February 10, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sent to prison on corruption charges surrounding his time in office.

Signing the pardon in the Oval Office, Trump described Blagojevich as a “very fine person” and said it was time to “let him have a normal life.”

Blagojevich, who was the Democratic governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, was removed from office and later convicted of charges that included a scheme to sell an appointment to fill the vacant Senate seat left by then-President Barack Obama.

Read more here about the pardon of the former governor

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to loosen restrictions on a law that bans US companies from bribing foreign officials.

“It takes courage to sign it, because you only get bad publicity when you sign it,” Trump said while signing the executive order.

The order reduces enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that restricts US companies to bribe foreign officials, arguing that the restriction puts American firms and businesses at a disadvantage to foreign competitors.

What to know: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act became law in 1977 and was amended in 1998 to apply to foreign firms and people who caused such bribes to take place within the US, according to the Department of Justice. With an expansive definition of the types of actions by foreign officials that would trigger the law, individuals and corporations can be prosecuted under the FCPA.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday.

President Donald Trump on Monday imposed a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States with no exceptions or exemptions.

Although the United States gets most of its steel from Canada, Brazil and Mexico, the tariffs are largely — albeit indirectly — aimed at China.

America imports very little steel directly from China, by far the world’s largest producer of steel. Steel tariffs of 25% launched in Trump’s first administration and continued by former President Joe Biden resulted in American importers shifting to other sources.

Read more details about the tariffs here

GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a closely watched vote on Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national inteligence, says he will support her.

A vote to break a filibuster of her nomination is underway now.

Steve Bannon arrives for a pre-trial conference hearing in his fraud case stemming from a fundraising effort to build a border wall, at New York Criminal Court in Manhattan on January 22.

Steve Bannon is in talks to plead guilty to criminal charges related to a fundraising campaign to build a wall along the southern US border, a person familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

Bannon, a right-wing podcast host and the chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has remained a strident supporter of the president. He served time in prison after being convicted in 2022 for not complying with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

Talks between Bannon and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office are ongoing and a deal has not been finalized, the person said. A court hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning, the person added.

A lawyer for Bannon declined to comment. A spokesperson for the district attorney couldn’t be reached.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he does not think there is a risk that President Donald Trump‘s administration will ignore federal court rulings against them, referring to the 1805 case of Marbury vs Madison that established judicial review of the other two branches of government.

Asked directly if he is concerned Trump will ignore decisions from federal courts, Cornyn said: “I don’t think that’s a risk. I honestly don’t. For the reason I said. I think to complain about the ruling of an individual district judge that’s been picked by a litigant because they thought that he or she would be more favorable to their cases”

Cornyn, a former Texas state judge and current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee added: “Those cases will be appealed to a circuit court or the Supreme Court that will ultimately decide and I would expect those decisions to be honored.”

Asked if Trump can dismantle federal agencies without Congress’s okay, he didn’t directly answer.

President Donald Trump said he is naming Ric Grenell, a longtime confidant already serving in multiple administration positions, to lead the Kennedy Center on a temporary basis after declaring himself the institution’s chairman late last week.

Some background: Trump on Friday said he was dismissing the Kennedy Center’s board and installing himself as its chairman. On Monday, a roster of previous board members had been scrubbed from the center’s website.

Among the board’s most immediate tasks had been to identify a replacement for the center’s president, Deborah Rutter, who announced last week her intent to step down. The board had retained a headhunting firm to help identify a new leader.

Grenell is currently serving as Trump’s envoy for special missions, a role that recently took him to Venezuela for meetings with the country’s leaders focused in part on releasing detained Americans.

He has also acted as a representative for the Trump administration in California as the state recovers from wildfires in Los Angeles.

Sen. Susan Collins speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill on December 11, 2024, in Washington, DC.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins said for the first time on Monday that she will support Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a big boost for President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Collins, who had declined to say how she would vote as she continued to review the nomination last week, told CNN that she plans to support Kennedy.

She was one of the few Republican senators who had not yet said how she would ultimately vote on the nominee. Her statement on Monday signals that Kennedy’s nomination has a path forward, after Sen. Bill Cassidy, another GOP swing vote, said last week he also supports Trump’s pick.

Collins said earlier in the day that she spoke to Kennedy about her “strong opposition” to “arbitrary” cuts to parts of the National Institutes of Health budget that she says could be “devastating” to critical research initiatives.

She told reporters Kennedy said he would “reexamine” the cuts, and “he seemed to understand the concerns I was raising.”

A federal judge has extended a pause on the deadline set by the Trump administration for federal workers to accept a deferred resignation and temporarily prohibited the government from soliciting more so-called buyouts.

The temporary restraining order announced from the bench on Monday by US District Judge George O’Toole will remain in place for now until the judge decides if he should indefinitely pause the offer’s deadline pending further court proceedings over the legality of the buyout program.

Some background: Last week, O’Toole initially extended the deadline until Monday, just before it was set to go into effect.

O’Toole, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, is continuing that earlier extension. The judge is likely to issue a written order in coming hours that more fully explains the terms of his order, but he did not say when that would come before leaving the bench Monday.

Before the rulings, eligible federal workers had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether to take the offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.

The pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions filed in US District Court in Massachusetts. In addition to halting the deadline to decide, the unions also want to “require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, rather than an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.”

CNN’s Tami Luhby, Alayna Treene and Tierney Sneed contributed reporting to this post, which was updated with background on the case and more about what could come next.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders at 5:30 p.m. from the Oval Office, the White House just said this afternoon.

This still from video taken February 7 shows the signage at US Agency for International Development being taped over.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development and its sweeping freeze on foreign assistance has made it more difficult to track potential misuse of US taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance, the agency’s independent watchdog said.

This means the money could end up unintentionally going to terrorist groups, according to a new report from the USAID Inspector General’s office.

The reports conclusion appears to undermine President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s arguments that their moves to abolish the agency will curtail fraud and fraud.

Although the report notes that the office has long “identified significant challenges and offered recommendations to improve Agency programming to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse,” it makes clear that the slashing of USAID personnel as well as the foreign assistance freeze have negatively impacted efforts at oversight.

USAID requires that programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen receive “partner vetting,” in order to ensure that taxpayer funds do not end up supporting groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, or the Houthis. According to the report, these vetting efforts have ground to a halt because of the reduction in staff at USAID.

In a high-stakes bid that could reshape the future of artificial intelligence, Elon Musk is leading a group of investors that have offered to buy OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, for $97.4 billion.

Musk has long feuded with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and he has filed a number of legal complaints against the company and Altman, claiming that the AI company and its leadership have misrepresented OpenAI as a philanthropy. Musk claims that OpenAI has broken with its founding charter by seeking to make a profit with its AI tools.

OpenAI is operated by a nonprofit that controls an entity called OpenAI LP, a for-profit company that exists within the larger company’s structure. That for-profit company took OpenAI from effectively worthless to a valuation of around $100 billion in just a few years — and Altman is largely credited as the mastermind of that plan and the key to the company’s success.

The massive investment from Musk, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, could give Musk majority control of the company that rivals his X.AI artificial intelligence company.

Read more here about Musk’s bid for OpenAI

Vice President JD Vance speaks alongside President Donald Trump during a news conference at the White House on January 30, in Washington, DC.

President Donald Trump doesn’t view Vice President JD Vance as his potential successor, but he does consider him “very capable,” he told Fox News’ Bret Baier during a pre-taped interview.

When asked if he sees the vice president as his successor, Trump was quick to respond: “No, but he’s very capable.”

“I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early, we’re just starting,” Trump added.

Trump swiftly pivoted the conversation to focus on his presidency.

Federal workers told a judge Monday that the Trump administration hasn’t reinstated US Agency for International Development employees who were put on leave, as was ordered by the court late last week.

This is the second time in the past four days where litigants have accused the administration of not complying with federal judges’ orders. It’s not clear yet if that is intentional, and if the examples are merely anecdotal.

Earlier on Monday, in a different case, a federal judge in Rhode Island found that the administration violated the “plain text” of an order unfreezing billions of dollars in federal aid.

In a new filing in the Washington, DC, federal court, federal workers with the Foreign Service and USAID who were put on leave by the administration last week said it doesn’t appear they were reinstated.

Judge Carl Nichols in Washington ordered the administration on Friday to reinstate the USAID workforce that had been put on leave, essentially pausing the Trump administration action as it tries to shut down the foreign aid work globally.

One USAID worker who works on treating HIV-positive patients said she lost access to her government laptop and cell phone at the end of January, and still has no access to federal systems. Others in sworn declarations in court on Monday echoed the same types of difficulties.

Some USAID employees said they weren’t being reinstated until political appointees approved.

As GOP hardliners spent the weekend pushing party leaders to cut deeper into Medicaid in an effort to advance Donald Trump’s tax and border agenda, swing-district Republicans have been warning the president directly that it would cost him control of the House.

Trump’s ability to pass his agenda through a narrowly divided Congress will depend on the outcome of a quickly escalating battle between ultra conservatives and swing-district members over spending cuts. Trump and his Capitol Hill counterparts, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, are now working to decide how deeply to slash spending on popular — yet expensive — programs like Medicaid, and how much of a potential political firestorm they’re willing to withstand.

That answer, so far, is unclear. House GOP leaders worked throughout the weekend to try to get clarity on just how far their conference and the White House would be willing to go.

Read more here about the GOP battle over Medicaid cuts

Nearly two dozen states sued the Trump administration Monday over cuts to public health research funding.

The Democratic attorneys general of 22 states alleged in the lawsuit that the newly announced cuts “will mean the abrupt loss of hundreds of millions of dollars that are already committed to employing tens of thousands of researchers and other workers, putting a halt to countless life-saving health research and cutting-edge technology initiatives.” The lawsuit also argued cutting funding would have “ripple effects into the private sector.”

The complaint indicated that the states will be seeking a temporary restraining order pausing the cuts, adding to the pile of quick-moving court proceedings challenging President Donald Trump’s aggressive reshaping of the federal government.

Under the challenged plan, funding from the National Institutes of Health known as indirect cost rates would be capped at 15%, from an average of more than 27%. Some research institutions, including Harvard, have rates higher than 60%, according to the NIH, which said in a post on X last week that the policy would save more than $4 billion a year.

Those rates are aimed at covering the various overhead costs — like facility costs, regulatory compliance and administrative support — that research institutions must account for to support their research. If the administration’s plans to cut those rates are not halted, the “cutting edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit, which was filed in Massachusetts federal court said.

NIH’s parent agency, the US Department of Health and Human Services, has the authority to make these changes, its director of communications, Andrew Nixon, told CNN in an email.

The White House also defended the new policy: “Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” spokesman Kush Desai said.

Sen. Majority Leader John Thune defended Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to serve as Director of National Intelligence, as Senate Republicans work to confirm her later this week.

At around 5:30 p.m. ET on Monday, the Senate is expected to vote on limiting debate on her nomination, one step closer to confirming the former Democratic congresswoman. Gabbard is one of President Donald Trump’s more controversial nominees, but she has secured the support of several key GOP swing votes, including Sens. Susan Collins and Todd Young.

Thune highlighted her military service and focused on her promise to “rightsize” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“I am glad that Ms. Gabbard plans to focus on identifying and eliminating redundancies and inefficiencies to restore the office to what it was originally designed to be,” he said.

He also said that he was “glad to hear” Gabbard refer to FISA Section 702, a key surveillance and security tool, as essential, after Gabbard seemed to go back and forth on her position on the issue.

“Tulsi Gabbard is a patriotic American. She believes strongly in the mission with which she’ll be tasked, keeping America safe,” he declared.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 7.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that “some serious people” from US President Donald Trump’s team will visit Ukraine this week ahead of a security conference in Germany.

Zelensky did not specify which “serious people” he was referring to.

Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky said he planned to meet with US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, as well as members of Trump’s team. The conference is taking place between February 14 and 16.

The Ukrainian leader said in his daily address on Monday that he is “preparing for substantive negotiations” with the US and European allies on Wednesday, referring to his country’s security and financial needs.

More background: The European Investment Bank announced on Monday that it, along with the European Commission, is set to approve a 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) contribution to Ukraine, which includes funds to help restore and protect the country’s energy systems.

Last week, Trump officially appointed 80-year-old retired Gen. Keith Kellogg as his envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg then announced he would discuss their vision for peace in Ukraine with allies at the Munich Security Conference. The US envoy is then expected, four days later, to visit Kyiv, for his first, long-anticipated trip there, according to Ukrainian state media.

Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed the division between the House and the Senate on Monday over how to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda. The Republican leader is trying to coalesce his narrow majority behind a budget plan that would advance one bill and the Senate forges ahead with its own two-bill strategy.

“I spent a good while talking with Lindsey Graham at the Super Bowl in the suite with the president, and he and I are on the same page,” he told CNN.

Graham, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, released bill text on Friday for a package that would give $150 billion to the military for defense and $175 billion for border security, with the intention to look at increasing funding for domestic energy and extending the 2017 tax cuts in another package. He is holding a markup on the bill in committee on Wednesday.

“There is no daylight between us. We all want exactly the same thing. We’re working on the best and most effective and efficient way to get there. I continue to believe it is the one-bill strategy,” he said. Johnson added that Graham “understands that,” but that senators “want to move and show some action.”

Graham later said that he prefers one bill, “but reality is something altogether different.” He argued that the Department of Homeland Security needs more funding as soon as possible to implement Trump’s border policies, and that waiting to finalize a more complex, comprehensive package is not acceptable.

Pressed by Raju on how much the Senate is complicating the process, Johnson responded, “I wouldn’t say it’s helpful,” but added, “we all feel the same sense of urgency.”

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus is rolling out its own budget blueprint amid the standoff within the House GOP conference about the path ahead. The caucus wants a two-bill strategy like Senate Republicans, but their bill differs greatly from that plan as well, setting up yet another complication in this process.

Their plan includes $200 billion in border and defense money (about half of what the Senate bill would), a debt ceiling increase to $4 trillion (not in Senate bill) and $486 billion in cuts they say will result in $286 billion in real deficit reduction over 10 years.

This post has been updated with details on the plan of the House Freedom Caucus and comments from Graham. CNN’s Lauren Fox contributed reporting to this post.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to deputize some workers, including Internal Revenue Service officers, to help with immigration enforcement, according to two memos obtained by CNN.

It’s the latest in a string moves to build out the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus.

In a memo dated February 7, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem listed department needs relating to immigration enforcement.

The memo states that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking help with building cases that “blend tax, immigration, and money laundering charges” and requesting the IRS partner with DHS to conduct employer investigations, as well as assist in identifying and dismantling financial networks supporting human smugglings, among other asks.

The memo also lists items DHS needs assistance with, such as helping with detention facility pick-ups and escorting and/or supporting interior transportation and removal of migrants

The memo notes that the administration has already extended authority to several Justice Department agencies, certain members of the Texas National Guard, among others.

The memo was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Former Illinois governor and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich speaks to the press outside of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on August 2, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.

President Donald Trump is planning to pardon former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, nearly five years after commuting Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence.

Blagojevich served eight years of a 14-year sentence after being accused of attempting to sell Barack Obama’s US senate seat after Obama won the 2008 presidential election.

Axios first reported on the expected pardon.

Trump and Blagojevich, who have known each other for more than a decade, have grown closer in the years since Trump commuted his sentence. Blagojevich has appeared at some Trump campaign events in recent years as well as met with Trump on occasion at Mar-a-Lago.

A federal judge on Monday, for the second time, told the Trump administration it can’t cut off grant and loan payments, after several Democratic-led states complained that the administration wasn’t obeying previous court orders and was still withholding federal funds from some groups.

The latest court order is yet another admonition from the federal judiciary that some of President Donald Trump’s executive actions since he took office four weeks ago may be legally unsound, especially as the president and his appointees try different tactics of stopping outgoing federal payments to non-profit groups and others.

The court’s order is aimed at restoring the flow of federal money to some programs, especially in the environment and health care sectors and at universities.

For instance, the states told the judge on Friday that meetings were canceled and money was being withheld related to climate and pollution grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, a Department of Energy rebate program and solar energy project, Head Start child care programs in Michigan and Vermont, National Institutes of Health work on dementia research, and the University of Washington’s HIV prevention program, among other things.

McConnell also noted that the administration attempting to freeze some federal funds is “likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an immediate pause of all scheduled or planned medical procedures related to gender transition for US service members in a memo issued last week.

The memo also formally paused the process of transgender individuals joining the military, following President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender service members.

The pause on medical procedures includes “newly initiated gender-affirming hormone therapy.”

The memo follows Trump’s executive order last month, which said the “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints” on transgender individuals are “inconsistent” with the needs of the military.

Outside of the physical or medical requirements, Trump’s order also took aim at the personal ethics of transgender service members, saying that their gender transition “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,” and is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

Hegseth’s memo said individuals “with gender dysphoria have volunteered to serve our country and will be treated with dignity and respect.”

The top federal official to handle government workers’ whistleblower complaints about political malfeasance is fighting to keep his job after the White House fired him on Friday.

Hampton Dellinger, the federal government’s Special Counsel, argues that he could only have been removed from his position for cause. He had been in the position for less than a year into his five-year term when an assistant to President Donald Trump told him he was “terminated, effective immediately” on Friday night.

Dellinger had been positioned to be a significant independent official in the government whom federal civil servants could go to as whistleblowers and have some protection from retaliation. Typically a relatively low-profile but important job in the federal workforce, the office is taking on new significance in Trump’s era of removing government employees after considering their political loyalties.

(The Office of Special Counsel is unrelated to the special counsels that have been used by the Justice Department in recent years to investigate Trump, President Joe Biden and others.)

Dellinger is seeking emergency help from the court, but the judge, Amy Berman Jackson of the DC District Court, hasn’t yet responded.

The immigration court backlog exceeds 4 million pending cases, according to new federal data, marking a record high that is likely to present a steep challenge for the Trump administration as it seeks to deport thousands of people.

Immigration courts fall under the Justice Department and decide whether to deport immigrants. They have been bogged down over the years as more cases are added to the docket that can be addressed at any given time.

The latest data, reflecting the first quarter of 2025, shows that there are more than 4 million cases pending before the immigration courts. The backlog, which includes people seeking asylum, doubled since fiscal year 2021 following migrant surges along the US southern border.

Cases have been piling on faster than judges can keep up. As a result, some immigration judges are scheduling hearings years in advance. One immigration judge told CNN their next availability is in 2027.

US President Donald Trump and Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum urged a “cool head” in response to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Sheinbaum said her government learned about the potential tariffs through media reports and would wait for an official announcement before making any decisions.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that he planned to announce a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports to the United States the following day.

Key context: Canada and Mexico are key steel suppliers to the US, with Canada being the top exporter and Mexico the third largest. According to data from the American Iron and Steel Institute, Canada accounts for nearly a quarter of steel imported by American businesses by weight, while Mexico accounts for about 12%.

Another key country: Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said his country will only respond to Trump’s 25% tariff threat if the measure is made official.

Brazil is the second-largest source of steel exports to the US, behind Canada, according to the US Department of Commerce.

This post has been updated with the Brazilian finance minister’s remarks and CNN’s Michael Rios and Duarte Mendonça contributed reporting.

Hamas announced that the next hostage release scheduled for Saturday will be postponed, alleging Israel had failed to abide by the terms of the agreement.

In a post on X, Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said that the handover of the prisoners “who were scheduled to be released next Saturday…will be postponed until further notice, and until the occupation commits to and compensates for the entitlements of the past weeks retroactively.”

He added: “We affirm our commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the occupation commits to them.”

Abu Obeida also posted: “During the past three weeks, the resistance leadership has monitored the enemy’s violations and failure to abide by the terms of the agreement; from delaying the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Strip, and not allowing the entry of relief supplies in all their forms according to what was agreed upon, while the resistance has implemented all its obligations.”

Earlier Monday, the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office said Israel had refused to allow the entry of shelter supplies specified in the ceasefire agreement.

What Israel is saying: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he has instructed the country’s military to “prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza,” after Hamas announced it was delaying the next scheduled release of hostages due Saturday.

The minister described Hamas’s postponement as a “complete violation of the ceasefire agreement and the deal to release the hostages,” in a statement Monday.

This comes as US President Donald Trump said explicitly in an interview this weekend that Palestinians would not have a right to return to Gaza under his plan to take US ownership of the strip and rebuild it.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks during a news conference at the Capitol on January 22, in Washington, DC.

In a lengthy letter to his Senate Democratic colleagues, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to shift blame for a potential government shutdown in March to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and congressional Republicans.

“Democrats stand ready to support legislation that will prevent a government shutdown. Congressional Republicans, despite their bluster, know full well that governing requires bipartisan negotiation and cooperation,” he continued. “Of course, legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes and Senate Democrats will use our votes to help steady the ship for the American people in these turbulent times. It is incumbent on responsible Republicans to get serious and work in a bipartisan fashion to avoid a Trump Shutdown.”

More context: CNN reported this weekend that congressional Democrats are divided at this point over whether to use the March 14 funding deadline to push for concessions from Republicans, with some arguing, “we’re not going to keep on bailing him out.” Republicans will need some Democratic support in the Senate, and also likely in the House, to avert a shutdown.

Schumer also used the letter to lay out Democrats’ approach to counter President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s disruption of federal agencies, focusing on supporting litigation against Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as well as the creation of a new whistleblower portal.

President Donald Trump says he has ordered the US Mint to stop making pennies, which he correctly says cost more than one cent to produce.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”

Trump actually undersold the cost argument — pennies cost more than 3 cents to produce.

But there’s a problem with his plan: Phasing out the penny could result in needing to make more nickels, and the US Treasury Department loses far more money on every nickel than it does on every penny.

Read the full story.

Ukrainian Servicemen fire a D-20 howitzer toward Russian troops near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine on February 6.

Keith Kellogg, the United States’ special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, will visit Ukraine next week, a Ukrainian government source told CNN on Monday.

Kellogg is expected to visit Ukraine next Thursday, February 20, the source said.

Kellogg will “provide comprehensive information on Russian aggression against our country,” Yermak said.

“Direct communication with the new US administration is very important for developing a common position on achieving a just peace,” he posted.

More on Trump’s stance on the Ukraine-Russia war: On Friday, President Donald Trump told reporters that he would “probably” meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this upcoming week and hinted that he planned to also talk with Putin.

Zelensky is expected to lead Ukraine’s delegation at the Munich Security Conference, which Vice President JD Vance and Kellogg are also scheduled to attend, but not Trump.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Samantha Waldenberg contributed reporting to this post.

Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the North through coastal Al-Rashid street in Gaza City, on January 27.

President Donald Trump said explicitly that Palestinians would not have a right to return to Gaza under his plan to take US ownership of the strip and rebuild it.

Trump had previously said he didn’t think Palestinians should return to their Gaza homeland, but is now stating clearly their displacement would be permanent.

Trump is set to met Tuesday with King Abdullah of Jordan, who along with his counterparts in Egypt and other Arab nations has flatly rejected Trump’s plan.

Trump told Fox his plan was to “own” Gaza.

“We’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is and in the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land,” he said.

If you’re confused by President Donald Trump’s tariff plan, you’re not alone.

Trump and his economic team have made many contradictory statements about the rationale for tariffs, leaving American multinational businesses unsure how to plan, and foreign countries unclear on how to negotiate. Trump launched massive and punishing import taxes on Canada and Mexico, only to postpone them for a month in exchange for relatively little from America’s neighbors. Across-the-board Chinese tariffs are on, but a repealed exemption on small items caused massive confusion at the US Postal Service and was temporarily put back in place. And more tariffs on steel and aluminum are expected to be announced Monday, before a potentially far more expansive reciprocal tariff plan is set to be announced later this week.

That may just be the beginning: Trump has hinted at launching tariffs on the European Union, and he has also promised a broader tariff on every single item that comes into the United States.

Tariffs serve an important purpose in the economy. The United States has frequently used tariffs to protect its manufacturing industry, farmers, technology and national security interests. While previous administrations — including Trump’s tariff-heavy first term — tended to use a scalpel as their preferred tariff tool, Trump in his second term is threatening to use a wrecking ball, saying he’ll place tariffs on many goods that the United States doesn’t even produce.

Corporate America, outraged by the tariffs, has lobbied hard against them. Mainstream economists largely agree that Trump’s tariff plan will reignite inflation and slow US economic growth. Last month, the Wall Street Journal’s editors, who typically side with the president’s policies, called Trump’s tariff plan “the dumbest trade war in history.”

But there’s a method behind Trump’s tariff plan.

Read the full analysis.

A third federal judge on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante in New Hampshire comes after two similar rulings by judges in Seattle and Maryland.

Laplante, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, said he wasn’t persuaded by the Trump administration’s defense of the executive order. He said he would issue a longer preliminary injunction later explaining his reasoning.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union contends that Trump’s order violates the Constitution and “attempts to upend one of the most fundamental American constitutional values.” It was brought on behalf of immigrant rights groups with members who are pregnant and whose children could be affected by the order.

Trump’s Republican administration asserts that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

The administration is appealing the Seattle-based judge’s block on Trump’s executive order.

At least nine lawsuits have been filed to challenge the birthright citizenship order.

President Donald Trump speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 6, in Washington, DC.

The Trump administration is fighting a court order from Saturday that restricts political appointees from accessing a critical Treasury Department payment system responsible for processing trillions of dollars in federal funds.

Tom Krause, the top political appointee at Treasury and a key ally of Elon Musk, responded in court Sunday night, explaining for the first time his controversial role in leading DOGE’s review of the federal payments system.

Krause wrote to a judge that he had never had “direct or personal” access to the payment system or any of the associated data attached to the billions of federal payments it processes. Instead, Krause characterized his access to the system as “so-called “over the shoulder,” meaning he can “view BFS payment data, payment systems, and copied source code” being accessed by Treasury employees who did have access to the system.

Krause added that he doesn’t want himself, other top Trump administration employees and some low-level workers to be “hamstrung” by the court’s orders, according to his sworn statement.

Krause said in his declaration to the court on Sunday that he is following the court’s orders, even after becoming the assistant secretary that oversees the payments systems. As Fiscal Assistant Secretary, Krause is the first political appointee in modern history to oversee the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the arcane office in charge of the critical payments system.

However, Krause said Marko Elez, who was working with him on the system from DOGE, resigned before the court order was issued and had turned in all of the electronics he used to access the system to the department on Friday.

Why this matters: DOGE and Krause’s efforts at Treasury have come under intense scrutiny, prompting more than one emergency court fight.

Concerns about his and DOGE’s use of the systems are largely around access to private data, though the payments system, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in the Treasury Department, has several other sensitivities. In the filing Sunday, Krause acknowledged the “security and continued operation” of BFS “is crucial to the smooth functioning of the global economy.”

According to CNN reporting, Krause previously indicated he and at least one other Trump appointee wanted to use the system to turn off some outgoing government payments to USAID.

Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, explicitly ordered employees on Monday to stop working altogether.

“Please do not perform any work tasks,” Vought wrote to CFPB staff in an email obtained by CNN.

Vought instructed employees that if there are “any urgent matters,” they must get approval in writing from the bureau’s chief legal officer before performing “any work task.”

“Otherwise, employees should stand down from performing any work task,” Vought wrote.

The language goes further than Vought’s order Saturday night, when he told CFPB staff to stop doing a wide variety of activities, including “all supervision and examination activity.”

Now, CFPB staff is being told not to do anything at all.

The messages in recent days have alarmed consumer advocates, who fear there is now no federal regulator protecting Americans from big banks, payday lenders and other financial institutions.

Vought reiterated on Monday the CFPB’s headquarters are closed today and that employees should not come to the office.

It’s a busy day in Washington, DC, today, with President Donald Trump expected to announce a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports on Monday, followed by more tariffs later in the week.

The president is also scheduled to sign more executive orders today at 1 p.m. ET.

Here’s what else is going on:

This post has been updated with more details on Trump’s schedule Monday.

Elon Musk arrives before the inauguration of Donald Trump inside the Capitol Rotunda of the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 20.

The vast and opaque power of Elon Musk is only growing as he seeks new targets for his federal government shredding machine.

The head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is closing in on his latest victim — an independent government agency set up to shield Americans from the Wall Street excesses that caused the Great Recession.

Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were told Sunday that the watchdog’s Washington, DC, headquarters will be closed this week and they should work remotely, a day after Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, took over as acting director and told staff to stop fighting financial abuse.

“CFPB RIP,” Musk wrote on X on Friday.

The agency, which has long been in GOP sights, seems to be following a similar path to doom as the US Agency for International Development, which has saved millions of lives around the world and promoted democracy for decades, but that Musk has eviscerated.

The role of Musk, with his unelected power, is unprecedented. The richest man in the world is firing or suspending government workers, destroying US soft global power, and accessing data and private information about potentially millions of Americans — all with zero accountability.

Multiple courts have now stepped in to temporarily halt Trump and Musk’s plans. But everything is trending toward one of the most significant showdowns over the scope of presidential power in modern history, which is destined for a Supreme Court whose conservative majority has an expansive view of executive authority.

Read the full analysis.

A customer walks by a display of fresh eggs at a grocery store on September 25, 2024 in San Anselmo, California.

The soaring price of eggs has alarmed consumers and the agriculture industry, and practically everyone in Washington is pointing fingers in various directions to direct blame.

It’s hard to lay America’s egg crisis at the feet of any one politician. But agricultural experts say politicians in Washington and around the country can do more to help curtail the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or avian flu, responsible for the deaths of more than 40 million egg-laying birds last year.

Because of short supply, egg prices rose 14% from November to December alone, and they are projected to rise another 20% this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Many politicians have used rising egg prices to turn the opposing party into a punching bag. For example, some Democrats in Congress were quick to criticize President Donald Trump’s chaotic agenda by noting that his actions to dismantle various aspects of the federal government will do nothing to lower the price of eggs.

Trump also campaigned on the promise to lower grocery prices for Americans. “When I win, I will immediately bring down prices, starting day one,” he said on the campaign trail.

Last week, pushing back, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said egg prices have continued to surge because “the Biden administration and the Department of Agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”

That’s not exactly correct. Yes, the highly contagious virus is to blame for the deaths of 130 million birds during the Biden administration since 2022, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. But that is because the USDA requires the culling of entire flocks to stop the spread if the virus is detected. It happened during the Biden administration and is happening right now under the Trump administration.

Read more about how the highly contagious virus can be managed and what it might mean for egg production here.

Like an object floating upward yet still underwater, the bare, vague bones of a peace plan for Ukraine are taking shape. Despite a relative silence in policy announcements on this war from an otherwise vocal Trump administration, the next two weeks may see significant route markers planted in public. Whether they gain any traction with the Kremlin remains unclear.

Last week, US President Donald Trump officially appointed 80-year-old retired Gen. Keith Kellogg as his envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Almost Kellogg’s first act was to announce he would discuss their vision for peace in Ukraine with allies at the Munich Security Conference, on February 14-16. He is then expected, four days later, to visit Kyiv, for his first, long-anticipated trip there, according to Ukrainian state media.

Kellogg’s every utterance is parsed by an anxious Kyiv. He hit back at suggestions that the Munich conference would see the outline of a peace plan revealed publicly, telling Newsmax: “The person who will present the peace plan is the president of the United States, not Keith Kellogg.” Trump will have the potential big reveal, it seems, after Kellogg consults with allies in Germany.

Trump has tried to kickstart the process, it seems in recent days, telling The New York Post Saturday he had spoken to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin about ending the war, but providing no details. The Kremlin declined to confirm that call, but spokesman Dmitri Peskov told CNN: “There could be something I don’t know.”

You might expect a complex, diplomatic symphony to strike up to try an end the largest war in Europe since the 1940s. Instead, in public at least, a scrappy version of online karaoke has the players involved struggling to hold together the same tune.

Read the full analysis.

A federal court on Sunday blocked the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants held in New Mexico to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba as part of the president’s immigration crackdown.

In a legal filing, lawyers for the men said the detainees “fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantanamo, i.e. Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang.”

It asked a US District Court in New Mexico for a temporary restraining order blocking their transfer, adding that “the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction.”

During a brief hearing, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the temporary order, which was opposed by the government, said Jessica Vosburgh, an attorney for the three men.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he planned to announce a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States on Monday.

“Aluminum, too,” he said.

Trump said he planned to hold a separate news conference Tuesday or Wednesday to announce massive new reciprocal tariffs, which could match other countries’ levies on US goods dollar-for-dollar.

“Very simply, it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said.

He did not provide many details about how expansive the new tariffs would be or when they may go into effect. It’s not clear whether the new steel and aluminum tariffs will be on top of the levies already in place on exports from countries like China. Last week, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese goods imported to the United States on top of all existing tariffs already in place on the country. The president has also paused 25% across-the-board tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports until March 1.

While the United States is not the manufacturing-focused economy it once was, it still consumes tens of millions of tons of steel a year.

Trump in 2018, during his previous administration, also put in place 25% tariffs on steel and 10% tariffs on aluminum, although the following year he lifted them on Mexico and Canada.

CNN’s Aileen Graef contributed to this report.

Recently struck pennies sit in a bin at the US Mint in Philadelphia on August 8, 2007.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt production of pennies, citing the high cost of producing one cent.

Some context: CNN has reported the US Mint in 2023 said it circulated around 4.1 billion pennies. In fiscal year 2024, the US Mint said in its annual report that the US penny costs about 3.7 cents to produce and distribute, up more than 20% from the previous year. The rising cost of metals, including zinc and copper, is part of the reason it’s getting more expensive to make the coin.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency emphasized the cost of manufacturing pennies in a post on X last month. People have advocated for eliminating the penny for years, as pennies are rarely spent as change.

Experts also say eliminating the penny could benefit businesses by saving time for store clerks and cashiers. Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives at the National Association of Convenience Stores, said about 52 million in-person cash transactions occur at convenience stores every day.

“If we save every one of these customers 2 seconds, that’s 104 million seconds or 1,203 days,” Lenard previously said to CNN.

CNN’s Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report.

People walk by destroyed buildings near Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip on February 10.

President Donald Trump doubled down on his plans for the US to redevelop Gaza, telling reporters Sunday that he viewed the war-torn region as a “big real estate site.”

“I think that it’s a big mistake to allow people — the Palestinians, or the people living in Gaza — to go back yet another time, and we don’t want Hamas going back. And think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we’ll slowly — very slowly, we’re in no rush — develop it,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled to the Super Bowl.

Trump, a former real estate magnate, described Gaza as a “demolition site” that would be “leveled out” and “fixed up.”

He again suggested that other Middle Eastern countries would house displaced Palestinians in “beautiful sites.”

Some context: Ninety percent of Gaza residents have been displaced, and many have been forced to move repeatedly amid Israel’s war against Hamas, according to the United Nations.

Regional leaders have rejected Trump’s plans, which break with decades of US foreign policy. Those plans are expected to be a key topic of discussion when the president hosts the king of Jordan at the White House this week.

But Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, suggested earlier Sunday that the president was offering an initial salvo to bring other players in the region to the table to find a solution.

“Come to the table with your plan if you don’t like his plan,” Waltz said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting the White House has received “all kinds of outreach” since Trump’s comments last week.