Elon Musk praises Doge efforts to cut federal workforce after judge ruling – live | Trump administration

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More than 50,000 people could be laid off at defense department starting as early as Friday – report

More than 50,000 people could by laid off at the defense department under the Trump administration’s mass firings, CNN reports, citing an unnamed US official.

The department has approximately 55,000 probationary employees – the type of worker Trump and his advisor Elon Musk have been targeting in their sweeping cuts of federal workers.

CNN reports that the firings are expected to begin as early as Friday.

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Updated at 19.12 EST

New York governor won’t remove embattled mayor Eric Adams from office – for now

New York governor Kathy Hochul will not immediately remove the embattled New York City mayor Eric Adams from office, but will instead advocate greater oversight of City Hall, she announced at a press conference today.

Hochul said she has “concerns about disruption and chaos that such a proceeding could bring to the residents of this great city” while “New York is facing a grave threat from Washington”, she said. “The Trump administration is already trying to use the legal jeopardy facing our mayor as leverage to squeeze and punish our city.”

Hochul said she plans to propose legislation that would require City Hall to follow new guidance, in hopes doing so would “reestablish trust” with the people of New York. Those policies include establishing a new deputy inspector general focused on New York City affairs; a mechanism for the city’s comptroller, public advocate and council speaker to launch lawsuits against the federal government; and more money for the state comptroller to step up oversight of the city.

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Updated at 19.00 EST

The Trump administration is rolling back deportation protections that shield nearly half a million Haitians, Homeland Security announced today.

The humanitarian relief, called Temporary Protected Status, allows many Haitian immigrants to work, but does not provide a pathway to citizenship. Without TPS, thousands of Haitians will become eligible to be deported as early as 3 August.

The decision marks another step by the Trump administration to deliver on the president’s campaign promise that he would oversee the “largest deportation operation in American history”.

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Updated at 18.42 EST

During his conversation with NewsMax host Robb Schmitt at CPAC this evening, Elon Musk suggested that Democrats directed funding to “illegal immigrants” because “every one of them is a customer”, or potential voter.

“They took money from Fema, meant for helping Americans in distress, and sent that money to luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in New York,” Musk said, repeating a false claim that Fema aid was redirected from red-leaning states after Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“You just need to look at basic incentives,” he added. “If the probability that an illegal is going to vote Democrat at some point, whether it’s cheating, but eventually they can become citizens, if the probability is like 80, 90% just look at California, which is super majority Dem. Then the incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country.”

Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report.

“That is why the Biden administration was pushing to get as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible to get as many, because every one of them is a customer, every one is a voter,” he said.

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Updated at 18.16 EST

Bannon celebrates McConnell retirement and Patel confirmation in CPAC address

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon took the stage following Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“You bring out the world’s wealthiest guy, Superman, I’m supposed to follow it,” Bannon joked.

Earlier this week, Bannon called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant”.

Bannon also celebrated Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell’s retirement, criticizing the conservative senator for his vote to continue aid to Ukraine.

Additionally, Bannon saluted Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees who’ve been confirmed by the Senate, including Kash Patel, and suggested the Trump administration should honor the members of the January 6 attack on the Capitol who were released from prison under Trump.

“I think the J6 choir is going to play the Kennedy Center for a night and honor their families,” Bannon said.

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Updated at 18.44 EST

Elon Musk said Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the country’s front lines are dying “for the biggest graft machine that I’ve ever seen in my life”.

“Trump is so pragmatic on this, he’s just looking at it, and he’s saying, it’s Ukraine, it’s not our country, it’s not a Nato ally. I just want to see people not dying,” he added.

The tech billionaire’s comments come as Donald Trump has escalated his attacks on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in recent days, repeating Russian talking points, including that Ukraine started the war (which began after Russia invaded the country).

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Updated at 17.56 EST

Elon Musk is repeating his and the president’s false claim that dead people are receiving social security payments.

Speaking at CPAC, he told NewsMax host Rob Schmitt that he and Donald Trump found that a person who was 300-years-old was receiving social security payments.

“Are there indications that there were checks going to those people?” Schmitt asked. “I get the Social Security Administration is dumb, but are they paying these people? Are they that dumb?”

“I don’t know. A bunch of money is going out for the Social Security Administration,” Musk said.

A July 2024 report from social security’s inspector general states that from fiscal years 2015 through 2022, the agency paid out almost $8.6tn in benefits, including $71.8bn – or less than 1% – in improper payments. Most of the erroneous payments were overpayments to living people.

Part of the confusion comes from social security’s software system based on the Cobol programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. The news organization Wired first reported on the use of Cobol programming language at the Social Security Administration.

Additionally, a series of reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9m social security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits.

The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of $9m.

A July 2023 social security OIG report stated: “Almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” And, as of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.

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Elon Musk again referenced his and the president’s plan to send dividends from the so-called “department of government efficiency” to Americans during his appearance at CPAC this evening.

“Let’s talk about these Doge dividend checks that everybody’s talking about this week,” NewsMax host Rob Schmitt said.

“It’s money that’s taken away from things that are destructive to the country,” Musk said. “As we’re finding savings, that’s going to translate directly to reductions in tax.”

Musk’s team became the subject of mockery this week after the New York Times reported that Doge claimed it had cut an $8bn contract that was actually only worth $8m.

Even if Musk could reach his $2tn target, questions remain over the implications of sending checks to every US household.

Here’s Joan E Greve with more on the proposal:

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Updated at 17.52 EST

Elon Musk praises Doge efforts to cut federal workforce

Speaking at CPAC this evening, Elon Musk praised his and the president’s efforts to cut the federal workforce while NewsMax host Rob Schmitt indicated the Trump administration may shutter the Internal Revenue Service.

“We’re finding savings, that’s going to translate directly to reductions in tax,” Musk said.

“Yeah. I mean, I think they fired 6,000 people at the IRS today. And I think, (Commerce Secretary Howard) Lutnick said last night that they’re talking about shutting down the IRS,” Schmitt said.

During an appearance on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime last night, Lutnick said Trump’s “goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay”.

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Updated at 18.41 EST

NewsMax host Rob Schmitt welcomed tech billionaire and Doge-head Elon Musk on stage at the Conservative Political Action Committee this evening. The pair were joined by far-right Argentinian president Javier Millei, who gifted Musk with a “chainsaw for bureaucracy”.

“I am become meme,” Musk said, noting that Doge began as a meme, featuring a dog, which then became a cryptocurrency, before finally becoming the so-called “department of government efficiency.”

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Updated at 18.39 EST

Trump administration can move forward with mass firings of federal works, judge rules

The Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers can continue while the lawsuit moves forward, a federal judge ruled today.

US district judge Christopher Cooper found the five unions suing the administration on behalf of thousands of federal workers must bring their case under federal employment law, and not in district court.

While the unions argued the president’s mass layoffs challenge Congress’ power to shape federal agencies through the purse strings, attorneys for the Trump administration said the unions failed to show the layoffs justified an emergency restraining order.

Since taking office one month ago, Donald Trump and his advisor, tech billionaire Elon Musk, have overseen the firings of thousands of federal workers across defense, veterans affairs, health, the treasury, the consumer financial protection bureau and other agencies.

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Updated at 17.22 EST

Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, heaped praise on Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk and told the CPAC audience: “American trends we tend to follow. You occasionally follow some of our trends. You gave us ‘woke’ and we gave you Prince Harry.”

As some in the audience booed, Farage quipped: “No, you keep him, you keep him!”

He argued that the Brexit vote in 2016 paved the way for Trump’s election win that year whereas Trump’s win in 2024 is “producing a wave that is now coming the other way across the Atlantic.

“I am now leading Reform UK and we are now topping every opinion poll in Britain and we are going to win the next general election and save our country.”

Farage claimed that the Trump administration is cracking down on government waste and defending free speech – and Britain ought to follow suit. “We should be allowed to say whatever the hell we want.

“We will make sure that those who come to Britain legally subscribe to our shared values. In fact, in many ways, what we’re fighting for is a very similar agenda to the one that you just fought for and the one that you have just succeeded with.”

He rounded off to cheers and applause: “You’re going to make America great again and we in turn will make Britain great again!”

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Updated at 17.23 EST

A vaccine policy committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will not meet as scheduled next week, just days after vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr was sworn in as head of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy criticized the panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, during his confirmation hearings. The committee is currently on a list of advisory groups currently under review, according to an executive order issued by Trump yesterday.

Kennedy, who promised Senator Bill Cassidy that he would not touch the childhood vaccine schedule during the confirmation process, told HHS employees they would investigate the schedule when he began work this week. The vaccine schedule includes shots that prevent measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.

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Updated at 16.53 EST

Attendees of the White House’s Black History Month reception have broken out into cheers of “four more years”, referring to Donald Trump’s suggestion that he should extend his presidency beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms.

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Updated at 16.36 EST

Donald Trump has announced he will install a new statue of Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man who was wounded at the Battle of Lexington, in “our new National Garden of American Heroes”.

He added that “the Garden will predominantly feature incredible women like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin and Coretta Scott King” alongside “some of the most beautiful works of art in the form of a statue for men like Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, Jackie Robinson, what a great athlete, Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali … and the late Kobe Bryant.”

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Updated at 16.33 EST