What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.
This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.
Elon Musk speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 27. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The chaotic blitz by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has triggered legal objections across Washington, with officials in at least a half-dozen federal agencies and departments raising alarms about whether the billionaire’s assault on government is breaking the law.
Over the past two weeks, Musk’s team has moved to dismantle some U.S. agencies, push out hundreds of thousands of civil servants and gain access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive payment systems. Musk has said these changes are necessary to overhaul what he’s characterized as a sclerotic federal bureaucracy and to stop payments that he says are bankrupting the country and driving inflation.
But many of these moves appear to violate federal law, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, one audio recording, and several internal messages obtained by The Washington Post. Internal legal objections have been raised at the Treasury Department, the Education Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the White House budget office, among others.
“So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once,” said David Super, an administrative law professor at Georgetown Law School.
Specific concerns include the terms ofthe “deferred resignation”Musk’s team is offering to purge the civil service — which experts say runs afoul of federal spending law — and whether Musk’s staffers will use Treasury’s payment system to reverse spending that has already been approved. (Two federal employee unions sued Monday to block DOGE from accessing that system. Late Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote to Congress that DOGE associates have only “read-only” access to it.) Several federal officials said they were worried about DOGE’s taking control of government systems that hold Americans’ personal information, including student loan data, andothers have raised privacy concerns about the agency’s vow to use artificial intelligence on government databases. In other instances, officials have raised concerns that DOGE associates appeared to violate security protocols by using private email addresses or not disclosing their identities on government calls.
At a more fundamental level, several legal experts and government officials expressed alarm over how Musk’s team appears to operate as a strike team, outside typical agency rules and constitutional checks on executive power.
“The big-picture constitutional worry is that there is a kind of shadow executive branch that is existing and operating and exercising power outside of the channels the Constitution and the statutes that Congress authorized,” said Blake Emerson, a professor of constitutional law at the UCLA School of Law.
The Sidebar panel discusses the legality of granting Elon Musk and the DOGE team access to government information. (Video: HyoJung Kim/The Washington Post)
On Monday, the White House confirmed that Musk has been designateda “special government employee,”a status typically conferred on outside advisers from the private sector. Under a Trump executive order, the U.S. Digital Service, a White House office established during the Obama administration to consult on federal technology, has transformed itself into the U.S. DOGE Service. Democrats in Congress have raised objections to some of DOGE’s actions, but Republicans, who control both chambers, have not moved to rein in its activities.
In a sign of potential unease over how DOGE’s early moves are being perceived, PresidentDonald Trumpand Musk have defended the billionaire’s influence and the legality of their actions. Musk has alleged that much of the government is already violating federal law and that his efforts are a needed corrective, for instance asserting over the weekend, without offering evidence, that USAID is a “criminal organization” that should be shut down and that Treasury’s career staffers routinely commit federal crimes. Trump has also denied that Musk will be able to use his government influence to expand his personal fortune, though he did not point to specific guardrails against that.
“Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities,” a White House spokesperson said.
“If there’s a conflict, then we won’t let him get near it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “We’re trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better. Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it.”
DOGE challenges federal spending law
Despite Trump’s assurances, federal officials have widespread concerns about the legality of many of the Musk team’s actions, though career staffers don’t have the power to do much about it.
Part of the concern has centered on the Treasury Department’s powerful payment systems, which are responsible for disbursing more than $6 trillion across the country every year. In private communications last week, a DOGE representative asked the most senior Treasury career official to halt foreign aid payments that Musk allies believed violated Trump’s executive orders, two people familiar with the matter said.
David A. Lebryk, who was at the time the acting treasury secretary, told Musk’s team that the department does not have the authority to cancel payments authorized by federal agencies, the people said.Lebryk was later oustedby Trump officials, and Bessent has since agreed to hand access to the system to DOGE officials.
On X this weekend, Musk defended using Treasury’s systems to shut down federal payments because, he said, some of those payments are being made incorrectly. “Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress,” he wrote.
Musk alsopointed to U.S. law governinghow payments are made. Inside Treasury, several officials mocked Musk’s tweet, which states that the U.S. government is required to complete payments properly certified by federal agencies — exactly the point Lebryk made.
Bessent wrote Congress on Tuesday that the payment system had not rejected any payments submitted by other agencies, and that no payments for Social Security or Medicare had been affected. The administration has notified recipients via several agencies that it will comply with a court injunction reversing a White House attempt to freeze all federal grants.
But Musk’s repeated statements that Treasury officials need to unilaterally shut down payments already approved by Congress and requested by agencies have alarmed numerous officials within the government, who note that the Constitution explicitly gives spending power to Congress.
Unilaterally terminating federal disbursements via Treasury’s payment networks would also almost certainly violate a 1974 budget law and due-process protections for grantees, current and former officials say.
Resignation bid prompts legal concerns
Musk’s rapid actions have prompted other concerns within the administration as well. Last week, his allies at the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to much of the federal workforce offering to pay employees’ salaries through September if they quit now. The proposal is intended to accomplish Musk’sgoalof “mass head-count reductions” in the civil service.
The memo, whichbypassed typical channels, provoked greater internal legal concerns that have not previously been reported. Administration officials point out that the OPM does not have the legal authority to guarantee payments to employees — a responsibility that rests with the agencies where people work. Additionally, the executive branch cannot specifically guarantee spending not yet approved by Congress, legal experts say. Government funding is currently set to expire in March, well before the end of September.
Last Thursday, a group of officials with the White House budget office — including career employees as well as political employees appointed by Trump — met with OPM officials, two people with knowledge of the meeting said. While the meeting was described as cordial, several career budget officials told The Post that they have concerns about the legality of the offer. (Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the budget office, was not at the meeting. His nomination has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.)
The budget office has also received numerous questions from agency officials asking it to confirm the legality of the OPM’s offer, and some budget personnel have not been sure how to respond. On Tuesday, the OPM circulatedan FAQ documentspecifically addressing legal concerns, in a sign that those worries may be widespread.
“They’re promising to pay people through Sept. 30, when they only have authority to spend through March 15 — it’s clearly a violation of the law,” said Charles Kieffer, who spent several decades across administrations in the OMB and worked for Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Federal employees have expressed alarm over whether some of the provisions of the contract are actually enforceable, including a portion stating that an employee “forever waives, and will not pursue through any judicial, administrative, or other process, any action” based on their employment, according to an agreement reviewed by The Post.
“The legality is the fundamental question, and nobody has any good answers,” said one staffer at a federal agency. “We’re being required to resign with more outstanding questions than answers, and our leadership knows it. They just say that OPM has ‘communicated that it is legal.’”
A spokeswoman for the OPM, which is being run by Musk’s allies, defended the proposal.
“Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice,” said spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover. “This is a rare, generous opportunity — one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring.”
‘We don’t know who these people are’
As Musk’s representatives have sought an increasing amount of data from a greater number of federal agencies, their actions have also spawned concerns about the security of classified or sensitive government systems.
Inside the Education Department, some staffers are deeply alarmed by the fact that DOGE staffers have gained access to federal student loan data, which includes personal information for millions of borrowers. Some employees have raised the alarm up their chain of management, several staffers told The Post.
DOGE team members may not be properly authorized under the Privacy Act of 1974 to see the data, experts said. That law says federal agencies cannot disclose an individual’s private information from a set of government records without the written consent of the person.
Under the law, all federal agencies are required to safeguard even unclassified information and ensure that it does not reach third parties or “unauthorized persons,” said Robert S. Metzger, chair of the cybersecurity and privacy practice group at Rogers, Joseph and O’Donnell, a Washington law firm.
Wired hasreportedthat a handful of 19-to-24-year-old engineers linked to Musk’s companies, with unclear titles, could be bypassing regular security protocols. Trump on his first day in office signed anexecutive ordergranting interim “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” security clearances to an unknown number of individuals on a list compiled by the White House counsel’s office. But people within the government have said they don’t know how much access the DOGE employees should have.
“When persons who are not federal employees and do not possess requisite credentials are allowed into key federal systems, they are gaining access to information to which they are not legally entitled,” Metzger said. “The idea that unvetted persons can go to any federal agency and demand access to information — if they can do that simply because of presidential directive or the mandate of the U.S. Digital Service, it’s frankly preposterous.”
DOGE staffers using their personal email accounts and not identifying themselves by their last names have been involved in recent weeks in interviewing government technology staffers, including at the GSA, according to two federal workers. That has also triggered legal concerns within the federal bureaucracy, in part because of fears that sensitive information could be divulged to private actors.
“We have very strict security protocols about how to deal with non-gov emails, non-gov participation, refusal to identify yourself in a meeting,” said one person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “They’re asking you to share code you’ve written for partner agencies. We don’t know who these people are.”
In an all-hands meeting with his GSA staffers Monday, the director of the agency’s technology arm — Thomas Shedd, an eight-year alumnus of Tesla, Musk’s electric-car company — said the concealment of those names is deliberate.
“As I mentioned in the Slack channel, we’re afraid of those folks’ names getting out and their personal lives being disrupted, which is exactly what happened last week, which is really unfortunate for them,” Shedd said in the meeting, according to a recording obtained by The Post.
Another employee in that meeting raised concerns that Shedd’s plans to overhaul the login system for federal systems could run afoul of the 1974 privacy law. Shedd responded that the idea was for users to consent to sharing their data, but the employee’s concerns underscored how his vision needed greater clarification.
“If we had a roadblock, then we hit a roadblock. But we should push forward and see what we can do,” he said.
Shedd told employees they should be prepared for work demands to become “intense” after cuts across the government, prompting one to ask if it is illegal to work more than 40 hours a week. He told them to follow HR guidance.
The use of AI to analyze government data also raises privacy protection concerns, according to one official worried that DOGE will deploy the technology on a database overseen by their agency. The new administration has already accessed sensitive data from the database, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity given fear of reprisal.
“It’s like a wild, wild West in contrast to the measured approaches that federal agencies have been taking to mitigate the misuse or harm of AI,” the official said.
Throughout his career, Musk has frequently made aggressive business decisions with little regard for immediate legal fallout. His firings and mass layoffs of Twitter staff in 2022 invited lawsuits, including one thatalleged the companyhad not abided by early-warning requirements for large-scale layoffs. Musk’s sudden firing of the company’s executive suite, including its CEO, upon his takeoverled to a different lawsuitalleging that he had failed to issue tens of millions in severance they were owed.
Twitter was also sued forfailing to pay millionsin rent after Musk’s takeover, as the billionaire enacted steep cost-cutting.
Changes at U.S. agencies prompt legal concerns
Many of the officials being forced out of the administration have also registered legal objections to DOGE’s actions.
At USAID, officials have objected to what they characterize as an illegal attempt to reconstitute federal agencies established by statute. By summarily merging USAID with the State Department, Trump officials are bypassing Congress, which creates federal agencies and is the only entity empowered by law to close them.
“DOGE instructed me to violate the due process of our employees by issuing immediate termination notices to a group of employees without due process,”wroteNicholas Gottlieb, the director of employee and labor relations at USAID, in an internal email. Gottlieb also wrote that he had urged the USAID administrator to “desist from further illegal activity.”
At the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, one official warned in a widely circulated internal email Monday about the legality of recent government actions. Like other agencies, the EEOC has been under major pressures; Trumpfired two of its three Democratic commissionerslast week, and the acting chairwoman sought to roll back some of the Biden administration’s protections for transgender people, moves that several lawyers told The Post are illegal.
“I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and the Commission serves the people of the United States,” an administrative judge at the agency wrote to EEOC acting chair Andrea R. Lucas, in a previously unreported message. “If you want to continue following the illegal and unethical orders of our president and the unelected leader of ‘doge’ that’s on you.”
An EEOC staffer said that the email and a follow-up note from a colleague expressing support were deleted from their inboxes. An agency spokesperson declined to comment on internal emails but said that staff were reminded Monday not to send “unauthorized all-employee emails.”
Jocelyn Samuels, who was fired as an EEOC commissioner last week, said she was worried about reports of DOGE getting access to sensitive personnel records at agencies such as the OPM and Treasury, noting the legal safeguards that should be in place.
“Medical records and disability information are supposed to be maintained absolutely confidentially and only shared on a need-to-know basis,” said Samuels, who is weighing whether to challenge her firing.
Tony Romm, Emily Davies, John Hudson and Lisa Rein contributed to this report."
Trump Administration Live Updates: Birthright Citizenship Order Blocked Indefinitely
Migrants from Venezuela at the U.S.-Mexico border in January.Paul Ratje for The New York Times
"Where Things Stand
Birthright citizenship:A federal judge in Maryland issued a nationwide injunction blocking President Trump’s executive order that sought to unilaterally eliminate automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented or temporary immigrants on U.S. soil. The preliminary injunction is a more durable block than the 14-day restraining order issued last month by a court in Seattle.Read more ›
Worker purge expands:The Elon Musk-led effort to drastically shrink the federal work force hasexpanded to the C.I.A., which began offering employees the option to stop working and leave the agency effective Sept. 30. National security-related agencies had previously been exempted from the offers. The nation’s largest federation of unionshas begun a campaign to push backcalled the Department of People Who Work for a Living — a play on Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Gaza takeover:Palestinian and other officials rejected President Trump’s suggestion that the United States should take over the Gaza Strip and that all Palestinians should leave the enclave, which could be rebuilt into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”Follow live ›
A Tesla showroom at an auto show in Munich in 2023. The company’s sales have been sliding there.Felix Schmitt for The New York Times
Tesla’s sales in Germany plunged 59 percent in January, the month when Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive and a close adviser to President Trump, chided Germans forfocusing too much on “past guilt”for Nazi-era crimes and urged voters tosupport a nationalist partyin the country’s general election.
As Mr. Musk has been intent on slashing the U.S. budget through an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, the electric vehicle company he runs has been steadily losing market share across Europe.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia with the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, in November.Turar Kazangapov/Reuters
The Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday it has established contact with the Trump administration, as discussions begin about the possibility of holding peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
“There are indeed contacts between individual departments, and they have intensified recently, but I cannot tell you any other details,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, said during a call with reporters.
Feb. 5, 2025, 12:03 p.m. ET
Pam Bondi, who was confirmed as attorney general last night, has been sworn in during a ceremony at the White House. She now leads the Justice Department, which is in turmoil over firings and forced transfers at the department.
Feb. 5, 2025, 12:03 p.m. ET
Bondi vowed to “restore order” and told Trump, “I’ve known you for many years, and I will not let you down.” Trump predicted Bondi would do her job in a nonpartisan way -- mostly. “I know I’m supposed to say, ‘She’s going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats,’ and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be,” he said.
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:41 a.m. ET
A few hundred people, including members of Congress and former leaders of U.S.A.I.D., are rallying in a park just north of the Capitol to call on President Trump and Congress to restore foreign aid. The crowd is chanting, “Elon Musk has got to go!”
Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:41 a.m. ET
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, is speaking to the crowd and called the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. “a gift to our adversaries” and an illegal act that violates the authority of Congress.
Sophie Park for The New York Times
A Federal District Court judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday blocking President Trump’s attempt to unilaterally eliminate automatic U.S. citizenship for children born to undocumented or temporary immigrants on U.S. soil.
The nationwide injunction, issued by Judge Deborah L. Boardman, who was nominated to the bench by President Biden, applies nationally and is more permanent than the 14-day temporary restraining orderissued on Jan. 23by a federal judge in Seattle. In most cases, a preliminary injunction remains in force until a case is resolved or a higher court overturns it.
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:25 a.m. ET
A Federal District Court judge in Maryland has issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Trump’s attempt to unilaterally eliminate the automatic citizenship granted to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented or temporary immigrants. The injunction is more durable than a restraining order that was issued last month in Seattle.
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:13 a.m. ET
House Republicans this morning blocked a motion from Democrats that would have forced Elon Musk to testify before Congress about his aggressive incursion into the federal government. Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, moved to subpoena Musk, saying he and President Trump “are using a wrecking ball to systematically dismember our government piece by piece.” Republicans had to scramble to get their members to block the subpoena.
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:00 a.m. ET
Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board who wasousted last weekby President Trump in a late-night email, filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Washington saying her removal violated labor law. Her removal left the board – an independent body that adjudicates labor relations disputes – paralyzed: It cannot hear cases without at least three members and now has two. According to the complaint, the email in which Wilcox was fired cited no actual failure to do her job, instead it cited Trump’s belief that “heads of agencies within the Eexecutive branch must share the objectives” of his administration.
Tucked within the Treasury Department, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service operates a system that channels about 95 percent of the payments for an economy that spent about $6 trillion last year.Julia Nikhinson for The New York Times
The first weeks of President Trump’s second term have been dominated by a blizzard of executive orders aimed at reversing diversity policies, trade wars with major American trading partners and intrigue over the most important federal office that most Americans have never heard of in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
Tucked within the Treasury Department, the bureau is staffed by career civil servants who operate a system that channels about 90 percent of the payments for the United States government, which spent about $6.75 trillion last fiscal year.
Groups protesting Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in Washington on Tuesday.Jason Andrew for The New York Times
The nation’s largest federation of unions is starting a campaign to push back on Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has been empowered by President Trump to carry out a largely unchecked attempt to purge the federal work force.
The campaign by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is called the Department of People Who Work for a Living, a play on Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, in Washington last month.Doug Mills/The New York Times
The C.I.A. is offering its employees what it is calling “deferred resignation,” an option to quit but continue to be paid through September, as part of the Elon Musk-led efforts to shrink the size of the federal work force, officials said.
National security-related agencies had originally been exempted, at least partially, from the governmentwide“fork in the road” offerto leave their jobs that was extended last week. But John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, pushed to have a version of the offer extended to his work force.
Feb. 5, 2025, 8:38 a.m. ET
President Trump made his most explicit case yet for negotiating a new Iran nuclear deal this morning, saying he wanted “a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper.” But he offered no details. It was Trump who withdrew from the last verified agreement, the 2015 nuclear accord that Iran negotatiated with the Obama administration. Under that deal Iran turned over 97 percent of its nuclear material and limited its research and development work, but did not dismantle all of its facilities.
Feb. 5, 2025, 7:57 a.m. ET
President Trump congratulated Pam Bondi on her confirmation as attorney general in an early-morning post on Truth Social. “Congratulations to our wonderful and very talented United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who gets sworn in today amid tremendous support, and the respect of ALL!” he wrote. “I know Pam well, it was an honor to appoint her, and my prediction is that she will go down as one of the best and most consequential Attorney Generals in the history of our Country.”
A U.S.A.I.D. cargo container in Manila on Tuesday. The scope of the agency is extensive and covers a variety of humanitarian relief efforts.Jam Sta Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
When Elon Musk set about “feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper,” as he put it, it wasn’t only supporters of President Trump’s “America First” agenda who were cheering the dismantlement of the foreign aid agency.
The Kremlin was, too.
A U.S. Air Force plane carrying deported Indians landing in Amritsar, a city in Punjab State in northwestern India, on Wednesday.Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A U.S. military plane with at least 100 migrants aboard landed in India on Wednesday, officials said, the longest such deportation flight since President Trump took office and a sign that countries whose leaders he favors will not be spared his immigration crackdown.
It appeared to be the first use of an American military aircraft to deport people to India, which isone of the top sourcesof unauthorized immigration to the United States. More than 1,000 Indians were sent back to the country last year on commercial flights.
President Trump signed an executive order to end America’s involvement in the U.N.’s Human Rights Council.Eric Lee/The New York Times
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday calling for a general review of U.S. funding and involvement in the United Nations, casting uncertainty on the leadership role the United States has played as the global body’s top donor.
“I’ve always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential,” Mr. Trump said before signing the order in the Oval Office. “It’s not living up to that potential right now.”
Pam Bondi during a hearing last month in Washington for her candidacy as attorney general.Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as attorney general on Tuesday evening, putting in place a steadfast loyalist to President Trump to oversee a Justice Department he has bitterly denounced.
Ms. Bondi, 59, was confirmed by a vote of 54 to 46, with one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joining the Republican majority."
In Gaza and Jerusalem, People React to Trump’s Proposal for Palestinians
Live Updates: Allies, Foes and Palestinians Reject Trump’s Gaza Takeover Talk
"Middle East partners, world leaders and Gazans swiftly opposed President Trump’s idea to force Palestinians out of the territory and take it over. Experts said the plan would violate international law.
A Palestinian man and his wife gathering belongings in front of their destroyed house in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Wednesday.Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Pinned
President Trump’s brazen proposal to move all Palestinians out of Gaza and make it a U.S. territory met with immediate opposition on Wednesday from key American partners and officials around the world, with many expressing support for a Palestinian state as experts called ita breach of international law.
The proposal also threatens a U.S. ambition for normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In a statement issued before 4 a.m. local time,Saudi Arabiaexpressed its “unequivocal rejection” of attempts to displace Palestinians and reiterated that it would not establish diplomatic ties with Israel in the absence of an independent Palestinian state.
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:57 a.m. ET
Responding to a question about Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza at a briefing on Wednesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson lauded the president for “taking bold, decisive action to try to ensure the peace” in the Middle East. Ignoringwidespread condemnation of the idea from around the world, Johnson said the president’s proposal, while it surprised many people, was widely “cheered” as a concept “because that area is so dangerous.”
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:56 a.m. ET
King Abdullah II, the Jordanian monarch, hosted Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s president, in Amman for a meeting in the wake of Trump’s comments about a postwar Gaza and removing its Palestinian residents en masse. During the meeting, King Abdullah discussed his rejection of any attempt to displace Palestinians and annex their land, according to the Jordanian royal court.
Mediterranean
Sea
Patients from a hospital in Gaza City departing for Egypt to receive treatment last week.Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For decades, the question of whether and how Palestinians might build a state in their homeland has been at the center of Middle East politics — not only for the Palestinians themselves, but also for Arabs around the region, many of whom regard the Palestinian cause almost as their own. Forcing Palestinians out of their remaining territory, Arabs say, would doom that shared desire for Palestinian statehood and destabilize the entire region in the process.
So it was a nightmare for the Palestinians’ closest Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, and a dream come true for Israel’s far-right-dominated government, when President Trump proposed moving everyone out of the Gaza Strip and onto Egyptian and Jordanian soil, an idea he repeated in a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday.
transcript
A day after President Trump proposed that the United States take over Gaza, many Palestinians said they were committed to staying in the enclave despite the widespread devastation. In Jerusalem, some residents reacted with surprise and enthusiasm to the proposal.
I am delighted and excited. And have hope that what he says is true. If America takes over Aza (Gaza), that will really, really be something spectacular, and the Middle East will calm down. I think the Middle East will calm down. I think we’ll be able to have stuff with Saudi Arabia. Most important thing to all of us is to get the hostages back. I think that’s an ideal, because Aza is not helping anybody. The people from Aza, they’re suffering. We’re suffering and the world is suffering. And I think he’s got the right idea. How to implement it is a different story. But if anybody can do it, it’ll be Trump.
A day after President Trump proposed that the United States take over Gaza, many Palestinians said they were committed to staying in the enclave despite the widespread devastation. In Jerusalem, some residents reacted with surprise and enthusiasm to the proposal.Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
Palestinians in Gaza expressed a mixture of condemnation and confusion on Wednesday over President Trump’s declaration that the United States should seize control of the devastated coastal territory and forcibly displace its entire population.
A number of Gazans said they found Mr. Trump’s comments reprehensible, noting they were in harmony with plans presented by far-right members of Israel's governing coalition. But while some rejected leaving Gaza under any circumstances, others said conditions were so unlivable after 15 months of Israeli bombardment that they would consider relocating.
Feb. 5, 2025, 8:31 a.m. ET
President Trump said on social media that he hoped to reach a “Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement” with Iran in order to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon. He said in a post on Truth Social that any reports that the United States is “going to blow Iran into smithereens” in conjunction with Israel were “GREATLY EXAGGERATED.” After meeting Trump at the White House yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he and Trump saw “eye to eye on Iran,” without offering extensive details.
Feb. 5, 2025, 8:33 a.m. ET
Israel and Iran view one another as archenemies. The two have exchanged fire multiple times over the past year amid the war in Gaza, and Israel views Tehran’s nuclear program as an existential threat. Since Trump’s election, there has been speculation over whether the president might sign off on U.S. support for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, an option long debated by Israeli policymakers.
Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Mideast envoy, said he was set to meet the Qatari prime minister in Florida on Thursday for negotiations.Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Trump announced his bombastic proposals for the future of Gaza even as Israel and Hamas were preparing to start a new round of talks this week to maintain the current cease-fire.
Israel and Hamas committed to at least a 42-day cease-fire during which they would negotiate a permanent truce. Those talks were set to begin this week, 16 days after the agreement went into effect in late January.
Palestinians making tea near the rubble of their destroyed house in Jabaliya in northern Gaza last week.Osama Al-Arabid/Reuters
President Trump’sproposalfor the United States to take over Gaza, transfer its population to Egypt and Jordan and redevelop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” would unquestionably be a severe violation of international law, experts say.
Forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is a violation of international humanitarian law, a war crime and a crime against humanity. Theprohibitionagainst forced deportations of civilians has been a part of the law of war since the Lieber Code, a set of rules on the conduct of hostilities, was promulgated by Union forces during the U.S. Civil War. It is prohibited by multiple provisions of the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II defined it as a war crime.
News Analysis
Displaced Palestinians returning to the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday.Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
President Trump’s plan toplace Gaza under American occupationand transfer its two million Palestinian residents has delighted the Israeli right, horrified Palestinians, shocked America’s Arab allies and confounded regional analysts who saw it as unworkable.
For some experts, the idea felt so unlikely — would Mr. Trump really risk American troops in another intractable battle against militant Islamists in the Middle East? — that they wondered if it was simply the opening bid in a new round of negotiations over Gaza’s future.
Allies and adversaries of the United States are widely opposed to President Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
He hascast himself as a “uniter,”and indeed on Wednesday, President Trump brought together allies and adversaries around the world in opposition to his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and eject its two million Palestinian residents to neighboring countries.
Not only did Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the war-torn enclave could become a “Riviera of the Middle East” alarm leaders and politicians from China to Canada, it also threatened a yearslong U.S. ambition to brokernormalized diplomatic relationsbetween Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Feb. 5, 2025, 6:37 a.m. ET
Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, praised Trump for his “out of the box ideas” on Gaza, saying that the enclave “in its current form has no future.” Saar appeared to defend Trump’s contentious proposal that Palestinians leave Gaza en masse. “As long as people emigrate of their own free will — anywhere in the world — and there is a country willing to accept them, can anyone say that’s immoral or inhumane?” he said in Israel’s Parliament.
Feb. 5, 2025, 6:13 a.m. ET
Turkey’s foreign minister has said that the idea of moving all Palestinians out of Gaza is unacceptable. “It is even wrong to open that to discussion,” Hakan Fidan, the minister, said in a televised interview. Turkey is against any initiative that would exclude the Gazan people, he said.
Feb. 5, 2025, 5:36 a.m. ET
Egypt’s foreign minister spoke to the prime minister and foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday about removing debris from Gaza, expediting humanitarian aid and starting recovery programs “without the Palestinians leaving,” according to a statement from Egypt’s foreign ministry.
Feb. 5, 2025, 4:40 a.m. ET
Far-right Israeli politicians continue to celebrate Trump’s remarks as a vindication of their ideology. Bezalel Smotrich, the hardline finance minister, called the president’s proposal “the true answer to Oct. 7,” a reference to the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 that ignited the war in Gaza.
Feb. 5, 2025, 4:40 a.m. ET
“Those who committed the most horrific massacre on our territory will lose their own territory forever,” Smotrich said.
Feb. 5, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
The internationally backed Palestinian Authority appeared to reject President Trump’s proposal for Gazans to leave the enclave, without mentioning him by name. The Palestinian leadership “rejects all calls for expelling the Palestinian people from its homeland,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.
Feb. 5, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
The Palestinian Authority has sought to rehabilitate its once-adversarial relationship with Trump since he returned to office. His latest remarks could pose a serious challenge to that rapprochement.
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET
In Israel, politicians began to consider President Trump’s remarks. Itamar Ben-Gvir, until recently the country’s hard-line national security minister, said Trump’s plan to move Gazans en masse echoed his own idea of “encouraging” Palestinians to emigrate.
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET
“When I said over and over again during the war that this was the solution to Gaza, they mocked me,”Ben-Gvir said. “Now it’s clear to all: This is the only solution.”
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET
Among the center-right opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the response to President Trump’s remarks was more muted.
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET
Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet, congratulated Trump for “creative, original and interesting thinking” without endorsing his proposals. Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, told an Israeli radio station, “One needs to see details before commenting on plans.” Both men praised Trump for what they called his support for Israel.
Feb. 5, 2025, 1:47 a.m. ET
President Trump’s statements about taking control of Gaza reflect confusion and deep ignorance about the Palestinian territories and the region, Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official, said in a statement.
Any solution must be based on ending Israel’s occupation, Mr. al-Rishq said, not “on the mentality of a real estate trader.”
President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, on a billboard in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Tuesday.Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Saudi Arabia reaffirmed its support for an independent Palestinian state on Tuesday and said establishing diplomatic ties with Israel would depend on the creation of such a state, hours after President Trump proposed permanently moving all Palestinians out of Gaza and making it a U.S. territory.
TheForeign Ministry’s statement early Wednesday local time, which said that Saudi support for a Palestinian state was “firm and unwavering,” contradicted Mr. Trump. While hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House on Tuesday, the president had said that Saudi Arabia was not insisting on a Palestinian state.
Left unexplained by President Trump on Tuesday was how a U.S. takeover of Gaza would be enacted, and how two million people would be moved to other countries against their will.Eric Lee/The New York Times
President Trump said Tuesday that the United States should take over Gaza and forcibly relocate two million Palestinians to other countries, describing his plan as a humanitarian effort to provide a “beautiful” new home for people displaced by a devastating war.
A Palestinian looking at the rubble of buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Tuesday.Hatem Khaled/Reuters
President Trump’s declaration on Tuesday evening that the United States could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that its Palestinian population could be permanently displaced was immediately criticized in the Middle East and beyond.
At a joint White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump said, “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.” He said the enclave, which has been devastated by more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, could be redeveloped and turned into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
A settler outpost in the northern West Bank in July. Settlements in the territory are widely considered to be illegal under international law.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Donald J. Trump’s return to power as president has bolstered right-wing lawmakers in Israel and the United States who support Israeli annexation of the West Bank, an occupied territory long seen by Palestinians and the international community as part of an eventual Palestinian state.
On Friday, Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills that would bar the use of the term “West Bank” in United States government documents and materials, replacing the phrase with “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical names for the region that are widely used in Israel and the administrative name used by the state to describe the area."
