Good morning! In a big loss for Dumbo, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 6-0 last week that elephants… aren't people. A lawsuit from the Nonhuman Rights Project argued that five elephants at a local zoo were "unlawfully confined" and robbed of their "right to bodily liberty." In response to the ruling, the group slammed the court for refusing to "look beyond the species membership of our clients.” Sometimes it’s nice to know that America’s courts are focused on the issues that really matter.

POLICY

📝 Trump signs executive orders like they’re going out of style

Congress isn’t a body known for its speed. Or for its productivity. Or for its accuracy. So what’s a president to do while he’s waiting on the legislators to, well, legislate? Two words: Executive. Orders.

• Laws passed by Congress tell the president what do to and then he often decides how best to do that. Executive orders (EOs) are the president’s method of managing the massive federal bureaucracy.

• Rules and policies driven by EOs often ping-pong back and forth as presidents rotate in and out of office.

So what’s Trump signed so far? Let’s take a look at some highlights.

Birthright citizenship: This one’s a doozy. President Trump ordered the federal government to stop issuing citizenship documents to babies whose parents are either illegal or "lawful but temporary" immigrants. This challenges the so-called birthright citizenship rule of the Civil War-era 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to babies born in the U.S. who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

• The ruling view of this says that unless your parents are literally foreign diplomats stationed here on official business, you’re a U.S. citizen if you’re born on U.S. soil — vacationers, illegal migrants, and exchange students all included.

• Trump believes that clause has long been misinterpreted and that the children of foreigners are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Supporters of this cite, among other things, a quote from an 1860s U.S. senator.

Opponents view the clause in question as pretty straightforward and note that an 1898 Supreme Court ruling backs this up. They further point out that almost every country in North and South America uses this rule, so a reading like this is probably what the 14th Amendment’s authors intended.

• Trump’s order was immediately put on ice by a federal judge. Expect this legal fight to continue.

TikTok: Well, you’ve got until at least early April. The law allows the president to delay the TikTok ban by up to 90 days if a viable sale is underway. Trump went with 75 for now. Reports indicate that Austin-based software giant Oracle is in talks to take control of TikTok as part of a deal that would allow ByteDance to keep a minority stake.

• Some on the pro-ban side are crying foul. They say the law requires ByteDance to fully divest.

• Another plan would see TikTok merge with Perplexity AI and allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of the new company.

Others: The list goes on. Trump has signed a lot of these things and shows no signs of slowing down. Here are a few notables:

• He created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by modifying an existing tech office within the Executive Office of the President.

• He ordered the declassification of files related to the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK.

• He wants to revamp how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) operates.

• He changed the name of Alaska's Denali back to Mt. McKinley, undoing an Obama-era move.

• He temporarily froze all foreign aid (except military assistance to Israel and Egypt).

• He began the process of federally recognizing the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

• He initiated a U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), citing the WHO's "mishandling" of the pandemic.

GOVERNMENT

🔎 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) now believes that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a lab leak in Wuhan, China. The CIA has admitted "low confidence" in this conclusion. But the agency's new director, John Ratcliffe, plans to continue looking into the virus's origins. The FBI and Energy Department have also settled on a lab leak as the pandemic's likeliest source.

👮 President Trump used his authority to declare an "invasion" on the southern border. As such, border czar Tom Homan, the president’s point man, is ramping up long-promised "mass deportation" operations. Law enforcement agencies from all over the government are involved — including ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, CBP, and the Marshals. The enforcement blitz was notably strong in Chicago. But, per news reports and a user-reported map of ICE activity (with dubious credibility), operations are underway nationwide.

✈️ The White House got into a diplomatic tiff on Sunday after Colombia refused to accept flights full of deported Colombian migrants. Trump responded by throwing the book at them. He ordered travel restrictions on Colombians, 25% tariffs on imports (☕️), and financial sanctions against government officials. He later backed off on the threats after the deportation flights were allowed to resume. Colombia's president says he didn't object to the flights themselves. Rather, he disliked the treatment of said migrants as handcuffed criminals.

TRIVIA

Vice President JD Vance took to social media last week to thank the American people for his new digs. As he said, the vice president's official residence "is a beautiful home for our three little kids." But do you know what that house is called? Today’s question: What is the name of the vice president’s official residence?

Hint: The house’s name is its address.

CABINET

🗄️ Trump’s Cabinet takes shape as Senate gets to work

Donald Trump’s second Cabinet is chugging along as the Senate chips away at confirming his picks. As you might expect, the first four officials to get the thumbs up are serving in critical national security posts. The others might not be so lucky. Getting Trump’s full slate of picks confirmed could take months.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio won the Senate’s unanimous approval. America's new top diplomat has already duked it out with his Chinese counterpart and is planning a trip through Central America.

• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth didn’t have it so easy. He was confirmed 51-50 (with three Republicans opposed) thanks to Vice President JD Vance’s first tie-breaking vote.

• Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem won over seven Democrats to become the 8th person (the department wasn't created until 2002) to oversee immigration, the TSA, FEMA, the Secret Service, and more.

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe took charge of America’s premier spy agency after a 74-25 Senate vote, with support from 21 Democrats. Ratcliffe, a former director of national intelligence, has promised to keep politics out of the intel game.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is also in the Cabinet. However, her role at the top of the White House staff pyramid doesn't require the Senate’s approval. Nor does Mike Waltz’s as national security advisor (an important but non-Cabinet role).

Keeping 'em rolling: The Senate is set to vote on a few other nominees this week. Soon-to-be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will get his final vote today, while attorney general hopeful Pam Bondi will get a committee vote on Wednesday. Health nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will sit for a verbal beatdown hearing the same day.

• In the meantime, many career staffers (who don’t come and go as presidents change) are leading their departments in temporary “acting” capacities.

BRIEFS

● Trump says it's time to "clean out” Gaza and have its 2 million residents move to nearby Egypt and Jordan. He's already brought it up to Jordan's king and Egypt's president, both of whom have previously rejected the idea.

● Vice President JD Vance filled the shoes of many Republican VPs before him on Friday by speaking at the annual March for Life event in D.C. He insisted the “benchmark of national success” isn’t GDP but whether people “can raise thriving and healthy families.”

● President Donald Trump swung by a Las Vegas casino on his way back from visiting wildfire damage in California. He strode through the casino floor to chants of "USA! USA!" and rallied a crowd of 1,000 "to say thank you” and re-up his “no tax on tips” plan.

● Egg prices are expected to balloon this year, rising 20% compared to 2.2% for food overall. Bird flu has hit the supply hard, killing more than 17 million hens in November and December. Per the American Egg Board (a real thing), “We’re in this for a while.”

QUOTE

ANSWER

For nearly 50 years, vice presidents have called Number One Observatory Circle home. The home was built in 1893 to house a top Naval officer. It fulfilled that purpose until the government finally decided that the vice president should prooobably stop living in whatever house, apartment, or hotel room he could personally afford in Washington. The first VP to live there was Walter Mondale in 1977.

The 9,000-square-foot house is located about 2.5 miles northwest of the White House. As the name implies, it sits smack in the middle of the headquarters of the U.S. Naval Observatory (the government’s official timekeeper).