President Trump's dismantling of the U.S.-led global order has injected deep uncertainty — and perhaps fresh opportunity — into China's timeline for a potential invasion of Taiwan.

Why it matters: U.S. officials have long been fixated on 2027 as the year Xi Jinping would be ready to move on Taiwan, citing military modernization goals tied to the 100th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army.

• Trump — while acknowledging that a Chinese invasion would be "catastrophic" — has been purposely opaque about whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan in such a scenario.
• "I never comment on that," Trump said this week when asked if it was his policy that China will never take Taiwan by force. "I don't want to comment on it because I don't want to ever put myself in that position."

Driving the news: Beijing has stepped up its saber-rattling toward Taiwan, pledging at the annual National People's Congress this week to "firmly advance the cause of China's reunification" and boost defense spending by 7.2%.

• Next week marks the 20th anniversary of China's Anti-Secession Law, which explicitly authorizes the use of military force if Taiwan declares independence or if peaceful "reunification" becomes impossible.
• In a sign of mounting tensions, China's embassy in the U.S. warned this week that "if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end."

The big picture: U.S. presidents have had a long-running policy of "strategic ambiguity" on the question of military intervention to protect Taiwan. But under Trump 2.0, it has become a true mystery.

• For starters, Trump's approach toward Ukraine has dispelled the notion that he would defend Taiwan solely for the sake of shielding a democracy from authoritarian aggression.
• He has openly questioned America's commitment to NATO and sided with Russia, sending allies scrambling to remake Europe's security architecture after 80 years of stability.

Between the lines: Forget alliances or idealism. The only thing Trump cares about on the global stage is core U.S. interests.

• "Taiwan should pay us for defense," Trump told Bloomberg last summer. "You know, we're no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn't give us anything."
• And whether it's Russia or China, Trump prefers to negotiate superpower-to-superpower — leaving allies in the cold, even when their sovereignty or security is at stake.

Zoom in: Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan plays a pivotal role in the global economy, with its crown jewel chip-maker, TSMC, manufacturing more than 90% of the world's most advanced semiconductors.

• Global dependence on TSMC has long been considered a powerful deterrent against Chinese aggression, but Trump has treated the company's dominance as a personal affront.
• "Taiwan took our chip business away," Trump told reporters last month. "We had Intel, we had these great companies that did so well. It was taken from us. And we want that business back."

The intrigue: Under the threat of tariffs, TSMC announced a $100 billion investment in U.S chip production this week — pleasing Trump, but alarming Taiwanese who fear it could make the island more vulnerable.

• "It's a great question, actually," Trump said when asked whether having TSMC production in the U.S. would "minimize" the impact of China invading Taiwan.
• "I can't say 'minimize.' That would be a catastrophic event, obviously," Trump mused. "But ... we would have a very big part of it in the U.S. So, it would have a big impact if something should happen with Taiwan."

The other side: Many top Trump officials have called for the U.S. to draw down its presence in Europe and the Middle East to focus on China's threat to Taiwan, seeing it as far more important than Ukraine.

• Elbridge Colby, a leading voice on the issue nominated for a top Pentagon role, told senators this week that Taiwan falling to China "would be a disaster for American interests."
• Colby — who previously has advocated for "disabling or destroying" TSMC factories if China invades — called for Taiwan to boost its defense spending from 2.5% to 10% of its GDP.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, told CNBC Friday that Trump is "confident" Xi will not invade Taiwan during his presidency.

The bottom line: Europe so far has borne the brunt of Trump's highly transactional foreign policy, but China, Taiwan and the rest of the Indo-Pacific are watching closely.

• In the words of Singapore's defense minister last month, America's image in the region "has changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent."

Donald Trump is building a reputation for himself as the flip-flopper in chief — the president who, after announcing a bold new policy today, is more than likely to reverse it tomorrow.

Why it matters: In a chaotic and unpredictable world, the federal government normally acts as a stabilizing force. Under Trump, it has become the primary driver of the chaos.

The big picture: Across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada — two of America's three largest trading partners — have been on and then off and then on and then off. Colombia knows the feeling.

• The government put 80 million square feet of its real estate up for sale, only to then take the "for sale" sign down.
• Trump has fired federal employees at the CDC, the FDA, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, only to then re-hire them.
• He touted the use of military aircraft to carry out high-profile deportations, only to suspend the flights after finding them costly and inefficient.

For the record: "This is the art of the deal," a White House spokesman tells Axios about the tariff reversals, adding that the General Services Administration and individual agencies, rather than Trump himself, are responsible for other executive-branch actions.

• Elon Musk is also distancing himself from the firings of federal workers.

Flashback: In a matter of days, Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, then made up and invited him to Washington, then chastised him in the Oval Office, then expressed openness to rebuilding ties, then cut off arms and intelligence sharing.

Zoom in: Republicans in Congress have repeatedly found themselves boxed in by Trump's flip-flops.

• He spent weeks equivocating on whether Congress should pass his agenda in one bill or two — then blindsided the Senate by backing House Republicans' one-bill approach.
• He promised not to cut Medicaid, then backed a House GOP budget plan that could force exactly that in order to meet its proposed spending cuts.
• He has vowed to achieve the unthinkable by balancing the budget — while endorsing trillions of dollars in tax cuts, plus new campaign promises like no tax on tips or overtime.

Follow the money: The stock market, for one, is tiring of such shenanigans. On Wednesday, stocks fell on news that tariffs were being imposed — and then on Thursday, when those tariffs were suspended, stocks fell again.

• Foreign investors like French energy company Engie are on the record as saying that they need clarity and predictability in order to invest in the U.S. — something that's clearly missing at the moment.
• "I'm not even looking at the market," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, disavowing his longtime favorite metric for economic success.

Zoom out: In crypto, a rug-pull is any project that's announced and then abandoned — often at great expense to anybody who believed the initial announcement.

Between the lines: Elon Musk — who may or may not be the head of DOGE, depending on who you ask — is at least partially responsible for the administration's "move fast and break things" ethos.

• "We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we'll fix it very quickly," Musk said in a Cabinet meeting last week, pointing to the reversed cancellation of Ebola funding.
• DOGE has made plenty of mistakes, but has not always been transparent about fixing them — quietly pulling down billions of dollars from its online "wall of receipts" on multiple occasions.

The bottom line: This is just exhausting.

President Trump's joint address to Congress devolved, within minutes, into the nastiest partisan food fight in the history of this annual tradition.

Why it matters: It was Democrats, restless and indignant over the state of the country after six weeks of MAGA rule, who started the brawl. But it was Trump, reveling in the chaos and relentlessly on brand, who finished it.

4 takeaways

1. Democrats become the story

• Defying warnings from Democratic leadership, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) kicked off a night of theatrics by heckling Trump minutes into his speech — a breach of decorum that ended with Green's historic ejection from the chamber.
• Other House Democrats — armed with auction-style signs, custom T-shirts and whiteboards (but no eggs) — protested Trump by turning their backs, booing, shouting "lies," and walking out of the chamber.
• For a Democratic Party flailing in the wilderness, the disruptions offered a rare opportunity to prove to voters that the "Resistance" has a pulse.

2. Trump's permanent campaign mode

• Trump's record-long, 100-minute remarks were largely indistinguishable from his campaign stump speeches, but the chance to do televised battle with his Democratic foes was new — and he clearly had missed it.
• Trump referenced President Biden over a dozen times — calling his predecessor "the worst president in U.S. history" and accusing him of leaving behind a decimated U.S. economy, "especially" when it comes to the price of eggs.
• Trump routinely veered off script, mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as "Pocahontas" and accusing voting-rights activist Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat, of corruption. He also referred to Democrats as "radical left lunatics" as he twisted the knife on their devastating election loss in November.
• In another sign of his everlasting campaign, Trump called for Congress to outlaw taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits, despite Republicans not expected to pursue those priorities in budget talks.

3. An ode to tariffs

• Less than 12 hours after unleashing a massive trade war against Mexico and Canada, Trump acknowledged the potential for tariff pain — brushing off the stock market's deep uncertainty as a "little disturbance" and "a little bit of an adjustment period."
• "Bear with me," Trump, who often has cited the stock market as proof his economic policies are working, urged Americans. He then launched into a full-throated defense of tariffs as a revenue raiser, a national security tool and a source of protectionist pride.
• "Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs. They're about protecting the soul of our country," Trump declared as he touted recent re-shoring and investment announcements by major companies.

4. Made-for-TV magic

• True to form, Trump created several viral moments by using his guests to reinforce his priorities on border security, trans athletes in women's sports, crime and the military.
• He granted honorary Secret Service membership to a 13-year-old cancer patient, broke the news that West Point had accepted an aspiring cadet's college application, and signed an executive order naming a wildlife refuge after a 12-year-old girl killed by an undocumented immigrant.
• Trump also announced that the alleged architect of the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul, which killed 13 U.S. service members during the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, had been arrested in Pakistan and was en route to the U..S.

The bottom line: Trump's speeches have never been short on hyperbole and ambition, but a whirlwind first six weeks in office have emboldened the president's rhetoric to messianic new heights.

• "I was saved by God to make America great again," Trump said at one point, referring to the assassination attempt he survived last summer.
• "We are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic, and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth."

President Trump's online base is splintering over the administration's handling of two major news stories related to sex trafficking, which converged this week in dramatic fashion.

Why it matters: The online MAGA universe is diverse, powerful, and extremely volatile. With a mix of ultra Trump loyalists and conservative ideologues, infighting is inevitable — and often explosive.

• That's become especially true on issues related to sex trafficking, which was at the heart of the #Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories that helped grow Trump's online base.

What's happening: On Fox News Wednesday night, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised to declassify and release secret documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex trafficker whose client list implicated global elites.

• On Thursday, Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel hosted pro-Trump influencers at the White House and gave them a sneak peek of the documents in binders titled, "The Epstein Files: Phase 1."
• The influencers were then photographed by White House press holding up the binders, the contents of which had not yet been publicly released. Some of them were pictured smiling and laughing.

Later that evening, the Justice Department released 200 pages of documents mostly consisting of recycled Epstein flight logs and contact information that had long been in the public domain.

• The online reaction was furious: Prominent Trump supporters accused Bondi and the influencers of staging a PR stunt and failing to release any new information.
• To make matters worse, the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee posted a link on X purporting to hold the "Epstein files." It instead redirected users to a video of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up" — a "Rickroll" prank from the 2000s.

Bondi then released a letter alleging that the FBI's New York field office was withholding thousands of pages of Epstein documents, and called for them to be turned over by Friday at 8 am ET.

Zoom in: As the chaos over the Epstein files was unfurling, Romania suddenly lifted travel restrictions on Andrew and Tristan Tate, a pair of far-right influencers who were awaiting trial on human trafficking charges.

• The British-American Tate brothers — self-proclaimed misogynists who support Trump and have a massive global audience of young men — have also been accused of rape and tax evasion in the U.K.
• The Financial Times reported that Trump officials had pressured Romanian authorities to lift the travel ban, though Trump himself denied any knowledge of the case Thursday.

The Tate brothers' arrival at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida, where they proclaimed their innocence, set the stage for another intra-MAGA feud between mainstream conservatives and hardline provocateurs.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Tate brothers were not welcome in his state, and that his attorney general would investigate whether any of their alleged crimes trigger Florida jurisdiction.
• "That these moral monsters have been welcomed to our shores with open arms is appalling and shameful," conservative columnist Josh Hammer wrote in a Newsweek piece shared by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Between the lines: Backlash against Trump is brewing among segments of his base that are not traditionally political — but have an intense interest in the Tate and Epstein sagas.

• "If I'm gonna be fair these questions needs to be asked today. Why is the release of the Epstein list always a shit show?" tweeted Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
• "What's the point of booting out illegals and criminals while somehow becoming a safe haven for the Tate brothers?"

A parade of European leaders issued statements of solidarity with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his stunning confrontation with President Trump in the Oval Office on Friday.

Why it matters: Trump has plunged the U.S. into a state of unprecedented isolation on the world stage. Ukraine's fate is deeply uncertain, as the country is now at risk of losing its most important partner in the three-year fight against Russia's invasion.

What's happening: Trump's team asked Zelensky to leave the White House after a meeting to sign a rare minerals deal devolved into an extraordinary screaming match in front of TV cameras.

• "He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
• The verbal clash was triggered when Zelensky asked Vice President Vance "what kind of diplomacy" he envisioned with Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly violated ceasefires since first occupying Ukraine in 2014.

Vance, who has long been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine, accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and ungrateful.

• Zelensky shot back that the U.S. could one day feel threatened by Russia — seemingly enraging Trump, who said the Ukrainian leader was "gambling with World War III."
• "What you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's backed you," Trump said, raising his voice as the Ukrainian ambassador appeared to bury her head in her hands.

How it's playing: The confrontation with Zelensky exhilarated not only Trump's "America First" base, but Kremlin officials watching closely from Moscow.

• "The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And Trump is right: The Kiev regime is 'gambling with WWIII,'" tweeted Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister.
• "How Trump and Vance restrained themselves and didn't punch this scumbag is a miracle of endurance," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

What they're saying: European leaders, who are increasingly coming to terms with Trump's hostile approach toward the transatlantic alliance, moved swiftly to defend Zelensky with a coordinated message of support.

• "Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President Zelensky," tweeted European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
• The leaders of Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, Sweden, and dozens of other European countries issued similar statements heaping praise on Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.
• Zelensky — whom Vance accused of not saying "thank you" during his White House visit — individually thanked each European leader who expressed solidarity with Ukraine.

Between the lines: The Zelensky debacle is likely to be remembered as an inflection point for Europe, with little doubt that Trump will continue undermining U.S. alliances in the years ahead.

• "We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor," tweeted the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who has clashed repeatedly with Trump officials in recent weeks.
• "Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It's up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge."

The international order forged after World War II is imploding, squeezed on all sides by the return of strongmen, nationalism and spheres of influence — with President Trump leading the charge.

Why it matters: Trump is openly scornful of international institutions and traditional alliances. Instead, he sees great opportunity in a world dominated by superpowers and dictated through dealmaking.

Between the lines: Trump's approach is based, according to U.S. officials, in "realism" — and the belief that "shared values," international norms and other squishy concepts can never replace "hard power."

• "The postwar global order is not just obsolete," Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared at his confirmation hearing last month. "It is now a weapon being used against us."

Where the U.S. once helped enforce global norms, such as on trade, Trump is undercutting them.

• Trump's first term posed newfound threats to 20th-century alliances and structures — NATO, the World Trade Organization, even the UN.
• A second Trump term could render them virtually obsolete.

Zoom in: The frailty of the rules-based order was exposed this week on the preeminent global stage built to support it.

• At the UN General Assembly on Monday, the U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine on the third anniversary of the war.
• It was the first time since 1945 that the U.S. sided with Russia — and against Europe — on a resolution related to European security, according to the BBC's James Lansdale.
• Nearly all other Western leaders see Russia as a rogue state and an aggressor. Trump sees a potential partner.

Zoom out: For Europe, which has relied on the U.S. to guarantee its security for the last eight decades, this isn't just a wakeup call: It's an existential challenge that throws the entire transatlantic alliance into question.

• Germany's conservative leader Friedrich Merz said after his election victory Sunday that his "absolute priority" is to rapidly strengthen Europe so that it can "achieve independence from the USA."
• "I would never have believed that I would have to say something like that on television," Merz admitted. "But after Donald Trump's statements last week, it is clear that the Americans ... are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

Trump officials have expressed open contempt toward Europe on a range of issues beyond collective defense, including trade, migration, free speech and culture.

• "The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That's the purpose of it, and they've done a good job of it," Trump said in the Oval Office this week as he floated 25% tariffs on EU goods.
• "There's a new sheriff in town," Vice President Vance announced in a fiery speech in Munich this month that painted globalism as the downfall of European society.

The big picture: In today's multipolar world, the U.S., Russia and China are all racing to secure their strategic interests and solidify — or expand — their spheres of influence.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin dreams of reconstituting the Soviet bloc and has tried to do so by force — invading Ukraine and meddling in elections across the Western world.
• China, an economic and military superpower under Xi Jinping, is watching Ukraine carefully as it ponders whether to invade Taiwan and cement Xi's legacy through "reunification."

Trump, meanwhile, has broken sharply with his predecessors by calling for the expansion of U.S. territory — potentially to include Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Gaza Strip.

• He's also floated grand bargains with both Beijing and Moscow on everything from trade to nukes.
• This is great power competition in its purest form, and it's the direction that Trump — to the deep consternation of small and mid-sized countries — seems intent on taking the world.

The bottom line: What's old is new again.

• 80 years ago, three great powers — the U.S., U.K. and the Soviet Union — gathered in what is now Russian-occupied Crimea to decide the fate of a European continent ravaged by war.
• There at Yalta, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin set the terms for what ultimately led to the Iron Curtain, fueling the decades-long Cold War.
• "I think that's Donald Trump's mindset. It's certainly Putin's mindset. It's Xi Jinping's mindset. It's not Europe's mindset," former MI6 chief Alex Younger warned last week. "That's the world we're going into."

President Trump's first month in office has exceeded the wildest dreams of his most loyal supporters, and the darkest nightmares of his fiercest detractors.

Why it matters: Both groups can agree: The America that Joe Biden left behind on Jan. 20 is no longer recognizable, erased in four frenetic weeks by an empowered, implacable and historically popular MAGA presidency.

• Like Trump 1.0, the firehose of news and norm-busting behavior is — and will continue to be — the defining feature of this administration.
• Unlike Trump 1.0, the chaos is calculated — and explicitly designed to institutionalize MAGA, paralyze the president's enemies and permanently break the Washington establishment.

Zoom in: Above all else, Trump's first month has been dominated by his war on the federal bureaucracy — and his various efforts to prod, probe and blow through the limits of presidential power.

• The White House's early attempt to freeze federal funding has set the stage for a massive legal fight over Congress's "power of the purse," which is laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution.
• Elon Musk and his DOGE allies are slashing and burning their way through government agencies — cheered on by the MAGA faithful as they fire thousands of federal workers, sometimes with reckless abandon.
• The rapid dismantling of USAID and the government-wide assault on DEI have sent clear signals that any programs misaligned with Trump's MAGA will be on the chopping block. The Department of Education could be next.
• At the Justice Department — which haunted both Trump's first term and his next four years as a private citizen — the purging of career prosecutors and FBI agents has punctured any veneer of independence from the White House.

Between the lines: Trump and Musk's shock treatment of the U.S. government has overshadowed the two main issues that dominated the 2024 campaign: immigration and inflation.

1. On immigration, Trump has moved with lightning speed to enforce his promise of a sealed border.

• Arrests from border crossings plummeted to 21,593 in January — down from 47,316 in December, and an all-time high of 250,000 in December 2023 — after a blizzard of Day One immigration-related executive orders.
• Trump's goal of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants has proven more difficult, with the pace of operations stalling because of a lack of funds, detention space, officers and infrastructure.

2. "Inflation is back," Trump acknowledged in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity this week. "I had nothing to do with it," he then argued, pinning the blame on Biden's spending policies.

• Despite promising to "end inflation" starting on Day One, Trump is right that the effects of his new policies won't immediately show up in consumer prices.
• The danger: Trump's sweeping use of tariffs is injecting deep uncertainty into global markets, and could turn inflation into a long-term feature of the U.S. economy.

What to watch: With the dust still settling on America's new normal, Congress soon will move to codify vast swaths of Trump's agenda.

• Trump on Wednesday endorsed House Republicans' budget resolution, which includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — including to Medicaid.
• With a razor-thin majority in the House, Trump's vision for "ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL" is a huge gamble — but one that would clear the way for a historic, and enduring, reordering of the American economy.

Zoom out: In the meantime, Trump's return to a deeply transactional foreign policy has exhilarated his "America First" base while alarming U.S. allies worldwide.

• This week alone, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky a "dictator without elections" and repeatedly endorsed the Kremlin's false narrative that it was Ukraine — not Russia — that started the war.
• Even more shocking was Trump's proposal to take over and redevelop Gaza into "the Riviera of the Middle East." Critics say the plan — which Trump says would involve relocating Palestinians to Egypt, Jordan or elsewhere — is unworkable and would amount to the ethnic cleansing of 2 million Palestinians.
• The president's aides and allies say his provocations should be viewed through the lens of dealmaking. For now, most foreign leaders are opting to take him at his word.

The bottom line: For all the scar tissue already accumulating in Washington, Trump is only 2% through his four-year term.

• If his bets pay off, he'll have rewritten the rules of American governance for generations.
• If they backfire, the consequences could be just as historic.

President Trump stunned, strangled and humiliated Europe — leaving America's closest continental ally dazed and dumbfounded.

• That was over the course of three short days this week.

The big picture: No amount of "Trump-proofing" could have prepared Europe for the MAGA-shaped hurricane that swept across the continent this week, wreaking torrential havoc on America's closest allies.

Driving the news: Trump left NATO and Ukraine still reeling with his initiation of direct peace talks with Russia, without Ukraine fully in the loop or other European leaders even in the conversation.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth perplexed and perturbed allies on his first visit to NATO by seemingly taking some of Ukraine's bargaining chips off the table before those talks began. He also demanded that Europe take ownership of its own defense so the U.S. could focus on the more urgent threat from China.
• Back at home, Trump announced "reciprocal" tariffs on every country that imposes import duties on the U.S., likely affecting $600 billion worth of goods from the EU.
• And at a global AI summit in Paris on Tuesday, Vice President Vance torched the EU's "excessive regulation of the AI sector" and "hand-wringing about safety," and left the conference without signing its joint declaration.

But it was in Vance's remarks to the Munich Security Conference on Friday that things got particularly personal.

• "[T]he threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor," Vance began in one of his first major speeches on the world stage.
• "What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America."

What came next left conference attendees silent, stunned and steaming.

• Vance called European Union officials "commissars" — a reference to the Soviet Union — and accused them of censoring their citizens in the name of fighting disinformation and hate speech online.
• He excoriated Romania for annulling the results of its Nov. 24 election, in which an obscure ultranationalist candidate rocketed to first place after a TikTok campaign that intelligence services linked to Russia.
• He condemned the convictions of a British man who prayed outside an abortion clinic, and of a Swedish man who participated in Quran burnings that led to his friend's murder.
• And he said that of all the challenges Europe faces, there's "nothing more urgent than mass migration" — tying Thursday's terrorist attack in Munich to a "series of conscious decisions" by European politicians.

Between the lines: Ahead of Germany's snap election on Feb. 23, Vance called for an end to political "firewalls" — the principle of refusing to form governments with far-right parties such as the AfD.

• Vance later met with the leader of the AfD — becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to do so — while snubbing Germany's center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
• Together, Vance's actions amounted to an astonishing intervention in European politics that was swiftly condemned by top officials, including Germany's conservative leader and likely next chancellor.

Zoom out: No one could ever mistake Trump for a great supporter of Europe, which he once said "treats us worse than China."

• But whether it's threatening to annex Greenland from Denmark, or picking Saudi Arabia as the mediator for Russia-Ukraine talks, the second Trump term could mean twilight for the transatlantic relationship.

The bottom line: Europe's leaders have been bracing for Trump's return for well over a year. And yet much like the Democrats paralyzed by the chaos at home, the last three days have exceeded their worst nightmares.

WARSAW -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on remarks he made at NATO this week about the terms of a potential Ukraine-Russia peace deal, saying his job was simply to "introduce realism to the conversation."

Why it matters: Hegseth's comments, followed Wednesday by President Trump's initiation of direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, drew fierce criticism from NATO allies and even some Republicans.

• "I don't know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, told Politico.
• Wicker, speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, suggested that Hegseth had made a "rookie mistake" and "walked back some of what he said" on Thursday.

But Hegseth, whose position on Ukraine and NATO was echoed by Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, rejected the notion that he walked back anything at a press conference with Poland's defense minister.

What they're saying: "I stand by the comments that I made on that first day in the Ukraine Contact Group — and that's for all the press out there, who it's difficult for them to understand that," Hegseth told reporters Friday.

• "My job today and in Brussels was to introduce realism to the conversation. The reality that returning to 2014 borders as part of a negotiated settlement is unlikely. The reality of U.S. troops in Ukraine is unlikely. The reality of Ukraine membership in NATO as a part of negotiated settlement, unlikely," he said.
• "That said, I would never put constraints around what the president of the United States would be willing to negotiate with the sovereign leaders of both Russia and Ukraine," Hegseth added.

Between the lines: Hegseth, like Vice President Vance and other Trump emissaries in Europe this week, is walking a difficult tightrope as negotiations get underway.

• Trump's position is clear, even if it's unpopular with Russia hawks: He believes Ukraine's potential membership in NATO instigated Putin's invasion, and that ending the war is the top priority.
• But Trump is also a self-styled "deal-maker," as Hegseth has repeatedly stressed this week, and refuses to definitively rule out trading chips as a matter of principle.

The big picture: What has proven most controversial in Washington, Brussels and Kyiv this week is the notion that Trump and Putin would directly negotiate a deal without Ukraine's approval.

• "I think Ukraine ought to be the one to negotiate its own peace deal," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Axios. "I don't think it should be imposed upon it by any other country, including ours."
• "It's obvious that Europeans can't be involved in securing peace that they haven't been involved in negotiating," German defense minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Munich, calling Hegseth's comments "clumsy."

Go deeper: Trump and Hegseth send NATO scrambling over future of Ukraine

BRUSSELS -- NATO allies are in a state of anger, denial and despair after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth effectively declared an end to America's role as the primary guarantor of European security, particularly over Ukraine.

• President Trump's surprise phone call with Vladimir Putin, just hours later, only added salt to the wound.

Why it matters: Europe has been bracing for this moment since the early days of Trump's 2024 campaign. That hasn't made it any less painful — or the future any less uncertain.

State of play: Hegseth, who visited NATO headquarters for the first time this week, made clear Wednesday that the following chips will now be "off the table" in peace talks, as a senior U.S. defense official stressed to Axios.

1. NATO membership for Ukraine — a central source of tension with Russia promised by the alliance in 2008 — is not a "realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement," Hegseth said.
2. U.S. troops will not be deployed to Ukraine to enforce postwar security guarantees.
3. Any European peacekeepers sent to Ukraine should be deployed as part of a "non-NATO mission," meaning Article 5 — the alliance's bedrock principle of collective defense — should not protect them.

Zoom out: Less clear is what chips remain on the table, given Ukraine's deteriorating position on the battlefield, the potential curtailment of U.S. military aid, and Russia's gleeful response to the concessions.

• Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday after his call with Putin, and said he and Putin had "agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately."
• Zelensky told Trump in their phone call that Putin is only pretending to want to negotiate a peace deal because he is "afraid of you," as Axios' Barak Ravid scooped.

The latest: Amid backlash from Ukrainian officials and NATO defense ministers, Hegseth defended the new U.S. position and rejected claims that Trump had handed Russia preemptive concessions.

• "Any suggestion that President Trump is doing anything other than negotiating a position from strength is, on its face, ahistorical and false," Hegseth said at a press conference after his NATO meetings Thursday.
• Asked by Axios what leverage Ukraine has left, Hegseth responded sharply: "It's just a cheap political point to say, 'Oh we've left all the negotiating cards off the table by recognizing some realities that exist on the ground.'"

"[Trump's] got all the cards he would like," Hegseth stressed.

• "And the interesting part is, while the conventional status quo mindset, or the legacy media, wants to play checkers ... President Trump, time and time again, finds a way to play chess," he said.
• "We have the perfect deal-maker at the table from a position of strength to deal with both Vladimir Putin and Zelensky. No one's going to get everything they want."

The intrigue: Despite his previous remarks about Ukraine's "unrealistic" future membership in NATO, Hegseth clarified that "everything is on the table" and that Trump is ultimately the one leading the negotiations.

• "I'm not going to stand at this podium and declare what President Trump will do or won't do, what will be in or what will be out," Hegseth said.
• "Simply pointing out realism, like the borders won't be rolled back to what everyone would like them to be in 2014, is not a concession to Vladimir Putin. It's a recognition of hard power realities on the ground," he argued.

Friction point: NATO allies and supporters of Ukraine have criticized Trump for seemingly taking Russia's side at various points during the war, including this week.

• In the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump demurred when asked whether Ukraine was "an equal member" of the peace process: "I think they have to make peace," he said after a pause. "That was not a good war to go into."
• On Thursday, he went a step further: "I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow [Ukraine] to join NATO ... I believe that's the reason the war started."

What to watch: The European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who attended Thursday's meetings along with Ukrainian defense minister Rustem Umerov, said the EU would continue supporting Ukraine if Kyiv refused to accept Trump's conditions.

• "It's not good negotiation tactics if you just give away everything before the negotiations have even started," Kallas told reporters, echoing similar comments by NATO defense ministers.
• "Appeasement will always fail."

The big picture: Here in Brussels, NATO officials have largely responded to Hegseth's bombshell by pointing out that the alliance has steadily been taking a greater share of responsibility for supporting Ukraine.

• "This administration deeply believes in alliances," Hegseth said Thursday as he reiterated his call for NATO members to dramatically increase their defense spending and take ownership of European security.
• "But make no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker."

BRUSSELS -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a blunt message to NATO allies Wednesday: U.S. troops will not be part of any future peace-keeping mission in Ukraine.

• Nor should NATO's Article 5 protections — under which the U.S. vows to respond if an ally is attacked — apply to any European forces sent to Ukraine to secure a postwar peace settlement, he said.
• Ukraine, meanwhile, should make a deal now — and give up on regaining all of its occupied territory, or becoming a member of NATO.

Why it matters: Hegseth is the first senior Trump administration official to visit NATO headquarters, where he met with Ukraine's defense minister and other key officials ahead of the third anniversary of Russia's invasion.

• A few hundred miles away, Vice President Vance is slated to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference later this week to discuss President Trump's vision for peace.
• Since Trump's election, NATO and Ukrainian officials have been bracing for the U.S. to wind down military aid to Ukraine — and potentially force Kyiv to make territorial concessions to Russia.

What they're saying: Ahead of his first meeting with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO HQ, Hegseth relayed a simple message from Trump: "The bloodshed must stop, and this war must end."

• "We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective," Hegseth said, referring to Russia's years-long occupation of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region.
• "Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering."

The big picture: Turning to the prospect of peace talks, Hegseth suggested that Trump's efforts to drive down energy prices will weaken the Russian "war machine" and help bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

• A future peace deal must include "robust security guarantees" for Ukraine, Hegseth said — backed by "capable European and non-European troops," but not through NATO membership or U.S. troops on the ground.
• "If these [NATO-country] troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5," Hegseth stressed.

Between the lines: Hegseth is both pushing Ukraine to seek a deal, and ruling out provisions Kyiv would want as part of any agreement to reduce the risk Russia would attack again when the time was ripe.

• In an interview with The Guardian this week, Zelensky dismissed the notion that Europe could provide legitimate security guarantees without American muscle.
• "Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees," Zelensky said, suggesting he could win Trump over by offering American companies lucrative contracts to rebuild Ukraine.
• Trump recently demanded that Ukraine grant access to $500 billion in rare earth minerals in return for years of U.S. military support, and is dispatching Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Kyiv this week.

What to watch: "Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine," Hegseth said, warning that the strategic threat from China will no longer allow the U.S. to be "primarily focused on the security of Europe."

• "The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe," he concluded.
• "But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency."

STUTTGART, GERMANY — The Pentagon plans to welcome Elon Musk and "the keen eye of DOGE" to scrutinize its spending "very soon," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Axios on his first overseas trip since taking office.

Why it matters: At more than $890 billion, the Pentagon's budget is a behemoth — accounting for roughly half of the U.S. government's discretionary spending this fiscal year.

• It's also a black box: The sprawling Defense Department has failed its annual audit seven years in a row, including this past December.
• Contrary to DOGE's downsizing goals, President Trump actually wants to increase defense spending — but believes Musk and his team can help salvage and redirect "billions of dollars" of inefficiencies in the military.

What they're saying: "There is waste, redundancies, and headcounts at headquarters that need to be addressed. There's just no doubt," Hegseth told Axios outside U.S. Africa Command here on Tuesday.

• A fierce proponent of "getting back to basics," Hegseth pointed to spending on dealing with climate change — prioritized as a national security threat by the Biden administration — as a clear target for cost-cutting.
• "The Defense Department is not in the business of ... solving the global thermostat. We're in the business of deterring and winning wars," the former Fox News host and Army combat veteran told Axios.

Between the lines: Neither Trump nor Hegseth have acknowledged public concerns about letting Musk — whose companies have billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts — into the heart of the military-industrial complex.

• But Hegseth did downplay the notion that Musk would exercise unilateral authority at the Pentagon, as critics allege the billionaire has done at other agencies targeted by DOGE.
• "We'll do it in coordination. We're not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities," Hegseth said.
• "The Defense Department is not USAID," he added, referring to the foreign aid agency crippled by DOGE. "USAID's got a lot of problems ... pursuing globalist agendas that don't have a connection to America First."

Zoom in: Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard, began his first full day in Europe by joining an early-morning physical training session with Special Forces soldiers.

• He later encountered a small crowd of protesters — mostly military families and teachers who booed and chanted "DEI" — before his meetings at U.S. European Command. Hegseth, following Trump's lead, has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the Pentagon.
• At an AFRICOM town hall, Hegseth was grilled by service members on Trump's executive order banning trans people from the military and pausing gender reassignment procedures. This week he directed the military to stop recruiting trans people.

Hegseth, 44, was upbeat and defiant as he ended his day celebrating the restoration of Fort Bragg — now renamed after World War II hero Roland L. Bragg, rather than the Confederate general. During the Biden administration in 2023, the fort's name had been changed to Liberty.

• "We're honoring a private first class. And I'm proud that we have a Marine corporal as the vice president of the United States," Hegseth told reporters with a smile, referring to JD Vance.
• "Junior enlisted have never seen better days."

What to watch: On Wednesday, Hegseth will become the first senior Trump official to visit NATO headquarters, where defense ministers are anxiously waiting to hear the administration's plans for ending the war in Ukraine.

President Trump is taking a sledgehammer to a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy, ripping up decades of "soft power" in favor of a highly personalized, transactional, coercive style of dealmaking.

Why it matters: For Trump, results speak loudest. Less than three weeks into office, his administration already has struck deals of varying substance with Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala and even Venezuela.

• Most were secured through threats of tariffs and other leverage, with Trump's top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, occasionally serving as the good cop.
• But the headlines obscure a longer-term risk: Trump is gutting key aspects of America's global influence and the workforce that promotes it — leaving a vacuum that U.S. adversaries are eager to fill.

Zoom in: Trump and Elon Musk's rapid dismemberment of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — by far the world's largest provider of foreign aid — has stunned diplomats and NGOs around the globe.

• In an instant, the most impoverished and unstable regions of the world have seen funding dry up for basic food supplies, water, medicine, education, disaster relief — affecting the lives of millions of people.
• The New York Times reports that Trump is slashing the number of USAID jobs worldwide from over 10,000 to 290, while canceling about 800 grants and contracts.
• Trump and his "America First" allies argue the money should be spent at home, and that USAID is a Trojan horse for spreading destructive leftist ideologies. The governments of China, Russia and Iran seem to agree.

Between the lines: Republicans haven't always held such negative or conspiratorial views of foreign aid.

• "Our national interests are inextricably tied to the security and development of our friends and allies," said President Ronald Reagan, who made soft power central to U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War.
• As a senator, Rubio was a fierce defender of foreign aid — and even sent President Biden a letter in 2022 calling for more USAID funding to "counter the Chinese Communist Party's expanding global influence," according to CNN.
• "I promise you, it's going to be a lot harder to recruit someone to anti-Americanism, anti-American terrorism, if the United States of America was the reason why they're even alive today," Rubio said in 2017.

Zoom out: Meanwhile, Trump has made clear his disdain for America's network of alliances, which previous presidents have seen as a crucial competitive advantage over adversaries.

• Trump threatened Canada with 25% tariffs and has repeatedly suggested turning America's northern neighbor into the 51st state.
• He has said the European Union is "worse than China" when it comes to trade.
• He wouldn't rule out sending in troops if NATO ally Denmark doesn't hand over Greenland.
• And he threatened tariffs on Colombia, historically one of the closest U.S. partners in Latin America, for turning back a flight of deported migrants.

What they're saying: "There's really no better gift to Putin and Xi than for the world to see that the United States is a completely unreliable friend and partner," says Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who also held senior roles at the Pentagon and National Security Council.

• "People will obviously treat us as just one more transactional great power."

What to watch: Rubio announced Thursday that he would boycott a G20 gathering in South Africa after Trump and Elon Musk condemned a post-apartheid land reform law as "racist" toward white people.

• "South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote 'solidarity, equality, & sustainability.' In other words: DEI and climate change," Rubio tweeted.
• It's very rare for any member of the club of global powers to skip such a gathering, let alone the U.S.
• China, which has invested heavily in soft power through its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative, pointedly expressed support for South Africa's G20 presidency after Rubio's snub.

The bottom line: Biden was fond of saying that what mattered was "not the example of our power, but the power of our example."

• Trump believes exactly the opposite.

The White House has directed the General Services Administration to terminate "every single media contract" expensed by the agency, according to an email obtained by Axios.

What they're saying: "GSA team, please do two things," a Trump administration official wrote:

Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg

Pull all media contracts for just GSA - cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.

Why it matters: President Trump is targeting the federal government's media contracts after Elon Musk and his allies discovered millions of dollars in agency subscriptions to Politico Pro, a policy tracking service widely used in Washington.

• The discovery, made through a U.S. government spending database that has long been publicly available, triggered erroneous theories on X about the Biden administration "funding" anti-Trump media.
• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the executive branch would stop spending money on Politico subscriptions amid the right-wing outrage.
• GSA manages real estate, procurement and technology services for the federal government. An X account for DOGE has also announced cuts to other individual deals, such as a Treasury contract with the New York Times.

Reality check: Politico's executives addressed the false conspiracy theories about the company receiving "funding" from the government in a note to readers Thursday.

• "POLITICO is a privately owned company. We have never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years," wrote Politico Media Group CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and Politico Global Editor-In-Chief John Harris.
• "POLITICO Pro is different. It is a professional subscription service used by companies, organizations, and, yes, some government agencies."
• "Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes—just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient."

Between the lines: A White House official said there should be no surprise the government is targeting media subscription, given DOGE's mandate to cut spending and Trump's opposition to financially helping the mainstream media.

• "The eye of Sauron is on more than just Politico," the adviser said. "It's all the media."

Disclosure: Our Axios Pro product provides in-depth policy and industry news to paying subscribers, including government employees. Last year, $5,550 in payments were made to Axios as part of a Federal Communications Commission subscription, according to the government's database that tracks federal spending.

President Trump and Elon Musk promised to break Washington. No one thought it would look this easy.

Why it matters: Trump 2.0 has already laid waste to democratic norms, precedents and even some laws. Paralyzed by the breadth of disruption, many of the president's demoralized critics have been left sputtering: "He can't do that."

• And yet he is.

The big picture: With a popular mandate, unified control of Congress, a pliant Republican Party, a struggling opposition and the resources of the world's richest man, there are few guardrails to curb Trump's maximalist agenda.

• Short of a court order, Trump's opponents have so far failed to stop him from bending and breaking the limits of presidential authority.

Zoom in: The extraordinary empowerment of Musk, who spent at least $288 million to help elect Trump, has triggered new fears over the administration's lack of accountability to Congress.

• This weekend, Musk's allies orchestrated a physical takeover of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), ousting security officials who tried to stop them from accessing classified spaces.
• With USAID employees locked out of their accounts and Musk vowing to shutter the "evil" agency, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over as acting administrator and notified Congress of a "potential reorganization."

Democrats reacted furiously, holding a press conference outside USAID headquarters to sound the alarm over what they called an "illegal" takeover of an independent agency authorized by Congress.

• "We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
• "You cannot wave away an agency that you don't like ... by literally storming into a building and taking over the servers," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who vowed to stall Trump's State Department nominations in protest.
• Trump, meanwhile, disputed that shutting down USAID would require an act of Congress — arguing it would be justified because the agency is rife with "fraud."

Between the lines: Beyond rhetoric, Democrats have limited recourse to slow Trump's agenda — especially with the party still grappling with an identity crisis in the wake of the disastrous 2024 election.

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) unveiled a plan Monday to try to stop Trump from freezing or diverting congressionally appropriated funds, namely by using leverage in government funding negotiations.
• But Democrats are fundamentally limited by life in the minority. Even if they reclaim a majority in the 2026 midterms, history suggests Trump officials will have no qualms about blowing off subpoenas.
• "We'll speak out. We will open investigations, and we will demand accountability," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Monday. "The one tool we do not have is the majority in this Congress. So that means our Republican colleagues have to say enough."

Reality check: So far, there's no sign Republicans will put up any resistance. In Trump's first two weeks in office, his administration has:

• Temporarily frozen all federal grants, loans and financial assistance, signaling a desire to challenge Congress' power of the purse.
• Offered "deferred resignations" to roughly 2 million federal workers, promising to pay them through September even though the government hasn't been funded past March 14.
• Fired at least 17 independent agency watchdogs, openly defying a statute requiring an explanation to Congress 30 days in advance.
• Fired federal prosecutors involved in Trump-related investigations and hinted at an additional purge for thousands of FBI agents.
• Signed an executive order directing the attorney general not to enforce the law Congress passed requiring TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company or face a U.S. ban.

What to watch: The courts acted swiftly to block Trump's most audacious Day One executive order: terminating birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.

• Still, the judicial branch is inherently a slow-moving, last line of defense — one that Democrats can't always count on to curb Trump's executive encroachment.

Challenges to the U.S. government's checks and balances are likely to continue in the coming weeks, months and years.

• Trump officials are now discussing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, fulfilling a longtime conservative goal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Elon Musk and his cost-slashing allies are taking a hammer to the massive bureaucracy that staffs the U.S. government — and a scalpel to any senior officials who dare put up a fight.

Why it matters: Musk isn't the only force driving the Trump administration's escalating purge of civil servants. But his fingerprints are everywhere, and his methods are unlike anything the federal government has ever seen.

Zoom in: Musk and his lieutenants — many of them Silicon Valley transplants, some as young as 19 — have been tied to a series of high-profile departures and ousters at the top of key federal agencies.

• The Treasury Department's highest-ranking career official announced his retirement Friday after a dispute with Musk allies who sought access to a sensitive system for government payments, The Washington Post scooped.
• David Lebryk, who worked at Treasury for more than three decades, was one of a few career officials who control the Bureau of Fiscal Service's technical checkbook, which disburses trillions of dollars in spending.
• "Truly a shocking move — Dave is a total apolitical professional who's been trusted by Treasury secretaries from both parties to maintain the critical financial plumbing of the U.S. govt," Biden Treasury official Mike Gwin tweeted in response to the news.

By late Friday, Musk's allies at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had been granted full access to the payment system by newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to the New York Times.

• "Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress," Musk claimed Saturday. "This needs to stop NOW!"
• "I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems," Senate Finance ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter demanding answers from Bessent.

The pattern repeated itself at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which Trump could be preparing to fold into the State Department — openly defying a congressional statute.

• A top HR official at USAID, which has become the epicenter of a vicious debate over foreign aid, was placed on administrative leave Thursday for trying to rescind a DOGE order purging career officials, the Post reports.
• On Saturday, two top security officials also were put on leave after trying to stop Musk allies from physically accessing USAID headquarters and personnel files, including classified information.
• "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die," Musk tweeted in response to reports of the confrontation.

Behind the scenes: So far, the White House appears pleased with Musk's foray into the inner workings of the government, seeing his efforts as aligned with Trump's broader goals of disrupting D.C.'s status quo.

• "Elon's top interest outside of DOGE is making sure the president's orders are acted upon," a senior White House official told Axios. "Elon is the ultimate command-and-control guy. He's making sure there's a sense of urgency in the agencies."
• "What Elon's doing is great because he's an innovative businessman bringing business innovation to bear in government. That's why he's here," the official added.

But political risks are inherent in Musk's whirlwind takeover of federal agencies, especially when they intersect with his business interests.

• Democrats have accused Musk of pressuring former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) head Mike Whitaker to resign Jan. 20 over $600,000 in fines the agency levied against Musk's SpaceX.
• Whitaker's departure left the FAA without a leader during Wednesday night's in-air collision near Reagan National Airport — the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001. Trump named Chris Rocheleau as FAA acting administrator the next day.

The big picture: Musk hasn't slowed down since helping orchestrate last week's stunning offer of "deferred resignations" for 2 million federal workers, which came days after he visited the Office of Personnel Management.

• Musk allies installed at the OPM have locked career officials out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal workers, Reuters reported Friday.

What we're watching: Musk paid a visit last week to what's likely to be his next target: the General Services Administration, which oversees thousands of government leases as part of its massive budget.

• "Deleted," Musk responded bluntly to an X post highlighting the billions of dollars and thousands of federal workers under GSA's control.

In his first national tragedy, President Trump posted like a pundit, speculated needlessly, and blamed Democrats and DEI without any evidence to suggest either were involved.

Why it matters: The traditional presidential playbook is boring by design — pray for the lost and their families, reassure the public, promise a swift investigation. That has never been Trump's style.

The big picture: Trump has responded to the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation with a similar approach that he took to COVID — which produced arguably the lowest moments of his first term.

• It's vintage Trump: His instincts for bare-knuckle brawling were a huge asset during his four years in the wilderness, helping to fuel a historic political comeback.
• But Trump is president now, not a powerless pundit. His words carry the weight of the U.S. government.

Zoom in: As bodies were still being recovered from the Wednesday night collision outside Reagan National Airport, Trump began a press conference at the White House with a moment of silence and request for national unity.

• Moments later, he pivoted sharply to attacking his Democratic predecessors, Presidents Biden and Obama, and accusing the Federal Aviation Administration of prioritizing diversity over air safety.
• He acknowledged an investigation was needed to determine the exact causes of the crashes, but cited "common sense" when asked how he knew diversity hiring could have played a role.
• "They actually came out with a directive — 'too white,'" Trump claimed of the FAA under Obama. "Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse."

Trump later signed a memo ordering a review of all federal aviation hiring and safety decisions — and explicitly blaming his predecessors for the collision.

• "This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence" in the FAA, the memo alleged.

Reality check: There's no evidence that Obama or Biden's hiring policies at the FAA led to any kind of decline in aviation safety.

• The "disabilities" language that Trump now opposes was in FAA regulations during his entire first term and first appeared around 2013, according to the fact-checking website Snopes.
• The FAA administrator under Biden resigned when Trump took office, and the agency had been leaderless until Trump tapped Chris Rochealeau on Thursday, after the crash.

What they're saying: Democrats reacted with outrage at Trump's finger-pointing, with some lawmakers diverting blame to the president's gutting of a key aviation safety advisory committee and federal hiring freeze.

• "Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying," tweeted former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whom Trump accused of leading the diversity charge at the FAA.
• "We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch," Buttigieg wrote.

Zoom out: Trump's knee-jerk politicization of the Potomac River crash fits a familiar pattern — one that was on display not only during his first term, but in the weeks before he took office this time.

• After Hurricane Helene ravaged North Carolina, Trump spread baseless conspiracy theories about the Biden administration purposely refusing to help mostly Republican areas and wasting emergency resources on migrants.
• When an American-born Army veteran drove through a crowd in New Orleans on New Year's Day, Trump falsely linked the terror attack to undocumented migrants crossing the border.
• And when the worst wildfires in California history unleashed mass devastation in Los Angeles, Trump blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom's water policies and floated the idea of placing conditions on federal disaster aid.

Flashback: In a post-2020 election autopsy, Trump's own pollster cited the president's handling of COVID as the leading cause of his defeat.

• Trump's daily pandemic press briefings and public attacks on his own health officials wore down the American public, which ultimately saw Biden as the steadier hand.
• Four years in opposition have helped Trump rehabilitate his image. But by reflexively blaming Democrats and DEI for the country's problems, Trump risks a repeat of the dynamics that weakened his first presidency.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded a memo Wednesday that had ordered a "temporary pause" on federal funding and unleashed major confusion across the country.

Why it matters: It's an astonishing reversal by the Trump administration, a day after top officials defended the funding freeze — which a judge temporarily halted on Tuesday — as necessary to ensure all government spending was aligned with the president's vision.

The latest: "This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X.

• "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," she added.
• It's unclear what exactly Leavitt meant, as it was the now-rescinded memo — not the executive orders Trump signed previously — that outlined the "temporary pause."

Catch up quick: The memo ordering the freeze, issued Monday night, had called for a pause on federal grant, loan and other financial assistance programs — potentially affecting billions or even trillions of dollars in spending.

• White House officials said it would not affect Medicare, Social Security, or other direct assistance that Americans "rely on," but the lack of detail left state governments, nonprofits, schools and other programs scrambling to determine whether they'd be impacted.
• Outages affecting Medicaid reimbursement portals across the country only added to the confusion, and Democrats seized on the chaos to mount their first significant and sustained attacks on the Trump administration.

What they're saying: "This is an important victory for the American people whose voices were heard after massive pressure from every corner of this country — real people made a difference by speaking out," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

• "Still, the Trump administration — through a combination of sheer incompetence, cruel intentions, and a willful disregard of the law — caused real harm and chaos for millions over the span of the 48 hours which is still ongoing," she added.
• "Round one goes to Team America. We remain in the ring until far right extremism has been completely and totally knocked out," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) tweeted.

The intrigue: Other Democrats argued the memo rescission was simply a sleight of hand, and that the Trump administration is seeking to circumvent lawsuits while keeping certain funding frozen.

• "Crisis is deepening, not abating. They are trying to ignore the court order," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned.
• "This is just more confusion and chaos," tweeted New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading a group of states suing the administration. "We will be in court this afternoon."

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

A potential constitutional crisis erupted Tuesday over the Trump administration's surprise federal funding freeze, jolting Democrats into action after months of strategic paralysis.

Why it matters: For the first time since President Trump won the election, the so-called Resistance is showing signs of life.

Senate Democrats moved with rare dexterity to block a GOP-led bill in one of the few places where they have real leverage, and blanketed social media with panicked reports from their constituents.

• House Democrats called an emergency meeting for Wednesday to plot a "comprehensive three-pronged counteroffensive" — targeting appropriations, litigation and communications.

Nonprofits — later joined by Democrat-led states — stormed the federal court system with lawsuits, leading a judge to temporarily halt the funding freeze at 5pm ET Tuesday.

What they're saying: "This is cruelty, this is lawlessness, this is a heist done on a national scale," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters in one of several press conferences by top Democrats, vowing to "fight this every way we can."

• "We need Democrats to use every procedural maneuver to grind things to [a] stop and use every media tool to raise alarm and allow public pressure to build," Ezra Levin, co-founder of progressive group Indivisible, said in a statement.
• "Shut down the Senate, refuse to allow them to steamroll, and take this fight to every town hall, courtroom, and news outlet."

State of play: The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent shockwaves through Washington on Monday night with a memo directing agencies to "temporarily pause" grants, loans and federal financial assistance programs to ensure they align with Trump's priorities.

• "This is not a blanket pause," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stressed as she was bombarded with questions about the freeze in her first press briefing Tuesday.
• "Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause," she said.

Leavitt then told reporters she would check into whether Medicaid — the nation's largest health insurance program, covering 72 million mostly low-income Americans — would be affected.

• In the meantime, reports flooded in from all 50 states about Medicaid reimbursement systems being inaccessible — prompting the White House to issue a statement acknowledging an online "outage."
• "We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly," Leavitt said.

The big picture: For more than a week, Trump has overwhelmed his critics with an unrelenting flood of executive orders, government purges and bureaucratic maneuvering.

• On Tuesday alone, Trump offered to buy out any federal employees who resign by Feb. 6, and signed an executive order aiming to restrict youth gender-affirming care — diverting headlines from the funding freeze.
• Some of Trump's moves have pushed the lines of legality, including his mass firing of government watchdogs and purging of pro-worker influence at the National Labor Relations Board.
• But nothing has broken through like the funding memo, which sent state governments, nonprofits, schools, emergency workers and even some GOP officials scrambling to determine whether they'd be affected.

Between the lines: Besides billions of dollars in federal funding, something far more fundamental could be at stake in the coming legal battle — Congress' power of the purse.

• Trump and his nominee for OMB director, Russ Vought, have argued that the Impoundment Control Act — a Nixon-era law that restricts presidents from withholding funding passed by Congress — is unconstitutional.
• An FAQ sheet distributed by the OMB Tuesday claims Trump's "temporary pause" doesn't constitute an "impoundment." But that hasn't satisfied Democrats, given Vought's defense of the impoundment power in his confirmation hearing.
• "What happened last night is the most direct assault on the authority of Congress, I believe, in the history of the United States," Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) warned Tuesday.

The federal government is going MAGA — fast.

Why it matters: President Trump has only been in office a week, but the departments under his command are moving with blazing speed to transform the federal bureaucracy into an army of loyalists.

• The new administration immediately moved to freeze nearly all foreign aid, root out DEI programs, remove officials and whole offices deemed ideologically suspect, and muzzle public health agencies.
• "We're getting rid of all of the cancer ... caused by the Biden administration," Trump told reporters while signing a Day One executive order that stripped employment protections from civil servants.

Driving the news: Late Friday night, the White House fired 17 inspectors general — independent agency watchdogs responsible for identifying fraud, waste and corruption.

• The mass firings, relayed via email, appear to violate a federal law that requires the administration to notify Congress 30 days before removing inspectors general.
• Amid outrage from Democrats and ethics experts, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — a Trump ally and longtime advocate for whistleblowers — called on the president to explain his decision to Congress.

Zoom in: DEI offices and programs have been shuttered across the government, including at the CIA, Department of Veterans Affairs, Army and Air Force, and the Federal Aviation Administration.

• Federal workers have been ordered to report colleagues who may seek to "disguise" DEI efforts by using "coded language."
• And Trump directed federal agencies to each identify "up to nine" major companies, universities or non-profits to investigate over their DEI practices.

There have been hundreds of staff removals or reassignments, including at the State Department, where far more career officers were asked to resign than in past administrations.

• The Department of Justice reassigned at least 15 senior career officials, including a top counterintelligence attorney involved in the FBI's investigation of classified documents Trump stashed at Mar-a-Lago.
• The DOJ also rescinded job offers to recent law school graduates who were placed through the Attorney General's Honors program.
• Trump's National Security Council sent home around 160 staffers while Trump officials conducted loyalty screenings to ensure they're aligned with his agenda.
• One of the administration's highest-profile firings so far was Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a branch of the U.S. military. She was accused of leadership failures and an "excessive focus" on DEI at the Coast Guard Academy.

Between the lines: Trump loyalists have also moved to centralize control around public messaging, particularly when it comes to public health.

• The Department of Health and Human Services ordered an unprecedented "immediate pause" on all health reports and social media posts through at least the end of the month, leading scientists to cancel CDC meetings on the escalating bird flu outbreak.
• The Pentagon also ordered a global pause on all official social media posts until the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has promised a radical culture shakeup across the U.S. military.

The new administration is also moving quickly on issues including LGBTQ and civil rights.

• The State Department froze all passport applications with "X" designated as the gender.
• DOJ ordered a freeze on civil rights litigation and is weighing a potential reversal of police reform agreements negotiated by the Biden administration.
• It also ordered federal prosecutors to investigate local and state officials in so-called "sanctuary cities."
• Meanwhile, the Pentagon moved to abolish an office set up during the Biden administration focused on curbing civilian deaths in combat operations.

Zoom out: Trump made no secret of his intentions to build a MAGA-aligned federal workforce during the campaign, and he quickly imposed a hiring freeze after taking office.

• The vast majority of federal workers are career employees, not political appointments, but the president has made clear he wants them all to board the Trump train.
• His administration is currently testing the ability to email the entire federal government workforce from a single email address.

What to watch: Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, will be a key architect of the White House's efforts to re-engineer the administrative state.

• Vought has assailed "the woke and weaponized bureaucracy," and said in a 2023 speech to his conservative think tank that he wants to put federal bureaucrats "in trauma," ProPublica reported.
• "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains," Vought said — comments he defended during his confirmation hearing.