House Republicans are working overtime after a lengthy White House meeting to meet President Donald Trump’s demand for a big budget package that includes some $3 trillion in tax breaks, massive program cuts and a possible extension of the nation’s debt limit to allow more borrowing and prevent a federal default.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court on Friday called on its member states to stand up against sanctions imposed by Trump, saying the move was an attempt to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”
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The court got plenty of support from traditional U.S. allies in Europe who are standing up against Trump’s executive order. The court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes over his military response in Gaza following the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023.
Here's the latest:
Musk’s team at the Education Department gains access to student loan database
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has gained access to an Education Department database of personal information on millions of students and parents with federal student loans, according to two people with knowledge of the issue.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Democrats in Congress are raising concerns about DOGE’s access to student records. In a letter to the acting education secretary, a group of Democrats demanded details about DOGE’s work and vowed to fight any attempt to close the Education Department.
A federal lawsuit filed Friday seeks to block DOGE’s access, saying it violates privacy rights of federal student loan borrowers.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit seeking to protect financial aid information
— Collin Binkley and Bianca Vázquez Toness
Trump’s most special employee will file a secret financial report
As a special government employee, Elon Musk will have to file a report on his financial assets — but it won’t be made public.
The plan was described by a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose personnel matters.
Musk is the world’s richest person with vast business interests, including Tesla, SpaceX and X. His financial report, if completed, would likely be among the most extensive ever filed.
The White House official said Musk also received a briefing on ethics rules earlier this week. Trump, who put Musk in charge of overhauling the federal government, has said the billionaire entrepreneur would steer clear of conflicts of interest.
— Chris Megerian
Defense secretary tells Pentagon workers he plans to disrupt the status quo
Pete Hegseth is telling his troops and workforce that he plans to take unconventional approaches and “be disruptive on purpose.”
Speaking to a crowd of military and civilian workers in a Pentagon conference center Friday, Hegseth said he's committed to rebuilding the defense industrial base, increasing deterrence and restoring the military’s laser focus on lethality and readiness while ridding it of diversity initiatives.
“President Trump asked me to not maintain the status quo,” he said. “We’re going to move fast. I’ll think outside the box, be disruptive on purpose, to create a sense of urgency that I want to make sure exists inside this department.”
US importers stockpile Prosecco, fearing Trump tariffs
Wine industry data shows American importers have been stockpiling the Italian bubbly as a hedge against possible tariffs.
U.S. imports of Italian sparkling wine — 90% of that Prosecco — skyrocketed by 41% after Trump’s election, far exceeding consumer demand as importers filled the pipeline for future sales.
Union of Italian Wines trade association president Lamberto Frescobaldi says this made sense given the likelihood that consumers will cut back on luxuries if tariffs make them too pricey.
Italian wines were not hit by tariffs during the first Trump presidency, and no tariffs have been announced to date against European partners. But Italy exports nearly one-quarter of its wine, worth 1.9 billion euros ($1.97 billion), exposing the sector to potential price shocks.
▶ Read more about the Prosecco pipeline
Immigrant advocacy groups want access to Gitmo
Their letter Friday demands “immediate access” to the people being held there, saying the U.S. naval station in Cuba should not be used as a “legal black hole.”
Two military flights have carried people who were in the U.S. illegally to the base so far.
The Trump administration has broadly described them as criminals and gang members but has not given specific information such as their names, whether they’ve been convicted or when they entered the country.
Inflation is looking like a problem for Trump
Americans are thinking inflation is going to get much worse now. It’s a problem for a Republican who won election on the specific promise of lowering prices.
The University of Michigan’s survey of consumers showed Friday that people expect inflation to be 4.3% for the year ahead, up a full percentage point from the prior month. The preliminary finding for February is the highest reading since November 2023, when public exhaustion with inflation was crushing President Joe Biden’s approval ratings.
Another possible warning sign for Trump: Broader consumer sentiment among Republicans slipped to 83.2 from 86 in January.
Trump has almost sparked a broad trade war with Canada and Mexico, threatened tariffs that economists say would increase inflation and placed a 10% tariff on imports from China.
White House press secretary blames unsettled economy on Biden
Karoline Leavitt said the jobs report shows “the necessity of President Trump’s pro-growth policies.”
Her statement Friday cited Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency, his pledges to cut regulations and his plan to “deliver the largest tax cut in history for hardworking Americans.”
“President Trump is delivering on his promise to restore our broken economy, revive small business optimism, create jobs, and ignite a new Golden Age for America,” she said.
Trump sues Chicago over ‘sanctuary’ policies
Trump’s opponents aren’t the only ones seeking help from the courts.
An administration lawsuit accuses the nation’s third-largest city of using ‘sanctuary’ laws to “thwart” federal enforcement of immigration laws. It also names the state of Illinois. It’s the latest effort to crack down on places that limit cooperation between federal immigration agents and local police and follows threats of criminal charges and cuts to federal funding.
The lawsuit filed Thursday says Chicago and Illinois have allowed “countless criminals” to be released when they should have been held for immigration removal.
▶ Read more about Trump’s case against sanctuary laws
FBI director nominee’s potential conflicts of interest draw scrutiny
Kash Patel entered Trump’s orbit as a congressional staffer of modest means, then got rich consulting for foreign clients whose interests may clash with the law enforcement agency he hopes to lead.
An Associated Press review of his financial disclosures shows Patel is now worth as much as $15 million. He hasn’t responded to requests for comment as he awaits Senate confirmation. But ethics experts, Democrats and even a future vice president questioned his private-sector work.
Patel’s consulting for The Czechoslovak Group came as the foreign arms conglomerate pushed to buy Vista Outdoor, which makes the famous American ammo brands Federal and Remington. Senate Republicans blasted the purchase last year as a threat to national security. Then-Sen. JD Vance wrote the Treasury Department accusing CSG of having “ties to the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
The company denied Vance’s claims and the sale went through in November.
▶ Read more about Patel’s potential ethical conflicts
Trump, by executive order, wants plastic straws
He announced on his Truth social media network Friday that he plans to sign an executive order next week unwinding his predecessor’s push to move away from plastic straws, declaring that paper straws “don’t work.”
The president has railed against paper straws in the past and in 2019 his reelection campaign sought to use the issue to galvanize supporters, mocking efforts to use paper straws and selling Trump-branded plastic straws for $15.
The Biden administration in 2024 gave the federal government another quarter-century to phase out single-use plastics, including straws, that are polluting the environment and the oceans.
Another deportation flight to Gitmo
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says another planeload of people in the U.S. illegally has gone to Guantanamo Bay.
Noem said Friday on X that the flight took off Thursday, and that they were all “known gang members from Venezuela.”
President Trump says he’s using the U.S. military’s detention center in Cuba to house as many as 30,000 of the “worst criminal aliens.”
Migrant rights groups say Gitmo is not equipped to handle such an influx and there’s no oversight for people held there.
Iran’s supreme leader criticizes US nuke talks proposal
Iran’s supreme leader said Friday that negotiations with America “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” after Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said “there should be no negotiations with such a government.”
Khamenei stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington, but his remarks upended months of signals from Tehran to the United States that it wanted to negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing economic sanctions worth billions of dollars.
The Iranian rial then sunk to a record low of 872,000 rials to $1 in aftermarket trading.
What happens next remains unclear. Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian had promised Thursday to begin a dialogue with the West.
▶ Read more about potential talks between the U.S. and Iran
It’s the first full day on the job for bureaucracy-busting Russ Vought
Writing in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, Vought described the White House budget director’s job “as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind.”
The Office of Management and Budget, he declared, “is a President’s air-traffic control system” and should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”
Vought has pushed to enable mass dismissals by reclassifying tens of thousands of federal workers. He supports the president using “impoundment” to override the legislative branch on spending. And he’s unabashedly advanced “ Christian nationalism. ”
▶ Read more about Russ Vought’s powers
Forced leaves start for thousands as Trump guts USAID
They began in Washington and worldwide Friday for most employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, even as workers went to courts to try to block Trump from dismantling the agency and U.S.- funded aid programs around the world.
The administration plans to leave USAID with fewer than 300 workers, out of more than 8,000 direct hires and contractors, and thousands more locally hired employees abroad. That’s according to two current USAID employees and one former senior USAID official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
They said the numbers were presented to the agency’s remaining senior officials on Thursday. A Trump administration order forbids USAID staffers from talking to anyone outside their agency.
— Paul Wiseman
▶ Read more about the dismantling of USAID
Trump impact: Not a great time to be job-hunting
The first job report of Trump’s second presidency — just 143,000 jobs added last month — suggests he inherited a solid but unspectacular labor market.
Although Trump’s plan to push out federal workers is temporarily blocked, a federal hiring freeze Trump imposed is a “negative for employment growth,’’ according to economist Bradley Saunders. Economists also worry about Trump’s threat to wage a trade war against other countries and the 10% tax he imposed on Chinese imports.
The tariffs are paid by U.S. importers, generally increasing costs for U.S. consumers, which could rekindle inflation. That could lead the Fed to cancel or postpone the two interest-rate cuts it had forecast, which would be bad for economic growth and job creation.
▶ Read more about Trump’s effect on the U.S. economy
More federal workers agree to resign, White House says
The number of federal workers agreeing to resign has spiked to 65,000, according to a White House official.
The official requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the latest figures.
The workers have opted into the deferred resignation program, which is being challenged in court. A federal judge scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to consider arguments over whether the plan can proceed.
▶ Read more on Trump’s worker resignation push
— Chris Megerian
Japan’s PM aims for personal bond with Trump in whirlwind Washington trip
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba didn’t skimp on legwork as he prepared for his first Trump meeting.
He huddled with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after Trump hosted them at the White House, and sought advice from his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
“It will be our first face-to-face talks, so I would like to focus on building a personal relationship of trust between the two of us,” Ishiba told reporters his White House visit Friday.
▶ Read more about the Ishiba-Trump meeting
Judge in Boston hears from 18 states asking to block birthright citizenship ban
A federal judge in Boston on Friday will consider a request from 18 state attorneys general to block Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally.
A federal judge in Seattle blocked the order Thursday, saying Trump is trying to change the Constitution with an executive order. A Maryland judge also issued a nationwide pause.
The Trump administration says such children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
The state attorneys general and the cities of San Francisco and Washington want Judge Leo Sorokin to issue a preliminary injunction. They call it a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship.”
▶ Read more about the court battles over birthright citizenship
House GOP rushing to produce Trump’s big budget bill cutting programs and taxes
House Republicans are working overtime after a lengthy White House meeting to meet President Donald Trump’s demand for a big budget package that includes some $3 trillion in tax breaks, massive program cuts and a possible extension of the nation’s debt limit to allow more borrowing and prevent a federal default.
Speaker Mike Johnson had GOP lawmakers working into the night ahead of a self-imposed Friday deadline to produce the package. Trump popped in and out of their nearly five-hour Cabinet room meeting Thursday with a simple message: Get it done.
On their list: making tax cuts that expire at the end of this year permanent, cutting spending on federal programs and ensuring Trump has enough money to launch his deportation operation and finish building the U.S-Mexico border wall.
▶ Read more about the House budget package
US allies in Europe join ICC against Trump’s sanctions over Israel
The International Criminal Court on Friday called on its member states to stand up against sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump, saying that the move was an attempt to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”
And the embattled court got plenty of support from traditional U.S. allies in Europe who stood up against the Trump measure. Trump’s executive order on Thursday imposing sanctions on the court because of its investigations of Israel.
Neither nation recognizes the court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes over his military response in Gaza following the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023.
▶ Read more about the response to Trump’s ICC sanctions
House speaker and Israeli leader to meet
Friday's encounter is a make-up date because House Speaker Mike Johnson missed a scheduled meeting with Netanyahu at the Capitol.
That’s because the speaker and other congressional Republicans were at the White House Thursday in a meeting with Trump and other officials that stretched well into the late afternoon.
Trump popped in and out of the nearly five-hour meeting as the Republicans, who have struggled to agree on their agenda, hammered out differences in the Cabinet Room. They ended up staying so long they were served turkey-bacon sandwiches for lunch.
Trump signs order imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court over investigations of Israel
Trump has signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court over investigations of Israel, a close U.S. ally.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of or recognizes the court. Israel is a close U.S. ally, and the court recently issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his actions toward Palestinians in Gaza after the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023.
Trump’s order says the ICC’s actions set a “dangerous precedent.” Sanctions include blocking ICC officials from entering the United States.
▶Read more about the executive order
DOJ ends program seizing Russian oligarchs’ assets over Ukraine invasion
The Trump administration’s Justice Department has disbanded a Biden-era program aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs as a means to punish Russia for invading Ukraine.
The move to disband Task Force KleptoCapture is one of several moves undertaken by the Justice Department under the new leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi that presage a different approach toward Russia and national security issues.
The department also ended the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation.
▶Read more about the DOJ changes under Trump