President Donald Trump is heading into the fifth day of his second term in office, striving to remake the traditional boundaries of Washington by asserting unprecedented executive power.
The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.
Here’s the latest:
President Donald Trump’s executive order denying U.S. citizenship to the children of parents living in the country illegally has faced the first of what will be many legal tests. It didn’t fare well.
A Justice Department lawyer had barely started making his arguments in a Seattle courtroom Thursday when U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour began blistering him with questions, calling the executive order “blatantly unconstitutional.” Coughenour went on to temporarily block it pending further arguments.
The ruling, a temporary restraining orde, blocks the administration from enforcing or implementing Trump’s order nationally for the next 14 days. Over the next two weeks, the sides will submit further briefings on the legal merits of the executive order.
▶ Here’s what to know about the pending legal challenge over birthright citizenship
White House staff secretary Will Scharf has been a prominent part of the executive order signing tableau, standing at Trump’s side and teeing up the leather-bound folders, one by one, for the president.
Scharf doesn’t just act the straight man as Trump talks up his orders, cracks jokes and fields questions from reporters. He also plays a key role in the White House, overseeing the flow of information and business coming to and from the president.
Here’s a few things to know about the staff secretary:
1. The role has traditionally involved managing the papers that cross the president’s desk. It serves almost as air traffic control for the West Wing — tracking the drafting and approval of memos and statements as they work their way to the president’s desk and then out to the world.
2. Scharf was a member of Trump’s legal team before joining the new administration and was one of the president’s lawyers in the election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
3. Scharf ran unsuccessfully for Missouri attorney general in 2024, losing to incumbent Andrew Bailey. His campaign included a memorable ad in which the mild-mannered lawyer appears to use a grenade launcher to fire on a pile of boxes that were labeled to look like they contained legal documents related to Trump’s criminal cases.
▶ Read more about White House staff secretary Will Scharf
Americans see the federal government as rife with corruption, inefficiency and red tape — but they’re less sure about whether Elon Musk is the right person to fix it.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults strongly or somewhat approve of President Trump’s creation of an advisory body on government efficiency, which Musk is helming. About 4 in 10 disapprove, while the rest were neutral or didn’t know enough to say. (The poll was conducted before Vivek Ramaswamy announced he would no longer be involved in the group.)
President Donald Trump is heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.
The Republican president has criticized former President Joe Biden for his administration’s response in North Carolina, and he’s showered disdain on California leaders for water policies that he falsely claimed worsened the recent blazes.
Trump is also considering overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of his conservative allies have proposed reducing how much the agency reimburses states for handling floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other calamities.
▶ Read more about the politics behind Trump’s expected travel
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