Trump and Elon Musk defend their attempts to downsize the federal government

The White House fired the inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday, a U.S. official said.

It comes a day after the watchdog’s office warned that the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID had made it all but impossible to monitor $8.2 billion in humanitarian funds.

The official, who had direct knowledge of the firing, was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House gave no reason for the firing, the official said. The dismissal was first reported by CNN.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t request more than $137,000 in repairs and upgrades to military housing at Fort McNair that will become his official residence, said a U.S. official familiar with the work order.

The official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss details of Hegseth’s housing and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, says the Army undertook the repairs on its own because the more than 100-year-old home had sat vacant for a year and needed security upgrades.

The cost came to light in a Jan. 30 notification to Congress from the Army and prompted calls for greater transparency by some Democratic lawmakers.

The Army chose the home for Hegseth based on what was available, and he didn’t seek the repairs, some of which are needed to bolster safety for the defense secretary, who is sixth in the line of succession for the presidency, the official said.

New court documents show that a former member of Treasury’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency unit had read-write access to Treasury’s payment system.

A Tuesday affidavit from Joseph Gioeli, deputy commissioner of transformation and modernization at Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service, said former DOGE employee Marko Elez briefly had read-write access to Treasury’s secure payment system, but Elez “did not access that system during that time, and was likely unaware that he had any such read/write access.”

A Treasury Department official wrote to federal lawmakers last week saying that individuals working with DOGE will have “read-only access” to the government’s payment system. A federal judge has placed a ban for now that prevents DOGE from accessing Treasury Department records containing sensitive personal data for millions of Americans.

Elez has since resigned from his role at Treasury after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism. Musk, in a post on his social media network X, said he would bring back Elez after Vice President JD Vance called for him to be rehired.

The president said he would abide by court decisions when judges block his administration’s actions.

“I always abide by the courts and then I’ll have to appeal it,” Trump said.

He complained several times about judges who’ve ruled against some of DOGE’s cuts, and said judges have “slowed down the momentum and it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books.”

The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump has ordered renamed the Gulf of America.

The reporter tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away, AP executives said. The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.

Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of The Associated Press, called the administration’s move unacceptable.

AP style is not only used by the agency. The AP Stylebook is relied on by thousands of journalists and other writers globally.

Demands by a president that a news organization comply with an order to change its content would seem to run counter to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from impeding the freedom of the press.

▶ Read more about the executive order as it relates to AP’s style

Seven Republican lawmakers from farm states have introduced legislation to safeguard a long-running $1.8 billion food-aid program run by the embattled U.S. aid agency.

The legislation would move the Food for Peace program under the Department of Agriculture.

Farmers, a politically important bloc for the Trump administration, have been affected by the administration’s freeze of foreign assistance funding.

Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, who joined in the proposed legislation, over the weekend thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for interceding to allow delivery of $560 million in U.S.-grown commodities intended for hunger programs worldwide. The food has been stuck in ports because of the administration’s abrupt cutoff of foreign assistance spending.

A federal appeals court has refused to halt a judge’s order requiring the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in federal grants and loans. States say the money remains frozen even after a court blocked a sweeping pause on federal funding.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned back the emergency appeal, though it said it expected the lower court judge to act quickly to clarify his order.

The Justice Department argued the sweeping lower court order to keep all federal grants and loans flowing was “intolerable judicial overreach.”

▶ Read more about the appeals court decision

The Associated Press reviewed a White House fact sheet on the order, which noted that “agencies will undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force and determine which agency components (or agencies themselves) may be eliminated or combined because their functions aren’t required by law.”

It also said that agencies should “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service.” There are plans for exceptions when it comes to immigration, law enforcement and public safety.

▶ Read more about the federal spending executive order

Trump said it’s “fine” if Congress has to approve of the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts, saying “We’ll get the vote.”

The president was responding to a question about comments from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who approved of DOGE’s work but said funding that is cut would need to come back to Congress.

Trump told reporters that Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was deemed wrongfully detained by Russia, will be at the White House around 10 p.m. EST on Tuesday.

Fogel was released and left Russian airspace on Tuesday with Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Trump.

Asked what the U.S. government offered in return for Fogel, Trump said: “Not much.”

“We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually,” Trump said. “I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.”

Fogel was arrested in August 2021 and was serving a 14-year prison sentence. His family and supporters said he had been traveling with medically prescribed marijuana, and he was designated by President Joe Biden’s administration as wrongfully detained in December.

Asked if it was a conflict for him to be examining the Pentagon’s books while he has lucrative government contracts with the department, Musk said he isn’t the one filing the contracts.

He said contracts are handled by someone at SpaceX, his space technology company.

But he said those working for him at the Department of Government Efficiency should let him know if they turn up a SpaceX contract that didn’t provide the best value to taxpayers.

He said he examined the Social Security system “and we’ve got people in there that are 150 years old. Now do you know anyone that’s 150?”

“I think they’re probably dead,” Musk said.

Musk said he and Trump talk often and that he asks about what actions to take and where in the government he should focus his efforts.

Trump said last week that he wants Musk to look at spending in the Department of Education and the military.

The billionaire joked that the scrutiny and the criticism of his work feels like a “daily proctology exam.”

The White House has barred an Associated Press reporter from covering Trump’s event in the Oval Office with Elon Musk.

That’s because it says AP’s style does not align with Trump’s executive order on renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

AP Executive Editor Julie Pace says, “It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

▶ Read the full statement from AP Executive Editor Julie Pace, as well as AP’s guidance on the Gulf of Mexico and Trump’s executive order regarding the name.

After meeting with Trump, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Tuesday that his country would be willing “right away” to take as many as 2,000 children in Gaza who have cancer or are otherwise ill.

Last week, the top World Health Organization official for Gaza Dr. Rik Peeperkorn said between 12,000 and 14,000 patients still need medical evacuation from the territory — including 5,000 children. At the current rate, he said medical evacuations will take five to 10 years and critically ill patients will die.

Asked about personal conflicts, Musk said everything’s in the open and anyone who is interested can see if he’s benefiting from the work of cutting government.

“Transparency is what builds trust,” he said.

He also pushed back against critics who have accused him of mounting a hostile takeover of the government.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what the people are going to get,” he said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

Musk says he wants to add “common-sense controls” to the federal spending. He says taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely and that to cut the waste is not “draconian.”

Trump put Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency to help eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in spending and trim the more than 2 million-person federal workforce.

Musk appeared with Trump in the Oval Office as the president prepared to sign an executive order concerning the billionaire’s work leading the Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk said there are some good people in the federal bureaucracy, but that they need to be accountable. He called the bureaucracy an “unelected” fourth branch of government and said the budget deficit must be addressed.

These are among Musk’s first public comments about his work overseeing DOGE.

Vice President JD Vance is traveling in Europe on his first overseas trip since becoming vice president.

He brought along his wife, Usha, and their three young children.

Vance addressed an AI summit in Paris earlier Tuesday. He will speak at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth says he welcomes the scrutiny of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency into the massive military budget. And he singled out climate programs for likely cuts.

The Defense Department, he said, “is not in business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We’re in the business of deterring and winning wars.”

Defense officials have long argued that climate change will have a broad and costly impact on the military and national security, and have worked to reduce those risks and the department’s energy use. Rising sea levels could swamp coastal bases and melting Arctic icecaps have opened sea lanes, escalating competition with China, Russia and others over valuable minerals in that region.

Speaking to reporters in Germany, Hegseth said they will search for billions of dollars in savings.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and new budget director Russ Vought told Republican senators that they need more money for the the president’s border wall and deportation operations.

“Tom Homan said, ‘I am begging you for money,’” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the GOP Budget Committee chairman, after the closed party luncheon.

Vought told the senators the administration is “running out of money” to pay for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, Graham said.

Graham is pushing ahead with a $350 billion budget bill that includes $175 billion to fund Trump’s border and deportation policies for the next four years.

The Palestinian militant group said the president’s comments were “racist” and “a call for ethnic cleansing.”

The group declared Tuesday that Gaza’s residents have endured relentless bombardment and aggression but remain steadfast in their homeland.

In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, Hamas accused Trump of seeking to “liquidate the Palestinian cause and deny the national rights of the Palestinian people.”

Trump repeated his plan Tuesday for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and remove its population. Neighboring Arab governments and the Palestinians have roundly rejected the idea.

United Nations experts define ethnic cleansing as a policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another group from certain areas “by violent and terror-inspiring means.”

It comes as federal agencies work to comply with Trump’s executive order last month to release thousands of files.

The FBI said it’s working to transfer the records to the National Archives and Records Administration to be included in the declassification process.

The federal government in the early 1990s mandated that all documents related to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination be housed in a single collection at the National Archives. And while the vast majority of the collection — over 5 million records — has been made public, researchers estimate 3,000 files haven’t been released, either in whole or in part.

The FBI did not say in its statement what kind of information the newly discovered files contain.

▶ Read more about the FBI’s JFK records

The moves align with the Trump administration’s aggressive global trade agenda and ambitions to strengthen U.S. industry, but they could have an inverse effect.

On March 12, all steel imports will be taxed at a minimum of 25%, the result of two orders the president signed Monday that also include a 25% tariff on aluminum. That could have a serious impact on domestic auto companies including Ford, GM and Stellantis — and make these companies’ vehicles more expensive for the nation’s car buyers.

Tariffs on crucial products coming from outside of the U.S. places pressure on domestic sourcing of the materials, experts say. The basic rules of supply and demand could drive up costs.

▶ Read more about the tariffs’ effects on the auto industry

Following Tuesday’s meeting with Trump at the White House, Abdullah called on the U.S. to take a leading role in creating peace and stability in the Middle East.

He said addressing the dire humanitarian situation in war-torn Gaza by rebuilding it, not displacing its population, should be the main focus of all parties.

“This requires US leadership. President Trump is a man of peace,” Abdullah said in post on the social media platform X. “He was instrumental in securing the Gaza ceasefire. We look to US and all stakeholders in ensuring it holds.”

A “just peace” would see an independent Palestinian state established alongside Israel, Abdullah said.

He plans to sign the executive order Tuesday that would also include strict limits on hiring.

The Associated Press reviewed a White House fact sheet on the order, which is intended to advance Elon Musk‘s work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency.

It said “agencies will undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force and determine which agency components (or agencies themselves) may be eliminated or combined because their functions aren’t required by law.”

It also said agencies should “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service.” There are plans for exceptions when it comes to immigration, law enforcement and public safety.

▶ Read more about Trump’s order on the federal workforce

The more than 230 research groups and 2,600 data users on Tuesday implored U.S. lawmakers to order the restoration of any data sets that were removed from the websites over the past two weeks.

Federal agencies at the beginning of the month took down scores of government webpages as staffers hurried to comply with President Trump’s order rolling back protections for transgender people, which required the removal of “gender ideology” language from websites, contracts and emails.

A federal judge Tuesday ordered government agencies to restore public access to health-related webpages and datasets they removed to comply with Trump’s executive order.

“Removing or curtailing access to these data, even temporarily, erodes the public trust that federal statistical and scientific agencies have earned,” the researchers said to congressional leaders in a letter which was organized by the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, the American Statistical Association, and the Population Association of America.

They say cuts to a federal research office that tracks students’ progress could leave the nation in the dark on schools’ effectiveness.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million at the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences, officials said.

Education Department spokesperson Madison Biedermann declined to share the names of vendors whose contracts were cut.

The cuts are counterproductive and destructive, said Rachel Dinkes, president and CEO of the Knowledge Alliance, a coalition of education research firms.

“Cutting out at the knees the one independent agency that helps improve student outcomes is ridiculous,” she said.

▶ Read more about DOGE’s education cuts

It’s the first step in what could be a wholesale reversal of the Biden administration effort in 2023 to remove names that honored Confederate leaders, including nine Army bases.

It sets up a potentially costly, complicated and delicate process that could run afoul of the law.

“As the president has said, and I’ve said as well, we’re not done there,” Defense Secretary Hegseth said Tuesday when asked about the decision to go back to the Fort Bragg name but change the service member it commemorates.

The move signals the potential for the Pentagon to do the same for the other renamed bases — skirting the law prohibiting the military from naming a base after a Confederate leader by finding another service member with the same name.

▶ Read more about Fort Bragg’s renaming

Terry Cole, Trump’s candidate, is Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security. Cole’s law enforcement background includes more than 20 years at the Drug Enforcement Administration, including assignments in Colombia, Afghanistan, Mexico and the Middle East.

Chad Chronister, the sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County, was Trump’s first choice to be DEA administrator, but he later withdrew from consideration. Chronister had faced backlash from some conservatives about his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ban was put in place last week by another federal New York jurist in response to a lawsuit 19 Democratic attorneys general brought against Trump.

Justice Department attorneys told Judge Jeannette A. Vargas in a filing Sunday that the ban was unconstitutional and needed to be immediately reversed.

Vargas made changes to the ban to clarify its reach. For instance, she said Treasury Department officers nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate can access the records, making it clear Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent isn’t subject to the ban.

The lawsuit contended Musk’s ‘DOGE’ team was composed of “political appointees” who shouldn’t have access to Treasury records handled by “civil servants” specially trained in protecting such sensitive information as Social Security and bank account numbers.

▶ Read more about the DOGE lawsuit

But he said it wouldn’t require committing funds and insisted he personally would not be involved in development.

“We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it,” Trump said of U.S. control in Gaza, which he said would be possible “under the U.S. authority,” without elaborating what that actually was. Trump has suggested Palestinians in the war-torn territory would be pushed into neighboring nations with no right of return.

The president spoke after meeting Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who was asked repeatedly by reporters about Trump’s plan to remake the Middle East, but didn’t make substantive comments on it nor the idea that his country could accept large numbers of new refugees from Gaza.

▶ Read more about Trump’s meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II

They might seem insignificant, inspiring jokes about the plastic vs. paper debate, but the plastic straw has come to symbolize a global pollution crisis over the past decade.

On Monday, President Trump waded into the issue when he signed an executive order to reverse a federal push away from plastic straws, declaring that paper straws “don’t work” and don’t last very long. Trump said he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using plastic straws, although they’ve been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life.

In 2015, video of a marine biologist pulling a plastic straw out of a turtle’s nose sparked outrage worldwide and countries and cities started banning them, starting with the Pacific Island nation Vanuatu and Seattle in 2018.

▶ Read more about Trump’s executive order on plastic straws

Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for President Donald Trump, left Russian airspace with Fogel, who’s from Pennsylvania, and he’s expected to be reunited with his family by the end of the day.

Fogel was arrested in August 2021, and was serving a 14-year prison sentence. His family and supporters said he was traveling with medically prescribed marijuana.

Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, said the U.S. and Russia “negotiated an exchange” to ensure Fogel’s release. He did not say what the U.S. side of the bargain entailed. Previous negotiations have occasionally involved reciprocal releases of Russians by the U.S. or its allies.

Waltz described the development as “a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.” Trump, a Republican, has promised to find a way to end the conflict.

▶ Read more about the American teacher being released

The Federal Emergency Management Agency workers are accused of circumventing leadership to make the transactions, which have been standard for years through a program helping with costs to care for migrants. Officials didn’t give details on how the workers violated policies.

On Monday, Elon Musk had posted on X that his team discovered payments used to house migrants in “luxury hotels.”

The employees terminated Tuesday were FEMA’s chief financial officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist, according to a statement.

They made “egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels,” the statement said.

Officials didn’t reply to emails seeking further comment.

U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington agreed Tuesday to issue a temporary restraining order requested by the Doctors for America advocacy group. The judge instructed the government to restore access to several webpages and datasets the group identified as missing from websites and to identify others that also were taken down “without adequate notice or reasoned explanation.”

On Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an order for agencies to use the term “sex” and not “gender” in federal policies and documents. In response, the Office of Personnel Management’s acting director required agency heads to eliminate any programs and take down any websites that promote “gender ideology.”

Doctors for America, represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, sued OPM, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.

▶ Read more about access to the websites

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President Donald Trump greets Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrives at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (Photo/Alex Brandon)

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President Donald Trump greets Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein, at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Trump welcomed Abdullah and Crown Prince Hussein at the entrance to the West Wing.

The president escalated tensions in the Middle East by saying Monday that the ceasefire in Gaza would end Saturday unless Hamas returned all the hostages taken in its October 7, 2023, attack against Israel.

Trump affirmed on Tuesday while greeting the king that the Saturday deadline was still in place.

“He’s a great man,” Trump said, gesturing to the king, before they stepped into the White House.

Murray, a Washington state Democrat, and the union leaders said federal workers are suffering panic attacks and losing sleep due to the “staggering and unprecedented assault” by the Trump administration and the country will suffer without them.

“They’re worried about their jobs. They’re worried about their families. They’re also worried about their work and the communities they serve,” Helen Bottcher, a former Environmental Protection Agency employee and current union leader in Seattle said during a news conference hosted by Murray.

The people being targeted inspect meat, make sure baby formula is safe, protect consumers from fraud, provide veterans with health care, send weather forecasts to wildland firefighters and ensure the Hanford nuclear waste cleanup is done properly, Murray said.

“They deserve better than to be threatened, intimidated and pushed out the door by Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” Murray said. “But make no mistake, we actually need these people to stay in their jobs or things are going to start breaking.”

“This War MUST and WILL END SOON — Too much Death and Destruction,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social website.

Most recently, Ukraine has offered to strike a deal with Trump for continued U.S. military support in exchange for developing Ukraine’s mineral industry, which would be a valuable source of rare earth elements needed to develop technology products.

Trump has said Europe should repay the U.S. what Washington has spent helping Kyiv.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s the first time all 13 have traveled together to the U.S.

The visit comes after Trump announced tariffs planned for Canada and Mexico that have since been suspended for a month — until March 1.

Doug Ford of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, and chair of the Council of the Federation, will lead the envoy for a series of meetings and events at the U.S. Capitol.

Ford recently said Canada will pause all retaliatory measures against the U.S. after news broke that the threat of tariffs has been put on hold for a month.

Trump wants Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners, to take steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.

The administration’s abrupt funding freeze also is forcing mass layoffs by the U.S. suppliers and contractors for USAID, including 750 furloughs at one U.S. company alone, Washington-based Chemonics International, the lawsuit filed Tuesday charges.

Trump administration appointee Pete Marocco is defending the USAID shutdown, claiming without evidence that “noncompliance” and “insubordination” by USAID staffers made it necessary.