February 21, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

President Donald Trump signed a memo Friday directing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to block Chinese investments in areas pertaining to national security, such as artificial intelligence.

The memo also seeks to fast-track foreign investment in US projects but prohibit US companies from making investments that further the causes of the Chinese government. It did not spell out exactly how it would accomplish that.

The executive action comes after Chinese hackers breached CFIUS’ database in December, which was part of a broader incursion into the Treasury Department’s unclassified system, CNN reported.

The Biden administration took similar actions with rules that were finalized last year, which restricted US investments in Chinese industries in an effort to protect national security.

A New York federal judge on Friday extended her earlier block on Department of Government Efficiency representatives’ access to sensitive data at the Treasury Department.

However, US District Judge Jeannette Anne Vargas declined to take more sweeping steps requested by the Democratic-led states that brought the lawsuit in her court to curtail DOGE activity at the department.

Vargas’ new order is a preliminary injunction, which, unlike the temporary restraining order she previously handed down, is subject to appeal. That sets up the possibility for the issue of DOGE’s access to closely guarded government data systems to travel up to higher courts, including the Supreme Court.

The judge said she’d consider modifying the current order once the Treasury showed DOGE employees were given proper training and vetting for accessing the data system. She is giving the government until March 24 to file a submission laying out the steps it has taken.

President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters during a briefing in the White House

The Associated Press (AP) is suing three Trump administration officials in federal court for banning AP reporters from some of President Donald Trump’s events, the Oval Office and Air Force One.

The AP alleges the ban violates the First Amendment as well as the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The suit names three defendants: Trump White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich.

The AP is seeking an emergency hearing and a court order to declare the ban unconstitutional and require them to rescind it.

Some background: Earlier this month, the AP, one of the world’s largest news outlets, was singled out by the White House for continuing to use the phrase “Gulf of Mexico” even though Trump renamed the body of water “Gulf of America.”

Other countries do not recognize the new name, and the AP is a global news outlet with customers all around the world, so its stories — and influential stylebook — are still referring to the “Gulf of Mexico” while also acknowledging Trump’s decree.

The ban was first implemented on February 11. Top AP editors immediately described it as a First Amendment violation but tried to resolve the dispute behind the scenes before resorting to legal action.

What’s in AP’s legal filing: The White House has ordered its journalists “to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access,” the AP’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government.”

Leavitt responds: Leavitt sidestepped questions about the conflict at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, saying she had just learned of the suit on her drive over for an on-stage interview.

“We’ll see them in court,” the press secretary said, acknowledging she’d been personally named in the complaint.

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

This post has been updated with Leavitt’s comments at CPAC.

President Donald Trump signed a new memo directing the Office of the US Trade Representative to investigate a reciprocal response to countries that have digital services taxes, or DSTs.

DSTs tax the gross revenue that online firms collect from offering services to users. A country with a DST would be able to tax all the revenue large companies that operate online collect — even if the business is unprofitable. That can include what they collect from selling data, advertising as well as payments they receive for subscriptions, software and other kinds of online services users pay for.

American firms, namely Big Tech companies such as Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, are disproportionately affected by DSTs, according to a report published last year by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

“What they’re doing to us in other countries is terrible,” Trump said Friday before signing the memo. He declined to share how high reciprocal tariffs on countries with DSTs could go.

The United States does not have a DST. They are most prominent across several European countries as well as India, where DST rates are among the highest worldwide.

President Donald Trump on Friday claimed the US and Ukraine and “pretty close” to agreeing on a rare earth mineral deal.

People familiar with the matter also said US officials believe they are nearing an agreement with Ukraine on a deal to secure rights to the country’s rare earth minerals.

Talks between the two sides have been intensive and ongoing, the people said, but have made progress over the past 24 hours. It wasn’t clear when or if an announcement would come, or what the parameters of the deal would be.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he hopes for a “fair” minerals agreement with the US. He had previously rejected a draft agreement that he said was demanding Kyiv “give away” 50% of Ukraine’s rare minerals while offering no security guarantees in exchange.

“We’re going to sign a deal to get security, because we have to do that. We’re spending our treasure. They’re spending their blood. They are — and they’re very brave, and you know, in every way you can imagine — but we are spending our treasure on some country that’s very, very far away, and it’s OK, but we have to be treated the same as Europe is being treated,” Trump also said.

Trump dismissed reports that he is traveling to Moscow on May 9 and again didn’t answer a question about whether he considers Russian President Vladimir Putin a dictator, a label he’s applied to Zelensky.

The Supreme Court on Friday stopped President Donald Trump’s plan to immediately fire the head of an independent agency that investigates whistleblower claims, allowing Hampton Dellinger to remain in the job through at least the middle of next week.

By declining to back Trump’s emergency appeal, the conservative court nominally sided with Dellinger. President Joe Biden appointed Dellinger in 2024 to lead the Office of Special Counsel for a five-year term.

Trump White House officials fired Dellinger in a brief email days after the president took office.

In an unsigned order, the court said it would hold the case on pause until February 26, when a temporary order handed down by a lower is set to expire.

The Department of Education’s civil rights division said it is launching Title IX investigations into Maine’s Department of Education related to claims it is violating President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

The announcement comes after a tense exchange between Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump earlier Friday. Trump threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding if the state refuses to comply with his order, prompting the governor to respond: “See you in court.”

Trump’s executive order argues that under Title IX, “educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports.”

US Postal Service trucks are parked at a post office in Glendale, California.

President Donald Trump said today he’s considering changes to the US Postal Service, which has been an independent organization for more than 50 years.

It’s a move that could be a first step toward privatization that could upend how Americans get critical deliveries including online purchases, prescription drugs, checks and vote-by-mail ballots. Current law requires the USPS to deliver to all addresses, even rural ones that are too costly for a private business to serve profitably. Even many online purchases handled by private companies such as United Parcel Service depend upon the the Postal Service to handle the “last mile” of delivery to homes.

The USPS now potentially joins other federal agencies going through a massive reorganization under the Trump administration.

Trump has already moved to fire other members of governing federal agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, leaving those agencies without the minimum number of members needed to act to provide protections to members of the public.

Here’s what else happened today:

This post was updated with details on the Supreme Court ruling.

The Pentagon announced Friday that it anticipates ultimately firing 5 to 8% of the military’s approximately 950,000 civilian employees, with an initial tranche of 5,400 probationary workers who don’t have “mission-critical” roles expected to be terminated next week.

While that is a small percentage of the 55,000 probationary employees who were at risk of being fired en masse, the eventual cuts could amount to a significant reduction in the civilian workforce.

That would mean eventually 47,000 to 76,000 people in total could be let go.

Earlier on Friday, CNN reported the Defense Department had temporarily paused a plan to carry out mass firings of civilian probationary employees until Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel can carry out a more thorough review of the impacts such firings could have on US military readiness, according to two defense officials familiar with the matter.

Selnick said the first 5,400 employees could be fired early next week, and more could be terminated “as we conduct a further analysis of our personnel needs, complying as always with all applicable laws.”

“As the Secretary made clear, it is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission-critical,” he added. “Taxpayers deserve to have us take a thorough look at our workforce top-to-bottom to see where we can eliminate redundancies.”

The pause on firing a broader swathe of civilian employees all at once came after CNN reported on Wednesday that the mass terminations, which could affect over 50,000 civilian employees across the Pentagon, could run afoul of Title 10 section 129a of the US code.

Following that report, Pentagon lawyers began reviewing the legality of the planned terminations more closely, the officials said.

Kash Patel arrives to testify during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC, on January 30.

Kash Patel said he is “living the American dream” after being sworn in today as FBI director by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

He said President Donald Trump’s faith in him to lead the FBI is the “greatest honor that I’ll ever have in my life.”

Turning to the task ahead of him, Patel said there “will be accountability within the FBI and outside of the FBI and we will do it through rigorous Constitutional oversight starting this weekend.”

Turmoil in the bureau: Earlier this month, the fate of thousands of FBI officials was in the balance as the Justice Department demanded they fill out a questionnaire about any involvement in investigating the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot, a move employees believe is meant to be a precursor to mass firings.

The unusual demand for FBI employees to explain their role in an investigation comes as CNN has reported that Trump’s Justice Department is considering expanding its purge of bureau personnel.

Some background: The Senate voted to confirm Patel on Thursday, installing the conservative firebrand at the head of the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The vote was 51 to 49, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining with Democrats in voting against his confirmation.

CNN’s Josh Campbell, Danya Gainor, Jim Sciutto and Dan Berman contributed reporting to this post.