It’s Monday. Either the morning after the Super Bowl should be a holiday or the game should happen earlier in the day. How do we make this happen? In this edition: - Another judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
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Republicans are terrified to cross Elon Musk.
- Hidden messages in the Super Bowl halftime show.
- Vance’s first foreign trip.
I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send tips & feedback to cmartel@thehill.com. Someone forward this to you? Sign up. |
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Trump's immigration agenda is hitting some roadblocks: |
The Trump administration faced a major blow to its effort to restrict birthright citizenship this morning when a third federal judge indefinitely blocked the order.
Backstory: “Trump signed the executive order narrowing birthright citizenship on his first day back in the White House. It would limit the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee to exclude children born on U.S. soil to parents without permanent legal status.” For context: The New York Times pulled together a list of Trump’s executive actions “that are defying legal limits.” |
Trump said he will announce a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. He also said to expect reciprocal tariffs Tuesday and Wednesday. What we know |
It’s giving main character energy: |
Welcome back to the seven-day news cycle. President Trump was inaugurated three weeks ago (almost to the minute) — and he is everywhere. In just three weeks, Trump:
He even made an appearance on Super Bowl Sunday: First, he sat down with Fox News’s Bret Baier for a wide-ranging interview. Then he became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.
And then to round out the night, he fired off a late-night social media post where he slammed Taylor Swift, whose boyfriend Travis Kelce plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. “She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Football analyst-in-chief: Trump ramped up criticism of the NFL’s new kickoff rules. “The worst part of the Super Bowl, by far, was watching the Kickoff where, as the ball is sailing through the air, the entire field is frozen, stiff. College Football does not do it, and won’t! Whose idea was it to ruin the Game?” he posted on Truth Social.
💡A sentiment I keep hearing across Washington: Regardless of how you feel about Trump, no one can keep up. Trump has flooded the zone, making monumental changes left and right, each of which would normally prompt days or weeks of reaction and analysis. The Trump administration has taken an intentional approach of tackling numerous controversial proposals at once.
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➤ FIVE FORMER TREASURY HEADS HAVE CONCERNS: |
Five former Treasury secretaries published an op-ed in The New York Times, arguing “Our Democracy is Under Siege.”
Who?: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew and Janet Yellen (all of these former Treasury secretaries served under Democratic presidents).
Excerpt: “The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.” |
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The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Next Round of Tariffs—25% on Steel and Aluminum—Won’t Be So Easily Averted
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Axios: Trump's shock and awe tests Americans' response to chaos
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The Washington Post: Farmers on the hook for millions after Trump freezes USDA funds
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The Atlantic: Trump Signals He Might Ignore the Courts
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Republicans wary of getting on Musk's 'naughty list': |
The Trump administration has signaled that Republicans who stand in the way of President Trump’s agenda or oppose tech billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts will pay a political price.
What that political price could look like: The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports that Republicans are terrified over the prospect of facing tough primary challengers if they don’t fall in line. That’s a very real threat considering that Musk has nearly unlimited financial resources to back a challenger. Remember in December when Musk warned Republicans that he was creating a “naughty list” of GOP defectors.
💡 The effect of this threat: So far, Republicans have voted “yes” on all of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, despite some senators having reservations about a few of his more controversial picks. Read Bolton’s new reporting: ‘GOP senators terrified of crossing Trump, facing Musk-funded challengers’ |
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Let your Philly friends sleep in a little this morning. They may need it: |
© Chandan Khanna, AFP via Getty Images |
The Philadelphia Eagles are your Super Bowl LIX champions after they trounced the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22.
Last week, I took an informal poll of 12:30 Report readers to see who’s rooting for whom. *Drumroll* My inbox was flooded with hundreds of emails, some of which were very funny. 37 percent of you are Eagles fans, 38 percent are Chiefs fans and 25 percent of you care more about the football snacks and commercials.
If you watched the halftime show but missed the tea: “Kendrick Lamar Brings Out Drake’s Ex Serena Williams for Surprise Super Bowl Halftime Cameo but Changes ‘Not Like Us’ Lyrics,” explains People. Related: ‘6 hidden messages in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance’ |
➤ SIGHTS AND SOUNDS FROM THE SUPER BOWL:
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Super Bowl champion teams are typically invited to the White House for a celebration later in the spring. TBD on any potential invite for this year's winning team.
Remember: Trump revoked an invite for the Eagles in 2018 after several players protested making the trip to see the then-president. However, Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday seemingly praising Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurt and star running back Saquon Barkley without naming them.
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🍫 Celebrate: Today is National Cream Cheese Brownie Day! |
The House and Senate are in. President Trump is in Washington, and Vice President Vance is in France. (all times Eastern) |
- 1 p.m.: Trump signs executive orders.
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2 p.m.: Vance delivers remarks at an artificial intelligence summit in France. 💻 Livestream
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5:30 p.m.: The Senate holds a vote to move along Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as director of national intelligence. 📆 Today’s agenda
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6:30 p.m.: First and last House votes. 📆 Today’s agenda
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