Federal workers brace for more firings after judge lifts block on Trump administration job cuts – US politics live

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We expect Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer to soon visit Donald Trump, at a moment when the American president is upending much of America’s foreign policy with his embrace of Russia’s position in the war in Ukraine. The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour looks at whether Starmer’s visit might reassure a rattled Europe:

In November 1940, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt expressing relief both at the US president’s re-election and the victory of his anti-appeasement policy. “Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.

As Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepare to meet a very different US president, things are once again afoot that will live long in the memory – but this time the lights seem to be going out on a ship adrift in a sea of chaos.

In his Arsenal of Democracy speech, Roosevelt spurned those who asked to “throw the US weight on the scale in favour of a dictated peace”. He also saw past Nazi Germany’s “parade of pious purpose” to observe “in the background the concentration camps and ‘servants of God’ in chains”.

As Donald Trump swings his sights from one region to the next, upturning diplomatic relations and confounding allies, leaders of former US partners have clashed with him and come off much the worse.

But so far, one – Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum – has emerged relatively unscathed.

With the US-Mexico border and the trade, drugs and migrants that cross it a focus of the Trump administration, Mexico is under intense pressure. Yet while Sheinbaum has made some concessions, she has also charmed Trump and won plaudits at home, with approval ratings that touch 80%.

The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”

The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development.

Trump, who has said that the climate crisis is a “giant hoax”, has already stripped mentions of climate change and global heating from government websites and ordered a halt to programs that reference diversity, equity and inclusion. A widespread funding freeze for federally backed scientific work also has been imposed, throwing the US scientific community into chaos.

Federal workers brace for more firings after judge lifts block on Trump administration job cuts

Good morning US politics readers. Federal workers are bracing for more mass firings after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can continue its job-cutting drive.

The ruling came as a blow to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and four other unions, who sued last week to block the administration from firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and granting buyouts to employees who quit voluntarily.

The ruling by the US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington DC federal court is temporary while the litigation plays out.

Meanwhile, as Trump and his lieutenants have been touting supposed cost-savings, a top labor lawyer has warned that instead the mass downsizing of the federal workforce could tally up into a “monumental” bill and could be breaking the law.

Officials have cited “poor performance” when terminating thousands of federal workers. In many cases it’s not true, according to employees embroiled in the blitz, many of whom are now seeking legal advice.

Jacob Malcom was acting deputy assistant secretary for policy and environmental management, and director of the office of policy analysis at the US Department of Interior – until this week, when he resigned in protest against the mass firings of probationary employees.

“This is being done under the guise of ‘poor performance’ or ‘skills not aligned with needs’ but neither are true,” he told the Guardian. “First, no evidence was provided that would suggest that poor performance; in fact, I know some of the individuals that were down my chain of supervision and know they were among the best performers.

You can read the full report by Michael Sainato here:

Here’s what’s happening today:

• Donald Trump is due to address national governors at 11am ET.

• CPAC continues apace. Speakers today include NSA chief Mike Waltz – who told Zelenskyy to “tone down” Trump criticism – at 9.55am, Sebastian Gorka at 11.05am, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at 5pm and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem at 7.30pm.