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Donald Trump is now praising his staunch ally, Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world.
“He’s doing a great job. and he doesn’t need this…but…he’s a patriot.”
On Thursday, Musk hailed efforts by him and Trump to cut the federal workforce by the hundreds of thousands.
In a post on X today – which he owns – Musk, who leads the “department of government efficiency,” said:
“All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Donald Trump has moved back to attacking immigrants across the country, saying: “I couldn’t stand it!” before adding: “Donald, don’t get angry.”
“I couldn’t stand it, so I said, I’m going to run for president again, and now we don’t have that problem now. We don’t have that problem any more,” he claimed.
On the contrary, on Friday, reports emerged of the White House reassigning the top official at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) after the agency’s level of arrests and deportations were slower than expected.
Trump singled out in the crowd the 40-year-old son of the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – the country’s ex-president who tried a January 6-style insurrection and was just charged with plotting to poison his successor and the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula.
“Say hello to your father. Thank you very much. Great family, great gentleman, and your great family,” Trump said to Eduardo Bolsonaro.
Jair Bolsonaro could face between 38 and 43 years in jail if convicted. In addition to being accused of being involved in a coup, Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of being involved with an armed criminal association and the violent abolition of the rule of law.
The Guardian’s Robert Mackey contributed to this post
Trump went on to cite a series of polls in which he is leading.
“Rasmussen just came out at 56% insider advantage, 56% RMG research … we have many polls in the mid-60s, one at 71%. We like that,” he said.
However, he did not mention the latest Gallup poll, where he is six points under – 51% of Americans disapproved of his performance while 45% indicated their approval for him.
Donald Trump launched into his speech by assailing “the fraudsters, liars … globalists and deep-state bureaucrats” that he said “are being sent back”.
“We’re draining the swamp and restoring government by the people for the people,” he said before going on to his oft-repeated claims of Washington DC being controlled by a “sinister group of radical-left Marxist warmongers”.
Donald Trump is set to take the stage soon at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.
Joan E Greve
Michael Fanone, a former US Capitol police officer who defended the Capitol during the January 6 attack, denounced Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons of the insurrectionists who were there that day, and compared far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to the brownshirts of Nazi Germany.
A member of the audience at the Principles First summit yelled out “traitors” to describe the insurrectionists, and Fanone agreed.
“Fucking traitors,” Fanone said.
Joan E Greve
I’m here at the Principles First summit in Washington, where a group of police officers who protected the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 have just taken the stage for a panel discussion.
The four officers – Daniel Hodges of the Metropolitan police department, and former Capitol police officers Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn – received a standing ovation as they took the stage.
Dunn, who is moderating the discussion, applauded his fellow officers for keeping a spotlight on the January 6 attack, telling the audience: “History is going to remember us for what we did or did not do.”
The summit, which is a sort of anti-CPAC for right-leaning and centrist critics of Donald Trump, has already heard from speakers like the billionaire Mark Cuban and the former Republican presidential candidates Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson.
David Smith
JD Vance, the vice-president, has taken an early lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
Vance, 40, stormed to victory in the annual straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Harbor in Maryland on Saturday.
In a survey of 1,022 attendees by pollster Jim McLaughlin, 61% said they would vote for Vance if the 2028 Republican primary election were held today, well clear of rightwing strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon at 12%.
They were followed by the Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis at 7%, with the US secretary of state and 2016 candidate Marco Rubio and the US ambassador-designate to the United Nations Elise Stefanik both at 3%.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr, the director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were tied at 2%.
The straw poll has long been an unscientific but intriguing barometer of where the conservative movement is. Ronald Reagan won the first three in the 1970s and 1980s. The senator Rand Paul topped the poll in 2013, 2014 and 2015 while the senator Ted Cruz prevailed in 2016. Trump has dominated ever since.
McLaughlin also found that 99% agree with statement that “the first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have been the best for the modern conservative movement in my lifetime”, 98% are enthusiastic or satisfied with Trump’s cabinet, 93% approve of the US establishing a national security and economic alliance with Greenland and 89% say they want Trump, not Congress, to run the so-called “department of government efficiency”.
A resounding 99% approve of the job Trump is doing as president. McLaughlin said: “We’ve never seen numbers like this. We’ve never seen anyone unite the conservative movement the way Trump has done ... It’s way more popular than even Ronald Reagan was. Donald Trump has remade the conservative movement. He’s remade the Republican party.”
David Smith
Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy but had his 18-year sentence commuted, denied that his group had acted violently on behalf of Donald Trump on 6 January or any other time.
Wearing a black eye patch and a Trump tattoo on his arm, Rhodes, 59, from Granbury, Texas, said he is “very happy” with Trump, adding: “I got no complaints. His cabinet is fantastic from what I’ve seen so far. I love Doge. Let the sunlight come in and show all the corruption.”
Trump administration shuts down national database documenting police misconduct
Donald Trump’s administration has shut down a national database documenting police misconduct.
The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:
Donald Trump’s second presidential administration shut down a national database that had tracked misconduct by federal police, a resource that policing reform advocates hailed as essential to preventing officers with misconduct records from being able to move undetected among agencies.
The Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), which had stored police records documenting misconduct, is now unavailable, the Washington Post first reported.
The US justice department also confirmed the database’s elimination in a statement issued online.
“User agencies can no longer query or add data to the NLEAD,” the statement read. “The US Department of Justice is decommissioning the NLEAD in accordance with federal standards.”
For the full story, click here:
In response to an order from Donald Trump to “get more aggressive”, Elon Musk vowed on X: “Will do, Mr President!”
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump wrote: “Elon is doing a great job but I would like to see him get more aggressive. Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately, to make greater than ever before. Maga!”
On Thursday, Trump appeared to embrace an idea from Musk to give a share of a portion of the mass cuts made by Musk’s “department of government efficiency” to US households.
“There’s even under consideration a new concept, where we give 20% of the Doge savings to American citizens, and 20% goes to paying down debt,” Trump said.
In recent days, the Trump administration has carried out mass layoffs across the federal government, affecting hundreds of thousands of employees and their respective agencies, including the Nuclear Security Administration and the agriculture department.
Kash Patel to relocate 1,000 employees from Washington to field offices across the US
Kash Patel, the newly appointed FBI director, has told senior officials that he plans to relocate 1,000 employees from Washington to field offices across the US, the Associated Press reports, citing an individual familiar with the matter.
According to the AP, Patel also said he plans to move an additional 500 employees to a bureau facility in Huntsville, Alabama.
The plans were communicated on Friday when Patel was sworn in at the White House, the AP reports.
Good morning,
Donald Trump is expected to address the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday at the Harbor in Maryland – his speech largely expected to demonstrate how his “Make America great again” movement has moved from the fringes to the mainstream, as the Guardian’s David Smith writes.
Trump’s appearance at CPAC will follow a chaotic week of domestic and global politics during which federal workers in the US continued to face mass layoffs by his administration while European geopolitics remained in a precarious position as Trump lambasted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for being a “dictator” over Zelenskyy’s grievances that Ukraine was not invited to US-Russia talks about the future of Ukraine.
In 2023, Trump made a dark promise to his supporters during his CPAC speech in which he said: “I am your retribution.” With Trump set to take center stage again, his speech two years ago – laden with threats and a framing of his White House bid at the time as a “final battle” for America – foreshadowed what some describe as the “deification of Trump [that] will be complete” at CPAC this Saturday.
Here are other developments in US politics:
A Republican lawmaker from Missouri has proposed a registry of pregnant women “at risk” for abortions.
Texas’s congresswomen Jasmine Crockett has said she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico amid Trump’s threats.
A New York judge on Friday rejected calls from the justice department to immediately dismiss the city’s mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case.
