Elon Musk’s Starlink Takes Over the White House

Tech oligarch Elon Musk has extended his influence over the White House even further: His Starlink internet service has been made accessible across the White House campus.

Trump administration officials say Musk donated the service, and that it was vetted by the Office of the White House Counsel’s lawyer handling ethics issues. But according to former White House officials from the Biden administration, tech donations need to go through approval from the chief information officers at the White House and the General Services Administration.

The Starlink system is routed through a White House data center with existing fiber cables miles away from Washington, D.C., unlike normal Starlink setups, which involve rectangular terminals that receive internet signals from SpaceX satellites orbiting arth.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Starlink was set up “to improve Wi-Fi connectivity on the complex.” Other administration staff told The New York Times that some parts of the White House complex could not get cell service, with Wi-Fi networks handling too much traffic at times.

There are a few problems with having the world’s richest man donate internet service to the White House: namely, the numerous conflicts of interest and ethics issues. Musk already collects billions of dollars through his government contracts, and controls Starlink. If White House employees are using the internet service, he could have access to their data. There are also questions as to how secure Starlink’s network is.

Starlink has also been set up at the GSA, an agency used as a base for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. And it has contracts with many other government agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, usually to provide internet access in remote locations and in emergency situations. The fact that it’s now being used at one of the most important U.S. federal buildings raises questions about whether Musk has an ulterior motive—and what that may be.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency staffers used police and private security to forcefully take over the U.S. Institute of Peace on Monday.

The USIP, an independent nonprofit founded by Congress, had its president, Greg Moose, and its board fired last week by the Trump administration. The Associated Press reported that DOGE workers on Monday had law enforcement escort them into USIP, which is not located in a federal building, after previously being denied access.

“DOGE just came into the building—they’re inside the building—they’re bringing the F.B.I. and brought a bunch of D.C. police,” USIP lawyer Sophia Lin told The New York Times as she and other staff members were forced out of the building.

“What has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit,” Moose told reporters. “It was very clear that there was a desire on the part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance, and we are part of that family.”

It’s business as usual from the White House’s perspective.

Due to USIP staff’s noncompliance with Trump’s order, “11 board members were lawfully removed, and remaining board members appointed Kenneth Jackson acting president,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the president’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”

The privately operated USIP works to maintain U.S. diplomacy abroad, and its staff was doing all they could do to emphasize that before the DOGE break-in. “I can’t imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals that he has outlined: keeping us out of foreign wars, resolving conflicts before they drag us into those kinds of conflicts,” Moose noted. Musk seems to disagree. 

The White House co-signed on Israel’s surprise attack on Gaza late Monday. The wave of airstrikes killed more than 400 Palestinians and upended a Donald Trump–backed ceasefire agreement put in place to advance hostage negotiations.

“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News late Monday.

She then delivered a chilling warning for the countries and organizations that the Trump administration believes are in opposition to the United States.

“And as President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran—all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America—will see a price to pay; all hell will break loose,” Leavitt said, celebrating America’s own airstrike campaign in Yemen over the weekend.

Israeli officials had threatened an attack for weeks as it failed to move forward on a potential peace deal with Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to enter phase two of the ceasefire agreement after phase one of the deal lapsed March 1. Phase two would have started agreements to end the war and withdraw the remaining Israeli troops from Gaza before Israeli hostages were handed over. Instead of following through on their own drafted ceasefire terms, Netanyahu proposed a new arrangement: Hand over half the hostages and then discuss the end of the war.

Hamas rejected these terms, and in turn, Israel restricted humanitarian aid and cut electricity into the region in a pressure campaign to get the militant group to bend.

Both Israel and Hamas disagreed over key aspects of an alternative proposal offered by U.S. officials, which would have extended phase one into April. On Saturday, the U.S. accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands of Israel in the ongoing ceasefire discussions. By Sunday, Netanyahu announced that he would be firing his domestic security chief, who had led ceasefire negotiations for most of the war.

The airstrikes are the heaviest attack by Israel since the ceasefire took effect in January. They hit in conjunction with an evacuation order, issued by Israel, for parts of northern and central Gaza near the perimeter of the two countries. The Guardian reported that the order suggested that a ground invasion involving troops could be “imminent.”

Israeli officials have claimed that attacking Hamas leadership would advance the release of hostages, even as the hostages’ families disagree. But on a practical level, the attack follows a period of rest and restocking for Israel.

“Ammunition stocks have been replenished—partly due to U.S. deliveries—and new potential targets among Hamas’ leaders identified. Planes and other equipment have been repaired. Troops have been rested,” reported The Guardian.

And it’s not clear that handing over the hostages would end the violence against Gaza, either. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has said it intends to continue the war as long as Hamas remains in the war-battered region, reported NPR.

Donald Trump called out two reporters at The Atlantic by name in his latest tirade against media outlets that are willing to report fairly on him.

In what is becoming a more regular occurrence, the president posted yet another meltdown directed at the press on his Truth Social Monday. This time, he targeted specific journalists by name, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, seemingly over an article they published earlier this month about his dreams of despotism.

The president claimed that the “Third Rate Magazine, ‘The Atlantic,’ that made up the ‘Suckers and Losers’ Hoax about me and the Military, and refused to even acknowledge the vast horde of people who emphatically denied this FAKE STORY,” had requested an interview with him.

Trump included his strongly worded reply, which was a list of smears and grievances.

“Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times. If you have some other reporter, let us know, but Ashley is not capable or competent enough to understand the intricacies of High Level politics.

“Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES,” Trump continued.

“The Atlantic is doing terribly, losing a fortune, and will hopefully fold up and be gone in the not too distant future. It has absolutely no credibility, and would be far better off, in terms of ‘journalism,’ to cease publication,” Trump wrote. “Nevertheless, when you have a writer with intelligence, competence, and fairness, please let me know!”

While it’s not entirely clear what set the president off this time, earlier this month, Parker and Scherer had published a piece titled “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence” about Trump’s outlandish demand to move the Declaration of Independence into the Oval Office.

This request presented as ridiculous for two main reasons. First, the president seems to eschew all the convictions held within the actual document: that all men are created equal, that power is divined from the consent of the governed, and the crucial rejection of monarchy, supposedly celebrated by the president who jokingly calls himself the “King.”

Secondly, on a purely logistical level, it seemed impossible. The original document, made of animal-skin parchment, is kept in an oxygen-free, argon-filled case behind heavy glass, which retracts into the wall at night and is kept away from bright lights.

But Trump seems intent on redecorating his digs to add as much pomp and circumstance as possible—and it seems he got his way, or at least some facsimile of it: A copy of the Declaration of Independence is currently hanging in the Oval Office, shielded by short blue curtains.

The Trump administration plans to upend and cripple the Social Security claims process, according to a memo obtained by Popular Information.

An internal  Social Security Administration memo, sent on March 13, outlines changes to the agency that would cause processing delays and prevent Americans from applying for as well as receiving benefits, ostensibly to reduce “fraud risks” according to its author, acting Deputy Commissioner Doris Diaz.

The changes include requiring that people seeking benefits provide proof of identity over the internet for benefit claims made over the phone. If someone is “unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identity documentation.”

Right now, Social Security claims and identity verification can be done over the phone thanks to staffers answering calls on its toll-free number. Actual fraud is rare, because people have to provide multiple pieces of personal information, checked against medical records, bank statements, pay stubs, and tax returns, depending on the type of claim. 

Beyond that, if there are any discrepancies, an applicant might have to mail their birth certificate to the agency. This entire process allows people who are elderly or disabled, and thus have difficulty accessing the internet or visiting a physical office, to apply for and collect Social Security benefits. 

Introducing internet verification would be a significant hardship to the 40 percent of Social Security beneficiaries who depend on the phone service. If they can’t use the internet system, they would also have to visit a physical location. Diaz’s own memo estimates that 75,000 to 85,000 people would have to visit Social Security offices under the new policy. 

But even before the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive cuts to the agency, the SSA’s physical offices had an average wait time of more than a month. They don’t accept walk-ins and would not be able to accommodate such a large increase in foot traffic. 

The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, recently announced further cuts of 7,000 employees, or about 12 percent of the agency. Physical offices around the country are being closed, and some people are more than 100 miles away from the nearest location. On top of that, one day before the memo was issued, the agency was reportedly considering ending its phone service altogether due to misguided concerns from DOGE over widespread fraud.

After an outcry over ending the phone service, the SSA denied that it was being eliminated, with this memo appearing to be a workaround. Even still, if these changes go through, many disabled and elderly people will have major difficulties in getting their benefits and may end up losing them altogether. The memo foresees this, stating there will be “service disruption,” “operational strain,” and “budget shortfalls.” All of that is a euphemism for causing irreparable damage to Social Security.

Abortion providers are now being arrested in Texas.

Maria Margarita Rojas, a 48-year-old Houston-area midwife, was arrested in the Lone Star State Monday on allegations that she had provided illegal abortions.

Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the charges against Rojas Monday afternoon. It’s the first instance in which an abortion provider has faced criminal consequences in the wake of Texas’s 2022 abortion ban.

“In Texas, life is sacred. I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said in a statement.

“Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable,” he added.

Paxton’s office charged Rojas, known locally as “Dr. Maria,” with operating a network of clinics between Waller, Cypress, and Spring in the northwest Houston area. The clinics allegedly “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals,” according to a press release.

The consequences for Rojas could be extreme: Under Texas law, she could face life in prison and have her state medical license revoked.

Texas permits abortions only in the most rare and dire circumstances in order to save the life of a pregnant patient, and even then, they’re not guaranteed. Last year, Kate Cox was forced to flee Texas for emergency care even after a court ruled that the 31-year-old mother of two should have access to an abortion under the ban’s medical emergencies clause. But Paxton intervened in the court ruling, threatening that any Texas abortion provider believed to help Cox would face felony charges.

Even out-of-state abortion providers have been threatened by the wide-reaching Texas law. In December, Paxton sued a New York doctor for prescribing the abortion pill to an in-state resident, demanding that the provider pay $100,000 for every violation of the state’s ban. The lawsuit was the first attempt to enforce a state abortion ban beyond its borders.

By and large, most Americans support abortion access. In a 2023 Gallup poll, just 12 percent of surveyed Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Meanwhile, 69 percent believe that it should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The Trump administration’s gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development ended up halting efforts to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam, leaving thousands of Vietnamese people living near the Bien Hoa air base, the site of a major chemical spill, at risk of poisoning.

After Trump issued an executive order halting all foreign aid in February, cleanup efforts at the base suddenly ceased since workers weren’t being paid. Open pits contaminated with dioxin—a toxic by-product of Agent Orange, which the U.S. military used in the Vietnam War—were left exposed. For weeks, the pits were covered with tarps, which at one point even blew away with the wind.

U.S. diplomats stationed in Vietnam frantically contacted Washington on February 14 to relay the news, and also pointed out that Vietnam’s rainy season was soon coming, according to a letter obtained by ProPublica. If enough rain fell, they warned, contaminated soil could flood into nearby communities and poison water and food supplies.

Hundreds of thousands of people live near the base, only yards away from contaminated sites in some cases. A major river that flows into Ho Chi Minh City, with a population of nine million people, is only 1,500 feet away from the contaminated area.

The diplomats’ letter warned that “we are quickly heading toward an environmental and life-threatening catastrophe,” but received no response from Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with Trump staffer Peter Marocco, then ordered the cleanup efforts to stop and froze $1 million in payments to contractors working on the cleanup before canceling the contracts altogether on February 26.

While Rubio and Marocco abruptly reversed their decision a week later, the companies still have not been paid as of Thursday. With a looming disaster, the companies are now scrambling to secure the area at their own expense before the rain arrives, according to ProPublica. And the USAID staff who would be providing oversight have either been placed on leave or barred from traveling.

The critical effort is one of the many casualties of Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has made massive cuts across the federal government and decimated foreign aid projects. This cut is particularly bad not only because of the toxic consequences but also because the dioxin is only there thanks to the U.S. military spraying large quantities of Agent Orange across Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Trying to minimize environmental and public health consequences from that spraying is very much America’s responsibility, but it seems that Trump, Musk, and Republicans couldn’t care less. They fail to realize that such international aid projects, including efforts to fund global public health, boost America’s “soft power” and improve the country’s image, particularly in a region where the U.S. caused lasting destruction.

The Trump administration continues to move the goalposts as backlash mounts against its recent deportation actions. 

On Friday, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants, alleging they were all gang members. The following day, a federal judge ordered any planes departing the U.S. on these grounds to return to the country. Still, two planes with Venezuelans were deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration claimed that while the judge sent a verbal order before takeoff, the written order came too late, as the order was electronically filed 45 minutes after the planes left U.S. airspace.

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended this nonsense position at a press conference on Monday. “Does the White House feel the need to reply with a verbal order from this judge?” a reporter asked Leavitt.

“As I said, all of the planes subject to the written order of this judge departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge’s written order.”

“But what about the verbal order, which of course carries the same legal weight as a written order, and said for the planes to turn around if they were in the air?”

“Well there’s actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a … written order, and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court.”  

The White House is offering up petty, measly excuses to justify its complete rebuke of the checks and balances system.

Republican lawmakers are going after the judicial branch, claiming that the legal appointees are attempting to usurp Donald Trump’s power for merely ruling against the president’s agenda.

“These far-left Resistance™ district court judges are under the impression they were elected president,” Senator Tom Cotton posted on X Monday. “The idea of ordering the President to turn around a plane filled with violent criminal illegal aliens is outrageous.”

Fox News also pitched in on the effort to condemn the judge, broadcasting a photo of James Boasberg, the chief judge of the Washington, D.C., District Court, to its millions of viewers.

The Trump administration ignored a judge’s order to turn around two planes carrying hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members on Saturday. In a verbal order, Boasberg demanded that the government cancel the flights immediately.

“You shall inform your clients of this immediately. Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said during a hearing. “However that’s accomplished, turning around the plane, or not embarking anyone on the plane.… This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

Regardless, the planes did not turn around.

Trump had invoked a Japanese internment-era wartime policy—the Alien Enemies Act—early Saturday to deport noncitizens he believed to be a part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Five of the men sued the Trump administration in response, attempting to prevent their “imminent removal.”

But hours later, when the emergency court hearing had taken a brief pause, the planes were skybound. Once Boasberg’s directive was received, Trump officials made the calculated decision to keep the planes en route to Honduras, alleging “operational” and “national security” reasons for their continued flight while claiming that the judge’s order was out of bounds since the planes had supposedly passed over international waters by the time the verbal order was given.

The following day, Trump had his explanation for the blatant infraction, claiming that the nation’s immigration constituted an “invasion” while describing the current era as a “time of war.”

“These are criminals, many, many criminals,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “Murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords. People from mental institutions.”

Donald Trump chose to threaten Iran Monday morning, warning the country the “consequences” will be “dire” if the Houthi movement in Yemen continues its attacks.

“Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN. Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there,” Trump said in a long, rambling post on Truth Social.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump’s post continued, with the president uncharacteristically signing off with “DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

Trump’s saber-rattling comes after he ordered airstrikes on Houthi areas on Saturday following the Houthi movement’s announcement that it would attack Israeli-linked ships passing through the Red Sea on their way to the Suez Canal. That threat came in response to Israel blocking all aid from entering Gaza for more than two weeks.

The Trump administration said that the airstrikes killed multiple Houthi leaders. The deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, said that they would retaliate against the U.S. and continue their support for Gaza.

“Our position is clear and our demand is simple: lifting the siege on Gaza and saving the people of Gaza from starvation,” Amer posted on social media.

Trump’s threats toward Iran come two weeks after he sent a letter to Iran’s leaders offering a path to restart negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. Trump infamously abandoned the 2018 landmark nuclear deal reached between the U.S., Iran, and five other countries during his first term. Monday’s threats will undermine any prospect for talks between the U.S. and Iran, if Trump was even serious about them in the first place, and further increase tensions in an already unstable Middle East.