Summary
That’s it from us after a very busy Friday. Here’s what happened:
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has said reports of tariffs starting 1 March are false before announcing new tariffs Donald Trump plans to impose on countries starting tomorrow, including: “25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada, and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sent to our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans.”
Trump said he expected tariffs on oil and gas to be announced on 18 February and then said he would decrease the tariffs on Canadian oil to 10%. He also said he planned “substantial” tariffs on the European Union.
A government memo sent on Wednesday directed agencies to strip “gender ideology” from websites, contracts and email signatures by Friday at 5pm ET. Some federal websites were taken down as government employees scrambled to meet the deadline. FAA.gov remained dark by Friday evening. The CDC took down a variety of health resources including a fact sheet about HIV and trans people; lessons on how to create a supportive environment in schools for trans and non-binary students; and information about National Transgender HIV Testing Day as well as contraception.
Mexico is awaiting any potential US tariffs with a “cool head”, its president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Friday. “We will always defend the dignity of our people, respect for our sovereignty and a dialogue as equals without subordination,” she said.
Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis. The landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”
Senator Mark Warner, who is the vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, called the Trump administration’s decision to fire top FBI officials “deeply alarming”.
CBS News is expected to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s request for the unedited transcript from the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, the former vice-president, according to several reports. The interview took place in October of 2024 and was the subject of Trump’s $10bn lawsuit against CBS that accused the network of editing the interview in a way that benefitted Harris’s campaign.
The FBI has been directed by the DOJ to compile and hand over a list of current and former employees who worked on cases related to the 6 January riots, several publications are reporting. The DOJ said it needs to receive the list by noon ET on Tuesday to commence a review to determine whether they need to make any other personnel moves.
The US hopes to start moving immigrants to Guantánamo Bay in 30 days.
A large number of federal employees have taken the Trump administration’s offer of a financial buyout to resign. Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said he didn’t have an exact number of federal employees who had taken the financial payout to resign from their posts, but that initial briefings indicate it’s a significant number of workers, according to Reuters.
The Senate confirmed the former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum as interior secretary late on Thursday. The vote was 79-18, with the majority of Senate Democrats joining every Republican in voting for Burgum.
Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro will meet with Richard Grenell, Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, the country’s communications ministry has confirmed. As we reported earlier, Grenell is expected to discuss deportation flights among other things during his trip to Venezuela.
Canada will respond immediately with a series of forceful countermeasures if Donald Trump goes ahead with a threat to impose tariffs, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau said. On Thursday, Trump repeated his threat to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico that would begin at 25% and “may or may not rise with time”.
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has urged undocumented Colombians in the US to quit their jobs “immediately” and return to Colombia as soon as possible. “Wealth is only produced by the working people,” Petro said on X. “Let’s build social wealth in Colombia.”
David Lebryk, the top-ranking career official in the treasury department, is departing after a clash with allies of Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, the Washington Post reports. The report, citing sources, said Lebryk and Musk’s surrogates clashed over access to a sensitive system used to pay out more than $6tn a year in social security and Medicare benefits as well as federal salaries, government contract payments and tax refunds.
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Central California communities prepare for potential flooding after Trump order to 'maximize' water supplies
Communities in central California rushed to prepare for potential flooding on Friday, due to the layers of chaos Trump has inflicted on the state’s water distributions.
Responding to an order from Trump to “maximize” water supplies, the Army Corps of Engineers abruptly began releasing flows out of Sierra Nevada reservoirs at levels local officials said would inundate areas downriver, Politico reported. Local water managers were given just an hour to alert nearby farms and neighborhoods.
“I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never been given notice that quick,” Victor Hernandez, who oversees water management on one of the rivers, told Politico, adding that it had been “alarming and scary”.
The issue is the latest example of how Trump’s inflammatory remarks – which incorrectly tied the devastating Los Angeles wildfires to California’s water policy – have created more headaches in the state.
Hernandez and other local officials were reportedly able to convince the corps to slow their releases to a third of what had been planned, preventing what could have been an incredibly dangerous situation, but there are still concerns that the releases will do more harm than good.
The water won’t be diverted to Los Angeles to support wildfire efforts, especially because the flames are already largely extinguished. Meanwhile, releases will mean there’s less water available for irrigating during drier times.
Trump didn’t seem to get the message. Posting on X on Friday, he said: “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory![sic]” sharing a photo of rushing water that he claimed he “just opened in California”. He added a bit more misinformation for good measure: “I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire!”
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