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By Maggie Fick and Michael Erman

LONDON/NEW YORK, April 1 (Reuters) - Drugmakers are lobbying U.S. President Donald Trump to phase in tariffs on imported pharmaceutical products in hopes of reducing the sting from the charges and to allow time to shift manufacturing, according to four sources familiar with the discussions.

Trump is expected to unveil a massive tariff plan on Wednesday. He said on Sunday that the reciprocal tariffs he is due to announce will include all nations, not just a smaller group of 10 to 15 countries with the biggest trade imbalances.

He has also said he will soon declare tariffs on the pharma industry, which have been exempt from past trade wars, following his measures against other sectors.
The four sources, who asked not to be named because discussions between the administration and industry have been confidential, said it is their understanding that Trump will not announce specifics on any pharma tariffs on Wednesday.

Still, the largest multinational drug companies now expect U.S. tariffs targeting medical products are inevitable and hope to secure an incremental ramp-up to the 25% tariff the president has threatened, rather than 25% from day one, the four sources said.
By MIKE CATALINI

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker carried an all-night speech in protest of President Donald Trump’s agenda into Tuesday morning.

Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” He was still on the floor more than 12 hours later.

“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said at the start of his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them,.”
Jesse Pound

White House aides have drafted a proposal that would levy tariffs of roughly 20% on most imports, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The report cited three people familiar with the matter. It also said White House advisers cautioned that several options are still on the table, meaning the 20% tariffs may not come to pass. Another plan being considered is the country-by-country “reciprocal” approach, according to the Washington Post.

The report comes a day before April 2, when President Donald Trump is set to announce his larger plans for global trade. The date has loomed over Wall Street, where stocks have been struggling in part due to uncertainty around rapidly changing global trade policy.
Victory in this crucial swing state would be wind beneath Musk’s wings. Defeat would be seen as a humiliating setback.  
By Charlie Sykes, MSNBC columnist

Trailing $1 million checks, Elon Musk descended on Wisconsin on Sunday night as part of his final bid to buy Tuesday’s state Supreme Court race and solidify his positions as MAGA’s enforcer and kingmaker.

Despite his almost nonexistent relationship with the Badger State, Musk has put himself at the center of the campaign that will determine control of the state’s high court — dumping in at least $20 million, according to The Associated Press, to elect a Trump-friendly candidate — making it the most expensive judicial campaign in American history. Despite warnings that it might be illegal, Musk handed out two checks for $1 million each to voters who had signed his petition against activist judges. (State courts had turned down efforts by the state’s Democratic attorney general to block the handouts.)

For Wisconsin, the stakes are monumental: A win by conservative Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford would flip control of the seven-member court, which now has a 4-3 liberal majority, with consequences for the fate of abortion rights, as well as redistricting.

But the vote is also important for Musk, who has effectively made the contest a referendum on himself and his DOGE crusade.
Avery Lotz

President Trump and his allies for months have teased a third term for the already twice-elected commander-in-chief.

   Over the weekend, the president confirmed he's "not joking" about yet another term.

Why it matters: The 22nd Amendment bars presidents from being elected to a third term. Amending the Constitution is an arduous path that's unlikely to succeed — but Trump told NBC News there are "methods" by which he could serve again.

   There is virtually no possibility that the required two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-quarters of the U.S. states would vote to abolish the 22nd Amendment.
   Two-thirds of U.S. states can also call for a constitutional convention to propose an amendment, but 38 of 50 states still need to ratify any amendment.
   White House communications director Steven Cheung reiterated in a statement to Axios that Trump thinks "it's far too early to think about" a third term.

Driving the news: But scholars tell Axios they're taking Trump's comments seriously.

   "Why would there be a 22nd Amendment if it's inoperative?" asked Kimberly Wehle, a University of Baltimore law professor and constitutional law expert.
   She continued, "If the whole time it was meant to just set up some kind of game that could be outmaneuvered through tricky lawyering, that to me is not a legitimate or ethical position."

Here's what to know about the 22nd Amendment.
Story by Alex Henderson

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an independent think tank funded by Congress, is among the many agencies that is clashing with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the Elon Musk-led group that is coordinating with the Trump Administration in its push for mass layoffs of federal workers. Most USIP employees received termination notices, and at one point, employees refused to let DOGE staffers through their front door.

Moreover, USIP is fighting DOGE and the Trump Administration in court. According to Wired's Brian Barrett, court documents filed on Monday, March 31 "reveal the next phase of DOGE's plans for USIP."

Barrett explains, "The dramatic confrontations culminated in a full takeover, with former State Department official Kenneth Jackson assuming the role of president…. As of March 25, DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh — formerly installed at GSA (General Services Administration) — has replaced Jackson as the institute's acting president, the documents show. They further state that Cavanaugh has been instructed to transfer USIP's assets — including its real estate — to the GSA."
Alex Henderson

After Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election and chose Elon Musk to run a new advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Tesla/SpaceX/X.com CEO claimed that working at DOGE would require altruistic motives. DOGE, Musk warned, would require a selfless commitment to cutting waste from the United States' federal government — not a desire for cushy, easy employment.

On November 14, 2024, Musk cryptically tweeted, "Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero. What a great deal!"

But according to Forbes' Beatrice Nolan, some DOGE employees are drawing "six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries" — while putting thousands of federal government employees out of work.

In an article published on March 5, Nolan — drawing in part on recent reporting from Wired — reports, "Musk had initially claimed positions within DOGE would be 'tedious work' where 'compensation is zero'…. While DOGE has aggressively downsized government offices, some of its own members are earning top-tier federal salaries, Wired reported."
Condemnation of West for his latest stunt has been swift, with one person on X/Twitter writing: ‘This dude just needs to go away’
Greg Evans

Kanye West has sparked uproar once again after wearing a black Ku Klux Klan outfit during an interview released on Rumble by internet personality DJ Akademiks.

During the hour-long conversation, West, 47, made several controversial comments about other individuals in the music industry while wearing the black leather garment with the infamous pointed hood.

West had started the interview in a t-shirt designed by disgraced rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs and a necklace complete with a swastika medallion, which he had previously worn in a video with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

The rapper claimed that he had the outfit custom-made along with an identical white one. When asked if he had worn the controversial attire in public, West claimed that he wanted to wear it “yesterday” but was worried that people would “put me in a hospital for my outfit”.

Condemnation of West for his latest stunt has been swift, with one person on X/Twitter writing: “This dude just needs to go away.”
Story by Matthew Chapman

The Trump administration has suddenly disqualified $42 million in federal grants to schools in Michigan that had already been approved, reported FOX 2 Detroit on Monday.

The Michigan Department of Education "announced that just after 5 p.m. on March 28, education departments around the country received a notice from the U.S. Department of Education about a change in reimbursement policy. School districts that had received permission to submit delayed requests for late reimbursement for pre-approved projects will no longer receive the money," reported Jack Nissen.

The approval was yanked, per the report, "because the deadline for those requests was moved from March 28, 2026, to March 28, 2025, with the notice arriving just after the deadline was retroactively moved up."
Opinion by Staff

(ThyBlackMan.com) You are either against President Trump or you are for him. In the same vein, you are either for authoritarians running the federal government, or you are against it. You cannot be both.

Unfortunately, most institutions are proving to be weak in the face of authoritarianism. The Republican Party with their long history of promoting patriotism, family values and national security was the first institution to accept authoritarianism by anointing Donald Trump as their leader. We can no longer trust that any resemblance of the old Republican Party still exists to form any amount of political or moral resistance. As the livelihoods of everyday Americans are under constant threat, many of those who will be hurt by this authoritarian take over still support the president’s efforts.

At a ceremony in the White House’s East Room, the president recently signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education while surrounded by over a dozen children seated at school desks. Before sitting down, the president asked the group of assembled children if he should sign the order. The request was greeted by enthusiastic nods.
Story by Khaleda Rahman

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced on Monday that almost 10 million Social Security records have now been updated.

In a post on X, DOGE said the Social Security Administration has been executing a "major cleanup" of records over the past four weeks.

"Approximately 9.9 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked deceased. Another ~2 million to go," the post said.

Last week, an update from DOGE said that about seven million Social Security number holders listed as aged over 120 had been marked as deceased.
Story by Andrew Feinberg

The White House is angrily deflecting questions over how a Salvadoran man who had sought asylum in the United States was sent back to his home country despite having been granted protected legal status.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the deportation by claiming Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a leader of the notorious MS-13 gang who had engaged in human trafficking.

“Foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore, and it is within the President's executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities,” she said.

Just a day earlier, Justice Department lawyers admitted in a court filing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had mistakenly arrested and deported Abrego Garcia, despite being aware that he had been granted a form of protected legal status called “withholding of removal” in 2019 after an immigration judge found he would likely be targeted by gangs for persecution and torture if sent back to El Salvador, the place he’d fled when he came to the U.S. in 2011.
Story by Elizabeth Elkind

A normally sleepy procedural vote ended in drama for the House of Representatives after a rebellion by Republicans against their own party forced chamber proceedings to grind to a halt.

It puts the future in question for two key bills backed by the Trump administration that were slated to get a vote this week.

A mechanism known as a "rule vote," which traditionally falls along party lines and is not an expression of support or opposition to specific legislation, failed on Tuesday when nine Republicans joined Democrats in an extraordinary rebuke of GOP leaders.
ABC News

President Donald Trump said Monday he would "love" to run against former President Barack Obama when asked about a hypothetical matchup. Though the Constitution prevents a third term in office, Trump did not rule out seeking one when asked by NBC on Sunday.

"A lot of people want me to do it," Trump told NBC. He later told reporters on Air Force One, “I don’t want to talk about a third term right now ... No matter how you look at it, we got a long time to go."

Meanwhile, tariffs on imported autos are to go into effect on Wednesday. While economists predict Trump's tariffs will raise prices in the U.S., Trump told reporters Sunday that automakers "are going to make a lot of money," suggesting the measures would encourage companies "to build in the United States."
Story by Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Over the past two years, Kristy Allen sent around 3,000 pounds of honey to the St. Croix Valley Food Bank in northwest Wisconsin.

Allen runs The Beez Kneez in Burnett County, where she sells honey and bees and teaches bee-keeping classes. She participated in the Wisconsin Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, which paid Wisconsin farmers to produce food for local pantries and other organizations working to combat hunger. Without the program, she said, she couldn't have afforded to give that much honey to a food bank. She was paid $25,000 the first year and $15,000 the second year to do so.

It wasn't just a financial win — it was a gratifying one, too. She got a handwritten note from a woman across the state who had received her honey and wanted to express gratitude for Allen's hard work.
Story by insider@insider.com (John L. Dorman,Brent D. Griffiths)

For Wisconsin Republicans, regaining a conservative majority on the state's Supreme Court was a top priority.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, whose America PAC poured in more than $12 million to sway the pivotal judicial race in one of the country's premier swing states.

It wasn't enough.

On Tuesday, Musk's big bet on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race fell apart, as liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel in the most expensive judicial race in US history. The race was called for Crawford by CNN and NBC News.

Musk, the face of President Donald Trump's White House DOGE office, has been met with increasingly vocal opposition by voters over the task force's cost-cutting efforts. And the fallout from DOGE is also impacting Tesla, the company that catapulted Musk to international prominence.

Crawford's victory is a significant blow for Musk as DOGE's work continues to face increased scrutiny from the public and could lead to electoral gains for Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections.
A new supercut shows how Trump's predictions in both 2020 and 2024 didn't age very well.
By Ed Mazza

A new CNN supercut shows just how far off the mark President Donald Trump has been with his economic predictions.

Trump last year promised he would “immediately begin a brand-new Trump economic boom” if he won the election.

“It’ll be a boom!” he vowed. “We’re gonna turn this country around so fast.”

Instead, it’s been a bust as the market plunged from record highs in former President Joe Biden’s final weeks, to weeks of losses since Trump announced tariffs and other trade war measures.

Stocks tanked yet again on Thursday, and the market reached “correction” territory, which is when major indexes drop by 10%.
We'll be bringing you the very latest updates, pictures and video on this breaking news story
By Gina MartinezSenior News Reporter, Mirror US

A federal judge has dismissed the criminal case against New York City mayor Eric Adams.

The case was dismissed "with prejudice" meaning the Department of Justice cannot bring back the charges against Adams based on the same evidence used in the case, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Judge Dale Ho said there's "zero" evidence the case was politically motivated.
Story by Theo Burman

A cyber sleuth has posted on a prominent cybercrime forum what they claim is the largest social media data breach ever, which allegedly leaked information linked to more than 2.8 billion accounts on X, formerly Twitter.

The breach, which emerged on Tuesday, was flagged by cybersecurity group SafetyDetectives after a user identifying as "ThinkingOne" shared a massive 34GB CSV file online. The dataset reportedly combines two separate leaks, merging fresh metadata from a 2025 breach with email addresses stolen in a previous 2023 incident.

The Context
This leak could enable widespread phishing and identity scams by correlating email addresses with detailed metadata, including usernames, tweet history, and location data. The breach would rank among the largest data exposures in history in terms of account volume, raising serious questions about internal controls at the platform and its handling of past and ongoing cybersecurity threats.

What To Know
The new leak allegedly stems from a 400GB trove of user data said to have been exfiltrated by a disgruntled employee during mass layoffs at X following Musk's 2022 acquisition of the company, according to reports from Computing.
Story by S.V. Date

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is set to announce Wednesday his decision to unilaterally raise taxes on American importers by trillions of dollars over the next 10 years, potentially the biggest tax hike since World War II, with that cost getting passed along to consumers.

“It’s an extraordinary tax increase,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist with the American Action Forum and formerly the director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Trump has been touting his announcement of his new import taxes — which he is doing on his own, without congressional approval — as “liberation day” for weeks. White House officials declined on Tuesday to reveal exactly how large a tariff Trump would impose and on which countries, although his statements in recent days have suggested that it would be across the board.

“Essentially all of the countries,” he told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.

Earlier that day, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News: “Tariffs are going to raise about $600 billion a year, about $6 trillion over a 10-year period.”

If that figure is correct, that would make it the third biggest tax increase in U.S. history, at 2% of gross domestic product. Only the tax increases approved in Congress in 1941, 2.2% of GDP, and 1942, 5%, were larger, according to statistics compiled by the Tax Foundation.
Story by Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University

I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums.

I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society.

This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, I’ve integrated the institution’s exhibits into my history courses.

The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history.

On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which asserted, “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
Story by Aurora DeStefano

While the world’s richest man Elon Musk has been promoting drastic cuts to the federal budget and workplaces, two Democratic lawmakers in New York are introducing a bill today to audit the so-called Buffalo Billion project.

The State of New York spent nearly $1 Billion ($959 million) to build an industrial plant near Buffalo which Musk’s company Tesla reportedly leases for $1 a year. (The plant currently produces chargers and related components for Tesla cars and trucks.)

Note: The bill is called “New York Determining Obligations and Guaranteeing Enforcement (DOGE) in Government Contracting Act.”

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and State Assemblyman Micah Lasher said in a statement: “It is the height of hypocrisy that Elon Musk, the man who is dismantling federal agencies and doing enormous damage on the basis of wildly unsubstantiated claims of waste, fraud and abuse, is the beneficiary of one of the biggest, shadiest subsidy deals of all time.”
Story by asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey)

President Donald Trump's highly-anticipated new round of tariffs is here, and it could mean increased prices on a range of goods Americans rely on.

On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order announcing reciprocal tariffs on all countries that have placed tariffs on US goods. These tariffs fall on Trump's so-called "Liberation Day," which the president has been touting for weeks as the day when his expansive trade plan would drop.

"April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again," Trump said during Wednesday remarks.

The motivation for the reciprocal tariffs: "They do it to us, and we do it to them," Trump said. "Very simple. Can't get any simpler than that." He added that all of the tariffs would have a baseline 10% tariff rate.

Trump said during his remarks that he would charge countries "approximately half" of what those countries have been charging the US. Trump said that would amount to a 32% tariff on goods from China, 20% tariff for the European Union, 32% tariff for Taiwan, and 26% tariff for India.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters he can edit federal spending and revenue baselines as the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

“As Budget Chairman, under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act, I have the authority to determine baseline numbers for spending and revenue. Under that authority, I have determined that current policy will be the budget baseline regarding taxation," Graham said, according to HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic.

The full legislation text was posted on the committee's website.

The remark quickly led to ridicule from Democrats and critics on social media, who called out perceived hypocrisy from the GOP.

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz (HI) swiftly called out the financial impact.

"They are going to double the debt," he cautioned on X.
Story by Nicole Lafond

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, obtained private emails that show the acting commissioner of Social Security purposely canceled contracts the Social Security Administration holds with the state of Maine as some sort of political payback against Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.

Connolly outlined the correspondence in a letter, which appears to have been originally obtained by HuffPost. The emails reportedly show that acting commissioner Leland Dudek asked Social Security staff to provide him with information on what contracts the state of Maine holds with the SSA. He made the request about one week after President Trump got into a public fight with Mills over his at the time new executive order banning trans women and girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

Social Security staff reportedly told Dudek that Maine, like all states, has a contract with the Social Security Administration that allows infants to be assigned Social Security numbers at birth. The contract also aides in state death verifications.

Per HuffPost:

According to emails obtained by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Social Security staff informed Dudek that canceling the contracts “would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft.”

Dudek told his staff to go for it.

“Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” Dudek wrote, referring to Mills.

Canceling the vital records contracts would make it more difficult for the federal government to track births and deaths in Maine, hampering efforts to prevent fraud across government agencies, all of which use Social Security records to prevent improper payments.
Story by Namrata Sen

A substantial data breach has been reported at Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, impacting millions of accounts.

What Happened
The cybersecurity team at SafetyDetectives stumbled upon a post on BreachForums, a hacking message board. The post, made by a user named ThinkingOne, contained a 34 GB CSV file with over 201 million entries of data purportedly from X users.

X did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

X Data Leak Expands Risks
ThinkingOne cross-referenced the 2025 leak with a January 2023 X data breach, which contained email addresses of 209 million users. Although the older breach had less metadata, it included private email addresses. As a result, ThinkingOne compiled a file on 201 million active users from the 2025 leak whose emails had already been exposed.
Story by Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, CNN

When Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden faced intense scrutiny for their handling of classified material, top officials now serving in Trump’s Justice Department and FBI demanded criminal probes and severe penalties.

Yet today, those same figures – including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, and DC interim US Attorney Ed Martin – have all declined to publicly criticize senior Trump officials who used Signal to share military attack plans in a chat that inadvertently included a journalist.

The Trump administration has denied any classified information was discussed in the text messages released by The Atlantic about plans to bomb rebels in Yemen, but CNN reported that information shared in the chat was highly classified at the time it was sent.

Bondi, now the country’s highest ranking law enforcement official, vigorously defended the officials who participated in the Signal chat, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and suggested it was unlikely their actions would be investigated criminally. But previously, Bondi argued that both Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin needed to face charges after emails that contained classified information were found on the computer of her ex-husband, former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner.

“This has everything to do with the security of our country,” Bondi said in January 2018 on Fox News. “When you have the top-secret security clearance that Huma Abedin had – you know when you send those emails that you are violating the law, and there is no objective law enforcement officer in this country that would not charge her based on that. Alright? No one.”
Story by thedailydigest.com

How much is one outlet estimating?
Donald Trump promised to drastically pare back government spending when he was on the campaign trail, and for the most part, the President has been keeping his promise to the American people. But there’s one minor hitch.

Trump’s breaking his promise
However, while Trump has given his political ally, Elon Musk, the power to slash his way through the federal government and cut any waste and fraud he finds, the President has been busy spending tax payer money in another area.

Golfing though his second term
According to a March 29th report from HuffPost, President Trump has visited one of his golf courses a whopping nine out of the ten weekends that he’s been in office. Let’s put the amount of time that Trump has spent golfing in his second term into perspective.

https://apnews.com/article/stocks-markets-rates-tariffs-52dbb020a4c41122e31669c2da236d67
Dow drops 1,500 as US stocks lead worldwide sell-off after Trump’s tariffs ignite a COVID-like shock
By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — Financial markets around the world are reeling Thursday following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe set of tariffs, and the U.S. stock market is taking the worst of it so far.

The S&P 500 was down 4.3% in morning trading, more than other major stock markets, and it’s on track for its worst day since COVID shattered the global economy five years ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,538 points, or 3.6%, as of 10:55 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 5.6% lower.

Little was spared in financial markets as fear flared globally about the potentially toxic mix of higher inflation and weakening economic growth that tariffs can create.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies fell. Even gold, which has hit records recently as investors sought something safer to own, pulled lower. Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 6.6% into what’s called a “bear market” after losing more than 20% from its record.
Rachel Maddow looks at the sloppiness with which new international tariffs were announced by Donald Trump, including small, island countries with no population to speak of and certainly no significant exports that require tariff protection for the U.S. economy.
Story by Housnia Shams

Donald Trump has reportedly fired at least three National Security Council staffers, after far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer pushed the US president to let them go.

Loomer met with Trump at the Oval Office on Wednesday and urged him to fire several members of his National Security Council staff that she deemed disloyal to him, CNN reported.

Officials fired include director for intelligence Brian Walsh, senior director for legislative affairs Thomas Boodry and David Feith, a senior director overseeing technology and national security, CNN reported.

Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles and national security adviser Mike Waltz were reportedly among those who participated in Wednesday's meeting.
Story by Alana Loftus

The Trump administration terminated the entire staff who were running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating bills.

The mass firings, which are one of many similar instances in recent months, threaten the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The program helps offset high utility bills for around 6.2 million households in the United States during. It provides relief for both high heating bills and cooling bills in the summer.

Executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, Mark Wolfe, told the New York Times, “They fired everybody, there’s nobody left to do anything. Either this was incredibly sloppy, or they intend to kill the program altogether.”
Story by Joe Kucinski

The sweeping tariffs signed into existence by President Donald Trump over the last week have sent shockwaves through the auto industry. Several automakers have suggested they may need to or will raise prices to counter the effects of the levies. The Ford Motor Company, however, is responding in a very different way: by offering their employee pricing program to everyone.

According to reports by The Detroit Free Press and Reuters, Ford will offer its so-called A-Plan pricing on most Ford and Lincoln vehicles to all buyers, not just those who work for the company, through June 2. A separate program that offers a free home charger and complimentary installation to those people who purchase or lease an all-electric vehicle has also been extended through June 30.

A new ad campaign called “From America, For America” has been launched to announce this new program. But the campaign does more than just communicate the discount program; it lets people know Ford employs more hourly workers and assembles more vehicles in America than any other automaker, according to the Free Press.
Story by Steve Benen

A month into Donald Trump’s second term, the president hosted a White House event for the National Governors Association, which didn’t quite go as planned. The Republican picked a fight with Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, over transgender student-athletes, apparently hoping to bully her into submission.

It didn’t work. “See you in court,” the governor told him.

Ideally, at this point, the dispute would be handled responsibly through a legal process. But as The Washington Post reported, the Trump administration appears to have settled on a different kind of course.

In an email first obtained by The Washington Post, Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security Administration chief, wrote that Mills was “disrespectful” and “unprofessional” toward Trump. Dudek added that canceling the contracts would lead to an increase in the number of improper payments, but he directed officials to do it anyway.

“Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” Dudek wrote, referring to Mills.
Story by Alex Henderson

On Wednesday afternoon, April 2, President Donald Trump had a visitor in the White House Oval Office: far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a self-described "proud Islamophobe" who is controversial even among fellow Trump supporters.

During the meeting, according to reporters Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Ken Bensinger, Loomer "pressed for him to fire National Security Council staff members whom she deemed disloyal to him."

The Times interviewed seven different sources with knowledge of the meeting. And according to Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Ken Bensinger, Trump "may act on some of Ms. Loomer's recommendations."

The Times journalists, in an article published the day after the meeting, reported, "Ms. Loomer's rhetoric and actions have been so extreme that she has alienated others even on the far right. She has shared a conspiracy theory on social media calling the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks an 'inside job.' During the 2024 campaign, Ms. Loomer said that 'the White House will smell like curry' if Kamala Harris were elected — a jab at her Indian heritage…. But on Wednesday afternoon, she sat with the president in the Oval Office, plying him with claims about staff members whom she insisted he should dismiss."
Story by Michael Hiltzik

The old political adage that "where you stand depends upon where you sit" has been getting aired out in Washington.

Republicans and conservatives used to celebrate judges' issuance of nationwide court injunctions to block Biden policies or progressive government programs.

Now that nationwide court injunctions are being used to block Trump policies, however, onetime fans of the practice have decided that it's unconstitutional and illegal and needs to be outlawed.

Law professors Nicholas Bagley and Samuel Bray
"When a single district court judge halts a law or policy across the entire country," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote his colleagues on Monday, "it can undermine the federal policymaking process and erode the ability of popularly elected officials to serve their constituents."

That's not untrue. But I couldn't find evidence that Jordan ever made this point before Trump came into office. I asked his committee staff to identify any such reference, but haven't heard back.

The issue of nationwide injunctions — in which federal judges apply their rulings beyond the specific plaintiffs who have brought suits in their courthouses — dovetails with another widely decried abuse of the judicial process. That's "judge-shopping," through which litigants connive to bring their cases before judges they assume will rule in their favor, typically by filing lawsuits in judicial divisions staffed by only a single judge whose predilections are known.

The combination of these schemes allowed conservative judges in remote federal courthouses to block major policy initiatives by President Biden, such as his efforts to enact student debt relief.
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