Trump news at a glance: veterans affairs department muzzled after critical article
Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered VA physicians and scientists not to publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump.
Veterans advocates say the decision fits into a pattern of censorship by the Trump administration, and came hours after the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a perspective co-authored by two pulmonologists who work for the VA in Texas.
The article warned that cancelled contracts, layoffs and a planned staff reduction of 80,000 employees in the nation's largest integrated healthcare system jeopardizes the health of a million veterans who served in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here are the key stories at a glance:
The edict, laid down in emails on Friday by Curt Cashour, the VA's assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, and John Bartrum, a senior adviser to VA secretary Doug Collins, came hours after the article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
'We have guidance for this,' wrote Cashour, a former Republican congressional aide and campaign consultant, attaching the journal article. 'These people did not follow it.'
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Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget (OMB), on Sunday cast doubt on the constitutional obligation of the White House to ask Congress to sign off on Donald Trump's massive cuts to the federal workforce spearheaded by Elon Musk.
Vought indicated the White House preferred to rely on 'executive tools' for all but a 'necessary' fraction of the cuts instead of submitting the whole package of jobs and agency slashing that took place via the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge), to the congressional branch for its official approval.
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The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) removed a list of 'sanctuary' states, cities and counties from its website following sharp criticism from a sheriffs' association that said a list of 'noncompliant' sheriffs could severely damage the relationship between the Trump administration and law enforcement.
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A teenage transgender athlete in California, who has been at the center of widespread political attacks by rightwing pundits and the Trump administration, won in two track events over the weekend. The 16-year-old athlete, AB Hernandez, tied for first place alongside two other athletes in the high jump, and tied for first place in the triple jump.
This comes as the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from California for allowing trans athletes to compete in girls' sports.
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The White House budget director Russ Vought on Sunday dismissed as 'totally ridiculous' fears expressed by voters that cuts to benefits in the huge spending bill passed by the House will lead to premature deaths in America.
Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now awaiting debate in the US Senate, will slash two major federal safety net programs, Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps people afford groceries, which will affect millions of people if it becomes law.
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The is FBI investigating a multiple-injury attack in downtown Boulder, Colorado.
One person died and 11 other were injured after 80 shots fired at North Carolina house party.
A British businessman was accused of plotting to smuggle US military technology to China.
Catching up? Here's what happened on Saturday 31 May.
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Atlantic
33 minutes ago
- Atlantic
America the Fortress
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Past leaders have imagined the United States as a 'shining city upon a hill,' a melting pot, a ' beacon to the world.' Donald Trump is working toward a different vision: the United States as a fortress. Late Wednesday, the White House announced a new version of the travel bans that it had imposed during Trump's first term, barring people from 12 countries—Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—from coming to the U.S., and restricting entry from seven others: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. (The ban has some exceptions.) Shortly after, he issued a proclamation that bars foreign nationals from entering the country to attend Harvard University—though not other universities, for reasons that are not satisfactorily explained but seem to boil down to Trump's animus toward the school. A judge promptly issued a temporary block on the new rule. (Trump had made the move after she temporarily blocked his previous attempt to prohibit Harvard from enrolling foreign students.) The new travel ban is, if you're keeping score, Trump's fifth, and the widest ranging. The first came on January 27, 2017. In line with his campaign promise to prevent Muslims from entering the United States, it barred entry to people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days; suspended refugee admission for 120 days; indefinitely blocked refugees from Syria; and lowered the overall annual cap on refugees. When a federal judge temporarily blocked the order, Trump replaced it with a somewhat narrower one, again running for 90 days, which covered the same countries minus Iraq. Federal courts initially blocked the core parts of that order too, though the Supreme Court allowed it to mostly go forward. Trump issued additional bans in fall 2017 and January 2020, with various changes to the countries covered. Joe Biden rescinded the bans on January 20, 2021. In a video about the new ban, Trump cited 'the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,' and said: 'We don't want them.' That message is loud and clear—even to those who aren't formally banned. Horror stories about foreign nationals visiting the U.S. have begun to circulate: Two German teens claimed that they were detained, strip-searched, and deported from Hawaii (U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied their account and alleged that they had entered the country under false pretenses); an Australian ex–police officer said she was locked up while trying to visit her American husband; New Zealand's biggest newspaper ran an article in which an anonymous 'travel industry staffer' encouraged Kiwis not to visit the United States. These anecdotes could exact a cost. The World Travel & Tourism Council, an industry trade group, released a report last month forecasting a $12.5 billion decline in tourist spending in the United States this year. That is not the product of global factors: Out of 184 countries the group studied, the U.S. is the only one expected to see a drop. Other forecasts see a smaller but still huge decline, though so far the data show a major decline only in travel to the U.S. from Canada. The Trump administration's reputation as a host has taken a hit in other ways too. A visit to the White House was once a desirable prize for any foreign leader; now even allies are approaching them with trepidation. After the president ambushed Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa in Oval Office meetings—showing a racist and misleading clip, in the latter case—German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reportedly prepared for yesterday's meeting by seeking tips from other world leaders on how to handle Trump. (The encounter was still bumpy at times.) This hostility to foreigners of all sorts is neither an accident nor collateral damage. It's the policy. Trump's xenophobia is long-standing and well documented, but some of his aides have developed this into more than just a reflex of disgust. Vice President J. D. Vance has championed ideas aligned with the 'Great Replacement' theory that Democrats are trying to dilute the existing demographic and cultural mix of the United States with immigrants. 'America is not just an idea,' he said last July. 'It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future.' Stephen Miller and the Project 2025 crew, each of whom exerts a great deal of influence over Trump's policies, have pushed not just for stopping illegal immigration and deporting migrants but also for limiting legal immigration. The rare exception that Trump and his aides allow helps make the implied racism in these ideas explicit. The administration has moved to dramatically reduce refugee admissions, but last month, it welcomed a few dozen white Afrikaners from South Africa, whom the White House claims were victims of racial discrimination at home. The administration even seems eager to discourage people from leaving the country. Green-card holders are being arrested and detained while reentering the U.S.; immigration lawyers say the safest course for legal permanent residents is to stay in the country. Trump has also repeatedly expressed a desire to weaken the dollar, which would make it more expensive for Americans to vacation overseas. North Korea is frequently described as a hermit kingdom for its willingness to wall itself off from the rest of the world. Trump has expressed his admiration for and personal bond with Kim Jong Un before, but now he seems eager to emulate Kim's seclusion too. Here are four new stories from The Atlantic. What happens when people don't understand how AI works Trump is wearing America down. Inside the Trump-Musk breakup The Super Bowl of internet beefs Today's News The Supreme Court ruled that DOGE members can have access to the Social Security Administration's sensitive records. The Labor Department released numbers showing that job growth was strong but did slow last month amid uncertainty about Donald Trump's tariff policies. The unemployment rate held steady. Five leaders of the Proud Boys, four of whom had been found guilty of seditious conspiracy due to their actions on January 6, 2021, sued the government for $100 million, claiming that their constitutional rights had been violated. More From The Atlantic Evening Read Fast Times and Mean Girls By Hillary Kelly In the early spring, I caught a preview at my local Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for its forthcoming stoner-classics retrospective: snippets of Monty Python's Life of Brian; Tommy Boy; a few Dada-esque cartoons perfect for zonking out on, post-edible. The audience watched quietly until Matthew McConaughey, sporting a parted blond bowl cut and ferrying students to some end-of-year fun, delivered a signature bit of dialogue. 'Say, man, you got a joint?' he asked the kid in the back seat. 'Uhhh, no, not on me, man.' 'It'd be a lot cooler if you did,' he drawled. The crowd, including me, went wild. Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, in which a fresh-faced McConaughey appears as Wooderson, the guy who graduated years back but still hangs with the high-school kids, is that kind of teen movie: eternally jubilance-inspiring. Set in 1976 and released in 1993, it's a paean to the let-loose ethos of a certain decade of American high school. And boy do these kids let loose. Culture Break Watch. The Phoenician Scheme, in theaters, is the latest Wes Anderson film to let modern life seep into a high-concept world. Play our daily crossword. P.S. In other immigration news, ABC News broke the story this afternoon that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident and Salvadoran citizen whom the Trump administration deported to a Salvadoran Gulag, has been returned to the United States to face criminal charges. The Justice Department acknowledged in court that Abrego Garcia's removal was an 'administrative error,' as my colleague Nick Miroff reported, before resorting to ever more absurd claims that he was a member of the gang MS-13. Now Abrego Garcia has been indicted for alleged involvement in a scheme to traffic migrants within the United States. I have no idea if these charges are true; the indictment is relatively brief, and the administration's earlier desperation to pin charges on him is worrying. (The investigation that led to the criminal charges reportedly began only after his removal.) Nevertheless, if the government believes that he committed these crimes, he should be tried in court with due process. As I wrote in April, 'If the people who are getting arrested are really the cold-blooded criminals the executive branch insists they are, saying so in a court of law should be relatively easy.' Now the administration will have a chance to do that, and Abrego Garcia will have a chance to defend himself. — David
CNN
35 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump asks aides if they think Musk's behavior could be related to alleged drug use, source says
President Donald Trump has asked aides and advisers if they believe Elon Musk's behavior over the past 48 hours could be related to his alleged drug use, privately seeking to understand the tech billionaire's broadsides against him while signaling publicly he doesn't care, a source familiar with the conversations told CNN. In his own telling, Trump is not wasting any time thinking about the man who, one week ago, was receiving a giant golden key in the Oval Office and has since lobbed insults toward its occupant. The president told CNN's Dana Bash in a brief phone call Friday morning he was 'not even thinking about Elon' and wouldn't be speaking to Musk 'for a while.' But questions about the spectacularly public break-up have come nonetheless. Talking to reporters on Air Force One Friday night, Trump said he would 'take a look at' canceling some of Musk's government contracts, a possibility he had floated on Truth Social in the height of their feud, and asserted the country would be fine without them. 'The US can survive without almost anybody – except me,' he said, adding that he was joking on the latter point. Though the source said Trump had privately inquired about Musk's alleged drug use, the president declined to weigh in on the matter publicly. 'I don't want to comment on his drug use. I don't know - I don't know what his status is,' he said on Air Foce One, adding that New York Times reporting on the matter 'sounded very unfair' CNN has reached out to a Musk representative. When Musk was asked about the report during his Oval Office farewell with Trump a week ago, he declined to answer and attacked the newspaper instead. The Times reported that Musk was 'using drugs far more intensely than previously known,' as he rose to prominence in Trump's inner circle in 2024, including 'using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs,' according to people familiar. In a 2024 interview with Don Lemon, Musk acknowledged he took 'a small amount' of ketamine to treat negative moods, under a prescription, but that a heavy workload prevented him from using too much. Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to the Times' request for comment about his drug use. CNN also reached out to his representative about the allegations at the time. Last week, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, whose wife Katie Miller left a job with the Department of Government Efficiency to work for Musk, told CNN he had no concerns over the New York Times report that Musk used drugs more extensively than previously known. In the day since the Trump-Musk feud erupted on their respective social media platforms, Trump's aides said the president has been focused on advancing that supersized bill that started the whole thing, and has directed his team to follow suit. His online presence Friday morning was limited to posts about the economy, without any mention of the tech billionaire. He spent the morning on the phone — not with Musk, but with the new president of South Korea, whom he invited to the US for talks. He chatted with the president of Poland about the upcoming NATO summit. And before traveling to Bedminster, New Jersey, in the evening, he stopped to tour a golf course. Whether the president is successful in turning attention away from the ugly spat remains to be seen. The Justice Department's announcement late Friday afternoon that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has returned to the US to face criminal counts began to shift the narrative. Nor was it precisely clear what effect the wreckage of the Trump-Musk alliance would have on the president's agenda bill being considered by Congress, on Musk's businesses or on the direction of the Republican Party. All seemed potentially caught in the undertow after the two men spent Thursday afternoon and evening lashing out at each other online. A tipping point for Trump and his advisers, people familiar with what was happening behind the scenes said, was Musk's linkage of the president to Jeffrey Epstein. Musk suggested the administration wasn't releasing information about the convicted pedophile because it invokes Trump. (Musk cited no evidence and gave no detail how he would have gained access to unreleased files.) White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called his claims an 'unfortunate episode' in a Thursday evening statement. After that, any chance of reconciliation appeared to be scuttled. For Trump, Musk's criticism of the major legislative package could only embolden Republicans who share the tech CEO's concerns the bill would explode the US deficit. Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted against the bill, told CNN that he thinks Musk's opposition could fuel buyer's remorse. And Rep. Michael McCaul, who supported it, said he worries that a prolonged fight between Musk and Trump could become a distraction for getting Trump's agenda passed, before going on to cite 'very good intelligence' that the two men would soon settle their spat. But Musk – who less than a month ago had said he'd spend 'a lot less' on politics – has also threatened to put his substantial spending power behind efforts to remove from office Republicans who vote for the bill. After spending more than $290 million to help elect Trump and Republicans last year, the future of Musk's political spending now appears unknown. Funds Musk privately promised to groups associated with Trump are now in doubt. One powerful Trump ally, Steve Bannon, suggested Trump use his power to go after Musk in multiple ways. He said on his 'War Room Live' show Thursday that Trump should begin deportation proceedings for Musk, saying he is 'illegal' and has 'got to go.' Musk was born in South Africa but became an American citizen in 2002. Bannon also suggested the Trump administration investigate Musk's alleged drug use, and potentially suspend his security clearance. Still, allies of both seemed to hold out hope the rupture would not be permanent, and that the two most dominant figures in current Republican politics might be able to patch things up. 'I'm not going to speak for either of them. I was with the president in the Oval Office yesterday afternoon as some of this unfolded. And I can just say he was disappointed. I mean, he said that himself. And I was, as well,' House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday. 'I believe in redemption,' Johnson went on. 'I hope we can resolve it, get everybody together again. That's really important for all of us.' CNN's Hadas Gold, Molly English, Lauren Fox and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
Newsweek
35 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Trump Says He'll 'Take A Look' At Elon Musk's Government Contracts
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump has said he plans to "take a look" at Elon Musk's government contracts after their huge blow-up. In the midst of the dispute on Thursday, Trump had warned that the "easiest way" to save bullions in the budget was to "terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts." Cooler heads prevailed on Friday, with Musk and Trump refraining from slinging direct insults at each other. But when asked if he planned to go through with his threat to cut Musk's government subsidies, by a reporter on Air Force One, Trump did not rule it out. "We'll take a look at everything. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of subsidy. So we'll take a look at that — only if it's fair for him and for the country ... but it has to be fair," he said. This is a breaking news story, updates to follow.
