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Trump Administration Live Updates: Musk Calls Trump’s Signature Bill an ‘Abomination’
Where Things Stand
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Musk’s criticism: Elon Musk, the billionaire who led President Trump’s effort to cut government spending, condemned the president’s signature domestic policy bill as a “disgusting abomination” that would swell the “already gigantic budget deficit.” Mr. Musk’s posts on X, just days after an Oval Office send-off where he and the president took turns praising each other, also said Congress was “making America bankrupt” and said in next year’s midterm elections, “we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.” Read more ›
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Iran talks: The Trump administration is said to have proposed allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium at low levels for energy production while the United States and other countries work out a more detailed plan intended to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. It is the first concrete indication since Mr. Trump took office that the United States and Iran might be able to find a compromise over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Read more ›
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Malicious prosecution suit: Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark sued government officials including Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, claiming that his arrest outside an immigration detention center last month was motivated by political malice.
Congressional reporter
Amid his attacks on House Republicans over their sweeping domestic policy agenda bill, Elon Musk ominously warned on social media that Americans would “fire all politicians who betrayed the American people” in next year’s midterm elections.
Musk, the world’s richest person, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to back Republicans in last year’s elections, but recently said he planned on “a lot less” spending in the next cycle. But Musk’s deep pockets and previous spending have made some Republicans fearful that he might back primary challengers.
The Trump administration backs off its efforts to collect data on food stamp recipients.
The Trump administration has backed off a demand that states hand over personal information about food stamp recipients in the face of a lawsuit brought by a coalition of public interest groups.
An Agriculture Department official said in a sworn statement filed in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia over the weekend that the agency was pausing its plans, announced last month, to create a database of Americans who receive nutrition benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The move was a rare instance of the Trump administration proceeding cautiously amid litigation, relenting for now before potential intervention by a judge.
The Agriculture Department released guidance outlining the federal government’s intentions in May. The document referred to states and territories, which administer the program independently, as “a SNAP information silo” and directed state agencies to begin providing personal data on recipients under an executive order that President Trump signed in March.
The data the department requested from state administrators includes identifying details on recipients including such as home addresses, federal tax returns and social security numbers.
A group of individuals and nonprofits quickly filed a lawsuit challenging the policy on personal privacy grounds, represented by lawyers from public interest groups including the Protect Democracy Project and the National Student Legal Defense Network.
The lawsuit raised broader concerns about the data-collection efforts driven by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency team he has left in place, which have spawned multiple legal challenges.
At the same time the Agriculture Department was canvassing data from states, Mr. Musk’s team was also contacting third-party companies that process bank transactions tied to the benefits in an attempt to build out the database, according to emails first reported by NPR.
Mr. Musk’s team has in recent months taken steps to merge and centralize sensitive data maintained by multiple federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education and others.
The Trump administration has also quietly enlisted Palantir, a data analysis firm, to organize and interrogate that data in order to piece together holistic portraits of individual Americans based on the totality of the information stored on them across the federal government.
The lawsuit against the Agriculture Department argued that the demand for up-to-date information on SNAP recipients fit the larger pattern, and promised to put tens of millions of people who rely on the program into a system where they could be scrutinized over eligibility requirements.
In a filing, the groups suing noted that Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa and Ohio had already started producing data, and that all other states were already facing pressure to comply in violation of federal privacy laws.
“This case concerns the executive branch’s attempt to round up the sensitive personal data of tens of millions of economically vulnerable Americans with callous indifference for the mandatory privacy protections enshrined in federal law,” the groups wrote.
The concerns raised in the lawsuit have been compounded by proposals by Republicans in Congress to dramatically shrink SNAP and other federal anti-poverty programs as part of sweeping cuts that lawmakers have used to justify tax cuts concentrated on the wealthiest Americans.
An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the provisions of the tax cut bill could result in 1.3 million people losing access to SNAP benefits.
After the groups suing moved to block the Agriculture Department from implementing the policy, the government said in its filing that it had yet to receive any data and would not proceed until it had taken steps “to satisfy all necessary legal requirements.”
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Congressional reporter
Speaker Mike Johnson called Elon Musk’s criticism of the domestic policy bill “very disappointing,” telling reporters at the Capitol that the two had spoken on Monday and that Musk “seemed to understand” the virtues of the legislation.
“For him to come out and pan the whole bill is to me just very disappointing, very surprising,” Johnson said.
Johnson specifically cited changes the bill would make to subsidies and tax credits meant to spur the production and purchases of electric vehicles. “I know that has an effect on his business, and I lament that,” he said. But he added that he did not believe the government should be subsidizing a transition to electric cars.
Congressional reporter
Democrats are loving Elon Musk’s tweet denigrating the G.O.P.’s signature domestic policy bill as an “abomination.” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, brought a printed-out copy of Musk’s X posts to the party’s weekly news conference. “He’s right,” Schumer said. “Republicans should listen to him.”
Congressional reporter
Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas just announced to her colleagues that she was running to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, making her the fourth person to jump in an internal contest that is shaping up to be a generational battle over a prominent post. In a letter sent today, Crockett, 44, highlighted her experience as a lawyer and her strong fund-raising numbers and said she believed that Democrats needed to put up a stronger fight against Trump and Republicans.
“No longer can it be the case that as Democrats we continue to go above and beyond to get back-breaking work done, yet receive no credit,” she wrote.
Kate Conger and
Musk derides Trump’s bill, saying it will ‘massively increase the already gigantic’ deficit.
Elon Musk lashed out on Tuesday against the far-reaching Republican bill intended to enact President Trump’s domestic policy agenda, posting on X that it was a “disgusting abomination” and telling House members who voted for it: “You know you did wrong.”
The tech billionaire’s criticism of the bill, one of Mr. Trump’s top priorities, was another indication of a widening rift between Mr. Musk and the president. Mr. Musk — who has left his governmental role leading the Department of Government Efficiency — largely presented a united front with the Trump administration until recently.
Last month, Mr. Musk started publicly criticizing Mr. Trump’s bill, saying in an interview with CBS News’s “Sunday Morning” that he was disappointed in the legislation’s size and impact on the deficit.
On Tuesday, Mr. Musk ramped up his criticism, writing on X: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.” He called the bill “massive, outrageous, pork-filled.” In follow-up posts, he said, “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit” and “Congress is making America bankrupt.”
“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” said Karoline Leavitt, a White House spokeswoman. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”
Mr. Trump has urged swift passage of the legislation — officially called the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act — which would slash taxes, providing the biggest savings to the wealthy, and steer more money to the military and immigration enforcement. As written, the legislation would cut health, nutrition, education and clean energy programs to cover part of the cost.
Mr. Trump and his allies have sought to sell the bill with falsehoods. White House officials and Speaker Mike Johnson have claimed the bill would shrink the debt, although the Congressional Budget Office and a number of independent analysts have estimated that the bill would increase federal deficits by well over $1 trillion, even when economic growth is factored in.
Mr. Musk’s criticism comes at a critical moment for the bill, which passed the House in the face of a strong pressure campaign by Mr. Trump. As Mr. Johnson corralled several competing Republican factions, the president summoned recalcitrant holdouts to the White House, and his staff likened Republican opposition to the bill to “the ultimate betrayal.”
But Republican senators have already made clear that they planned to make changes to the bill. Fiscal conservatives, alarmed at estimates it would swell the national debt, have demanded further changes and cuts to Medicaid and other programs that could help rein in deficits.
Some Democrats celebrated Mr. Musk’s criticism. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, brought a printed-out copy to the party’s weekly news conference.
“He’s right,” Mr. Schumer said. “Republicans should listen to him.”
Mr. Musk — who appeared onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February with a chain saw and said it would be “easy” to save the government billions of dollars — earlier on Tuesday shared a meme on X that included a photo of fingertips pinching a minuscule pair of scissors.
“Republicans getting ready to reduce the size of government,” the caption read.
Later, after his posts about the bill, he wrote: “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.”
Shawn McCreesh, Theodore Schleifer and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
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White House reporter
President Trump has been uncharacteristically calm and tolerant of dissent when it comes to his relationship with Elon Musk. He has said at times that he does not want to break with Musk, because doing so would give the media too much pleasure. It was one thing when Musk was tangling with cabinet secretaries and aides. But what Musk posted today is something else: an attack on one of the administration’s tentpole efforts, one on which Trump is expending significant political capital.
Congressional reporter
Musk’s fierce criticism of what Trump has referred to as his “one big, beautiful bill” threatens to set up a clash between two men who hold access to bully pulpits.
Trump has long used screeds on his social media platform, Truth Social, to try and cow recalcitrant lawmakers to get behind his agenda. Since buying X, Musk has used his massive following there to mount pressure campaigns against politicians and billionaires.
Both men have also been willing to use their access to fortunes or fund-raising in political battles, concerning Republicans worried about primary challengers.
As Musk tees off on the House G.O.P., it’s worth noting that he is somewhat responsible for the body’s current makeup. His super PAC, America PAC, spent about $20 million in the last election cycle to boost Republicans running for the House. And he spent more than $10 million to help Republicans in the Senate.
Congressional reporter
Elon Musk’s criticism of the Republican mega-bill, which is meant to push forward President Trump’s domestic agenda, also echoes the arguments that have been made by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky — whom Trump has been digitally browbeating for opposing the legislation. Both Musk and Paul have expressed concern that the bill would balloon federal deficits.
But Musk also has a significant financial stake in the bill. As passed by the House, the bill would end credits for electric vehicles — including Teslas — at the end of the year.
White House reporter
Elon Musk has added to the criticism of the Republican bill that the White House is trying to push through Congress. “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit,” he wrote on X a few minutes ago. “Congress is making America bankrupt,” he added in a follow-up post. It is noteworthy that he made the posts at about the same time the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was at the podium in the White House briefing room vociferously refuting the idea that the bill would balloon the deficit. This represents the most pronounced public split between Musk and the White House.
Farnaz FassihiDavid E. Sanger and
U.S. proposes interim step in Iran nuclear talks allowing some enrichment.
The Trump administration is proposing an arrangement that would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium at low levels while the United States and other countries work out a more detailed plan intended to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon but give it access to fuel for new nuclear power plants.
The proposal amounts to a bridge between the current situation, in which Iran is rapidly producing near-bomb-grade uranium, and the U.S. goal of Iran enriching no uranium at all on its soil.
Under the proposal, the United States would facilitate the building of nuclear power reactors for Iran and negotiate the construction of enrichment facilities managed by a consortium of regional countries. Once Iran began receiving any benefits from those promises, it would have to stop all enrichment in the country.
The outline of the potential deal, which was described on the condition of anonymity by Iranian and European officials, was handed to Iran over the weekend. Officials in Tehran indicated on Monday that a response would come in several days.
It is the first concrete indication since President Trump took office that the United States and Iran might be able to find a path to compromise that would head off a potential regional war over Tehran’s ambitions to build a nuclear weapon.
But the details remain vague, the two sides remain far apart on many elements of a deal, and the domestic politics for both are complex. In his first term, Mr. Trump canceled an agreement negotiated under President Barack Obama that had similarly sought to keep Iran from being able to produce a nuclear bomb.
At least in the opening years of the proposed arrangement, when new enrichment facilities to produce fuel for power plants are being built in cooperation with Arab states, Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium at low levels, despite Mr. Trump’s post on social media on Monday saying the United States would “not allow any enrichment of uranium.” (It is possible that he was referring to what would be allowed at the concluding stage of the potential deal rather than during an interim arrangement.)
The idea of a regional consortium would essentially wrap Iran in a bearhug with countries that might include the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others, allowing the production of low-grade nuclear fuel for power plants while seeking to ensure that Iran is not enriching fuel on its own for a bomb.
But one key unresolved question is whether Iran’s leadership will agree to an ultimate arrangement in which no nuclear fuel is produced on Iranian soil. “We do not need anyone’s permission to enrich uranium,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Tuesday.
Israel has also been deeply skeptical of any deal that would leave Iran with nuclear capabilities. It has repeatedly suggested that now is the time for a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, citing Tehran’s degraded air defense systems and the weakness of its regional allies Hamas and Hezbollah.
Iran, however, still possesses a formidable arsenal of conventional weapons, including ballistic missiles, capable of threatening Israel, Gulf neighbors and U.S. bases in the region.
Iranian officials have warned that in the event of a military strike on their nuclear facilities, they would respond forcefully, exit the nonproliferation agreement and end international inspectors’ access to sites.
The wording of the new proposal, crafted by Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, is vaguely worded on many of the most important issues, suggesting that considerable negotiating lies ahead, Iranian and European officials said.
For example, it is unclear that the accord meets the standard Mr. Trump said last week that he would demand, an agreement where “we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want.” Senior Iranian officials involved in the negotiations called the bombastic statement “a fantasy.”
Mr. Araghchi said on Monday at the sideline of meetings in Egypt with officials that Iran would “soon send America an appropriate response. Without respecting our right to enrich uranium, there will be no agreement.”
He added that he was confident of a diplomatic breakthrough to avert further crises.
Some details of the proposal were reported earlier by Axios.
Asked about Mr. Witkoff’s outline, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that “President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb.”
In a statement to The New York Times, she added: “Special Envoy Witkoff has sent a detailed and acceptable proposal to the Iranian regime, and it’s in their best interest to accept it. Out of respect for the ongoing deal, the administration will not comment on details of the proposal to the media.”
Any breakthrough would be a diplomatic victory for Mr. Trump, whose efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Russia-Ukraine war have floundered. His diplomacy with Iran has also been unexpected: After pulling out of the Obama-era nuclear agreement, he ordered the killing in early 2020 of one of Iran’s highest-ranking generals. Iran, in return, has been accused by U.S. officials of hiring assassins to kill Mr. Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. Iran has denied the allegations.
The Trump administration’s proposal, according to two Iranian officials, leaves unclear exactly what would be required in dismantling the country’s nuclear program.
Iran has invested billions of dollars in building its two main nuclear facilities, Natanz and Fordow, and in developing its advanced nuclear program, which it considers a source of national pride. Shuttering the facilities would be humiliating and difficult to justify, according to an Iranian official familiar with the internal deliberations.
These facilities also employ hundreds of scientists, some of the country’s most talented, and the government worries that many of the top ones may leave Iran if they are unemployed and waiting for the new consortium to take shape, an Iranian official said. Over the years, Israel has targeted and assassinated a number of leading nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The proposal did not specify which of the hundreds of sanctions against Iran would be removed in any final deal. Iran has told the United States that all sanctions would need to be removed in order to sign a deal — not just those related to its nuclear program.
Iranian officials said they would not take any measures curbing their program without parallel sanctions relief, particularly diluting or exporting the huge stockpile of enriched uranium that the United Nations’ atomic watchdog says allows them to build 10 bombs if they chose to weaponize.
The United States has sanctioned Iran’s oil sales and banking transactions over the years, stifling the country’s economy for advancing its nuclear program, supporting terrorism, helping Russia in the Ukraine war, plotting assassinations of Western officials and perpetuating human rights abuses.
Iranian officials said they did not trust Mr. Trump because of his unilateral exiting of the Obama-era nuclear deal and conflicting comments from American officials during negotiations in the past few weeks. The officials said one of the issues being debated in Tehran was what guarantees Washington would provide that Mr. Trump or his successors would not force Iran out of the consortium in the future.
While the outcome of the negotiation remains unclear, Mr. Witkoff’s strategy is beginning to emerge.
The consortium he proposed would provide nuclear fuel for Iran and any of its neighbors interested in developing civilian nuclear power or research programs. The many players would watch one another — and they would be watched by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. group that monitors nuclear fuel around the world and is supposed to send alarms if it believes the fuel is being diverted to a weapons program.
But the proposal does not make clear exactly where the enrichment facility would be located, though the United States has said it cannot be in Iran. Iranian officials continue to insist it must be in their territory, because they would not give up their right to enrich nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran is a signatory to the treaty, though so far it has not ratified an addendum, called the Additional Protocol, that would give inspectors much greater rights to search any part of the country where they suspect nuclear activity.
Although it was not noted in the U.S. proposal, Omani and Saudi officials have discussed the idea of building an enrichment facility on an island in the Persian Gulf. This would potentially give both sides a talking point: The Iranians would be able to say they are still enriching uranium, and the Americans could state that enrichment is not happening on Iranian soil.
Two Iranian officials said the country was open to accepting the consortium idea because the government did not want talks to fail. But the Iranian officials said negotiators planned to bargain in the next round of talks for the island to be one of their own: They may propose Kish or Qeshm in the Persian Gulf, though other possibilities have been discussed.
Iran claims these territories and would most likely argue that this would allow it to keep enrichment on its soil. But it would also make a facility much more visible to the world than Iran’s current enrichment facilities, which are underground, and in one case deep inside a mountain to protect against Israeli attack.
Another unknown is how Israel will react to the American proposal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed Mr. Trump to join him in attacking Iran’s facilities, which Mr. Trump said recently was “inappropriate” at a time he was engaged in negotiations. Mr. Witkoff met with Ron Dermer, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s closest advisers, around a negotiating session in Rome. The two countries have been in regular communication over the negotiations.
In Iran, as in the United States, a minority of hard-line politicians steadfastly oppose any concessions to the United States. They openly called the terms of the U.S. proposal a defeat and suggested that Iran walk away from talks. But these politicians do not hold much sway because the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given the green light for negotiations to continue with the goal of reaching a deal.
Some analysts described the consortium idea as a win-win, saying it would allow Iran to save face and let regional allies and American inspectors be directly involved in Iran’s nuclear activities. It also removes the U.S. concern of a regional race to enrich uranium.
“But even if the parties agree on the concept, they still need to hash out the details,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group. “They will also need an interim solution, as it will probably take a few years to set up a functional consortium.”
Mr. Vaez added that as long as the two sides remained divided on core issues — namely, whether Iran can enrich uranium — a final deal remained elusive and at best the two sides could agree on a document laying out broad frameworks of a future deal.
San Francisco-based technology reporter
Elon Musk had largely held off on criticizing the Trump administration while he was in Washington. But the truce seems to be off now that Musk has left his government role. Earlier today, before posting sharply critical comments about the Republican spending bill, he reshared a meme that included a photo of fingertips pinching a miniscule pair of scissors. The caption was: “Republicans getting ready to reduce the size of government.”
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White House reporter
At the White House briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, confirmed that the far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer had a meeting with Vice President JD Vance today, though she declined to say what the two spoke about.
White House reporter
Elon Musk just posted an extraordinary criticism of the Republican bill the president is pushing Congress to pass. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” he wrote on his social media platform, X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked about Musk’s comments at a briefing with reporters just now, and kept her response diplomatic, trying to play the remarks down as nothing much. It was reminiscent of when she explained away another West Wing blow-up involving Musk by saying “boys will boys.”
Congressional reporter
Trump attacks Rand Paul, working to rally G.O.P. support for his policy bill.
President Trump on Tuesday lashed out at Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, for refusing to go along with a bill carrying his domestic agenda, part of an intensifying pressure campaign he has undertaken to exhort senators in his own party to quickly embrace and pass the legislation.
In a pair of social media posts, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Paul had little understanding of the measure, adding: “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him.”
“He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,” Mr. Trump wrote of Mr. Paul, calling the legislation a “big WINNER!”
His broadside came as Senate Republicans began contemplating the bill, which squeaked through the House late last month over solid Democratic opposition. Even as Speaker Mike Johnson has implored senators not to make major changes that could jeopardize the measure’s chances of final approval in the House, they have made clear they intend to put their own mark on the package.
On Monday, Mr. Trump publicly urged Senate Republicans to move swiftly on the measure, touting its provisions cutting taxes, beefing up border enforcement and deportations, rolling back clean energy programs and scaling back Medicaid and food assistance, among others.
“I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY,” Mr. Trump wrote.
That may be easier said than done. Senate Republicans have a slim majority, and can afford to lose only three votes on the bill. Several Republicans have already expressed objections to the legislation as approved by the House.
One group, led by Mr. Paul as well as Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, is agitating for deeper spending cuts, noting that the bill as written is projected to balloon federal deficits. Mr. Paul also opposes the measure’s $4 trillion increase in the debt limit, a boost that the Treasury Department says is needed to avert a federal default as early as July.
Another faction — including Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jim Justice of West Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine — has expressed concerns about a provision in the bill that would limit strategies that states have developed to tax medical providers and pay them higher prices for Medicaid services. The senators’ worry is that the change could adversely affect rural hospitals in their states.
Still another group of senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah, have indicated unhappiness with the legislation’s aggressive — and almost total — repeal of clean energy tax credits created by legislation passed during President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration, which he named the Inflation Reduction Act.
“I just want Republicans to be thoughtful and not reactive. Just because it was in the I.R.A.,” Mr. Curtis told reporters, referring to the law by its abbreviation, “doesn’t make it bad.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, also has raised concerns about both the Medicaid cuts and the repeal of the clean energy tax credits.
Jonathan Swan contributed reporting.
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Over 6,000 scientists say an executive order would destroy scientific independence.
Who could argue with setting a “gold standard” for science?
Actually, thousands of scientists from around the country.
President Trump has ordered what he called a restoration of a “gold standard science” across federal agencies and national laboratories.
But the May 23 executive order puts his political appointees in charge of vetting scientific research and gives them the authority to “correct scientific information,” control the way it is communicated to the public and the power to “discipline” anyone who violates the way the administration views science.
It has prompted an open letter, signed by more than 6,000 scientists, academics, physicians, researchers and others, saying the order would destroy scientific independence. Agency heads have 30 days to comply with the order.
Since Mr. Trump returned to the presidency in January, his executive actions have not expressed robust support for science, nor even an understanding of how scientists work.
Among other things, the administration has eviscerated National Science Foundation research funding and fired staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, which is responsible for forecasting weather hazards. A government report on child health cited research papers that did not exist.
“The erosion of American scientific capacity isn’t theoretical, it’s underway,” Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, wrote Monday in his newsletter. In an email later in the day, he called the executive order “a general tool for dismissing all inconvenient science.”
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, said by email that the executive order was designed to rebuild “a crisis of trust between the scientific community and the American public.”
During Mr. Trump’s first term, his administration repeatedly undermined or disregarded scientific research, especially with respect to climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to restrict the data that could be used to set environmental policy. The new executive order would expand that kind of control across the federal agencies and the national laboratories.
The open letter invoked a troubled past of manipulating science. “History illustrates, in no uncertain terms, the dangers of state-dictated ‘scientific truths,’” it says. “State-sponsored programs in Nazi Germany based on the ‘science’ of eugenics led to the genocide of millions of Jews, people with disabilities, and people identifying as L.G.B.T.Q.+ who were deemed to have ‘life unworthy of life.’”
Co-opting Familiar Words
The executive order echoes many of the principles of scientists who seek to make research papers more rigorous and transparent. For instance, lifting from what is known as the “open science” movement, the order says research should be reproducible, meaning that an experiment carried out in one lab can be repeated in another lab to see if it delivers similar conclusions.
The order says research should be subject to “unbiased peer review” and that there should be no conflicts of interest. That’s standard practice for scientific journals already: Authors are required to state whether they have any conflicts of interest and their findings are peer reviewed before publication.
The letter of protest says the executive order is “co-opting the language of open science to implement a system under which direct presidential appointees are given broad latitude to designate many common and important scientific activities as scientific misconduct.”
“As scientists, we are committed to a discipline that is decentralized and self-scrutinizing,” the letter reads. “Instead this administration mandates a centralized system serving the political beliefs of the President and the whims of those in power.”
According to a survey carried out last fall by the Pew Research Center, the American people trust scientists far more than the federal government.
The consequences
One line in the executive order draws particular attention to climate change studies that sometimes include what could happen if the most extreme (and highly unlikely) temperature increase scenario comes to pass. Known as the Representative Concentration Pathway scenario 8.5, or RCP8.5, the order described it correctly as a “a worst-case scenario based on highly unlikely assumptions.”
But there are good reasons to evaluate worst-case scenarios, even if they are unlikely, scientists point out. The worry is that administration officials would wholesale reject the findings of any studies that include any worst-case-scenario projections.
Meteorologists and climate researchers ran a livestream for more than four days to protest the administration’s cuts to weather and climate research, warning that people’s lives were at risk.
The order also criticizes provisions that encourage government agencies to take diversity, equity and inclusion considerations into account in their studies. That, too, could affect funding for a range of research proposals that include D.E.I. objectives.
Medical journals have received threatening letters from the Justice Department, suggesting without citing evidence that they published biased work.
Now comes the executive order on science.
“What’s being demanded here is an unwinding of scientific integrity policies, under the misleading name of “Gold Standard Science,” to serve the values and priorities of the current administration,” the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy organization that has been critical of Trump’s health and environmental policies, said in a blog post.
White House reporter
President Trump vented his fury this morning at Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who has refused to go along with the major domestic policy bill the president is trying to get pushed through the Senate. The bill, which contains provisions that would add to the national debt, has prompted skepticism from Paul and a few fellow Republicans in a chamber the party holds by a slim majority.
In an initial post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Paul had little understanding of the legislation. He then followed up with a harsher and more personal post, saying, “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him.”
A federal judge just laced into Justice Department lawyers over the Trump administration’s moves to cancel scores of grants for science through the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. In an unusual admission, Judge William G. Young of the District of Massachusetts said he’d been poring over a website called Grant Watch where volunteers are working to catalog a list of canceled grants and awards. Young said that the database looked like something he’d want to include as evidence in a pair of cases in which nonprofits and state attorneys general are challenging the cancelations as unlawful.
Insisting that he had not prejudged anything about the grant cancellations, Judge Young said: “I have concerns about about health care, I have concerns about Black Americans, I have concerns about women, I have concerns about legitimate gender issues having to do with health.”
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Newark’s mayor is suing the federal government over his arrest near an immigration jail.
Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark, a Democratic candidate for governor who was arrested last month outside an immigration detention center, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, that argues that his arrest was motivated by political malice, not justice.
The lawsuit also names Ricky Patel, a supervising agent with Homeland Security Investigations who led the arrest of Mr. Baraka on May 9 outside a 1,000-bed detention center near Newark Liberty International Airport that has become a flashpoint in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Mr. Baraka’s lawsuit accuses the federal authorities of false arrest and malicious prosecution. It also accuses Ms. Habba of defamation.
The suit comes as polling locations opened Tuesday for six days of early voting ahead of a June 10 primary that has pitted Mr. Baraka against five other Democrats.
Last month, Ms. Habba, who was appointed by Mr. Trump to be the state’s top federal prosecutor, abruptly announced that she was dropping a trespassing charge against Mr. Baraka — a development that prompted a federal judge to publicly question the validity of the “hasty arrest” in the first place.
“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” the judge, André M. Espinosa, said in a rare and harshly worded rebuke of the U.S. attorney’s office that Ms. Habba leads and where he once worked as a prosecutor.
He dismissed the misdemeanor-level charge with prejudice, meaning that prosecutors could not decide to refile the same claim.
Mr. Trump tapped Ms. Habba, his personal lawyer, to serve as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey two months after he took office for the second time, an appointment that underscored the president’s tightening grip over a Justice Department he claimed had been weaponized against him.
Mr. Baraka’s lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and attorney fees, although he said what he really wanted was an apology.
“Somebody should be responsible for what happened,” Mr. Baraka said soon after the lawsuit was filed, at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Newark.
“To handcuff me, to drag me away, to take my fingerprints and mug shots for a misdemeanor,” he added, “it’s egregious and malicious.”
Representatives for Ms. Habba and Mr. Patel did not respond to requests for comment. But on Monday night, Ms. Habba was dismissive of Mr. Baraka’s anticipated legal action in a social media post. “My advice to the mayor,” she wrote, “feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”
Mr. Baraka has said that he was intentionally targeted for arrest by Mr. Patel outside Delaney Hall, a privately run jail that the mayor had been pressing to shut down.
Mr. Baraka has argued that the jail, which was empty for more than a year before it began holding migrants last month, does not have a valid certificate of occupancy. He had begun showing up daily to demand that fire safety officials be permitted inside to inspect the facility. Each day, Newark officials issued tickets to the private prison company that operates it, GEO Group, which has a contract with the Trump administration worth $1 billion over 15 years.
The mayor was handcuffed on May 9 as he stood outside the jail’s gated perimeter, surrounded by three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation.
The arrest took place after Mr. Baraka had been allowed to wait inside Delaney Hall’s front gate for the federal lawmakers, who had entered the property. After about 45 minutes, he was told that he would be placed under arrest if he did not leave, according to a criminal complaint and the lawsuit.
He then walked out the front gate to a public area where protesters had gathered.
Minutes later, masked immigration agents, some carrying guns in holsters, came out from behind the gate and surrounded Mr. Baraka, who was taken into custody in a brief but volatile clash, according to video taken by news reporters, congressional aides and immigration activists.
Judge Espinosa ordered that Mr. Baraka be released that night after he had been photographed, fingerprinted and held for about five hours at a separate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Newark.
The goal, according to the lawsuit, was “maximum humiliation.”
In the same news release in which Ms. Habba revealed that she was dropping the charges against Mr. Baraka, she announced assault charges against Representative LaMonica McIver, a Newark Democrat who was with Mr. Baraka the day he was arrested. The charges against Ms. McIver, who has said that she was at Delaney Hall for an authorized oversight visit and has maintained her innocence, are pending.
Aides to the mayor have said that Mr. Patel got several calls just before Mr. Baraka was taken into custody.
The mayor’s lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, said the lawsuit now enables her to subpoena Mr. Patel’s phone records to shed light on who he might have been speaking with before he ordered the arrest.
“It’s really important for all of us to stand up for democracy,” Ms. Smith said. “Mayor Baraka files this lawsuit not just to vindicate himself, but for all us, for our freedom, for all our constitutional rights.”
The White House unveils a new, darker official Trump portrait.
A new official portrait of President Trump has been unveiled by the White House, replacing an earlier photograph that was released for Mr. Trump’s inauguration this year.
The portrait, revealed by the White House in a short video on Monday, shows Mr. Trump wearing a red tie in a close-up against a dark backdrop. His face, bearing a stern expression, is accentuated by high contrast and dark shadows.
The lighting and background differ from the portrait released for Mr. Trump’s inauguration, which was more evenly lit but still subdued, and showed the president in a blue tie in front of an American flag.
It’s not clear how often presidents have updated their official portraits in past administrations. Some, like Barack Obama, have had new ones made between their first and second terms.
Unlike the traditional, painted portrait that is done during a president’s term, the official photograph is far easier to compose and is used for day-to-day functions. It hangs in American government facilities around the world, and at entry points to the country.
Mr. Trump’s portrait from his first term showed him standing in front of an American flag with a blue tie, brightly lit and smiling.
The absence of an American flag in the background of the most recent portrait is a departure from contemporary tradition. A gallery of past portraits on the website of the Library of Congress shows that a flag has appeared in every official presidential photograph since Gerald Ford’s, which was released by the White House in 1974. Mr. Trump wore a flag pin in all three portraits.
“What’s interesting is they’ve removed all references to the White House setting,” said Paul Staiti, a professor of fine art at Mount Holyoke College who has studied presidential imagery. “It’s not unprecedented. And to be sure, this makes it more personal. But I do wonder whether this is suggesting that Trump is not exactly an office holder, or not to be seen solely as the current representative of the United States.”
Before Mr. Ford, most presidents were shown against a plain backdrop, as Mr. Trump is in his latest portrait.
The new photograph has already been added to the White House’s website.
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Alan Feuer and
Three judges have said they are considering holding the administration in contempt.
In case after case, the Trump administration has taken a similar approach to the numerous legal challenges that have emerged in recent weeks to President Trump’s aggressive deportation plans.
Over and over, officials have either violated orders or used an array of obfuscations and delays to prevent federal judges from deciding whether violations took place.
So far, no one in the White House or any federal agency has had to pay a price for this obstructionist behavior, but penalties could still be in the offing. Three judges in three different courthouses who have been overseeing deportation cases have said they are considering whether to hold the administration in contempt.
All of this first came to the fore when Judge Paula Xinis opened an investigation in mid-April into whether Trump officials had violated her order to “facilitate” the release of a Maryland man who had been wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador.
In a sternly worded ruling in Federal District Court in Maryland, Judge Xinis instructed the Justice Department to tell her what steps the White House had taken, and planned to take, to free the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, from Salvadoran custody. And she wanted answers quickly, declaring that her inquiry would take only two weeks.
That was seven weeks ago, and lawyers for Mr. Abrego Garcia say they are no closer now than they were then to understanding why their client was sent to El Salvador or what the government has done to fix what officials have acknowledged was an “administrative error.”
Instead, the lawyers say, the Justice Department has hidden what it knows about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation behind repeated claims of privilege. They have also said that the department has offered witnesses for depositions who have little firsthand knowledge of the case and has sought at every turn to slow-walk disclosing documents and responding to questions.
“It is reflective of a pattern of deliberate delay and bad faith refusal to comply with court orders,” they wrote in a filing late last week. “The patina of promises by government lawyers to do tomorrow that which they were already obligated to do yesterday has worn thin.”
Such recalcitrance has left lawyers in the Justice Department who are working on these cases in a difficult position. Several times during hearings in the past few months, the lawyers have had to admit to federal judges that their “clients” in agencies like the Department of Homeland Security have simply refused to provide the information they were asked for.
After one of those lawyers, Erez Reuveni, admitted to Judge Xinis during a hearing in April that he was frustrated by how he could not fully answer her questions, the Justice Department responded to his candor by suspending and then firing him. His dismissal prompted a spate of resignations from the department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, which has effectively been hollowed out by the administration’s give-no-ground approach.
In many ways, the intransigent tactics used in these deportation cases echo those employed by the defense lawyers who represented Mr. Trump in the four criminal cases he faced before he was re-elected. In those cases, only one of which survived to go to trial, the lawyers used every means at their disposal to gum up the works: They challenged minor matters, filed appeals at every turn and repeatedly asked judges for delays.
Two of those lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove III, now occupy top positions in the Justice Department. Last week, Mr. Trump said he would nominate Mr. Bove to be an appeals court judge.
It remains unclear for now how Judge Xinis intends to handle the department’s stubbornness in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case, but the tensions could soon come to a head.
Just last week, one day before it was supposed to submit its final answers to her questions, the administration asked for a two-week extension, saying that lawyers for the Justice Department had “expended significant resources” going through the materials she requested.
Responding to her demands, the lawyers wrote, had been “extremely burdensome,” especially, they noted, because the department — the government equivalent of a giant white-shoe law firm — was hindered by “limited staff available for document review.”
Judge Xinis denied the request on the same day it was made.
She is not the only judge to have faced obstructions by the Trump administration.
One day after Judge Xinis began her investigation in Maryland, a federal judge in Washington, James E. Boasberg, threatened to open a similar inquiry into a violation of an order he had issued in a different deportation case. In that case, Judge Boasberg said he was considering contempt proceedings to punish the administration for failing to comply with his instructions in March to stop planes of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador.
One week later, another federal judge in Maryland, Stephanie A. Gallagher, issued a ruling that echoed what Judge Xinis had decided in the Abrego Garcia case. Judge Gallagher told the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of a different immigrant — a young Venezuelan man known only as Cristian — who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador on the same set of flights as Mr. Abrego Garcia.
But in the days that followed, Judge Gallagher confronted a familiar pattern of evasion and delay.
First, the judge looked on as the Justice Department lost its bid to have a federal appeals court put her order on hold. Then, in the wake of that defeat, she ordered the administration to give her an update on the steps it had taken to seek Cristian’s release.
When the Justice Department filed its update last week (late, as it turned out), it was largely based on a declaration by a federal immigration official that included no new details about the case. The declaration merely repeated facts that everyone already knew: that Cristian was in the custody of El Salvador and that homeland security officials had asked the State Department for help in complying with the judge’s initial order.
Displeased by all of this, Judge Gallagher fired off a new decision on Wednesday, accusing the administration of having “utterly disregarded” her order for an update.
She gave Trump officials until 5 p.m. on Monday to send another version. And just before that deadline, the Justice Department filed a new declaration from the same immigration official, asserting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “personally handling discussions with the government of El Salvador” concerning Cristian.
“Secretary Rubio has read and understands this court’s order,” the declaration said, “and wants to assure this court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order.”
But in a dueling submission to Judge Gallagher, Cristian’s lawyers said the Trump administration had yet to take any steps to bring their client back. The lawyers asked her to hold a hearing with testimony from “key decision maker(s)” as to why and to punish officials, if needed, with a finding of contempt.
Less than two weeks ago, a federal judge in Boston, Brian E. Murphy, said he might seek contempt sanctions himself against the administration after determining that Trump officials had violated one of his orders by putting a group of immigrants on a deportation flight to Africa with less than one day’s notice.
In April, Judge Murphy expressly forbade such a move, issuing a ruling that barred officials from deporting people to countries not their own without first giving them a “meaningful opportunity” to object.
Judge Murphy stopped short of following the path his colleagues took and ordering the government to “facilitate” the return of the deported men. Instead, he took the advice of a Justice Department lawyer who suggested the administration could fix the problem it had created by providing the men with hearings in Africa at which they could challenge their removal.
Not surprisingly, Judge Murphy seemed a bit confused and more than a little outraged just days later when department lawyers asked him to reconsider this solution, claiming that he had imposed it on the White House and that it was more cumbersome than they had initially imagined.
Judge Murphy had to remind the lawyers that the whole proposal had been their idea, not his.
“Defendants have mischaracterized this court’s order,” he wrote last week, “while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry.”
A Trump official threatens to sue California schools over trans athletes.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday threatened legal action against California public schools if they continued to allow trans athletes to compete in high school sports, calling the students’ participation unconstitutional and giving the schools a week to comply.
In a letter sent to public school districts in the state, Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the California Interscholastic Federation’s 2013 bylaw that allowed trans athletes to compete violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and discriminated against athletes on the basis of sex.
“Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing girls to compete against males would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits because of their sex,” Ms. Dhillon wrote, referring to trans girls as males.
Elizabeth Sanders, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, said on Monday that the department was preparing to send guidance to the state’s school districts on how to respond, and that it would do so on Tuesday.
The Justice Department’s move came two days after a trans girl won championships in two girls’ events at the California state track and field meet, and less than a week after President Trump decried her inclusion in the competition, saying that he would cut federal funding to the state if it let her participate.
At the meet, held over two days in Clovis, Calif., the trans girl, AB Hernandez, won the girls’ high jump and triple jump, and also finished second in the long jump for Jurupa Valley High School, in what is arguably the most competitive high school meet in the nation. In a statement provided by the group TransFamily Support Services, her mother, Nereyda Hernandez, said that it was her daughter’s third year of competing in sports.
Jacqueline Paul, a spokeswoman for the Jurupa Unified School District, did not respond on Monday to requests for comment. Neither did Rebecca Brutlag, a spokeswoman for the California Interscholastic Federation, a nongovernmental body that regulates high school sports events in the state, including the state track and field meet.
After Mr. Trump’s threats last week to cut funding, the federation changed its rules regarding how the participation of trans athletes would affect other competitors, in an effort to make the event fair without excluding anyone.
Under the new rule, the athlete who finished immediately behind Ms. Hernandez would be elevated to share her placement. At the state meet, those athletes shared the podium with Ms. Hernandez, even though they technically had finished one spot behind her.
Two days before the meet, the Justice Department announced that it had sent legal notices to the federation, the state attorney general and state superintendent of public instruction, saying it was joining an ongoing U.S. Department of Education investigation into California’s transgender sports policies. It also had directed the U.S. attorney’s office in Southern California to review the state’s policies, it said.
The recent moves by the Justice Department were the latest examples of the Trump administration trying to keep trans women out of women’s sports. In February, Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to withdraw federal funding for any schools that refused to bar trans girls and women from women’s events.
“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” he said when signing the order. But some states, including Maine, Minnesota and California, have not complied.
His administration sued Maine because of it, threatening to hold back some federal funds from the state, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has suggested that Minnesota and California could expect similar lawsuits if they do not comply. Last month, Minnesota filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against Mr. Trump because of his trans athlete ban.
Despite the flurry of legal threats looming over the state meet last weekend, the event unfolded without major incident.
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The acting FEMA chief said he didn’t know the U.S. had a hurricane season. Was it a joke?
The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told employees on Monday that he did not know the United States has a hurricane season, according to two people who heard the remarks and said it was unclear if he was serious.
The official, David Richardson, has served in the Marines and worked in the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. After he joined FEMA in May, some FEMA workers expressed concern about his lack of experience in emergency management. The remark, coming a day after the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, could deepen those concerns.
The two people who described the comment asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said in a statement that Mr. Richardson was joking. The agency statement said FEMA would be focused on disaster response this hurricane season and said the Trump administration is in the process of reforming an agency it believes is bloated.
Even if the comment was a joke, the timing would be questionable. The hurricane season, which began on Sunday and lasts through Nov. 30, is considered the agency’s most challenging period, during which the country is the most vulnerable to large-scale devastating disasters that can overwhelm state and local disaster managers. In addition, FEMA has just gone through a major reduction in staffing.
During the same meeting, according to the two people, Mr. Richardson told agency employees that FEMA should plan to respond to this year’s hurricane season the same way the agency responded to last year’s hurricane season. But employees have expressed concern with that approach because of the agency’s reduced staff.
Since the start of the Trump administration, FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff, including one-fifth of the coordinating officers who manage responses to large-scale disasters, according to a former senior official. The departures came after pressure from the Department of Government Efficiency, previously led by Elon Musk, for a massive culling of federal workers.
Mr. Richardson’s predecessor at FEMA was Cameron Hamilton, who was pushed out in early May, a day after telling members of Congress that FEMA was vital to communities “in their greatest times of need” and should not be eliminated. The comment appeared to be in conflict with President Trump, who has suggested the agency be eliminated.
On his first full day as acting administrator, Mr. Richardson told the agency’s employees that if any of them tried to obstruct his agenda, “I will run right over you.”
A correction was made on June 3, 2025: An earlier version of a photo caption misidentified a Salvadoran prison. The facility is a prison in San Salvador, not CECOT.
