As President Trump’s tariff war with Canada, Mexico and China heats up this week, fallout is expected in the markets and on Capitol Hill.
Mexico and the U.S. struck at deal to delay that nation’s tariffs for a month, both Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday. Meanwhile, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are engaged in an ongoing conversation about trade levies imposed on that nation’s goods.
Amid tariff news, two other major storylines emerged over the weekend: Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leading the charge against the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and taking control of the federal payment system that disburses trillions of dollars annually. USAID staff say they are “terrified” by the moves.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has named the acting chief of USAID.
This week, the Senate is set to hold more votes on Trump’s Cabinet nominees, while questions loom about the viability of some of his more controversial picks. On Monday, the Senate is expected to vote to confirm Christopher Wright as Energy secretary.
Follow along all day for updates on these storylines and more.
Senate panel unanimously advances Rollins nomination to lead Agriculture Department
The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on Monday unanimously advanced Brooke Rollins’ nomination to lead the Department of Agriculture.
“Brooke Rollins is a dedicated public servant who will bring her lifelong commitment advocating for rural America to USDA. She has proven her understanding of the unique circumstances farm families face, the current challenges in rural communities and how she can improve policies to protect agriculture producers, committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) said. “I appreciate her willingness to serve and encourage my colleagues to quickly confirm her so USDA will be guided by her dependable leadership.”
Senate tees up final vote on Pam Bondi for AG
The Senate on Monday teed up a final vote on the nomination of Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department.
The chamber voted 52-46 to invoke cloture.
Absent an agreement with Democrats, a final vote will take place in 30 hours, or early Wednesday morning.
Bondi advanced out of the Judiciary Committee last week on a party-line, 12-10 vote.
Senate confirms fracking CEO Chris Wright to lead Energy Department
The Senate on Monday confirmed Chris Wright, the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, to lead the Energy Department.
The vote was 59-38.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle indicated support for his nomination during his confirmation hearing, and he sailed out of the committee on a 15-5 vote.
“He’s a scientist who has invested his life around energy. He is indeed an unrestrained enthusiast for fossil fuels in almost every regard, but he studied nuclear,” Democrat John Hickenlooper (Colo.) said during Wright’s confirmation hearing. “His first years of working were in solar. He has experience in wind.”
Nevertheless, Wright has also stoked some controversy over past comments downplaying climate change’s connections to extreme weather.
Democrats promise bill to block ‘unlawful meddling’ in Treasury systems after Musk allies gain access
Democratic leaders in both chambers on Monday vowed to introduce legislation to “stop unlawful meddling in the Treasury Department’s payment systems.”
Democrats have been sounding the alarm over reports that the “Department of Government Efficiency,” headed up by billionaire tech investor Elon Musk, was given access to the Treasury Department’s sensitive payment systems.
“We must protect people’s Social Security payments, their Medicare payments, tax refunds, from any possible tampering by DOGE or any other unauthorized entities,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters at a press conference on Monday.
Tulsi Gabbard picks up key GOP vote on Intel Committee
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced on Monday that she will support Tulsi Gabbard to become director of national intelligence (DNI), giving her a key boost in her confirmation push.
Collins was considered a crucial swing vote on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is set to meet on Tuesday afternoon to potentially advance Gabbard toward a floor vote. Last month, Collins had expressed reservations about Gabbard.
But in a statement on Monday, she pointed to Gabbard’s support for reducing the size and scale of the DNI position and said the former Democratic congresswoman had assuaged her concerns about her stance on Edward Snowden.
“After extensive consideration of her nomination, I will support Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Collins said. “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence … has become far larger than it was designed to be, and Ms. Gabbard shares my vision of returning the agency to its intended size.”
Van Hollen says he’ll join Schatz in holding up Trump State Department nominees
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he would join Sen. Brian Schatz’s (D-Hawaii) holds on State Department nominees.
“We’re all in this together,” he said in response to a reporter’s question while protesting at the USAID headquarters against Trump’s reorganization of the agency.
Schatz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced Monday he will place a blanket hold on all of President Trump’s nominees to the State Department until the president backs off his effort to shut down USAID, the nation’s chief foreign assistance agency.
Democrat places blanket hold on Trump’s State Department picks over targeting of USAID
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced Monday he will place a blanket hold on all of President Trump’s nominees to the State Department until the president backs off his effort to shut down USAID, the nation’s chief foreign assistance agency.
“Until and unless this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again, I will be placing a blanket hold on all of the Trump administration’s State Department nominees. This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world,” Schatz said in a statement.
That hold would impact Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her nomination was reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee last month.
White House: Musk has abided by all federal laws
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that DOGE chair Elon Musk is a special government employee and has “abided by all applicable federal laws.”
She also said she doesn’t know about his security clearances, if he has gone through a background check, what the status is of the security clearances of people on his team. She also said she didn’t know if Musk took an oath about adhering to the Constitution.
The questions come as Musk’s DOGE is making moves to gut USAID and gain access to payments systems at the Treasury Department.
When asked about what expertise Musk might have in the areas of global health and humanitarian aid to assess USAID, she said Musk “has a little bit of common sense” and held up a paper about the “waste and abuse” at USAID.
Thune on Trump tariffs: ‘We’ll see how long’ they last
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Monday he’s taking a wait-and-see approach to President Trump’s order to place 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and a 10-percent tariff on China, which sent stock markets dropping.
Thune said Republicans would wait to see what tariffs are actually imposed and noted that Trump has already reached a deal to pause the tariff on Mexico after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to send 10,000 troops to “reinforce” the border.
“We’ll see how long” they last, Thune told reporters when asked for his reaction to Trump’s latest tariff announcements.
“It sounds like the Mexican tariffs are already being paused,” he noted. “We’ll see what happens.”
Trump signs order to create US sovereign wealth fund, eyeing TikTok purchase
President Trump on Monday directed secretaries to begin a process to create an American sovereign wealth fund, suggesting it could partially own the popular app TikTok.
The president signed an executive order in the Oval Office to have Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick create and lead such a fund.
“It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had,” the president said. “We have a lot of things that create wealth and you’re seeing that over the last two weeks, I think we’ve created more wealth.”
Bessent called the fund “very exciting” and said a fund will be created within the next 12 months, noting it will aim to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet and “put the assets to work.”
Ontario will end provincial contract with Musk’s Starlink amid Trump tariffs
Ontario’s premier said he’s “ripping up” the contract between his province and Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service, following President Trump’s decision to target Canada with 25 percent tariffs, which are set to go into effect Tuesday.
“Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday in a post on X.
Noting Ontario spends about $30 billion annually on procurement, Ford said Ontario would prohibit contracts with American-based companies, which would likely cost them billions in new revenue.
“They only have President Trump to blame,” he said.
Democratic lawmakers leave USAID without gaining access
Democratic lawmakers left USAID agency headquarters without gaining access, told by a USAID official to reach out to the State Department.
The lawmakers left without incident, thanking the USAID officials for their service.
Democrat lawmakers barred from entering USAID
Democrat lawmakers were blocked from entering USAID headquarters on Monday.
Lawmakers were told by officials with the agency that the office was closed and all employees were instructed to telework.
Democrats rally outside USAID against Trump moves to shut down agency
Democratic lawmakers rallied outside of USAID headquarters on Monday, after workers received notices to stay home and cease work.
Lawmakers focused their ire on tech billionaire Elon Musk, who President Trump appointed to slash government funding
Warren presses Treasury secretary over Musk access to payments system
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday demanding to know what access Elon Musk was given to the federal payments system and what safeguards were implemented to protect Americans’ private data and prevent abuses.
“I write regarding a disturbing report that — in one of your first acts after your confirmation as Treasury secretary — you have given Elon Musk and his surrogates ‘full access’ to the federal government’s critical payment systems, which includes the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans,” Warren wrote in a letter to Bessent, whom the Senate confirmed last week.
Warren warned “it is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year.”
She said she was “alarmed” by reports that Bessent reportedly “sidelined” an official responsible for managing the extraordinary measures the Treasury Department needs to extend federal borrowing authority, which formally expired last month.
Treasury’s highest-ranking career official, David Lebryk, left the department last week after reportedly clashing with Musk over access to the payments system.
Marco Rubio taking over as acting head of USAID amid agency turmoil
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is being put in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the Trump administration mulls the future of the agency.
Rubio told reporters traveling with him in Panama that he had been made acting director of USAID, which has for decades administered humanitarian and development assistance around the world.
Jeffries vows to use government shutdown fight to combat Trump orders
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Democrats will use the coming battle over government funding as a vehicle to block President Trump’s early efforts to gut federal programs — a warning that raises the chances of a shutdown in the middle of next month.
In a letter to House Democrats, Jeffries hammered the administration for issuing an order — since rescinded — to freeze federal aid that Congress had previously allocated. Jeffries suggested Democrats will oppose any federal spending bill that doesn’t explicitly prevent Trump from freezing, slashing or otherwise altering those programs, including Medicaid, which saw its services disrupted amid the chaos over the freeze.
The Democratic leader said he’s already delivered the message to House GOP leaders that, absent those assurances, Republicans will be on their own to prevent a shutdown.
“I have made clear to House Republican leadership that any effort to steal taxpayer money from the American people, end Medicaid as we know it or defund programs important to everyday Americans, as contemplated by the illegal White House Office of Management and Budget order, must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner,” Jeffries wrote.
USAID staff told to work remotely: ‘We are terrified’
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is being gutted by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting operation in a shocking operation that launched over the weekend.
In the wake of President Trump’s executive order freezing foreign assistance, USAID’s website has been taken offline, hundreds of contractors have been laid off and employees are being locked out of their accounts one-by-one without notice. Musk said shortly after midnight Monday that Trump “agreed” to shut down USAID, which for more than 60 years has administered billions of dollars of humanitarian and development assistance around the world.
“We are terrified,” said one USAID employee, who was granted anonymity for fear of retribution. The employee said they woke up without access to internal systems, including their email, with “zero communication.”
Personal services contractors, who lack the legal protections of government employees and make up around half of the agency’s workforce, started getting shut out of systems on Sunday, according to two USAID employees. They also said some direct hires were being impacted.
One described seeing their colleagues’ Google Chat images crossed out one-by-one Sunday evening, indicating their account was deactivated.
Shortly after midnight, USAID employees received an email reviewed by The Hill that said their headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building would be closed Monday and instructing them to work remotely.
Trump taps Bessent to lead consumer bureau as GOP plots big changes
President Trump has tapped Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth,” Bessent said in a statement on Monday.
Trump designated Bessent as acting director on Friday, not long before Rohit Chopra, who served as the agency’s director since 2021, announced his departure the following day.
Chopra, a Democrat appointed by former President Biden, had been serving a five-year term and could have remained in the post through most of next year.
Chopra’s departure comes as Republicans plan to use their control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to make big changes at the polarizing financial watchdog agency.
Nonprofits’ cite groups that have experienced funding lapses
Insisting the Trump funding freeze is still being implemented, the plaintiffs’ are repeatedly pointing to sworn declarations they submitted from business and nonprofit leaders expressing issues retrieving funds since the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo was issued last week.
“Health clinics that won’t be able to provide care to those who require in home visits….a community center that won’t be able to help those in need find housing, forget the government IDs that are necessary to access other services….I mean, the record is replete with this,” said Kevin Friedl, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.
Friedl is senior counsel at Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal group that is involved in five pending lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive actions during his second term.
Justice Department insists remaining funding freezes are not result of OMB memo
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is weighing an effort by a group of nonprofits and health groups to block the Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants.
Daniel Schwei, the attorney representing the administration, insisted the challenges are moot now that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has rescinded its memo announcing the across-the-board freeze that sent shockwaves through Washington.
Though Schwei acknowledged some issues last week with disbursing funds that have since been resolved, the attorney said any remaining freezes are the result of Trump’s individual executive orders.
Trump, Mexican President agree to pause tariffs for one month
Trump on Monday said that he had a “friendly” conservation with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and they “agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico.”
He also said that Sheinbaum “agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States.”
Sheinbaum also said on X that tariffs are paused for a month after speaking with Trump.
She added the Mexico will immediately reinform its border with the U.S. with 10,000 members of the National Guard, saying it is committed to preventing drug trafficking from Mexico to the U.S.
Trump speaks to Trudeau, says they’ll talk again at 3
President Trump said he had spoken to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, hours before sweeping tariffs were set to go into effect, and that the two would talk again later in the day.
“Canada doesn’t even allow U.S. Banks to open or do business there. What’s that all about? Many such things, but it’s also a DRUG WAR, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the U.S. from drugs pouring through the Borders of Mexico and Canada,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Just spoke to Justin Trudeau. Will be speaking to him again at 3:00 P.M.”
A 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico is set to go into effect at midnight. Canadian energy imports, as well as imports from China, are set to be hit with a 10 percent tariff.
First Trump-Netanyahu meeting: 3 top issues
President Trump will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House this week, with tensions between the two leaders standing in stark contrast to the priority both countries place on the bilateral relationship.
Among the top issues for the visit are maintaining a fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas; taking steps toward brokering ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia; and confronting the threat from Iran.
While the first foreign invitation to the White House demonstrates the new administration’s priorities, Trump has bad-mouthed Netanyahu for years. In early January, Trump shared a video on social media with a speaker referring to Netanyahu as a “deep, dark son of a” b—-.
Hegseth’s goal for fewer civilian professors at military academies faces roadblocks
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s goal to get “woke” civilian professors out of military academies and replace them with military personnel would be a tall order.
Experts note that recruiting problems are top of mind at the Pentagon, casting doubt on pulling more military personnel into the academies, where around 50 percent current of instructors are civilians.
“We need more uniformed members going back into West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy as a tour to teach with their wisdom of what they’ve learned in uniform instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities that they left and then try to push that into service academies,” Hegseth said at his confirmation hearing.
Ramaswamy poised to shake up Ohio governor’s race
When Vivek Ramaswamy formally launches his expected bid to succeed Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), the biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate appears on track to become the favorite for the Buckeye State’s governor’s mansion.
Ramaswamy boasts national name recognition from his firebrand bid for the White House in 2024 and, even before launching, new polling from a pro-Ramaswamy firm shows a majority of Ohio Republican primary voters would get behind him in 2026.
GOP leader sees advantage in tiny majority: Fear of Trump’s bad side
House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) sees an advantage in wrangling the tiny House GOP majority this year, despite having a historically narrow margin and fewer members than last time: President Trump.
The Trump factor in whipping GOP votes is both carrot and stick: Republicans are eager to advance Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda — and they are also wary of getting on the president’s bad side.
Democrats fume over weak early response to Trump
Democrats are fuming about their party leadership’s early response to President Trump.
Strategists say the reaction to Trump is inconsistent and not aggressive enough to combat Trump, who has taken a series of actions to remake the government.
In a whirlwind first two weeks in office, Trump has issued a string of executive orders, removed agency watchdogs and eliminated government diversity programs.