Donald Trump strikes to finish union rights for a lot of authorities company workers – US politics stay

For beleaguered and divided congressional Democrats determined to search out an efficient line of assault in opposition to Donald Trump, information that the US president’s nationwide safety workforce mentioned plans to bomb Yemen on a extensively out there messaging app within the presence of a journalist got here at simply the best time.

The leak has put the White Home and the Republicans on the defensive, generated a number of days of aggressive media protection and compelled high officers to publicly twist themselves in knots as they search to clarify – or downplay – the blunder.

It has additionally unified the Democrats at a time after they have appeared break up on how one can fight the Trump administration’s radical agenda and has even allowed some Republicans to hitch them in criticizing the White Home. On Thursday, the highest Republican and Democrat on the Senate armed companies committee collectively requested the protection division’s appearing inspector basic to research the leak.

“If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” the Republican Roger Wicker and the Democrat Jack Reed wrote.

Donald Trump revealed his intentions to reshape the Smithsonian Establishment with an govt order on Thursday that targets funding to packages with “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology”.

The president stated there was a “concerted and widespread” effort over the previous decade to rewrite US historical past by changing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth”.

He signed an govt order placing JD Vance in control of an effort to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Establishment, together with its museums, schooling and analysis facilities and the Nationwide Zoo.

Trump’s order particularly names the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition and the Ladies’s historical past museum, which is in growth.

“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn – not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” the order stated.

Linda St Thomas, the Smithsonian Establishment’s chief spokesperson, stated in an e-mail late on Thursday: “We have no comment for now.”

Good morning and welcome to the US politics stay weblog. I’m Tom Ambrose and shall be bringing you all the most recent information traces by this morning.

We begin with information that president Donald Trump has signed an govt order limiting quite a few federal staff from unionising and ordering the federal government to cease partaking in any collective bargaining.

A memo from the Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM) references an order from Trump but in addition offers a truth sheet, setting out the rationale for such a transfer, The Hill studies.

It reads: “President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people.”

The Hill studies right now:

The order targets businesses it says have a nationwide safety mission however most of the departments don’t have a strict nationwide safety connection.

Along with all businesses with the Division of Homeland Safety, the Division of Protection (DOD), the Division of State, and the Division of Veterans Affairs, the order additionally covers the Treasury Division, all businesses with Well being and Human Companies (HHS), the Environmental Safety Company, the Nationwide Science Basis, the Basic Companies Administration, and lots of extra.

In whole the OPM memo references 18 departments whereas additionally together with quite a few element businesses. The OPM memo instructs businesses to terminate their collective bargaining settlement.

“Consequently, those agencies and subdivisions are no longer required to collectively bargain with Federal unions,” OPM states in its memo.

As a result of the statutory authority underlying the unique recognition of the related unions now not applies, unions lose their standing because the ‘exclusive[ly] recogni[zed]’ labor organizations for workers of the businesses.

The memo additionally says “agencies should cease participating in grievance procedures after terminating their CBA [collective bargaining agreements].”

It has been condemned by the American Federation of Authorities Workers (AFGE) in an e-mail to members, which stated the Trump administration was “illegally strip[ping] collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers”.

The AFGE added:

Let’s be clear. Nationwide safety isn’t the rationale for this motion. That is retaliation as a result of our union is standing up for AFGE members – and a warning to each union: fall in line, or else.

AFGE isn’t going anyplace. We’re preventing again. We’re getting ready authorized motion.

In different information:

• Lawmakers despatched a bipartisan letter to the Pentagon’s inspector basic asking for an investigation into the Sign group chat through which the protection secretary texted assault plans on a non-secure machine.

• Fearing the lack of her seat within the Home, Donald Trump withdrew the nomination of Consultant Elise Stefanik as US Ambassador to the UN.

• Choose James Boasberg ordered all related authorities businesses to retain the Sign group chat messages tat at the moment are the topic of litigation.

• Requested about studies that 300 scholar visas had been revoked, US secretary of state Marco Rubio replied: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”

• Lawyer basic Pamela Jo Bondi directed the justice division’s civil rights division to make sure that 4 California universities – Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and College of California, Irvine – usually are not utilizing “illegal DEI policies” in admissions.

• Trump signed an govt order directing his vice-president, JD Vance, to remove “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian museums, schooling and analysis facilities and the Nationwide Zoo.

• A Russian scientist working at Harvard has been detained by Ice and threatened with deportation again to Russia, the place she faces jail for protesting the warfare on Ukraine.