Morning Report — Trump talks tough with allies, woos Putin

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In today’s issue:

Trump juggles high stakes across Atlantic
GOP lawmakers face new budget hurdles
Zelensky in Washington to transfer mineral rights.
States in the dark about federal education cuts

European leaders arrived this week to flatter and cajole President Trump. In the case of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky today, it’s to agree to negotiate over something of value, hoping to keep the U.S. in Ukraine's corner against Russia.

What comes after Trump secures rights to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals is unclear. Zelensky wants security guarantees from the U.S., which Trump is disinclined to grant. While meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House Thursday and with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, Trump said military security for Ukraine and Europe across an ocean from the United States was largely their responsibility.

British troops in a post-war Ukraine could handle the challenge without the U.S., Trump assured Starmer and reporters in the Oval Office. “The British have incredible soldiers, incredible military and they can take care of themselves,” he added.

The Hill: Trump-Ukraine deal faces doubts on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s arguments in a nutshell: It’s time for Ukraine and Russia to agree to a ceasefire, then a peace deal; NATO membership for Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin opposes, is “unrealistic” for Kyiv; Putin will “keep his word” if there’s a peace agreement; and obtaining Ukraine’s minerals is both a “backstop” and partial reimbursement for $360 billion in military and other assistance the U.S. sent to Ukraine after Russian forces invaded three years ago.

Amid tensions with European allies, Trump is solicitous with Putin, who in turn praised Trump Thursday for working to re-engage with Russia. “The first contacts with the new American administration give us some hope,” the Russian president said in televised comments. Unnamed U.S. and Russian officials met in Istanbul Thursday to discuss ways to strengthen diplomatic ties.

Starmer on Sunday will host a summit in London among 18 European leaders to discuss security guarantees sought by Ukraine. He will first meet with Zelensky and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The view at Downing Street following the prime minister’s convivial meeting with Trump is that the U.K. could be the bridge between the U.S. and Europe amid a deteriorating relationship between the European Union and the White House.

The Associated Press: The EU on Thursday pushed back against Trump’s tariff threats and his comment that the 27-nation bloc “was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it.”

While touting outreach to Russia, Trump again confronted North American friends Canada and Mexico to announce that U.S. tariffs of 25 percent will take effect Tuesday, the same day he’ll deliver a televised speech to a joint session of Congress and speak to a primarily domestic primetime audience.

The president said he will hike tariffs on Chinese goods by another 10 percent. Additional tariffs on the country’s three biggest trading partners, if Trump’s vows of levies take effect, would add to the economic strain that has begun to emerge from Trump’s blizzard of actions. The president denied on Thursday that tariffs hurt U.S. consumers by raising their prices and stoking inflation. Most economists disagree.

U.S. consumer confidence has begun to show signs of strain, according to surveys. The uncertainty of tariffs, funding freezes impacting contractors, plus inflated prices for eggs and other staples undercut Americans’ optimism.

Trump’s government downsizing efforts in Washington, which are generally applauded by many Americans, are also taking hold in states, communities and schools with mixed public receptions. Firings of federal workers and the prospect of costly trade wars are souring consumer sentiment, raising inflation expectations and stalling business investment plans, according to recent economic surveys.

The new administration is working with House and Senate Republicans to anchor Trump’s policy agenda, including lower taxes and substantial spending cuts, in budget legislation that may be drafted and headed for votes by the summer. But first the White House and lawmakers want to avert a government shutdown by a March 14 deadline, when funding for the government runs out. The president’s big speech Tuesday will describe the pileup of executive actions he’s taken since Jan. 20, his overall legislative aims and the upshot of the administration’s “America first” ideas abroad.

▪ The Hill: By letter Thursday, King Charles invited Trump for an “unprecedented” second state visit to the U.K., plus a meeting in Scotland together to plan the state visit.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan will deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s Tuesday night speech.

SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN:

President Trump says he is set to hit China with another batch of tariffs, planning next Tuesday to double the 10 tariffs he levied on the country this month. The latest escalation in the trade war made plenty of headlines, but here’s something else involving China you might not have seen.

The 2025 Global Threat report released Thursday by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said China’s malicious cyber activities are significantly increasing. “China-nexus adversaries escalated state-sponsored operations by 150 percent, with targeted attacks in financial services, media, manufacturing, and industrial sectors soaring up to 300 percent,” the company said in its report.

With the focus right now on tariffs, China’s posture toward Taiwan and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the report is a stark reminder of the multifaceted issues the United States faces with China on a daily basis, both known and unknown.

Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

▪ A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to rescind memos that directed agencies across the federal government to fire probationary employees, finding they were likely unlawful.

▪ Musk said Thursday that Verizon’s efforts to provide a critically needed upgrade to the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control system is failing. And he said that it is important that Starlink, a unit of his SpaceX satellite and rocket company, take over.

▪ What to know about today’s “economic blackout,” a campaign aimed at consumers and organized by the People’s Union USA.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press | Julio Cortez

SHUTDOWN WATCH: Congressional negotiators racing to avert a government shutdown on March 14 appear to have hit a wall, not over funding levels, but whether to limit Trump’s powers to spend the money.

On one side of that divide are Democratic appropriators, write The Hill’s Mike Lillis and Aris Folley, already hammering the White House for refusing to back programs previously funded by Congress — a move they deem unconstitutional. They want explicit assurances that going forward, Trump will direct the new funding as Congress dictates. On the other side are Republican negotiators, who say the president has certain powers of flexibility in deciding where to apportion federal funds. The clash is just the latest front of the broader partisan brawl over the balance of powers in Washington and the scope of Trump’s authority to dictate public policy even when it conflicts with congressional intent.

“We’re down to two options, a [stopgap] or a shutdown,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), one of 12 GOP spending cardinals in the lower chamber, told reporters on Thursday, adding lawmakers have “no time to negotiate” with just weeks on the calendar until the shutdown deadline.

The Washington Post: Some Republicans fear Medicaid cuts could cost them their jobs.

Also complicating budget efforts? Growing calls among hardline House conservatives to incorporate DOGE cuts in an evolving government funding bill. The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell report the pleas — many of which have come from members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — are poised to pin Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) into the tricky, yet familiar, position of managing his right flank while keeping the lights on in Washington, all amid the pressures of his razor-thin majority.

Pursuing those conservative priorities, however, would spark intense outcry among Democrats and almost certainly lead to a government shutdown — an outcome that Johnson wants to avoid in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, when the Republican trifecta is trying to tick items off their to-do list.

“I don’t know what they’re even talking about,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said when asked about including the DOGE cuts in the funding bill. “I mean, every day it’s something.”

▪ The Hill: Johnson is planning a meeting with Musk and House Republicans.

▪ The Hill: Nearly a decade after his first presidential run, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is stepping back into his favorite role: chief billionaire critic.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet Monday at noon. The Senate will convene Monday at 3 p.m.
The president will greet Zelensky at 11 a.m. at the White House, followed by a meeting, lunch and a joint press conference at 1 p.m. Trump will depart the White House at 5 p.m. for Mar-a-Lago.
Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will report at 8:30 a.m. personal income and spending in January.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press | Eric Thayer

EDUCATION CUTS: How are states preparing for Trump’s anticipated order to eliminate the Education Department, which Congress created in 1979 under former President Carter? States say it’s difficult to know what’s coming from Washington on education. Trump cannot unilaterally get rid of a federal agency without congressional approval, and his nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, agreed at her recent confirmation hearing that they hope to present a plan that Congress will support.

During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated his plans for major changes at the agency, saying that “we want to move education back to the states where it belongs.”

Children with disabilities are getting swept up by the Trump administration's crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and its push to end the Education Department. So far, the Department of Government Efficiency's biggest contract canceled at the Department of Education involved analyzing programs for students with disabilities, and the same DEI programs Trump is seeking to outlaw often provide accommodations for disabled students.

“The whole reason students with disabilities are able to be in the classroom and get access to an equitable education is because of DEIA efforts,” said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at the Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for individuals with disabilities. “IDEA [the Individual with Disabilities in Education Act] says that students with disabilities have the right to be in an inclusive classroom to the greatest extent possible.”

HEALTH: In his first public comments on the measles outbreak hitting West Texas and New Mexico, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, said his department was monitoring the situation daily but called it "not unusual." Experts disagree. Prior to this outbreak, the U.S. had not seen a death from measles since 2015. In 2000, years after the U.S. implemented a two-dose vaccine schedule, measles was declared eliminated from the U.S.

▪ Wyoming Public Media: The future of procedural abortion in Wyoming is in doubt after the governor signed a bill requiring clinics providing procedural abortions to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers.

▪ The New York Times: The State Department terminated funding for polio, HIV, malaria and nutrition programs around the world, using terse emails to communicate the cutoff. That support was among 5,800 projects receiving support that was canceled by the administration this week. Many had received a waiver from the foreign aid freeze because the U.S. previously identified the work as essential and lifesaving.

▪ The Atlantic: Inside the collapse at the National Institutes of Health: “Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, have pressed staff at the agency to ignore court orders” that temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze on federal grants.” An estimated 80-85 percent of NIH’s budget has traditionally gone to outside research. “But since late January, the agency has issued only a fraction of its usual awards.”

FEMA: More than a dozen of the senior leaders at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including those with the most experience in leading disaster recovery, have either been fired or have resigned, weeks ahead of hurricane season. The departures come after job cuts and resignations of about 1,000 of the agency’s roughly 17,000 employees. Soon after his return to the White House, Trump mused about formally disbanding FEMA, and the agency is already being thinned out.

The Hill: Federal officials have declared that they will not be ordering soil sampling after completing debris removal at Los Angeles burn sites, rebuffing concerns raised by state officials about potential property contamination.

ELSEWHERE

UKRAINE: Zelensky will meet with Trump in Washington today to sign a deal to provide the U.S. with rare mineral rights in his country. The deal comes as Trump has vowed to end Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine, but declined to make explicit security guarantees to Kyiv, leaving Zelensky and European leaders reeling.

Democrats are accusing Trump of selling out Ukraine by pressuring it to sign the mineral rights deal, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Republicans are divided on the issue. Some GOP lawmakers cheered the mineral rights portion of the agreement, but others are worried it marks a pivot in U.S. national security policy that ultimately undermines the nation's European alliances.

As Trump thaws relations with the Kremlin, Putin on Thursday warned "Western elites" against trying to sabotage a potential rapprochement between Russia and the United States, saying Moscow would use its diplomats and intelligence services to thwart such efforts. U.S. and Russian officials met for high-level talks about Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this month, and more talks are expected.

GAZA CEASEFIRE: Negotiations have begun in Cairo on the second phase of Israel and Hama’s ceasefire in Gaza, seeking to extend the first phase of the truce, due to expire on Saturday. Officials from Israel, Qatar and the U.S. started “intensive discussions” on the ceasefire accord's second phase in Cairo, Egypt’s state information service said in a statement. Phase two negotiations have been rocky, as both Israel and Hamas have accused the other of violating the terms of the truce agreement.

▪ CNN: Israel says it won’t withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border as it sends a team to the ceasefire talks.

▪ USA Today: The ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza expires this weekend. What comes next?

OPINION

■ The MAGA war on speech, by The New York Times editorial board.

■ Whole Hog Politics: Republicans look to New Jersey for an off-cycle upset, by Chris Stirewalt, political editor, The Hill.

THE CLOSER

And finally… 👏👏👏Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Food and beverages used as political commentary did not stump savvy puzzlers.

Here’s who went 4/4: Stan Wasser, Jenessa Wagner, Bill Moore and Steve James.

In national solidarity with its customers’ recent sentiments about U.S. tariffs, a Toronto shop, among many others, swapped its offering of Americano coffee for Canadiano.

Freedom Fries, Liberty Steaks and Liberty Lettuce once existed as patriotic nourishment, but we made up Ohio Chocolate Cake.

Among our quiz list of foods and drinks named for U.S. presidents, Hoover steak was fiction.

It is true that cereals named Obama O's and Cap'n McCains were sold during the 2008 presidential race to gauge which was the real breakfast of champions.

Stay Engaged

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