Morning Report — Trump teases Ukraine deal amid Russia pivot

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In today’s issue:

U.S. joins Russia in U.N. vote over Ukraine
House GOP seeks path to adopt budget framework
Civil servants whiplashed under DOGE order
UK’s Starmer preps to woo Trump

Cracks are deepening in the rift between the United States and its European allies, as President Trump shakes up the global diplomatic order and the rest of the world scrambles to adapt.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday became the first European leader to visit the White House during Trump’s second term, bringing with him global concerns about Ukraine’s future as it continues to fight Russia’s full-scale invasion. The two met at the Oval Office as the U.S. voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine on the third anniversary of Moscow’s invasion.

Trump, who in the last two weeks has blamed Ukraine for triggering the war against its invader and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, declined to explain the rationale behind the vote, but said it was “self-evident.”

On Monday, Trump indicated that Kyiv and Washington are closing in on an agreement that would grant the U.S. a share of the country’s rare minerals supply — in exchange for an undefined, implicit security guarantee — after an intense pressure campaign from the American president to strike a deal. Trump said he may meet with Zelensky in the coming days at the White House to finalize the agreement.

“They’re very close to a final deal,” Trump told reporters. “It’ll be a deal with rare earths and various other things. And he would like to come, as I understand it, here to sign it. And that would be great with me. I think they then have to get it approved by their council or whoever might approve it. But I’m sure that will happen.”

A White House official said Monday that the agreement Trump is seeking won’t include guarantees to Ukraine for future aid or a commitment to send U.S. personnel.

Under Trump, U.S. support for Ukraine has become conditional at best. Meanwhile, the White House is moving to normalize diplomatic relations with Russia, which has been subject to international sanctions and isolation since the war began. White House officials recently met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia to discuss peace in Ukraine — without a Ukrainian delegation present.

▪ The Hill: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), during a floor speech, condemned Trump for siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Monday anniversary of war with Ukraine.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Trump has a gross misunderstanding of a Ukraine deal.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Trump says he is in talks with Putin about an “economic development” deal.

▪ The Washington Post: Trump wants Ukraine’s rare metals. Putin just offered Russia’s.

Trump’s transactional support for Kyiv stands in sharp contrast to Macron’s message. The French president stressed the need for security guarantees for Kyiv in any peace deal and noted that an agreement “must not mean a surrender of Ukraine.” Still, in an effort to appease one of Trump’s long-standing complaints, Macron highlighted the need for European nations to shoulder more of a security burden on their own continent — and provide peacekeeping forces in Ukraine.

“That’s a turning point, in my view,” Macron said, “and that is one of the great areas of progress that we’ve made during this trip and during this discussion.”

▪ Politico: Trump says Putin will accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine.

▪ CNN: Macron on Monday shut down Trump's claim that Europe is loaning money to Ukraine.

European foreign ministers, meanwhile, warned Monday that the region has entered a new era of its alliance with the U.S., but that they still hoped the relationship could endure. At the White House, Macron used flattery and praise with Trump, commending the president for his rare minerals deal.

Trump, in turn, said Macron “agrees with me on many of the most important issues, chief among them is: This is the right time. It may be the only time [to end the war].”

SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN:

Did the latest bargaining chip in the U.S.-China trade war just get unveiled?

The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is now proposing potentially millions of dollars in fees for each time a Chinese-built ship or Chinese shipping company makes a port call in the United States. This could mean the prices for goods on those ships could soon get more expensive.

“It’ll go up. Not many ways around that,” Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, a global supply chain management and logistics firm, told me.

This is one to watch, as USTR will hear comments through March 24, but this also appears to be a way for the Trump administration to escalate against China even beyond tariffs.

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

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

▪ Trump has a 52 percent approval rating and 43 percent disapproval after his first month back in the Oval Office, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey released Monday. Responses split along party lines.

▪ Apple said it will invest more than $500 billion and hire more than 20,000 people over a span of four years in the U.S., beginning with a manufacturing site in Houston. On the radar: silicon engineering, software development and artificial intelligence production.

▪ Pope Francis remains in critical condition with pneumonia in a Rome hospital but “slept well, all night,” the Vatican said today after some improved medical test results Monday. Well-wishers gathered overnight in a rainy St. Peter’s Square for recitation of the Rosary.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite

HOUSE BUDGET: A key House panel took another step Monday toward anchoring Trump’s ambitious agenda in legislation. The House Rules Committee voted 9-4 along party lines to send to the full chamber the Republican budget framework. But its fate remains uncertain, and GOP Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) responded, “We’ll see,” when asked if his plan for a House floor vote tonight remained in place.

Two “no” votes today could sink the budget resolution if all Democrats are in attendance. Johnson’s math looks challenging.

As of Monday night, he did not have sufficient support in his party to adopt the measure, raising the possibility of a delay. The Speaker says he’s not changing the budget resolution. The biggest challenge remains that conservatives want to see deeper spending reductions and deficit reduction, while moderates balk at proposed cuts to Medicaid.

The budget resolution calls for a floor of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts with a target of $2 trillion and places a $4.5 trillion ceiling on the deficit impact of any GOP plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. It includes $300 billion in additional spending for the border and defense and a $4 trillion debt limit increase.

Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) met with the president Monday in the Oval Office to focus on making permanent the expiring tax cuts that Trump and the GOP enacted in 2017.

The president and key members of his Cabinet back permanent rather than short-term tax cuts, despite the budgetary costs, Daines told Punchbowl News.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who spoke with Daines and Crapo by phone, will begin weekly meetings with lawmakers as Republicans craft a tax cut package.

The Hill: Under budget plans weighed by House Republicans, student loan borrowers could see their payment obligations increase.

REQUIRED AND VOLUNTARY: Federal workers on Monday struggled to unscramble whether to heed the warnings of the president and Elon Musk, or perhaps put their faith in their department secretaries (absent consensus among Cabinet leaders) or take as gospel the late-breaking guidance of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that they can basically ignore Musk.

On the one hand, mandatory compliance by 11:59 p.m. Monday could mean keeping their jobs, according to Trump and Musk. But on the other hand, OPM said cooperation was voluntary.

“I thought it was great," Trump told reporters in reaction to an emailed demand sent to 2.3 million federal workers over the weekend requiring that they reply with bulleted summaries of work they did last week.

The president said Musk’s “genius” effort sought to determine, “are you actually working? … Because we have people who don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government.”

“If you don't answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist," Trump said in the Oval Office.

Trump told reporters that DOGE’s endeavors will reveal “hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud and abuse” in the bureaucracy. Musk began the project with ambitions to save $2 trillion, later reduced to an estimated $1 trillion.

In the corporate world, “ghost employees” are a part of some fraud schemes. The administration offered no evidence that large numbers of ghost civil servants are receiving federal compensation erroneously or fraudulently.

Cabinet secretaries on Sunday countermanded Musk’s instructions. FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered their respective coworkers to hold off on responding. In some cases, security and intelligence requirements prohibit employees from sharing such information with any third party without prior approval from their supervisors.

The confusion persisted. The Treasury Department on Monday told IRS workers they were required to respond by Monday night. Republican senators voiced criticisms of Musk’s weekend messages.

▪ NBC News reported that DOGE planned to use artificial intelligence (AI) to assess federal workers’ responses to the what-did-you-do-last-week emailed instructions.

▪ The New York Times: Is the U.S. DOGE Service constitutional as structured and administered? Federal District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly asked a government lawyer on Monday to identify the service’s administrator. He was unable to answer her. “Based on the limited record I have before me, I have some concerns about the constitutionality of USDS’s structure and operations,” she said. Musk is a special government employee described by the White House as an adviser with no independent authority who does not require Senate confirmation.

▪ The Hill: The Veterans Affairs Department fired another 1,400 employees Monday, identifying them as probationary and “non-mission critical.”

▪ Defense One: Conservative podcaster Graham Allen started a new job at the Pentagon on Monday, as the Defense Department’s digital media director.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage in The Memo: GOP divides emerge over Trump’s handling of Musk, Ukraine.

▪ The Associated Press: Federal workers nationwide showed up to their offices Monday in compliance with Trump’s return-to-the-office order.

Trade policy: Trump said Monday he expects planned tariffs on Canada and Mexico to move forward next month, although a U.S. official cautioned the schedule could be less certain. And questions abound about the fate of a “de minimis” trade rule exemption Trump appeared to believe he ended.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 10 a.m.
The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.
The president will sign executive orders at 3 p.m.
The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press | Alex Brandon

POLITICS: Former Republican presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, on Monday announced he’s seeking the nomination of his party in Ohio’s gubernatorial race. He pledged to supporters in a message sent via a text link early in the day that he’d be a “key partner” to Trump. Ramaswamy joins Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost as the other major GOP candidate in the race. Amy Acton, a former Ohio Department of Health director, is the only announced Democrat running to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

In Wisconsin, Musk threw his support behind conservative Wisconsin state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel last month. Last week, a financial statement revealed his America PAC spent $1 million in the race. Another group with ties to Musk, Building America’s Future, has also waded into the race with a pricey TV ad campaign.

Musk's involvement underscores both his growing political influence outside the Beltway and the high stakes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in particular, as it could alter the ideological makeup of the top court in a key swing state, The Hill’s Caroline Vakil and Miranda Nazzaro report.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is emerging as Democrats’ top target in the battle for the upper chamber after voting for all of Trump's most controversial Cabinet nominees. Republicans expect the 2026 race will cost more than $500 million, making it the most expensive of the election cycle.

“THE MAN IN THE ARENA”: Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) wasn’t planning to run for Congress after serving as lead majority counsel in the first impeachment inquiry against Trump and as lead counsel to House impeachment trial managers, also in 2019. But Trump denied his 2020 election defeat and a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. Now, the New York Democrat sits on the House Judiciary Committee, where his approach mirrors his training and experience as a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

“I’m somebody who lives by the Teddy Roosevelt quote, that it is better to be the man in the arena than the person outside, criticizing the man in the arena,” Goldman told The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch.

ELSEWHERE

WASHINGTON VISIT: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the next foreign leader due at the White House on Thursday, will be treading a fine diplomatic line. Transatlantic relations are in pieces. Trump has upended the U.S.’s long-standing support for Ukraine and sidelined Europe in the process. Now, Starmer and other European leaders are tag-teaming to ensure their continued importance on matters of international security and Ukraine’s involvement in peace talks. Starmer is expected to describe an emerging plan to deploy as many as 30,000 European peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.

Starmer and Macron spoke on the phone Sunday to confirm their countries must “show united leadership in support of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.”

The New York Times analysis: Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will try to lead Europe despite a weakened hand, public criticism and a stalled German economy. But his penchant for risks could help lead to a European showdown with Trump.

GAZA CEASEFIRE: The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is in further jeopardy, as the two sides have not yet made progress in the negotiations for the second phase of the truce. The first phase expires Saturday, and Hamas said talks with Israel about further steps are conditional on Palestinian prisoners being freed as agreed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday delayed the release of more than 600 Palestinians in return for six living and four dead hostages who had been freed, accusing Hamas of repeated violations, including “humiliating” handover ceremonies. The New York Times breaks down how the deal could still continue — and what happens if it doesn’t.

CHINA AND RUSSIA: Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their relationship in a video call on Monday, an apparent rebuff to the idea that the Trump administration could drive a wedge between them as it courts Moscow and cracks down on Beijing. According to state media, Xi said relations between China and Russia were not “affected by any third party,” in what appeared to be an oblique reference to the U.S. And he said the two countries’ foreign policies were there for the “long term.”

OPINION

■ America and Russia are on the same side now, by Dana H. Allin and Jonathan Stevenson, guest essayists, The New York Times.

■ The White House’s Ukraine minerals deal sounds like a shakedown, by The Washington Post editorial board.

■ Whole Hog Politics: Will the working-class GOP really cut health insurance? by Chris Stirewalt, political editor, The Hill.

THE CLOSER

And finally … Remember when supply chain problems during the pandemic spawned runs on toilet paper and inspired new experts in the mask marketplace? Eggs-actly. Creativity is back, this time to combat shortages of eggs and their soaring price tags.

🐣 Renting hens has taken off, with one company, Rent The Chicken, telling CBS News they lend out their chickens for six months at a time.

🐔 Owning and raising backyard chickens for their eggs is more popular than ever, although not an inexpensive pastime and somewhat risky amid the spread of avian flu.

💡 Substitutions. A Saturday Night Live skit last month featured the president, played by cast member James Austin Johnson, suggesting possible work-arounds, including Cadbury eggs. Sweet idea.

🥚 Hoarding. Eggs are perishable, but panic buyers are going to town on stocking up and preserving bulk buys without risking rotten outcomes. Frozen eggs, anyone?

Stay Engaged

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