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More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to dismantle critical public services. We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations, the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honour those commitments. The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump's administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them. The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president's tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a flur
New FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn in Monday as acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, taking the helm of two separate and sprawling Justice Department agencies, according to a person familiar with the matter. Patel was sworn in at ATF headquarters just days after he became director of the FBI, said the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter. It's not immediately clear if President Donald Trump intends to nominate Patel for the ATF post, or what the administration's plans are for the agency that has long been the target of Republicans. Justice Department and White House officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. With about 5,500 employees, the ATF is responsible for enforcing the nation's laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Among other things, it's in charge of licensing federal firearms dealers, tracing guns used in crimes and analysing intelligence in ...
President Donald Trump said Saturday that nobody's ever seen anything" like his administration's sweeping effort to fire thousands of federal employees and shrink the size of government, congratulating himself for dominating Washington and sending bureaucrats packing. Addressing an adoring crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside the nation's capital, Trump promised, We're going to forge a new and lasting political majority that will drive American politics for generations to come. The president argues that voters gave him a mandate to overhaul government while cracking down on the US-Mexico border and extending tax cuts that were the signature policy of his first administration. Trump clicked easily back into campaign mode during his hour-plus speech, predicting that the GOP will continue to win and defy history, which has shown that a president's party typically struggles during midterm elections. He insisted of Republicans, I don't think we've been at th
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday met with a small contingent of the most politically endangered House Republicans as the party struggles to agree on a strategy for implementing the tax cuts and other priorities that it promised voters. The meeting happened as Trump tried to advance other priorities during the first week of his second term. Roughly 160 aides at National Security Council were sent home while they are reviewed to determine if they align with Trump's agenda. "The American people have been waiting for such a time as this," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor, met with Senate Republicans to update them on plans for deportations and reinstating what's known as Title 42, a policy that was put in place during the coronavirus pandemic to stop border crossings. Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, they have only thin majorities on Capitol Hill, and there are disagreements on how t
A Republican lawmaker has asked the US Department of Justice to preserve all records in connection with the "selective prosecution" of billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani and his group of companies by the Biden administration. The demand comes less than a week before the Donald Trump administration takes office. Rep Lance Gooden, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, in a letter on Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanded that the department preserve and produce all records and documents leading up to its decision to go after the Adani Group. In another letter to Garland on January 7, Gooden had raised serious concerns over the department's recent indictment of the group. The indictment alleged acts conducted entirely within India, involving Indian citizens and officials, with no apparent injury to US interests, he had noted. "The allegations in the Adani case, even if proven true, would still fail to make us the appropriate and final arbiter on the issue. The
President-elect Donald Trump likes the idea of one, big beautiful bill" for his top legislative priorities, but he emerged from a lengthy closed-door meeting with Republican senators late Wednesday open to other strategies as GOP leaders strain to develop a plan before the party gains full power in Washington. Trump said it feels great to be back inside the US Capitol for the first time since he left office four years ago, after the Jan 6, 2021, riot by his supporters. With his wife, Melania, he also paid tribute to the late President Jimmy Carter lying in state in the Rotunda ahead of funeral services Thursday. With Trump taking the oath of office on Jan 20, Republicans have no time to waste. We're looking at the one bill versus two bills, and whatever it is, it doesn't matter," Trump said about the conflicting strategies as he arrived. "We're going to get the result. More than 90 minutes later, after bantering with GOP senators on a wide range of topics, Trump exited with the sam
Jimmy Carter and the man he beat for president, Gerald Ford, got so tight after office that their friendship became a kind of buddy movie, complete with road trips that were never long enough because they had so much to gab about. Carter did not get along nearly so well with the other living presidents. The outsider president was an outlier after his presidency, too. Nevertheless, past and present Oval Office occupants will attend Carter's state funeral this week in what could be the largest gathering of the presidents club since five attended Washington services for George H W Bush in December 2018. As a member of that elite, informal club, Carter was uniquely positioned to do important work for his successors, whether Democrat or Republican. He achieved significant results at times, thanks to his public stature as a peacemaker, humanitarian and champion of democracy, and his deep relationships with foreign leaders, troublemakers included. But with Carter, you never knew when he'd
US President-elect Donald Trump appears to be siding with Elon Musk and his other backers in the tech industry as a dispute over immigration visas has divided his supporters. Trump, in an interview with the New York Post on Saturday, praised the use of visas to bring skilled foreign workers to the US. The topic has become a flashpoint within his conservative base. I've always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That's why we have them," Trump said. In fact, Trump has in the past criticised the H-1B visas, calling them very bad and unfair for US workers. During his first term as president, he unveiled a Hire American policy that directed changes to the programme to try to ensure the visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants. Despite his criticism of them and attempts to curb their use, he has also used the visas at his businesses in the past, something he acknowledged in his interview Saturday. I have many H-1B visas on my properties.
Republicans plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul the nation's voting procedures, seeing an opportunity with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to push through long-sought changes that include voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements. They say the measures are needed to restore public confidence in elections, an erosion of trust that Democrats note has been fuelled by false claims from President-elect Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In the new year, Republicans will be under pressure to address Trump's desires to change how elections are run in the US, something he continues to promote despite his win in November. The main legislation that Republicans expect to push will be versions of the American Confidence in Elections Act and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, said GOP Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chair of the Committee on House Administration, which handles election-related legislation. Th
The fate of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet is still unclear after Republican senators spent much of December carefully dodging questions about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's views on vaccines, accusations of sexual misconduct against Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard's 2017 meeting with then-President Bashar Assad of Syria. While some GOP senators have indicated they are all-in for Trump's picks, others have withheld support, for now, especially on some of his more controversial nominees. The dynamic is injecting uncertainty into the process as Republicans prepare to take the Senate majority in January with a four-seat margin and as Trump aggressively challenges them to confirm his Cabinet immediately. It's not unusual for senators to wait until after confirmation hearings to publicly announce a decision. But Republicans are under more pressure than usual as Trump and his allies make clear that they will confront senators who don't fall in line. You only have control of the Senate .
They warned about him. Now they'll have to work with him. A handful of prominent Democratic governors are quickly adjusting their approach to President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office, hoping to avoid antagonising him to ensure they'll have a working relationship with his new administration. They're in a precarious position: adopting caution while also weighing their party's desires to stake out early, and often combative, positions against Trump's agenda. It's a combination of fighting like hell if your values are attacked or if your innocent communities or innocent people are attacked. And then on the other hand, you're trying like heck also to find common ground on things that we could agree on, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is walking a similar tightrope, vowing to push back against Trump on potential policies against reproductive rights, while also appearing hopeful that sh
President-elect Donald Trump announced "success" in coming up with a new plan to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling a day before a government shutdown, urging Congress to swiftly pass it in votes as soon as Thursday evening. Trump's social media post landed as Republicans said they had narrowed in on a tentative accord after gruelling closed-door talks. The new plan would keep government running for three more months, add disaster assistance for hurricane-hit states and others, and allow more borrowing through January 30, 2027, Republicans said. "SUCCESS in Washington! Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal," Trump posted. Next steps were highly uncertain, and it was particularly unclear if Democrats, whose votes would certainly be needed on any package in the face of hardline Republican opposition, were on board -- or even brought into any negotiations. A government shutdown at risk, Johnson has been fighting to figure out how to meet Trump's .