Trump issues executive order to expand his power over agencies Congress made independent
Jessica Glenza
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
In a fact sheet, the White House described the move as, “ensuring that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the constitution”.
“The order notes that article II of the US constitution vests all executive power in the president, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision,” the fact sheet said. The order will also apply to the Federal Reserve but will exempt the central bank’s authority over monetary policy.
The latest apparent power grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies – including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023:
What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.
You can read more here:
Key events
Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the US military to develop plans for cutting 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post [paywall].
Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by 24 February, according to the memo, which includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted. Among them: operations at the southern US border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of one-way attack drones and other munitions. If adopted in full, the proposed cuts would include tens of billions of dollars in each of the next five years.
According to The Post, the memo calls for continued “support agency” funding for several major regional headquarters, including Indo-Pacific Command, Northern Command and Space Command. Notably absent from that list is European Command, which has had a leading role in executing US strategy during the war in Ukraine; Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East; and Africa Command, which manages the several thousand troops the Pentagon has spread across that continent.
“President Trump’s charge to DoD is clear: achieve Peace through Strength,” Hegseth wrote in the memo, dated Tuesday.
The time for preparation is over — we must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence. Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit.
Julian Borger
All the effort Kyiv had expended in wooing the White House, combining flattery with bribery and a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, imploded in minutes when Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the fundamental rule of the new global reality: he told the truth about Donald Trump.
It is hardly surprising Zelenskyy lost his cool. Part of the reason he has a 57% confidence rating in the latest poll (13% above Trump’s own current standing) is because he has led his country through years of war with his heart vividly on his sleeve. Having been subjected to eight years of Russian aggression, followed by an entirely unprovoked full-on invasion which has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, and then to be told on the world stage: “You should have never started it”, would be too much for most people.
When slighted and sprayed with Trumpian falsehoods, other world leaders, with much less at stake, have resorted to a “smile-and-wave” default strategy, deflecting direct questions and changing the subject to some aspect of relations with Washington that is still functioning normally.
Zelenskyy did not do this on Wednesday. Instead, he said out loud the bit that European leaders keep quiet. Trump, he observed, is “trapped in this disinformation bubble”. He was stating the obvious, but not even Zelenskyy could have known how fetid the air inside Trump’s bubble has become. Now we know.
Trump’s tirade on his own app, Truth Social, is a distillation of the greatest hits of Russian disinformation from the past three years. He said Zelenskyy was “A Dictator without Elections” (something Trump has never said about Putin) who had hoodwinked the Biden administration into a $350bn war of choice, which only “TRUMP” could fix. The president’s repeated references to himself in the third person and all caps erased any lingering doubts about the single unifying compulsion now driving Trump foreign policy.
Read Julian’s full analysis here:
John Crace
This is an extract from my colleague John Crace’s weekly UK politics sketch – and this week he’s focusing on Trump:
Even by his recent standards, Tuesday night’s stream of unconsciousness from Donald Trump took some beating. Hot on the tail of excluding Ukraine from the first round of peace talks with Russia and in effect threatening to withdraw the US from Nato, the Donald has now suggested it was Kyiv who started the war with Moscow.
More than that, he declared President Zelenskyy’s popularity ratings had slid to just 4% in his own country and that he had assumed the role of dictator by not holding elections. He ended by claiming that the US had given more than three times as much aid to Ukraine than the rest of Europe combined. You could almost hear Vladimir Putin cheering from the sidelines. He couldn’t have written the script any better. It was perfection.
It goes without saying that everything the US president had said was complete doggy-bollox. Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized Crimea. There was then a pause in hostilities before Putin invaded a second time almost exactly three years ago. Claiming Ukraine started the war was like believing that Poland invaded Germany to trigger the second world war.
That was just the start. Trump’s claim that Zelenskyy’s approval ratings were 4% were just his delusional, senescent fantasies. The real figure is 57%: about 10% higher than the Donald’s own. And no one in their right mind is suggesting Ukraine holds elections while the war is ongoing. There again, Trump is clearly not in his right mind. His aid figures are also way off. Collectively, Europe has given Ukraine £132bn since the start of the war. America has given £114bn.
While a shrink would have a field day trying to untangle the workings of the Trump psyche – is he a narcissist or solipsist? Does he actually believe what he says or do his words have an independent existence to his brain? – it’s left to the rest of us to pick up the pieces. Much as they might like not to, other world leaders have to find a way of engaging with him. The Donald is the most powerful man on the planet and whatever he says counts for something.
You can read the full politics sketch here:
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, will visit Washington next week amid other meetings aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, US national security advisor Mike Waltz said on Wednesday.
Asked about the chances of reaching a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Waltz told Fox News in an interview: “We’re engaging on all sides, and then the next step is we’re going to put technical teams forward to start talking more details.”
It comes amid fears of an irreconcilable rift between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the former leader launched a war of false words on the Ukrainian president, whom he called “a dictator” and warned that he “better move fast” or he “won’t have a country left”. (We have factchecked Trump’s rant here).
The unprecedented escalation of tensions between Kyiv and Washington came after senior US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, as well as economic and political cooperation, indicating a fundamental shift in the US approach to Moscow.
In the latest edition of This Week in Trumpland, my colleague Adam Gabbatt writes:
What came of those talks? Well, on Tuesday Trump came out with a curiously Putin-centric view of the war, and of how to end it. Declaring himself ‘disappointed’ that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, had objected to not being part of talks which directly affect the future of his country, Trump blamed Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, and trotted out Kremlin talking points about Zelenskyy’s approval rating among Ukrainians.
In a few days Trump has apparently swallowed whole Russia’s revisionist claims about how the war began, and potentially driven a rift between the US and Europe in how it should end. Could it be that the author of Think Big and Kick Ass, and Trump 101: The Way to Success (both books were actually ghostwritten, but you get the idea), doesn’t really know much about kicking ass or the route to success? It’s not for me to say.
You can sign up for Adam’s weekly newsletter here.
Following Donald Trump’s incendiary comments earlier today calling the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a “dictator” who had “done a terrible job”, Republicans have moved swiftly to distance themselves from Trump’s attacks.
The North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, who has just come from a visit to Ukraine, said Putin does not want peace, he “wants to dictate the world”. “That invasion was the responsibility of one human being on the face of this planet: Vladimir Putin,” Tillis told NBC News. On Trump calling Zelenskyy a dictator: “It’s not a word I would use.”
The Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski told CNN: “I would like to see that in context because I would certainly never refer to President Zelenskyy as a dictator.”
Speaking to HuffPost, the South Dakota senator Mike Rounds called Zelenskyy “the duly elected” president of Ukraine. “I think he has been a key component in the fact that they’ve been able to withstand the Russian attacks,” Rounds said. He answered “no” when asked if US foreign policy was realigning with Russia.
‘Did not see that one coming’: Trump backs House budget plan
Donald Trump threw his support behind the House’s budget blueprint on Wednesday, throwing a curveball into the Senate’s plan to vote on a competing version this week, Politico reports.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president said:
The House and Senate are doing a SPECTACULAR job of working together as one unified, and unbeatable, TEAM, however, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it! We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to “kickstart” the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.” It will, without question, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The House Speaker, Mike Johnson, who quickly celebrated Trump’s endorsement on X, plans to bring the plan to the floor for a vote next week.
Trump’s announcement comes as the Senate leadership has prepared their own budget plan, which would divide up the president’s policy priorities into two bills, for a floor vote in the coming days.
“As they say, did not see that one coming,” said Senate majority leader John Thune, telling reporters that he hoped to gain further clarity on the future of the two-bill plan from a previously scheduled lunch meeting with vice-president JD Vance.
“We’ve got a plan that we think makes sense,” Thune told reporters. “We’re planning to proceed. But you know, obviously, we are interested in and hoping to hear with more clarity where the White House is coming from.”
Adrian Horton
Donald Trump’s efforts to influence US cultural institutions received more pushback on Tuesday, as a group of more than 400 artists sent a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) calling on the organization to resist the president’s restrictions on funding for projects promoting diversity or “gender ideology”.
The letter, first reported by the New York Times, comes after the NEA declared that federal grant applicants – which include colleges and universities, non-profit groups, individual artists and more – must comply with regulations stipulated by Trump’s executive orders. The new measures bar federal funds from going toward programs focused on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or used to “promote gender ideology”.
“While the arts community stands in solidarity with the NEA, we oppose this betrayal of the Endowment’s mission to ‘foster and sustain an environment in which the arts benefit everyone in the United States’,” the letter reads. “We ask that the NEA reverse those changes to the compliance requirements.”
Here’s more on that story:
A group of labor and taxpayer advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration over the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge)’s access to Internal Revenue Service files.
The complaint, filed in federal court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, argues Doge should not have access to highly sensitive information like social security numbers, income, net worth and bank account information.
“The results have already been catastrophic,” the complaint says. “Doge has seized control of some of the most carefully protected information systems housed at the treasury department, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and taken hold of all sensitive personnel information at the office of personnel management.
“Doge’s spread through the government continues to be rapid, now reaching the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This case seeks to protect the privacy and the legal rights of millions of Americans, and thousands of small business owners, who depend upon the IRS.”
Donald Trump has signed more than 50 executive orders since returning to the presidency in January, including enacting steep tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and “gender radicalism” in the military and pardoning January 6 rioters.
The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a “complete restoration of America”.
Here’s a handy explainer about all the executive orders Trump has signed since retaking the White House:
After firing more than 1,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Trump administration is reversing course in one area and reinstating about nearly a dozen people who worked on the Veterans Crisis Line, a confidential toll-free hotline and online chat and or text support for veterans experiencing a mental health crisis and considering self-harm.
The dismissals, which were effective immediately, were made to save the department more than $98m a year.
US senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told CNN that many of those who were reinstated weren’t new Veterans Affairs employees, but rather had served in the US government for up to 18 years.
Trump administration keeps USAid contracts frozen despite court order
The Trump administration said in a court filing late on Tuesday night that it is not disbursing funds for thousands of foreign aid contracts and grants despite a federal judge’s order last week to lift a widespread freeze on foreign aid funding, Reuters reports.
The administration said in the filing that it was complying with US district judge Amir Ali’s temporary restraining order, pointing to a line in the order saying that the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and the state department were not barred from “enforcing the terms of contracts and grants”.
It said it was reviewing the frozen agreements and had determined that all of them allowed the administration to terminate or suspend them, either on their own terms or “implicitly”.
It also said that USAid and the state department had legal authority to halt payments that did not depend on Donald Trump’s 20 January executive order freezing foreign aid, which Ali’s order barred the administration from enforcing.
The administration asked that, if it had “misunderstood” Ali’s temporary order, the judge convert it into a longer-term injunction that it would be able to appeal immediately.
Peter Maybarduk of the legal group Public Citizen, which represents the non-profit plaintiffs, called the filing “outrageous” and said that “people who long have been partners of the United States, in vulnerable situations around the world, will suffer as a result of this failure to restore funding, funding the US already had promised, and that a court last week ordered the government provide”.
Dozens of Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s actions towards USAid on Friday, the Hill reports. In their letter, addressed to the president, they said:
The repercussions of these actions will be felt in the form of increased maternal and child mortality, reduced access to education, economic hardship, and heightened vulnerabilities to gender-based violence and exploitation of women.
At a time when women and girls are disproportionately affected by global conflicts, climate crises, and economic instability, continued programmatic and financial support in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, and Democratic Republic of Congo amongst many others are essential to combatting global health challenges.
Despite long-standing bipartisan support for USAid initiatives that fight violence against women and girls, the proposed elimination of USAid and its funding would roll back years of progress across the globe and violate US law.
To find out more about USAid’s reach and what it means for those around the world who receive it, I’d recommend this episode of Today In Focus with my colleague Nesrine Malik:
Federal judge refuses to block Musk team’s access to US government data
A federal judge refused on Tuesday to immediately block Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs, the Associated Press reports.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan found that there were legitimate questions about the billionaire’s authority but said there was not enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order.
The decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states challenging Doge’s authority to access sensitive government data. The attorneys general argued that Musk was wielding the kind of power that the constitution says can be held only by those elected or confirmed by the Senate.
The Trump administration has maintained that layoffs are ordered by agency heads and asserted that despite his public cheering of the effort, Musk is not running Doge’s day-to-day operations himself.
Doge has tapped into computer systems across multiple agencies with Trump’s blessing, digging into budgets and searching for what he calls waste, fraud and abuse, even as a growing number of lawsuits allege Doge is violating the law.
Chutkan recognized the concerns of the states, which include New Mexico and Arizona.
“Doge’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion,” she wrote. The states’ questions about Musk’s apparent “unchecked authority” and lack of congressional oversight for Doge are legitimate and they may be able to successfully argue them later, she found.
Still, at this point, it remains unclear exactly how Doge’s work will affect the states, and judges can only issue orders to block specific, immediate harms, she found.
Trump calls Zelenskyy a ‘dictator without elections’ and tells him to ‘move fast’ or lose country
In a Truth Social post Donald Trump wrote that Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast” or he won’t have a country left and called the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections”.
The Ukrainian leader earlier on Wednesday accused Trump of being trapped in a “disinformation bubble” after the US president blamed Ukraine for Russia’s illegal invasion and falsely suggested Zelenskyy was unpopular in Ukraine and blocking elections in the country, which he repeats here:
Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’ A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..
For more on this head over to our Europe live blog:
Donald Trump said that he has directed the Department of Justice to fire all remaining former Biden-era US attorneys, claiming the department “has been politicized like never before”, the Hill reports.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the president wrote:
Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before. Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ U.S. Attorneys. We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!
While it is standard for US attorneys to resign following a change in administration, justice department lawyers – both current and former – note that incoming administrations typically request resignations rather than issuing abrupt termination letters, according to Reuters.
On Monday, several Biden-appointed US attorneys announced their resignations, while others had already left the government the previous week.
The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, resigned on Thursday rather than obey a justice department order to drop corruption charges against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams. Denise Cheung, the top criminal prosecutor in Washington, resigned on Tuesday after refusing to launch what she called a politically driven investigation into Biden-era climate spending.
Donald Trump intends to nominate advisers from his first term to top justice department posts, including John Eisenberg to lead the national security division and Brett Shumate for the civil division, Reuters reports.
Shumate is already acting head of the civil division and managing the department’s defense of the administration against a slew of lawsuits over federal worker firings, the dismantling of federal agencies and the attempts by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” to access sensitive data.
Shumate, who was a partner in the Jones Day law firm that has longstanding ties to Trump, unsuccessfully defended the Republican president’s executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US, which a federal judge last month ruled was “blatantly unconstitutional”.
He was a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil division’s federal programs branch during Trump’s first term from 2017-2021.
Eisenberg was legal adviser to the national security council during Trump’s first White House term, as well as an assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs.
He also held senior positions in the justice department including a deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel. Eisenberg clerked for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the high court’s conservative majority.
Patrick Davis will be nominated to lead the office of legislative affairs, the department said in a statement, in what would be his third stint there. During Trump’s first term, he served as deputy associate attorney general.
All three posts require confirmation by the Senate. The announcement comes a day after Trump said he has instructed the justice department to terminate all remaining US attorneys from the previous administration of Joe Biden, asserting without evidence that the department had been “politicized like never before”.
Trump issues executive order to expand his power over agencies Congress made independent
Jessica Glenza
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
In a fact sheet, the White House described the move as, “ensuring that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the constitution”.
“The order notes that article II of the US constitution vests all executive power in the president, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision,” the fact sheet said. The order will also apply to the Federal Reserve but will exempt the central bank’s authority over monetary policy.
The latest apparent power grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies – including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023:
What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.
You can read more here:
Trump administration officials scrambled over the weekend to rehire hundreds of employees they fired last Thursday at the National Nuclear Security Administration, CNN reported on Tuesday.
More than 300 employees were initially fired at the agency, which manages the US’s arsenal of nuclear weapons. All but around 25 have since been reinstated, two current NNSA employees with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
Officials backtracked on the terminations on Friday after multiple members of Congress petitioned the energy secretary, Chris Wright, to reverse course, explaining the dire national security implications.
Rob Plonski, a deputy division director at NNSA, wrote on LinkedIn on Friday:
We cannot expect to project strength, deterrence, and world dominance while simultaneously stripping away the federal workforce that provides strategic oversight to ensure our nuclear enterprise remains safe, secure, and effective.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was not concerned about the firings. He told reporters traveling with him in West Palm Beach, Florida:
No, not at all, I think we have to just do what we have to do. It’s amazing what’s being found right now – it’s amazing. Some, if we feel that, in some cases, they’ll fire people and then they’ll put some people back, not all of them, because a lot of people were let go.
You can read CNN’s report here.
