White House orders all federal staff to return to in-office work or resign

White House offers seven months’ salary to all federal employees who resign over in-person work directive

All federal employees will be required to return to in-person work or resign by next week, according to a memo from the office of personnel management obtained by the Guardian.

The form letter, sent by email on Tuesday evening, also includes a “deferred resignation letter” for federal employees to return before 6 February if they wish to resign and take a buyout worth seven months of salary instead of serving in a “reformed federal workforce”.

The memo adds that the “majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.”

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers, denounced the move in a statement.

“This offer should not be viewed as voluntary,” Kelley said. “Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”

Kelley also warned, ominously: “Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.”

The mass email sent to about two million federal workers on Tuesday, with the subject line, Fork in the Road, has now been posted in full on the website of the US office of personnel management.

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That subject line seems to offer a clue as to who came up with the idea of demanding that anyone who wants to keep their job sign up to harsher new conditions. As Kate Conger and Ryan Mac reported in their book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, the mass email Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022, demanding that they agree to be “hardcore” and work “long hours at high intensity” came with the very same subject line.

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The email sent on Tuesday used more refined language to make the same points, saying that “enhanced standards of conduct” would be applied to ensure that workers were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy” and that those who “engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination”.

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Apparently eager to take credit for the latest mass email, Musk pinned a post to his profile on the platform formerly known as Twitter on Tuesday with a photograph of a giant fork, which he said was an art piece he commissioned two years ago, titled, A Fork in the Road.

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During a briefing this afternoon, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to justify Donald Trump’s sweeping order to freeze federal funding by citing what she called important new research from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (or Doge), a special group that Trump has created, and the office of management and budget.

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“Doge and OMB also found that there was about to be 50m taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt claimed. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars”.

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While Leavitt did not offer any evidence to support this claim, and was not pressed to by reporters, the idea that the United States government planned to spend $50m to send condoms to Gaza quickly went viral, with an assist from Musk himself.

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The Fox pundit Jesse Watters even claimed that the condoms were being used by Hamas militants as balloons to float explosives into Israel.

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A review of the available evidence, however, suggests that the claim is almost certainly not true.

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According to a comprehensive report issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza. In fact, the accounting shows, there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, was sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.

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For the financial year 2023, the most recent for which data is available, only about $7m worth of condoms were distributed globally by USAid, and the vast majority of family-planning funds, 89%, were spent on programs in Africa.

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As Dan Evon of the non-profit News Literacy Project points out: “It’s also worth noting that this is not a Biden program. Trump, too, spent funds on sending contraceptives around the globe. In 2019, about $40m was spent on contraceptives by the Trump administration”.

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All federal employees will be required to return to in-person work or resign by next week, according to a memo from the office of personnel management obtained by the Guardian.

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Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers, denounced the move in a statement.

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Mark Milley, the retired army general who served as the most senior uniformed officer at the Pentagon as chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is to be stripped of his security detail and possibly demoted, senior administration officials tell Fox.

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According to the pro-Trump broadcaster’s report, incoming defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a former host on the network, plans to announce that he is “immediately pulling” Milley’s personal security detail and security clearance.

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The report continues: “The secretary is also directing the new acting Inspector General to conduct a review board to determine if enough evidence exists for Gen Milley to be stripped of a star in retirement based on his actions to ‘undermine the chain of command’ during President Donald Trump’s first term, officials say”.

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Trump has been enraged at Milley since the former general told reporters for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the New Yorker that he had spent the final weeks of 2020 terrified that Trump would attack Iran, either to cling to power or to sabotage the incoming Biden administration.

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Susan Glasser reported for the New Yorker in 2021 that Milley coordinated his efforts with another official now on Trump’s enemies list, Mike Pompeo:

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To prevent such an outcome, Milley had, since late in 2020, been having morning phone meetings, at 8 A.M. on most days, with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the hopes of getting the country safely through to Joe Biden’s Inauguration. The chairman, a burly four-star Army general who had been appointed to the post by Trump in 2019, referred to these meetings with his staff as the “land the plane” calls—as in, “both engines are out, the landing gear are stuck, we’re in an emergency situation. Our job is to land this plane safely and to do a peaceful transfer of power the 20th of January.

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Trump’s rage at Milley was so intense that, according to the indictment charging Trump with mishandling classified documents, he even showed a ghostwriter for Meadows a copy of secret plans for a US attack on Iran as part of his effort to undermine Milley.

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Audio of Trump’s conversation with the ghostwriter, obtained by CNN, suggested that Trump had pulled out the classified war plan because he wanted to convince the writer that it was Milley, not Trump, who really wanted to go to war. To that end, Trump wrongly described the four-page outline of the Pentagon’s plan for war with Iran as something Milley had typed up himself.

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Donald Trump has signed another executive order aimed at the transgender community on Tuesday, this time prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.

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“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” reads the president’s executive order.

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The order denotes that “child” or “children” means an individual or individuals under 19 years of age and that the term “pediatric” means relating to the medical care of a child. It also clarifies that the phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” entails puberty blockers, the use of hormones such as estrogen or testosterone, and surgical procedures. Much of what is mentioned is known as gender-affirming care.

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Read the full story here:

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A federal judge ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s sweeping directive to pause federal loans, grants and other financial assistance, Reuters reports.

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US district judge Loren AliKhan ordered the Trump administration not to implement the block on funding to existing programs, which was to have started on Tuesday at 5pm ET, until 3 February at a hearing in Washington DC federal court.

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Diane Yentel, the president of the National Council of Nonprofits, which brought the emergency lawsuit, celebrated the temporary victory in a post on X, writing: “We did it (for now)! Our lawsuit was successful – the US district court is blocking OMB from moving forward on its reckless plan to halt federal funding. The stay is until Monday, so still much more to do.”

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US district judge Loren AliKhan is holding a 4pm ET video hearing in the emergency lawsuit brought by the National Council of Nonprofits and small businesses to block Donald Trump’s immediate freeze on federal loans, grants and other financial assistance.

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Without intervention, the freeze is scheduled to begin at 5pm ET.

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According Diane Yentel, the president of the National Council of Nonprofits, the parties have asked the court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (or TRO) “to block the White House Office of Management and Budget from pausing all federal agency grants and loans”.

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Jeff Landry, Louisiana’s Republican governor, buried serious concerns about the Trump administration’s freeze on federal grant funds in a statement that opened by lauding the president’s “mandate to cut government waste and increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar”.

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In the statement, which was issued jointly with other Republican officials, Landry cautioned the office of management and budget to pursue a freeze on federal grant funding in a “responsible manner” so as to avoid “jeopardizing the financial stability of the state”.

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Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, acknowledged that Medicaid portals were down today in a post on X, calling the issue an “outage” and writing:

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“The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage. We have confirmed no payments have been affected – they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly.”

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Numerous lawmakers report that access to Medicaid funds had been frozen in states across the country, despite White House officials’ claims that the program would not be affected by the federal grant pause.

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“My office has heard from Community Health Centers across Massachusetts that are unable to access their Payment Management System at HHS,” wrote the Massachusetts representative Richard Neal on X. “This is how they get paid by the federal government. That’s 2 million people in MA whose health insurance is at risk.”

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According to the Chicago Sun-Times, officials were unable to access Medicaid funds across the state of Illinois.

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“Can confirm. Connecticut’s Medicaid payment system has been turned off,” wrote Connecticut senator Chris Murphy on X. “Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid. Discussions ongoing about whether services can continue.”

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“My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night’s federal funding freeze,” said the Oregon senator Ron Wyden on X. “This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed.”

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The claim: Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, claimed Americans are “safer because of the violent criminals that President Trump is removing from our communities”.

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The facts: Of the nearly 1,200 arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Sunday, nearly half of those detained did not have criminal records, according to NBC News.

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Just more than half of those arrested that day – nearly 52% – were considered “criminal arrests”, and the rest appeared to be non-violent offenders or people who had not committed any criminal offense other than crossing the border illegally, the outlet reports.

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The claim: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked to clarify Donald Trump’s comments last night that the US military entered California and “turned on the water” in the wake of the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles region.

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The facts: California state officials have pushed back on Trump’s claim, saying that the federal government restarted water pumps after they were turned off for maintenance.

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“The military did not enter California,” the state’s department of water resources said. “The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days.

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“State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful,” it added.

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Trump has continued to falsely claim that California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other officials refused to provide water from the northern part of the state to fight the fires. He also falsely claimed that Newsom prioritised the preservation of endangered fish over public safety.

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Mandatory programs like Medicaid and Snap food benefits will be excluded from the federal funding pause ordered by Donald Trump, the White House’s office of management and budget told lawmakers in a memo, Reuters reports.

n “[Any] program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the pause and exempted from this review process. In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause,” the memo said.

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The claim: “They illegally broke our nation’s laws and therefore they are criminals,” said Karoline Leavitt, referring to undocumented immigrants who have not been charged or convicted of crimes.

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The facts: Being in the US without proper authorization is not a crime. It is a civil offense.

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Leavitt repeatedly said that the freeze on federal grant funding would not impact direct federal assistance to individuals. But she did not answer questions about how aid that flows through organizations to individuals, like Meals on Wheels, would be impacted.

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She was also asked to confirm Medicaid would not be affected but sidestepped the question to repeat that Medicare and food stamps would not be impacted.

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“Whether you are a TikTok content creator, a blogger, a podcaster – if you are producing legitimate news content, no matter the medium, you will be allowed to apply for press credentials to this White House,” said Leavitt.

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It is unclear how long TikTok will remain available in the US, given a law that went into effect last week effectively banning the app.

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Karoline Leavitt, the youngest US press secretary in history, has begun the first briefing of Donald Trump’s second term.

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She will almost certainly face questions about the slew of executive actions that Trump unleashed during his first week in office, and a new measure by the office of management and budget to freeze federal grant money.

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The Senate has voted 77 to 22 to confirm Sean Duffy as the new secretary of transportation.

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Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin and a co-host on Fox Business, served in Congress from 2011 until 2019. Before being elected to public office, he was district attorney for Ashland county, Wisconsin, from 2002 to 2008.

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He was a cast member on The Real World: Boston in 1997 where he would meet his wife, the Fox news contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy.

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Duffy will oversee billions of dollars in unspent infrastructure funds and has promised safer Boeing planes, less regulation and help for companies developing self-driving cars.

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Duffy, Donald Trump’s nominee to be transportation secretary.”,”caption”:”Sean Duffy, Donald Trump’s nominee to be transportation secretary.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1738086991000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”12.56 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1738087272000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”13.01 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1738087273000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”13.01 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”13.01″,”title”:”Senate votes to confirm Sean Duffy as transportation secretary”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Tue 28 Jan 2025 22.13 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Tue 28 Jan 2025 05.41 EST”},{“id”:”679919068f086988fc9005af”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Four groups representing non-profits, public health professionals and small businesses have filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to freeze federal loans, grants and other financial assistance.

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The lawsuit takes aim at a directive the acting head of the US office of management and budget issued on Monday that could disrupt education and health care programs, housing assistance, disaster relief and other initiatives that depend on billions of federal dollars, Reuters reports.

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It argues that the pause in funding will have a “devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients who depend on the inflow of grant money”.

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Bernie Sanders, the Democratic senator from Vermont, has warned that the Trump’s administration’s order pausing all federal grants and loans will have “a devastating impact on the health and wellbeing on millions” of Americans.

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Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday:

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n

Let’s be clear. The Trump Administration’s action last night to suspend all federal grants and loans will have a devastating impact on the health and well-being of millions of children, seniors on fixed incomes, and the most vulnerable people in our country.

n

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“It is a dangerous move towards authoritarianism and it is blatantly unconstitutional,” Sanders said, adding that “our founding fathers explicitly gave Congress the power of the purse”.

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n

If President Trump wants to change our nation’s laws he has the right to ask Congress to change them. He does not have the right to violate the United States Constitution. He is not a king.”

n

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The top Democrats on the House judiciary and oversight committees are demanding answers from Donald Trump’s justice department in response to reports of widespread firings and reassignments of longtime civil servants at the department.

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“The professionals you summarily dismissed or transferred from components throughout the Justice Department … are part of an expert, non-political workforce tasked with protecting our national security and public safety,” Jamie Raskin of the judiciary committee and Gerry Connolly wrote in a letter to the acting attorney general.

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“Yet, you appear to have removed them from their offices without regard to their demonstrated competencies, their recognized achievements, or their devoted service to the Department, in some cases reassigning them to areas that are outside of their legal expertise.”

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Reports indicate that senior officials with decades of experience in everything from environmental law to antitrust cases were transferred to new roles unrelated to their background, which could result in a wave of resignations at the justice department. Other officials overseeing the immigration court system were dismissed from their jobs.

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Raskin and Connolly wrote, “By removing them from their positions in this hasty and unprincipled way, you have very likely violated longstanding federal laws.”

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Donald Trump has reportedly fired Democratic National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the labor board.

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The National Labor Relations Act strictly limits the president’s ability to remove members of the board and shields members from at-will firings, making Wilcox’s firing probably illegal. Wilcox said in a statement that she will pursue “all legal avenues to challenge my removal, which violates long-standing Supreme Court precedent”.

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Trump also fired the agency’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo – which he has the authority to do.

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Democrats and advocacy groups have blasted the order to pause federal grants, warning its effects would sow chaos.

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One of the programs potentially affected is Meals on Wheels, which addresses hunger by providing hot meals to seniors and is partly funded by the federal government.

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According to HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney, a spokesperson for the group said that “the uncertainty right now is creating chaos for local Meals on Wheels providers not knowing whether they should be serving meals today” and that “seniors will panic not knowing where their next meals will come from.”

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“More lawlessness and chaos in America as Donald Trump’s Administration blatantly disobeys the law by holding up virtually all vital funds that support programs in every community across the country,” said Senator Chuck Schumer in a statement. “If this continues, the American people will pay an awful price.”

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In a letter, senator Patty Murray, of Washington, and congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut – top Democrats on the House and Senate budget committees – said the move raised “extreme alarm.

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“The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country,” they wrote. “We write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.”

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Even before the office of management and budget circulated its memo on federal grants, government watchdogs warned that Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict funds already appropriated by congress could be illegal.

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In response to Trump’s executive actions ordering, among other measures, a 90-day pause on foreign development funds and restrictions on funding for “sanctuary cities”, the non-partisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) sent a letter to congress warning that Trump could be running afoul of the Impoundment Control Act.

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“Our constitutional system of checks and balances gives Congress the power of the purse,” the authors of the letter wrote.

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“Put simply, it is illegal and contrary to our constitutional structure for the president to disobey appropriations acts duly enacted after Congress publicly considers and determines funding levels for the federal government.”

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An internal memo sent by the White House on Monday instructs agencies to pause all federal grants while evaluating their compliance with Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), among others.

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“Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” wrote Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

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The memo included some vague caveats – including that agencies pause grants “to the extent permissible under applicable law”, although it is not clear how the agencies will interpret that. Another line in the memo stipulated that “nothing in this memo should be construed to impact Medicare or Social Security benefits.”

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The memo could impact billions of dollars of federal grant money for state, local and tribal governments.

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Donald Trump has said the release of the DeepSeek AI model by a Chinese firm should be a “wake-up call” for the US tech industry.

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DeepSeek, which was released last week, became the most downloaded app on Apple’s App Store on Monday, and appears to compete with the models of US leaders such as OpenAI while costing much less.

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“I’ve been reading about China and some of the companies in China… coming up with a faster method of AI, and [a] much less expensive method,” Trump told a meeting of House Republicans in Miami on Monday.

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“If it’s true – and nobody really knows if it is – I view that as a positive. You won’t be spending as much and you’ll get the same result, hopefully.

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He added that the app “should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.”

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“Because we have the greatest scientists in the world. We always have the ideas. We’re always first. We’re going to unleash our tech companies and we’re going to dominate the future like never before,” he said.

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Donald Trump has publicly questioned whether he might be allowed to run for a third term as US president.

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Under a constitutional amendment introduced in 1951, no individual is allowed to serve more than two terms in the White House.

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Speaking to a gathering of House Republicans in Florida on Monday, Trump said: “I’ve raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can’t use for myself, but I’m not 100% sure, because I don’t know.

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“I think I’m not allowed to run again. I’m not sure, am I allowed to run again?”

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The comments drew laughter from the audience.

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Among a number of executive orders signed by Donald Trump on Monday was one that the White House said was intended to eliminate “gender radicalism in the military”.

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The order directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, and is widely expected to lead to a ban.

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It said the adoption of a gender identity different to a person’s biological sex “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and was harmful to military readiness.

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During his first term, Trump said he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military. He did not fully follow through with that ban, but his administration froze recruitment of transgender people while allowing serving personnel to remain.

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Joe Biden overturned the decision when he took office in 2021.

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About 1.3 million active personnel serve in the military, Department of Defense data shows. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

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Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of all the latest from US politics.

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Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders late last night to remove diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from the military, reinstate thousands of troops who were kicked out for refusing COVID-19 vaccines, and direct officials to reassess the military’s policy on transgender troops.

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As Reuters reports, Trump signed the executive orders while flying back from Miami to Washington DC. One of the executive orders said that expressing a “gender identity” different from an individual’s sex at birth did not meet military standards.

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The move does appear to be paving the way for a ban of transgender soldiers in the military. Trump had tried to implement such a ban during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by Joe Biden shortly after he took office.

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Lawyers for transgender troops who challenged the ban in the courts during Trump’s first term have already pledged to fight a new ban.

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We’ll be bringing you more on this soon. In other developments:

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n
Yesterday Pete Hegseth, who narrowly secured enough votes to become defense secretary, referred to the names of Confederate generals that were once used for two key bases during his remarks to reporters as he entered the Pentagon on his first full day on the job. Hegseth referred to Fort Moore and Fort Liberty by their previous names, Fort Benning and Fort Bragg. The names honouring Confederate officers were changed under former Biden as part of an effort to reexamine US history and the Confederate legacy.

n
Trump has suggested that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app. When asked last night if Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, the US president said “I would say yes”, adding: “A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok.” Microsoft declined to comment.

n
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will reportedly be the first foreign leader to meet Trump at the White House since his inauguration. It is thought the meeting could come as early as next week.

n
Trump called the apparent success of an AI model released by Chinese company DeepSeek a “wake-up call” for US tech. The share prices of some of the leading tech firms fell on Monday following the release of the model, which can perform as well as existing models but at a much lower cost, according to its developers.

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Closing summary

As another frenetic day of the second Trump administration draws to a close, we will be wrapping up for the night. We will resume our live coverage on Wednesday morning. In the meantime, here is an overview of the day’s developments.

Executive order to pause federal grants causes ‘chaos’ and ‘uncertainty’ critics say. Democrats and advocacy groups blasted the order to pause federal grants, warning its effects would sow chaos.
Trump fires Democratic National Labor Relations Board member. Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the labor board, calls move illegal.
Reports of widespread DoJ firings spark outrage. The top Democrats on the House judiciary and oversight committees are demanding answers.
Medicare portals down across the country. Numerous lawmakers report access to Medicaid funds had been frozen in states across the country, despite White House officials’ claims that the program would not be affected by the federal grant pause.
A federal judge ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s sweeping directive to pause federal loans, grants and other financial assistance.
Trump signs an executive order prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.
Hegseth plans to investigate and punish Milley. Mark Milley, the retired army general who served as chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is to be stripped of his security detail and possibly demoted, senior administration officials tell Fox.
White House email demands all federal employees return to in-person work or resign. Employees have until 6 February to accept conditions or take buyout worth about 7 months pay.
Elon Musk appears to take credit for ‘fork in the road’ email to federal employees. Email sent to 2 million federal workers on Tuesday had same subject line as email Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022, demanding “hard core” work or resignation.
Fact or fiction? White House claims US spent $50m on condoms for Gaza. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt cited no evidence for claim of wasteful foreign aid; USAid accounting suggests it is probably false.

Elon Musk appears to take credit for ‘fork in the road’ email to federal employees

The mass email sent to about two million federal workers on Tuesday, with the subject line, Fork in the Road, has now been posted in full on the website of the US office of personnel management.

Fact or fiction? White House claims US spent $50m on condoms for Gaza

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt briefing the media on Thursday.

The Fox pundit Jesse Watters even claimed that the condoms were being used by Hamas militants as balloons to float explosives into Israel.

A review of the available evidence, however, suggests that the claim is almost certainly not true.

White House offers seven months’ salary to all federal employees who resign over in-person work directive

All federal employees will be required to return to in-person work or resign by next week, according to a memo from the office of personnel management obtained by the Guardian.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers, denounced the move in a statement.

Mark Milley to be stripped of security detail and possibly demoted in retirement, White House tells Fox

Susan Glasser reported for the New Yorker in 2021 that Milley coordinated his efforts with another official now on Trump’s enemies list, Mike Pompeo:

To prevent such an outcome, Milley had, since late in 2020, been having morning phone meetings, at 8 A.M. on most days, with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the hopes of getting the country safely through to Joe Biden’s Inauguration. The chairman, a burly four-star Army general who had been appointed to the post by Trump in 2019, referred to these meetings with his staff as the “land the plane” calls—as in, “both engines are out, the landing gear are stuck, we’re in an emergency situation. Our job is to land this plane safely and to do a peaceful transfer of power the 20th of January.

Last week, the US state department froze all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and changes to gender identity on existing passports in response to an executive order Trump signed on his first day.

That order – titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government – mandates that government-issued identification documents exclusively use “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female”.

These targeted orders have been met with much backlash from those within the trans community and their allies. In response to Trump’s order on the military, several current or prospective service members who are transgender are now suing both Trump and the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, citing that it violates the equal protection component of the fifth amendment.

“It’s very clear that this order, in combination with the other orders that we’ve seen over the past week, are meant to not protect anyone in this country, but rather to single-mindedly drive out transgender people of all ages from all walks of civic life,” said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

Seldin said the ACLU is reviewing the order “to understand what, if anything, has immediate effect versus what needs to go through continued agency action”.

Trump signs executive order to curtail gender transition for people under 19

Jenna Amatulli

Donald Trump has signed another executive order aimed at the transgender community on Tuesday, this time prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.

Read the full story here:

Fran Lawther

The Democratic senator for Virginia, Mark Warner, has reacted to a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s federal grants freeze:

Writing on X, Warner said: “This lawless, chaotic order is halted for now, but some of the damage is already done, with countless federal websites down. We’re going to fight to ensure this doesn’t ever go into effect.”

Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s funding freeze

A federal judge ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s sweeping directive to pause federal loans, grants and other financial assistance, Reuters reports.

Jocelyn Samuels, a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, confirmed in a statement that she was fired by Donald Trump by email at 10.30pm Monday night. Samuels, a Democrat who was initially appointed by Trump in 2020, then nominated for a second term by Joe Biden, said her firing was illegal.

The EEOC is a bipartisan commission of five presidentially appointed members, no more than three of whom can be members of the same party.

The commission is responsible for enforcing core federal laws against discrimination, including: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or sex; the Pregnancy Discrimination Act; the Equal Pay Act of 1963; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Grassroots organizers are urging Democratic lawmakers to use all the procedural tools at their disposal to stop the Trump administration from implementing the federal funding freeze.

Writing on Bluesky, Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, called the executive action “wildly unconstitutional” and told followers: “This is a great morning to call all your elected officials and ask them to absolutely lose their shit.”

Among other actions, Greenberg suggests in a post on the social media platform X, Senate Democrats should oppose all Trump cabinet nominees until this executive order is withdrawn and deny unanimous consent to slow Senate proceedings. “It’s a constitutional crisis,” she said. “There is absolutely no reason the Senate should be conducting business as usual.”

Source: www.theguardian.com