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 also traveled to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and will also go to 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:
Five economic forces that could shape the first year of Trump’s presidency
Like most presidents, Trump faces an economy that seldom bends to political ambitions.
The Republican has promised strong growth, high tariffs, income tax cuts and booming oilfields. But despite the solid job market and low 4.1% unemployment rate, he has to contend with headwinds like inflation, a budget deficit, increased tensions over trade, the fallout from his plans to curtail immigration and a persistent wealth gap.
Each of these issues could help to shape how voters feel about a president they returned to the White House with the specific goal of fixing the economy.
▶Read more about the economic headwinds
Senate confirmation vote for Hegseth set for Friday night
The Senate is muscling Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary toward confirmation.
The Republican senators are prioritizing the former Fox News host and combat veteran’s vow to create a “warrior culture” at the Pentagon over allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women.
Votes are expected by Friday evening.
▶Read more about the Hegseth vote
Justice Department curtails prosecutions for blocking reproductive health care facilities
President Donald Trump’s new Justice Department leadership is curtailing prosecutions against people accused of blocking reproductive health care facilities, calling the cases an example of the “weaponization” of law enforcement.
Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle said in a memo obtained Friday by The Associated Press that prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or “FACE Act” will now be permitted only in “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases presenting ”significant aggravating factors.”
Mizelle also ordered the immediate dismissal of three FACE Act cases related to 2021 blockades of clinics in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio. One man was accused of obtaining “illegal access to a secure patient space at a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia without staff permission or knowledge” and barricading himself in a restroom, according to court papers.
Putin echoes Trump’s claim that conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided had he been in office
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday echoed U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim the conflict in Ukraine could have been prevented had he been in the White House in 2022. He also said Moscow is ready for talks with the U.S. on a broad range of issues.
In an interview with Russian state television, Putin praised Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” who is focused on U.S. interests.
“We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president,” Putin said. “I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided.”
Putin’s statement was his bluntest endorsement yet of Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election.
Trump also has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he’d been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
▶ Read more about Russia and Trump
Trump administration has withdrawn a federal rule which would have phased out menthol cigarettes
The cigarettes are disproportionately used by young and minority smokers.
The action was widely expected by anti-smoking advocates, who’ve spent years pushing for a ban on menthol, the only flavor still allowed in cigarettes. Tobacco companies have typically faced lighter regulation under Republican administrations.
The Food and Drug Administration spent years studying the issue and concluded menthol’s cooling sensation makes it easier to start and harder to quit cigarettes.
The FDA was widely expected to finalize the regulation last year, but President Joe Biden’s White House delayed its release, kicking a potential political controversy out past the election. At the time, both Biden and Trump were aggressively courting Black voters in swing states.
The persistence of menthol has long infuriated health experts, who’ve been pushing for a ban since the FDA gained authority over tobacco products in 2009.
Vice President JD Vance celebrated Trump’s previous actions on abortion
Speaking at the March for Life in Washington, Vance said the president “delivered on his promise of ending Roe,” appointed hundreds of anti-abortion judges and pardoned anti-abortion activists he says were “unjustly imprisoned.”
“Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes,” Vance told the crowd of protesters who cheered and chanted “JD” as he took the stage.
President Trump speaks to March for Life crowd in a video address
In the video address to March for Life crowds, Trump vowed “we will again stand proudly for families and for life” in his second term and once again boasted about nominating three Supreme Court justices who helped strike down Roe v. Wade.
“I was so proud to be a participant,” he said. “Six courageous justices of the Supreme Court of the United States returned the issue to the state legislatures and to the people where it belongs.”
Crowds cheered as Trump celebrated pardoning anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances and thanked protesters for gathering at March for Life to “stand up for precious little babies who can’t stand up for themselves.”
“Thank you for turning out once again to show your extraordinary love and compassion for the unborn,” he said.
Target is ending its DEI goals as workplace inclusion gets a strong opponent in the White House
Discount store chain Target said Friday it would join rival Walmart and a number of other prominent American brands in scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack from conservative activists and, as of this week, the White House.
The Minneapolis-based retailer said the changes to its “Belonging at the Bulleye” strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles.
The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.
▶ Read more about Target ending its DEI goals
Ontario leader will call election to fight Trump’s threatened tariffs
The leader of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said Friday that he would call an early election, because he says he needs a mandate to fight President Trump’s threatened tariffs.
Premier Doug Ford of the Progressive Conservative Party said that he planned to make the announcement on Wednesday. The move would send Ontarians to the polls on Feb. 27, more than a year before the June 2026 fixed election date. Ford already has a large majority government.
Ford, who is the equivalent of a U.S. state governor, said that Ontario could lose upwards of 500,000 jobs should Trump follow through on his 25% tariff threat.
▶ Read more about how Ontario is responding to Trump’s proposed tariffs
Defense Department is expected to put out its own temporary social media ban Friday, U.S. officials say
The 10-day ban, however, carves out exceptions for military bases around the world that rely on social media posts to inform them of security incidents, school matters and normal base activities.
Other federal agencies are doing the same thing, with guidance from the Trump administration suggesting that federal agencies shouldn’t put out information unless it’s been approved by the new leadership. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
— Lolita C. Baldor
‘You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government’
President Donald Trump says he won’t feel partially responsible if harm befalls former government officials whose security details were cut by his administration after he took office this week.
Trump revoked the security detail of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who advised Trump on the COVID-19 pandemic but turned critical of Trump once he tried to undermine public health guidance. He faced regular threats to his life and has received federal protection for years, but it was ended this week according to a person familiar with the matter.
“They all made a lot of money, they can hire their own security too,” Trump told reporters in North Carolina.
Trump earlier this week revoked protection details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, as well his own former national security adviser John Bolton, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hardline stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration. All three have fallen out with Trump in the years since he left office.
Their security details had been repeatedly renewed by the Biden administration because of credible and ongoing threats from Iran.
“You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said.
Asheville artist, who lost business in Hurricane Helene, wary about Trump’s visit
Sarah Wells Rolland, co-owner of The Village Potters Clay Center in Asheville’s now-destroyed River Arts District, said she’s “seriously concerned” about her city’s future recovery from Hurricane Helene under President Donald Trump’s administration. Rolland noted Asheville’s Democratic lean as a reason Trump may not prioritize its rebuilding process.
“I’m not overly optimistic that the Trump administration is going to do anything long-term,” Rolland said Friday ahead of Trump’s visit to the area. “Frankly, I’ll tell you, I think him coming today is to look presidential.”
Rolland lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment when her ceramics center’s roofing caved and water rose 26 feet inside her facility during Helene. She’s operated a temporary clay supply site for the past few months, and Rolland said she’s hoping to reopen the full center — which had classes and galleries — at a new location this summer.
Rolland’s interactions with Federal Emergency Management Agency workers in the storm’s aftermath were “wonderful,” she said. Criticism against the agency has been largely unwarranted, she said, because workers were in the region “almost on day one.”
Anti-abortion protesters gather for the annual March for Life in Washington
Despite frigid weather, thousands of anti-abortion protesters gathered to celebrate a new Republican trifecta in the presidency and both chambers of Congress as they returned to the nation’s capital Friday for the annual March for Life.
A festive atmosphere marked the early part of the march, as activists gathered with multicolored hats and signs declaring “Life is our revolution.”
President Donald Trump is expected to address the crowd in a pre-recorded video as the gathering marks the first time that participants have been to the nation’s capital with him as the sitting president since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, that declared there was a constitutional right to an abortion.
Vice President JD Vance is slated to speak in person.
Kristen Cooper, 21, was among several thousand Students for Life America members attending. She said she was especially excited to be at the march with “pro-life Republicans” in the White House. She said this march was her fourth but the first with a Republican administration.
“It’s surreal actually,” she said.
Federal agencies begin removing DEI guidance from websites in Trump crackdown
Several federal agencies have begun removing resources for underrepresented Americans from their webpages following President Trump’s executive order cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Agencies also have been cancelling training and service contacts to comply with the order from Trump, who vowed to dismantle diversity programs across the federal government. He has called for all DEI staff to be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.
Documents on DEI have been removed from websites at agencies including the Office of Personnel Management, State Department and Department of Homeland Security. Web addresses that once led to DEI pages now display “Page Not Found — 404” messages or notes above archived material explaining the change.
▶ Read more about the impact of Trump’s DEI executive order
Trump expands use of fast-track deportation, which critics say is prone to mistakes
The Trump administration announced Friday that it is expanding a fast-track deportation authority nationwide, allowing immigration officers to deport migrants without appearing before a judge.
The administration said in a notice in the Federal Register on Friday that it is expanding the use of “expedited removal” authority so it can be used across the country. “The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety — while reducing government costs — by facilitating prompt immigration determinations,” the administration said.
▶ Read more about ‘expedited removal’ authority
Trump says he’s considering ‘getting rid of FEMA’ as he visits hurricane-damaged North Carolina
Speaking to reporters Friday at Asheville Regional Airport where he was meeting with supporters and local officials about the recovery from last year’s Hurricane Helene, Trump says FEMA “has been a very big disappointment.”
Trump said of the agency: “It’s very bureaucratic. And it’s very slow. Other than that, we’re very happy with them.”
He did not offer clear details on what he would replace it with, indicated he wants to move more of the disaster management responsibility to the states. That was a key priority of the conservative ’Project 2025” written by Trump’s supporters, including some who’ve since joined his administration.
“A governor can handle something very quickly,” Trump said.
Trump says OPEC+ can end the bloodshed in Ukraine by cutting oil prices
The president continued to make the case that reducing oil revenue is the key finding an endgame in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Trump in his first days in office has centered his focus on the OPEC+ alliance of oil exporting countries, making the case that it has kept the price of oil too high for much of the nearly three-year war. Oil revenue is the engine driving the Russian economy.
“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money. And they drop the price of oil because they have it nice and high,” Trump told reporters during a visit to Western North Carolina on Friday. “And if you have it high, then that war is not going to end so easily. So, OPEC ought to get on the ball and drop the price of oil. And that war will stop right away.”
Trump continues to criticize FEMA
President Trump landed in North Carolina to tour lingering damage from Hurricane Helene and said he would like to see states “take care of disasters” and that he was reviewing “the whole concept of “FEMA” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he’s criticized.
Trump, speaking to reporters after he landed near Asheville, North Carolina, said it would be faster to let states respond to disasters.
“Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen,” Trump told reporters.
The Associated Press
