– Trump confirms that Russia may be deliberately delaying a peace deal for Ukraine. “But I think Russia does want to see an end to the war.”
– Trump imposes 25% tariffs on all auto imports, a measure the White House expects will boost domestic production and bring in $100 billion in revenue annually.
– Trump pardons Devon Archer, who was convicted in a 2018 fraud case in which he and his business partner misled an investment firm and defrauded investors of millions of dollars.
– Trump’s Department of Health Services (HHS) cancels more than $12 billion in federal grants to states used to track infectious disease, mental health and addiction treatment, leading to layoffs of thousands of public health workers.
– The Trump administration cancels the delivery of $2 million worth of food that was to be transported by 20 trucks to a food bank in Ohio. Because programs for local food procurement have been stopped by the USDA, the food may no longer be delivered.
– Trump says, “We need Greenland for international security and safety. We need it. We have to have it. I hate to put it that way, but we have to have it.
– Musk announced that he will give one million dollars to one of the people who signs his petition targeting “activist judges in Wisconsin,” where elections for the Wisconsin Supreme Court will take place April 1. Musk already gave nearly $20 million to the conservative candidate’s campaign.
– Calling himself “the fertilization president” at a Women’s Month event, Trump said, “We’re going to have great things for women, including fertilization and all these other things we’re talking about. It’s going to be great.’
– The Trump administration plans to stop funding for Gavi, a global health organization that provides vaccines and other life-saving care to developing countries.
– Trump proposes to reduce upcoming heavy import tariffs on China in exchange for support in a deal to sell TikTok to a new US-backed owner.
– Two government employees report that DOGE is firing employees at various agencies for leaving their Personal Identification Cards (PIV) on their desks, which is considered a security risk.
– The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court for approval to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from teacher training programs. A federal judge temporarily blocked the cuts, and the Supreme Court must now decide whether to still allow the cuts.
– Trump is having Musk and his DOGE team assist the White House and National Security Council in investigating “Signalgate.
– Trump says he wants to introduce interest deductions on auto loans for cars made in the US.
Fallout
– Critics over ‘Signalgate’ point out that one of the advice in the Project 2025 playbook is not to record sensitive communications in writing to prevent them from becoming public through Freedom of Information Act requests. They see the use of Signal as an attempt to do this. They also note that the fact that none of the 18 participants in the chat questioned the use of the app almost certainly means that there are many other chat groups about perhaps similarly classified topics.
– Republican House member Greg Murphy supports including cuts to Medicaid for 20 million people in the House budget proposal: ‘Now is the time to make really tough decisions for the good of the country.’
– A representative of the European Commission says the unconditional withdrawal of the Russian military from Ukraine is one of the main conditions for changing or lifting sanctions.
– The best-known member of DOGE Service team provided support to a cyber gang that boasts of trafficking stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, digital records accessed by Reuters show.
– DER SPIEGEL reveals that the private contact details of top Trump security advisers, including Mike Waltz, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, were leaked on the Internet. The leaked data includes mobile numbers, e-mail addresses and passwords that could potentially be misused by hostile intelligence agencies.
– WIRED discovers that Waltz’s Venmo account appears to be public, revealing the names of hundreds of his personal and professional contacts. Immediately following this news, Waltz shut down the account.
– The DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejects the Trump administration’s attempt to suspend Judge Boasberg’s temporary injunctions. The temporary ban on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act remains in place.
– NATO Secretary General Rutte threatens Putin with a crushing blow and vows to defend Europe at all costs. Rutte says the Russian Federation remains the greatest threat to the alliance and that any attack on Poland or any other ally will be met with the full force of the alliance.
– Major deals with pharmaceutical and biotech companies are stalling as executives grapple with the White House’s erratic economic policies that are disrupting markets and sparking a global trade war, four leading health care investment bankers say.
– New orders for key capital goods in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in February, likely due to economic uncertainty stemming from Trump’s tariffs, according to the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau.
– Critics point out that Trump’s executive order requiring ID registration to vote is so sloppily written that it excludes virtually everyone without a passport, which is 50-55% of the population. They warn that it also poses potential problems for women who change their last name after marriage, who could be denied registration even with a birth certificate.
– The Atlantic publishes screenshots of all the messages from the Signal group, which contain detailed information about the timing and weapons used in the attack in Yemen. The messages are being released because several participants in the chat said that no classified information was shared.
– Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, reports that Moscow and Washington are in talks about resuming gas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream.
– The British side The Guardian has recreated FEMA’s “Future Risk Index,” which the Trump administration removed because of references to climate change. The index shows the expected climate impacts on American communities, including flooding, heat and wildfires.
– Max Flugrath of Fair Fight Action warns that DOGE could use AI to comb through voter files, potentially leading to errors in the assessment of data and disenfranchising millions of Americans. Trump could then use the chaos created by the errors to claim “fraud” and deny legitimate voters access to the ballot box.
– Russia has struck Ukrainian power plants eight times since Putin’s claimed pause, says a Zelensky adviser, who says there have been eight confirmed attacks on energy facilities since March 18.
– Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, is arrested by hoodie-clad U.S. immigration agents while walking down the street. Her student visa is revoked, possibly because of her participation in pro-Palestinian protests. A judge rules that authorities cannot transfer her to another state, but she does so anyway.
– Judge James Boasberg is assigned to the Signalgate trial. Politico notes that this is happening in the same week that the Trump administration is invoking the state secrets privilege to withhold information from Boasberg about a case that revolves around the government’s apparent negligence of state secrets.
– After Elon Musk implemented his “five bullet points” email policy, the system has proven to be broken: Office of Personnel Management inboxes have filled up, causing messages to bounce, and many government employees have stopped sending the emails. Instead of following the guideline, some are now only sending messages to their direct reports.
– After The Atlantic published all of the Signal apps, Tulsi Gabbard is confronted about her false statement during her Senate testimony. She says she was mistaken and misremembered.
– Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, responds to Trump’s decision to impose a 25 percent import tariff on cars, which is having a negative impact on the European car industry. She emphasizes that the EU will commit to negotiated solutions and protect its economic interests.
– Four American soldiers went missing yesterday during a training exercise in Lithuania. They were found dead today, and the causes of their death are being investigated. They are said to have drowned in a swamp.
– Dr. Michael Lin, Professor of Neurobiology and Bioengineering at Stanford, reports that his NIH grant for developing antiviral drugs against the coronavirus has ended today. Despite developing better SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors than Paxlovid, the research is being stopped because the pandemic is said to be over, according to the authorities, while COVID-19 is still much deadlier than the flu and long COVID continues to persist.
– MotherJones reports that one of the men transferred to El Salvador is Neri Alvarado, who worked as a baker in Dallas. An ICE agent told him they were questioning all men with tattoos. Neri has an autism support tattoo, in honor of his 15-year-old brother who has autism.
– Middle East envoy Witkoff says in a message that he did not read the Signal chats until after he returned from Russia, because he only had a secure government phone with him during his trip and therefore did not have access to his personal devices. This indicates that he uses Signal on a personal phone.
– Defense Secretary Hegseth responds to the release of the Signal chats by saying that the so-called “war plans” contain no useful information, since they do not contain names, targets, locations, units, routes, sources, methods, or classified information.
