A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for hundreds of foreign aid contractors who say they’ve been devastated by President Donald Trump’s abrupt — and in their view illegal — 90-day blanket freeze. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Washington, D.C.-based appointee of President Joe Biden, said the Trump administration failed to account for the extraordinary harm caused by the broad-based halt to foreign aid. “At least to date, Defendants have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shock wave and upended reliance interests for thousands of agreements with businesses, nonprofits, and organizations around the country, was a rational precursor to reviewing programs,” Ali wrote. “Absent temporary injunctive relief, therefore, the scale of the enormous harm that has already occurred will almost certainly increase,” the judge added. Ali barred Trump’s top State Department and budget aides — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought — from implementing any contract cancellations or stop-work orders put into effect after Trump’s inauguration, at least while further litigation plays out. The ruling effectively halts a central component of one of Trump’s Day One executive orders commanding his administration to freeze foreign aid for 90 days. The judge concluded that the Trump administration appeared to act in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by abruptly shutting off all foreign aid without considering consequences for businesses to whom that aid was awarded prior to Trump’s inauguration. “There is nothing arbitrary and capricious about executive agencies conducting a review of programs,” he said. “But there has been no explanation offered … as to why reviewing programs — many longstanding and taking place pursuant to contractual terms — required an immediate and wholesale suspension of appropriated foreign aid.” Lawyers for the contractors described extensive damage and disruption caused by Trump’s bid to freeze and cancel thousands of ongoing contracts with organizations funded by USAID foreign assistance dollars. Their claims were bolstered by a list the administration delivered at the judge’s order of more than 200 foreign aid contracts that were canceled just this week. “Businesses are shuttering, terminating employees … food is rotting, medication is expiring,” attorney Stephen Wirth described in a 90-minute, conference-call hearing Ali held Wednesday as the courthouse was closed due to snow. Lawyers for the contract and grant recipients emphasized that it wasn’t just foreign organizations being harmed but businesses and organizations across the United States — who work with overseas partners — that were laying off or furloughing nearly their entire staffs. Many of them won’t survive the 90-day freeze, the attorneys said. “Shutting down billions of dollars in government spending, sending numerous foreign aid partners large and small into oblivion, shutting them down so they are out of business is clearly of sufficient political, social and economic significance that it would require clear congressional authorization,” another attorney for the groups argued. Ali agreed that the harm being caused by the freeze, coupled with their credible arguments that the freeze could violate laws against government officials making “arbitrary and capricious” decisions, justified ordering the administration to lift the freeze while further litigation plays out. In the arguments Wednesday, the Justice Department took an unusually expansive view of executive power. DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton argued that, because the steps being taken are at presidential direction, the groups had no authority to challenge the actions by USAID and the State Department under the Administrative Procedure Act, which is what allows courts to block “arbitrary and capricious” actions by federal agencies. “We don’t have agency action because the agency is implementing an executive order,” Hamilton said. “It is an enormously disruptive suggestion … to have this intrusion into USAID which would basically place USAID into receivership with a federal court … This policy is happening against the backdrop of the president’s exercise of his Article II authority to set the foreign policy for the United States.” In his Thursday night ruling, Ali scoffed at that argument, saying the Justice Department’s interpretation would put all sorts of agency action beyond review from the courts and could gut the APA. “Defendants’ argument, at least as it has been articulated to date, proves too much — it would allow the President and agencies to simply reframe agency action as orders or directives originating from the President to avoid APA review,” the judge wrote. Ali’s order is the second to interrupt Trump’s sweeping effort to defund and dismantle USAID, the agency responsible for administering billions of dollars in foreign aid programs. Last week, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, blocked the administration from abruptly placing thousands of workers on administrative leave and cutting off their access to government systems. Nichols extended that hold Thursday for another week. Ali is also the third judge to issue an emergency block on Trump’s efforts to unilaterally freeze wide swaths of government spending. U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an appointee of President Barack Obama based in Rhode Island, has forced the administration to lift a blanket freeze on domestic federal programs. Another Washington, D.C., judge, Biden appointee Loren AliKhan, has also blocked aspects of Trump’s domestic spending freeze.

TikTok returned to Google and Apple app stores for U.S. users Thursday. Apple restored the app after Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to the company assuring it will not face fines for violating a law that banned the video-sharing platform last month, according to a person familiar with the correspondence. A Google spokesperson did not give a reason for why the app was restored. Both companies took the app off their online stores after a ban on TikTok took effect in the U.S. on Jan. 19. Apple and Google had kept TikTok unavailable for downloads even after President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising his administration would not enforce the law for 75 days. The order also directed the attorney general to “issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability.” Bondi was sworn in last Wednesday. The app has remained online aside from a short takedown, with cloud providers Oracle and Akamai Technologies servicing it. Earlier Thursday, Trump said he’s still working on a deal to engineer a sale of TikTok from its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance. In recent weeks, the president has floated multiple ideas including buying the app with a new U.S. sovereign wealth fund and entering a joint venture that could result in the American government owning a piece of TikTok alongside ByteDance. The Justice Department and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Greenland lately has loomed almost as large in American politics as it does in the Mercator projection. The potential annexation of the Arctic island has become a fixation of President Donald Trump and a bombastic MAGA rallying cry. The demands have outraged its Danish overseers and alarmed European allies. Already there are multiple bills in Congress focused on making it part of the United States. One would rename the territory “Red, White and Blueland.” The first congressional hearing to touch on a potential Arctic takeover, on the other hand, was hardly so colorful. Taking place in a drab Senate hearing room on a snowy Wednesday morning, the hearing — titled “Nuuk and Cranny: Looking at the Arctic and Greenland’s Geostrategic Importance to U.S. Interests” — rarely went to jingoistic extremes. Instead, senators from both parties tried to grapple with the fundamental tension at the heart of the Republican push for Greenland: Is it about owning lithium or just about owning the libs? The tension was made clear in the opening statements. Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) rhapsodized about the ample precedent for a United States acquisition of territory — noting how the dais was filled with senators from states acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. But he first pointed out Greenland’s crucial strategic resources and the desperate need to build more icebreakers to maintain dominance of Arctic sea lanes. Call it the geopolitical medicine embedded in the sugar of MAGA neoimperialism — something Cruz heavily caveated by noting that a takeover would require both mutual agreement with Denmark and the support of Greenlanders in a referendum, neither of which currently seem likely. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Commerce Democrat, skipped the sugar entirely and devoted no more than a sentence to the idea of annexation. For her, the hearing was entirely about icebreakers, minerals and the need to ensure U.S. dominance in the Arctic. American efforts to acquire Greenland date back to the 1860s, but the current momentum towards the project dates back to 2019 when Trump privately floated the idea during his first administration. It was quickly followed by a New York Times op-ed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton titled “We Should Buy Greenland.” The topic then faded from national attention as Trump’s first impeachment and then the Covid pandemic took center stage. Now it has come roaring back with Trump’s re-election and his rekindled interest in a new northern land acquisition. In a sign of the president’s seriousness, or maybe his unseriousness, son Donald Trump Jr. took a day trip to the Arctic last month, complete with a photo op with MAGA-hat-wearing Greenlanders. Back inside the Russell Senate Office Building, the proceedings fluctuated between silly and serious moments. Some Democratic senators prefaced their remarks about just how ridiculous the idea of buying Greenland would be before jumping right into the need to build more icebreakers. Others seemed to fully embrace the absurdity. The otherwise stoic Danish reporters present couldn’t help but laugh when GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio asked a witness, “If you were a Greenlander, would you rather be part of America, a $27 trillion economy, or part of Denmark?” The answer is “obvious,” said the witness, Alex Gray, a former Trump National Security Council staffer and unsuccessful Senate candidate in Oklahoma. Talk of annexation isn’t “clickbait” or “distraction,” Gray later added when Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) asked him about criticism from Democrats that annexation was simply Trumpian wild talk that should be taken neither seriously nor literally at a moment when his administration is making drastic cuts to the federal government. The senators also heard from a mining CEO and Arctic experts from the National Science Foundation and the Wilson Center. In other words, for all of Trump’s imperialist bluster, the hearing was more about how to get Greenland’s resources out of the ground than about how to put a 51st star on the flag. One perspective that was missing was Greenland’s. The self-governing island is moving towards independence, and there are real questions about whether Greenlanders have any desire to simply swap Copenhagen for Washington. Cruz at one point touted the benefits of annexation by noting that “the people of Puerto Rico enjoy a considerable upside from their current status as an American territory.” He did not mention though that the people of Puerto Rico have voted repeatedly since 2012 to become a state and have yet to see Congress take action. No one, to be clear, suggested the Marine Corps should land on the beach outside Nuuk and raise Old Glory in conquest. But the hearing made clear there is no desire to leave the many questions about Greenland’s future on ice.

The White House said late Sunday that the government of Colombia has agreed to take deportation flights of migrants from the country, hours after President Donald Trump threatened tariffs and visa restrictions. Migrants will be returned to Colombia on military aircraft “without limitation and delay,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. The late-night declaration of victory by the White House caps a tumultuous day of threats lobbed back and forth between the countries’ two leaders on social media. The showdown, less than one week into Trump’s second term, previewed one of the major challenges he will face in implementing his sweeping immigration agenda, as he works to increase the number of deportations. The White House said the emergency tariffs and sanctions Trump threatened earlier in the day were fully drafted and will be held — but not signed — unless Colombia does not uphold the agreement. The visa sanctions imposed by the State Department, as well as increased inspections from Customs and Border Protection, will remain in place until the first plane of Colombian migrants are returned. “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States,” Leavitt said. Colombian President Gustavo Petro reposted the press secretary’s statement on X. The spat started after Petro turned away two U.S. military aircraft full of detained Colombian migrants, calling for a “dignified return” of deportees not “handcuffed and on military craft.” Trump quickly responded with a post on X, saying he was hitting the country with an emergency 25 percent tariff on all goods imported from Colombia, visa restrictions, a travel ban, enhanced border patrol inspections and financial sanctions.

President Donald Trump has chosen Andrew Puzder to serve as ambassador to the European Union — a comeback for someone whose previous nomination to lead the Labor Department in 2017 was derailed by allegations of spousal abuse. Trump praised Puzder as a “successful attorney, businessman, economic commentator, and author,” in announcing the nomination Wednesday in a Truth Social post. Puzder was CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc., parent of international restaurant chains Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s. “During his 17 year tenure as CEO, Andy led the company out of serious financial difficulty, allowing it to survive, become financially secure, and grow. Andy will do an excellent job representing our Nation’s interests in this important region. Congratulations Andy!” Puzder was Trump’s first choice to lead the Labor Department nearly eight years ago. However he withdrew from consideration in February of that year after POLITICO surfaced a 1990 taping of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in which Puzder’s ex-wife appeared in disguise as part of an episode on “High Class Battered Women.” Puzder has consistently denied those allegations, and the woman — Lisa Fierstein — subsequently disavowed those claims as part of a child custody agreement and said they were a tactic pushed by her attorney during divorce negotiations with Puzder. Still, the revelation, along with Puzder’s admission that he illegally employed an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper for several years, alienated a number of Senate Republicans behind the scenes and doomed his chances at the time. His nomination to represent the administration at the EU will likely rehash many of these issues, though the GOP to date has been more receptive of letting Trump stock his team with his preferred people. Trump subsequently landed on Alexander Acosta to replace Puzder. Acosta’s tenure also ended in controversy due to renewed focus on his kid-glove treatment as a federal prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein. Nevertheless, Puzder stayed in the periphery of Trump’s orbit during his first administration and joined the America First Policy Institute, which is stocked with MAGA acolytes and has played an influential role in the transition process, as a senior fellow. Puzder has been a prominent Trump supporter and has penned a number of supportive op-eds in conservative publications throughout the 2024 campaign. In the past, Trump’s immigration hawks like Stephen Miller — Trump’s the deputy chief of staff for policy — viewed Puzder skeptically due to his prior support for business-friendly immigration reforms, though that evidently did not stand in his way to being part of the president’s team this time around. Puzder’s appointment is sure to outrage progressive groups, which previously criticized his selection for Labor secretary over a history of pay and safety violations at CKE-owned restaurants and franchisees, as well as Puzder’s opposition to raising the federal minimum wage.

President Donald Trump bolted into his first day in office with an unprecedented show of executive force — signing orders intended to end the right to citizenship by birth, force federal workers back to the office and grant Tik Tok a reprieve from a forced shutdown — as he showcased his desire to circumvent Congress and reshape everything from the economy to energy policy. The new president’s flashy signing ceremonies highlighted a long day of classic Trump showmanship that kept him not only at the center of the festivities, but in front of the cameras, as he criticized his predecessor, stewed about familiar grievances and sent messages to his MAGA supporters. Trump delivered not one but two lengthy speeches on Capitol Hill before holding court at a glitzy congressional luncheon. He then used a rally at Capital One Arena as the backdrop for one of his signing ceremonies, holding up an order pulling the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement before the crowd of cheering supporters. Back at the White House, he spent 45 minutes taking dozens of questions from reporters in the Oval as he pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters — including those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers and seditious conspiracy — and signed another swath of orders overhauling the federal government’s treatment of immigrants and withdrawing the country from the World Health Organization. “What a great feeling,” Trump said of returning back to the Oval. “One of the better feelings I’ve had.” Many of his moves were intended to grab attention and appeal to his base, including two announced on social media by Trump’s incoming press secretary that would rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and restore the name Mount McKinley to Alaska’s highest peak, which former President Barack Obama renamed Denali in 2015 as a show of respect to Alaskan tribal groups. It’s not yet known which of Trump’s exhaustive list of executive actions will have immediate impact, which are purely symbolic, and whether Congress or the courts can limit their impact. As of 9 p.m., Trump had signed dozens of executive actions, with the possibility he could sign more later Monday night. It was immediately clear, however, that several Day One orders appeared to fall short of the “days of thunder” the incoming president’s allies promised in the lead up to Inauguration Day. Despite recent vows to enact tariffs as high as 100 percent on imports, for example, Trump issued an order merely directing federal agencies to investigate and address trade deficits and unfair trade and currency practices, without levying any new tariffs on foreign countries. The order singles out China as well as Canada and Mexico for evaluation — but does not impose either a universal baseline tariff or tariffs on select trading partners, as many countries feared. That contradicts Trump’s promise in November to impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada on his first day in office in an effort to crack down on illegal migration and the flow of fentanyl into the United States. The decision is likely to irk backers of the hawkish tariff agenda Trump outlined on the campaign trail, which also included imposing 10 to 20 percent tariffs on all imports, tariffs of 60 percent or higher on Chinese imports and replacing the income tax with tariffs. Speaking to a pared-down crowd in the Capitol Rotunda earlier Monday, Trump also pledged to “defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices” but gave no details on how his administration would accomplish that, other than rolling back environmental regulations and boosting fossil fuel extraction. And he vowed to “take back” the Panama Canal, which the Panamanian government has said is not possible under international law. On his most defining issue — immigration — Trump signed several executive orders. He moved to end birthright citizenship, an action that would exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from the right to citizenship by birth that was established under the 14th Amendment. Immigration groups and civil rights organizations were finalizing legal challenges Monday night, setting up Trump for one of his first lengthy court battles. Trump also increased immigration enforcement authorities, declared a national emergency at the southern border, moved to end so-called “catch and release” policies that allow migrants parole while awaiting their court hearings, resumed construction of the border wall and moved to resurrect “Remain in Mexico,” a policy from his first term that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be processed. The president also issued an order to “clarify the military’s role in protecting the territorial integrity of the United States” — suggesting he is trying to make good on his plans to deploy the military for immigration enforcement — directed agencies to provide recommendations for the suspension of entry for nationals of countries of concern and suspended refugee resettlement for at least four months. He also moved to further restrict asylum, designate a series of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and direct the attorney general to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement and capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. “I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Trump said. With Monday’s executive orders, the incoming president hoped to send the message that the border is closed to illegal crossings and that anyone living in the U.S. unauthorized, especially those who have committed crimes, will be deported. But it sets up a challenging and pivotal period ahead for the White House and Republican allies in Congress, as the party’s immigration agenda will no doubt face a number of legal and logistical hurdles. Another order focused on the domestic front targets programs across the government that promote DEI — shorthand for diversity, equity and inclusion — in hiring practices and community programs. May Davis Mailman, the former head of the conservative Independent Women’s Law Center, who also served in Trump’s first administration, told reporters that it was “very fitting” to announce on Martin Luther King Jr. Day an executive action to “dismantle the DEI bureaucracy, and this includes environmental justice programs, equity related grants, equity action plan, equity initiatives, these types of things,” adding that it was “one of many to come” and that more actions targeting DEI initiatives would be unveiled “very soon.” Invoking King to tout the end of diversity programs is likely to infuriate civil rights advocates who support those programs and often point out that King fought for economic as well as racial equity. Trump also signed a broad order to roll back programs that recognize transgender and non-binary individuals. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government, that there are only two genders: male and female,” he said in his inaugural address, a line that drew some of the loudest applause. Trump also signed a broad order Monday eliminating federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals. In practice, said Mailman, the order will mean barring any options other than male and female from government documents, including passports and visas, ending the annual recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility, and excluding trans people from gender-segregated spaces that take federal funding, including prisons, migrant housing and domestic violence shelters. The Trump administration will also seek to eliminate restrictions on so-called conversion therapy — a practice intended to persuade young trans people to reject their identity. “A government entity telling a therapist that they can’t speak the truth that a boy is a boy — that sort of ban has no place in our country,” Mailman said. Conversion therapy is opposed by medical groups like the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, who argue it is both scientifically unsound and harmful for mental health. Whether the administration will be able to implement these orders, however, remains to be seen. The Trump transition was plagued by self-inflicted delays in hiring and coordinating with career federal workers and outgoing Biden officials, and on Monday the new president implemented a hiring freeze that federal worker unions warned would impede his administration’s ability to carry out new rules and policies. “Such blanket freezes exacerbate workforce shortages and contribute to skills gaps,” said American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley. Many Democratic attorneys general and advocacy groups have also pledged to challenge the executive orders in court. And in a move that could bolster those efforts, the progressive legal group Democracy Forward issued 75 public records requests Monday to uncover how the incoming administration coordinated with GOP state officials, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) group run by mogul Elon Musk to prepare the blitz of executive orders. “The incoming Trump-Vance administration has pledged ‘maximum transparency,’ yet their record to date has been irregular, chaotic, and secretive,” said Democracy Forward President & CEO Skye Perryman, citing POLITICO’s reporting that the Trump transition used private email servers. “Should the Trump-Vance administration not uphold its commitment to transparency — and comply with the law — we will meet it in court.” Ari Hawkins contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday night withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization. The move, which was widely anticipated, will see the U.S. leave the global health body within a year from the official notification to the United Nations and the WHO, which Trump tasked newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to do. Congress doesn’t need to agree, but the U.S. must continue paying its dues, according to the 1948 U.S. resolution accepting WHO membership. However, Trump directed Rubio and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to “pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO” with “practicable speed,” in a move reminiscent of the first withdrawal attempt in 2020. Trump also directed the two officials to “recall and reassign” U.S. government personnel or contractors working with the WHO and find “credible and transparent” U.S. and international partners to replace the “necessary activities previously undertaken by the WHO.” The executive order also demands the secretary of State to cease negotiations on the pandemic agreement that WHO member countries have been negotiating for years, with a deadline to conclude set for May. The executive order also notes that actions taken to implement amendments to the International Health Regulations — a set of technical rules governing responses to outbreaks, among other issues — which countries agreed to last year, “will have no binding force on the United States.” Why it matters: The withdrawal will generate a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars for the WHO’s core budget. The U.S. provides about a quarter of that budget as a mandatory membership fee but often gives more — with the figure ranging from $163 million to $816 million in recent years, according to health policy think tank KFF. Trump’s order noted that the “WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.” It cited as an example China, which, with a population many folds bigger than the U.S., contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO. Countries’ membership fees to the WHO are based mainly on the gross domestic product. The loss could hinder the WHO’s ability to swiftly and effectively respond to infectious disease outbreaks and other emergencies around the world, among others. In exchange, the U.S. is expected to lose access to the global network that sets the flu vaccine’s composition every year. It will also weaken the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ability to surveil and contain health threats abroad, according to global health experts. “There are places where we just can’t send CDC epidemiologists, they wouldn’t be safe,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, who headed the agency for eight years under the Obama administration. And American drugmakers could lose the WHO’s help in selling their products worldwide since the WHO system endorsing drugs, vaccines and medical devices for global use that many developing countries rely on could be impaired by the loss of U.S. funding. Background: This is Trump’s second attempt to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO. In July 2020, he sent a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus notifying him of the U.S. intention to withdraw within a year. Trump accused the WHO at the time of helping China mislead the world about the spread of Covid-19. But Trump was defeated in that year’s election, and when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he reversed Trump’s decision. This time, Trump will still be in office when the withdrawal would go into effect. But unlike 2020, the WHO could offset some of the financial losses caused by America’s withdrawal. Last year, it launched an investment round seeking some $7 billion “to mobilize predictable and flexible resources from a broader base of donors” for the WHO’s core work between 2025 and 2028. As of late last year, the WHO said it had received commitments for at least half that amount.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — There’s a crackle of retribution in the air. Get on side — that’s the message from MAGA loyalists. And Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist and host of the influential “War Room” podcast, means to do everything he can to ensure that new converts, the belated joiners from the tech and banking sectors, aren’t able to sidetrack the movement as they now genuflect to Trump. Back in the day, the 71-year-old hunted Russian submarines in the Pacific as a naval surface warfare officer. “I wasn’t hunting boomers,” he told POLITICO — a reference to ballistic missile submarines. “We were hunting Soviet fast attack subs to protect the carrier battle group.” And today, his mission is to protect USS Trump from being diverted. That’s the fervent wish of Trump’s loyalists who flocked to D.C. for Monday’s presidential inauguration. Despite the brutally frigid temperature, which forced the swearing-in ceremony inside for the first time since 1985, the MAGA supporters who gathered in the capital were triumphant and giddy at Trump’s (at times, improbable) political resurrection. To see him back strikes them as confirming their time has truly come — that Trump 2.0 will turn the clock back to the future: No more liberal status quo and critical race theory. No more woke diversity and inclusion. No more forever wars and allies short-changing America. No more immigrants and no more green subsidies — just “drill, baby, drill.” Supporters could’ve hardly cared that many local residents in this heavily Democratic city were shunning inaugural attendees — they were too busy relishing the prospect of settling scores with Democrats and Republican turncoats. “If Biden thinks preemptive pardons are going to save them, he’s got another thing coming,” a middle-aged Trump acolyte from North Carolina, sporting a pair of red-white-and-blue MAGA Sneakers, told POLITICO. A Republican lawyer, attending a star-studded event hosted by conservative cable commentary site Newsmax, echoed the sentiment: “We’re already examining how we can get around any pardons Biden issues.” Along Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capital Grille restaurant — a longtime haunt of Republican lawmakers, their staff and GOP lobbyists — was crowded in the days leading up to the inauguration. “We did it,” chuckled a Trump donor as he surveyed his boisterous fellow revelers. The huge lobby bar at Trump’s old hotel, now the Astoria Waldorf, was packed too. There are two faces to any U.S. presidential inauguration. On one side are the rich, powerful and connected; the foreign dignitaries with supersized black SUVs cleared to whisk them through downtown’s locked-down security zone to inaugural parties and meetings. Then, there are the rank-and-file supporters of the winning party. Wearing transparent plastic raincoats, they have to brave the weather conditions and slosh around icy sidewalks, often being misdirected by police transferred from other cities and states to assist the security operation — it’s a far cry from the well-heeled taking high tea in the lobby of the Willard Hotel, listening to harp music a stone’s throw from the White House.  But with this inauguration, more than any other, there’s sense of a profound break with the past. The crowd who’ve descended on Washington, donning their red MAGA hats, Trump-adorned shirts and American-flag regalia, seem more like an army of sans-culottes — the working-class who played a significant role in the French Revolution. But with this inauguration, more than any other, there’s sense of a profound break with the past. | Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images They feel they’ve conquered, and they mean to take the nation’s capital back. Whether that’s how it will play out isn’t clear, though. As Trump bragged at a campaign-style pre-inaugural rally on Sunday night, his electoral coalition has expanded. Railing against his adversaries, from Democrats to journalists and immigrants to never-Trump Republicans, he promised his cheering supporters: “Once and for all, we’re going to end the reign of a failed and corrupt political establishment in Washington, a failed administration.” Other speakers at the raucous rally were even more belligerent, denouncing opponents who stood in Trump’s way. “They did everything they could to stop this movement, and they failed,″ Eric Trump, the president son, said. “Accountability is coming,” said senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller. “The whole federal bureaucracy is about to learn that they don’t work for themselves; they work for you, they work for President Trump, and they work for the American people. We are about to get our country back and our democracy back.” But a bigger coalition risks tensions and flare-ups. The MAGA crowd may like the spectacle of tech and Wall Street titans coming to them cap-in-hand, but who will co-opt who? Republicans have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but the five-seat majority they have in the House of Representatives will make life difficult — and Trump strategists have already walked away from attempting what Trump dubbed “one big, beautiful bill” to enact a huge raft of reforms. “At the moment Trump doesn’t have to choose between competing parts of his coalition,” Sean Spicer, a former Trump aide who served as press secretary for part of the president’s first term, told POLITICO. “There’s nothing making him have to pick … at the moment.”

Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede insisted Thursday that the island wants close ties to the U.S. and Denmark. But only to a point. “The Greenlandic people don’t want to be Danes. The Greenlandic people don’t want to be Americans,” Egede said in a Fox News interview. The prime minister’s comments risk frustrating President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed interest in taking control of the strategically located and resource-rich island. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has supported Egede’s assertion that “Greenland is not for sale,” reiterating that message directly to Trump in a phone call Wednesday. Egede, in an interview with Bret Baier, welcomed a strong partnership with both the EU and U.S. and expressed openness for increased European and American investment in the island’s mining sector, echoing a Washington Post opinion penned by the island’s natural resources minister Naaja H. Nathanielsen on Thursday. Egede said Greenlanders would choose independence if given the chance to vote in a referendum — and the decision should be left in their hands. “The future of Greenland will be decided by the Greenlandic people,” he said. If the Danish territory achieved independence, he said, Greenland would want to remain part of NATO as a member state and maintain a strong security and defense partnership with both the U.S. and EU. “It’s important to see that if Greenland takes those steps we’ll always be a part of the Western alliance and a strong partner for [the] U.S.,” he said, “because your security is our security.”

President Joe Biden warned of a rising ultrawealthy “oligarchy” in America that poses a threat to the nation’s democracy, in a grave farewell address delivered Wednesday as he prepares to cede the White House back to Donald Trump. Speaking for a final time from the Oval Office, Biden aired a range of concerns about the country’s future, urging Americans to defend U.S. institutions against “powerful forces” trying to reshape the pillars of society. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, freedom and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said. “We must not be bullied into sacrificing the future, the future of our children and grandchildren.” Biden did not name Trump during his roughly 15-minute address, and he did not specify any of the “few ultrawealthy people” who he considered a danger to democracy. But he made a point of calling for amending the Constitution “to make clear that no president is immune from crimes,” in a reference to the Supreme Court’s ruling last year that Trump was immune for some actions he took to subvert the 2020 election results. Billionaire Elon Musk has been a constant at Trump’s side ahead of his return to office, and in recent weeks, other prominent figures like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have also sought to cozy up to the president-elect. But the stark warning represented an unusual use of a farewell speech that traditionally serves as an opportunity to tout accomplishments and express confidence in the future — a sign that Biden still harbors deep reservations about handing the presidency to a man that he once warned was “willing to sacrifice our democracy” to attain power. “Democracy must be defended and be defined and be imposed,” Biden said. “Believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press.” Comparing the current moment to the 19th century age of robber barons, Biden predicted that the nation would need to once again take sweeping action to rein in the wealthy, including raising taxes and eliminating dark money from politics. He singled out the tech industry, criticizing social media platforms for allowing Americans to be “buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power.” “Social media is giving up on fact checking,” Biden said, in a seeming reference Zuckerberg’s decision to curry favor with Trump by scrapping his company’s fact-checking operation. “The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit.” Biden’s dark vision of the threats facing the nation represented a departure from his prior speeches since Trump’s November victory, most of which he has used to tout his administration’s accomplishments and voice optimism for a bright future ahead. Biden did express pride in a record that he portrayed as strengthening key elements of the economy and American life, nodding to his long-held belief that his presidency would eventually be viewed as a widespread success — even if few currently hold that view. “It will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted,” he said, listing off efforts to rebuild infrastructure, bolster American manufacturing and strengthen health care. “They’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come.” Biden also celebrated perhaps his most consequential accomplishment of the last several months: clinching a ceasefire deal earlier Wednesday between Israel and Hamas. But he returned repeatedly to the themes of democracy and the need to preserve America’s institutions, ideas that animated his successful bid to defeat Trump in 2020 — only to find they were not compelling enough to overcome his deficiencies four years later. He made no effort during the speech to relitigate the events that paved the way for Trump’s return — including his ill-fated reelection bid and belated decision to drop out just 107 days from Election Day. Yet while Biden has continued to insist that he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race, he made clear that the looming consequences of Democrats’ defeat at the ballot box remain his foremost concern. “The president’s power is not unlimited, it’s not absolute and it shouldn’t be,” Biden said, pleading with Americans he acknowledged may be disillusioned and frustrated by the political system to remain engaged. “After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands, where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure.” “Now,” Biden concluded, “it’s your turn to stand guard.”