Trump’s Phone Call With Putin Leaves Europe Reeling

European leaders are reeling after Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding “peace” talks. 

Trump and Putin announced Wednesday that they’d begin talking to deliver an end to the war on Ukraine. The news came as Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, warned NATO on the same day that it could no longer rely on U.S. protection from Russia attacks—and that liberating all of Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine is “unrealistic.” 

Now the news of Trump and Putin putting their heads together to solve this crisis has sent a shudder through Europe, as its leaders fear the “solution” may be exactly what Trump has suggested in the past: Russia will be allowed to continue its invasion unfettered, with no care for the impacts on the rest of the continent.  

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius noted that it was “regrettable” that Hegseth had already professed that there was no way to end the Russian invasion before negotiations even began. 

“In my view, it would have been better to discuss a possible NATO membership for Ukraine or the country’s possible territorial losses only at the negotiating table and not to take it off the table beforehand,” Pistorius said, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers today. 

“There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine. And Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey said to reporters at NATO headquarters. 

Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said it would be a “deadly trap” to accept any solution from Trump and Putin. 

“Whether we decide to fall under the illusion that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are going to find a solution for all of us, and that would be a deadly trap, or we will, as Europe, embrace our own economic, financial and military capacity,” he told CNN’s Natasha Bertrand.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy also spoke to Trump on Wednesday and called the discussion “meaningful.” 

“No one wants peace more than Ukraine. Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done. We agreed to maintain further contact and plan upcoming meetings.”

Donald Trump’s plan to send undocumented immigrants to Guantánamo Bay has left officials in the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense scrambling and confused trying to prepare the military base to house more immigrants.

CNN reports that DHS and DOD officials are confused about who is in charge and what will happen when migrants arrive at the base. Multiple federal agencies are involved, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. They all are accustomed to different responsibilities.

“Nobody really knows what’s going on, between DOD, ICE, and CBP. We’ve got everybody pointing fingers, saying, ‘They’re in charge,’ ‘They’re paying for this,’ ‘They’re providing security.’ No one actually knows,” one source told the news outlet.

The Trump administration began transporting migrants to Guantánamo last week using U.S. military aircraft, prompting protests from immigration rights groups. There have been seven military flights transferring 98 migrants to the facility, as of Wednesday, according to data shared with CNN. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued over the immigrants being denied access to legal representation.

The criteria for who gets sent to the facility aren’t clear. So far, only men have been taken there, who are described as having “criminality,” but CBS News reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is mostly sending nonviolent, low-risk immigrants to the detention facility. One Venezuelan migrant was reportedly sent to Guantánamo because he had an “Air Jordan” tattoo.

It’s another example of Trump’s historic cruelty toward undocumented immigrants and anyone he deems a criminal. It’s red meat for the MAGA right, with their prejudices and long-standing opposition to immigration of any kind. So far, Democrats have not pushed back in large numbers against Trump’s immigration policies, even bolstering them in the case of the Laken Riley Act. For the foreseeable future, humanitarian concerns and comprehensive immigration reform are less than an afterthought.

Some of the country’s foremost national security experts are just as alarmed by Trump’s potential disregard for the judiciary branch as we are. 

During The New Republic’s “America in Crisis” event on Wednesday evening, a panel of experts raised their biggest concern about the direction in which the Trump administration is headed: No one knows what happens next. 

“From the prosecutorial perspective, what’s the worst case scenario? What could [the Trump administration] do if they really decided to go for it, as it were?” New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent asked. “What should people do, what recourse do they have?”

“Particularly one thing that concerns me … the next step when the Trump administration refuses to abide by a federal court order,” said Mark Zaid, a national security attorney famous for defending whistleblowers. “I have strength right now as a lawyer, and we are winning in the legal battles, but if that happens, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do.”

Olivia Troye, a former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration, echoed those sentiments. 

“I would say that that’s my biggest fear, is what Mark Zaid just said.… I’m under no illusions that that is something that could happen when they show plain disregard for that.” Troye urged citizens to speak up in the face of this looming threat. “Make your voices heard. Write letters to the editor, follow your investigative journalist.… Call your members of Congress. Our voices as people still matter. They make us feel like they don’t, but they do matter.”

The fact that these specialists shared the same fear of an impending constitutional crisis was sobering. Those fears were compounded on Monday, when a Rhode Island judge found that the Trump administration had violated a court order to unfreeze some federal funds. The courts have been long viewed as the final line of defense against Trump’s most authoritarian tendencies. But even if Democrats and NGOs sue Trump and win, who’s to say that he’ll undo the policies he already put in place? 

Vice President JD Vance, a Yale law school graduate, offered his own reinterpretation of the Constitution just days before Monday’s court ruling. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” he wrote on X. “If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.  Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

You can watch a full recording of The New Republic’s event, “America in Crisis: Navigating the Dark Road Ahead.” This event was produced in partnership with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Rachel Carson Council.

House Republicans have released their budget plan, and in order to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthy, they are planning to slash funding for Medicaid and food stamps.

The early budget includes a statement where representatives on the House Budget Committee pledge to cut a whopping $2 trillion in mandatory spending. While the text doesn’t mention Medicaid by name, it directs the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in its budget, which is near impossible to do without touching the health care program.

The budget plan also directs the Agriculture Committee to find $230 billion in cuts, which seems to indicate that SNAP (the food stamp program) will be cut by at least 20 percent. This would devastate the lives of millions of Americans who depend on the welfare programs. Other committees have also been given cuts that will hurt less wealthy Americans: The Education and Workforce Committee has been allocated $330 billion in cuts, which is expected to come from student loan programs.

These reductions won’t even pay for the tax cuts the GOP is proposing, which amount to a whopping $4.5 trillion and require the debt ceiling to be raised by $4 trillion. Keep in mind that President Trump has also promised to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, which combined with these cuts will balloon the budget deficit.

Many of the programs on the chopping block are popular with the American people, and won’t reflect well on Donald Trump and the GOP, especially with correct framing from Democrats. Pushback is also coming from other Republicans who think the cuts don’t go far enough or are concerned with a backlash from constituents. One thing is for sure: There’s about to be a big budget fight on Capitol Hill, and Trump won’t make it easy.

Elon Musk’s Tesla will receive one of the largest government contracts in 2025 to produce armored vehicles. 

Drop Site first reported Wednesday on the latest filing of the Department of State’s Procurement Forecast for the fiscal year 2025, which was revised as recently as December 23. 

The filing includes a massive contract for hundreds of millions of dollars to the Department of Government Efficiency czar’s automobile company for “Armored Tesla (production units).” The contract is worth more than $100 million and has a cap of $500 million, according to the filing. 

By comparison, a contract for armored sedans was capped at $100 million, and contracts for armored BMW and armored electric vehicles were capped at $50 million. The office handling the award was the Defensive Equipment and Armored Vehicle Division, and it was targeted for Q4. 

The Procurement Forecast shows projected federal contracts for the purpose of publishing “contracting opportunities small and small disadvantaged firms may be able to perform,” according to its website. 

Tesla has been the subject of an investigation by the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the subject of a lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and hundreds of complaints by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to The New York Times. In his position as the leader of DOGE, Musk’s house-cleaning has affected each one of these agencies. 

Tesla’s contracts with the U.S. government over the last decade were worth roughly $700,000 in total. 

Since Donald Trump entered office, Musk has been flexing an unchecked power as the head of DOGE, sending his employees into the records of federal agencies, intent on shrinking or shutting them down by uncovering supposed massive fraud. 

On Tuesday, Musk touted the transparency of his organization in an attempt to sidestep a question about potential conflicts of interest.  

“All of our actions are fully public,” Musk said, according to CNN. “So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict there,’ it’s not like people are going to be shy about it. They are going to say it immediately.”

Trump and the White House have both downplayed concerns about Musk’s oversight on issues where he stands to make money. 

It seems that Musk’s hefty payouts from his cozy relationship with the president are fully public too. 

House Republicans aren’t quite falling into line behind their leadership’s plans to advance Donald Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda, which is set to be presented to the committee Thursday.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington’s nascent budget reconciliation plan has been stalled in committee for weeks, and has faced tough opposition from his Republican colleagues—but the embattled Texas Republican said Tuesday that the panel would take up the massive border, tax, and energy resolution in two days, giving it just hours left to manifest into an agreeable existence.

Arrington’s plan, presented in a private panel meeting on Tuesday, calls for a massive target of $2 trillion in cuts on mandatory spending, with a $1.5 trillion floor, two sources and Representative Ralph Norman told The Hill.

According to one of the sources, a White House official, a handful of House members are asking Trump to bless Medicaid cuts as a way to help pay for reconciliation, but the official said that lawmakers wouldn’t actually lay out what the Medicaid cuts would be.

“We’re not just going to agree to some number in cuts to please a score,” the official told NOTUS. “Stop being constrained by [the Congressional Budget Office].”

Arrington’s plan also included a $4.5 trillion cap on new deficits, to offset an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Representative Jason Smith, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy, said that a $4.5 trillion cap was “a good starting point,” but he had pushed—unsuccessfully—to expand the scale of the tax cuts.

Smith seemed frustrated afterward, and he told reporters that Arrington’s plan wouldn’t allow for a permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, as well as other priorities from the president’s campaign. “Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy,” Smith groused.

Arrington’s plan had reportedly received approval from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was allegedly “snatching the pen” from Arrington to shop around his own deal on Monday, though Arrington later pushed back on this report at a closed-door GOP conference meeting, according to Politico.

It was then that Arrington called for a meeting of the House Budget Committee to be scheduled for Thursday, to attempt to reconcile differences and advance the bill, giving him just hours to put together all the pieces into a coherent deal. It’s not even clear whether it will be the same deal he presented on Tuesday.

“We’ll soon find out if Jodey is in over his head,” one GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity, told Politico Tuesday.

But it’s not looking good.

Representative Eric Burlison, of the House Freedom Caucus, which released its own budget resolution on Monday, was less than thrilled by Arrington’s plan.

“It’s pathetic,” Burlison said, according to NOTUS’s Reese Gorman.

Representative Chip Roy had worked with Arrington to go against Smith in determining the parameters of the sweeping bill, according to Politico.

But Roy remained a holdout on supporting the resolution Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News’s Erik Wasson. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky also was reportedly not fully on board.

Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission is taking aim at broadcast outlets for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, with Comcast, the parent company of NBC and Universal, being the first target.

In a letter sent to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on Tuesday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that the agency is investigating the company’s DEI practices.

“The FCC will be taking fresh action to ensure that every entity the FCC regulates complies with the civil rights protections enshrined in the Communications Act ... including by shutting down any programs that promote invidious forms of DEI discrimination,” the letter states, according to Reuters, which obtained a copy.

Comcast confirmed it received the letter and would cooperate with the FCC’s investigation, issuing a statement saying that “for decades, our company has been built on a foundation of integrity and respect for all of our employees and customers.”

Carr said the FCC was starting out with Comcast because of “substantial evidence that your companies are still engaging in the promotion of DEI,” noting that the company has cable, high-speed internet, broadcast TV stations, and wireless divisions covered by the agency.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Carr’s investigation went against the FCC’s actual purpose.

“Stoking partisan culture wars is not the FCC’s job. It is time we return to our core mission—closing the digital divide, fostering innovation, and protecting consumers,” she said.

That’s not likely to happen under the Trump administration. The FCC has already turned its sights on media outlets for reasons besides DEI—last week, Carr announced an investigation into San Francisco radio station KCBS for its coverage of immigration enforcement.

This followed an announcement from Carr that the FCC was investigating NPR and PBS for allegedly “violating federal law by airing commercials.” And don’t forget the FCC’s battle with CBS over a Kamala Harris interview that Trump falsely claimed was edited.

It seems that aside from regulating America’s communications and broadcasts, the Trump administration will be using the FCC as a political tool to go after media that he doesn’t like, or that goes against the right wing, blatantly violating the Constitution’s First Amendment right to a free press.

After allowing Elon Musk and his college-aged Department of Government Efficiency groupies to root around federal agencies for weeks, the Trump administration apparently still hasn’t uncovered any fraud or abuse.

During a press hearing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt waved around screenshots of “contracts upon contracts” that she claimed DOGE had “found” in the government. But as she ran through a list of the financial arrangements—some of which had to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts from previous administrations—it became clear that the DOGE-targeted contracts didn’t constitute fraud but instead were simply “against the president’s policies and his America-first agenda.”

“Are all those things you just mentioned fraud? Or are they just contrary to the president’s policies?” pressed CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs.

“I would argue that all of these things are fraudulent,” Leavitt responded. “They are wasteful, and they are an abuse of the American taxpayer’s dollar. This is not what the government should be spending money on. They are contrary to the president’s priorities and agenda.”

Having federal line items that go against the grain of the president’s agenda doesn’t constitute fraud. Yet instead of providing legitimate receipts to back up that claim, Leavitt took the populist route, beckoning the American people to judge the media for daring to question Trump’s agenda. Leavitt further implored journalists to consider the Trump administration’s rationale, even though Musk has been granted free license to shrink federal oversight under the apparently faux banner of uprooting fraud.

“If anybody in here wants to argue that the federal government is not fraudulent, be my guest because I think that the American people at home would beg to differ,” Leavitt said.

So far, Musk’s team has gained access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Education, Commerce, Defense, and Energy Departments, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and, among other agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration. (That last one comes during a period in which the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented uptick in critical aviation accidents, with four deadly crashes taking place since Trump took office. Before 2025, the last deadly crash involving a U.S. airliner was in 2009).

Through all these agencies, Musk has extracted sensitive data on hundreds of millions of Americans, including their Social Security numbers, home addresses, and medical histories.

Democrats had their fangs out for Elon Musk during the first ever House Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

Representative Melanie Stansbury, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said that lawmakers “can’t just sit here today and pretend like everything is normal.” She further accused Republicans of shielding Musk and Donald Trump, who are “clearly breaking the law.”

“Come and testify in front of the American people under oath, because we want to know what you’re up to,” Stansbury said in a direct missive to the world’s richest man.

Other Democrats were equally infuriated by the unrestricted demolition taking place across the executive branch under Musk’s direction. So far, Musk’s team has gained access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Education, Commerce, Defense, and Energy Departments, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and, among other agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration. (That last one comes during a period in which the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented uptick in critical aviation accidents, with four deadly crashes taking place since Trump took office. Before 2025, the last deadly crash involving a U.S. airliner was in 2009.)

Through all these agencies, Musk has extracted sensitive data on hundreds of millions of Americans, including their Social Security numbers, home addresses, and medical histories.

But Democrats on the subcommittee were quick to highlight that, despite Musk’s apparent affinity for combing through the details of Americans’ lives under the helm of the executive branch, the multibillionaire hasn’t been too keen when the government has rooted through his own backyard.

“Five inspector generals that were looking into Elon Musk’s companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration,” said Texas Representative Greg Casar. “These inspector generals, who are independent, protected by law; they are the people that find the waste, fraud, and abuse … fired because they were looking into Elon Musk.”

“You know what Elon Musk doesn’t seem to be looking into?” Casar continued. “His own contracts.”

“Just last year, Elon Musk was promised $3 billion from close to 100 contracts with the federal government,” Casar said, highlighting the discrepancy that seniors who rely on Social Security are dependent upon $65 a day from the government. “We’re not looking into Elon Musk’s $8 million a day. This subcommittee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the House Republicans is looking into your grandmother’s $65 a day.”

Greene pushed back on claims that the administration shouldn’t be hacking and slashing away at all facets of government spending.

“We as a country are $36 trillion in debt,” Greene said during the hearing. “In 2025, interest payments are projected to be $952 billion, which is more than our entire military budget.”

But Democrats weren’t taking her direction very seriously, either.

“I find it ironic that our chairman, Representative Greene, is in charge of running this committee. In the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a dick pic in our Oversight hearing, so I thought I’d bring one as well,” California Representative Robert Garcia told the committee, bringing out a large poster-board portrait of Musk. “This, of course, is President Elon Musk.”

Mitch McConnell has gone from being one of the most powerful men in the GOP, the face of conservatism, to failing to convince a single Republican colleague to vote “no” with him on Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence.

The former Senate majority leader was the only Republican to vote “no” on Gabbard’s confirmation Wednesday, noting her support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, her support for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and her views on China as dealbreakers for him.

“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said in a statement after the vote. “Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge these facts is an unnecessary risk.”

McConnell’s logic wasn’t enough to convince any of his colleagues. McConnell being the only Republican to vote against Gabbard signals a long fall from power for the man who has long been seen as the last bastion of “normal” conservatism in the face of Trump’s MAGA conservatism (not that they’re all that different in practice). Those days are long gone.