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9:40 AM ET, February 3, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Lauren Kent / CNN:
USAID workers at Washington HQ told to stay home on Monday in unexpected, early-morning email  —  The main office of the US Agency for International Development in Washington was unexpectedly closed Monday and workers were emailed shortly after midnight that they should not come in …
Discussion: The Federalist
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Musk Says DOGE Halting Treasury Payments to US Contractors  — Musk Calls USAID ‘a criminal organization’ that should ‘die’  — Billionaire expanding his reach across government spending  —  Elon Musk said his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down payments …
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover  —  Engineers between 19 and 24, most linked to Musk's companies, are playing a key role as he seizes control of federal infrastructure.  —  Elon Musk's takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing …
Margaret Sullivan / American Crisis:
The split personality of Big Journalism in covering this nightmare  —  On Friday, three reporters at the Washington Post broke a huge story.  It might have sounded like some kind of bureaucratic development inside the federal government, but it was much more important than that.
Wall Street Journal:
Trump Administration Closes USAID Headquarters  —  Monday closure comes as Elon Musk and DOGE are pushing to get rid of foreign-assistance agency  —  WASHINGTON—The U.S. Agency for International Development closed its headquarters to agency personnel on Monday following moves …
Discussion: Axios, Bloomberg and FedScoop
Lee Moran / HuffPost:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Sounds ‘Five Alarm Fire’ Over Latest Elon Musk News
Bloomberg:
Behind DOGE's Standoff at USAID: Desk Searches and Elon Musk Calling
Alexander Vindman / Why It Matters:
Hostile Takeover  —  “Department of Government Efficiency” Hijacks The Federal Government
Discussion: New York Magazine and Mashable
Ellen Knickmeyer / Associated Press:
Elon Musk says President Donald Trump has ‘agreed’ USAID should be shut down
David McAfee / Raw Story:   ‘This is a five-alarm fire’: Experts pounce on Musk's new ‘grave national security threat’
Wall Street Journal:
Musk Moves With Lightning Speed to Exert Control Over the Government
Brian Mann / NPR:
Trump used fentanyl to justify tariffs, but the crisis was already easing  —  President Trump says illegal street fentanyl is one of the main justifications for sweeping trade tariffs he plans to impose against Canada, China and Mexico on Tuesday.  A statement issued by the White House describes …
RELATED:
New York Times:
U.S. Markets Roiled by Trump Tariffs  —  Stock indexes in the United States fell, and shares in Asian manufacturers and European carmakers tumbled on concern that tariffs will hurt trade and disrupt supply chains.  —  President Trump's decision to impose sweeping tariffs …
Lindsay Wise / Wall Street Journal:
Trump's Move to Put Tariff Hikes Ahead of Tax Cuts Has Spooked Almost Everyone
Discussion: Quartz, New Republic and Grabien
Alan Rappeport / New York Times:
Trump Tariffs Threaten to Upend Global Economic Order
New York Times:
Tariff Retaliation Begins as Trump Acknowledges ‘Pain’ Is Possible
Skylar Woodhouse / Bloomberg:
Trump Ramps Up EU Tariff Threat, Plans Calls With Canada, Mexico
John Zangas / DCMediaGroup:
Federal Workers Block Doors of Admin Building Over Elon Musk Data Breach  —  Nearly 100 Federal employees took part in a protest now into its second day of a takeover by Elon Musk surrogates of the high administration arm of the Federal government.  Photo: DCMediaGroup
RELATED:
Popular Information:
Musk associates given unfettered access to private data of government employees  —  The Musk-connected political hires include two recent high school graduates  —  Several of Elon Musk's associates installed at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have received unprecedented access …
Discussion: The Guardian
RELATED:
Christopher Ingraham / Minnesota Reformer:   Senator's ‘flatly unconstitutional’ proposal would lock in Republican control of chamber for years
The Hill:   Democrats fume over weak early response to Trump
Meredith Shiner / New Republic:
Primary Every Democrat … I spent almost a decade covering the United States Senate.  So, believe me when I tell you that I do not want to be a United States senator.  Imagine having a job where your mere existence in the role is a symbol of democratic backsliding, where your leaders torture …
RELATED:
Punchbowl News:   2/3/25 ☀️ AM: … It is said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Jack Blanchard / Politico:   Playbook: Some unholy (trade) war
Los Angeles Times:
Thousands rally in downtown Los Angeles, shut down 101 Freeway to protest Trump's immigration policies  —  Thousands of demonstrators rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday and shut down a section of the 101 Freeway to protest President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and his aggressive deportation policies.
Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark:
Follow the Money  —  Hey guys, I'm sending out Monday's Triad on Sunday night for reasons that will be clear when you read it.  So you won't get another Triad in your inbox on Monday—but keep your eyes on the Bulwark homepage, YouTube channel, and podcasts.  The team is doing great work making sense of the chaos monkeys.
Joshua Keating / Vox:
Are America's four main adversaries really in cahoots?  —  Hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, China's Xi Jinping made a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which, according to the Chinese foreign ministry's readout, the two leaders pledged to deepen their …
Philip Bump / Washington Post:
What's at risk when the federal government also is  —  The sudden stop in federal funding reminded Americans how vital the government is in people's lives.  —  When the seven-day-old Trump administration last week declared that nearly all federal spending would be halted indefinitely …
Reuters:
Exclusive: Trump's meme coin made nearly $100 million in trading fees, as small traders lost money  —  Entities behind President Donald Trump's crypto coin have accumulated close to $100 million in trading fees in less than two weeks, according to estimates from three blockchain analysis firms …
Discussion: DNyuz, more at Techmeme »
Bloomberg:
Trump Vows to Punish South Africa Over Expropriation Law  — Ramaphosa enacted new expropriation policy last month  — Rand weakened as much as 2% against dollar after Trump comment  —  President Donald Trump said the US would halt all future funding to South Africa because of its new land-expropriation law.
RELATED:
Julia Ainsley / NBC News:
Some migrants arrested in Trump's immigration crackdown have been released back into the U.S.  —  Space constraints and court orders have led ICE to release migrants on monitoring programs after they're arrested.  —  The Trump administration aggressively publicized the arrests …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Radoslaw Sikorski / New York Times:
I'm the Foreign Minister of Poland. Europe Has Got the Message.
Discussion: Raw Story and DNyuz
Abrahm Lustgarten / New York Times:
The New Evidence Climate Change Will Upend American Homeownership
David Folkenflik / NPR:
LA Times owner boosts RFK Jr. online, as writer says paper cut his critique
Lisa Needham / Public Notice:
Trump's mobster media shakedowns
Washington Post:
Trump, Musk wage two-front war as donor does president's ‘dirty work’
Washington Post:
Key Trump Cabinet members refuse to acknowledge Trump lost in 2020
Discussion: Grabien
Matt Viser / Washington Post:
Two weeks in, Donald Trump can't stop talking about Joe Biden
 Earlier Items: 
Tom Boggioni / Raw Story:
Senate urged to recall Kash Patel and put him under oath over FBI purge
Discussion: CBS News
Chris Lunday / Politico:
German election: AfD's Weidel doubles down on Holocaust comments
Ben Smith / Semafor:
MAGA intellectual Darren Beattie will fill key State Department role
Discussion: ABC News, The Forward and Mediaite
Michelle Myers / The Philadelphia Inquirer:
ICE raided his family's North Philly car wash. Here is Jeffrey Lee's account of what happened.
 

 
From Techmeme:

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Meta adds Dina Powell McCormick, who served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first term, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to its board

Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
Sources: Tim Cook approved a plan to double the AI chip budget for John Giannandrea's team in 2023, but CFO Luca Maestri cut the increase to less than half that

Ellen O'Regan / Politico:
Ireland's DPC opens an investigation into how personal data in public X posts was used to train xAI's Grok, which could stoke tensions between the EU and the US

 
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