified Biden’s victory in the state.

With Loeffler, Perdue and Trump casting doubts on Georgia’s election system, and with Trump not on the January runoff ballot, GOP turnout dipped, resulting in Loeffler’s defeat to Raphael Warnock and Perdue’s loss to Jon Ossoff, one day before Trump supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 riots.

The Republican losses in Georgia gave Democrats control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins. Trump won Georgia in last year’s election, and Loeffler’s home state continues to be critical for the fortunes of both the president and his party nationally.

Since her loss to Warnock, Loeffler started a conservative voter registration organization and dove into GOP fundraising, becoming one of the top individual donors and bundlers to Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign.

Loeffler’s confirmation also adds another Cabinet member of significant wealth to the billionaire president’s second administration. Loeffler — a former WNBA owner and executive who during her brief stint on Capitol Hill was the Senate’s wealthiest member — is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the publicly traded firm that owns the New York Stock Exchange.

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Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump intends to nominate advisers from his first term to top Justice Department posts, including John Eisenberg to lead the national security division and Brett Shumate for the civil division, the department said on Wednesday.

Shumate is already acting head of the civil division and managing the department’s defense of the administration against a slew of lawsuits over federal worker firings, the dismantling of federal agencies and the attempts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access sensitive data.

Shumate, who was a partner in the Jones Day law firm that has longstanding ties to Trump, unsuccessfully defended the Republican president’s executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, which a federal judge last month ruled was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

He was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Division’s Federal Programs Branch during Trump’s first term from 2017-2021.

Eisenberg was legal adviser to the National Security Council during Trump’s first White House term, as well as an assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for National Security Affairs.

He also held senior positions in the Justice Department including a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. Eisenberg clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the high court’s conservative majority.

Patrick Davis will be nominated to lead the Office of Legislative Affairs, the department said in a statement, in what would be his third stint there. During Trump’s first term, he served as deputy associate attorney general.

All three posts require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

The announcement comes a day after Trump said he has instructed the Justice Department to terminate all remaining U.S. attorneys from the previous administration of Democrat Joe Biden, asserting without evidence that the department had been “politicized like never before.”

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Alison Williams)

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