“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is revoking the security clearance and personal security detail for retired Army General and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley,” Reuters reports.
“Hegseth will also direct a review to consider if Milley should be stripped of a star in retirement based on actions that ‘undermine the chain of command.’”
“On the campaign trail with Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick railed against policies that encouraged factories and jobs to move to Mexico,” the Washington Post reports.
“But at the same time, the president’s eventual nominee for commerce secretary runs a commercial real estate firm that has been pitching the virtues of Mexican manufacturing to American companies.”
“President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at curtailing gender transitions for people under age 19,” the AP reports.
“The order directs that federally-run insurance programs, including TRICARE for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care, and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.”
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“A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze on federal grants and loans that could total trillions of dollars,” the AP reports.
“The administrative stay pauses the freeze until Monday.”
Washington Post: “The decision arrived on a day of vast confusion and chaos in Washington, where few appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that had directed agencies to ‘temporarily pause’ the disbursement of key funds.”
“Even before it officially took effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday, thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — appeared to be at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.”
“White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed immigrant rights groups’ fears that the Trump administration sees all undocumented immigrants as ‘criminals’ and isn’t just seeking to deport those who commit violent acts,” Axios reports.
“Reality check: There is no law making it a crime to live in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant. Instead, the law treats it as a civil violation.”
“The White House will issue a memo Tuesday afternoon offering to pay federal workers who don’t want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6,” Axios reports.
“It’s an acceleration in President Trump’s already unprecedented purge on the federal workforce.”
“President Donald Trump has moved to fire Democratic members of two independent federal commissions, an extraordinary break from decades of legal precedent that promises to hand Republicans control over boards that oversee swaths of U.S. workers, employers and labor unions,” the Washington Post reports.
“A White House freeze on potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in government ‘financial assistance,’ set to go into effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday, would upend decades of federal budget policy, temporarily slamming the brakes on thousands of programs both in the U.S. and around the world,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“And that appears to be exactly the point.”
“Some of President Trump’s top advisers think the U.S. budget process has become so contorted—allowing the budget to become so bloated—that they need to wrest parts of it from Congress’s control to make changes that are long overdue.”
“Hours after the Trump administration announced a sweeping freeze on federal spending, the U.S. government on Tuesday found itself mired in confusion and chaos, as it looked to stave off potential interruptions to programs that promote food safety, combat crime, provide housing aid, produce medical research and respond to natural disasters,” the Washington Post reports.
“Few in Washington appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that initially directed agencies to ‘temporarily pause’ the disbursement of key funds, leaving thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.”
“The uncertainty forced the White House to clarify its approach by midday: In a new directive, the Office of Management and Budget said it sought only to bring spending in line with the president’s recent executives orders, including those that clamp down on foreign aid and funding for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, which Trump has called ‘radical and wasteful.'”
“President Trump and the writer E. Jean Carroll are arguing over whether a Supreme Court decision affording him substantial criminal immunity also shields him from having to pay tens of millions in damages for insulting her and saying she lied about his sexually assaulting her,” the New York Times reports.
“After initially provoking disbelief, President Donald Trump’s audacious plan to acquire Greenland — potentially by force — has triggered frantic talks among European leaders aiming to stop him,” Politico reports.
“Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dashed between Berlin, Brussels and Paris on Tuesday to shore up support in the face of Trump’s increasingly aggressive overtures toward the territory.”
Said Frederiksen: “I don’t travel around giving speeches. I don’t need to. But I am safeguarding Denmark’s interests, and I am doing so very firmly right now.”
“President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 4,” Politico reports.
“Netanyahu is set to be the first foreign leader to meet in person with Trump at the White House since he was inaugurated last week.”
“The U.S. military transferred around 90 Patriot air defense interceptors from storage in Israel to Poland this week in order to deliver them to Ukraine,” Axios reports.
“Getting more Patriot missiles to Ukraine has been a top priority for the Pentagon to help Kyiv defend against Russia’s attacks on its critical infrastructure.”
“Senate Democrats are expected to block a bill sanctioning the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, a show of Democratic unity after a week of internal dissent,” Axios reports.
Medicaid reimbursement portals were down Tuesday in all 50 states on the heels of a funding freeze ordered by the Trump administration of federal grants and loans, CNBC reports.
New York Times: “On Wednesday, the Fed is set to put that approach into action, pressing pause on further reductions for the first time since they began lowering borrowing costs in September. The question now looming large over Wall Street and Washington is just how long the Fed will be on hold.”
“For President Trump, who in his first week in office claimed to have a better understanding of interest rates than officials at the Fed, a pause of any length is likely to be seen as too long.”
Washington Post: “The union membership rate dropped by one-tenth of a percentage point to a new low of 9.9 percent last year, the Labor Department said Tuesday, while the total number of union members in the United States barely budged last year, with a loss of roughly 100,000 members. About 14.3 million workers were in unions in 2024, according to the Labor Department.”
“The decrease in the union membership rate happened in part because a solid labor market added 2.2 million jobs in 2024, with nonunion positions growing at a faster pace than union ones.”
President Trump said Jim Acosta’s decision to leave CNN was “good news” and called him one of the “worst and most dishonest reporters in journalistic history.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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