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A federal appeals court voted en banc Monday to block President Donald Trump’s firings of two federal board members, reversing an appellate court ruling and clearing the way for the Trump administration to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 7-4 Monday to restore the positions of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris – two Democratic appointees who were abruptly terminated by the Trump administration earlier this year. 

The majority cited Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor and Wiener v. United States as the backing for their decision, noting that the Supreme Court had never overturned or reversed the decades-old precedent regarding removal restrictions for government officials of ‘multimember adjudicatory boards’ – including the NLRB and MSPB.

They noted that the Supreme Court has not yet overturned these precedents, or instructed lower courts to act otherwise.

‘The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,’ judges noted in their opinion. 

Monday’s ruling from the full panel means that both Wilcox and Harris can return to their positions, at least for now. It is likely to spark intense backlash from the Trump administration, which has lobbed accusations of so-called ‘activist judges’ that have slowed or halted some of Trump’s executive orders and actions.

Also on Monday, the appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay, which would have allowed their removals to remain in place while the challenge continued to play out in federal court. 

The panel found that the administration had not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits of its appeals, nor did it show irreparable injury if they did not grant the stay – the legal requirements needed to satisfy an emergency court intervention. 

The en banc ruling reverses a decision reached just 10 days earlier by a three-judge panel for the same appeals court. That panel ruled 2-1 in favor of the Trump administration and allowed the firings to proceed, prompting plaintiffs to file a request for the appeals court to hear the case again en banc, or with all appellate court judges present.

The appellate court’s decision to hear the case again, even after a three-judge appellate panel from the same court ruled on the issue late last month, is likely to be met with intense scrutiny by Trump and his allies. 

It also all but ensures that the Trump administration will move quickly to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court for emergency review.

Since taking office, Trump has signed more than 300 executive orders and actions, including sweeping personnel moves, the restructuring of federal agencies, and the creation of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE – a temporary agency that has drawn scrutiny for its broad oversight powers and access to sensitive government data.

Critics argue that the flurry of early executive actions warrants an additional level of legal scrutiny, and judges have raced to review a crushing wave of cases and lawsuits filed by terminated employees or brought on behalf of agency employees. 

The Trump administration has appealed its early losses to the Supreme Court – a strategy it appears poised to continue in the NLRB and MSPB terminations.


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House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., said he would oppose the Senate’s version of sweeping legislation to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda if it was voted on in his chamber this week.

‘At this point, I would vote against it,’ Harris told Fox News Digital in an interview on Monday morning.

He is also calling for the House and Senate to get to work on their own versions of the plan, after the latter passed an amended version of the former’s legislation in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Maryland Republican, who leads the House GOP’s most conservative group, is the highest-ranking GOP lawmaker to come out against the legislation so far.

It comes as other fiscal hawks voice concerns about the Senate’s version of the legislation – specifically, that it mandates at least $4 billion in spending cuts, compared to $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in the House.

‘I mean, if the Senate actually is able to deliver on meaningful deficit reduction, we could just pass the Senate amendments to the House budget resolution,’ Harris said.

‘But again, I’m not willing to do that until I see what the deficit reduction, the actual deficit reduction that the Senate has in mind, is.’

Congressional Republicans are working on a massive piece of legislation that Trump has dubbed ‘one big, beautiful bill’ to advance his agenda on border security, defense, energy and taxes.

They can pass such a measure via the budget reconciliation process. Traditionally used when one party controls all three branches of government, reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage of certain fiscal measures from 60 votes to 51.

As a result, it has been used to pass broad policy changes in one or two massive pieces of legislation.

The House’s framework passed in late February, and included some new funding for defense and border security, along with $4.5 trillion for extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implementing newer Trump proposals like no taxes on tipped wages.

The framework also called for between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in spending cuts, dependent on how much Trump’s tax policies would add to the national deficit – something that was key to winning support from deficit hawks.

It also raised the debt limit, something Trump has specifically asked Republicans to deal with, by $4 trillion. The Senate’s version would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.

In a letter to House GOP colleagues on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said lawmakers would vote on the Senate’s amended version this week. 

However, Johnson insisted that the Senate’s passage of its framework simply allows the House to begin working on its version of the bill passed in February – and that it does not impede their process in any way.

‘The Senate amendment as passed makes NO CHANGES to the House reconciliation instructions that we voted for just weeks ago. Although the Senate chose to take a different approach on its instructions, the amended resolution in NO WAY prevents us from achieving our goals in the final reconciliation bill,’ the letter said.

‘We have and will continue to make it clear in all discussions with the Senate and the White House that—in order to secure House passage—the final reconciliation bill must include historic spending reductions while protecting essential programs.’

Johnson’s office pointed back to the letter when reached for comment on Monday.

Passing a reconciliation framework, which merely outlines top-line spending figures, allows Congress to move on to the next step of actually crafting policy to accompany those top-lines.

However, conservatives like Harris have countered that they see no need to vote on the Senate’s version of the bill to begin work in the House.

‘They just think that we have to keep the train moving forward. But again, if we just begin to craft the actual reconciliation packages, that keeps the train moving forward as well,’ Harris said.

He left the door open to supporting the Senate’s work, despite ruling out support for its immediate offering.

‘I still think that we should just ask the Senate to begin crafting their reconciliation bill, and then if they deliver on their promise of deficit reduction, then I’m fine with their budget resolution,’ Harris said.


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House GOP leaders’ aim to sync up with the Senate on a massive bill advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda is on the rocks as of Monday morning, with fiscal hawks worried the upper chamber’s version will not go far enough to reduce the national deficit.

House Republican skeptics are worried specifically about the Senate plan requiring a baseline of $4 billion in spending cuts, while the House plan calls for a $1.5 trillion minimum. 

Two conservatives told Fox News Digital they would oppose the bill if it came to a House vote this week, while two others suggested they were leaning strongly against it. 

‘The Senate proposal is not serious and is an insult to the American people,’ Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who said he is leaning ‘against’ the measure, told Fox News Digital.

That is coupled with at least three GOP lawmakers declaring on social media this weekend that they are against the legislation – while even more have aired public concerns.

‘It’s dead on arrival,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital last week. ‘We have to stay with what we worked so hard to put over there, which is a bare minimum. When they talk about changes and talk about putting, basically, a teardrop in the ocean as far as cuts – we’re not going to go along with that.’

When asked on Monday morning about whether he felt the same, Norman replied emphatically via text message, ‘YES.’

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., shared similar concerns about the gap in the House and Senate’s minimum for spending cuts.

‘At this point, I would vote against it,’ he said.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., another critic of excessive government spending, told Fox News Digital he had not made his mind up on the bill but said there were ‘not enough cuts’ in the Senate version.

House GOP leaders are arguing that passing the Senate version does not impede the House in moving forward with its own more fiscally conservative version in any way. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has pitched House passage of the Senate bill as a necessary step to allow Republicans to enact Trump’s agenda.

However, doubts over spending cuts are even extending beyond the House GOP’s right-most flank. House Budget Committee Vice Chair Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., voiced his own issues with the bill in a private call with House Republicans on Sunday, two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital.

Smucker’s office said it would not comment on internal deliberations, but pointed Fox News Digital to the lawmaker’s statement on Saturday. ‘The Senate’s passage of the amended House resolution is a critical step forward. However, with $5.8 trillion in costs and only $4 billion required savings in their instructions, I cannot vote for it. We can and must do better.’

Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, called it ‘unserious,’ but added he was open to working with House and Senate leaders and the White House to ease those concerns.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who sources said also raised concerns on the Sunday call, posted on X of the bill, ‘If the Senate’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ budget is put on the House floor, I will vote no.’

In addition to opposing the gap in baseline spending cuts, some conservatives who oppose the bill are also wary of the Senate, signaling it would use the current policy baseline method to factor in the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

The scoring tool essentially means the cost of making Trump’s tax cuts permanent would be factored at $0, because it extends current policy rather than counting it as new dollars being added to the federal deficit.

‘I’m very wary of this budget gimmick, especially paired with a measly $4 billion floor in spending cuts,’ Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital. ‘The fiscally responsible way to extend and pay for tax cuts is through significant spending cuts, which is exactly what House Republicans instruct in our budget resolution.’

Congressional Republicans are working on a massive piece of legislation that Trump has dubbed ‘one big, beautiful bill’ to advance his agenda on border security, defense, energy and taxes.

Such a measure is largely only possible via the budget reconciliation process. Traditionally used when one party controls all three branches of government, reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage of certain fiscal measures from 60 votes to 51.

As a result, it has been used to pass broad policy changes in one or two massive pieces of legislation.

The House’s framework passed in late February and included some new funding for defense and border security, along with $4.5 trillion for extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implementing newer Trump proposals like no taxes on tipped wages.

The framework also called for between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in spending cuts, dependent on how much Trump’s tax policies would add to the national deficit – something that was key to winning support from deficit hawks.

It also raised the debt limit, something Trump has specifically asked Republicans to deal with, by $4 trillion. The Senate’s version, which passed in the early hours of Saturday, would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.

Trump himself has endorsed both the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Passing a framework then allows lawmakers to craft actual policy to match the framework’s federal spending guidelines, led by the respective committees of jurisdiction.

Those policy plans are all brought back together into another massive bill. The Senate and House must pass identical versions before it gets to Trump’s desk for a signature – something the House speaker said would be done by Memorial Day.

In a letter to House GOP colleagues on Sunday, Johnson said lawmakers would vote on the Senate’s amended version this week. 

However, Johnson insisted that the Senate’s passage of its framework simply allows the House to begin working on its version of the bill passed in February – and that it does not impede their process in any way.

‘The Senate amendment as passed makes NO CHANGES to the House reconciliation instructions that we voted for just weeks ago. Although the Senate chose to take a different approach on its instructions, the amended resolution in NO WAY prevents us from achieving our goals in the final reconciliation bill,’ the letter said.

‘We have and will continue to make it clear in all discussions with the Senate and the White House that—in order to secure House passage—the final reconciliation bill must include historic spending reductions while protecting essential programs.’

Johnson’s office pointed back to the letter when reached for comment on Monday.

Republicans will have slightly more wiggle room to pass the measure than they have for much of the year so far, with the special election victories of Reps. Randy Fine, R-Fla., and Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla.

Even with those additions, however, Johnson can only lose three GOP votes with full House attendance to pass anything along party lines.


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House Republicans are set to advance two key bills backed by President Donald Trump this week after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., resolved a weekslong standoff with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., over the issue of remote voting for new parents in Congress.

The House is poised to vote this week on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, which requires proof of citizenship in the voter registration process; and the No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA) by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., which would limit district court judges’ ability to issue orders blocking Trump policies nationwide.

Both were expected to get a vote last week, but those plans were derailed amid a standoff over House procedure that ground business-as-usual to a halt.

‘Speaker Johnson and I have reached an agreement to bring back a procedure called live/dead pairing, which dates back to the 1800s. It will be open for the entire conference to use when unable to vote (e.g., new parents, bereaved, emergencies, etc.),’ Luna wrote on X Sunday evening.

‘Thanks to [Trump] and his guidance, as well as all of those who worked to get this change done, this is becoming the most modern, pro-family Congress we’ve ever seen.’

Johnson’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that the speaker announced a deal had been reached with Luna on a Republican lawmaker-only call on Sunday afternoon.

The compromise they agreed to invokes an old congressional custom that essentially cancels out an absent new mother’s vote by ‘pairing’ it with a vote by someone on the other side of the issue. Neither vote would count, but their stances on the issue would be noted in the Congressional Record.

Johnson’s office said they also reached an agreement on boosting accessibility for young mothers in the Capitol as well.

The House floor was left paralyzed last Tuesday afternoon when a small group of GOP lawmakers upended their leaders’ effort to quash a bill by Luna that would have allowed new parents to vote by proxy for 12 weeks surrounding their child’s birth.

Luna was readying to force a vote on her legislation via a discharge petition, a mechanism allowing lawmakers to force bills into House consideration provided they can get signatures from a majority of the chamber.

Johnson, who believes proxy voting is unconstitutional, attached language to kill discharge petitions to an unrelated measure that was up for a vote on Tuesday afternoon.

If passed, it would have allowed for consideration and likely passage of the NORRA Act and SAVE Act last week.

Instead, it was an embarrassing blow to House GOP leaders on a normally sleepy procedural vote.

The standoff comes as the House is also trying to reckon with the Senate’s reconciliation framework, which will allow Republicans to begin working on policy and monetary changes that will become part of a massive bill advancing Trump’s agenda on defense, energy, the border, and taxes.

Republican leaders are poised to move forward with that legislation as planned – despite concerns from fiscal hawks about discrepancies between the Senate and House’s views on the issue.


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Israel has denied entry to two British lawmakers who were accused of planning to ‘spread anti-Israel hatred.’

The two Labour Members of Parliament, Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed, were briefly detained over the weekend and denied entry to Israel because they allegedly had plans to ‘document the activities of security forces and spread anti-Israel hatred,’ Israel’s immigration agency told Sky News.

Israeli officials told the outlet that Yang and Mohamed were with two assistants on the trip, who said they were going to Israel ‘as part of an official parliamentary delegation.’

The officials said that immigration agents didn’t find ‘evidence to support the claim… they were traveling as part of an official delegation.’

‘No politicians or government officials were aware they were coming,’ the Israeli officials added.

The Council for Arab-British Understanding claimed that the lawmakers were part of a delegation organized by the group as well as Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Mohamed and Yang posted in a statement to X they are ‘astounded’ at the decision by Israeli authorities.

‘It is vital that parliamentarians are able to witness, firsthand, the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory,’ they wrote. ‘We are two, out of scores of MPs, who have spoken out in Parliament in recent months on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the importance of complying with International Humanitarian Law. Parliamentarians should feel free to speak truthfully in the House of Commons, without fear of being targeted.’

During an April 2 speech, Mohamed accused Israel of ethnic cleansing.

‘On 30 March, the first day of Eid, Israeli attacks on Gaza killed dozens of Palestinians, adding to the death toll since Israel breached the ceasefire agreement. Israel is now in the process of enacting the largest forced displacement, ordering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Rafah. How will this end? Israel cannot and will not stop. Is the goal ethnic cleansing? We are witnessing that. Is the goal the complete destruction of Gaza? We are now witnessing that,’ Mohamed said. 

In 2008, the United Kingdom’s Home Office banned Likud member Moshe Feiglin from entering the country, according to the Jerusalem Post. Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wrote in a letter to Feiglin that his presence ‘would not be conducive to the public good.’

In August 2019, Israeli officials blocked U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. from entering the country following pressure from President Trump.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement at the time that Talib and Omar’s Itinerary ‘revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy.’

Fox News’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report.


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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, with Washington’s recently imposed global tariffs set to be part of their talks.

‘This meeting comes at a critical moment on many key issues: the efforts to return our hostages being held by Hamas, the instability in Syria and the threats posed by Iranian proxies,’ Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told Fox News Digital.

‘The recent implementation of tariff policy will also be discussed. Just as Prime Minister Netanyahu was the first world leader to visit President Trump in his second term in the White House, he is now once again the first leader to meet with the president with regard to deepening economic ties and putting trade relations in order,’ he added.

Netanyahu last met with Trump in Washington on Feb. 4. 

In Wednesday’s ‘Liberation Day’ announcement, a 17% tariff on goods imported from Israel – a 10% baseline on all countries that took effect on April 5 and an additional 7% – was scheduled for April 9.

‘The fear is that these tariffs will hurt exports of diamonds as well as high-tech or defense systems like drones. If our income were to be reduced as a result, this would be a problem,’ Alex Coman, a value-creation expert at the Holon Institute of Technology in Israel, told Fox News Digital. 

‘These tariffs came as a surprise. Prior to this decision, there were very few imposed, many products did not have them and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich eliminated those that existed,’ adding, ‘As such, I am very optimistic that these tariffs will be reduced.’

U.S. total goods trade with Israel was an estimated $37.0 billion in 2024, including $14.8 billion in exports, up 5.8% ($813.7 million) from 2023, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. U.S. goods imports from Israel totaled $22.2 billion in 2024, up 6.7% ($1.4 billion) from the previous year.

The U.S. trade deficit with Israel was $7.4 billion in 2024, an 8.6% increase ($587.0 million) over 2023.

The Trump administration reportedly calculated the tariff by dividing the trade deficit ($7.4 billion) by the value of imports to America ($22.2 billion) and then essentially halving the figure to reach 17%.

The subject was raised during a phone call between Trump and Netanyahu on Thursday, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also taking part. The next day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with the Israeli premier to ‘underscore U.S. support for Israel,’ according to a U.S. readout of the call.

Trump’s move surprised Netanyahu, prompting him to begin efforts to negotiate a reduction of the tariff to 10%. Smotrich also signed an order to eliminate the last remaining Israeli tariffs on the import of primarily agricultural goods from the U.S. 

Jerusalem and Washington signed a free trade deal in 1985, the United States’ first-ever such agreement, and since then some 98% of goods have been traded tax-free.

Netanyahu and Trump will also discuss the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip along with efforts to free the 59 remaining hostages taken during Hamas’ terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023; Turkey’s military intervention on behalf of the new al Qaeda-linked leadership in Syria; the Iranian nuclear threat; and the ongoing battle to thwart the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, according to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

‘The top issue to be discussed will be Iran because it seems [nuclear] negotiations might begin. I believe Netanyahu will want to caution Trump ahead of time,’ Ariel Kahana, a senior diplomatic correspondent for the Israel Hayom daily newspaper, told Fox News Digital. 

‘We saw the report about the U.S. sending a second THAAD anti-missile battery to Israel on top of equipment America is already sending, and they will want to coordinate all of that together,’ he continued. 

‘They will also talk about the war in Gaza, the hostages and the tariffs, which Netanyahu will try to at least lower. With regards to Turkey, I assume Netanyahu will ask Trump to put some limits on [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. It seems that both Israel and Turkey are trying to expand their presence or activities in Syria, and it might reach a point that could lead to a direct military conflict,’ Kahana said.

Upon leaving Hungary on Sunday, Netanyahu told reporters about the importance of his visit to meet with President Trump at the White House on Monday.

‘I can tell you that I am the first international leader, the first foreign leader, who will meet with President Trump on this issue, which is so important to Israel’s economy. There is a very long line of leaders who want to do the same regarding their own economies. I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the special bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time,’ Netanyahu said.


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President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is not willing to make a deal with China unless the trade deficit of over $1 trillion is resolved first.

While speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said with some countries there is a trade deficit of over a billion dollars, but with China, it is over $1 trillion.

‘We have a $1 trillion trade deficit with China. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose to China, and unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to make a deal with China, but they have to solve this surplus. We have a tremendous deficit problem with China… I want that solved.’

Trump also said because of the tariffs, the U.S. has $7 trillion of committed investments when it comes to building automotive manufacturing plants, chip companies and other types of businesses, ‘at levels that we’ve never seen before.’

But in terms of trade deficits, Trump said he has spoken with a lot of leaders in Europe and Asia, who are ‘dying’ to make a deal, but as long as there are deficits, he is not going to do that.

‘A deficit is a loss,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have surpluses, or we’re, at worst, going to be breaking even. But China would be the worst in the group because the deficit is so big, and it’s not sustainable.

‘I was elected on this,’ Trump added.


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White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett doubled down on the effectiveness of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Sunday, saying dozens of countries are now seeking to open negotiations and U.S. manufacturing is booming.

Hassett made the claim during an appearance on ABC News’ ‘This Week’ with host George Stephanopoulos. He said that over 50 countries have already said they want to negotiate new trade agreements with Trump’s administration since the tariffs hit last week, though he acknowledged there may be short-term pain for consumers.

He pointed to the decrease in prices that has existed since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2000, arguing that the loss of jobs outweighs the low prices.

‘If cheap goods were the answer, if cheap goods were going to make Americans’ real wages better off, then real incomes would have gone up over that time. Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down. So we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs,’ he said.

Hassett added that he has received ‘anecdotal word’ that some U.S. auto plants are adding second shifts to their work schedules in response to the tariffs.

Stephanopoulos then pressed Hassett to explain why Russia wasn’t targeted with any additional tariffs.

‘There’s obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues. It doesn’t mean that Russia in the fullness of time, is going to be treated wildly different than every other country,’ Hassett responded.

‘But Russia’s one of the only countries, one of few countries that is not subject to these new tariffs, aren’t they?’ Stephanopoulos pressed.

‘They’re in the middle of a negotiation, George, aren’t they?’ Hassett countered. ‘Would you literally advise that you go in and put a whole bunch of new things on the table in the middle of a negotiation that affects so many American and Ukrainian and Russian lives?’

‘Negotiators do that all the time,’ Stephanopoulos argued.

‘Russia is in the midst of negotiations over peace that affects really thousands and thousands of lives of people and that’s what President Trump’s focused on right now,’ Hassett said.


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Elon Musk’s high-profile role in the Trump administration is dominating headlines. His DOGE recommendations are roiling the Washington establishment. His young staffers with backpacks are looking at waste in multiple government agencies, and he himself is frequently advising the president. While Musk’s prominent role is certainly unusual, history reveals some parallels to presidential advisers who have had an enormous influence in previous administrations. History also shows that having a high-profile non-traditional role also paints a big target on your back.

One of the first uber-powerful outside advisers was in the Woodrow Wilson administration. House was a wealthy Texan who had been advising Democratic politicians in his home state when he connected with then-New Jersey Governor Wilson. 

When Wilson won the presidency, House had little interest in a Cabinet slot. According to Wilson’s personal physician Cary Grayson, House ‘wanted no office himself and his one desire, it seemed, was to be helpful to the President in the selection of men for appointments.’ 

House became Wilson’s main foreign policy adviser. He lived in the White House, which gave him access day and night to Wilson, and controlled the flow of information to Wilson. House recalled that Wilson ‘seldom reads the newspapers and gains his knowledge of public affairs largely from the matter brought to his attention….’ With House culling what was brought to Wilson’s attention, it’s unsurprising that Wilson once called House ‘my second personality,’ adding ‘his thoughts and mine are one.’ 

House’s influence grew with America’s entry into World War I in 1917. House came up with the idea for and populated The Inquiry, a proto think tank that examined the potential scenarios in the war’s aftermath. Wilson’s famous 14 Points speech, laying out his framework for a post-war world, was based on a draft written by Inquiry member Walter Lippman and then refined by House and Wilson. As House recalled his efforts on that speech, he and Wilson ‘finished remaking the map of the world…at half past twelve o’clock.’

Although the war initially increased House’s power, it also set the stage for his downfall. There was resentment within the White House and the State Department about House’s outsized role. Wilson’s second wife Edith did not much like him, either. Wilson also felt that House conceded too much to the European powers in the Versailles negotiations. House further pushed his luck by urging Wilson to negotiate with Senate Republicans to secure passage of the Versailles Treaty, good advice that Wilson did not want to hear.

On June 28, 1919, House and Wilson met for the last time as Wilson was about to return to the U.S. to begin his ultimately unsuccessful effort to ratify the treaty. He said, ‘Good-by, House,’ and the two men never spoke again.

Franklin Roosevelt also had a top administration priority run by a man with a military title in a non-traditional appointment. Ex- was working for the wealthy investor and Democratic fixer Bernard Baruch when he became a member of Roosevelt’s ‘Brain Trust.’ He then headed Roosevelt’s new National Recovery Administration, where, according to the New York Times, he was given ‘almost unlimited powers.’ 

Johnson’s job as head of the NRA was to get companies to adhere to Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Here the similarities to DOGE are apparent, except NRA was initially an executive branch creation targeting the private sector, while DOGE aims to rein in government. Congress created the NRA, and Roosevelt signed it into law, on June 16, after Johnson had started. Within one month, Johnson got 2 million companies to sign on to the NRA codes, allowing them to display the ‘Blue Eagle’ of compliance.

Johnson used heavy-handed tactics to get companies to comply. Ford founder Henry Ford learned this firsthand when he refused to sign on. In response, Johnson criticized Ford publicly and went to Michigan to confront Ford, even threatening to sic the Department of Justice on Ford. Ford pushed back, issuing a company statement saying that Johnson was ‘assuming the airs of a dictator.’

Ford’s resistance notwithstanding, Johnson was lionized by the press, and he was named TIME’s ‘Man of the Year’ in 1933. The power and accolades, however, seemed to go to Johnson’s head. His former employer Baruch warned FDR that Johnson was ‘a born dictator.’ Cabinet members like Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau complained about him as well, but Roosevelt defended Johnson, saying that ‘every administration needed a Peck’s Bad Boy.’ Roosevelt even spurned an offer from Johnson to resign, prompting Johnson to tell the press, ‘My feet are nailed to the floor for the present… I am not going to resign.’

Despite Roosevelt’s initial support, the pressure eventually became too great. Roosevelt forced Johnson to resign in September of 1934. In his resignation speech, Johnson called the NRA ‘as great a social advance as has occurred on this earth since a gaunt and dusty Jew in Palestine declared, as a new principle in human relationship, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.’’ Johnson’s love for the administration that ousted him did not last, though, as he became a Roosevelt critic, particularly of Roosevelt’s effort to remake, or ‘pack’ the Supreme Court that had invalidated Johnson’s NRA in 1935.

In Roosevelt’s third term, he changed priorities from what he called ‘Dr. New Deal’ to ‘Dr. Win the War.’ In this, one of his top needs was to shift America’s industrial base to producing war material. To do so, Roosevelt needed someone not from government but from the private sector that he had spent much of his first two terms trying to bring to heel. FDR looked to Baruch for advice. Baruch responded: ‘First, Knudsen. Second, Knudsen. Third, Knudsen.’ Baruch was referring to , president of General Motors, at the time the largest company on earth. FDR called Knudsen, who forgo an enormous $300,000 salary – about $6.5 million today – to become a dollar-a-year man in Washington. FDR also made Knudsen a lieutenant general in the Army, an unusual move for someone coming directly from the civilian ranks.

Like House and Johnson before him – and Musk in our day – Knudsen had his critics. New Dealers were angry that Knudsen refused to shut down the production of cars for civilian use. Knudsen held his ground before FDR, explaining that shutting down production would necessitate closing the plants, which would get in the way of war production. 

Criticism notwithstanding, Knudsen did his job well. In marshaling America’s industrial might to help the United States and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, win the war, Knudsen got some praise from an unusual source. At the 1943 meeting of the Big Three allies in Tehran, Josef Stalin proposed a toast ‘to American production, without which this war would have been lost.’ It might as well have been a toast to Knudsen himself.

Following the war, TIME founder saw in Dwight Eisenhower an opportunity to return Republicans to the White House. Luce backed Eisenhower in a variety of ways: with favorable TIME coverage, foreign policy advice, and the loan of several staffers to Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential campaign. When Eisenhower won, some of the Luce people joined the administration, and Luce’s wife Clare Boothe Luce served as ambassador to Italy.

During Eisenhower’s administration, Luce continued to provide both advice and favorable coverage, although the latter came at a cost. TIME staffers did not like serving as ‘Eisenhower’s mouthpiece.’ More broadly, TIME began to be seen as biased towards the Republicans, an example of reputational damage stemming from being too close to a sitting administration. 

In the Nixon administration, another prominent CEO would take a hit for his closeness to a Republican president. In 1968, long before was a presidential candidate, the Texas billionaire and founder of EDS met Richard Nixon through PepsiCo Chairman Donald Kendall. Perot, who had become rich selling data processing to the federal government, told Nixon that computers could be an important tool in a presidential campaign. He provided 10 paid employees – and an EDS airplane – to the Nixon campaign to demonstrate how it could be done. 

When Nixon won, Perot became a presence in the Nixon White House. He never took an official position, but he did join the Nixon Foundation, and was a source of ideas, staff, and money – or at least promises of money. He also highlighted the issue of American POWs held by the North Vietnamese, something that the Nixon administration appreciated. For its part, the Nixon administration helped Perot as well, siding with EDS in some government contract disputes and aiding EDS in its efforts to secure additional contracts.

Elon Musk: This will let Americans know their hard-earned tax dollars are spent well

While helpful in some ways, Perot was also a pest. Some of his ambitious plans, like buying the Washington Post or ABC to improve their Nixon coverage, did not come to fruition. Still, the idea of a billionaire buying a platform that could aid a president politically has at least some familiarity. In addition, Nixon White House aide Gordon Strachey characterized him as ‘Difficult to please Perot.’ 

The Nixon link would eventually cost Perot. The Nixon administration asked Perot to help the struggling but prominent Wall Street firm F. I. Dupont, Glore Forgan and Co. Perot initially put in $10 million, then poured in more, ultimately totaling $100 million. In the end. Dupont fell apart, and EDS stock plummeted from $162 a share to $10, significantly reducing Perot’s net worth. As Perot later recalled, ‘They said it was a $5 million problem. So we waded in like Boy Scouts and then found out the vault was out of control.’

When Perot later ran for president in 1992, he lost to Bill Clinton. As president, Clinton enlisted his former Rhodes Scholar friend and business consultant as staff director of his health care task force. Magaziner had eschewed offers of a Cabinet slot to help direct the administration’s biggest issue. Magaziner enlisted hundreds of volunteers, many from the private sector, to work on the task force, working 15-hour days in 30 different sub-task forces, and meeting with Clinton on a nearly daily basis.

Like Musk, Magaziner tried to attack a challenging problem in a new way. As his wife Suzanne said of him, ‘Ira is always trying to redefine the square. He’s not constrained by limits just because they’re there.’ He also took his share of hits. The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein said of Magaziner that ‘There is about him a supreme self-confidence that sometimes slips into arrogance.’ 

Ultimately, the health effort failed, and Republicans took control of the House and Senate in part because of the backlash against the Magaziner-led initiative. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons sued the administration, arguing that non-governmental appointees could have meetings with governmental officials that were not open to the public. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Magaziner was ‘misleading at best’ in the discovery process. Lamberth added that the government needed to be ‘accountable when its officials run amok,’ and fined Magaziner more than $285,000. 

Magaziner offered to resign after the health care failure, but Clinton refused the resignation. Magaziner remained a White House adviser on internet-related issues through 1998, and his fine was eventually reversed on appeal in 1999.

Clearly, no one is or could be exactly like Elon Musk: a mega-billionaire who runs electric car, social media, and space exploration companies while running a powerful government commission identifying waste, fraud, and abuse. But there have certainly been other prominent private sector actors who have worked on presidential priorities in non-traditional ways, bringing in their own people in the process. And there have also others who have been accused of arrogance and conflicts of interest, pilloried in the press and subjected to financial and reputational hits. The biggest open question is what happens in this kind of relationship between the president and the adviser. Whether the Musk-Trump relationship survives this experience remains the biggest and most interesting question out there.


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Left-wing movie director Oliver Stone slammed Democrats for weaponizing federal law enforcement and ‘lying’ in their attempts to charge the president with Russian collusion during the 2016 election.   

Stone, meanwhile, applauded President Donald Trump for taking steps to find out what really happened, adding that he is ‘absolutely’ right that the federal government has been weaponized to attack political opponents.

Trump recently signed a new executive order directing the FBI to immediately declassify files concerning Crossfire Hurricane, the initial investigation launched in 2016 that sought information on whether members of the Trump campaign were colluding with the Russians to undermine the election. The president has also taken steps to go after the law firms involved in the scandal, including by suspending the security clearances for their attorneys and barring them from entering any federal buildings. 

‘Russiagate – we paid for it,’ Stone said. ‘I applaud [what Trump is doing], and I hate what they did with Russiagate, I really do. I think it’s – again, the lying, the lying, the lying, and selling that to the American people.’

When asked if he felt Trump was right about there being weaponization of the federal government against conservatives, Stone responded: ‘There was.’

Stone, who has produced several documentaries supporting Russian narratives about Ukraine, added that the underlying premise behind Russiagate – that Russia is a nefarious actor – is wrong and ‘un-American.’

‘They are potentially our best partners, as are the Chinese. I mean, we have this mentality that they’re the enemy,’ Stone said. ‘That’s all been inculcated by propaganda. If you go out there to China, and you go out to Russia, you don’t hear that kind of vituperative dialogue.’

However, while Stone said he agreed with Trump’s approach to taking on those involved with Russiagate, he did lament the president’s attacks on pro-Palestinian protesters over alleged antisemitism.  

‘I don’t like this new thing about censorship coming from Trump,’ said Stone. ‘Against the anti – what he calls ‘antisemitic news’ – I mean, I don’t agree. I don’t know where he’s coming from, and it’s not what he promised.’


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