In today’s issue:
- Speaker, Trump promote funding bill
- Musk is ground zero for DOGE challenges
- Are courts the guardrails against “King” Trump?
- U.S., Ukraine to meet Wednesday
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says he has the votes to dodge a possible government shutdown by next weekend. A floor vote could happen Tuesday under his plan, which envisions Senate approval before Friday.
Johnson is betting that failure to fund government operations will be viewed by his colleagues as a risk when Republicans draft a longer-term budget to anchor President Trump’s agenda in law. But it raises GOP concerns about defense spending.
▪ The Hill: Three groups to watch during the final push to fund the government.
▪ The Hill: Democrats in districts Trump won in November confront a tough choice on a spending bill that would last through Sept. 30.
Meanwhile, the president is steaming ahead with unprecedented federal layoffs, buyouts, frozen government contracts and shuttered agencies, which GOP lawmakers find themselves defending among constituents.
Johnson is counting on the president — who supports the House interim measure and turned to social media with the message “NO DISSENT” — to twist GOP arms in both chambers this week. Nothing is guaranteed and Democrats say they oppose Republican priorities.
The six-month continuing resolution would cut $13 billion from the government’s 2024 funding level, increase spending for border security and hike defense spending by about $6 billion. Senate Republicans must clear anything the House can pass by a 60-vote threshold. Another hurdle.
Text of the stopgap spending legislation released on Saturday is HERE.
TARIFFS (GRAB A SCORECARD): In the meantime, Trump’s seesawing tariff orders aimed at Canada and Mexico return this week in debate. And U.S. levies on global steel and aluminum are set to begin Wednesday.
👉 NPR tracker: A short history of Trump’s tariff announcements (as of Friday).
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, interviewed Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said steel and aluminum tariffs on foreign manufacturers, announced by Trump in February and reinforced by the president in the Oval Office on Thursday, remain on track to take effect this week.
The secretary said consumers will face higher costs in the near term. “Will there be distortions? Of course,” he said. “Foreign goods may get a little more expensive, but American goods are going to get cheaper, and you’re going to be helping Americans by buying American.”
The Washington Post: Trump’s tariffs face long odds in bid to bring factories home.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said potential higher U.S. prices resulting from tariffs worried him. “I think you have to think about the economic impacts through inflation,” he told CNN last week.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Lutnick, the face of Trump’s tariff whiplash.
▪ The Hill: Republicans in Congress worry that Trump tariffs could harm the U.S. economy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be in Canada later this week to meet with counterparts at the Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meeting where tariffs will be a topic. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s successor will soon be Mark Carney, Liberal Party voters decided on Sunday. The former banker, with an eye on Trump, used his victory speech to state, “Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form.”
Trump over the weekend threatened 250 percent levies on Canadian dairy, giving businesses and consumers another strong dose of angst. On Thursday, Trump announced a one-month pause on all tariffs on Canadian and Mexican products that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade treaty, known as the USMCA. That had, at least temporarily, given many industries, especially autos and agriculture, a major sigh of relief, CNN reported.
SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN
“Steady.” “Solid.” “No surprises.” These are three of the many ways you could describe the February jobs report, which was the first of this Trump administration. The economy added 151,000 jobs last month, slightly missing expectations, but accelerating from January. While looking under the hood, you can pick apart certain statistics to tout green chutes or highlight red flags.
However, here’s another way to look at it: The anticipation leading into this report won’t be going away anytime soon.
“If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said just hours after the release of the report.
Set those calendar reminders now. The first Friday of every month at 8:30am EST. It will be a barometer for the Trump White House and the economy going forward, and it will drive a big conversation for many months to come.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
▪ Some confirmed U.S. measles cases are tied to international travel, which is the case with a Maryland man who returned March 5 to the Washington, D.C., area after a trip. State and county health officials conducting contact tracing are trying to locate potentially exposed passengers on specific flights and in certain arrival areas at Dulles International Airport and at a Baltimore hospital emergency room two days later.
▪ The Hill’s multi-part series about Texas oil fields continues today with reporting about Trump’s deregulatory push and his plans to “drill, baby, drill.”
▪ Is the U.S. economy headed toward recession? Commerce Secretary Lutnick said “absolutely not” during a Sunday interview. Trump told Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked, “I hate to predict things like that.” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week said the economy continues to follow a track of “consistent growth.”
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | Kevin Lamarque, Reuters
THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY and Elon Musk do not “have the power to fire people.” That’s what Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told CNN on Sunday, emphasizing that Musk has told him repeatedly that he understands that fact. Authority to hire and fire belongs to Trump and members of the Cabinet.
The comments come as courts challenge the scope and power of Musk and the DOGE panel, which has run roughshod over the federal government in Trump’s second term, firing thousands of federal workers and dramatically reducing the scope of independent agencies. The results have been mixed, with chaos and uncertainty plaguing Washington as DOGE’s purported savings don’t add up and court challenges flood in from across the country.
Trump on Thursday told his Cabinet that Musk could only make recommendations about government reductions. On Wednesday, Republican senators told the tech billionaire that he needed to ask Congress to approve specific cuts, a process known as rescission. Senators said Musk had never heard of the process before, a striking admission given it’s the only way for the executive branch to legally refuse to spend congressionally appropriated money.
Lutnick on Sunday described Musk as a partner on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“There’s no one watching this TV right now, who, if Elon Musk said he was going to come over to their house and help them, wouldn’t like, cheer,” he said. “You have the best technologist and the richest guy in the world said, ‘I’ll help you.’ Come on, we want his help.”
The New York Times: Inside the explosive meeting where Trump officials clashed with Musk.
But among Americans, Musk continues to be unpopular. Just 39 percent had a favorable opinion of him in a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, roughly unchanged from January. It’s the same percentage as those who have a favorable view of DOGE. Ire directed at Musk online has translated into real life — Tesla storefronts, charging stations and vehicles have been vandalized across the country.
▪ NBC News: Musk’s Starlink has a growing footprint in the federal government.
▪ CNN: Tracking Trump’s overhaul of the federal workforce.
▪ The Washington Post: A U.S. district judge has ruled that the Trump administration must pay tens of millions of dollars in outstanding foreign aid by the end of today.
VETERANS’ AFFAIRS: Democratic lawmakers and veterans’ groups are fuming over the VA’s plans to cut roughly 80,000 employees in the coming months, decrying the lack of transparency and pushback from their GOP colleagues. VA Secretary Doug Collins, who confirmed the planned firings on Wednesday, maintained that the effort is difficult but necessary. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the development “a gut punch” and “breathtaking in its potential significance and its malevolence and cruelty” to former U.S. service members.
“We’re on a path downward here for the VA and it is the result of the malign, reckless, cruel policies of this administration, which unfortunately regards veterans as roadkill on the way to tax cuts through the revenue they’re trying to save,” Blumenthal told reporters via video call on Thursday. “They’re laying waste to the VA in the name of cutting waste, and they’re doing it with a meat axe.”
The New York Times: Inside the chaos at the VA.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: HHS has granted DOGE access to a sensitive child support database with troves of income data, overriding the objections of career employees. In an effort to link together traditionally separated government systems in search of duplicative or wasteful payments, DOGE has recently been trying to check personal tax records against federal benefits, grants and student loans.
The Hill: HHS workers were offered voluntary buyouts to resign from their jobs on Friday. The agency’s approximately 80,000 employees received an unsigned email offering them a “voluntary separation incentive payment.”
IMMIGRATION: After 3 weeks of Department of Homeland Security polygraph tests, Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday she located two employees who allegedly tipped journalists about immigration raid targets and plans to prosecute them as leakers.
▪ The Hill: Some of the secretary of State’s former Democratic colleagues are expressing regret over their support for Rubio to join Trump’s Cabinet.
▪ The Hill: Vice President Vance’s clout is on the rise, taking on the role of pot stirrer at the White House and on the world stage.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House will meet at noon. The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.
- The president at 2 p.m. will participate in a roundtable at the White House with the Technology CEO Council, the industry’s public policy advocacy organization, which says it’s focused currently on tax and trade. Trump at 3 p.m. will sign more executive orders in the Oval Office. He will hold a ceremonial swearing-in for Sean Curran, director of the U.S. Secret Service.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio is traveling to Saudi Arabia and Canada through March 14.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press | Evan Vucci
COURTS VS. “KING” TRUMP: The White House sees few limits on Trump’s executive powers, but the federal court system is much less sure. The Hill’s Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld write that Trump’s mass firings and dismantling of various independent agencies have run into hurdles in the judiciary.
Trump’s barrage of executive actions has sparked roughly 100 lawsuits, many of which challenge his expansionist view of presidential power. In one of the latest challenges, Democratic state attorneys general on Friday joined the fight over the administration’s mass terminations of federal employees still in their probationary period.
“A President who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in one ruling rebuking Trump last week, pointing to an image the White House shared on the social platform X depicting the president as royalty.
Trump last week deployed an executive order against a law firm he associates with foes. The firm does work for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is challenging Trump in court. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush, called Trump’s move inappropriate.
“I was shocked that the administration would go this far as to target a law firm in an executive order. I’ve never — never seen this,” Painter said.
▪ The Guardian: “Nothing like this in American history”: The crisis of Trump’s assault on the rule of law.
▪ Bloomberg Law’s “Weekend Law” podcast: Columbia University constitutional law expert Jamal Greene saidMusk “sure doesn’t sound like an adviser,” but more like a Cabinet official, based on the way Trump has publicly described the billionaire.
A TEA PARTY COMEBACK? Stalwarts who watched their movement fizzle are finding a new champion in Trump, writes The Hill’s Brett Samuels, and they see his second administration as a culmination and validation of their efforts. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who gave his first political speech at a Tea Party rally in Oshkosh, Wis., in 2009 as the movement was picking up steam, said he saw parallels to the 2010s conservative push when attending Trump rallies in recent years.
“The Tea Party sort of went dormant or atrophied after 2014, ’15, ’16,” Johnson said in an interview. “Until Trump came on the scene, and he reignited it in a different form.”
POLITICS: In Wisconsin, Democrats are launching a full-court press against Musk as they try to use angry voter sentiment as a tool to turn out voters in the high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Democrats argue conservative candidate Brad Schimel would be a “puppet” for Musk if he were to win the April 1 election, which will determine partisan control of the high court.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), now running for mayor of New York City, is working to woo centrists by appealing to voter concerns about crime and stressing his leadership bona fides as incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (D) finds himself mired in controversy. As he launched his political comeback attempt, Cuomo declared that the city is in “crisis” and needs “effective leadership” to ensure that government works.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | Jose Luis Magana
UKRAINE: In Ukraine’s Kursk region, Russian and North Korean forces have in recent days made significant battlefield advances, threatening Ukraine’s supply lines and its hold on a region it hopes to use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations. The attacks come as Kyiv faces a fundamentally transformed diplomatic situation, as Trump pressures Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to peace by halting military aid and intelligence sharing. Trump said Sunday on Fox News that Zelensky is a “smart and tough guy” and likened him getting U.S. aid from the Biden administration to taking “candy from a baby.”
“He [Zelensky] took money out of this country under Biden like taking candy from a baby. It was so easy,” Trump said. “I just don’t think he’s grateful.”
When asked about the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal and whether it will still go ahead, Trump said he “thinks so.”
Ukrainian and U.S. officials, including Rubio, will meet in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to discuss terms of a ceasefire with Russia. Zelensky is not expected to attend. The meeting comes after a similar meeting U.S. officials had in Riyadh two weeks ago with their Russian counterparts.
▪ The Washington Post: As Trump flip-flops on Ukraine, Zelensky rushes to fix ties.
▪ ABC News: The U.S. has “just about” lifted its freeze on intelligence sharing with Ukraine, Trump said Sunday.
▪ Reuters: Russian soldiers crept through a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian forces in Kursk.
GAZA CEASEFIRE: Adam Boehler, the White House special envoy for hostage affairs, said Sunday on CNN that a “deal” in which every hostage taken by Hamas in Gaza is freed “could come together in weeks.” Talks for the second phase of the ceasefire are set to start in Qatar today, as Israel confirmed it will send a delegation. Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Doha tomorrow.
The situation on the ground is fragile; Israel carried out an air strike in northern Gaza on Sunday, and in addition to blocking the entry of humanitarian aid to the enclave, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced Israel is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The territory’s desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water.
CANADA: Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada, will be Canada’s new prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party. Carney will inherit an unpopular government with opposition parties eager to trigger an election. Trudeau announced in January that he would step down as party leader due to increasing pressure from within the party as polls showed its support among voters tanking. But the Liberals have been buoyed in recent weeks by Trump’s chaotic trade war and “51st State” threats.
Now, Carney can call an election from the time Parliament meets again on March 24 to Oct. 20, by which time a vote must be held. Carney on Sunday pledged to “work day and night with one purpose, which is to build a stronger Canada for everyone.”
▪ Time magazine: Why Canada is giving Carney a shot.
▪ The Hill: Iran’s leader rejected Trump’s push for nuclear talks.
▪ The Hill: Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was released from prison Saturday after a court ruled his detention over insurrection charges was invalid.
OPINION
■ This is who loses in a trade war, by Karen Karniol-Tambour, guest essayist, The New York Times.
■ Trump’s dealmaking is all about him, by Timothy L. O’Brien, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | Andrew Harnik
And finally … 📞 On this day in 1876, 29-year-old scientist and inventor Alexander Graham Bell explored an idea that changed communications and eventually led to a world in which telephones in everyone’s hands became wireless, tiny computers.
The Scottish-born Bell developed his interest in speech over wires after working with the deaf alongside his father in London before moving to Boston from Canada in 1871 to teach at a school for the deaf. On March 7, 1876, Bell received a telephone patent and a few days later, made the first-ever telephone call to his inventive sidekick, Thomas Watson, uttering the now-famous phrase, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
Bell’s invention and his establishment of the Bell Telephone Company made him a wealthy man before he sold most of his stock by the 1880s and lost interest in telephony.
The Library of Congress digitized a collection of Bell’s documents describing his breakthrough experiment with sound wave vibrations that could replicate intelligible sound transmitted from one place to another.
A drawing Bell made while seeking a patent is in a collection at the National Archives and Records Administration HERE.
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