President Donald Trump addresses the National Governors Association dinner and reception in the East Room of the White House Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, in Washington. (Pool via AP)

Confusion and chaos loom as hundreds of thousands of federal employees begin their workweek Monday facing a deadline from President Donald Trump ’s cost-cutting chief, Elon Musk, to explain their recent accomplishments or risk losing their jobs.

Musk’s unusual demand has faced resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to comply. Lawmakers in both parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal, while unions are threatening to sue.

Here's the latest:

Trump’s Justice Department enforcer has been a frequent target of complaints about his conduct

Emil Bove is President Trump’s chief enforcer at the Justice Department.

In just a month as the department’s acting No. 2 official, the little-known Bove has plowed through norms and niceties, whether scolding FBI leadership for “insubordination” in refusing his request to hand over the names of agents who investigated the January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol or forcing out attorneys who worked those cases.

Earlier this month, he pressured former colleagues to drop charges against New York City’s mayor for reasons unrelated to the strength of the case, upending decades of Justice Department norms.

The moves have spurred intense criticism from legal scholars and former prosecutors.

But Bove has brushed aside such concerns in a way that’s not at all surprising to many who knew him when he was litigating drug and terrorism cases as a federal prosecutor in New York City.

? Read more about Bove’s past conduct

Federal workers sue over Musk’s threat to fire them if they don’t explain their accomplishments

Attorneys for the federal workers said Monday in the lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired.

The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day Monday.

“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation groups. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”

? Read more about the lawsuit over DOGE

Trump meets with French President Macron as uncertainty grows about US ties to Europe and Ukraine

President Donald Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House for talks Monday at a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, with Trump transforming American foreign policy and effectively tuning out European leadership as he looks to quickly end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The two leaders were starting their day by taking part in a virtual meeting with fellow leaders of the Group of Seven economies to discuss the war.

Trump also has made demands for territory — Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal — as well as precious rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Just over a month into his second term, the “America First” president has cast an enormous shadow over what veteran U.S. diplomats and former government officials had regarded as America’s calming presence of global stability and continuity.

? Read more about Trump’s meeting with Macron

The young techies behind DOGE are a lightning rod for criticism but also a youth magnet for the GOP

To those concerned about billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s access to sensitive government data, his tear-it-down band of young techies doing that work is an unregulated threat to privacy. The view on the right is much different.

Voices influential in conservative politics describe the crew of engineers, most of whom are in their early 20s, as among the world’s best minds sent to save the U.S. government from bureaucratic bloat.

It comes at a moment when young progressives have criticized the Democratic Party for sidelining them and as the party’s hold on younger voters is slipping, particularly among young men. Republicans are using the contrasting images as a marketing strategy.

? Read more DOGE and young voters

Fired federal workers hunt for new jobs but struggle to replace their old ones

Axed from jobs not easily found outside government, thousands of federal workers caught in President Trump’s cost-cutting efforts now face a difficult search for work.

“If you’re doing, say, vegetation sampling and prescribed fire as your main work, there aren’t many jobs,” says Eric Anderson, 48, of Chicago, who was fired Feb. 14 from his job as a biological science technician at Indiana Dunes National Park.

All the years of work Anderson put in — the master’s degree, the urban forestry classes, the wildfire deployments — seemed to disappear in a single email dismissing him.

He’s hoping there’s a chance he’s called back, but if he isn’t, he’s not sure what he’ll do next. He was so consumed with his firing that he broke a molar from grinding his teeth. But he knows he’s caught in something larger than himself, as the new administration unfurls its chaotic cost-cutting agenda.

? Read more about fired federal workers and their search for new jobs

Democratic governors balance whether to fight or pacify after Trump threatens one of their own

Trump’s real-time confrontation with Maine’s governor over transgender athletes captured the conundrum many Democratic governors are facing in the Republican’s second term.

Gov. Janet Mills’ vow that she would see Trump in court over his threat to withhold money from the state if it didn’t comply with his executive order delighted Democrats who want more strident pushback. But the dust-up that played out in the open Friday as Trump hosted governors at the White House ticked off a president known to retaliate against people he considers enemies.

Hours after the spat, the federal Department of Education announced it was initiating an investigation into the Maine Department of Education over the inclusion of trans athletes. Trump doesn’t want them playing in girls and women’s sports; Maine law bars discrimination based on gender identity.

? Read more about how Democratic governors are reacting to the spat

‘Dark MAGA’ on display at CPAC as conservatives embrace Musk’s influence on Trump

At an annual gathering of conservative activists, the signature red “ Make America Great Again ” hats popularized by Trump were interspersed with a noticeable number of the black “Dark MAGA” hats made popular by Musk.

It was just one sign of Musk’s emerging influence and how the world’s wealthiest man — who once backed Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden — has become a conservative power center in his own right due to his connections to Trump.

Speakers at CPAC frequently brought up DOGE, playfully named after a meme coin with the face of a Shiba Inu dog popularized by Musk in 2021. They variously referred to him as a “white knight,” a “hero of free speech,” and according to one of his harshest critics, Steve Bannon, “Superman.”

? Read more about Musk’s influence on display at CPAC

Ex-Secret Service agent and conservative media personality picked as FBI deputy director

Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who has penned best-selling books, ran unsuccessfully for office and gained fame as a conservative pundit with TV shows and a popular podcast, has been chosen to serve as FBI deputy director.

Trump announced the appointment Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform, praising Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our Country.” He called the announcement “great news for Law Enforcement and American Justice.”

The selection places two staunch Trump allies atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency at a time when Democrats are concerned that the president could seek to target his adversaries. Bongino would serve under Kash Patel, who was sworn in as FBI director at the White House on Friday.

? Read more about Dan Bongino

Key federal agencies refuse to comply with Musk’s latest demand in his cost-cutting crusade

Confusion and chaos loom as hundreds of thousands of federal employees begin their workweek Monday facing a deadline from President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, Elon Musk, to explain their recent accomplishments or risk losing their jobs.

Musk’s team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees Saturday giving them roughly 48 hours to report five specific things they had accomplished last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said any employee who failed to respond by the deadline — set in the email as 11:59 p.m. EST Monday — would lose their job.

Musk’s unusual demand has faced resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to comply. Lawmakers in both parties said that Musk’s mandate may be illegal, while unions are threatening to sue.

? Read more about Musk’s deadline for federal workers

News from © The Associated Press, 2025