• Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that the US will suspend plans for 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.
• Trump later confirmed the deal.
• For now, a vast North American trade war is on hold.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced that the US's plan to impose 25% tariffs will be on hold for at least 30 days.

Trudeau's announcement on X comes just hours after President Donald Trump brokered a similar pause with Mexico, effectively halting a trade war between the US and its neighbors for now.

"Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together," Trudeau posted on X.

Trump later confirmed the temporary trade truce. He wrote on Truth Social that Canada had "agreed to ensure we have a secure Northern Border, and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like Fentanyl that have been pouring into our Country."

"As President, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL Americans, and I am doing just that," Trump wrote. "I am very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured. FAIRNESS FOR ALL!"

The two leaders focused on Canada's $1.3 billion border plan. The initial announcement of the massive investment was made in December.

Trump has said that tariffs are needed to get Mexico and Canada to address the flow of fentanyl into the US. In his statement, Trudeau said Canada would be implementing a $1.3 billion border plan that would involve "reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl."

He said that Canada would be devoting nearly 10,000 personnel to protect the border, and that Canada is committing to appointing a Fentanyl Czar, among other actions.

Over the weekend, Trudeau laid out a plan for more than $100 billion in retaliatory tariffs if Trump did not relent. Canada's list of tariffed goods targeted Trump's political base, covering everything from Florida oranges and Kentucky bourbon to appliances made in Vice President JD Vance's home state of Ohio.

Elon Musk wasn't immune from the fallout. Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote on X that he would be "ripping up the province's contract" with Space X's Starlink.

Canada's first retaliatory tariffs were set to go into effect Tuesday. Additional measures were expected to apply to US tech exports, which were absent from the first list.

During Trump's first term, nations designed tariffs to inflict political damage. Kentucky bourbon was frequently targeted due to Sen. Mitch McConnell's status as Senate Majority Leader.

In recent weeks, Trump and his allies have repeatedly criticized Canada. Before taking office, Trump said that the US biggest trade partner should be the 51st state. Trump's taunts came during a difficult time for Trudeau.

The Canadian leader's popularity collapsed before he announced last month that he would resign as prime minister once the Liberal Party selects a new leader.

This story is developing.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy's nephew, was nominated as HHS Secretary in Trump's Cabinet.
• Kennedy has espoused baseless, controversial views related to vaccines and public health.
• He ran for president in 2024 and is married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor Cheryl Hines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ties to one of America's most prestigious political dynasties and controversial views on public health have made him a prominent political figure.

Though he unsuccessfully ran for president in 2024, he later endorsed now-President Donald Trump and landed a Cabinet nomination. Trump said he would let Kennedy "go wild" on public health issues as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy's confirmation chances remain uncertain after a rocky hearing on Wednesday. He can only afford to lose three votes if all Senate Democrats and lawmakers that caucus with the party oppose his nomination.

Here's an overview of Kennedy's life, career, and controversies.

Early life and family

Robert F. Kennedy, 71, was born on January 17, 1954 in Washington, DC.

He is the third of 11 children born to Robert F. Kennedy, a US senator who was assassinated in 1968, and Ethel Kennedy, a human rights advocate. He is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1976. After briefly attending the London School of Economics, he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1982. He also earned a master's degree in environmental law from Pace University School of Law in 1987.

Legal and environmental career

In March 1982, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, whom JFK had previously appointed to lead the famous Southern District of New York, hired Kennedy as an assistant district attorney. Kennedy struggled to pass the bar exam and resigned in July 1983.

Months later, Kennedy would spark his largest legal scandal. While on the way to receive treatment in South Dakota for his addiction, a fellow passenger found him sick in an airplane's bathroom. Local authorities later found a small amount of heroin in his belongings. He faced up to two years in prison but was sentenced to probation and community service.

As part of his community service, he worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and was later connected with the Hudson River Fishermen's Association. Robert Boyle, founder of the New York environmental group, began to mentor Kennedy. The organization already had notched major legal victories, but Kennedy's star power would help take it to new heights.

Kennedy's environmental advocacy became the foundation of his fame. In 1999, Time Magazine named Kennedy one of its "Heroes for the Planet" as part of a series of reports on leading environmentalists.

In 2000, Boyle and other board members later resigned in protest over Kennedy's rehiring of a scientist who had previously been fired by Boyle and served time in federal prison after being convicted of violating wildlife protection laws.

"I think he's a despicable person," Boyle told Kennedy's unauthorized biographer in 2014.

While gaining fame, Kennedy began to notice problems with his voice. Kennedy was later diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition that affects muscles in one's voice box.

Anti-vaccine views

After years of environmentalism, Kennedy became the face of anti-vaccine advocacy.

In 2005, he wrote a piece for Salon and Rolling Stone that is now regarded as establishing him as a major player in spreading vaccine skepticism. Despite his claims of a major conspiracy over a mercury-based preservative that had already been "removed from all childhood vaccines except for some variations of the flu vaccine in 2001," according to STAT. Within days, Salon, which published the piece online, issued five corrections. In 2011, the site decided to retract the article entirely.

In 2022, he invoked the Holocaust at a rally opposing vaccine mandates, saying, "Even in Hitler's Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did." He later apologized, saying, "My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control."

At an event at a New York City restaurant in 2023, Kennedy said that COVID-19 was "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people" and that "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." He later released a statement on X saying, "I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews." He added: "I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered."

He has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories related to public health, including claims that WiFi causes cancer and that antidepressants marketed by pharmaceutical companies are to blame for mass shootings.

Controversies and criticism

There've been several controversies involving Kennedy and dead animals.

Kennedy's eldest daughter, Kick Kennedy, told Town & Country magazine in 2012 that her father had beheaded a dead whale and tied the head to the roof of their minivan when she was a child.

During a 2012 divorce deposition, Kennedy said that he experienced "cognitive problems" that a doctor told him could be "caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died," The New York Times reported. Kennedy told The New York Times in May 2024 that his memory issues had been resolved.

In August 2024, Kennedy revealed that he had left a bear carcass in Central Park in 2014 and speculated that it could have been the source of his brain worm.

Kennedy was also involved in an undisclosed relationship with a reporter. In September 2024, Status newsletter author Oliver Darcy broke the news that Kennedy was having an affair with New York magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi. Kennedy denied the report, but the relationship reportedly became an open secret in some circles as Kennedy bragged about receiving photos from Nuzzi.

Nuzzi was placed on leave and subsequently left the magazine.

2024 presidential campaign

In April 2023, Kennedy announced that he would run against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries. Numerous Kennedy family members opposed his campaign, and many endorsed Biden instead.

In October 2023, he switched his political party affiliation to independent.

He named Nicole Shanahan, a California attorney who founded the patent technology company ClearAccessIP, as his running mate in March 2024.

Kennedy dropped out of the race in August 2024 and endorsed Trump, saying that he was "surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues." Trump then chose Kennedy to lead his transition team along with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

After Trump won the 2024 election, he nominated Kennedy to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services in his Cabinet.

Personal life

Kennedy has been married three times and has six children.

He was married to his first wife, fellow University of Virginia law student Emily Black, from 1982 to 1994. They had two children, Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy III and Kathleen, known as "Kick."

He married his second wife, interior designer Mary Richardson, in 1994. They had four children — Conor, Kyra, Finn, and Aidan — and divorced in 2010.

Kennedy has been married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor Cheryl Hines since 2014. Hines' costar, Larry David, helped introduced the couple.

Together, Hines' and Kennedy's net worth was an estimated $15 million as of October 2023.

• The White House's pause on federal grants and loans appears to be over.
• A memo sent by Matthew J. Vaeth at the OMB on Wednesday says that the memorandum is no longer in effect.
• A federal judge later said that he would issue an order to block the freeze.

The White House's controversial federal grants and loans freeze appears to be over.

A memo sent by Matthew J. Vaeth at the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday, January 29, and addressed to the heads of executive departments and agencies, says that the memorandum is no longer in effect.

"OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the President's Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel," the memo, seen by Business Insider, reads. M-25-13 was the memo that the OMB, which oversees federal agencies and the federal budget, sent out Monday, pausing nearly all federal grants and loans.

On Wednesday afternoon, a federal judge said he intended to block the order after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the freeze was still in effect.

"I'm inclined to grant the restraining order," U.S. District Judge Jack McConnell, a Rhode Island-based appointee of President Barack Obama, said during a court hearing, according to Politico. "I fear that the administration is acting with a distinction without a difference."

Earlier, Leavitt confirmed that the OMB order had been withdrawn. She said Trump's earlier executive orders, which imposed a freeze on new regulations and terminated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, remain in effect.

"This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze," Leavitt wrote on X. "It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented."

Some Democratic lawmakers quickly took a victory lap, celebrating the OMB order's demise.

"This is Trump's first major loss. When we fight, we win," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote on X.

Other Democrats cautioned that just because the OMB order was rescinded does not mean the broader fight is over.

"I think all they know is they got a backlash they didn't expect, and so we're not assuming the rescission is to be taken as a resolution," Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told reporters at the Capitol. "So we're going to be on the floor tonight raising hell about this. I'm going to meet with my statewide Head Start programs right now. We're expecting that this battle is just beginning."

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said the White House may have exacerbated the situation.

"What that order may have been designed to do is circumvent the court order," Murphy told reporters. "So everybody read that memo and thought crisis averted. The crisis might have just deepened."

Murphy said the scope of Wednesday's White House order is unclear since OMB may have just rescinded the controversial order but not the underlying funding freeze.

Congressional lawmakers, including some Republicans, expressed confusion over the extent of the initial memo. Popular charities, including Meals on Wheels, were unclear if the federal grants they received would continue to keep money following. Lawyers advised NGOs to ensure they had enough cash to wait out the pause.

The Trump administration, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would test the extent of presidential power to cut federal spending unilaterally. He and his allies view a Nixon-era law as unconstitutional, and the initial OMB memo appeared to defy the law that leaves the executive branch only narrow grounds to refuse to spend funds approved by Congress.

• Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to test the limits of presidential power to cut spending.
• The OMB's order to pause all federal grants is effective at 5 pm Tuesday.
• Nonprofits are unclear about the scope of the order.

President Donald Trump has long promised to test the extent of presidential power to cut federal funding unilaterally. Monday night's Office of Management and Budget order pausing all federal grants, which congressional Democrats have called a constitutional crisis, fulfills that pledge.

"When I return to the White House, I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it," Trump said in a 2023 policy announcement video. "We will overturn it."

Legally, Congress has constrained the president's powers to ignore their wishes and not appropriate funds. The issue, known as impoundment, reached a boiling point during the Nixon administration, leading to the passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The act allows a president to withhold funds temporarily, but only if a president goes through a formal process that eventually allows lawmakers to disapprove of the action.

House Democrats impeached Trump in 2019 in part due to his temporary hold on Ukraine aid. He was later acquitted in the Senate.

Before DOGE was formalized, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that impoundment was central to the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to slash federal spending. (Ramaswamy recently left DOGE.)

Trump and his allies have criticized the impoundment act. Russel Vought, Trump's nominee to lead the OMB, recently testified to lawmakers that he agreed with Trump that the Nixon-era law was unconstitutional — a view not shared by most legal scholars.

A Reagan-era Office of Legal Counsel opinion found that there was "no textual authority" within the constitution for presidential impoundment power.

"Moreover, if accepted, arguments in favor of an inherent impoundment power, carried to their logical conclusion, would render congressional directions to spend merely advisory," the OLC opinion read.

Legal scholars view the OMB order as a vehicle through which Trump can try to put the act's constitutionality before the Supreme Court.

The extent of the OMB order remains unclear. A senior administration official said it was not simply an across-the-board funding freeze.

In the memo, acting OMB director Matthew Vaeth wrote that to the extent permitted under law, federal agencies must "temporarily pause all activities." The order has an exception for Social Security and Medicare and "assistance provided directly to individuals."

"Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal," Vaeth wrote.

Nonprofits immediately expressed fear that their funding could be affected. On Tuesday, a Meals on Wheels spokesperson told Business Insider they were unclear if the order affected their service of providing free meals to low-income seniors. Federal grants are behind numerous services, including SNAP benefits, rental assistance, and educational programs. Colleges and universities could also be affected if the pause applies to federal research grants.

• DeepSeek rattled tech and financial industries with the unexpected power of its AI model.
• The Chinese-based startup upended expectations that AI development requires significant investment.
• DeepSeek launched its ChatGPT competitor at a reported fraction of OpenAI's cost.

China's DeepSeek AI model rattled Wall Street and shocked Silicon Valley.

How Washington will respond remains uncertain, but early indications are that the groundbreaking news will not dramatically shift US policy.

"Hopefully, the release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win because we have the greatest scientists in the world," Trump said during a speech before House Republicans at their policy planning retreat.

Financial industry analysts and technology experts point to Trump's previous trade policy announcement, which laid out a plan for heightened export controls in an event like DeepSeek's rollout.

Trump's first term accelerated the rise of China hawks in the nation's capital. His administration went hard after Chinese tech companies like Huawei and laid the groundwork for a potential ban on TikTok, though he has waffled on the latter. President Joe Biden expanded those efforts.

TikTok wasn't the first showdown between the world's two largest economies over the future of technology. Here's how Deepseek will fit into the larger US-China fight.

What sets Deepseek apart from TikTok or even Huawei?

Both Trump and Xi view AI development as seminal to their nations' futures. In announcing a $500 billion AI project known as "Stargate" last week, Trump said the goal was for the US to continue to lead AI.

Gregory C. Allen, director of Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Xi has long focused on tech development. He cited some of the specific benchmarks laid out in his "Made in China 2025" plan, which was announced a decade ago. Two years later, China released its AI strategic plan, which called for Beijing to dominate the world in AI by 2030.

"The leaders in both the United States and China are convinced that leadership in artificial intelligence is foundational to the future of military and economic power," Allen told Business Insider. "And they're right."

How has the US responded to Chinese AI advances?

The first Trump administration imposed export controls on software and technology on Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Just before Trump left office in 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressured the Dutch government to block a company from making a semiconductor deal with China. In 2022, the Biden administration imposed export controls on advanced chips such as Nivida's H100 used to train AI models. In December, Biden expanded those limitations.

It remains to be seen what Trump will do. Allen and financial analysts have pointed to Trump's trade policy, which tasked the Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce to lead a review of US export controls "in light of developments involving strategic adversaries or geopolitical rivals."

Have US control efforts failed?

The current debate in Washington will likely focus on whether Biden-era export controls failed. If that's the case, then perhaps a debate will ensue over whether those limitations really matter.

Allen said this misses the point since export limitations are a lagging indicator. He added that the first round of Biden policies also allowed China to obtain more advanced chips than the White House may have anticipated.

"When you refuse to sell something to China in the future, it doesn't magically destroy everything that you sent to China in the past," he said.

Allen added that the Biden 2022 export controls still allowed Nivida to sell H800 chips legally, which meant China obtained crucial technology that had only degraded performance by a fraction of what the US intended. The exact chips, Allen said, DeepSeek claimed it used to train its R1 model.

"We are currently living through the poor design of the first package of AI chip export controls that the Biden administration launched in October 2022," he said. "But will soon be living through the lagging impact of the successful controls designed in October 2023."

Ed Mills, a Raymond James policy analyst, wrote in a research note that while there may be initial talk of easing control policies, the Trump administration will likely double down.

"While we expect to see a narrative emerge that DeepSeek proves the ineffectiveness of current export controls, it will most likely be interpreted by the Trump administration as a reason to tighten controls and further limit and track who has access to leading-edge technology," Mills wrote.

How has Beijing responded to US actions?

Chinese government officials repeatedly threatened to retaliate in the lead-up to the passage of the potential TikTok ban. Last March, a government official called efforts to force the social media app to sever ties "an act of bullying." It remains to be seen how Beijing will respond if a US-approved buyer is found.

In the past, Chinese media has pushed for tougher responses when the US and other Western nations moved to limit companies like Huawei.

Allen said the timing of the Deepseek announcement also fits within a larger theme of the China seeking to embarrass US leaders at critical times.

"I don't think it's a surprise that the model itself was released during the first week of the Trump administration," Allen said. "This was an attempt to have an impact on the US media discourse, the global media discourse and that's exactly what's happening."

What else has the US done about Chinese tech companies?

Under Trump and Biden, the federal government has taken multiple actions to curtail some of China's largest tech companies.

The first Trump administration moved to block Huawei from working with US companies. In 2022, the FCC banned US sales of new Huawei and ZTE-made devices, China's two largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. Huawei does little business in the US now.

Rubio, a longtime Huawei critic, pushed Latin American countries to follow the US' lead in banning the telecom giant from shaping the future of 5G.

Trump also kick started the discussion over banning TikTok. While little information is public, lawmakers have cited national security concerns related to TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.

As a 2024 presidential hopeful, Trump backed away from his previous support for banning TikTok if ByteDance failed to sever ties to Beijing. In one of his final acts in office, Biden declined to enforce the ban after TikTok failed to convince the US Supreme Court to delay its implementation. Trump has since granted an additional 75-day reprieve, though it is outside the law.

What effect will this have on the AI race?

In the near term, DeepSeek's success has undermined the belief that bigger is always better for AI development. The Chinese-based startup developed its R1 model at roughly $5.6 million, a drop in the bucket compared to what OpenAI, Meta, and other companies are spending.

"I think policymakers need to ask a lot of questions about what is happening," Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, told BI. "They need to understand how this company seemed to have made so much progress without spending a lot of money."

Marc Andreessen, the cofounder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote on X that is is AI's "Sputnik moment," a reference to the then-Soviet Union's early success in launching a satellite in 1957.

The Cold War advancement shocked the US, jump-starting the Space Race, which the Americans ultimately won by landing on the Moon just over a decade later.

• A Trump Justice Department official is threatening criminal probes to local officials.
• Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the DOJ will monitor officials who don't cooperate on immigration.
• President Trump repeatedly promised to begin "mass deportations" after retaking the White House.

A top Justice Department official on Wednesday made clear that federal authorities are watching local officials who defy President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who was previously part of Trump's private legal team, wrote in a memo to the entire Justice Department that "laws and actions that threaten to impede" Trump's actions harm "public safety and national security."

Bove's memo, published in full by The Washington Post, cites a new "Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group," within the DOJ that will work to "identify state and local laws, policies, and activities that are inconsistent with Executive Branch immigration initiatives and, where appropriate, to take legal action to challenge such laws."

A DOJ spokesperson confirmed the existence of Bove's memo to Business Insider but declined further comment.

Trump and congressional Republicans have long complained about states and cities that refuse to fully cooperate with federal immigration requests under so-called "sanctuary policies." The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have repeatedly sued over the legality of holding someone solely based on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request.

Some local officials, particularly Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have defended policies that require officers to not fully cooperate with federal officials.

On Tuesday, Trump wasted little time in implementing the immigration restrictions he ran on during the 2024 campaign. He moved to end birthright citizenship, a constitutional guarantee. Trump also formally declared that illegal immigration is a federal emergency, part of any effort to involve US troops in border security. A host of Democratic state attorneys generals quickly sued to block the birthright citizenship order, and other legal fights are expected to follow.

Business Insider has spoken to over a dozen immigration researchers and policy analysts across the political spectrum. Conservative-leaning researchers have defended Trump's policies, arguing there will be benefits from deporting a large number of people in the country illegally. Economists, particularly those on the left and center, have warned that mass deportations could cause economic calamities.

It is also expected that a full-scale mass deportation effort would cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars.

• Trump originally promised Elon Musk's DOGE would operate outside the government.
• But his executive order instead renamed the Obama-era US Digital Service, making DOGE part of the federal goverment.
• Experts say the approach swats down certain legal challenges while creating issues in other areas.

On November 12, Donald Trump announced Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," would "provide advice and guidance from outside of government" to help roll back bad regulations and slash government spending.

The DOGE that Trump created via executive order on January 20 looks almost nothing like that: it's officially a part of the White House and reports to chief of staff Susie Wiles, it will have the power to hire government employees, and its stated mission is to update the federal government's software and IT systems — a far cry from the vision Musk outlined of cutting up to $2 trillion in annual spending.

"I was disappointed to see the limited scope that DOGE is now responsible for," said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlements policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. "On the bright side, it may mean that it will be more likely to actually fulfill its mandate because it's more targeted."

Trump's executive order states DOGE will replace the US Digital Service, or USDS — a sort of technical special ops team created during the Obama administration after the meltdown of Healthcare.gov — and encompass a "temporary organization" that makes it easier to hire employees. Every federal department has to create a four-person team to liaise with the new office, which is supposed to wrap up its work by mid-2026.

"I think it's noteworthy that the announcement calls for an HR specialist, an attorney, an IT specialist, and then an overall manager to be placed in each of the applicable agencies," Craig Saperstein, a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who specializes in government relations, told Business Insider.

DOGE, he said, may still be focused on cutting regulations, changing workforce rules, and streamlining government operations.

The decision to put DOGE inside the federal government is "perhaps the result of the lawyers advising DOGE and the administration realizing that their proposed private structure for the DOGE would be subject to legal challenge," Caleb Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, told BI of the new structure. "It may be the necessary evil from their perspective, to avoid a court fight."

Now that DOGE is situated inside the government, it is subject to new transparency and ethical rules, Aimee Ghosh, another partner at Pillsbury, said, particularly around public information laws.

"There's more mechanisms to request it or demand it, or for outside groups to file litigation demanding access," she said, while noting it's still unclear how public information statutes will apply to DOGE.

Trump, Musk, and DOGE did not return requests for comment.

Limits on power

Being part of the government means Musk can't use his private fortune to fund DOGE's operations. Tom Schatz, whose group Citizens Against Government Waste criticizes federal spending, said that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The USDS has suffered from mission creep as its headcount has grown to more than 200 people, he said, while Musk's team has been reported to have a staff of about 20.

But Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, said there would be easy ways for Musk to get around those limits. The DOGE temporary organization is allowed to use volunteers and so-called special government employees who may not have to disclose information about their assets and income to ethics officials, he said.

The White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Government Ethics will likely weigh in on whether Musk or any DOGE staff will need to sell any assets or steer clear of discussions about certain agencies to avoid conflicts of interest. But Hedtler-Gaudette said those sign-offs aren't worth much because both offices are subject to political pressure.

"The overall framework of ethics and conflict-of-interest laws, rules, and regs we have on the books are extraordinarily weak," he said.

Since 2014, USDS has worked with federal agencies to help them improve how they deliver services, said Jen Pahlka, who helped create the office in 2013 and 2014. The agency was created with members of the team brought in to clean up the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov, and has since helped with tech rollouts like the IRS's widely praised Direct File program.

Congressional allocations for USDS have fluctuated, she said, and some people have criticized ethics waivers that have made it easier for USDS to recruit people from the private sector without forcing them to sell their stakes in venture-backed startups or investment funds. But she said ethics issues under Musk could be more significant than before.

"It does get politicized," she said. "I don't think to the extent that it will be now."

Were the DOGE lawsuits pointless?

At least three lawsuits filed shortly after Trump was sworn in challenged DOGE's compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law requiring outside advisory panels to meet publicly and include members from diverse ideological backgrounds. Earlier in January, the New York Times reported that two ethics experts who have criticized Trump, Virginia Canter and Norm Eisen, volunteered to be a part of DOGE, but were rebuffed by the Trump transition team.

It's unclear what will happen to those lawsuits now that DOGE has officially become part of the White House. But at least one group that sued said its lawsuit should still be able to move forward.

Trump's executive order "does not moot our suit," said Nandan Joshi, a lawyer at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, in an email. "Our lawsuit is based on information that the administration will ask a private task force to provide it with recommendations on regulatory and spending cuts without complying with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Nothing in the EO contradicts that information."

Kel McClanahan, a lawyer for another group that sued over DOGE, raised the possibility that there could be multiple organizations using the DOGE name, saying in an email that the executive order "muddied the waters."

"We don't have any reason to believe that the entity created by the recent Executive Order is the same animal as the advisory committee we are litigating about," he said. "The deciding factor will be what the new US DOGE Service actually does and how."

Another change from the DOGE envisioned in Donald Trump's announcement in November: Vivek Ramasamy isn't a part of it. "It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I'm confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government," Ramaswamy posted on X.

He is reportedly exploring a run for Ohio governor.

• President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day issued pardons for January 6 defendants.
• He'd pledged to grant clemency to at least some of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in 2021.
• About two-thirds of those charged with federal crimes had pleaded guilty as of January.

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned roughly 1,500 people related to January 6-related offenses, fulfilling a campaign promise to wipe clean the records of most people connected with the Capitol riot.

"We hope they come out tonight, frankly," Trump said after signing the pardons. "They're expecting it."

Trump said he included six commutations in the pardon package so that their cases could be studied further. Among those whose sentences were commuted were the leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who had been charged with seditious conspiracy. Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers' founder, was in the middle of serving an 18-year prison sentence.

Outside the commutations, Trump's pardon is sweeping in scope. It applies to "all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Earlier during the day, Trump told supporters that he was asked not to include mentions of January 6 "hostages" in his official inaugural address.

"I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because, you know, it is action, not words that count," Trump said during a speech to supporters in an overflow room at the US Capitol. "And you're going to be happy, because you're going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages."

During the presidential campaign, Trump described imprisoned January 6 defendants as "political prisoners," asserting they were "ushered in" to federal buildings by police.

Despite opposition from some prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, whom the rioters targeted, Trump had said that he would pardon many of the defendants.

He made an exception for those who are "evil and bad," as he told Time in April.

After Trump won the presidential election in November, January 6 defendants started filing motions to delay their hearings in the hopes Trump would pardon them once in office.

Several Proud Boys leaders asked Trump for pardons in November, two months before he was set to take office.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, he said he would "mostly likely" pardon convicted defendants "very quickly" upon taking office. He said then, too, that there may be exceptions.

• President Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border.
• The president also signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship.
• Economists and researchers said Trump's deportation plans could have negative economic impacts.

President Donald Trump upon arriving at the White House on Monday signed executive orders declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and designating cartel organizations as "foreign terrorist organizations," ramping up his focus on immigration in his second term.

"I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country," he said during his inaugural speech earlier in the day at the Capitol.

Later, at the White House, Trump signed an order instructing the Secretary of Defense to send him a plan within 10 days to task US Northern Command with securing the border. Trump's advisors have said they were not concerned about laws limiting US troops' involvement in domestic law enforcement.

"As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions and that is exactly what I am going to do," he continued. "We will do it at a level nobody has ever seen before.

Trump also signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, a highly controversial move but one championed by many conservatives. Legal scholars have been clear that no president can unilaterally overrule the Constitution, meaning historic legal fights are almost guaranteed to follow.

The president also said he'd reinstate his Remain in Mexico policy and "end the practice of catch and release."

The Remain in Mexico policy — which was launched in 2019 during Trump's first term — mandates that migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico pending their immigration court date in the US.

Throughout his campaign, Trump argued that deportations could benefit the US economy. He has said that removing large numbers of people in the country illegally could open job opportunities for US-born workers and legal immigrants and could bring housing prices down.

Business Insider has spoken to over a dozen immigration researchers and policy analysts across the political spectrum. While some conservative-leaning researchers said reducing the number of people coming into the US and living in the country illegally, along with large-scale mass deportations, is necessary to protect American safety and could have long-term economic benefits, left- and center-leaning researchers said there may be economic shocks.

The US had an estimated 11.7 million immigrants living in the US illegally as of July 2023, per the most recent numbers from the Center for Migration Studies. As many as 8.3 million people in this demographic work, per CMS estimates.

Mass deportations could have significant economic consequences, some researchers told BI. The American Immigration Council estimated that a "one-time mass deportation operation" would directly cost the federal government $315 billion, accounting for detainments, arrests, legal processing, and removals.

Trump's promises for large-scale deportations

In interviews and speeches, Trump has stressed his belief that the US has had no choice but to carry out large-scale deportations. He also confirmed plans to use the military for deportation efforts in November, along with using a 1798 law allowing for the deportation of suspected gang and cartel members.

Before Inauguration Day, Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told ABC News that the administration was reviewing plans for immigration raids in Chicago. Trump has threatened to crack down on illegal immigration in communities in Colorado and Ohio, whose high concentrations of immigrants have drawn national attention.

When asked about potential raids, Trump told reporters he did not want to discuss the specific timing of such operations.

Homan previously stressed that deportations would not involve sweeps of immigrant-heavy neighborhoods and would instead target immigrants with criminal records.

In private meetings, Homan told Republican lawmakers to tone down expectations for initial deportations due to limited resources. Homan told CNN he would need at least 100,000 beds to carry out detainment plans.

CNN also reported that Homan and lawmakers discussed a plan to target the 1.4 million people with final immigration orders of removal as part of a tiered approach to deportation. Concerns have risen about ICE's lack of space for a heightened number of detainees, as well as various legal challenges to its plans for deportations.

Other plans include working with local and state law enforcement agencies and reassigning law enforcement officials to ICE officers, The New York Times reported. The Trump team may also expand expedited removal, the process of removing noncitizens without a hearing and drafting limitations on birthright citizenship, such as ceasing to issue passports to children born in the US to immigrant parents who live in the US illegally.

Trump named Stephen Miller, the chief architect of Trump's first-term travel ban, as Homeland Security advisor and White House deputy chief of staff.

The border has calmed down recently. US Border Patrol calculated 47,330 migrant encounters along the southwest border in December, among the lowest since mid-2020 — and an over 80% reduction since December 2023.

During Trump's first term in office, the US deported about 1.5 million people. Between January 2021 and August 2024, when Biden held office, more than 1.4 million deportations were carried out.

Mass deportations could hurt American jobs

One of Trump's arguments about immigrants is that they steal jobs from native-born workers. Recent research shows that US-born employment increases with immigration, and deportations hurt native job numbers.

"US-born workers do not simply take all the jobs left behind by immigrants after they are deported," Chloe East, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies immigration policy, told BI. "This is because these jobs are lower-paid, more dangerous, and otherwise less desirable than the jobs more often taken by US-born workers."

The US has already seen examples of this in its recent history. Around 400,000 people were deported between 2008 and 2014 through a program called Secure Communities. Research published in October showed industries experienced heightened worker shortages as a result.

This also included the construction workforce, which employs among the highest numbers of workers living in the US illegally.

"The labor market is already tense and tight, and construction is one of those industries that doesn't have enough workers," Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the immigrant advocacy nonprofit group National Immigration Forum, told BI. She added that deportations could worsen housing shortages in the US.

Consumers may feel the effects of deportations at the grocery store, as a reduced agricultural workforce could mean less locally sourced food and higher prices. A Center for American Progress analysis from 2021 found that nearly 300,000 workers living in the US illegally were in agriculture and farming — around 13% of the 2.3 million workers in the agriculture sector that year.

The broader economy could be impacted

Immigrants living in the US illegally also contribute significantly to taxes and government programs. In 2022, they paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes, per the most recent data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. They paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes while being ineligible to receive benefits from those social insurance programs.

However, Republicans have argued that welfare programs and taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for immigrants have cost US residents billions, potentially partly offsetting these gains.

Some think tanks said the broader economy could suffer if millions of people are deported. The Peterson Institute for International Economics wrote in September that if 1.3 million people are deported, GDP could fall 1.2% below baseline by 2028.

• Donald Trump has been sworn in as president once again.
• He signed a slew of executive orders on Monday.
• They included establishing DOGE and declaring a "national energy emergency."

A political comeback is complete: President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were sworn into office in a ceremony beneath the Capitol Rotunda on Monday.

"The golden age of America begins right now," Trump said in his inaugural speech.

A host of dignitaries — including lawmakers, foreign leaders, and members of Trump's coming cabinet — were on hand. Tech leaders in attendance included Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

In a series of speeches throughout the day — his inauguration speech at the Rotunda, a more freewheeling speech in Emancipation Hall at the Capitol, and a third at Capital One Arena — Trump previewed a flurry of forthcoming actions, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border and establishing an "External Revenue Service."

At Capitol One Arena, he signed several executive orders, including one that rescinded 78 Biden-era executive orders and actions. Later on Monday, in the Oval Office, he signed several more, including pardons for January 6 rioters.

Here's what Trump has pledged to do on day one — and what he's actually done.

Energy and environment

Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accords, which he also did when he took office in 2017.

Increase fracking and oil drilling: Trump signed an executive order declaring a "national energy emergency" and another designed to ease permitting processes.

Trump's Interior Department will have the power to offer new leases for drilling and natural-gas extraction on federal lands. A last-minute Biden administration ban on deep offshore drilling is set to complicate those actions. While the White House can speed up approval and auction off more leases, it's ultimately up to the energy industry to expand production. Trump also wants to revive canceled projects such as the Keystone XL pipeline that companies have since dropped.

Government restructuring

Remove civil-service protections for federal workers: Trump has said he'll return to his sweeping first-term policy that would have made it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal workers.

On Monday, he signed an executive order instituting a temporary hiring freeze, saying it was "to ensure that we're only hiring competent people who are faithful to the American public." The order says the hiring freeze doesn't apply to the military or "to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety."

Trump also signed a separate order requiring federal employees to return to in-person work immediately.

Create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): Trump signed an executive order establishing DOGE in the Oval Office on Monday, saying Elon Musk would be "getting an office for about 20 people" in the executive branch.

The order says DOGE will implement the president's push for government efficiency "by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity."

As part of the order, the US Digital Service is set to be renamed to the US DOGE Service. The US Digital Service was created by then-President Barack Obama in 2014 and provided IT consulting services to federal agencies.

Trump's order also includes the formation of DOGE teams at each federal agency. The order says each team will have at least four members, which could consist of a team lead, an engineer, a human-resources specialist, and an attorney.

Shortly after noon on Monday, several organizations filed lawsuits in a bid to get DOGE to comply with a 1972 law. In the meantime, congressional Republicans eagerly welcomed Musk's efforts and have set up ways to coordinate with DOGE.

Trade

Trump didn't impose any tariffs on Monday, saying his planned tariffs on Canada and Mexico would be imposed in February. He didn't specify a date for his planned tariffs on China, saying he was "going to have meetings and calls" with the country's leader, Xi Jinping.

Trump said on Monday that he was considering imposing a universal tariff on all goods entering the US. He added that while the US was "not ready" for a universal tariff, it could be implemented rapidly.

"You put a universal tariff on anybody doing business in the United States, because they're coming in and they're stealing our wealth," Trump said.

Twenty-five percent tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian goods: Just before Thanksgiving, Trump said he'd levy significant tariffs on the US neighbors because of illegal immigration.

Thanks to Congress, presidents can impose tariffs without legislative action. In his first term, Trump used a law that allows the president to impose them because of national security emergencies. President Joe Biden even expanded some of those duties.

A 60% tariff on all Chinese goods: On the campaign trail, Trump discussed raising tariffs to as high as 60% on all Chinese goods. He's also mused about other wide-ranging tariffs.

Trump has long complained that the US trade deficit with China is too large. The influx of deadly fentanyl, of which the Drug Enforcement Administration has said China is a major source, has only exacerbated those tensions.

The creation of an external revenue service: In his inaugural speech, Trump said he'd establish a new agency to collect tariffs and other foreign fees. "It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources," Trump said.

It's unclear exactly how this service will be set up. Customs and Border Protection is already responsible for collecting customs, and only Congress could set up a new agency.

Effectively pulling the US out of the global tax deal: On Monday, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the "Global Tax Deal has no force or effect in the United States."

This move withdraws US support for the international tax agreement, which aims to establish a 15% global corporate minimum tax. Congress never passed measures to comply with the deal, leaving participating countries able to impose top-up levies on some US multinationals.

The order also calls on officials to look into "options for protection from extraterritorial tax measures."

Crackdown on illegal immigration

Trump signed several executive orders related to immigration on Monday, including declaring a "national emergency" at the southern border.

He also signed an executive order that aims to revoke birthright citizenship, setting up a legal challenge over the meaning of the 14th Amendment.

Trump and his allies have argued that the amendment shouldn't be interpreted to apply to the children of people living in the country illegally. Multiple groups have said they'd challenge any such executive action in court.

He also signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Trump said numerous times during the campaign that starting on his first day, he'd take action to begin "the largest deportation operation" in the nation's history.

In his inaugural speech, he said he'd "begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came."

Later, in the Oval Office, Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids would start soon, though he didn't specify a time.

Crime and justice

Pardons for January 6 rioters: Trump signed an executive order pardoning roughly 1,500 people who were involved in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The order Trump signed also commuted the sentences of 14 other individuals, who included members of far-right extremist groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

Culture war

Trump said in his inaugural address that it would "henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female."

The president signed an executive order in the Oval Office that an aide described as "protecting women from radical gender ideologies," which included preventing federal funds from being used to "promote gender ideology" and changes in federal policy to rigidly define terms such as "sex," "man," and "woman" as binary phrases.

Trump also took broad aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and pro-LGTBQ+ policies put in place by the Biden administration. In another order, he ended all federal DEI initiatives and terminated all DEI-related and "environmental justice" offices and positions, such as "chief diversity officer" positions, and all "equity" actions, initiatives, or programs and "equity-related" grants or contracts.

Another executive order renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, a change that Senate Democrats earlier this month indicated they'd be willing to support if the president worked with them on an economic plan to reduce the cost of living for average Americans.

TikTok ban

Trump signed an executive order halting the ban on TikTok for 75 days. While signing the order, Trump told reporters that TikTok could be worth $1 trillion and that the US should own half of it.

According to the divest-or-ban law passed by the Senate in April, TikTok had to cease its US operations on January 19 unless its China-based owner, ByteDance, divested itself from its US holdings.

Correction: January 20, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated Jeff Bezos' current position at Amazon. He is the founder and executive chairman, not the CEO.

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, loyalty will be a key aspect of his second term. Unlike 2017, Trump is no longer a political outsider adjusting to Washington for the first time. While Trump has to contend with a closely-divided House, he now has much more control over the GOP.

• As Donald Trump returns to the White House, loyalty will be a key aspect of his second term.
• Unlike 2017, Trump is no longer a political outsider adjusting to Washington for the first time.
• On Inauguration Day, Trump will be sworn in with a firm grip on the Republican Party.

When President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term on January 20, a lot will have changed since his 2017 inauguration, when he came into office as a political outsider who still elicited skepticism from many in Washington's Republican political class.

"They just weren't expecting to win," Peter Loge, an associate professor and the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told Business Insider about Trump's victory in 2016. "This time, there's an entire infrastructure. He has plans. There's Project 2025. He's much more like a traditional candidate who's ready to start governing on Day One."

Here's a look at how Trump and the country have entered a whole new era as the start of the president-elect's second term approaches:

Trump has raked in post-election cash

From Meta and Amazon to Ford and GM, a wide range of businesses and CEOs have contributed to Trump's inaugural fund.

In 2017, Trump raised $107 million for his inaugural committee, a staggering sum at the time. Just four years earlier, then-President Barack Obama's inaugural committee raised roughly $43 million.

Trump has so far raised at least $170 million for his second inaugural, according to The Associated Press. A full accounting of his inaugural funds isn't due until after he takes office.

Trump's business and tech support has grown

Ahead of Trump's first term, there was optimism among many in the business community over what they saw as his pro-growth agenda.

Trump's $1.5 trillion tax bill, which cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, was applauded by leaders who had been vocal about the need for American businesses to remain competitive in a global marketplace.

However, Trump's relationships with many of these leaders fizzled after the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where white nationalist groups unleashed a wave of violence. And many top leaders steered clear of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, where legions of pro-Trump supporters stormed the complex in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.

After Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November, though, many business and tech leaders actively began to renew or establish relationships with the incoming commander-in-chief.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, was ahead of the curve. He spent lavishly to help elect Trump and other GOP candidates last year, and Musk is now seemingly never too far away from the president-elect during major public appearances.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, and Musk will be guests at Trump's inaugural, according to NBC News and Bloomberg.

Loge told BI that many businesses have decided that it's "better to be on the Trump train than under it," pointing to the president-elect's penchant for dismissing the traditional workings of Washington and the desire for business leaders to have access to power.

"As a result, a lot of businesses are lining up behind Trump pretty rapidly," he said.

A Cabinet evolution

During Trump's first term, several high-profile members of his Cabinet, like onetime Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, had turbulent tenures and were fired by the president.

This time around, Trump is leaning heavily on loyalists and longtime supporters in selecting his second-term Cabinet picks and other high-level appointees.

Many of the names stand out. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York has been tapped to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, pending Senate confirmation. Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth underwent a tough confirmation hearing but is likely to win enough GOP votes to secure the post. And ex-presidential candidate and Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who backed Trump's campaign after ending his own candidacy — has emerged as a popular figure in Trumpworld over his stances on food and vaccine policies.

The million dollar question of Trump's second term is whether or not picking loyalists for his Cabinet will give him the sort of stability that he lacked in his first administration.

A less shocking win compared to 2016

Many Americans, who saw the multitude of national polls showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in 2016, were genuinely surprised when he won that November.

Dan Schnur, who teaches political communication at the University of Southern California and the University of California-Berkeley, told BI that Trump's first election "caused much more disruption" than it did in November 2024.

"The idea of Trump beating Clinton was inconceivable to most of the political universe," Schnur said.

After Trump's tumultuous first term and his lonely exit from Washington after losing to Biden in 2020, a large segment of the public saw the president-elect's political career as finished.

Still, Trump retained his hold over the GOP base, which powered his dominant caucus and primary wins last year. This was the case despite his myriad legal problems, which threatened his general election campaign.

Even as Harris' presidential candidacy spiked enthusiasm among Democrats after Biden stepped aside as the party's nominee, Trump still retained an advantage on the economy — which was a top issue for voters last November.

So when Trump won, it wasn't a shock to many. And the results showed that Trump broadened his appeal, as he won every major swing state and even secured a plurality of the national popular vote.

Congress will be more obedient

Trump is entering his second term with perhaps his strongest influence over Republicans to date. Lawmakers who may have been reluctant to align themselves with Trump in the past have largely put old feelings aside, embracing the fact that Republicans will now control the levers of power in Washington.

Republicans who defy the party on critical votes are more likely to be met with swift repercussions this time around, mostly in the form of primary challenges and pressure campaigns on social media platforms like X.

Trump is also going to be reliant on GOP leaders in Congress — namely House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota — to get his ambitious immigration and tax legislation passed.

However, while Republicans will enjoy a 53-47 edge in the Senate, they currently have a razor-thin 219-215 House majority, which is set to shrink even further following the expected departures of two members for roles in the Trump administration.

The wind is at Trump's back

In 2017, Trump was still a political novice and leaned on the legislative relationships that then-Vice President Mike Pence had amassed during his years on Capitol Hill.

"Back then, he tended to rely on establishment figures whom he felt would give him the necessary credibility in Washington," Schnur told BI. "But he learned over the course of those four years that many of those figures weren't nearly as loyal to him as he had expected."

"This time, he's put much more of a premium on personal relationships and loyalty. He's much more confident that the team around him is motivated toward the same goals as he is," Schnur added.

Trump now has a unified Congress, and he won a second term on the strength of his prior economic record, giving him a level of public support that he lacked early on in his first term.

Once he's is back in office, it'll clearly be a new day in Washington.

• Trump is pushing Ramaswamy to fill JD Vance's former Senate seat in Ohio, a source familiar with the matter told BI.
• Vance resigned the seat on Friday as he gets ready to become vice president.
• Ramaswamy is the co-head of DOGE and it's unclear what would happen to his role if he joins the Senate.

President-elect Donald Trump is pushing Vivek Ramaswamy to fill the empty Senate seat in Ohio if the governor offers it to him, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

The seat belonged to Vice President-elect JD Vance, who resigned it on Friday as he prepares to begin his duties at the White House. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will select someone to fill the seat for two years, before a special election in November of 2026.

"Neither Governor DeWine nor our office has commented on any possible candidates for the pending appointment," DeWine's press secretary Dan Tierney said in a statement to Business Insider.

DeWine has previously said he's not interested in a placeholder. He wants someone who can win a primary and general election next year and then do it all again in 2028 to win a full term.

Ramaswamy is set to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk. Should Ramaswamy be offered and accept the seat, it's unclear what would become of his responsibilities at DOGE.

The Washington Post reported the news earlier on Wednesday. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

• President-elect Donald Trump said he'd create an "external revenue service" on his first day in office.
• He said the external revenue service would collect tariffs and revenue from foreign countries.
• Creating a new federal agency requires approval from Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will create a new agency to facilitate his tariff proposals on his first day in office.

Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that he would create an "external revenue service," which he said would "collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources." He said the external revenue service would go into effect on January 20, the first day of his presidency.

"For far too long, we have relied on taxing our Great People using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)," Trump said. "Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change."

While it's not clear how Trump would go about creating the external revenue service, establishing a new agency requires congressional approval.

Broad tariffs have been a cornerstone of Trump's campaign. On the campaign trail, he called for a 60% tariff on goods imported from China, along with a 10% to 20% tariff on all other imports. He later amped up his threats on foreign countries by vowing for more tariffs on Canada and Mexico if they failed to crack down on immigration and drug trafficking, and he warned of further tariffs on BRICS nations unless they committed to not creating a new currency that would compete with the US dollar.

Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about additional details on the external revenue service.

The US Customs and Border Protection already collects revenue for the US by enforcing trade laws — data from the CBP found that the agency took in $3.35 trillion in imports and revenue collections in fiscal year 2022. It's unclear how the external revenue service would differ from or work with CBP.

Earlier on Tuesday, Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House advisor, put the creation of an external revenue service on his wish list for Trump's first 100 days in power. Like Trump, Bannon has said the US should return to an era that relies more on tariff fees to fund the federal government.

"You wouldn't just look at tariffs, you would look at everything about how you can charge fees, essentially, whether that is on investment, access to this country," Bannon told Politico during an event focused on Trump's first 100 days. "America is behind the golden door. This market is the most robust, lucrative market in the world, and we shouldn't just let people have access it — we shouldn't let foreigners have access to this market and to the American people and to the American citizens for free."

Trump has dismissed concerns that raising tariffs will increase consumer prices. Studies of Trump's first-term tariffs showed that tariffs did increase the cost of goods like washing machines. Allies would likely impose retaliatory tariffs of their own, as they did under Trump's first-term trade policy.

A number of economists and trade experts have predicted that Trump's broader tariff proposals could have a larger impact on the economy and consumers than they did during his first term. The nonpartisan Peterson Institute, for example, predicted that Trump's proposed 60% tariff on goods imported from China could boost inflation by 0.4 percentage points in 2025.

• Jeff Bezos says he takes Elon Musk at his word that he will use his newfound power for good.
• Bezos' Blue Origin and Musk's SpaceX are among the leading private companies in the new space race.
• Through DOGE, Musk will have a major perch to influence the future of federal spending.

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said Elon Musk's budding relationship with President-elect Donald Trump won't give SpaceX a leg up on its competitors.

"Elon has been very clear that he's doing this for the public interest and not for his personal gain," Bezos told Reuters in an interview published on Monday. "And I take him at face value."

Bezos spoke ahead of Blue Origin's launch of its New Glenn rocket, which was ultimately scrubbed due to a need to "troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue."

The Amazon founder has repeatedly downplayed any concerns that Musk's self-described status as Trump's "first buddy" will give any of his companies an advantage.

Last month, Bezos said he was hopeful that Musk's work will remain above board.

"Let's go into it hoping that the statements that have been made are correct, that this is going to be done, you know, above board, in the public interest," Bezos said during The New York Times' Dealbook conference. "If that turns out to be naive, well, then we'll see."

Musk's power has been on full display in recent weeks. He took a leading role in killing a bipartisan government funding bill loaded with unrelated provisions to entice congressional Democrats to support it. Congress eventually averted a government shutdown, but the episode led some Democratic lawmakers to call out "President Musk" and the influence he will wield in Trump's Washington.

Trump and Musk have been virtually inseparable from Trump since Election Day. Musk's role in the Department of Government Efficiency will give him power to call for major cuts to federal spending.

Blue Origin and SpaceX are already part of a joint Pentagon launch contract that could be worth up to $5.6 billion.

Trump has previously said that Musk has "the credibility" to carry out DOGE's mission.

"I think that Elon puts the country long before his company," Trump told Time Magazine last month.                                                       

• Donald Trump and Dana White have enjoyed a decadeslong friendship predating presidential politics.
• In each of Trump's three presidential campaigns, White lined up behind the president-elect.
• During the 2024 race, the mixed martial arts leader also appeared on Trump's first TikTok video.

Donald Trump might be the only person who can attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight and outshine the headliners — even UFC CEO Dana White doesn't draw the same type of reaction.

In November, Trump set the crowd off by walking into UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden to join his entourage, which included Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Trump's cabinet nominees.

White stands at the center of it all. In just under three decades, White has turned his sport, once on the fringe of pop culture, into a spectacle that even a president-elect couldn't resist.

Trump and White's decades-long friendship has been mutually beneficial. White has repeatedly said he will never forget how Trump offered a grand stage to his sport when few others would. Trump successfully deployed White's cohort of podcasters and influencers, led by Joe Rogan, in his 2024 election win.

"Nobody deserves this more than him, and nobody deserves this more than his family does," White told the energetic crowd at Mar-a-Lago as it was apparent that Trump had been elected to a second term. "This is what happens when the machine comes after you."

Here's a look at the decadeslong relationship between Trump and White over the years:

Donald Trump gave a big early boost to UFC

In 1990, Trump opened Trump Taj Mahal, a billion-dollar prized jewel in Atlantic City, that businessman billed as the 8th Wonder of the World. At its peak, it was the biggest casino in town.

Trump needed big acts to fill the casino's arena, which Elton John had christened. In 2001, Trump took a chance on the UFC, which was still trying to escape its brutalist stigma. The sport that then-Sen. John McCain, famously called "human cockfighting" in the 1990s, couldn't even put on an event in Las Vegas.

Trump's UFC event came at a pivotal moment

Shut out of Nevada, UFC staged its fights in a series of smaller venues around the country and the world. White considered the invitation to the Taj Mahal a sign of legitimacy.

"Nobody took us seriously," White has repeatedly said. "Except Donald Trump."

Trump's backing came during a crucial time in the company's history. In January 2001, a month before the Trump-hosted fight, casino moguls Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta purchased UFC. They picked White, Lorenzo's friend and a manager for two of mixed martial arts' biggest fighters, as the president.

Under White's leadership, UFC's popularity skyrocketed

By September 2001, UFC was in Vegas. Four years later, White led UFC onto the airwaves on SpikeTV, cashing in the popularity of reality TV competitions with "The Ultimate Fighter."

It helped that in 2004, Trump welcomed Tito Ortiz, one of the sport's biggest stars, onto the first season of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," the glitzier spin-off to Trump's smash reality TV hit.

The Ultimate Fighter was a big success, increasing the company's popularity.

White locked in UFC's voice

If White is the face of UFC, Rogan is undoubtedly its voice. His association with the company even predates White's time as president. After the Fertitta brothers purchased UFC in 2001, White offered Rogan a full-time gig as a color commentator. Rogan has said it's in his contract that he'll leave the UFC if White ever exits, too.

Rogan's profile grew alongside the UFC, considering his association with mixed martial arts was part of why he became the host of NBC's "Fear Factor."

The comedian cashed in on his bigger profile in 2009, starting what was then a weekly commentary show. By the time Trump first ran for president in 2016, "The Joe Rogan Experience" was one of the most popular podcasts in the world.

Business didn't get in the way of Trump and White's friendship.

While he's known for real-estate, Trump has sought out many other partnerships and business ventures to varying degrees of success. In 2008, Trump partnered with Affliction, a clothing brand, to launch a competitor in the mixed-martial arts space. Their promotion even landed Russian fighter Fedor Emelianenko, whom White and the UFC had previously sought to sign.

The venture lasted only two fights. According to The New York Times, White sometimes criticized his friend, pointing out his inexperience in operating such a company, "Donald Trump owns casinos."

White and Trump remained close. The UFC head even vowed that he would never fully go after Trump, a nod to the real estate mogul's early support.

White was once far from a conservative firebrand

In 2010, White campaigned with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as he sought to hang onto his seat amid a difficult year for Democrats. Reid won, and Democrats held onto a slimmer US Senate majority.

According to The Times, White's politics mirrored Trump's in that both businessmen viewed the enterprise through a transactional lens. Trump faced criticism in the 2016 GOP primaries for previously supporting leading Democrats like Hillary Clinton.

White spoke as if he was a stranger at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Few major establishment Republicans spoke at Trump's 2016 convention. Enter White, one of a handful of longtime Trump friends who extolled the virtues of the man who would soon become the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

White even alluded to the fact that his attendance might appear odd.

"My name is Dana White. I am the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I'm sure most you are wondering, 'What are you doing here?'" White told the crowd in Cleveland. "I am not a politician. I am a fight promoter, but I was blown away and honored to be invited here tonight, and I wanted to show up and tell you about my friend, Donald Trump — the Donald Trump that I know."

White returned to the trail again in 2020.

Ahead of Trump's reelection bid, White said Trump's time in the White House only deepened their relationship.

"We've actually become even closer since he's become the President of the United States," White said during a 2020 campaign rally. "When somebody becomes the President of the United States, you don't ever expect to hear from them again. And I understand it. It absolutely makes sense. This guy is so loyal and such a good friend."

The COVID-19 pandemic made White a conservative star

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the live event business. Sports, including the UFC, were no exception. White saw an opening as the four major professional leagues struggled through discussions on how to return.

White tried to get the UFC to return with an event on tribal land in California, but that effort was postponed amid Disney and ESPN's uneasiness. In turning to Gov. Ron DeSantis' Florida, White found a much more receptive audience — even if the first fight didn't allow any fans. UFC 249 in May was the first major sporting event since the pandemic's beginning.

Trump delivered a video message congratulating White on the event.

"Get the sports leagues back, let's play," Trump said in a video recorded outside of the Oval Office. "Do the social distancing, and whatever you have to do, but we need sports. We want our sports back."

Out of power, Trump found refuge at the UFC

After leaving the White House, Donald Trump wasn't welcomed in many places. Following the January 6 Capitol riot, the two biggest professional golf governing bodies rebuked him. The Professional Golf Association even stripped one Trump-owned course of the right to host one of the PGA's major four tournaments.

In July 2021, the Manhattan District Attorney indicted the Trump Organization, setting off an array of legal headaches that didn't abate until after the 2024 election. A week later, Trump entered to mostly cheers in Las Vegas as he prepared to take in UFC 264.

Trump made the UFC central to his 2024 bid

Trump officially launched on TikTok at UFC 302 in June 2024. The fighting promotion's audience was also the perfect place for the former president's campaign, given his advisors' emphasis on attracting young men.

White's broader orbit suddenly intertwined with the former president's comeback campaign. Trump, and later his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, made a point of appearing on podcasts geared toward this demographic. The Nelk Boys, Theo Von, Adin Ross, and "Bussin' with the Boys" all shared close ties to White. Trump appeared on each of their respective shows.

@realdonaldtrump

Launching my TikTok at @UFC 302.

♬ original sound - President Donald J Trump

White spoke at Trump's pre-election rally at Madison Square Garden.

White energized the crowd at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally just days before the election, where he said that Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn't bring "change" to the country.

And he emphatically praised Trump in advance of an election that was seemingly tied in most of the swing states.

"He is the most resilient, hardest-working human being that I've ever met in my entire life," White said during his remarks.

Celebrating his win, Trump turned the mic over to White

Dana White just thanked

Adin Ross, Theo Von, Nelkboys and Joe Rogan for the Trump victory #Election2024 pic.twitter.com/GYye6c9onc

— FADE (@FadeAwayMedia) November 6, 2024

As Trump spoke to an adoring crowd at Mar-a-Lago and to the nation, he invited White to make remarks, and the UFC president wasted no time singing the praises of the president-elect.

"He keeps going forward — he doesn't quit," White bluntly said. "He deserves this. They deserve it as a family."

White also name-checked podcast hosts that had welcomed Trump into the so-called "Manosphere."

A former UFC spokesperson will have a key role in Trump's White House

One of Trump's key White House aides also has ties to UFC. Steven Cheung, who will be the White House communications director, was a spokesperson for UFC before he left to join Trump's 2016 campaign.

Cheung's brash statements, particularly those bashing DeSantis during the 2024 primary season, received considerable attention and drew comparisons to how closely they mirrored Trump's own rhetoric.

Just before Trump took office, Meta tapped White for a new role.

Trump may have helped out White again. In January 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the UFC executive would join the technology company's board. Zuckerberg's move was widely seen as a play to curry favor with Trump and his orbit.

White might be done in the political arena

White wasn't very political before he campaigned for Trump. He has said that his outspokenness may be an exception only reserved for his friend.

"I'm never fucking doing this again," White recently told The New Yorker. "I want nothing to do with this shit. It's gross. It's disgusting. I want nothing to do with politics."

• The Trump Organization announced its ethics plan for Donald Trump's second term.
• The president-elect's private company said Trump would be walled off from day-to-day duties.
• Unlike in 2017, the company is leaving the door more open to some foreign transactions.

The Trump Organization on Friday announced that President-elect Donald Trump will be walled off from the day-to-day management of his privately held company.

Unlike in 2017, Trump's company is not agreeing to a blanket stop on new foreign business transactions. Instead, a five-page ethics plan calls only for a limit on transactions with foreign governments.

"The Company will not enter into any new material transactions or contracts with a foreign government, except for Ordinary Course Transactions," says a copy of the plan, obtained by CNBC.

The language would seem to allow business dealings like the Trump Organization's work with LIV Golf, a competitor to the PGA financed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, to continue. LIV is set to return to Trump National Doral in Florida for an April tournament.

Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the company's plan was little more than a rehash of Trump's first-term ethics policies.

"We saw during the first four years of the Trump presidency, a tremendous of the mixing of the business of the presidency with all kinds of interests, companies, people bring business to business Donald Trump seemingly as a way to kind of curry favor with him," Bookbinder told Business Insider. "What we're seeing this time is Donald Trump potentially taking the same ethics guidelines that didn't work during his first presidency and then dialing them back some."

Many policies outlined in a five-page document mirror Trump's promises when he took office in 2016. One of the main similarities is that the Trump Organization has again appointed an outside ethics advisor. Bill Burck, co-managing Partner of Quinn Emanuel and a former George W. Bush DOJ official, will serve as the advisor.

According to the plan, Burck will review acquisitions over $10 million, leases involving more than 40,000 sq. ft., and new debts of more than $10 million. He will also review deals with the US government as well as with state and local governments.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the ethics plan. The Journal also reported that the Trump Organization wants to reclaim its former Washington, DC, hotel. Congressional Democrats sued Trump when he was in office, alleging he was partly violating the US Constitution's emoluments clause by renting out hotel rooms to foreign governments. In 2021, the Supreme Court threw out the remaining emoluments-related lawsuits.

Trump has significant assets outside of his eponymous firm. He has a significant stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of his social media platform Truth Social. Trump's shares are a large part of the reason why his net worth is now estimated to be over $6 billion.

• Elon Musk said on Wednesday that saving $2 trillion would be a "best-case outcome" for DOGE.
• Musk said DOGE had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion, which would still be an "epic outcome."
• The Tesla chief had previously suggested his commission would save at least $2 trillion.

Elon Musk cast doubt on his previous promise that Donald Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" would save the government $2 trillion.

"I think we'll try for $2 trillion. I think that's, like, the best-case outcome," Musk told the political strategist Mark Penn during a Wednesday-evening chat on X.

In October, Musk argued that DOGE would save the government at least $2 trillion. Some federal budget experts questioned the possibility of making such significant cuts, especially given that Trump has promised not to touch programs like Social Security and Medicare.

"But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage," Musk told Penn. He added that he thought the commission had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion.

He continued: "If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome."

Musk did not specify in October which cuts he planned to make to achieve that target, which would involve slashing government spending by nearly a third; the federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.

Musk told Penn on Wednesday that he still thought the government was "a very target-rich environment for saving money."

"It's like being in a room full of targets," he added. "Like, you could close your eyes, and you can't miss."

Republican lawmakers have moved quickly to support DOGE's efforts. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia are set to lead their chambers' work with the panel.

The Tesla CEO's influence has soared since Trump's victory. In recent weeks Musk helped kill sweeping legislation to fund the federal government, briefly increasing the risk of a shutdown.

Trump has waved off concerns about Musk's political moves in Europe. The Tesla CEO has repeatedly criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and called for the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, to step aside. Musk also endorsed Germany's far-right AfD party ahead of elections next month; top leaders have pushed back.

"You mean where he likes people that tended to be conservative? I don't know the people," Trump told reporters during a wide-ranging press conference on Tuesday. "I can say Elon's doing a good job. Very smart guy."

Musk and Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Trump is set to be sworn into office on January 20.

• Donald Trump said that Mark Zuckerberg may have taken notice of his threats.
• The president-elect previously threatened to jail the Meta CEO for life.
• Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that his company will no longer partner with third-party fact-checkers.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for changing how it moderates political content on its three major social media platforms.

Trump, who previously threatened Zuckerberg with life in prison, said his comments might have led to the announcement.

"Probably," Trump said when asked if Zuckerberg is "directly responding to the threats you've made to him in the past."

Zuckerberg and Trump once had a frosty relationship, but both sides appear to be warming up.

"Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook" Trump told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference.

Zuckerberg made the major shift on Tuesday, announcing that his company will no longer partner with third-party fact-checkers and will relax moderation policies on topics like gender and immigration.

"We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship," Zuckerberg said in a video posted on Facebook. "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

Joel Kaplan, recently promoted to lead Meta's global policy team, outlined the announcement during an interview on "Fox and Friends," Fox News' morning show that Trump has long watched.

"There is a real opportunity here, with President Trump coming into office, with his commitment to free expression, for us to get back to those values," Kaplan said.

Trump said he saw Kaplan's comments and called the former Bush White House official "very impressive."

Zuckerberg recently dined at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, part of a larger wave of tech CEOs hoping to reset relations with the incoming administration. Meta is also donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration.

Zuckerberg and Trump haven't always gotten along.

Trump's first administration and several states teamed up in 2020 on a major antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. In 2021, Trump, then-a former president, sued Facebook and other platforms for banning him in the wake of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Trump and his allies have also been highly critical of Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's charitable giving ahead of the 2020 election to help local election officials deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are watching him closely," Trump wrote in his book earlier this year in a section about Zuckerberg," and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election."

Before the presidential election, Zuckerberg announced he would not make any donations to election officials again, and he called Trump a "badass" after the president-elect survived an assassination attempt in July.

A representative for Meta didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Trump wouldn't rule out using military force to take Greenland and retake the Panama Canal.
• The president-elect made the remarks during a major press conference just days before his 2nd term.
• Denmark has emphatically stated that Greenland isn't for sale.

President-elect Donald Trump isn't ruling out using military force in an effort to gain control of Greenland and retake control of the Panama Canal.

During a Tuesday press conference, Trump was asked if he'd assure the world that he wouldn't use military or economic coercion to secure the sovereign territory and the vital waterway, respectively.

The president-elect in his response reinforced the critical economic importance that he sees in Greenland and the Panama Canal.

"I can't assure you," he said. "I'm not going to commit to that. It might be that you'll have to do something."

"We need Greenland for national security purposes," he continued. "People don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up."

Late last year, Trump spoke about possibly taking back control of the Panama Canal from Panama as well as his wish to secure Greenland from Denmark. He also floated buying Greenland in 2019.

Trump during Tuesday's press conference also threatened to "tariff Denmark at a very high level" if the country didn't give up control of Greenland.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark earlier on Tuesday said that "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," adding that the strategic Arctic island is "not for sale."

Greenland is a Danish colony, though it has had self-rule since 1979. Greenland could declare its independence but would need to hold a formal vote first. Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede said recently that it was "time to take the next step for our country," hinting at the possibility of a referendum this year.

As for the Panama Canal, the Carter Administration signed a treaty in 1977 that began a process that led to Panama taking full control of the canal in 1999. Last month, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a statement that his nation controls "every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area."

Shortly after, Trump responded on Truth Social by stating, "We'll see about that," and then posted a photo with the caption, "Welcome to the United States Canal!"

Business Insider has reached out to representatives of Trump for comment.