Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Trump's boundary-busting provocations

Whether you admire — or abhor — President Trump's boundary-busting first month in office (today = Day 30), it's important to see with clear eyes what's truly stretching the law and shaking long-held traditions of White House occupants before him, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: As we've written before, every "unprecedented" move becomes a new precedent for future presidents. Trump supporters should expect Democratic presidents in the future to use the same new tactics and legal interpretations against them. So understanding each move matters.

?️ The big picture: U.S. presidents face very few restraints. They're free of conflict of interest laws, enjoy the presumption of immunity in all official acts, and have wide latitude to impose their agenda.

• So it's worth paying attention when Trump says, as he did over the weekend on Truth Social and X: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
• That followed Vice President Vance saying on X: "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power." Vance's comment is technically correct. But when taken together, the quotes suggest a belief there are few practical or legal restraints on a president. This isn't a new theory: Several Republican-appointed members of the Supreme Court have long held very elastic views of presidential power.
• Also important to note: Trump did promise in the Oval Office, a few days before his post about saving the country, that he'll always abide by court rulings — "and we'll appeal."

So after one month in office and a dizzying amount of rhetoric and real action, what has Trump done that truly pulls America into uncharted waters? (This is our attempt to help readers sift out the hyperbolic reactions, and instead focus on legitimate boundary-busting actions worthy of deeper reflection.)

1. Claiming power clearly granted to Congress. This might seem like a nerdy social studies argument, but it's massive in consequence. The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to allow and then set spending for the federal government. Take it away, and Congress is left as a weakened branch of government.

• Trump has dismantled USAID ... moved to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ... tried to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans ... targeted at least 20,000 federal jobs ... and on Tuesday signed an executive order to rein in independent agencies by declaring that "all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision."
• The Supreme Court, one dominated by conservatives in 1975, ruled unanimously that a president couldn't "impound" congressionally authorized funds, as President Richard Nixon had tried to do.
• Congress could stymie presidential actions like this. But this Congress, controlled by Republicans, is ceding its power to check Trump.

2. Rewriting an actual Constitutional amendment. Trump is already locked in a court fight after seeking to unilaterally rewrite — again by executive order — the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship to those born here.

• Trump wants to exclude babies born to mothers who are in the country without authorization. Four federal judges have blocked this executive order. This one is likely headed to the Supreme Court.

3. Firing watchdogs. President Trump has fired a lot of people fast, following through on a campaign promise. He has wide latitude to staff the federal government as he sees fit.

• But his abrupt sacking of more than a dozen inspectors generals (IGs) appears to violate the law stating he must give 30 days' notice. Again, this might sound nerdy and technical. But IGs were put in place to investigate — independently — "waste, fraud and abuse." Imagine if every new president, instead of leaving experienced IGs in place, simply ousts them and puts in loyalists instead. That is the precedent that could be set here.

Column continues below.

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? Part 2: Authentically unprecedented

On Day 30 of President Trump's term, Jim and Mike list more ways he's moving America into uncharted waters:

4. Empowering Elon. Trump and MAGA supporters love the most inventive business mind of the 21st century rifling through agency budgets and databases to cut spending.

• But Musk and DOGE are deep in uncharted waters by gaining access to personal data, and by operating with minimal vetting. Imagine future presidents letting friends set up inside the government, and secretly get the power to see your most sensitive information while they help govern.

5. Profiting from the presidency. This isn't illegal. But it defies a long history of unspoken presidential behavior. Most presidents avoided any actual — or perception of — commingling of their presidential power with personal business deals. Former President Biden took a public beating from Trump and his supporters after it was revealed Biden's son and brother profited off his name and actions.

• Three days before taking office, Trump launched a cryptocurrency that, on paper, was worth as much as $50 billion for the Trump family, depending on how you count coins not yet released to market. (Most of the meme coin's value has been erased since then.) No limits keep foreign leaders, or anyone seeking influence, from buying coins to benefit the Trump family.
• As The New York Times reported this week, Trump held an Oval Office meeting to help boost a merger between the PGA and LIV pro golf behemoths. Trump's family is a major LIV financial partner.

6. DOJ dictates. Trump supporters seem jazzed by, or at least cool with, more than a half-dozen seasoned Justice Department lawyers quitting instead of helping to kill the corruption indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams. Trump apparently wants to free Adams to help the administration crack down on immigration, which he can't do from court or jail.

• This specific case is unprecedented on its face. This many top U.S. lawyers quitting en masse hasn't happened since the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" under President Richard Nixon 51 years ago. It begs the question: Will MAGA be cool if the next Democratic president forces Justice officials to do his or her bidding — or quit?

? Reality check: Trump has every right to do and say everything unfolding overseas, from taunting Canada to belittling Europe to freezing Ukraine out of his war negotiations.

• All presidents are free to conduct foreign policy as they see fit. He can also rid his government of DEI staff and offices, and fire as many unprotected government workers as he chooses. There's a difference between shattering expectations and shattering laws.

? What they're saying: Alex Pfeiffer, White House principal deputy communications director, told us everything Trump is doing is democratic — "in fact, the most democratic thing possible. President Trump won the election, made promises in the election and is enacting those promises."

• "Elon is a White House employee," Pfeiffer added. "He and political appointees act on behalf of the president to do the things voters voted for. ... Letting bureaucrats run everything is the opposite of democracy."
• "President Trump is restoring control to the people ... swiftly enacting what was voted on," Pfeiffer continued. "And that is as democratic as it gets."

? Our thought bubble: Axios tries to cover Trump's actions seriously and clinically without overreacting to random social media posts, given his penchant for ephemeral provocation.

• Our aim: Arm readers with facts and context for making sense of the velocity of news and change.

The bottom line: The first Trump term seemed unprecedented, and sometimes was. This one is authentically unprecedented in totality.

❓ Shoot us questions you have for future columns: jim@axios.com, mike@axios.com.

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? Trump's stunning criticism of Zelensky

President Trump told Axios' Marc Caputo at a Mar-a-Lago news conference that the White House will continue to restrict the AP's access to the White House "until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America."

• Trump falsely suggested Ukraine started the war and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is deeply unpopular with his own people, hours after U.S. and Russian officials met for talks, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

Trump spoke after signing an executive order to reduce the costs of accessing IVF.

• Watch the press conference.

Trump calls Zelensky ‘a dictator’ after Ukraine’s leader accuses him of living in ‘disinformation space’

US President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator,” escalating a public war of words between the two leaders that started when Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/europe/zelensky-trump-reaction-intl?

Trump calls Zelensky a “dictator” as he parrots Russian talking points

President Donald Trump continued to double down on his criticism of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday, casting the wartime leader as a “dictator” as he parroted Russian talking points.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-administration-news-doge-musk-02-19-25?

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Immigration

The Trump administration is cutting off legal services for unaccompanied migrant children — the latest in a series of actions stripping key resources from immigrants in the US. The Department of the Interior sent the order to a nonprofit group that has been helping thousands of children who cross the southern border without their parents. Also this week, President Trump's border czar Tom Homan touted what he said is a record low number of border encounters: "229 total encounters at the Southwest border — 229 — compare that to 11,000 per day under [President] Biden," Homan said in a Fox News interview. "229 encounters in a 24-hour period, that is a record," he added.

 

Tariffs

President Trump said that he plans to impose tariffs of around 25% on auto imports as well as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals shipped to the US as early as April. The steep new tariffs could have far-reaching effects, extending beyond the specific industries where taxes are levied. Consumers are expected to feel most of the burden of the new import taxes on automobiles as prices of cars could jump by thousands of dollars. As for the pharmaceutical industry, the US purchased more than $176 billion of drugs and related goods in 2023, according to US trade data, making it the largest importer of pharmaceutical products that year. Experts say European, Indian and Chinese firms could be the hardest hit.

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Trump Vowed to Clean Up Washington, Then His Team Hired a Man Who Pushed a Scam the IRS Called the “Worst of the Worst”

Even as he has vowed to eliminate “every dollar of waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal budget and operations,” the new acting administrator of the General Services Administration, Stephen Ehikian, has appointed a senior adviser whose firm used to specialize in tax transactions that a bipartisan Senate committee excoriated and that the IRS branded as “abusive” and among “the worst of the worst tax scams.” The adviser has been battling the tax agency in court over $4 billion in disallowed deductions for thousands of his clients.

https://www.propublica.org/article/frank-schuler-gsa-doge-syndicated-conservation-easements-tax-scam?

Federal judge turns down attempt by Democratic AGs to block Elon Musk and DOGE

WASHINGTON — Temporary special government employees working at the behest of the U.S. DOGE Service, under President Donald Trump and billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk, can continue accessing data across federal agencies, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ordered Tuesday.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/02/18/repub/federal-judge-turns-down-attempt-by-democratic-ags-to-block-elon-musk-and-doge/?

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? I do not think this means what you think it means. Last month, President Donald Trump pledged to “love and cherish” Medicaid, the public health insurance program for 79 million low-income and disabled Americans. But yesterday, he endorsed the House Republican budget proposal that sets the stage for massive cuts. Democrats as well as MAGA acolytes like Steve Bannon and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) are sounding the alarm about the proposal. 

? Trump regulators embrace what Kamala Harris stayed silent on. The new Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission yesterday affirmed that the agency would preserve the tougher merger guidelines put in place by Biden-era antitrust enforcers Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan (who was boosted by Vice President JD Vance but removed by Trump). While some remain concerned that Ferguson will limit his predecessors’ tough antitrust posture, yesterday’s move follows Trump’s FTC suing to block a Hewlett-Packard merger. 

• Economist Hal Singer spotlighted the changing politics of antitrust, noting that “Kamala Harris couldn’t bring herself to endorse Lina Khan as FTC chair, but Trump’s FTC chair has effectively endorsed Khan’s merger guidelines.” He was referencing Harris declining to endorse Khan’s antitrust agenda while courting donors facing FTC scrutiny and calling for Khan’s firing.

? DOGE is already less popular than the agencies it’s waging war on. The Department of Government Efficiency’s net favorability rating is just 4 percent, according to a new bipartisan poll — making DOGE decidedly less popular than many of the very agencies Musk is trying to dismantle, including the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (31 percent), the United States Agency for International Development (16 percent), and the Environmental Protection Agency (37 percent).

? Cha-ching. The results are in: Wall Street made more money than ever last year, with the country’s biggest banks raking in billions of dollars in record profits. So much for all that whining about how overregulation is “crippling” business.

Trump tanks military stocks. Last week, the president exercised a rare moment of restraint and proposed a “de-nuking” strategy, telling reporters “there’’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons.” The president also said he wants to cut the Defense Department’s ~$900 million annual budget in half, which sent the stock valuation of defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman into a tailspin. Trump’s comments came just days after a Heritage Foundation report slammed the Pentagon’s $150,000 soap dispenser budget.

What’s in your omelet? The outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu has sent the price of eggs in the U.S. soaring, with the average cost of a dozen eggs up 53 percent in the last year — reaching a record high of $4.95 in January. The soaring cost of eggs accounted for roughly two-thirds of the total increase in food costs last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Too many eggs in one basket. The bird flu outbreak has forced farmers to cull over 30 million of the country’s egg-laying chickens. But get this: Only five corporations own 46 percent of commercial hens in the U.S. Cal-Maine, the country’s largest egg supplier, controls 20 percent of the market. After decades of consolidation, the suppliers making up Big Egg have edged out smaller farmers and dramatically decreased the national egg-laying flock while increasing egg production — in other words, extracting more eggs out of fewer chickens.

Big Egg’s Big Payday. Farmers say monopolization in the industry is exacerbating the egg crisis as H5N1 quickly spreads across corporate megafarms. Farm Action, a progressive agricultural advocacy group, accuses Big Egg, and in particular, Cal-Maine, of “leverag[ing] the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power.” Cal-Maine has seen its hundreds of millions in annual profits rise since the H5N1 outbreak first started in 2022 and used that cash to buy up even more of their competitors.

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Trump warns Zelenskyy to quickly negotiate war’s end with Russia or risk not having a nation to lead

MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he “better move fast” to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or risk not having a nation to lead.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-zelenskyy-ukraine-russia-war-7d18400b935166773bbd3b3323c8aa5f?

ps:Really? Than how come they didn't invite Zeleskyy?????

Trump administration labels 8 Latin American cartels as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is formally designating eight Latin American crime organizations as “foreign terrorist organizations,” upping its pressure on cartels operating in the U.S. and on anyone aiding them.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-cartels-foreign-terrorist-organizations-eb35567b69fc66f13f7f79fb90906a50?

ps:Why? they didn't pay him a billion dollars?????

Trump administration orders halt to NYC toll meant to fight traffic and fund mass transit

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to congestion pricing tolls in New York City, which thin traffic and fund mass transit by making people pay to drive into Manhattan’s core.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-halts-congestion-pricing-nyc-manhattan-35366190ccdb925d047bbbd862a1a226?

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Trump lobs "dictator"

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images President Trump today called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "a dictator without elections" — as the White House negotiates a deal with the Kremlin to end Russia's nearly three-year war with its western neighbor. Why it matters: Trump's attack marks a new low in the deteriorating U.S.-Ukraine relationship. Trump's administration has been seeking to broker a deal without Kyiv's participation, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. ? Trump referred to Zelensky as a "modestly successful comedian" and claimed he "talked the U.S." into spending billions of dollars to "go into a War that couldn't be won." After Trump slammed him at Mar-a-Lago yesterday, Zelensky earlier today said the president is living in a "disinformation space" created by the Kremlin. Reality check: Zelensky was democratically elected in a fair and free election. Under its constitution, Ukraine can postpone a scheduled election in wartime, and it did so last year because of the Russian invasion. Trump has never called Russian President Vladimir Putin a dictator. Via Truth Social ? The Ukrainian president spoke today with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — a close Trump ally — about the president's comments. Zelensky, who enjoyed President Biden's full support after Russia invaded, said he appreciates Congress' bipartisan support for his country. "I told Zelensky we are working on a solution and asked him to give it time," Graham told Axios. Zelensky also spoke today with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Without naming Trump, Zelensky wrote on X: "We cannot allow Putin to deceive everyone again. ... [A]ll partners must clearly understand that strong security guarantees are the priority for lasting peace." ?️ The big picture: Putin expressed satisfaction today about the negotiations with the U.S. and claimed that Ukraine would not be excluded from the process, Reuters reported. Putin added that he'd be happy to meet Trump, but clarified that such a meeting needs to be well-prepared. Zelensky is expected to meet tomorrow in Kyiv with U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg.

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? Fuhgeddabout congestion pricing?

"We'll see you in court," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) told Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy after he sent a letter rescinding federal approval for the city's controversial congestion pricing program.

• The $9 toll for most drivers to enter lower Manhattan went into effect just last month. It took years for New York lawmakers to get the green light on the measure.

? In the letter, Duffy said he shares Trump's concerns "about the impacts to working-class Americans who now have an additional financial burden to account for in their daily lives."

• Hochul hit back: "We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king," referencing Trump's own post on Truth Social.

? Between the lines: If the program is overturned, billions fewer dollars would go toward improving the city's public transit infrastructure.

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Trump's mega-MAGA month

President Trump's first month of his second term has exceeded the wildest dreams of his most loyal supporters, and the darkest nightmares of his fiercest detractors, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Both groups can agree that the America Joe Biden left behind at noon on Jan. 20 is no longer recognizable — erased in four frenetic weeks by an empowered, implacable and historically popular MAGA presidency.

Like Trump 1.0, the firehose of news and norm-busting behavior is — and will continue to be — the defining feature of this administration.

• Unlike Trump 1.0, the chaos is calculated — and explicitly designed to institutionalize MAGA, paralyze the president's enemies and permanently break the Washington establishment.

? Zoom in: Above all else, Trump's first month has been dominated by his war on the federal bureaucracy — and his various efforts to probe, prod and blow through the limits of presidential power.

• The White House's early attempt to freeze federal funding has set the stage for a massive legal fight over Congress's "power of the purse," which is laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution.
• Elon Musk and his DOGE allies are slashing and burning their way through government agencies.
• The rapid dismantling of USAID and the government-wide assault on DEI have sent clear signals that any programs misaligned with Trump's MAGA will be on the chopping block. The Education Department could be next.
• At the Justice Department, the purging of career prosecutors and FBI agents punctured any veneer of independence from the White House.

Data: FiveThirtyEight. Chart: Axios Visuals

? Between the lines: The shock treatment of the U.S. government by Trump and Musk has overshadowed the two huge issues that dominated the 2024 campaign — immigration and inflation.

1. On immigration, Trump has moved with lightning speed to enforce his promise of a sealed border.

• Arrests from border crossings plummeted to 21,593 in January — down from 47,316 in December, and an all-time high of 250,000 in December 2023. "Call it the Trump Effect," the White House said.
• Trump's goal of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants has proven more difficult, with the pace of operations stalling because of a lack of funds, officers and infrastructure.

2. "Inflation is back," Trump acknowledged in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity this week. "I had nothing to do with it," Trump argued, pinning the blame on Biden.

• Despite promising to "end inflation" starting on Day 1, Trump is right that the effects of his policies won't show up immediately.
• The danger: Trump's sweeping use of tariffs is injecting deep uncertainty into global markets, and could turn inflation into a long-term feature of the U.S. economy.

? What to watch: With the dust still settling on America's new normal, Congress soon will move to codify vast swaths of Trump's agenda.

• With a razor-thin majority in the House, Trump's vision for "ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL" is a huge gamble — but one that would clear the way for a historic, and enduring, reordering of the American economy.

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?️ Historic war on media

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

President Trump — in small and unprecedented ways — is punishing media companies more than any leader since America's founding, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes. ? The big picture: Trump is targeting traditional media sources at a moment of tremendous business and cultural vulnerability for the industry. American trust in media has hit an all-time low. Most U.S. counties have little to no local news sources anymore. Data: Reporters Without Borders. Chart: Axios Visuals In his first four weeks, Trump has: Barred AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One. The AP declined to directly follow Trump's executive order renaming "Gulf of Mexico" as "Gulf of America" in its style guidance. Cut federal news subscriptions. The State Department on Feb. 11 told embassies and consulates in Europe to cancel "media subscriptions (publications, periodicals, and newspaper subscriptions) that are not academic or professional journals," the WashPost reports. That was shortly after the administration said it would stop spending money on Politico Pro. Reshuffled Pentagon press. The Defense Department informed several outlets — including NPR, NBC News, Politico and CNN — that they had to move out of their workspaces. Keep reading.

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⚖️ Courts = final guardrail

Data: Just Security. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios With a compliant, Republican-led Congress virtually in President Trump's pocket, the courts appear to be the main guardrail for his push to remake government and boost his presidential power, Axios' Erin Doherty writes. Why it matters: Trump's most sweeping executive orders have drawn a series of legal challenges — which his administration has vowed to fight. ? By the numbers: More than 70 lawsuits now have been filed against aspects of Trump's agenda. More than two dozen court rulings have paused some of Trump's executive orders. Trump has already filed an appeal to the Supreme Court in a dispute over whether the president can fire the head of an independent agency — the first of what's likely to be many challenges that will wind up at the nation's highest court. Keep reading.

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? First month of fear

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty images

Two primary targets of President Trump's executive orders have been transgender Americans and undocumented immigrants, deepening a climate of fear for both groups, Axios' Erica Pandey writes. Life is already changing for members of both communities in ways big and small — with bigger changes likely coming. "The messaging is, 'It's OK to discriminate against transgender people,'" says Corinne Goodwin, executive director of the Eastern Pennsylvania Trans Equity Project. The Trump administration's executive orders and rhetoric on immigration are also stoking fear, by design, among people in the country illegally. Rumors of ICE raids have sparked panic in cities around the country, and led some immigrants to stay home from work and school. Between the lines: Some legal immigrants, international students and even U.S. citizens are also concerned. Many have started carrying around their visas and passports in case they are stopped. Keep reading.

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Ukraine

President Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, eliciting reactions from GOP lawmakers, world leaders and top administration officials. On Tuesday, Trump wrongly accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia. He also parroted another Moscow talking point in saying that the Ukrainian president should hold an election that was suspended because his country is in a state of war and under daily attack from Moscow's forces. After Zelensky accused Trump of being in a "disinformation space," Trump escalated the fight on Wednesday, falsely calling the democratically-elected Zelensky "a dictator."

Birthright citizenship

An appeals court will not allow the Trump administration to end birthright citizenship for certain children of immigrants — a ruling that could propel the issue to the Supreme Court. For decades, under an 1868 constitutional amendment and a statute that preceded it, citizenship has been extended to anyone born on US soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. President Trump is seeking to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents are undocumented or are lawfully present in the US on temporary visas. The case before the appeals court is one of several major legal challenges to the policy and the first to get the weigh-in by an appellate panel.

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U.S. Claims Immigrants Held at Guantanamo Are “Worst of the Worst.” Their Families Say They’re Being Unfairly Targeted.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have identified nearly a dozen immigrants who have been flown to Guantanamo Bay. Government officials have refused to release the names of detainees or provide details about the crimes that landed them in detention.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-administration-migrants-guantanamo-bay?

These Soldiers Risked Their Lives Serving in Afghanistan. Now They Plead With Trump to Let Their Sister Into the U.S.

The Afghan brothers worked closely with the American military for years, fighting the Taliban alongside U.S. troops, including the Special Forces, and facing gunfire and near misses from roadside bombs while watching their friends die.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-refugee-executive-order-afghan-allies?

Legal battles escalate over Trump executive order on birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Wednesday appealed a nationwide injunction in a suit brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to redefine the right to birthright citizenship enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. 

https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/02/19/repub/legal-battles-escalate-over-trump-executive-order-on-birthright-citizenship/?

Trump Doesn’t Care About Ukraine or Russia — Just Money

As part of his proposed peace plan in Eastern Europe, President Donald Trump is demanding the full-scale economic colonization of Ukraine.

https://theintercept.com/2025/02/19/trump-ukraine-russia-war-peace/?

Trump and Musk Delight in the Sounds of Human Suffering With Sick “ASMR” Immigrant Video

On Tuesday afternoon, the official White House X account posted a video showing men in Seattle shackled by the wrists and ankles about to be boarded onto a plane for deportation.

https://theintercept.com/2025/02/19/deportation-asmr-video-trump-musk-immigrants/?

 

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⚡️ "Dictator" fallout

President Trump's direct criticisms of Volodymyr Zelensky have detonated on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are torn between their loyalty to their president versus honoring their promises to Ukraine.

• "The president speaks for himself," Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters about Trump's latest comments.

Why it matters: In the past 24 hours, Trump called Zelensky "a dictator without elections," falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia and said it "could have made a deal" to end the fighting.

? In response, some Republicans eviscerated Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• "Putin started this war. Putin committed war crimes. Putin is the dictator," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) wrote on X.
• "Vladimir Putin is a vile dictator and thug," Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) wrote on X.
• "Vladimir Putin is the Dictator without Elections," Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) wrote on X.

Zoom in: Trump's slams today broke through the defenses of GOP senators, who had gotten smoother at dodging questions on Trump's social media posts.

• "I would certainly not call Zelensky a dictator," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), as NBC News cataloged.
• "It's not a word I would use," said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
• "I wouldn't use the same word," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Between the lines: Some Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), agree with Trump that Zelensky should hold elections. They've been put off as allowed by the country's constitution because of martial law since Russia's 2022 invasion.

— Justin Green

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The 45 companies on the MAGA anti-DEI hit list

From Amazon.com Inc. to Yum! Brands Inc., 45 companies with a combined market value of almost $10 trillion have been attacked for their DEI efforts in the past three years.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/02/20/the-45-companies-on-the-maga-anti-dei-hit-list/?

Trump loyalist Kash Patel is confirmed as FBI director by the Senate despite deep Democratic doubts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI, moving to place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite doubts from Democrats about his qualifications and concerns he will do Donald Trump’s bidding and go after the Republican president’s adversaries.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-patel-fbi-justice-department-518329110ea230e2989095bfcbe34c59?

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Frozen hostilities

Simmering political tensions between the U.S. and Canada are coming to a head in a high-stakes hockey game tonight, Axios' Noah Bressner and Kyle Stokes write.

• The drama-filled matchup — featuring the best players from Team USA and Canada — has become the most anticipated international hockey game in over a decade.

?? The big picture: President Trump's shock suggestion that Canada should become America's "51st state" — along with his potential trade war and insistence on calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "governor" — is blowing up the finals for the NHL's midseason tournament.

• Canadian crowds booed the U.S. national anthem in two early games.
• And a first-round game between the U.S. and Canada on Saturday featured three fights in the first nine seconds.

Via Truth Social

? Zoom out: The tournament has drawn some of the NHL's best ratings in a decade.

• More than 4.4 million viewers tuned in on ESPN for last week's U.S.-Canada contest — the most for a non-Stanley Cup Final game since 2019, the network said.
• The last time the U.S. and Canada met for the finals of a major international event was at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

? The U.S.-Canada rematch for the tournament title, live from Boston, starts at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.

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Red flags

Shoppers usually flock to Walmart for groceries and clothing, looking for good deals on essentials. But the retail giant said 2025 will be trickier as consumers grow increasingly frustrated with inflation and President Donald Trump’s tariffs. That’s a bad sign for the economy.   Only Partly Free “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” then–CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves cackled in February 2016, as Donald Trump’s presidential campaign churned forward. “The money’s rolling in and this is fun … It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Go ahead. Keep going.” Moonves appeared merely ghoulish then. He now looks both ghoulish and wrong. Trump has not been good for CBS, and the steps and statements he’s made since returning to the White House show that his campaign promises to restore and defend free speech were balderdash. His goal is to protect the speech that he likes and suppress what he doesn’t. On Sunday, Unelected Bureaucrat in Chief Elon Musk attacked CBS’s flagship program. “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election,” he posted on X. “They deserve a long prison sentence.” This would seem less threatening if Musk weren’t running roughshod over the federal government, or if the president disagreed. But earlier this month, Trump said that “CBS should lose its license” and 60 Minutes should be “terminated.” The source of their anger is an interview that the program conducted with Kamala Harris—remember her?—during the presidential campaign last year. Trump alleges that 60 Minutes improperly edited the interview. CBS denies any wrongdoing and declined to comment on Musk’s post. CBS said in a filing this week that it intended to seek information on Trump’s finances if the lawsuit proceeds. Even so, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is considering whether to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement with Trump to resolve a suit seeking $20 billion in damages. Interpreting such a move as anything other than paying off Trump to leave CBS alone is very difficult—in other words, it’s a protection racket. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reports that executives are concerned they could be sued for bribery if they settle. (Moonves is long gone; he was forced out in 2018 over a series of accusations of sexual assault and harassment. He denies any wrongdoing.) Trump initially filed his suit last October and has since amended it. The crux of the claim is that CBS aired two different snippets from the same Harris answer about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Like many past lawsuits from Trump, this one reads more like a political memo than a legal brief. He claims, without any evidence, that CBS edited the interview to help Harris’s electoral prospects. (Like other MAGA lawsuits, it was filed in a specific Texas court so as to draw Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has delivered sweeping fringe rulings in the past.) The suit doesn’t make a great deal of sense. If CBS was trying to hide something Harris said, why did it broadcast the clip? The Federal Communications Commission initially rejected a complaint about the interview, but Brendan Carr—Trump’s newly appointed FCC chair—reopened it and demanded that CBS release the transcript of the interview. CBS did so, and to my read, the transcript establishes that CBS’s use of the clips was not manipulative. (Judicious editing is essential. I’ve interviewed many politicians, and much of what they say is incurably dull, nonsensical, or both, sometimes by design.) The charge of “election interference” doesn’t make any sense, either—especially coming from Musk, who both is the owner of a major media platform and spent nearly $300 million to back Trump and other Republican candidates. The position of the Trump GOP appears to be that spending any amount of money on politics is free speech, but press outlets covering the campaign are interfering with it. The bombardment of CBS is part of a wide-ranging assault on free speech. Last week, the White House barred an Associated Press reporter from the Oval Office because editors there have opted not to adopt Trump’s renaming of the body of water long known as the Gulf of Mexico. In December, ABC settled a defamation suit with Trump even though almost no media lawyers thought the network would have lost; critics charged that ABC was trying to curry favor with the president-elect. (ABC did not respond to a request for comment.) Carr, the FCC chair, recently wrote a letter to NPR and PBS suggesting that by airing sponsors’ names, they may have violated rules against noncommercial stations accepting advertising, although the FCC has not objected to this practice in the past. He noted that the answer could help Congress in deciding whether to defund NPR and PBS. That’s a tight vise grip: Don’t take funding or we might take your funding. Not all criticism of the press is media suppression. Politicians are free to criticize the press, just as all Americans are free to criticize their elected officials. And besides, if political leaders aren’t upset about at least some of the coverage they’re receiving, journalists probably aren’t holding them to account. At times during the Trump era, some members of the media have overreacted to flimsy provocations, like Trump’s posting a silly GIF that superimposed the CNN logo over someone being body slammed. Vice President J. D. Vance snarkily replied to the journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday, “Yes dummy. I think there’s a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the WH press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views. The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps!” Even if you’re willing to grant Vance’s premise that banishing the AP is no big deal—I am not—there’s a lot of territory between that and jailing people, and that’s the ground that Trump is occupying: using the power of the government to intimidate. Paramount, for example, is currently awaiting FCC approval for a merger with Skydance Media. A Paramount Global spokesperson told me the lawsuit is “separate from, and unrelated to” the merger, but the company’s leaders would be reasonable to be afraid that Trump might block the deal if they don’t cooperate. During his first term, Trump tried to block the acquisition of CNN’s parent company. Speaking about the AP’s banishment, one journalist told CNN’s Brian Stelter, “Everyone assumes they’re next.” Threats to the press are not new for Trump, who has been critical of press freedom for years. But during his most recent campaign, he criticized “wokeness” and argued that he would be a voice for free speech by pushing back on what he characterized as attacks on constitutional rights from, for example, social-media companies that blocked or throttled content (such as suspending his accounts after January 6). On the first day of his new term, Trump signed an executive order purportedly “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.” Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and announced that he was a “free speech absolutist,” but quickly disproved that, suspending reporters who criticized him and cooperating with foreign governments to suppress speech. A news outlet that is afraid of the government is an outlet whose speech is only partly free. When media companies are afraid that the president will use regulators to punish their business, owners are anxious to protect non-media commercial interests. When journalists are wary of becoming targets for petty retribution, they may pull punches or shape coverage in ways that do not—and are not intended to—serve the public interest. Jeff Bezos’s decision to spike a Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s attacks on his own newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, both look a lot like this, though the two owners insist otherwise. Over the past few years, Trump, Vance, and others complained loudly about the government studying mis- and disinformation or pointing out instances of disinformation to social-media companies. They charged that this was censorship because even if the government wasn’t requiring those companies to do anything, its power made this an implied threat. Now that they are in office, they’ve had a change of heart. They’re perfectly happy for the government to try to tell private companies what opinions are acceptable and which ones aren’t. They never believed in anyone’s free speech except their own.

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? The other budget roadblock

Trump's rapid rewiring of the federal bureaucracy is threatening the deal for the rest of this year's budget.

• The topline numbers aren't the holdup, multiple sources told us.

Why it matters: The government will shut down in three weeks without a deal. But negotiations have stalled over Democratic demands for guarantees that Trump will honor the deal.

• The demand stems from Trump's unilateral federal funding freeze last month, which has been paused by the courts.
• But Democrats want written protections that appropriations will be honored by the White House.

— Stephen Neukam

How Zelensky set off Trump

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky angered President Trump so much during the peace talks with Russia that Trump was on the verge of withdrawing American military support from Ukraine, three U.S. officials familiar with the discussions tell Axios' Marc Caputo. Why it matters: The conflict between Trump and Zelensky escalated into a war of words between the two. It scared European allies who worry about emboldening Russian President Vladimir Putin and rewarding his brutal expansionism. ?️ The big picture: Trump and Zelensky have had an awkward relationship ever since Trump was impeached in 2019 for trying to leverage U.S. military aid to the war-torn country, in return for Zelensky having Joe Biden's son investigated over his sinecure with a Ukrainian gas company. Today, Trump is finding it more difficult than expected to make good on his pledge to quickly implement a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. ? Six administration officials tell Axios that during the past nine days, there were five incidents that angered Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Feb. 12: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Zelensky in Kyiv to offer a proposal that would give the U.S. access to Ukrainian mineral rights in return for de facto U.S. protection. Trump later told reporters Zelensky was "rude" and delayed his meeting with Bessent because he slept in. Feb. 14: At the Munich Security Conference, Vance and Rubio met Zelensky to get his approval for the mineral rights deal. But Zelensky surprised the Americans by saying he didn't have the authority to approve it without parliament, the officials said. Feb. 15: Zelensky publicly rejected the offer at the conference. White House sources noted that his remarks to reporters — that the deal was "not in the interests of a sovereign Ukraine" — were markedly different from more positive-sounding comments he'd made on X the day before. Feb. 18: As Rubio, Waltz and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia to talk peace, Zelensky criticized the meeting for occurring without Ukraine at the table. An angry Trump lashed out at Zelensky, falsely suggesting Zelensky had started the war with Russia and had an approval rating of only 4%. Feb. 19: Zelensky fired back, saying the U.S. president "lives in a disinformation space." Trump ratcheted up the pressure by posting on Truth Social that Zelensky, a former actor, was a "modestly successful comedian" who became a "dictator without elections." Trump has refused to criticize Putin as a dictator. ? Between the lines: In the White House view, Zelensky grew too accustomed to former President Biden's open-ended support for Ukraine's war effort, the full-throated backing of NATO countries and the positive press that went with it. "Zelensky is an actor who committed a common mistake of theater kids: He started to think he's the character he plays on TV," a White House official involved in the talks said. "Yes, he has been brave and stood up to Russia. But he would be six feet under if it wasn't for the millions we spent, and he needs to exit stage right with all the drama." Another official involved in the negotiations said: "We created a monster with Zelensky ... And these Trump-deranged Europeans who won't send troops are giving him terrible advice."

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?? Scoop: Trump offers "improved" mineral deal

The Trump administration has given Ukraine an "improved" draft for a minerals agreement between the countries after President Volodymyr Zelensky infuriated President Trump by rejecting his initial offer, Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo report.

• Why it matters: Sources on both sides say a deal is looking more likely.

The intrigue: A source said several of Zelensky's aides have encouraged him to sign the updated proposal — to avoid a further clash with Trump, and allow the U.S. president to justify U.S. support for Ukraine.

Zoom out: Ukraine sits on significant reserves of rare earth minerals critical to the world's most cutting-edge technologies.

• In total, the value of the minerals could run into the trillions of dollars.

Keep reading.

? Trump's tricky budget math

Via Truth Social

President Trump wants to use tariffs to abolish the IRS, revive manufacturing, stop the flow of illegal drugs — and now, balance the budget, too, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes. Why it matters: It's a big lift for a revenue stream that barely exists. ? By the numbers: In fiscal 2024, the U.S. government's budget deficit was $1.83 trillion. Elon Musk's DOGE is going for $1 trillion in government cuts, though the early effort is running into some math problems. If DOGE can get there, there would still need to be $800 billion-plus in incremental revenue to cover the rest. ? Zoom in: Trump has so far announced — then called off, paused, or set for some future date — tariffs on Colombia, Canada, Mexico, steel imports, aluminum imports, countries with tariffs of their own, countries with VAT tax systems, and imports of semiconductors, cars, pharmaceuticals and lumber. A 10% tariff on China did go into effect, however.

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Ukraine

Amid a widening rift between Washington and Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday's meeting with a Trump envoy was "productive." This week, the long-fraught relationship between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart was on full display surrounding diplomatic efforts toward peace talks. Meanwhile, the US is resisting a reference to "Russian aggression" in a joint statement from the Group of Seven countries marking the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Envoys from Washington have voiced concern about how the war is framed in the document. Trump has also suggested Russia be allowed to rejoin the G7 after it was ejected for annexing Crimea in 2014.

Guantanamo Bay

More than 170 Venezuelan migrants who were deported from the US to Guantanamo Bay in recent weeks were flown home on Thursday. Hundreds of migrants have been sent to the notorious base in Cuba as part of President Trump's migration crackdown, but they have since been mostly flown elsewhere after questions were raised over the legality of such an initiative. Senior Trump officials have said that Guantanamo Bay is reserved for the "worst of the worst," but new court filings reveal that not all those who are being sent to the facility are considered to pose a "high threat."

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What is Humphrey’s Executor? A look at the 90-year-old Supreme Court decision Trump is targeting A month into President Donald Trump’s second term, lawyers for the Republican administration seem intent on provoking a legal fight to overturn a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor that has been critical to the development of the modern U.S. government. Read more.

What to know: Humphrey’s Executor ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. The unanimous 1935 Supreme Court ruling established that presidents cannot fire the appointed leaders of federal agencies without cause.   Conservative legal theorists have argued that the Constitution vests immense power in the president and that all federal agencies that are part of the executive branch answer to the president. That includes his ability to fire their leaders at will. The current Supreme Court has at times agreed.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Musk waves a chainsaw and charms conservatives talking up Trump’s cost-cutting efforts   Why a full federal takeover of DC would require an act of Congress

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AP sues 3 Trump administration officials, citing freedom of speech

The Associated Press sued three Trump administration officials Friday over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the blocking of its journalists. “We’ll see them in court,” the White House press secretary said in response.

https://apnews.com/article/ap-lawsuit-trump-administration-officials-0352075501b779b8b187667f3427e0e8?

Trump administration looks to slash HUD workers tackling the housing crisis

The Trump administration’s proposal to cut half of federal workers at the nation’s housing agency is targeting employees who support disaster recovery, rental subsidies, discrimination investigations and first-time homebuyers, according to two documents obtained by The Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/doge-hud-trump-turner-affordable-housing-musk-0176c8539fa9b5959198c351c97b8652?

Judge clears way for Trump administration to pull thousands of USAID staffers off the job

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for one of the Trump administration’s remaining steps in its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, allowing it to move forward with pulling thousands of USAID staffers off the job in the United States and around the world.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-usaid-foreign-aid-staffing-cuts-lawsuits-d1ec029b4d14c37c25abc5dc07066471?

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A Story of Desensitization

Grasping the scale of President Donald Trump’s assault on American governance is no small matter. The administration is challenging laws, claiming the right to reinterpret the Constitution, questioning judges’ powers, and arrogating new powers to itself. Seeking to convey the gravity of the situation, many commentators have labeled what’s happening a “constitutional crisis.”

That’s a mistake—not because what’s happening is not serious, but because it is so serious. This week, the Trump administration came the closest it has thus far to outright refusing to follow a judge’s order, after days of comments from Vice President J. D. Vance, Bureaucrat in Chief Elon Musk, and others questioning whether a president must follow court rulings. That’s a threat to the very basic question of whether a president is subject to the law or not—especially when so many things that Trump has done appear plainly illegal.

But the abstraction of constitutional crisis obscures the immediate danger, making what’s happening seem like an issue more for legal experts and policy wonks than for the everyday Americans who stand to lose not only essential government services but also fundamental rights. “A president refusing to abide by the law or the Constitution and ignoring court orders to stop his illegitimate actions would be a constitutional crisis like a bank robbery is a cash flow crisis,” Joseph Ura, a political scientist at Clemson University, told me via email.

A recent New York Times article reported that many legal scholars believe that the country is in a constitutional crisis, but it began by acknowledging, “There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis.” The law, for all its careful parsing of language, has a weakness for this sort of I-know-it-when-I-see-it formulation, but if even the professors can’t define it, how can the general public? Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard Law professor, warns that “we've got our toes right on the edge of a constitutional crisis,” which also raises interesting questions about the topography of a crisis.

At one time, appeals to the sanctity of the Constitution might have swayed more people, but one reason Trump has been able to dominate U.S. politics for so long is that voters are not feeling protective of their institutions. About six in 10 people in a 2022 New York Times poll said the constitutional order needs major reforms. In 2023, Pew found that just 4 percent of Americans think the political system is working very well. And in 2024, voters selected a guy who’d tried to overturn the previous election. Regardless of what law professors think, the populace has already decided that the Constitution is in crisis.

Perhaps I’m a cockeyed optimist, but I don’t think that means they want an unaccountable leader who is not beholden to laws, courts, or Congress. Already, Trump’s approval rating is down, and his disapproval rating is up. I noted last week that some of his supporters are regretting their choice. Many of the effects of sloppy cost cutting are going to be even more unpopular once voters feel them. But appeals to a system they’ve come to distrust are not the way to rally them.

A “constitutional crisis” certainly sounds bad, even if you can’t say what it is. But whatever fresh shock the term might have provided has been dulled by years of use. Google Trends tells a story of desensitization. Going back to 2004, there are sporadic spikes of interest in the term, such as during the 2008 financial crisis and around government shutdowns during the Barack Obama presidency. Then the line starts bouncing around like a flea when Trump takes office the first time. It calms again during the Biden administration but takes off on a dizzy, vertical ascent when Trump returns to office in 2025.

Commentators who labeled previous moments “constitutional crises” may not have been crying wolf, exactly, though in retrospect perhaps the term could have been reserved for the worst moments—January 6, for example—for maximum clarity. Regardless, you can’t hear about a problem on and off for years without it becoming less urgent. Trump isn’t just destroying norms; he’s established a state of crisis as the new norm.

And insofar as people do think of this as a “crisis,” that might only further empower Trump—who’s responsible for it in the first place. That’s because, in times of crisis, Americans usually look to the president to act quickly and decisively. That can be good in a bona fide external crisis, like an attack by a foreign country or a pandemic, but that’s not what’s happening now. “To the extent we’re in a crisis, it’s a crisis of too much executive energy,” Ura told me.

The better alternative is to describe exactly what’s happening: The president is taking actions he doesn’t have the power to take, disrespecting the rule of law, and attempting to revoke long-established rights. He is portraying himself as a king. Soon, he may openly defy an order from a duly appointed and confirmed federal judge. That would be a step closer to the end of American democracy than anything since January 6. Call that a catastrophe, call it lawlessness, call it a threat—just don’t call it a constitutional crisis.