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Trump softens tone as some federal agents expected to leave Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump softened his tone Monday on the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, touting productive conversations with the governor and Minneapolis mayor as he sent the border czar to take charge of much of the enforcement effort. Some federal agents were expected to leave as soon as today.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he spoke by phone with Trump, who praised the discussion and declared that “lots of progress is being made.” Frey said he asked Trump in a phone call to end the immigration enforcement surge and that Trump agreed the present situation cannot continue.

The mayor said some agents would soon leave and that he would keep pushing for others involved in Operation Metro Surge to go.

Among those who are expected to depart was senior Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

Bovino has been at the center of the administration’s aggressive enforcement surge in cities nationwide. His departure marks a significant public shift in federal law enforcement posture amid mounting outrage over the fatal shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents.

Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates, and congressional Democrats.

Criticism has increased around Bovino in the last few days after his public defense of the Pretti shooting and disputed claims about the confrontation that led to his death.

The border czar, Tom Homan, will take charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota.

Judge hears arguments on crackdown

A federal judge heard arguments Monday over Minnesota’s challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, posing skeptical questions to both sides about the effort that has led to two fatal shootings by federal officers.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez is considering whether to grant requests by the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to temporarily halt the immigration operation. She said the case was a priority, though she issued no immediate ruling.

Menendez questioned the government’s motivation behind the crackdown and expressed skepticism about a letter recently sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The letter asked the state to give the federal government access to voter rolls, to turn over state Medicaid and food assistance records, and to repeal sanctuary policies.

“I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked. She noted that the federal requests are the subject of litigation.

Lawyers for the state and the Twin Cities argued that the situation on the street is so dire as to require the court to halt the federal government’s enforcement actions.

“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said.

Brantley Mayers, counsel to the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general, said the government’s goal is to enforce federal law. Mayers said one lawful action should not be used to discredit another lawful action.

“I don’t see how the fact that we’re also doing additional things that we are allowed to do, that the Constitution has vested us with doing, would in any way negate another piece of the same operation, the same surge,” Mayers said.

Menendez questioned where the line was between violating the Constitution and the executive’s power to enforce the law. She also asked whether she was being asked to decide between state and federal policies.

“That begins to feel very much like I am deciding which policy approach is best,” she said.

At one point, while discussing the prospect of federal officers entering residences without a warrant, the judge expressed reluctance to decide issues not yet raised in a lawsuit before her.

“I can’t be the global keeper of all things here. Like, presumably that will be litigated,” she said to the state’s attorney.

The state of Minnesota and the cities sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. The shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday added urgency to the case.

Border czar to Minnesota

In other developments, Trump said he had a “very good” call with Gov. Tim Walz about the latest shooting and that they are now on a “similar wavelength.” It was an abrupt shift from Trump, who frequently derides Walz for his actions on immigration issues in Minnesota.

Trump also said he would send border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Bovino, who has become the public face of the crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.

Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their request in an effort to restore the conditions that existed before the administration launched Operation Metro Surge on Dec. 1.

The lawsuit asks the judge to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.

Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said Minnesota “wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.

Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”

During a briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that a trio of “active investigations” and internal probes of the shooting were underway by federal agencies.

Leavitt said that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were investigating the shooting and that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was “conducting their own internal review.”

Leavitt said at the briefing that she has not heard Trump commit to release body camera footage from federal immigration officers involved in the shooting and killing of Alex Pretti.

Leavitt later said that the administration is talking with members of Congress about requirements to have federal immigration officers wear body cameras.

Leavitt said the shooting and killing of Pretti by a federal immigration officer “occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota.”

Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other elected Democrats “were spreading lies about federal law enforcement officers,” Leavitt said at the White House briefing.

Other state implications

The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.

“If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote.

Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents.

An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti’s killing.

The Justice Department argued in a reply filed Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.

In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting. Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect.

A hearing in that case was scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul.

“The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.”

January 26, 2026
Eleanor Holmes Norton ends House reelection campaign

Eleanor Holmes Norton’s campaign filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, signaling that the 88-year-old will not seek an 19th term as D.C.’s nonvoting delegate in the House.

The lawmaker has faced months of intense public scrutiny about her ability to adequately represent the nation’s capital during an unprecedented period of federal intervention.

The termination filing, first reported by NOTUS, has the practical effect of ending a candidate’s campaign operation, although it does not prevent them from filing to run for office in the future. Her campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The move would bring to a close a three-decade career in which she became known as D.C.’s “warrior on the Hill” and became, to an entire generation of Washingtonians who have known no other House representative, nearly synonymous with the city’s House seat in Congress and its crusade for D.C. statehood.

But her evident decline in recent months and years — appearing less often in public, speaking more haltingly and largely only from scripts, seeming to struggle with candid interactions or to walk without assistance — ignited concerns that she was not the advocate the city needed during a critical time. Her current term ends in January 2027, when she will be 89.

Two D.C. Council members — Robert C. White Jr. and Brooke Pinto — have already launched primary challenges against her, among a host of others. Her closest confidante, Donna Brazile, called on her longtime friend to step aside last year. And an October police case, in which she reportedly fell victim to fraud at her home, as NBC4 reported, only accelerated concerns about her vulnerabilities and mental sharpness as she has aged. A D.C. police report described her as having “early stages of dementia.”

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have unleashed a cascade of efforts to erode D.C.’s already limited right to self-governance while President Donald Trump castigates the city as dangerous and filthy. During his first year back in office, he seized temporary control of local police, surged immigration enforcement, and deployed armed National Guard troops on city streets.

D.C. public officials and politicos began publicly voicing concerns about Norton’s ability to represent the District last year given the tenuous relations between the federal government and the nation’s capital.

Yet Norton (D) has spent months insisting she would seek reelection, raising concern within a party that has had to reckon with the consequences of geriatric leaders clinging to power for too long. While D.C. does not have a vote in Congress, its representative in the House can introduce bills, serve on committees, and spearhead advocacy efforts.

Her exit from the campaign would set the stage for the first competitive race for the seat since Norton first ran for it in 1990.

One of Norton’s top staffers, Trent Holbrook, recently left his job as her senior legislative counsel to run for her seat. White (D., At large) and Pinto (D., Ward 2), though, remain the candidates to beat. Other candidates include Kinney Zalesne, a former Democratic fundraiser who has raised more than $400,000; Deirdre Brown, a Democratic organizer in Ward 3; and Vincent Morris, who works in communications.

January 25, 2026
Republicans took control of education. Can Democrats take it back?

WATER VALLEY, Miss. — A crowd turned out to hear a politician talk big about improving schools, but it wasn’t a Republican railing about transgender athletes or school vouchers or any of the issues the GOP has used to put Democrats into a defensive crouch.

On this night, the politician taking questions was a Democrat — former Chicago mayor and President Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — talking about reading. For the past several years, Republicans have dominated the education debate with a focus on culture war politics. Emanuel, who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, makes the case for returning to the education part of education: achievement and learning rather than book bans and gender identity.

That would benefit students and, he says, Democrats, who have not led a national conversation about student achievement since Obama was president. Instead, Republicans have been able to make up ground, capitalizing on anger about school closures during the pandemic and heated fights over transgender rights, race and other subjects.

Emanuel talks about school achievement with a frequency and urgency rarely heard from Democrats in recent years. And he says both parties have wasted time on education culture wars.

“This distracts us from the priorities of education,” he said in an interview. Questions around gender identity, he said, affect “less than 1 percent of the population and yet dominate 99 percent of the conversation. … You want to pick a pronoun? Great. Now can we focus on the other 35 kids that don’t know what a goddamn pronoun is?”

While a dozen or more Democratic presidential hopefuls scramble to carve out their identities in advance of the 2028 election, many of them better known than he is, Emanuel is betting that a renewed focus on education can fuel a Democratic victory — and more immediately, his own prospects.

As Chicago mayor, Emanuel successfully pushed several school reforms, including a longer school day, and saw graduation rates jump. But he had a contentious relationship with the teachers union and his tenure was marred by a seven-day strike. He also angered many Chicagoans by closing 50 schools. He says he has learned from his mistakes and hopes to take some of his successes national.

Emanuel traveled to Mississippi this month to examine and promote the state’s success in teaching reading. On fourth-grade tests, the state moved from 49th in the nation in 2013 to ninth in 2024 by focusing on what’s called the science of reading — instruction built on sound-it-out phonics. The state combined that with increased funding, a heavy dose of teacher training and support, and a requirement that third graders pass a reading test to advance to fourth grade.

Emanuel argues that Washington should use federal dollars to incentivize other states to do the same. And he is proposing renewed federal standards and accountability, ideas that faded a decade ago.

At the town hall meeting in Water Valley, a tiny town in the north of the state, more than 125 people gathered. There were no questions about race, gender or culture wars, giving Emanuel space to drive home his central thesis.

“We’ve got a 30-year low in reading scores,” he said. “Has a single governor called for an emergency meeting of the governors association?”

Left unsaid was that he might run against some of those governors in a 2028 Democratic primary.

Emanuel brought a film crew with him, and within a day of leaving the state, he had posted video from the visit to his social media accounts.

Rahm Emanuel in 2023, when he served as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

An education evolution

Emanuel likes to hark back to an era when education reform was in vogue. A national movement centered on standards and accountability began in the states and culminated with the bipartisan passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. Schools were required to make progress on annual tests or face escalating consequences.

Eight years later, Obama continued pressing for accountability with the Race to the Top competition that awarded states with extra federal money for adopting favored policies such as Common Core standards and using student scores to measure teacher quality.

But by the end of Obama’s tenure, opposition had built to the high-stakes testing that the accountability system was built on. The Race to the Top program ended, and most of the requirements under the 2001 law were reversed. The bipartisan consensus collapsed, and soon the political parties gravitated to their partisan corners.

Democrats backed increased funding for public schools and racial equity initiatives. They adopted policies in support of transgender students. Today, most Democratic governors continue to focus on new funding — for prekindergarten, community schools, teacher pay, free meals, and other priorities.

Republicans promoted tax dollars for private school vouchers. During the pandemic, they blamed Democrats for keeping schools closed too long and for requiring measures like masks once school buildings reopened. Conservative parent groups that formed around pandemic issues soon used that momentum to build support for book bans and influence how educators address race and LGBTQ+ issues. GOP legislatures and conservative school boards passed laws and policies restricting how those topics could be dealt with in school.

Republicans began eating into Democrats’ commanding lead on education issues. In 2006, a Fox News poll found Democrats with a 17-percentage-point lead when asked whom they trust on education issues, though their advantage was not that big in other surveys. By 2022, Republicans had narrowed the gap significantly – som— polls found the parties virtually tied. (Several newer polls have found that Democrats regained their advantage following President Donald Trump’s election.)

In the wake of the pandemic, scores on national math and reading exams slid to a 30-year low.

The Trump administration repeatedly cites this data in making the case for closing the Education Department and for backing school choice policies. Now, some Democrats are arguing that their party needs its own response to the slide.

“It is deeply frustrating to me as a Democrat that we completely ceded this issue,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for social policy, education, and politics at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. “We have absolutely no ideas on the table.”

In the 2024 presidential election, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who took his place on the ticket, put forward only vague education goals. One day before the election, the Center for American Progress, a leading Democratic think tank, published a set of education recommendations. Even then, there was not much about student achievement.

Jared Bass, senior vice president for education at CAP, said the group is now working on a new set of proposals that will squarely address academics.

“There’s a real sense of humility within the party. We used to be the party that was trusted on education,” he said. “We need to get it right.”

Even with a hunger for action among Democrats, Emanuel’s ideas are likely to face pushback inside his party and beyond. Many progressives argue that racial inequity and racism are to blame for the low achievement rates of many students of color, and they may resist leaders who want to pivot away from those topics. Teachers unions, who are active in the Democratic Party, strongly oppose the accountability systems that rely on standardized testing that Emanuel hopes to bring back.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a longtime power in the Democratic Party, said she would oppose a return to accountability systems that too often, in her view, devolved into blaming teachers. Still, she agrees that Democrats need a new vision.

“Democrats are all too reactive and as a result they have lost ground on education,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”

A new Race to the Top

Emanuel is betting that while other Democratic presidential candidates concentrate on standing up to Trump, voters will want a candidate more focused on their daily concerns.

On his trip to Mississippi, Emanuel toured an elementary school in Hattiesburg, crouching beside children’s desks to peek at their work and hearing from the principal about what has succeeded. And he met with Jim Barksdale, whose $100 million donation beginning 25 years ago set Mississippi on its path to a new reading program.

“When do we get to geek out?” he asked Barksdale as they took seats in his living room with a trio of people involved in education in Mississippi. He turned to the group and asked, simply, “How did you do it?”

After a long conversation about the reading program, Barksdale told Emanuel that a lot of people say they want to learn from Mississippi’s success. “They say, ‘I’m all for it. How’d you do this?’” he said. “And then they don’t do it because it costs money.”

“It also costs guts,” Emanuel replied.

Emanuel, long known as a partisan brawler, says he is ready to fight for this.

In an interview, Emanuel sketched the outlines of the federal program he would like to see. He suggested a new version of Obama’s Race to the Top that would incentivize states to adopt science of reading curriculums — what Mississippi uses — and other policy changes.

The program, he said, also could encourage high schools to offer more college courses, and he favors a policy he advanced in Chicago requiring all seniors to have a plan for college, trade school or the military to graduate from high school. He also wants to incentivize states to replicate Chicago’s promise of free community college for students who graduate from high school with a B average.

States would have to adopt these types of changes to get the new federal money, he said. He contrasted that approach with the unprecedented $130 billion in COVID funding that went to K-12 schools under the Biden administration, which Emanuel slammed as having too few requirements. For instance, the program was sold as a way to reopen schools, but districts were not required to reopen.

He argues that the No Child Left Behind system was too test-driven, but that the country “overcorrected.” The right answer, he said, lies somewhere in between.

As for the culture wars, he is trying to stay far away. He dismisses some of the racial equity efforts that swept through schools, mocking San Francisco’s effort to rename schools, including one named for Abraham Lincoln.

He also opposes allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, saying it’s not fair to other competitors. But he said he does not know whether he would, if elected president, pull federal funding from schools that resist, as Trump has done, and he said he is not interested in discussing the finer points of these policies. The entire debate, he said, has been a “dead-bang loser” — both politically and for the young people involved.

As Democrats begin to rethink their positions on education, they will need to weigh whether Emanuel’s prescriptions are the right ones and also whether he is the right messenger for them. For now, though, Emanuel is one of the few people making this case.

At the town hall meeting, a questioner asked what he had done right and wrong as mayor, and Emanuel replied that he mishandled his relationship with the teachers union at first, specifically by unilaterally canceling a scheduled pay raise.

“It created a lot of animosity,” he said, describing his first term as “hand-to-hand combat.” He said he should have tried to work with the union president to find a solution together.

“You can’t drive reform if people don’t feel part of it,” he said. “That’s like 101, and I screwed it up — Mr. Smarty Pants over here. And I learned a lot.”

January 25, 2026
U.S. carries out first known strike on alleged drug boat since Maduro’s capture

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first known attack since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor. It said it notified the Coast Guard to launch search and rescue operations for that person.

A video accompanying the post announcing the latest strike shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames. The U.S. military has focused lately on seizing sanctioned oil tankers with connections to Venezuela since the Trump administration launched an audacious raid to capture Maduro and bring him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

With the latest military action, there have been 36 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since early September that killed at least 117 people, according to announcements from the U.S. military and Trump. The majority of those of strikes have occurred in the Caribbean Sea.

The last reported boat strikes occurred in late December, when the military said it struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days, killing a total of eight people while others jumped overboard. Days later, the Coast Guard suspended its search.

The U.S. conducted a large-scale operation in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on Jan. 3 that led to the capture of Maduro and his wife, who were then flown to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.

Maduro, before his capture, said the U.S. military operations were a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. strikes targeting alleged smugglers are having an enormous impact on slowing drug trafficking routes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

“We’ve stopped — virtually stopped almost 100% of all drugs coming in by water,” Trump said in remarks on Thursday at the World Economic Forum at Davos.

January 23, 2026
Philadelphians have questions about the removal of slavery exhibits. Independence Park employees are being told to give evasive answers
Visitors at Independence National Historical Park strolled through what was left of the President’s House Friday afternoon, some stopping to inspect the blank brick and streaks of glue residue where exhibits about slavery were displayed for 16 years.

That is, until the National Park Service dismantled them a day prior.

At about 12:30 p.m. Friday, a group of teachers spent their 45-minute lunch break taping up colorful signs across the bare walls as a small act of resistance: “Learn all history,” and “History is real,” the posters read.

A group of teachers on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, taped posters along the now barren brick walls of the President’s House.

But if any of Friday’s visitors had questions about why the slavery exhibits at the President’s House were removed, they’d be hard-pressed to receive an exact answer from park employees.

Soon after Thursday’s dismantling of the President’s House — which memorializes the nine people George Washington once enslaved there — employees were reminded by the Park Service to use “talking points” that essentially evade visitors’ questions, according to internal correspondence reviewed by The Inquirer.

The message suggests the following lines to park employees, while also instructing them to answer “truthfully”:
- “[I am not aware of] why this [exhibit/interpretation materials] has been [changed/removed]”
- “[Exhibit/interpretation material] has been [updated/removed] to ensure compliance with the Secretary’s Order.”
“If visitor continues to ask questions that you are unable to answer, politely refer them to AskNPS@nps.gov,” the message further outlined.

This messaging comes amid the confusion and anger surrounding President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to review or potentially remove content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” according to orders from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

“It’s outrageous what they’re doing,” said Kaity Berlin, a social studies teacher who was among the group at the park Friday.

“At the smallest level it’s a waste of resources; at the biggest level, [it’s an] erasure of history,” added Berlin, who declined to say where she worked.

The President’s House received intense scrutiny from Trump and Burgum’s orders, culminating in the total dismantling of all displays at the site Thursday — even those that were not originally flagged by park staff for review last year.

It’s not just the public that has questions. Local lawmakers want answers, too.

On Friday, Democratic U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, Dwight Evans, and Mary Gay Scanlon, who all represent parts of Philadelphia, penned a letter to Burgum and Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron demanding answers to specific questions about the removal by Jan. 30. They also said they believe the dismantling violates an existing agreement between the Park Service and the city.

“Trying to remove that history just because it makes some people uncomfortable is deeply troubling. When a government starts hiding parts of its past, it begins to look more like a regime that rewrites history rather than one that learns from it,” the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers want to know why the exhibits were taken down and who authorized the decision, according to the letter.

The letter also asks for information on what role senior Trump administration officials played, where are displays being stored and if there’s plans for them to be reinstalled, and what other documents or items exist related to the removal of the exhibits.

At the President’s House Friday afternoon, it appeared that many Philadelphians were adamant about preserving this history.

A bouquet of flowers was placed at the feet of the marble wall inscribed with the names of nine people enslaved there by Washington. A single red rose rested inside one of the site’s fireplaces; a sign, “Slavery was here, Philly hates fascists,” rested against a wall.

“Everybody has been fighting for so long to teach all pieces of history, not just one side of it,” Berlin, the teacher, said.
January 23, 2026
Vance touts the Trump administration’s record against abortion at a Washington rally

Vice President JD Vance on Friday encouraged anti-abortion activists to “take heart in how far we’ve come” on the quest to limit the practice, listing the Trump administration’s accomplishments including an expansion of a ban on U.S. foreign aid for groups supporting abortion services.

“There is still much road ahead to travel together,” Vance told attendees at the annual March for Life demonstration, which draws tens of thousands of people annually to Washington. Attendees rallied on the National Mall before heading to the Supreme Court.

Vance, a Republican, has spent years passionately advocating for Americans to have more children. He repeatedly expressed alarm about declining birth rates as he launched his political career in 2021 with a successful bid for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, and as vice president he has continued on that mission.

“I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said in addressing last year’s March for Life.

Earlier this week, Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, announced in a social media post they are expecting a son, their fourth child, in late July.

“Let the record show, you have a vice president who practices what he preaches,” Vance said Friday.

Vance cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, calling it “the most important Supreme Court decision of my lifetime.” He said President Donald Trump’s leadership and appointment of conservative jurists “put a definitive end to the tyranny of judicial rule on the question of human life.”

He also lauded the “historic expansion of the Mexico City policy,” the broadening of a ban on U.S. foreign aid for groups supporting abortion services, to include assistance going to international and domestic organizations and agencies that promote gender identity as well as diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“We believe that every country in the world has the duty to protect life,” Vance said, to a sea of supporters waving signs reading “Choose Life,” “Make More Babies,” and “I am the Pro-Life Generation.”

“It’s not our job as the United States of America to promote radical gender ideology,” he said. “It’s our job to promote families and human flourishing.”

From the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV — the first U.S.-born pope — sent a message of support to participants in the march.

“I would encourage you, especially the young people, to continue striving to ensure that life is respected in all of its stages,” Leo wrote in a letter shown on a video at the march. “May Jesus, who promised to be with us always, accompany you today as you courageously and peacefully march on behalf of unborn children.”

On Thursday, an official said the Trump administration was implementing new rules, halting foreign assistance from going not only to groups that provide abortion as a method of family planning but also to those that advocate “gender ideology” and DEI. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the rules’ publication in the Federal Register on Friday.

First established under President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, the policy was rescinded by subsequent Democratic administrations and was reinstated in Trump’s first term.

With its origins in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that nationally enshrined federal protection for abortion rights, the March for Life developed an entrenched presence among conservatives arguing against abortion. In 2017, Trump addressed the march by video, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to make live remarks. Three years later, he attended the event in person, further cementing its role in conservative politics.

In a video address to this year’s crowd, Trump recounted his administration’s “unprecedented strides to protect innocent life and support the institution of the family like never before,” enumerating his appointment of “judges and justices who believed in interpreting the Constitution as written” and “reflecting on the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Since the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe, the march has become more celebratory, with organizers relishing a state-by-state fight in legislatures around the country and urging a continued fight until abortion is eliminated.

January 23, 2026
The Trump administration tore down 400 years of Black history in Philadelphia. So what happens now?
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What just happened at the President’s House?

Philadelphians are grappling with the aftermath of Thursday’s abrupt removal of all exhibits at the President’s House ahead of 250th anniversary celebrations.

Workers remove the display of a panel for Oney Judge at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

By

Fallon Roth

Published Jan 23, 2026

More than 400 years of history and a decade of advocacy were torn down Thursday afternoon when National Park Service employees removed every single display at the President’s House, a slavery memorial at Independence National Historical Park.

The site, which memorializes the nine people George Washington enslaved at his house during the founding of the United States, has now been stripped down to bare brick walls after months of increased scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s administration.

On Friday morning, small tokens of Philadelphians’ appreciation for the exhibit and anger at the administration were visible. Someone left a sign propped up against the wall that reads “Slavery was real.” A rose and a bouquet of flowers were also left at the site.

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Thursday’s sudden removal of the slavery exhibits garnered shock from passersby and ire from elected officials and stakeholders. And the City of Philadelphia also filed a suit against the Department of Interior and the National Park Service and its leadership.

The removal comes ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4, when Philadelphia and its historic sites, including Independence Park, will be in the national spotlight.

Many questions remain unanswered in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s efforts to sanitize American history after at least one Independence Park employee flagged 13 items across six exhibits at the President’s House for review last year. Those exhibits, including those entitled “Life Under Slavery” and “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” were taken down Thursday, along with every other educational exhibit and illustration at the site.

Here’s what could happen next at the President’s House.

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Why did the National Park Service take down everything at the President’s House Site?

Four individuals, at least two of whom were Park Service employees, took down all of the displays at the President’s House Thursday in broad daylight as a result of a months-long push from the Trump administration to review and potentially remove content from national parks that, according to a March 2025 executive order, “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a similar directive in May 2025.

While the workers who took down the displays did not explicitly say they were acting in accordance with the executive orders, the Department of Interior later confirmed this to The Inquirer in a statement.

“The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values. Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order,” a spokesperson said.

Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

What will happen to the displays that were taken down?

It’s unclear at the moment.

On Thursday, the displays were taken down and then loaded into a white Park Service pick up truck. The exhibits were then taken to an undisclosed location and workers did not know if the signs would be replaced.

Should visitors ask about the removal, Park Service employees have been instructed to follow certain talking points that either avoid answering the question or point to Burgum’s order.

Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

Was anything else at Independence Park removed?

The President’s House endured the most scrutiny from the Independence Park review that took place last year, but other items across the park were flagged.

This includes content referencing slavery at the Benjamin Franklin Museum, the Second Bank, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell but it’s unclear at the moment whether changes are coming to those locations, too.

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Here are the signs the Trump administration removed from Independence Park

Following last year’s review, every sign has been removed from the President’s House site.

As of Friday afternoon, flagged content at the Benjamin Franklin Museum — an interactive touchscreen that allows users to role-play as a historian to understand the evolution of Franklin’s stance on slavery — still included references to slavery. Material at the Liberty Bell calling out “systemic and violent racism and sexism” post-Reconstruction was also seemingly unchanged. Additional exhibits at the Second Bank and Independence Hall were flagged, but both historical sites were closed Friday.

Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

The Parker administration sued the Interior Department and the Park Service — what’s next?

The city filed a federal lawsuit Thursday arguing that the removal of exhibits from the President’s House is unlawful, tantamount to the “destruction” of a historic monument designated pursuant to an act of Congress.

The city is asking an Eastern District of Pennsylvania judge to issue an injunction ordering the Trump administration to restore the President’s House to the way before any panels were removed. The motion also requests that the court prohibit the administration from damaging any of the exhibits and take all steps to preserve them.

Injunctions are meant to avoid immediate harm so they are litigated much faster than lawsuits, which can take years to resolve. A federal judge is likely to set a hearing within the next few weeks and order the government to submit a brief outlining their arguments against the injunction before the sides meet in court.

The Department of Interior declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

During an unrelated news conference on Friday, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker emphasized a cooperative agreement between the city and the federal government dating back to 2006.

“That agreement requires parties to meet and confer if there are to be any changes made to an exhibit,” Parker said. “Our city solicitor, Renee Garcia, is working in conjunction with the amazing members of our law department team to follow up on that cooperative agreement.”

Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

How are Philadelphians planning to keep the story of the President’s House alive?

The President’s House was shaped by more than a decade of advocacy, directed by Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, a Black-led advocacy group. Avenging the Ancestors has now been leading the charge as part of a new President’s House/Slavery Memorial Alliance, which involves multiple local stakeholders, to protect the site from Trump.

The alliance is holding a virtual town hall Friday night at 6:45 p.m. where the advocacy group will outline their next steps. Michael Coard, an attorney that leads Avenging the Ancestors, said that “we have a plan.”

Other community stakeholders are planning to further promote the stories of the President’s House.

Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philly, the city’s main tourism group, said in an interview Friday that the organization would continue “telling history, telling what actually has happened here, all history, including Black history” by promoting historical information on their website, social platforms, and with tour operators in the city.

Val had previously indicated that Visit Philly could help find a new place for exhibits removed by the Trump administration, but Val said Friday that before making such moves the group will need to see the outcome of the Parker administration’s lawsuit.

And Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, which spearheaded a letter campaign to Burgum last year, said the organization would look for any way to support the city’s suit and other advocacy efforts.

Steinke said Burgum never responded to the group’s letter.

“Instead they just go down and rip the signs down and rip the exhibits off the walls and walk away and it’s shameful,” Steinke said.

Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

What are elected officials saying?

Local officials have expressed outrage at the dismantling of the President’s House.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, responding to The Inquirer’s reporting, said in a post on X that “Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history. But he picked the wrong city — and he sure as hell picked the wrong Commonwealth. We learn from our history in Pennsylvania, even when it’s painful.”

U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Pa) said the changes are an “outrage,” and noted his full support for the city’s suit.

“True patriotism requires facing our nation’s past – and learning from it. The Trump-Vance administration may try to whitewash an exhibit, but they cannot erase the shame of what they have done.” said Evans, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa), who represents the area including Independence Park, said in a statement that the removal is “absolutely unacceptable.”

“With the National Park Service facing budget cuts as our nation prepares for its 250th anniversary, this administration should be strengthening these historic sites, not censoring them to erase the past,” Boyle wrote. “Philadelphia and the entire country deserve an honest accounting of our history, and this effort to hide it is wrong.”

Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said in a statement late Thursday night that removing the exhibits is “totally unacceptable” and signaled his support for the mayor’s lawsuit.

“Removing the exhibits is an effort to whitewash American history,” Johnson said. “History cannot be erased simply because it is uncomfortable. Removing items from the President’s House merely changes the landscape, not the historical record.”

Johnson and other members of City Council supported a resolution condemning the Trump administration’s scrutiny of the President’s House last year.

In a statement backing the city’s suit Friday, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson said that “removing these exhibits adds to a troubling pattern of racist and bigoted actions that sow division, perpetuate hatred, and betray the very values our nation claims to uphold.”

“In a year when Philadelphia will stand on the world stage to mark America’s 250th Anniversary, we have a duty to defend truth, not deny it,” Gilmore Richardson said.

Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

Staff Contributors

Reporting: Fallon Roth, Abraham Gutman, and Maggie Prosser

Editing: Bryan Lowry

Photography: Tom Gralish and Elizabeth Robertson

Digital Editing: Patricia Madej

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Donald Trump
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January 23, 2026
On Greenland, Europe stood up, Trump blinked and the E.U. learned a lesson

BRUSSELS, Belgium — After President Donald Trump used his bully pulpit in Davos, Switzerland, to demand “the acquisition of Greenland by the United States — just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history” — and then backed down on the same day, many officials here see a lesson for the European Union: Pushing back works.

The brazen ultimatum — give up Greenland or face tariffs — elicited a level of unity that largely had eluded the leaders of the 27-nation EU in the year since Trump’s second inauguration.

Trump’s gambit for Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, bonded some unlikely partners in opposition: Europe’s mainstream political establishment with populist and nationalist parties; Republicans and Democrats in the deeply partisan U.S. Congress; the mostly Indigenous people of Greenland with their Danish former colonizers; and the EU and Britain, the only country ever to quit the bloc.

For advocates of taking a tougher line with Trump, the president’s climbdown regarding the strategic Arctic territory was proof that retaliation — not conciliation — is the answer to his hardball tactics. After accommodating Trump on trade and on arming Ukraine, the Europeans finally stood up to him. Even more significantly, Trump backed down.

“When we stand together, and when we are clear and strong, also in our willingness to stand up for ourselves, then the results will show,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters in Brussels on Thursday night. “I think we have learned something during the last couple of days and weeks, and now we, of course, want to find a solution.”

A chorus of European leaders insisted they would not be blackmailed. They blasted Trump’s crusade to grab land from a NATO ally as “unacceptable” and “inexplicable.” The EU threatened its own tariffs on American goods. And resolve grew within the bloc to unleash a trade retaliation tool it had long hesitated to use, which could target U.S. services in Europe — a profit center for American companies in which they benefit from a big surplus.

The solidarity from across Europe, Frederiksen said, “was extremely important in this very difficult situation.”

President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

The White House maintains that Trump did not blink but actually got everything he wanted, including full access to Greenland for the U.S. military, without having to pay a dime through a deal brokered with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“President Trump was preparing for a Feb. 1 tariff and that has only been removed from the table for one reason: he and the NATO Secretary General agreed upon a framework for a deal on Greenland,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a written response to a question.

Trump’s true motive for compromising may never be known. He arrived in the Swiss resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum planning to emphasize his efforts to address concern over an affordability crisis in America, which Trump has denied. The prospect of EU tariffs further raising costs for U.S. consumers may have moved him. Or perhaps it was a sharp sell-off in U.S. stock and bond markets, or the bipartisan opposition in Congress during a midterm election year.

Whatever the reason, Trump suspended his tariff threats against European nations, proclaiming he had reached the “framework” of a deal.

Points under negotiation include greater American access to military bases and minerals extraction in Greenland, European operations in the Arctic, and oversight over investments to prevent Russia or China from gaining a foothold, according to two European officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Trump had been clear about wanting to “own” Greenland either by buying or otherwise acquiring the territory, even hinting at military action. In a speech in Davos on Wednesday, Trump ruled out the use of force. And within hours he declared victory and backed down.

An aurora borealis is seen in the sky above Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday.

Danish leaders said ceding sovereign territory is a red line and that they requested a NATO mission in the Arctic. The Danes also had insisted that Trump could achieve his goals through an existing 1951 defense pact — a position the White House previously dismissed.

Now, the Trump administration will pursue negotiations with Denmark on updating that defense treaty, as well as with European nations over expanding NATO military presence in the Arctic, they said.

European officials said they believed his U-turn came from a change of heart, rather than a change in substance. Danish and other NATO leaders made such overtures for weeks before Trump escalated the standoff.

Officials said Trump appeared to shift after realizing that EU retaliatory tariffs could take effect in February, and that his bid for Greenland was unpopular back home, including with American businesses.

“Who knows what really goes on in his mind,” one official quipped.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said many elements “may also have played a role … but without firmness, non-escalatory responses, and unity in the European Union, they would not have worked.”

“We are here in a better position than we were 24 hours ago, and tonight we drew the lessons of our collective strategy,” von der Leyen said. “It was effective,” she added, “so going forward we should maintain this very approach.”

Von der Leyen spoke to reporters overnight following a summit of all 27 of the EU’s heads of state and government in Brussels. Beyond Greenland, they discussed how to prepare for a volatile world in which Washington, at any moment, might turn the threat of its military or economic power on longtime European allies.

Even as Europeans pushed back, leaders dispatched Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister often dubbed their “Trump whisperer.” Rutte’s job at NATO has been consumed by papering over rifts with Trump.

NATO leader charms Trump and masters the art of the deal

Publicly, the NATO chief said little about the Greenland crisis, refusing to deviate from praising Trump or agreeing with his grievances about Arctic security.

A few leaders attributed Trump’s reversal to patience and an extended olive branch. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an ally of Trump on the hard right, pointed to “fostering dialogue between allied nations.”

Emmanuel Macron on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron, however, said tough resolve was the trick. “What we should conclude is that when Europe reacts with a united front, using the instruments at our disposal while it is under threat, it can command respect,” Macron said. “And we remain extremely vigilant.”

Even Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, still one of the most ardent champions of preserving the transatlantic relationship, said it was important “for our partners in Washington to understand the difference between domination and leadership.”

That said, the standoff has dramatically darkened the mood within the EU regarding relations with Washington — a bond that has insured economic stability and security on the continent for 80 years.

European lawmakers voiced a sense that the EU had to push back or there would be no end to Trump’s breaching of red lines. Playing nice only goes so far in shielding them from confrontation, officials conceded, and many warned that the Greenland matter was not yet settled.

“When we genuflect, Trump weighs in, when we keep our back straight he tacoes out,” Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome-based Institute for International Affairs, wrote on X in reference to “Trump Always Chickens Out” — a favorite phrase of Trump critics. It’s not because “he’s scared of Europe but of the markets,” Tocci said. “Lesson learned hopefully.”

Lucky for EU leaders, they did not actually have to hit back — at least not yet — because the mercurial president stood down. That would have proved a bigger test of the cohesion between countries favoring a harder line, like France, and those more cautious, like Italy.

For all the declarations of EU unity, the standoff caused a serious and potentially enduring split in the NATO alliance.

Trump’s comments in Davos went to the heart of the European dilemma of how to navigate a world in which their most powerful ally is defining its positions. Trump cast the dispute as the U.S. vs. NATO, saying that Rutte was “representing the other side” while adding, “which is really us too, because, you know, we’re a very important member of NATO.”

In his pursuit of Greenland, Trump also suggested in his speech that the U.S. was not inclined to defend territory it does not own. The core pillar of NATO is its Article 5 collective defense clause — that an attack against one is an attack against all. For smaller nations such as the Baltics, near Russia, the key to this idea is that the U.S. would come to their defense.

Whatever moved Trump, everyone wants to claim the success.

In London, Prime Minister Keir Starmer had been facing pressure within his own Labour Party for a tougher response. Starmer delivered his sharpest rebuke yet hours before Trump’s pivot, promising he “would not yield” on his defense of Greenland.

The timing allowed officials to say Starmer’s government had stood up to Trump and even to claim some credit for deterring the president. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News it was a “a reflection of the strength of our connections in Washington.”

Still, European officials spoke of a deep breach of trust across the Atlantic. In Brussels, some diplomats from countries that have been the loudest cheerleaders of the U.S. now refer to America as “our former ally.”

Asked if she can still trust the U.S., Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, hesitated. “I mean, we have been working very closely with the U.S. for many years,” she said, “but we have to work together respectfully, without threatening each other.”

January 23, 2026
DHS pauses cuts to FEMA as massive winter storm barrels in

The Department of Homeland Security has paused terminations of employees working on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster response as it ramps up preparations for a massive and life-threatening winter storm that will pummel half the country this weekend.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the agency planned to terminate disaster response and recovery workers in waves. On New Year’s Eve, agency officials eliminated about 65 positions that were part of FEMA’s largest workforce, known as the Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) — staffers who are among the first on the ground after a disaster and often stick around for years to help communities recover.

But on Thursday night, DHS’s head of human resources sent an email notifying teams that “just a few minutes ago,” FEMA headquarters decided the agency would halt their process of non-renewing dozens of federally funded employees. These roles, hired by FEMA for multiyear terms under the Stafford Act using the disaster relief fund, have been up for renewal on a rolling basis.

Earlier that day, about 30 disaster workers received notices that their jobs would not be renewed. The pause then prompted human resources staff to backtrack, notifying those same workers that they still had jobs, according to the email and an official familiar with the process. Like others interviewed for this story, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

“I didn’t even know what was happening until it happened,” the official said, adding that as human resources initially emailed people informing them that their jobs would not be renewed, senior leaders were learning that FEMA was pausing terminations.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that the agency regularly changes staffing levels for its disaster response and recovery efforts.

“The CORE program consists of term-limited positions that are designed to FLUCTUATE based on disaster activity, operational NEED, and available funding,” the department said in its statement, which included text in all-caps.

“FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center has been activated in response to a historic winter storm, in line with this mission FEMA is following standard protocol to ensure mission functions are being met,” it added.

Officials would not comment on how long the pause would last.

While states and local authorities handle most of their preparation and response to winter storms, FEMA will often deliver resources ahead of time, including generators and personnel if the potential for disaster seems high. Stafford Act employees, such as CORE members, will deploy to a state if they request an emergency or disaster declaration and the president approves it.

The sudden shift in staffing direction has caught officials across the agency by surprise, six officials said. In recent weeks, their teams were told to prepare to lose a substantial number of people over the next few months.

Since December, DHS has terminated more than 100 people across the agency who FEMA employs under the Stafford Act.

Some were informed on New Year’s Eve; others were given only a day or two to turn in their equipment; and still more were cut after their supervisors sent detailed memos explaining why their roles remained vital to FEMA’s mission. The agency also lost veteran employees who oversaw finances for Hurricane Helene recovery, as well as civil engineers who assist states with mitigation and rebuilding roadways, bridges and schools. Some offices in the Midwest have lost experienced managers who typically help lead operations during emergencies and big disasters.

On Wednesday, FEMA cut nearly 85 local hires from several regions, including a handful who were still working on Hurricane Helene recovery projects in North Carolina — a state now readying itself for potential power outages — according to two people with knowledge of the situation. FEMA’s call center in Puerto Rico lost many of their local hires Wednesday as well, one FEMA official said. If multiple states are hit hard enough and ask the president for federal assistance, those workers could have helped out, two officials said.

The same day the department halted the terminations, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited the agency’s headquarters to help guide national coordination and preparation for the sweeping storm. Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, also hosted a call Thursday morning with governors from 21 states that are bracing for dangerous, chilling weather. She assured them that DHS and FEMA will support them.

“We can pre-deploy any needs that you may have, as far as generators or supplies to different parts of your state if you think you have a weakness in some area that’s going to be hit pretty hard,” Noem told the governors, reiterating that “if there is certain responses or requests specific to this event, feel free to reach out and use that contact information, and we’ll do all that we can to be helpful.”

During the call, Karen Evans, FEMA’s agency’s interim administrator, and Gregg Phillips, who is now overseeing the Office of Response and Recovery, also offered their personal cell phone numbers in case any governor needs to get in touch with them immediately.

Noem has instructed FEMA to be aggressive in preparing for the heavy snow and ice forecast to blanket a large portion of the United States and has promised a rapid and well-coordinated response, according to an official with knowledge of the situation. FEMA has delivered tens of thousands of meals and liters of water to various states, and it has positioned drivers who shuttle supplies outside distribution centers from Louisiana up to Pennsylvania.

The decision to pause the terminations also coincides with the House’s approval Thursday of a spending bill that would fund FEMA’s disaster relief fund and help the agency “maintain staffing levels, including a reservist workforce and its Cadre of Response/Recovery Employees, necessary to fulfill the missions required under” federal law.

Ahead of the storm, 10 officials from different parts of the agency who spoke to the Post said they were nervous about their ability to properly respond, given how their ranks have thinned over the past year, with the agency losing about 20% of its staff.

Noem, who has exercised strict oversight over FEMA since taking over DHS, has repeatedly expressed a desire to shrink or eliminate the agency. The Post reported that she previously recommended cutting agency staffing by about half.

In a previous statement, FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargués said the agency had “not issued and is not implementing a percentage-based workforce reduction.”

Employees in CORE roles are typically renewed every two to four years. When the end of an employee’s contracted term approaches, their supervisors typically seek approval to renew those roles. Most positions are usually reinstated, according to four current and former FEMA officials, in part because recovery work is long and complex.

But in recent weeks, DHS’s process for renewing these temporary roles has changed frequently, according to officials with knowledge of the situation. Last week, supervisors in each region had to write memos justifying every role coming up for renewal this year, which would then be sent to FEMA’s temporary top official and then to Noem, according to two people familiar with the process. Guidance then shifted earlier this week. In a memo from Thursday, obtained by the Post, FEMA officials said that DHS will be making the calls without collecting justifications, and that “only extensions approved by DHS will be processed and they will be limited to 90 days.”

One CORE employee said DHS suddenly cut her job without warning after her manager had submitted a memo urging to keep her on. Because some firings have been abrupt, some were not able to transition their work, she said.

“And to be clear, I think most of us expected there to be staffing cuts this year,” the person said. “Just not in the bulldozer approach that didn’t take into account your job or performance.”

January 23, 2026
U.S. completes withdrawal from World Health Organization

NEW YORK — The U.S. has finalized its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, one year after President Donald Trump announced America was ending its 78-year-old commitment, federal officials said Thursday.

But it’s hardly a clean break.

The U.S. owes about $280 million to the global health agency, according to WHO. And Trump administration officials acknowledge that they haven’t finished working out some issues, such as lost access to data from other countries that could give America an early warning of a new pandemic.

The withdrawal will hurt the global response to new outbreaks and will hobble the ability of U.S. scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and medicines against new threats, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University.

“In my opinion, it’s the most ruinous presidential decision in my lifetime,” he said.

The WHO is the United Nations’ specialized health agency and is mandated to coordinate the response to global health threats, such as outbreaks of mpox, Ebola, and polio. It also provides technical assistance to poorer countries; helps distribute scarce vaccines, supplies, and treatments; and sets guidelines for hundreds of health conditions, including mental health and cancer.

Nearly every country in the world is a member.

Trump cited COVID-19 in pulling U.S. from WHO

U.S. officials helped lead the WHO’s creation, and America has long been among the organization’s biggest donors, providing hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of staffers with specialized public health expertise.

On average, the U.S. pays $111 million a year in member dues to the WHO and roughly $570 million more in annual voluntary contributions, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In an executive order issued right after taking office, Trump said the U.S. was withdrawing from WHO due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises. He also cited the agency’s “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms” and its “inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”

WHO, like other public health organizations, made costly mistakes during the pandemic, including at one point advising people against wearing masks. It also asserted that COVID-19 wasn’t airborne, a stance it didn’t officially reverse until 2024.

Another Trump administration complaint: None of WHO’s chief executives — there have been nine since the organization was created in 1948 — have been Americans. Administration officials view that as unfair given how much the WHO relies on U.S. financial contributions and on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel.

Public health experts say U.S. exit will hobble responses to threats

Experts say the U.S. exit could cripple numerous global health initiatives, including the effort to eradicate polio, maternal and child health programs, and research to identify new viral threats.

Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, called the U.S. withdrawal “shortsighted and misguided” and “scientifically reckless.”

The U.S. has ceased official participation in WHO-sponsored committees, leadership bodies, governance structures and technical working groups. That would seem to include the WHO group that assesses what flu strains are circulating and makes critical decisions about updating flu shots.

It also signals the U.S. is no longer participating in global flu information-sharing that guides vaccine decisions.

Such disease intelligence has helped Americans be “at the front of the line” when new outbreaks occur and new vaccines and medicines are quickly needed to counteract them and save lives, Gostin said.

Trump administration officials say they already have public health relationships with many countries and are working to ensure direct sharing of that kind of information, rather than having WHO serve as a middleman. But U.S. officials did not give specifics about how many such arrangements are in place.

Gostin, an expert on international public health treaties and collaborations, said it’s unlikely the U.S. will reach agreements with more than a couple dozen countries.

Many emerging viruses are first spotted in China, but “is China going to sign a contract with the United States?” Gostin said. “Are countries in Africa going to do it? Are the countries Trump has slapped with a huge tariff going to send us their data? The claim is almost laughable.”

Gostin also believes Trump overstepped his authority in pulling out of WHO. The U.S. joined the organization through an act of Congress and it is supposed to take an act of Congress to withdraw, he argued.

U.S. still owes money, WHO says

The U.S. is legally required to give notice one year in advance of withdrawal — which it did — but also to pay any outstanding financial obligations.

The U.S. has not paid any of its dues for 2024 and 2025, leaving a balance of about $280 million at current exchange rates, according to WHO.

An administration official denied that requirement Thursday, saying the U.S. had no obligation to pay prior to withdrawing as a member.

January 23, 2026