| | | |  | | By Nahal Toosi, Irie Sentner, Ben Johansen and Sophia Cai | | Presented by |  | | | Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump’s unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben | Email Adam JUST IN: Top Republicans in Congress are seriously exploring how to include cuts made by ELON MUSK’s Department of Government Efficiency in an upcoming government funding bill, our MEREDITH LEE HILL and RACHAEL BADE report. They’ve been discussing the idea — which is not finalized — with President DONALD TRUMP’s team, with a topline focus on codifying some of the “most egregious” examples of alleged waste DOGE says it has identified and incorporating them into a government funding patch through the end of the fiscal year. That would satisfy conservative hard-liners who are already upset Congress is hurtling toward another short-term spending patch. But it would also alienate Democrats whose votes are needed to ensure passage, given the narrow Republican majorities in both chambers. USAID WAS JUST THE BEGINNING: For Trump and Musk acolytes who wish to remake the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development is just the beginning. The real prize is the State Department — a bigger, tougher target. POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent, Nahal Toosi, has just published a story about the Trump/Musk team’s vision for Foggy Bottom. The bottom line: The department is going to be smaller; more focused on “hard power” issues such as security and less on “soft power” topics such as human rights; and there’ll be less room for U.S. diplomats who disagree with Trump policies. The most notable cuts are likely to send a loud signal to the rest of the world about which countries Trump’s America cares about most. The State Department has asked the Pentagon and other parts of the executive branch to rank embassies on a zero to 10 scale, Nahal reports. That’s a prelude to likely cutting a significant number of those missions, meaning some future embassies may cover multiple countries. She also obtained a list of potential consulates that could close, as well as a sense of what bureaus could be eliminated. (Good luck getting your passport renewed in certain parts of France, one of several casualties in Europe!) That’s on top of across-the-board staff cuts likely to top 20 percent. The plans are tentative, and there will be legal challenges, of course. But, for now, Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO appears to be on board for an upheaval, as he has been for USAID. Besides, the USAID legal challenges — which last night drew in the Supreme Court — clearly haven’t slowed down Trump and Musk’s dismantling of that agency. Nahal tells us: There are many people, including State Department employees, who will tell you it’s high time for a restructuring. The department has about 75,000 employees globally (most of them foreign nationals) and its mandate is very wide — from dealing with cybersecurity to traditional treaty negotiations. Over the years, there’ve been several proposals for overhauling the storied institution. But Musk and Trump’s treatment of USAID — and the rest of the executive branch, for that matter — has infuriated State Department officials. They now fear arbitrary, large-scale cuts with little regard to what actually promotes U.S. interests. Meanwhile, as the U.S. considers scaling down its global diplomatic presence, China has in recent years surpassed the U.S. in its number of such posts worldwide. The Trump and Musk teams have faced little resistance from Republicans in Congress when it comes to USAID, but the State Department could be a different story. Plenty of Republicans may not care for foreign aid, but they could balk at not having embassies in a bunch of countries. During Trump’s first administration, he tried to slash the State Department’s budget by a third. Republicans refused to go along. MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration’s reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe!
| | | | A message from Comcast: Did you know that about 90% of our smartphone data travels over WiFi, not cellular? WiFi carries 10 times the amount of data of all cellular networks combined, including 5G. Comcast runs the nation's largest and fastest WiFi network, connecting over a billion devices each year. WiFi operates over unlicensed spectrum, fostering innovation and competition by giving millions of consumers and businesses access to essential, affordable wireless connectivity. Learn more. | | | | | During whose presidency was the first woman Cabinet secretary appointed? (Answer at bottom.)
| | A SKY FULL OF STARLINK: The Federal Aviation Administration is close to canceling a $2.4 billion contract to overhaul a communications system that serves as the backbone of the country’s air traffic control system and awarding the work to Musk’s Starlink, WaPo’s IAN DUNCAN, HANNAH NATANSON, LORI ARATANI and FAIZ SIDDIQUI report. The existing contract was awarded to Verizon in 2023, with the aim of upgrading a platform that different air traffic control facilities and FAA offices use to communicate with one another. OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: Members of Musk’s crew, backed by the White House, have unprecedented power over Washington. But across the country, Democrat-controlled legislatures are freezing out lobbyists for Tesla, his most valuable company, our MARIE J. FRENCH reports. Tesla is lobbying several states to be able to sell its vehicles directly to consumers — and in the past, Democrats backed the pitch, seeing it as a no-cost measure to support higher EV sales and slash transportation emissions. But now that Musk has positioned himself as Trump’s most visible adviser, that goodwill is gone. “You could not pay me to carry that bill now,” said New York state Sen. PAT FAHY, a Democrat from the Albany area who for several years sponsored legislation to allow direct sales. “I’m thoroughly disgusted with Elon Musk and everything he stands for.”
| | A STORY FROM VOA: As former broadcaster and failed political candidate KARI LAKE prepares to take the reins at Voice of America, 20 probationary employees at the federally funded network are losing their jobs, according to one of those now-former VOA employees granted anonymity to speak openly. The employee, who was working with one of the network’s international services in Washington, had his visa inactivated and will now have to move out of the country within 30 days. On Feb. 13, the employee said his editor told him he was not going to be terminated. But five days later, he was called into his director’s office — where he was told of his termination. The person was told to leave the building immediately, with little time to collect his belongings. “I was treated like a threat,” he said, adding that his manager had only given him positive performance feedback. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT: Workers at USAID cleared out their desks today and left the gutted office, some in tears, after being given 15-minute time slots to retrieve their belongings, the AP’s GARY FIELDS and ELLEN KNICKMEYER report. The emotional exodus was a final, debilitating blow to USAID, which the Trump administration has moved to swiftly dismantle, slashing 90 percent of its contracts and laying off at least 1,600 employees. A GENERATION LOST: The Trump administration created a lost generation of would-be federal scientists, public land managers and park rangers when it summarily fired thousands of probationary government employees, E&E News’ MICHAEL DOYLE, SCOTT STREATER, HEATHER RICHARDS and JENNIFER YACHNIN report. In the Interior Department and its bureaus, as well as in other natural resource-related agencies, the wholesale job cuts eliminated all manners of expertise: A social scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a biologist at the Fish and Wildlife Service, a sled dog handler at a remote Alaskan park with the National Park Service and more. Read more on those stories, and the people impacted, in our colleagues' piece. NOAA GETS HIT: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees began receiving termination notices this afternoon, our ZACK COLMAN reports for Pro subscribers. According to two agency staffers, the firings affect an unknown number of probationary employees in their first year at the climate and weather agency. Those employees are considered “at-will” and have fewer protections against layoffs. NOAA conducts climate and weather modeling and forecasts for the nation, as its National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center provide information that helps communities plan for natural disasters and climate change-driven events.
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| | | | | SUPER SUPER SECRETIVE CLUB: The country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general log onto Microsoft Teams at 4 p.m. EST every day for a 30-minute confidential video chat to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration, our RACHEL BLUTH and MELANIE MASON report. The AGs, seeing themselves as the last backstop between the people and the president, share updates on the seven cases they have moving through federal courts and argue about whether to treat Musk as a lawful arm of the government or an uncredentialed interloper to it. They plot where to respond next, leveraging time zone differences to expand the workday. “Right now in the United States, the Democratic AGs are the only group of people who are united and working to prevent some of these unconstitutional actions from continuing,” Hawaii attorney general ANNE LOPEZ boasted in an interview.
| | COME FORWARD: A federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials involved in DOGE to testify under oath in one of the lawsuits seeking to block DOGE’s access to sensitive government databases, our KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN report. U.S. District Judge JOHN BATES agreed today that “very limited” efforts to question officials connected to DOGE would help clarify what exactly the group is doing and whether it poses the risks to sensitive data that government employees fear. GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION: A federal judge has turned down a bid to block the Trump administration from firing intelligence officers who worked in DEI programs, but prodded the agencies involved to try to find new jobs in the intelligence community for those ousted, Josh reports. Speaking at a hearing today, Judge ANTHONY TRENGA said the laws and court precedents relating to intelligence agency employees give them little recourse in the courts if top officials decide that firing them is in the “national interest,” even if they’ve worked for the government for a decade or more. “In effect, they are at-will employees,” said Trenga, an appointee of President GEORGE W. BUSH.
| | YOU DON’T SAY? The Trump administration touted a nearly $1 billion plan Wednesday to combat the spread of avian flu and mitigate skyrocketing egg prices as the outbreak rips through U.S. poultry flocks. But as our MARCIA BROWN reports, the measures come as the Agriculture Department is struggling to rehire key employees working on the virus outbreak who were fired as part of the administration’s mass firings. Roughly a quarter of employees in a critical office testing for the disease were cut, as well as scientists and inspectors. The dismissals have already helped trigger a partial shutdown for one of the agency’s research facilities, according to two USDA employees, interrupting some workers’ efforts to return to fight the disease. MORE AG MOVES: The Agriculture Department is trying to rehire some fired Farm Service Agency loan employees after terminating hundreds of positions earlier this month, Marcia also reports for Pro subscribers. But several employees are turning down the return offers, opting instead for more lucrative jobs in the private sector, two people familiar with the situation confirmed. The job cuts threaten to worsen services for farmers and ranchers at a time when they are already facing hefty inflation and frozen federal funding.
| | ‘We’re headed for disaster’: America’s foreign aid cuts expected to devastate global health (POLITICO’s Carmen Paun and Daniel Lippman) Inside the Collapse at the NIH (The Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu) She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this (WaPo’s Emily Davies) Long Shunned, Pro-Russia Politicians in Ukraine See an Opening (NYT’s Maria Varenikova)
| | During the FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT administration, FRANCES PERKINS was appointed as Labor secretary, making her the first woman to serve in a president’s Cabinet. Perkins tackled many issues, such as those left over from the Great Depression, according to the White House Historical Association. To learn more about Perkins’ life, tune into White House History Live: Dear Miss Perkins on March 6 at 6 p.m. EST. A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Noah Bierman, Jennifer Haberkorn, Isabel Dobrin and Kaitlyn Locke.
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