| | | |  | | By Holly Otterbein, Adam Wren, Sophia Cai, Ben Johansen and Irie Sentner | Welcome to POLITICO's all new 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 here | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben A note from Global Editor-in-Chief John Harris: Donald Trump returned to power exactly one month ago today, and it is hardly possible to overstate the magnitude of the changes he has brought and is seeking to bring to the federal government and to the workings of power in Washington. The modern federal government — and much of the economy that gravitates around government in the nation’s capital — is overwhelmingly the product of a few big historical movements: The New Deal in the 1930s, World War II and the 45 years of Cold War that followed, and the burst of government social and regulatory activism in the 1960s and 1970s. The policies and agencies of government that flowed from those movements shaped national life and the lives of many millions of people for decades. It seems certain that the disruption the Trump administration is promoting now — seeking to transform or eliminate vast sections of the executive branch, and to alter the balance of power emphatically toward the presidency — has equally large implications, for the present and for many years into the future. Today, we're relaunching one of our signature products to capture this moment authoritatively for this audience: West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government. Read more from John about our revamped newsletter. On that note, ABC News reports this afternoon that thousands of layoffs have begun at the IRS, right as ELON MUSK takes the stage at CPAC. Check POLITICO.com shortly for the latest. OK, let's get into it...
| | | Musk is racing to perfect an AI model, just as teams of his young associates are gaining access to some of the nation’s most sensitive and closely guarded databases through the Department of Government Efficiency. That has sparked worries among Democrats and even some Republicans that Musk could use those records to supercharge his AI. But the world’s richest man is not — at least that’s what KAROLINE LEAVITT, the White House press secretary, told West Wing Playbook this week. The notion that Musk would train Grok 3, the latest iteration of his AI, with data uncovered through DOGE, is “unequivocally false,” Leavitt told us. It’s the first definitive answer on this front. (We asked the AI model itself this question. The answer was, uhh, less clear. More on that below.) But it points to larger concerns about DOGE, which operates with secrecy and rules that are largely self-enforced and either nonexistent or unclear to the public — an unusual posture for a government body. On this issue and many others swirling around Musk, Americans have to take the White House at its word that the information he’s accessing through DOGE won’t be used in his business ventures. That’s because there are few guardrails on this unprecedented effort to remake the federal government and no Senate-confirmed person running it. A senior White House official did not explain how they could prevent Musk from using government data to improve his AI in the future beyond saying that Musk keeps President DONALD TRUMP’s chief-of-staff, SUSIE WILES, in the loop. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t seem to be alleviating concerns. RYAN GIRDUSKY, a pro-Trump conservative strategist, has been one of the leading voices on the right raising the alarm. He loves that Musk is aiming to root out waste — but there’s a but. “I would like Republicans to find guardrails for any private entity, though, whether it be Elon Musk or George Soros, who gets ahold of federal data,” he said. “And there seems to be no effective, or very few effective, guardrails in obtaining and holding and using federal data.” The AI issue is one of many potential security vulnerabilities in DOGE. Critics have claimed DOGE posted classified information, though the White House said it was public. To get a second opinion, we asked Musk’s AI, Grok, the latest version of which he has been hyping on his social media site, reposting accounts calling it “the new king” and “DOMINATING.” Asked whether it was trained on data from the federal government obtained by DOGE, Grok 3 responded that “it’s plausible that data DOGE accessed could have flowed to xAI projects like Grok 3.” Its “best guess” is that “Grok 3 probably wasn’t primarily trained on DOGE-obtained federal data.” (It’s worth noting AI is capable of deception.) For the sake of comparison, we asked Grok 2, which was released last August. It was much more clear, replying with a simple "no," noting that it was not “trained on any data from the federal government, whether obtained by DOGE or any other means." As Musk might say: “Hmm.” MESSAGE US — Are you ELON MUSK? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe!
| | Which president described coffee as “the favorite drink of the civilised world”? (Answer at bottom.)
| | TWO-HEADED MONSTER: It’s becoming increasingly clear that DOGE’s demolition work at many federal agencies is just one element of a two-pronged strategy to consolidate Trump's command of the administrative state. It’s more than “shock and awe.” Call it cut and control. Step one: Cut the bureaucracy to the bone through mass firings and other acts designed to make employees quit on their own. Musk, of course, is spearheading this aspect of the plan. Step two: Secure unprecedented dominance over what remains. The leader on this front is Trump’s budget chief, RUSS VOUGHT. A central goal of the one-two punch is to weaken the power of the so-called independent agencies that supervise everything from labor laws to nuclear waste to the financial markets. While these agencies exist in the executive branch, Congress imposed safeguards to insulate their expertise from political influence. “The president is not the only constitutional actor over the government. Congress has a very important role as well,” University of Chicago law professor JENNIFER NOU tells POLITICO’s legal editor, JAMES ROMOSER. “If the Constitution says that this is the right body to make these kinds of decisions about these agencies, then Congress should be able to limit an executive’s ability to interfere with what Congress perceives to be the aim of that agency.” But that conception of the separation of powers runs headlong into the unitary executive theory — the view among conservatives, including Vought, that the Constitution grants the president sole control over the executive branch. As ZACK BEAUCHAMP reported in Vox on Wednesday, Vought has spent years devising a blueprint to smash what he sees as a deep state of unaccountable technocrats. And Trump is all too happy to implement that blueprint, as he did most brazenly in his Tuesday executive order that purports to end the independence of independent agencies. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is poised to give its first clue on how it will view Trump’s bid to unilaterally command the administrative state. The final legal brief was filed Wednesday in an emergency appeal testing the president’s authority to fire the heads of independent agencies for any reason, or no reason at all. The justices could rule at any time.
| | LET THE BACK-CHANNELING COMMENCE: A growing number of congressional Republicans are desperately trying to back-channel with White House officials as DOGE ramps up its attack on federal workers, our MEREDITH LEE HILL reports. Last weekend, GOP lawmakers unleashed a flurry of calls and texts after federal agencies underwent the DOGE purge. Trump’s legislative affairs team, headed up by former JD VANCE aide JAMES BRAID, took the brunt of the frantic fallout. Publicly, many Republicans are celebrating the cuts. Privately, many are feeling helpless to counter the meat-axe approach, with lawmakers especially concerned about the dismissal of military veterans working in federal agencies as well as USDA employees working on the growing bird flu outbreak. In particular, Republicans have quietly urged the White House to reinstate many of the 1,000 employees fired at the Department of Veterans Affairs. NOT SITTING WELL: The expressed interest from Trump and Musk to send Americans a “dividend” based on expected DOGE savings is not going over well with some Trump loyalists, who would rather see the money put toward the nation’s deficit. “I’m not real big on sending money back to the people in the form of checks,” Rep. RICH McCORMICK (R-Ga.) said on Fox News Thursday morning. “I’d much rather see the debt paid down.”
| | OVER AT TREASURY: The Treasury Department is adding three people to the agency’s DOGE team to work on the federal payments system and Internal Revenue Service, our MICHAEL STRATFORD reports for Pro subscribers. In a court filing on Thursday, Treasury announced that MARKO ELEZ — who resigned over now-deleted racist social media posts — is no longer an employee at the agency, and has been replaced by RYAN WUNDERLY. JOHN YORK, a senior counselor to Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT, wrote in a sworn statement that Wunderly would join the agency as a special adviser for information technology and modernization. York wrote that Wunderly would have “substantially the same” job duties as Elez. Wunderly will report to TOM KRAUSE, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, who is leading Treasury's DOGE team. ABOUT THOSE VACCINES: Health and Human Services Secretary ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. is preparing to remove members of the outside committees that advise the government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, our ADAM CANCRYN, LAUREN GARDNER and DAVID LIM report. Kennedy plans to replace members who he perceives as having conflicts of interest, as part of an effort to cut what he’s criticized as undue industry influence over the nation’s health agencies.
| | QUITE THE LANGUAGE THERE: Musk’s latest target? ANDREAS MOGENSEN, the commander of the International Space Station. The Danish astronaut this morning reposted Musk’s claims that two NASA astronauts stuck in space due to problems with the vehicle’s thrusters were left because of “political reasons.” Both astronauts have rejected claims that they were abandoned by former President JOE BIDEN. “What a lie,” Mogensen said. “And from someone who complains about the lack of honesty from the mainstream media.” Musk responded, calling Mogensen a slur for people with a mental disability, and added: “SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago.” Mogensen followed up, saying the two astronauts are returning, as planned, on the Crew-9 NASA mission. “They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September,” he said.
| | TAKING AN AXE TO REGULATIONS: Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Wednesday night that would dramatically curb the power of federal agencies. The mandate orders a thorough review of all government regulations to decide which should be on the chopping block, our MEGAN MESSERLY reports. The order directs federal agencies and their DOGE teams to comb their regulations for any that violate the administration’s priorities, among other factors. OMB will then develop plans to rescind or change the regulations. CRACKING DOWN: Trump signed another executive order late Wednesday, this one designed to target sanctuary cities and ensure undocumented immigrants aren’t receiving federal benefits, our MYAH WARD reports. The order directs federal departments and agencies to identify programs providing federal benefits to undocumented immigrants, while acknowledging that they are already mostly barred from public programs under a 1996 law. MUSK MAKES IT TO THE BRIEFING ROOM (SORTA): During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Leavitt welcomed JOHN STOLL, the head of news at X, to the “new media” seat. Stoll — representing the company run by the tech billionaire in the midst of blitzing the federal government — praised Leavitt for welcoming untraditional media into the briefing room, before asking national security adviser MIKE WALTZ whether Trump is being manipulated by Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN on the Russia-Ukraine war.
| | Dems said they want to work with Musk. DOGE is making that hard. (POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky, Ally Mutnick and Elena Schneider) ‘You screwed people’: Inside the National Science Foundation’s firing of 168 workers (POLITICO’s Corbin Hiar) Trump Is Making It Harder for the Supreme Court to Side With Him (POLITICO’s Ankush Khardori) This Is What Happens When the DOGE Guys Take Over (The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker, Matteo Wong and Shane Harris)
| | In 1824, former President THOMAS JEFFERSON deemed coffee the “favorite beverage of the civilised world,” according to the founding father’s Monticello website. Seconded. 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 and Isabel Dorbin. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | |
