Politics

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s administration has warned of cuts in federal funding for academic institutions and universities if they continue with diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the new U.S. president has attempted to dismantle in his early days in office.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Trump has issued executive orders since taking office on January 20 to target DEI in the federal government and private sector.

Rights advocates say DEI programs help uplift marginalized communities by addressing historic inequities. Trump and his allies call the programs anti-merit and discriminatory against white people and men.

KEY QUOTES

“The Department (of Education) intends to take appropriate measures to assess compliance with the applicable statutes and regulations based on the understanding embodied in this letter beginning no later than 14 days from today’s date, including antidiscrimination requirements that are a condition of receiving federal funding,” the Education Department said in a letter.

The letter was reported earlier by Axios on Monday. It was dated Friday. It advised education institutions to comply with civil rights laws and cease efforts to circumvent restrictions, including by ending reliance on third-party contractors for such prohibitions.

“Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding,” the letter said.

CONTEXT

DEI programs have been part of workplace diversity efforts to ensure fairer representation for groups seen as historically marginalized, such as African Americans, LGBTQ+ community members, women, disabled people and other ethnic minorities in the United States.

DEI efforts picked up pace, including in the private sector, in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Chris Sanders and Lisa Shumaker)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Four top deputies to New York City Mayor Eric Adams are resigning in the latest fallout from the Justice Department’s push to end a corruption case against Adams and ensure his cooperation in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — a bargain that has raised questions about the mayor’s political independence and ability to lead the city.

In a statement Monday, Adams confirmed the departures of First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker.

“I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future,” said Adams, who faces several challengers in June’s Democratic primary. “But let me be crystal clear: New York City will keep moving forward, just as it does every day.”

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams became the latest Democrat to call on the mayor to resign, saying that with the deputy mayor resignations it’s clear he “has now lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government, and New Yorkers.”

Speaker Adams is not related to the mayor.

Torres-Springer, Joshi and Williams-Isom told agency heads and staff in a memo that they were exiting because of “the extraordinary events of the last few weeks.”

They did not give a date for their departures, but Adams said they and Parker will remain “for the time being to ensure a seamless transition.”

Adams has faced increasing scrutiny since the Justice Department’s second-in-command ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week to drop the mayor’s corruption case. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote that the case had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.”

That directive touched off firestorms within the Justice Department and New York political circles, with seven federal prosecutors quitting in protest — including the interim U.S. attorney for Manhattan — and fellow Democrats calling on Adams to resign.

On Friday, after a week of recriminations and resignations, Bove and a pair of Justice Department officials from Washington stepped in and filed paperwork asking Manhattan federal Judge Dale E. Ho to dismiss the case. Ho has yet to take action on the request.

Adams, a former police captain, pleaded not guilty last September to charges that he accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals looking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president campaigning to be mayor.

The Justice Department said in its filing Friday that it was seeking to dismiss Adams’ charges with the option of refiling them later, which critics see as a carrot to ensure his compliance on the Republican president’s objectives. In his memo ordering prosecutors to ditch the case, Bove said the new, permanent U.S. attorney would review the matter after the November election.

“It certainly sounds like President Trump is holding the mayor hostage,” Rev. Al Sharpton, an Adams ally, said Tuesday. “I have supported the mayor, but he has been put in an unfair position — even for him — of essentially political blackmail.”

Political leaders, including Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Nydia Velázquez, and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, have called on Adams to step down. But Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she’s taking a more deliberative approach.

“The allegations are extremely concerning and serious, but I cannot as the governor of this state have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction like a lot of other people are saying right now,” she told MSNBC on Thursday. “I’ve got to do it smart, what’s right and I’m consulting with other leaders in government right now.”

The drama over Adams’ legal case played out as the mayor met with Trump’s border czar in New York on Thursday and announced increased cooperation on the Trump administration’s efforts to remove immigrants, including reestablishing an office for immigration authorities at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail.

In their memo to staff announcing their exits, Torres-Springer, Joshi and Williams-Isom wrote: “Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris is to receive the NAACP ‘s Chairman’s Award during the civil rights organization’s Image Awards ceremony this weekend.

Harris, defeated by Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election, was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. She had previously been a U.S. senator from California and the state’s attorney general.

“Vice President Kamala Harris is more than a leader — she is a force of change, driven by an unwavering passion to shape a brighter, more equitable future. It is with great honor that we present her with the Chairman’s Award at this year’s NAACP Image Awards, celebrating her relentless dedication to justice, equality, and the betterment of our society,” Leon W. Russell, chair of the NAACP’s national board of directors, said in a statement Monday.

Other winners of the Chairman’s prize have included former President Barack Obama, the late Rep. John Lewis and the late actor Ruby Dee.

The Image Awards, co-presented by the NAACP and BET, will take place Saturday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in California. Categories range from entertainer of the year to best movie to outstanding work of poetry.

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NEW YORK (AP) — When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation.

On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials.

The future of that assistance is now uncertain.

The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the next time the country holds a major election.

“Our adversaries are upping their game every day,” said former Department of Homeland Security cyber chief Suzanne Spaulding. “I’m worried that we are, at the same time, tearing down our defenses.”

Last week, new Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections. She also limited the scope of enforcement actions on people who do not disclose lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. She wrote that the changes would “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”

The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems. On Saturday, a senior DHS official said mass firings of federal employees in probationary status had resulted in cuts of more than 130 employees at CISA. It was not immediately clear whether those included 17 employees who had worked on election security who were placed on leave last week.

The DHS official on Saturday also said CISA was pausing all election security activities pending a review of their funding, activities and personnel. The agency was ending its involvement in a voluntary program that shared information about cyber defenses with state and local election officials.

The actions send a message that securing U.S. elections against interference from countries such as Russia, China and Iran is no longer a federal government priority, said Larry Norden, an election expert with the Brennan Center for Justice.

“I think we would be naive to think that the bad guys don’t get that message, too, that there’s going to be less of a cop on the beat to protect our elections,” he said.

State and local governments run elections in the U.S., but federal support in recent years has helped them protect against escalating threats, coordinate with other election offices on security and expose foreign influence campaigns designed to undermine voter confidence.

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan recalled two times when the federal government was the first to be aware of a threat toward his office. In 2023, federal officials warned of a suspicious envelope heading to its election facilities early enough that it could be intercepted. In 2024, the federal government notified him of an emailed bomb threat to his office before he was aware of it.

“We can’t be the eyes and ears to see everything,” Logan said. “We’re focused on administering the election.”

There are certain elements of that work that only the FBI can do, said Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, which investigated malign influence campaigns in 2024. He said the FBI’s task force “will be missed in 2026 and beyond.”

The top Democrats on the Senate and House committees overseeing election legislation wrote a letter last week to CISA’s top leaders to express “grave concern” over the changes and request more information about how those changes will affect election security.

Trump has sought to stop the government’s tracking of online misinformation, something he has likened to censorship targeting conservatives. Though Trump signed the bill to create CISA in 2018, he fired its director, Christopher Krebs, following the 2020 election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Krebs had vouched for the security of the vote as Trump continued to claim it was rigged.

Biden’s administration embraced government monitoring of foreign influence and frequently alerted the public to such operations in 2024. An FBI investigation also led to the indictment of three Iranian operatives for hacking into Trump’s campaign.

The FBI has worked closely with CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in coordinating intelligence on foreign influence operations, efforts led by ODNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center.

Trump’s new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has not shared her plans for the center, which was authorized by Congress and is set to expire at the agency’s discretion in 2028. She said in a statement after taking her oath of office Wednesday that she wants to “end the weaponization and politicization” of the intelligence community.

There is no indication the Justice Department plans to stop investigating espionage-related crimes related to election interference. But the gutting of a task force dedicated to that mission has an impact all the same, said David Salvo, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.

“I’m sure there’s still officers at the FBI who are probably watching this activity in some respect,” he said. “But I’m not convinced that the political masters care all that much, and it’s possible that those officers will be told to stop that work entirely.”

Some Republicans have praised the task force’s removal. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on the social platform X that the unit was “highly politicized” and shutting it down was the “right move.”

In an emailed statement, the FBI acknowledged the task force had been disbanded but said it would not comment on “specific personnel actions.”

As for CISA, whose broader mission is to protect America’s critical infrastructure, the future is unclear. Trump’s Republican allies have criticized the agency for its work to combat misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during her Senate confirmation hearing that it had strayed “far off mission.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed in an email last week that employees were on leave and said the agency was evaluating “how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis-, dis-, and malinformation.” On Saturday, DHS said that portion of its review was complete and the agency was taking “appropriate actions” regarding those employees.

Amid the uncertainty at the federal level, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he was urging the Legislature to fund election security programs. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that while Trump can restructure the federal government as he wants, his state depends on CISA’s election services.

“I’m not too concerned with which agency’s providing them, but we need to have them,” he said.

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Cassidy reported from San Diego.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about the AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday the “survival of the West” depended on countries prioritising their own national interests before extending a helping hand to their neighbours.

Speaking via video link at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, Johnson argued the U.S. could only maintain its “strength and leadership” if its foreign policy was centred on its national interests.

“It’s a matter of common sense for each of our countries to acknowledge that we must each take care of our own houses before we help take care of the neighbourhood,” Johnson said.

“As we seek to make America safer, stronger and more prosperous, we will encourage all our friends and allies to do the same in and for their own countries.

“The survival of the West will depend upon that.”

Johnson did not specifically reference Ukraine in his remarks.

His remarks come after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a day earlier that Ukraine and Europe would be part of any “real negotiations” to end Moscow’s war. Rubio played down European concerns of being cut out of initial talks between Russia and the United States in the coming days.

Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.

Trump said last week he had held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, without consulting European nations, to discuss bringing an end to the war in Ukraine.

(Reporting by William James; Writing by Catarina Demony; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Gone are the crowded arenas, the pulsing playlists, the off-the-cuff 90-minute campaign speeches. Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, he is favoring a new style of communication with the American public – almost-daily appearances direct from the Oval Office. 

In the nearly four weeks since he returned to the presidency, Trump has leveraged the grandeur of the historic West Wing office with media gatherings that are recorded and played out on news channels.

“He’s using this to highlight and accentuate his authority as president,” said presidential historian Thomas Alan Schwartz of Vanderbilt University. “There’s nothing more authoritative than the president using the Oval Office.”

The reliance on Trump to serve as his own messenger has been an explicit part of the White House communications strategy. “The president is the best spokesperson that this White House has, and I can assure you that you’ll be hearing from both him and me as much as possible,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her first press briefing on January 28.

Surrounded by presidential portraits including Ronald Reagan, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and with deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and other advisers hovering nearby, Trump has discussed everything from Ukraine and Gaza to his distaste for paper straws during free-wheeling exchanges with the press.

 Trump usually holds court seated behind the historic Resolute Desk, made from the timbers of a British Arctic exploration ship of the same name and a gift from Queen Victoria that has been used by multiple presidents. Trump has brought back the red button for ordering Diet Cokes from a valet that featured in his first term.

The frequency of the sessions are a departure from his predecessor, Joe Biden, who invited criticism for his limited engagements with reporters and largely stuck to speeches delivered from a teleprompter in the Roosevelt Room, East Room and other public areas.

Of Trump’s 34 sessions with reporters since he took office, 16 were conducted in the Oval Office, according to presidential scholar Martha Joynt Kumar.

That’s considerably more than Biden, who held 22 short question-and-answer sessions with reporters at the same point in his presidency, including nine from the Oval Office, Kumar said. And it’s nearly three times as many as the beginning of Trump’s first term, when he held just five press meetings in the Oval.

Asked to comment on the frequent Oval Office appearances, Leavitt said: “President Trump is happy to open up the Oval Office nearly every day to journalists who are granted the privilege of asking him questions for the whole world to see.”  

Meanwhile, she has sharply reduced the calendar of briefings for reporters, holding four in that time.

Trump’s use of the office in his second term is unprecedented, said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “This is the biggest podcast of them all: Oval Office live.”

SPECTACLE AND STRENGTH

The access remains on Trump’s terms. In an extraordinary move last week, he barred Associated Press reporters from the Oval after the news agency continued to use the term Gulf of Mexico following Trump’s executive order changing the name to Gulf of America.

The White House Correspondents’ Association and others including Reuters have objected to access restrictions made on the basis of editorial decisions.

A former reality television showman known for his love of stagecraft, Trump sees the Oval Office sessions as free media, said a source familiar with his views.

He tends to weave from subject to subject and sometimes offers unscripted comments.

On Thursday, Trump announced from behind his desk that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that they were planning a summit on ending the Ukraine war, possibly in Saudi Arabia, to the alarm of European leaders.

The week before, he suggested permanently displacing 1.7 million Palestinians from Gaza, saying people there had no alternative but to leave the enclave devastated by Israel’s military assault.

Many of Trump’s Oval Office events are marked as “closed press” on the daily schedule, meaning reporters are not to be brought in.

But minutes before each event, aides will check to see if Trump wants to open it up to journalists. He usually agrees, prompting a scramble by reporters.

Trump brought the press pool into the Oval Office with little notice last Tuesday to record him urging Jordan’s King Abdullah to drop his opposition to accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza. The king reiterated his country’s “steadfast position” against the plan.

Like a TV impresario, Trump likes a cliffhanger finish to set up the next episode and draw viewers in. On Wednesday, he teased a forthcoming announcement on tariffs.

“I may do it today, and if I do it today, I could almost do it right now. Would you like to be shocked?” Trump said. 

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Suzanne Goldenberg)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.”

Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that.

Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.

Even for a department that has endured its share of scandals, the moves have produced upheaval not seen in decades, tested its independence and rattled the foundations of an institution that has long prided itself on being driven solely by facts, evidence and the law. As firings and resignations mount, the unrest raises the question of whether a president who raged against his own Justice Department during his first term can succeed in bending it to his will in his second.

“We have seen now a punishing ruthlessness that acting department leadership and the attorney general are bringing to essentially subjugate the workforce to the wishes and demands of the administration, even when it’s obvious” that some of the decisions have all the signs “of corrupting the criminal justice system,” said retired federal prosecutor David Laufman, a senior department official across Democratic and Republican administrations.

He spoke not long after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest following a directive from Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, to dismiss the case against Adams.

In a letter foreshadowing her decision, Sassoon accused the department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” — dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda. Though a Democrat, Adams had for months positioned himself as eager to aid the administration’s effort in America’s largest city, even meeting privately with Trump at Trump’s Florida estate just days before the Republican took office.

Multiple high-ranking officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which prosecutes corruption cases, joined Sassoon in resigning.

On Friday, a prosecutor involved in the Adams case, Hagan Scotten, became at least the seventh person to quit in the standoff, telling Bove in a letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges. (Bove and department lawyers in Washington ultimately filed paperwork Friday night to end the case).

Though the circumstances are significantly different, the wave of resignations conjured memories of the 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre” when multiple Justice Department leaders quit rather than carry out President Richard Nixon’s orders to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

“Even though there may not be more resignations, a clear message has been sent about the objectives and the expectations of the department,” said Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under Republican President George W. Bush until his 2007 resignation in the wake of the dismissal of several U.S. attorneys.

“The purpose of the department is to ensure that our laws are carried out, that those who engage in criminal wrongdoing are prosecuted and punished,” Gonzales said. And to some it may appear “that if you have some kind of relationship with the White House, there may not be consequences for doing something that ordinary Americans engaged in similar conduct would be punished.”

Bove, a former New York federal prosecutor himself who represented Trump in his criminal cases, pointedly made no assessment about the legal merits of the case against Adams. Bove cited political reasons, including the timing of the charges months before Adams’ presumed reelection campaign and the restrictions the case had placed on the mayor’s ability to fight illegal immigration and violent crime.

In a letter to Sassoon, Bove said case prosecutors would be subject to internal investigations.

Bondi defended the decision to drop the case, asserted in a Fox New interview Friday that Adams was targeted after he criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Her chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, said prosecutors who refused the dismissal order have “no place at DOJ.”

“The decision to dismiss the indictment of Eric Adams is yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts,” Mizelle said in a statement that accused prosecutors without evidence of “disordered and ulterior motives.”

At the White House on Friday, Trump said he was “not involved” in the Adams case and knew “nothing” about it.

The New York showdown follows a separate dispute between Bove and the acting FBI leadership over his demands for a list of agents involved in the investigations of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol so the Justice Department could determine whether personnel action was warranted.

The request was seen by some as a precursor to possible mass firings, but it was also consistent with Trump’s fury over those criminal cases, which he erased with sweeping pardons soon after his inauguration.

Bove referred to the acting FBI director’s resistance to his directive as an act of “insubordination” and said agents who “simply followed” orders would not lose their jobs but those who acted with “partisan intent” were at risk.

In between White House terms, Trump and his allies pressed the case that the Justice Department had become “weaponized” against conservatives and him in particular, citing separate indictments that were later dismissed after Trump won back the presidency in November.

On her first day on the job, Bondi announced the creation of a “Weaponization Working Group,” to scrutinize the prosecutors who brought criminal and civil cases against Trump and to examine the Jan. 6 prosecutions. She wrote in a memo that the department “must take immediate and overdue steps to restore integrity and credibility” and to ensure that personnel were “ready and willing” to implement the president’s agenda.

The group, notably, was not tasked with examining other politically sensitive matters more favorable to Trump, including a special counsel’s investigation of Democratic President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information or the prosecution of Biden’s son Hunter, who was convicted of gun and tax charges before receiving a pardon from his father in December.

Among the prosecutors singled out by the working group was special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two criminal cases against Trump, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose civil fraud suit against Trump led to a nearly $500 million judgment.

A frequent target of Trump’s ire, James would surface again days later when Bondi, in her first news conference, announced a lawsuit against the state of New York over a law that allows people who might not be in the U.S. legally to get a driver’s license. Bondi opened her remarks by saying she had “filed charges” against James and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, before later clarifying that she was referring to a lawsuit.

More departures — and more turmoil — could be ahead.

“The prospect of the hollowing out of the Justice Department and the (FBI) is now a live and dangerous risk being played out,” said Laufman, the retired prosecutor. “Where it goes from here, we just can’t currently assess.”

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Signaling a major shift in civil rights enforcement, the federal agency that enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws has moved to dismiss six of its own cases on behalf of workers alleging gender identity discrimination, arguing that the cases now conflict with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, court documents say. 

The requests by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mark a major departure from its prior interpretation of civil rights law, and a stark contrast to a decade ago when the agency issued a landmark finding that a transgender civilian employee of the U.S. Army had been discriminated against because her employer refused to use her preferred pronouns or allow her to use bathrooms based on her gender identity. 

Just last year, the EEOC updated its guidance to specify that deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, or refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, constituted a form of harassment. That followed a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination. 

Nearly all workplace discrimination charges must pass through the EEOC — at least initially — and the agency’s decision to drop at least six of the cases raises serious questions about whether its protections will continue to extend to transgender and gender nonconforming people going forward. 

The EEOC is seeking to dismiss three cases in Illinois as well as one in Alabama, New York and California. In each instance, the original complaints allege discrimination against transgender or gender nonconforming workers. The agency cites Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female — as the reason for why it no longer intends to pursue the cases. 

The EEOC’s requests to dismiss the cases come just weeks after Trump dismissed two Democratic commissioners of the five-member EEOC before their terms expired, a decision that removed what would have been a major obstacle to his administration efforts to upend interpretation of the nation’s civil rights laws. Had the commissioners been allowed to carry out their terms, the EEOC would have had a Democratic majority well into Trump’s term. The administration also fired Karla Gilbride as the EEOC’s general counsel, replacing her with Andrew Rogers as acting counsel. 

Shortly after their dismissals, acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, signaled her intent to put the agency’s resources behind enforcing Trump’s executive order on gender. She announced in a statement that one of her priorities would be “defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.” Later, she ordered that the EEOC would continue accepting any and all discrimination charges filed by workers, although complaints that “implicate” Trump’s order should be elevated to headquarters for “review.” 

“Biology is not bigotry. Biological sex is real, and it matters,” Lucas said in her statement. “Sex is binary (male and female) and immutable. It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths — or to use language like pronouns that flow from these realities, even repeatedly.” She removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” which allowed employees to display their pronouns in their Microsoft 365 profiles, among other changes. 

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(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s DOGE team has sent termination notices to more than a dozen staffers at the U.S. Digital Services Office, a group of federal IT workers, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday citing two people familiar with the matter.

Musk’s DOGE has swept through federal agencies in recent weeks searching for spending cuts as part of Trump’s goal to overhaul and shrink the U.S. government.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump approaches the first-month mark in his second term, he has moved with dizzying speed and blunt force to reorder American social and political norms and the economy while redefining the U.S. role in the world. 

At the same time, he has empowered Elon Musk to help engineer the firing of thousands of federal employees and potentially shutter entire agencies created by Congress. It’s an effort to root out wasteful spending and fraud. 

Those actions have largely overshadowed Trump’s crackdowns on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, and his efforts to remake social policy getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and rolling back transgender rights. 

The president has also imposed scores of new tariffs against U.S. trade partners and threatened more. 

Here’s a look at the first four weeks: 

Mass federal firings begin 

The Trump administration fired thousands of workers who were still in probationary periods common among new hires.  

At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, employees say the administration not only wants to cut nearly the entire workforce but also erase all its data from the past 12 years. The administration agreed to pause any further dismantling of the agency until March 3, under a judge’s order. 

It is worth noting that on the campaign trail Donald Trump promised to turn Washington upside down.  

Legal challenges mount 

Court challenges to Trump’s policies started on Inauguration Day and have continued at a furious pace since Jan. 20. The administration is facing some 70 lawsuits nationwide challenging his executive orders and moves to downsize the federal government. 

The Republican-controlled Congress is in lock-step with Trump’s MAGA agenda, so the court system is ground zero for pushback. Judges have issued more than a dozen orders at least temporarily blocking aspects of Trump’s agenda, ranging from an executive order to end U.S. citizenship extended automatically to people born in this country to giving Musk’s team access to sensitive federal data. 

The administration has notched a few wins, too, most significantly when a judge allowed it to move forward with a deferred resignation program spearheaded by Musk. 

The economic outlook worsens 

Amid the policy upheaval, the latest economic data could prompt some White House worries. 

Inflation rose at a monthly rate of 0.5% in January, according to the Labor Department. Over the past three months, the consumer price index has increased at an annual rate of 4.5% — a sign that inflation is heating up again after having cooled for much of 2024. 

Trump told voters he could lower inflation and do so almost immediately after taking office. But Leavitt, while blaming Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, acknowledged the latest inflation indicators were “worse than expected.” 

More trouble signs came when the Commerce Department reported that retail sales slumped 0.9% on a monthly basis in January. A drop that large could signal a weakening in consumer confidence and economic growth. 

These could all be blips, which means the monthly data in February will really matter.  

In addition, the Trump team is bullish on the energy section as an economic driver in the days ahead. 

‘fair trade’  

After previously imposing tariffs on China and readying import taxes on Canada and Mexico, Trump rolled out what he called the “big one.” He said his administration would put together new tariffs in the coming weeks and months to match what other countries charge. 

On top of that, Trump plans separate additional tariffs on autos, computer chips and pharmaceuticals, in addition to the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum that he announced on Monday. 

It is not clear whether these trade penalties are mainly negotiating tools or ways for Trump to raise revenues. So far, he has suggested that they are both. 

Congress watches closely  

Congress finds itself confounded by the onslaught and force of the Trump presidency. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he finds the work of Musk’s team “very exciting.” Johnson said Trump is “taking legitimate executive action.” 

But even among congressional Republicans there were small signs of protest emerging — letters being written and phone calls being made — to protect their home-state interests and constituents as funding for programs, services and government contracts is being dismantled. 

Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., urged the Homeland Security Department not to issue blanket deportations for Venezuelan migrants who fled their country and now call the Miami-area home. “I’m not powerless. I’m a member of Congress,” he said. 

Democratic lawmakers have joined protesters outside shuttered federal offices, arguing Trump and Musk had gone too far.  

Trump wants a new world order 

With his phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin this past week, Trump is hoping he initiated the beginning of the end of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine. 

The leaders agreed to have their teams “start negotiations immediately.” After getting off the phone with Putin, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss getting both sides to the negotiating table. 

The Putin call is a monumental development in a war that has left hundreds of thousands dead or seriously wounded. 

But the way ahead remains complicated. 

Zelenskyy said he will not meet with Putin until a plan for peace is hammered out by Trump. Trump has gotten blowback when European leaders sharply criticized him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for suggesting that NATO membership was not in the cards for Ukraine. 

The White House faces a further quandary with Zelenskyy wanting the U.S. and other countries to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, and Zelenskyy insisting that he and Trump iron out an agreement on the contours of any peace deal. 

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