Independent Media

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority. The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department was pushed out after refusing to hand Musk’s team the keys to the government’s entire payment system and the $6 trillion in payments the system processes annually, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits. Musk and his team have also seized control at the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, key institutions that function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government. “In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it,” says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, who writes in a new blog post that Elon Musk is staging a coup. We also speak with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, who warns that Musk could be laying the groundwork for major tax cuts Republicans have promised that will disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy people like him. “Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security,” says Owens.

The future of USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, is uncertain after Elon Musk said President Trump had agreed to shut it down. The Tesla billionaire and presidential adviser has inserted himself into the inner workings of the federal government, gaining access to sensitive computer systems and making sweeping changes for which he has no clear authority. Over the weekend, the USAID website and social media channels were taken offline, and two top security officials at the aid agency were placed on administrative leave after attempting to block members of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing USAID’s classified systems, including personnel files. Musk claimed in a series of posts on his website X that USAID is a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America,” and staff were instructed to stay away from the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday. “What we are seeing … are attacks against it as a corrupt and illegal organization by people who know nothing about it. They are manufacturing these things out of whole cloth,” says former senior USAID staffer Jeremy Konyndyk, now president of Refugees International. “It’s really important to understand that a lot of what USAID does saves lives every single day.”

We speak with longtime trade policy expert Lori Wallach about President Donald Trump’s move to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China — the three largest trading partners of the United States. It has sent global stocks tumbling and raised fears of more inflation. Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on goods from China, set to take effect Tuesday (After our broadcast, Mexico announced Trump had paused the new tariffs on Mexico for a month). Energy resources from Canada will carry a lower 10% tariff. Canada and Mexico have vowed to enforce retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., upending decades of economic integration under free trade agreements. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on the European Union. Wallach says that while tariffs can be an effective tool as part of a larger economic package, Trump’s approach is likely to do more harm than good, even on his own stated goals of curbing immigration and drugs. “We certainly don’t want to hold on to the old, devastating neoliberal trade agenda, but the random tariffs on Mexico and Canada … aren’t going to get you the outcome you want,” says Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project and board member of the Citizens Trade Campaign.

• Trump Launches Trade War Against Canada, Mexico & China
• "Time for It To Die": Musk Pushes for Trump to Shut Down USAID
• Musk & Associates Gain Access to Treasury's Federal Payment System
• Over 30 Jan. 6 Prosecutors Fired; FBI Agents Questioned over Ties to Insurrection Probes
• Trump Doubles Down on Threat to Illegally Seize Panama Canal over China Ties
• South African Official Floats Cutting U.S. Off from Minerals After Trump Aid Threat
• Trump Hosts Netanyahu in D.C.; Arab Leaders Reject U.S. Call to Force Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan
• Israel Escalates Attack on Jenin, Blows Up 23 Homes on Residential Block
• RSF Air Attack on Omdurman Market Kills 54 People
• Fighting in Eastern DRC's Goma Kills 733 in One Week; Hospitals and Morgues Overwhelmed
• U.S. Warplanes Strike Northern Somalia, Northwest Syria in Separate Attacks
• Trump to End TPS for 300,000 Venezuelans as Caracas Agrees to Start Receiving Deportation Flights
• Hegseth Visits Southern Border; ICE Seeks Access to Database of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children
• Protesters Take to the Streets in U.S. Cities in Defense of Immigrants' Rights
• Hospitals in NY, D.C., VA and CO Cancel Young Trans Patients' Care After Trump Order
• 8,000+ Pages from Gov't Websites Taken Offline, Including Crucial Info for Trans and Queer People
• Louisiana Seeks Arrest of New York Doctor Who Prescribed Abortion Pill Online
• DNC Elects Moderate Ken Martin as New Chair, Shunning Calls from Progressive Base

The prominent British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah remains imprisoned in Cairo even after he completed his five-year sentence last September. Fattah came to prominence during the Egyptian revolution as a blogger and political activist, and he has been jailed multiple times by the authoritarian government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for his advocacy. His family and supporters continue to demand his freedom and have pressed the U.K. government to pressure Egypt into releasing him. Fattah’s mother Laila Soueif is now on her 117th day on hunger strike, standing on Downing Street for at least an hour every workday until her son is released. Now Australian journalist Peter Greste has launched his own hunger strike to pressure the British government, saying he owes his life to the Egyptian activist, who helped him survive when he was imprisoned in Egypt in 2013. “I quite literally owe Alaa my life,” says Greste. “He is the most popular, the most recognized political prisoner in the system, and I think they fear his capacity to mobilize people. They fear his capacity to inspire.”

As one of his last acts in office, President Joe Biden issued a posthumous pardon for Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and generations of civil rights leaders. Advocates and congressional leaders had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey for years, with supporters arguing that Garvey’s 1923 mail fraud conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the popular leader who spoke of racial pride and self-reliance. “This electrified a people around the world that were in the midst of oppression,” says Howard University law professor Justin Hansford. Garvey was deported to Jamaica, his birthplace, and died in 1940 in England. Hansford says his story is important to revisit amid Republican attacks on racial justice and Black history, saying the pardon is part of a larger reckoning with U.S. racial injustice. “More of our institutions need to look back and acknowledge the harms of the past,” he says.

As the Trump administration launches what it touts as the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history, we look at how immigrant communities and advocates are fighting back. The administration already faces some setbacks, including in its attempt to end birthright citizenship, which a federal judge halted Thursday from going into effect because it was “blatantly unconstitutional.” Thursday’s ruling is the first in what’s expected to be a long legal battle against Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. “We’re in a moment where there’s a ton of fear in the community,” says Harold Solis, legal director at Make the Road New York, which has filed its own lawsuit against the government. We also speak with Columbia University historian Mae Ngai, who says the fight over birthright citizenship is part of the long history of restrictionist immigration policies in the country. “What we’re seeing this week is shock and awe. It’s meant to terrorize,” she says. “We have to fight on all levels.”

• Newark Mayor Vows to Fight Back After ICE Raid as Feds Launch Nationwide Deportation Operation
• "Blatantly Unconstitutional": U.S. Judge Blocks Trump Order Ending Birthright Citizenship
• State Dept. Halts Passport Applications with Gender Nonbinary "X" Sex Marker
• Senators Confirm John Ratcliffe as CIA Head and Advance Trump's Energy & Environment Nominees
• More Damning Info on Pete Hegseth Surfaces as Senate GOP Poised to Confirm Him as Pentagon Chief
• Trump Ultimatum to World Economic Forum: Invest in U.S. or Face Tariffs
• Bitcoin Surges After Trump Discusses Cryptocurrency Plans with El Salvador's Bukele
• Ongoing Israeli Attacks on West Bank Have Killed 34 Since January 1
• Gaza Faces Fresh Hunger Crisis as Israel Readies Ban on U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees
• Iraq Approves Child Marriages for Girls as Young as 9
• ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders for Gender-Based Crimes Against Women and Girls
• Amazon Closes Warehouses in Quebec and Lays Off 1,700 After Workers Unionize
• Serbian Students and Workers Launch General Strike Against Government Corruption
• Sackler Family Increases Opioid Settlement Offer with New Conditions
• Northwestern Won't Discipline Professor Steven Thrasher over Gaza Protest
• Palestinian-Israeli Film "No Other Land" Nominated for Oscar Despite Snubs by U.S. Distributors

While a ceasefire is largely holding in Gaza, Israel is intensifying attacks on the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military has killed at least 13 people in a major military operation targeting Jenin that began on Tuesday when Israeli troops raided the city, backed by airstrikes, drones and U.S.-made Apache helicopters, following a six-week siege. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been “emboldened” by Trump’s lifting of sanctions on far-right Israeli settler groups. Further violence is increasingly likely, says Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian writer and journalist based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. “We’re seeing Israel wage a war that very much resembles the practices they have committed in Gaza,” with Palestinians left “completely defenseless,” she says. “It’s a very slow slaughter of Palestinians. If you survive a bullet, you don’t know if you’re going to survive daily life.”

Former FBI special agent Mike German, whose new book Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within chronicles his experience working undercover in far-right, white nationalist militias and warns of the unchecked danger they pose to American society, responds to Trump’s mass pardons of January 6 insurrectionists, many of whom were members of or affiliated with far-right militias. “The pardons definitely send a message both to the far-right militant movement that political violence against Trump’s enemies will be rewarded … [and] sends a message to law enforcement that there’s no value in investigating and prosecuting far-right violence,” says German. He also notes that right-wing extremism has already infiltrated much of U.S. law enforcement, making it harder to root out and guard against political violence.

Upon returning to the presidency, Donald Trump has granted presidential pardons to over 1,500 of his supporters involved in the violent January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, including members of far-right, anti-government militias like our guest’s father. Guy Wesley Reffitt helped lead the crowd that stormed the Capitol, just weeks after his then-18-year-old son Jackson attempted to warn the FBI about his plans. Jackson Reffitt now believes that Trump’s pardons will embolden far-right extremists to commit further political violence, including potential backlash against those close to them. “To completely validate actions like that is going to be explosive,” says Jackson Reffitt, who is now estranged from his family and fears for his own safety.

In one of his first executive orders after taking office, President Trump ordered the United States to withdraw from the U.N.’s World Health Organization, putting numerous WHO programs at risk, including efforts to tackle tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, says the move is a “grave mistake for American national interests and our national security,” as well as “an attack on science, public health and public health institutions.” He warns that the U.S. will likely fall behind on public health innovation and disease prevention, putting the country and the world at greater risk to “the next pandemic.”

• Trump Revokes 6-Decades-Old Ban on Discrimination in Federal Contracting
• DOJ Freezes Civil Rights Cases, Orders Prosecution of Local Officials Who Resist Deportation Policy
• ACLU Sues Trump over Expedited Deportation Policy as Pentagon Sends Another 1,500 Troops to Border
• Trump Health EOs Target Drug Costs, ACA Enrollment, Medicaid Recipients and More
• OMB Nominee Russ Vought Defends Social Program Cuts, Welfare Work Requirements
• Trump Names Failed 2017 Labor Nominee Andrew Puzder as Ambassador to EU
• Palestinians Return to Gaza Neighborhoods Reduced to Rubble by Israel's Bombs
• Israeli Troops Surround Hospitals in Jenin, Fire on Medical Workers
• U.N. Chief Warns Israeli Leaders Seeking to Fully Annex West Bank
• Trump Redesignates Yemen's Houthis as Foreign Terrorist Organization
• Thousands Flee M23 Rebels' Advance in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
• DRC Files Criminal Complaint Against Apple in Europe over Conflict Minerals in Electronics
• Angelenos Warned over Toxic Ashes as Tens of Thousands Evacuate New L.A. Fires
• European Regulators Order Dutch Government to Cut Nitrogen Emissions by 2030

The Trump administration has begun its crackdown on immigrant communities in the United States, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing Tuesday it will allow federal agents to conduct raids at schools, houses of worship and hospitals, ending a yearslong policy that banned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting people at these sensitive locations. This comes a day after President Trump signed a series of executive orders that included declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border, launching mass raids and deportations, restricting federal funds from sanctuary cities, and claiming to end birthright citizenship, which is protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. For more on the fight for immigrant rights, we speak with immigrant rights activists Ravi Ragbir and Amy Gottlieb and lawyer Alina Das. Ragbir received a last-minute pardon from outgoing President Joe Biden that removed the threat of deportation that he has faced for about two decades. “I feel so light and so free,” Ragbir says, vowing to continue his advocacy for other people facing arrest and deportation.

Many Silicon Valley companies and their billionaire owners have formed “a symbiotic relationship” with Donald Trump, showering the president and his administration with money and adulation in exchange for friendly policies, according to researcher Becca Lewis. She says that while Silicon Valley has always had reactionary currents, the Biden administration’s stricter regulation of the industry led to a decisive break with Democrats, who had previously benefited from Big Tech’s cash and influence. “Now you see a wholehearted embrace of Trump with the hopes of deregulation,” says Lewis.

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House comes almost exactly 15 years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark Citizens United ruling, which opened the floodgates for corporations and billionaires to pour unlimited money into elections. At Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the front row included several of the world’s richest and most powerful men, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Their collective net worth is over $1 trillion. For more on money in politics and the legacy of Citizens United, we speak with Brendan Fischer, the deputy executive director at Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. “Democrats and Republicans have both embraced super PACs and embraced the megadonors that fund them, but Trump is taking this to another level,” says Fischer, who notes that about 44% of Trump’s election was funded by just 10 megadonors.

The Trump administration is facing four lawsuits over the formation of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a new government advisory committee headed by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. One of these lawsuits is being brought by the watchdog organization Public Citizen, which says DOGE fails to comply with laws on the composition and reporting duties of such bodies. “Musk’s role in this government is part of a broader convergence of corporate and government power … that doesn’t really have a parallel in American history,” says Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman, who calls it “profoundly dangerous.”

On Tuesday, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde gave the sermon at the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington. Directly addressing President Trump in the front row, she urged him to “have mercy” on immigrants and LGBTQ people targeted by his policies. We play an excerpt from her sermon.

• Trump Takes Steps to Weaponize Justice Department, Reassigning Key Prosecutors
• 22 States Sue to Block Trump's Attempt to End Birthright Citizenship
• Trump Administration to Allow ICE Raids at Churches, Hospitals and Schools
• Israeli Forces Raid Jenin, Killing 10 Palestinians
• Newly Freed Palestinians Describe Torture and Ill-Treatment in Israeli Jails
• Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Child in Southern Gaza Despite Ceasefire
• Four Injured in Tel Aviv Stabbing Attack
• Israeli General Who Led Campaign That Devastated Gaza to Resign over October 7 Failures
• Trump's U.N. Ambassador Pick Elise Stefanik Says Israel Has a "Biblical Right" to West Bank
• Google Provided AI Tech to Israel Despite Public Pronouncements
• Panama's President Rejects Trump's Threats to Retake Panama Canal
• Former Sister-in-Law Describes Violent and Threatening Behavior by Pete Hegseth
• Leaders of Capitol Insurrection Freed from Prison After Trump's Pardons and Commutations
• Costco Union Members Authorize Strike by 18,000 Workers at 56 Warehouses

Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier is coming home after nearly half a century behind bars. Just minutes before leaving office, former President Joe Biden granted Peltier clemency and ordered his release from prison to serve the remainder of his life sentence in home confinement. In a statement, Peltier said, “It’s finally over — I’m going home. I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.” Biden’s historic decision came after mounting calls by tribal leaders and supporters, and a community-led campaign that fought for Peltier’s freedom for decades. We speak with the NDN Collective’s Nick Tilsen, who just visited Leonard Peltier in prison after news of his sentence commutation, about fighting for Peltier’s freedom, his health and Trump’s executive orders attacking environmental rights and Indigenous sovereignty. “Indigenous people, we’re going to be on the frontlines fighting this administration.”