Monday, February 24 | By Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch |
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| ▪ Has Trump ventured beyond consumers' priority? ▪ Agencies tell workers to ignore DOGE email ▪ Budget progress still iffy in Congress ▪ Zelensky would quit presidency for Ukraine NATO membership |
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© The Associated Press | Alex Brandon |
Americans focus on their wallets as Trump policies roam |
President Trump is flying high while floating back to Earth. His influence is vast but polls at his one-month mark are flashing yellow. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday underscored that Trump is putting "considerable effort into policies that many Americans don't like, or don't consider very important." Fighting inflation motivates 58 percent of the survey's respondents. Just 32 percent approve of Trump's performance on prices, according to the survey of 4,000 U.S. adults nationwide. Fifty-three percent of the country opposes what they see from Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, while 42 percent of the country supports the endeavor. Trump has acknowledged higher inflation but tried to sidestep the topic last week during a Fox News interview. Both the president and Vice President JD Vance have said lowering grocery prices will take time. If the public takeaway is that Elon Musk and his "you're fired" sprint through the federal bureaucracy is too much, too fast, Trump's job approval rating, most recently at 45 percent, could be impacted. A decline in public sentiment could be showing up already, USA Today reports, as multiple polls conducted in mid-February have brought the president's net approval rating down, FiveThirtyEight's rolling poll average shows. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey, released last week, and recent surveys suggest a cautious public eager to see changes that benefit them and their finances. Amid Trump's freewheeling rallies last year, Susie Wiles, now the president's White House chief of staff, advised Trump to talk about the economy. "He'd be like, 'This economic stuff, people don't really care about it,'" Tony Fabrizio, Trump's chief campaign pollster, told The New York Times. "And she's like: 'They care about it. This is what will win us the election.'" Town hall meetings last week in congressional districts underscored constituent confusion and frustration. Republican members of Congress are increasingly rattled as they defend Trump's moves to shrink the federal government. Some conservatives believe the town hall complaints about executive orders and DOGE come primarily from moderates, liberals and independents and not Trump voters. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, defended Trump's efforts to reduce the size of the federal debt. But when pressed to speak directly to Oklahomans who are experiencing federal spending cuts firsthand, he replied, "I don't want anybody to lose their job. That's the last thing we want. But at the same time, any time you're trying to secure this country, which is a national security risk we have right now in our national debt, we have to make changes, and we have to make it quickly." Musk, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday, is doing "A GREAT JOB," adding, "I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE." That was a day after the president sent shock waves through the Pentagon by firing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and other Defense Department leaders. Musk issued an order late Saturday to 2.3 million federal workers to respond with five bullet points about what they had done in the past week. The deadline is today at 11:59 p.m. But agency heads stepped in to tell their workers not to respond. Musk warned in a post on X that failure to respond would be considered a resignation. But the email that workers received made no mention of that possible consequence, which lawyers said would be illegal. If carried out, such replies could violate federal laws because employees at some agencies are barred from disclosing information about their work to third parties without explicit authorization from direct-line supervisors, including in intelligence. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, blasted the Office of Personnel Management for Musk's weekend mass email to civil servants. Some lawmakers believe federal savings claimed by DOGE and Musk are questionable based on their math. Others argue the workforce firings and forced resignations ultimately will be evaluated as the opposite of efficient. A Wall Street Journal analysis of government data found that many claims of savings were overstated and that "woke" cuts were a small fraction of the total. ▪ The Wall Street Journal Trump tracker: What has the president done so far? ▪ The New York Times analysis: In Trump's alternative reality, lies and distortions drive change. |
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Smart Take
with Blake Burman |
| Remember when we used to talk about the presidency running through Florida and Ohio? Those days are a thing of the past, as they are solid red states. But they potentially have two fascinating races coming up. Will there be a Casey DeSantis vs. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) primary to become Florida's governor? "We're having internal conversations. Nothing really to put out right now," Donalds told me on Friday after receiving an endorsement from the president, "but I'm really appreciative of the support from President Trump." And what about a possible Jim Tressel vs. Vivek Ramaswamy matchup in Ohio? Ramaswamy is expected to make his move official today, while Tressel, a former legendary Ohio State head football coach turned lieutenant governor, could shake things up in the Buckeye State. Two states we used to talk about nonstop politically, and maybe we will see new and different intrigue soon. |
Burman hosts "The Hill" weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation. |
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© The Associated Press | John McDonnell |
FEDERAL AGENCIES ARE PUSHING BACK against Musk's email demanding federal workers list five accomplishments from the past week or risk losing their jobs. A growing list of agencies, including the Pentagon, FBI, State Department and intelligence community, on Sunday had told their employees to hold off on responding. The email has also elicited an angry response from federal employee unions. In a letter addressed to OPM acting director Charles Ezell, along with Musk, Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), directed its 800,000 members to not respond to the received request. In his letter, Kelly said the email fails to identify legal authority for OPM to make the request. "Federal employees report to their respective agencies through their established chains of command; they do not report to OPM," Kelly said. He slammed the message as "irresponsible" and a "sophomoric attempt" to cause confusion and intimidate federal workers. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) slammed Musk over his email, writing on the social platform X that "our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform. The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn't it." ▪ The Hill: Trump announced Sunday that he selected conservative radio and podcast commentator Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent, to be deputy FBI director. It is unprecedented in contemporary experience not to have FBI-experienced personnel in either of the top two positions leading the FBI. ▪ The Washington Post: FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to be sworn in early this week as the acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ▪ The Hill: Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) decision to conclude his storied political career marks the end of an era for Senate Republicans, especially as the longtime GOP leader increasingly signals he's unafraid to cross Trump. PENTAGON CUTS: Democratic lawmakers and former national security leaders are furious over Trump's Friday night purge of top Pentagon leadership, which they warned was a dangerous polarization of the military at a time of major geopolitical turmoil. The firing of Brown, as well as five other top defense officials, was met with a slew of backlash from those who say the decision will have a chilling effect on military leadership. Senior Senate Armed Services committee member Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called Trump's decision "incredibly reckless" and one that "dangerously politicizes our military and undermines our national security, military readiness, and the rule of law, ultimately making Americans less safe. The dismissals reveal the President's true intention — installing a group of 'yes men' with fealty to him and not the Constitution or the American people." ▪ NBC News: Mass federal layoffs deliver a gutting one-two punch to America's veterans. Veterans who lost their government jobs say they also have to worry about the potential fallout from cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. ▪ The Wall Street Journal: The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Caleb Vitello, was removed from his post amid frustration in the Trump administration that deportations haven't accelerated faster. ▪ The Hill: Cuts to the federal workforce are threatening to roil Virginia's off-year elections in November as Democrats seek to make them a political liability in the battle for control of the governor's mansion and the House of Delegates. ▪ The Hill: DOGE cuts at health agencies are prompting "brain drain" fears. TRUMP AND UKRAINE: Trump ratcheted up his attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, deepening the first real schism of his second term within the GOP. Appearing on the "Brian Kilmeade Show" on Fox News Radio, Trump said of Zelensky, "I've been watching for years, and I've been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards, and you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I've had it." It's the latest in a series of attacks on the Ukrainian leader, who has been reliant on U.S. military aid to stave off Russia's three-year invasion of his country. Trump has dismissed the need to have Zelensky involved in talks to end the war, appearing to echo Kremlin narratives of the war and placing much of the blame for the conflict on Ukraine. In the process, The Hill's Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, Republican and conservative voices have been raised against Trump in a way that has not previously been seen in the first weeks of his second term. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told Fox News Radio, "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russia are very clearly the aggressor in this conflict. That's just a fact." Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, "To the extent that the White House said that Ukraine started the war, I disagree." NBC News: Trump's hostility toward Ukraine creates a conservative rift. |
- The House will meet at noon.
- The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.
- The president will hold meetings at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron beginning with a joint Group of Seven call at 8 a.m. and ending with a 2 p.m. joint press conference in the East Room.
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Profit Sharing That Puts Employees First |
At Delta, we believe success is shared. This year, we're giving back $1.4 billion in profit sharing to employees—an average of five weeks' pay—because our people drive our success. Learn more. |
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© The Associated Press | Jose Luis Magana |
BUDGET BATTLE: The budget ball is back in the House's court. After the Senate early Friday passed a budget resolution designed to execute large parts of Trump's policy agenda, it's back to the House, where GOP leaders are hoping to move swiftly this week on legislation encompassing an even broader swath of Trump's first-year wishlist. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Republicans have been fighting to advance their "one big beautiful bill" strategy — endorsed by the president — amid a razor-thin majority and fractious conference. The party-line bill must pass on or before March 14 to avoid a government shutdown. As that deadline approaches, passage is no slam dunk. A handful of moderate Republicans are airing concerns about steep cuts to safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid that could tank the bill. Those cuts are crucial to help offset the multitrillion-dollar cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts, but the centrist GOP holdouts have reservations that they hurt their most vulnerable constituents. "Social Security won't be touched — other than if there's fraud or something, we're going to find it. It's going to be strengthened, but won't be touched," Trump said Tuesday during an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. "Medicare, Medicaid: None of that stuff is going to be touched. We don't have to." The Washington Post analysis: Congress ignores a looming shutdown to focus on tax cuts and agency layoffs. Trump and GOP leaders could fumble their way into a prolonged and painful shutdown of the federal government. DEMOCRATS ARE ANXIOUS to rebuild their party on the heels of Trump's November victory. But they have a major problem: The money isn't there. Democratic donors — from bundlers to small-dollar donors — told The Hill's Amie Parnes and Hanna Trudo they are still angry about the election results and uninspired by anything their side has put forward since then. "I'll be blunt here: The Democratic Party is f‑‑‑ing terrible. Plain and simple," said one major Democratic donor. "In fact, it doesn't get much worse." Democrats are struggling to reverse Trump's gains with Latino voters, historically a reliable demographic for the party. While a majority of Latino voters cast their ballots for former Vice President Kamala Harris in November, the share supporting Trump climbed roughly 8 points between 2020 and 2024. Maritza Miranda Saenz, a strategist and former executive director of Maricopa County Democrats in battleground Arizona, sounded alarm about Democrats' slipping numbers with Latino voters. "I don't think they're concerned enough," Saenz said. "Democrats just are not scared yet … but that should be the top of every single conversation." ▪ The Hill: As she faces a competitive reelection campaign, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) may take on an increasingly national profile as she faces off with Trump on key issues to her constituents. ▪ CNN: What Hochul says she has learned about taking on Trump. ▪ The Wall Street Journal: New York City's worst kept secret is out: Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) wants to run for mayor. |
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© The Associated Press | Evgeniy Maloletka |
UKRAINE: Foreign leaders have gathered in Kyiv for the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a somber event as Trump continues to criticize Zelensky as he engages in talks with Moscow. In response, Zelensky said Sunday that he would step down from the presidency if it meant achieving a lasting peace in his country after three years of Russia's full-scale invasion. "If to achieve peace, you really need me to give up my post, I'm ready," Zelensky said in remarks in Kyiv, but suggested NATO membership would need to be on the table to "trade" his office for peace. Zelensky's remarks come days after Trump called the Ukrainian president a "dictator without elections" who was doing a "terrible job." Ukrainian law prevents elections when under martial law, as the country currently is. It also comes as the Trump administration has largely cut Ukraine and Europe out of initial talks with Russia to end the war. As Trump's rhetoric about the war has increasingly echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky accused him last week of living in a "web of disinformation." ▪ CNN: Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that Russia was "provoked" ahead of the war with Ukraine, which began with Moscow's invasion in 2022. ▪ The Hill: Ukraine has pushed back against US demands for a $500 billion fund that would be part of a deal to give Washington a cut of the country's rare minerals. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said such a deal, featuring "strategic minerals, energy and state-owned enterprises" has an "implicit" economic security guarantee. GERMANY'S CENTRIST CONSERVATIVE PARTY on Sunday won the country's parliamentary elections, with the hard-right Alternative for Germany in second place — the best showing of a far-right party in Germany since World War II. The vote comes as European leaders are facing new frontiers with a potentially unreliable U.S. ally as conflicts escalate around the globe. The country's next chancellor will almost certainly be Friedrich Merz, a businessman who has promised to crack down on migration and slash taxes. He now faces the task of building a coalition government between the CDU and likely two other parties, needed to achieve a majority. Merz, like other party leaders, has vowed never to partner with the second-place AfD, parts of which German intelligence classifies as extremist. "My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA," Merz said Sunday. "I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe." As they cast their ballots, German voters delivered a rebuke to the nation's left-leaning government and Chancellor Olaf Scholz over its handling of Europe's biggest economy, which has been struggling post-pandemic, and increased immigration. The Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Christian Social Union, netted a combined 28.5 percent of the vote. The AfD had 20.8 percent, while the governing Social Democrats came in third with 16.4 percent support. The New York Times: Merz and his party won, Musk didn't seem to move voters, and more lessons from an early German vote with big implications for Europe. GAZA CEASEFIRE: Accusations have ratcheted up on both sides of the Israel-Hamas war that the other is violating the terms of the fragile ceasefire agreement. The fragile truce ended more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza, and negotiators are working to keep it afloat. But Witkoff said Sunday on CNN that the U.S. expects the second phase of the ceasefire to go forward and that he would visit the Middle East in the coming week. Israel delayed the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday after six hostages were freed that afternoon. The prisoner release was slated to take place shortly after the hostages were freed in Gaza in what would have been the largest single-day release of Palestinian prisoners in the first phase of the ceasefire. In a statement early Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would "delay the release of terrorists that was planned for yesterday until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies." The delay also comes after Hamas released the wrong body on Thursday for hostage Shiri Bibas, who was abducted with her two young sons. Hamas said it was a mistake and handed over the correct body on Friday, but Netanyahu vowed revenge for the grueling error, saying it was "a cruel and malicious violation." ▪ Politico: Gaza ceasefire looks shakier as Israel, Hamas accuse each other of breaches. ▪ The Washington Post: Netanyahu said Israel demands the "complete demilitarization" of southern Syria. |
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- John Roberts is on a collision course with Trump, by Jeff Shesol, guest essayist, The New York Times.
- Musk may be the wedge Democrats need to separate Trump from his working-class base, by Brad Bannon, opinion contributor, The Hill.
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© The Associated Press | Richard Drew |
And finally … On this day in history in 1968, Fleetwood Mac released their debut album as blues-rock, which reached No. 4 on the U.K. charts despite not producing a hit single. In total, 25 Fleetwood Mac songs landed on the Billboard singles chart, including nine in the top 10. The band's only No. 1 hit, "Dreams" written by Stevie Nicks when she was 27 and released in 1977 on the album Rumours, sold more than 1 million copies in the U.S. and reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The band, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, toured for the last time with original members in 2014-2015 but has never officially dissolved. |
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