Good morning! Welcome to Day 22 of 2President 2Trump and Day 4 of eating steak for breakfast to avoid the high cost of eggs. Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles for stomping on the Chiefs’ dreams of a first-ever NFL threepeat and a happy belated Gulf of America Day to all who celebrate.

DOGE

💰️ Trump, Musk continue budget blitz with help from Big Balls

New rule for 2025: Make sure all online usernames are generic and Church Lady™ approved. You know, just in case you end up auditing the Treasury Department six months from now. Edward Corinstine didn’t quite get that memo.

• The 19-year-old Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer working with Elon Musk to downsize the federal budget goes by Big Balls online.

• Though he also owns a business called Tesla.Sexy LLC. So perhaps a username do-over wouldn’t change much of anything.

Another young staffer is back in action after being fired for racist, anti-Indian social media posts. Musk and Vice President Vance both stuck up for him (though not his comments), with Vance emphasizing that stupid comments online shouldn't "ruin a kid's life."

DOGE’s actions at the Treasury Department set off a legal firestorm. A federal judge issued an order blocking everyone from DOGE staffers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from accessing the Treasury payments system, which the White House called “absurd judicial overreach.” Bessent defended the setup, calling those involved “highly trained professionals” and Treasury employees with read-only access. But the judge's order may have come too late to change anything.

• Musk said on Saturday that DOGE and Treasury agreed to add a “payment categorization code” to "all outgoing government payments."

• He also claimed Treasury staffers believe the government pays out $50 billion each year in "unequivocal and obvious fraud" related to entitlement programs.

So, what’s next? DOGE has already won a legal case for access to the Department of Labor. And it looks like the mother lode is up next. President Trump said his cost cutters are heading to the Pentagon, where he expects them to find “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.” Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth pledged to work with Musk & Co. to "cut the fat" and ensure his department is "accountable for every dollar."

• Trump’s new budget director, Russ Vought, is pulling double duty as acting director of the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

• He directed employees to cease all work that’s not “required by law” and ordered HQ staff to work from home this week.

Democrats aren't happy with many of the cuts, like those to USAID and the CDC. And they believe many are illegal overwrites of congressionally mandated spending. But they admit they don't have "a lot of good options." With a budget fight looming in March, Dems are considering a last-ditch effort to stop Trump’s wrecking ball: a government shutdown.

GOVERNMENT

📦 The Trump administration hit the pause button on the president's recent move to enforce tighter import rules on low-cost packages. The pause should give federal agencies time to adjust to the new workload. Under current de minimis rules, most shipments worth less than $800 aren't subject to standard customs procedures or import taxes. The system is meant to ease the flow of e-comm orders at U.S. ports. But opponents say the $800 limit — raised in 2016 from $200 — is being abused by luxury retailers like Shein and Temu. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says it processes more than 4 million of these packages per day.

🎭 Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that he's canned "multiple individuals" from the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Trump pointed to recent "Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth” and said the fired trustees "do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” The president will slot himself in as the new chairman. The federally owned Kennedy Center opened in 1971 as a "National Cultural Center" in Washington, D.C., and is home to the National Symphony, National Opera, and the annual Kennedy Center Honors.

⚖️ The Department of Defense (DOD) plans to send an additional 1,500 active-duty soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border, boosting the total to 3,600. About 500 Marines are also headed to the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where thousands of deportees will be processed. On the legal front, Attorney General Pam Bondi's Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing cities and states over sanctuary policies that allegedly interfere with federal immigration enforcement. First up? The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.

WORLD

🌏️ Bigger house next door gets flurry of visitors

Imagine the guest bedroom of your house is somehow bigger than the entire rest of the house. That’s how American presidents have felt since the government began using Blair House in the 1940s to host visiting dignitaries in Washington, D.C.

• Across the street from the White House, Blair House is technically a complex of four separate 19th-century townhouses that have been sewn together to form one giant house fit for a king (or prime minister, or chancellor, or sheik...).

• The place has a whopping 70,000 square feet of space, which is about eight normal houses larger than the White House’s 55,000 square feet of residential space.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swung by last week. During the visit, Trump made his now-famous suggestion that the U.S. take over the Gaza Strip post-war and that the territory’s Palestinian residents be moved to nearby countries. Netanyahu praised the idea as “revolutionary,” though critics decried it as ethnic cleansing.

• Since then, the State Department has informed Congress that it intends to sell more than $7 billion of weapons to Israel.

• As part of the ceasefire plan with Hamas, Israeli troops withdrew over the weekend from a key road splitting Gaza in two.

In defense of Israel, Trump sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) — a non-U.N. court recognized by 125 countries — for accusing Netanyahu of war crimes in Gaza. The sanctions include economic freezes and travel bans for ICC officials.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba followed Netanyahu. He announced a plan for Japan to boost its already top-ranked $780 billion in direct investment in the U.S. economy to a cool $1 trillion. Ishiba also negotiated a revised plan with Trump for Japan's Nippon Steel to invest in, rather than purchase outright, US Steel.

Next up: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will swing by Washington on Wednesday for a two-day stay. According to India's government, the leaders of the world's two most populous democracies have a "very close rapport." They plan to discuss "all areas of mutual interest."

POLITICS

📉 Trump wins popularity contest against himself

Donald Trump has had a busy first three weeks back in office. And it turns out voters like that in a president. A new poll from CBS News has voters describing him as “‘tough,’ ‘energetic,’ ‘focused,’ and ‘effective’ — and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign.” So far, 53% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing, with 47% disapproving. It’s not much, but that approval rating is higher than he ever got the first time around.

That approval extends into his specific policies, too.

• 59% of voters approve of his deportation program and a larger 64% like his use of troops on the southern border.

• 79% of people in a different poll agree with his move to restrict transgender participation in women’s sports.

• 54% like his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. But he’s way underwater on taking over Gaza. Only 13% of people say that's a good idea.

• And 66% of people wish he'd focus more on lowering prices for consumers.

• Voters are more mixed on Elon Musk's influence, with 51% saying his DOGE team should have "some" or "a lot" of influence on federal spending.

One move where the president might have close to universal approval? His move to jettison paper straws back to the mushy hell from whence they came (or, at least out of government buildings). One that might not be so popular? His plan to announce on Monday a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.

TRIVIA

Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s older brother, passed away over the weekend at the age of 97. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and served as head of state of Tibet until that country was annexed by China in 1951. In what year did the current Dalai Lama first take that title?

Hint: Dalai Lamas serve in that role for life.

BRIEFS

● President Trump revoked ex-President Biden's security clearances and ended his daily intelligence briefings. Trump noted that Biden did the same thing to him in 2021 and cited the Hur Report’s description of Biden as having “significant limitations.”

● Vice President JD Vance is making his first overseas trip today to France for the Paris AI Action Summit. Governments and tech bosses from 80 countries will spend two days chatting AI strategy and working on policies to guide development.

● DeepSeek AI is hot right now. But some users are frustrated to find it parroting Chinese government talking points. Hot topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre are off-limits and the bot often uses personal pronouns when referring to Chinese positions.

● The US economy added 143,000 jobs in January, down from 307,000 in December. Unemployment fell slightly to 4.0%. The White House noted that the report's period ended before Trump took office and blamed Biden for the worse-than-expected results.

● Iranian threats against Trump during the 2024 campaign were more serious than publicly known. The Secret Service Service used decoy planes and decoy motorcades and even shot down a drone.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Tenzin Gyatso, 89, was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama as a young boy way back in 1940. He’s lived in exile in India since the 1950s and travels the world advocating for the people of Tibet. Tibetan Buddhists believe him to be the 13th reincarnation of the original Dalai Lama — an unbroken line going back to 1391.