Welcome to the online version of Political officeAn evening newsletter that brings you the latest report and analysis of the NBC News Policy team from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign campaign.
Happy Friday and good Valentine’s Day to you and yours. In today’s edition, the press moderator “Meet The Press”, Kristen Welker, sits with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich. In addition, we have a look at the week for President Donald Trump in court. And Jonathan Allen writes the recent upheaval to the Ministry of Justice recalls the “Saturday evening massacre” during the Nixon administration.
Programming note: We take a break for the presidents day on Monday and we will be back in your reception box on Tuesday, February 18.
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– Adam Wollner
Zelenskyy: “very difficult” for Ukraine to survive without American military support
By Alexander Smith and Alexandra Marquez
Friday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News of NBC News that he would be “very, very, very difficult” for Ukraine to survive without the American military support, both when he tries to push the ‘Invasion of Russia and in the future after the current war ends.
“It will probably be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all difficult situations, you have a chance, “said Zelenskyy in an interview with the moderator of” Meet The Press “, Kristen Welker, on the sidelines of the Munich security conference. “But we will have a little chance, a little chance, to survive without support in the United States. I think it’s very important, critical.
“I do not want to think” of fighting Russia without American support, said Zelenskyy, adding: “I don’t want to think that we will not be strategic partners.”
Zelenskyy said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to come to the negotiating table so as not to end the war but to conclude a cease-fire contract which would raise certain international sanctions against Russia and allow the Russian army to regroup.
The backdrop: Zelenskyy’s comments occurred during a fractive boxmit in Germany, where vice-president JD Vance criticized European leaders On a multitude of questions unrelated to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in particular by not defending the “values shared with the United States of America”.
German President Frank-Walter, Steinmeier, presented his own without eyeshadow in response, saying that the Trump administration had “no respect for the established rules, partnership and confidence”.
The widening of the Gulf between Europe and the United States arrives at a particularly delicate moment for Zelenskyy and an exhausted and exhausted Ukraine. While war seems to have descended into a quagmire, the Russian forces have made slow and painful progress. Russia controls around 20% of the country, which has an urgent need for weapons and soldiers.
And look at the full interview Sunday morning on “Meet the Press”.
What to know of the Trump presidency today
- Trump administration made mass shots Thursday and Friday through the federal government, affecting thousands of workers who have been at work for less than two years.
- A judge temporarily blocked Mass endings to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, blowing Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency. (Learn more about Trump’s legal challenges below.)
- Trump has signed two decrees: one on end federal funding Schools that require cocvid vaccines and another which establishes a new panel called “Energy Dominance Council”.
- The president of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, R-Miss., “Said he was”Perplexed and disturbed“By the comments of the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, saying that a return to the borders of Ukraine 2014 was” unrealistic “. Asset Defends Hegseth’s speechsaying he knew “generally” what would be.
A week of legal setbacks – and a big victory – for Trump’s agenda
Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government thanks to a series of sculptor decrees have met with a number of roadblocks in the courts this week, but he also won a major legal victory.
Dareh Gregorian has a conclusion of Trump’s week in the courts:
Reverse:
- A federal judge in Washington, DC, signed a temporary ban order blocking the freezing of the coverage on federal subsidies to carry out foreign assistance work. Another Federal DC judge also interrupted the US agency for international development.
- A federal judge of Rhode Island said that the administration had violated its order to arrest a federal frost -funding. It was the first time that the judge has accused the administration of having violated an order of the court.
- A Federal Judge of Boston temporarily interrupted subsidies in break from the National Institutes of Health to nearly two dozen states.
- A federal judge from Maryland temporarily blocked Trump’s decree aimed at restricting transgender health care for anyone under 19 for at least two weeks.
Victory:
- A federal judge of Boston authorized the massive program of “deferred resignation” of the administration for federal employees to move forward, leading the unions which brought the missing prosecution.
The next challenge series:
- Democratic prosecutors in 14 states have continued on the constitutionality of the Government Ministry.
- A coalition of unions and civil rights groups brought an action by aimed at blocking Trump’s plans to deactivate the consumer financial protection office.
- A group of religious organizations Contested the Decision of the Ministry of Internal Security to cancel the directives prohibiting immigration raids in or near places of worship, except in emergency situations or with a high -level supervision.
- A coalition of immigrant rights defense groups argues that the administration refuses that immigrants be sent to Guantanamo Bay their right to a lawyer.
Learn more about Dareh Roundup →
How Trump’s last order of Doj compares to the “Saturday evening massacre”
Jonathan Allen analysis
Richard Nixon had his “Saturday night massacre”, and now Donald Trump has his Valentine’s Day massacre.
Like any good history of Valentine’s Day, it takes more than the only day to play. It started on Monday, when Emil Bove, the assistant prosecutor general general and former lawyer for Trump, ordered the best federal prosecutor in New York, Danielle Sassoon, To remove corruption costs Against Mayor Eric Adams.
Trump wants ADAMS helps to expel more migrants – to put political pressure on other mayors to do the same – and Adams, probably, did not want to risk going to prison himself.
Sassoon did not go to court to draw the accusation. Instead, she resigned Thursdayrevealing that the senior officials of the Ministry of Justice met the Adams defense lawyers to map what she said was equivalent to a counterpart. Several of his deputies also leave.
Adams and his lawyers denied a counterpart, but the Trump administration did not do much to dissuade the public from reaching a similar conclusion. In an unhappy sentence turn, Trump’s “border tsar” Tom Homan praised the agreement in a joint interview with Fox News With Adams on Friday. “If he does not pass,” said Homan, “I will be in his office, in his buttocks, saying:” Where devil is the agreement in which we arrived? “”
The episode recalls the massacre on Saturday evening. In October 1973, Nixon ordered the Attorney General Elliot Richardson to dismiss the Special Prosecutor Watergate Archibald Cox – The man investigating in Nixon. Richardson resigned instead. The deputy of Richardson, William Ruckelshaus. Finally, General Solicitor Robert Bork executed on the order of Nixon.
This act of loyalty to the president and the party undoubtedly contributed to the appointment of Bork to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan more than a decade later – and to the refusal of the Senate to confirm Bork.
The indignation of the public during the massacre on Saturday evening led to a reform law and decades of efforts of the successors of Nixon to distance themselves from prosecution decisions or give the appearance of the distance.
Trump rubbed the standard during his first mandate, when he embroidered – And finally pulled – The Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had challenged the decision to appoint a special lawyer to investigate Trump’s ties with Russia.
But in the current case, unlike Watergate and Russia probes, the president is not a target of investigation or prosecution. There is no law preventing the president from directing prosecution of the White House. Even if there were, the Supreme Court clearly indicated last year that the president cannot be prosecuted for official actions anyway.
Adams does not enjoy such immunity, and it will be interesting to see if state charges are brought against him in New York.
But what is more interesting is what the episode reveals on Trump, its longtime complaints concerning the politicization of the Ministry of Justice and its often repeated promise to clean corruption in the federal government. He does not apply the same standards to himself, and there is no indication that he intends to.
➡️ Find out more: Friday, the Doj decided to reject the accusations of corruption against Adams, the last decision of a legal saga which led to the resignation of at least seven federal prosecutors and plunged the ministry into crisis, Tom Winter, Ryan J. Reilly and Rich Schapiro Report.
🗞️ The other best stories today
- 📝 First step: The Budget Committee of the House Controlled by the Republicans voted according to the party parties to advance a massive budgetary plan to reduce taxes and expenditure by billions of dollars. Learn more →
- 👀 Doge bites man: The government’s Ministry of Efficiency has received approval from the Labor Department to use software that may allow it to transfer large amounts of data on labor systems, alarming certain career employees. Learn more →
- 💰BIG BUCKS: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump family has collected nearly $ 80 million thanks to a range of companies since the 2024 elections, from the Amazon Documentary Agreement of the First Lady to the President’s legal regulations. Learn more →
- 💘 Everything is just in love and the same: Politicians have flooded their social media flows with Valentine’s Day notes. And in the midst of sincere messages to their loved ones, some turn off, we will say, fewer serious wishes. Learn more →
It’s all of the political bureau for the moment. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Faith Wardwell.
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