Federal judge blocks Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service – The Associated Press

Speaking to Fox News, Trump said his conversation with Putin was “great” adding that, “We didn’t talk about aid. We didn’t talk about aid at all.”

That contradicts a readout of the conversation released by the Kremlin.

The Kremlin said Putin reiterated to Trump his demand for an end to foreign military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine as a condition for halting the fighting.

The U.S. has been the largest supplier of military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine since the war began, but Trump has withheld some assistance in an effort to pressure Ukraine to make concessions to end the war.

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., ruled that Trump’s order to exclude transgender troops likely violates their constitutional rights.

She delayed her order by three days to give the administration time to appeal.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military.

On Jan. 27, Trump signed an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle” and is harmful to military readiness.

▶ Read more about the court challenge to the order barring transgender people from the military

Previously classified documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were released Tuesday following an order by Trump shortly after he took office.

The documents were posted on the website of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The vast majority of the National Archives’ files related to the assassination have previously been released.

Trump told reporters Monday that his administration will be releasing 80,000 files, though it’s not clear how many of those are among the millions of pages that have already been made public.

Researchers have estimated that around 3,000 records hadn’t been released, either in whole or in part. And last month, the FBI said it had discovered about 2,400 new pertinent records.

▶ Read more about the release of previously classified files

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general under then-President Joe Biden, made the declaration last year, citing the fast-growing number of U.S. injuries and deaths involving firearms.

The removal was noticed this week by advocates, who decried the move as a sign that Trump and his political appointees are prioritizing the gun industry over the health of children and families.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ABC News said an agency representative told the news organization that the department was complying with a Trump executive order designed to protect Second Amendment rights.

The dismissal of the Federal Trade Commission members potentially will allow Trump to fill their slots on the independent corporate regulator with officials more sympathetic to his administration.

Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya posted on X, “The president just illegally fired me. This is corruption plain and simple.”

Another commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, released her own statement saying she’d been fired in violation of Supreme Court precedent. Past rulings have sought to solidify the FTC’s independence and only allowed commissioners to be removed for a specific, justifiable reason.

The FTC was created by Congress, and it enforces consumer protections and anti-trust legislation. Its five seats are typically comprised of three members of the president’s party and two from the opposing party.

It is the first time in the Republican National Committee’s history that a sitting vice president has held the position of finance chair, giving JD Vance a prominent, direct role in next year’s midterm elections and further cementing his status as the torchbearer of Trump’s “MAGA” movement.

Vance headlined numerous fundraisers during the 2024 campaign, making the job an extension of those efforts.

In a statement, Vance said that “to fully enact the MAGA mandate and President Trump’s vision that voters demanded, we must keep and grow our Republican majorities in 2026.” He will focus, he said, on building “the war chest we need to deliver those victories next November.”

The order follows Trump vowing to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

His order seeks to inject “common sense into both infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions” and will make “our infrastructure, communities, and economy more resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards.”

Trump also signed a directive eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion measures at the State Department, mirroring similar efforts around the government.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined in the protest of the deportation flights of Venezuelan individuals accused of gang membership and condemned Trump’s disparagement of District Judge James E. Boasberg, who ordered the administration not to carry out the deportations.

In a statement, NACDL President Christopher A. Wellborn said the legal system is based on the presumption of innocence.

“Accusations without evidence, the denial of access to legal counsel, and the apparent defiance of court orders not to deport accused individuals without a hearing represent a dangerous departure from these principles,” he said.

The suggestion, which reflected the Russian leader’s efforts to establish warm ties with Trump, came during their call that focused on a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said in a readout of the call that Putin proposed that American and Russian players who play for the NHL and the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) could take part in the games. The Kremlin said Trump supported the idea.

The KHL is a Russia-dominated championship that also involves clubs from Belarus, China and Kazakhstan.

Putin, an avid amateur ice hockey player, has promoted the KHL since it was founded on his initiative in 2008.

The NHL said it was aware of the Trump-Putin conversation but had no immediate comment.

▶ Read more about the discussion of a US-Russia hockey series

The @WhiteHouse account began posting on Trump’s social media platform Tuesday with a video showing Trump surrounded by the trappings of the presidency, along with images of a flying bald eagle and a message: “The Golden Age of America has arrived on Truth Social! The White House is proud to be here—direct, unfiltered, and for The People.”

Truth Social is the media network Trump created when he was banned from X, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. It is the primary way he likes to announce news.

Judge James Bredar wrote Tuesday that he had carefully reviewed a status report from the 18 agencies filed Monday night. The report says the agencies have reinstated or taken steps to reinstate more than 24,000 fired employees.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia contended that Trump’s administration illegally fired thousands of federal workers, causing burdens and expenses for the states. The judge granted a temporary restraining order last week requiring those workers be reinstated to their jobs.

Bredar has set a new Monday deadline for the agencies to file an updated status report. The judge wrote that the court expects the next report to show that the agencies “have achieved substantial compliance” with the terms of the order.

The federal agencies are appealing the case.

The administration filed a similar update in a separate California case, where a federal judge also ordered agencies to rehire probationary workers who were let go in mass firings.

The two whistleblowers, who testified publicly about the investigations, have been promoted to new roles as senior advisers at the Treasury Department.

Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, two IRS employees who testified to Congress as Republicans reviewed the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son, say they were retaliated against for cooperating in the investigations.

Shapley and Ziegler say they were removed from the Hunter Biden case in December 2022 after they told their bosses the Justice Department and former Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss had engaged in a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” and delaying enforcement actions in the months before the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Now, Shapley is being promoted to Deputy Chief of IRS Criminal Investigations and Ziegler is assigned to the secretary’s office as a senior adviser for IRS reform.

▶ Read more about the IRS whistleblowers

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution and blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from further cuts.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those who were placed on administrative leave.

The lawsuit singled out Musk as a defendant covered by the preliminary injunction. Lawyers for USAID employees and contractors had requested the order.

▶ Read more about the dismantling of USAID

Trump and Putin agreed during a lengthy call Tuesday to an immediate pause in strikes against energy and infrastructure targets in the Ukraine war, but the Russian leader stopped short of backing a broader 30-day pause in fighting the U.S. administration is pressing for.

The White House described it as the first step in a “movement to peace” it hopes will eventually include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and a full and lasting end to the fighting.

The White House added negotiations would “begin immediately” in the Middle East on those steps. Shortly after the call between Trump and Putin, air raid alerts sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions in the city. Local officials urged people to seek shelter.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ukraine is on board with the limited ceasefire plan.

▶ Read more about the proposed ceasefire

Hey, Ian, thanks for your question. In short, it’s not clear yet how much of the Department of Education Trump wants to leave intact. During his campaign, he promised to wind the agency down, but eliminating it altogether would likely require approval from Congress.

AP’s Annie Ma and Collin Binkley did a deep dive into the department and what it does. Here’s a bit of what they reported:

Trump has said he wants his new education chief, Linda McMahon, to “put herself out of a job,” and already his administration has overhauled much of the Department of Education’s work and cut its staff in half. DOGE has cut dozens of contracts it dismissed as “woke” and wasteful within the department.

Ultimately, the DOE’s main role is to distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to colleges and schools, as well as manage the student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency and redistribute federal education money. His goal is to cut off funding to schools that teach critical race theory, as well as other topics, and instead reward states and schools that end teacher tenure and support universal school choice programs.

A federal program designed to prevent targeted violence and terrorism in the U.S. has lost 20% of its staff after layoffs hit its probationary staffers.

The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships was a redefined version of programs created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a way to identify people who could pose new terrorism threats or carry out violence and get them help. It has a mission enlisting parents, coaches, teachers and ministers to head off trouble before it starts by training them to look for signs of trouble in advance.

That job became far more difficult after eight members of the center’s staff were fired in early March as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to trim the government by getting rid of probationary staffers. According to a Department of Homeland Security employee and a center employee who was fired, the staffers were rehired late Monday but were then put on administrative leave, following two March 13 court decisions ordering the Republican administration to rehire fired probationary staffers.

▶ Read more about cuts at the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships

Roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs will be cut in the Defense Department, but fewer than 21,000 workers who took a voluntary resignation plan are leaving in the coming months, a senior defense official told reporters Tuesday.

To reach the goal of a 5% to 8% cut in a civilian workforce of more than 900,000, the official said the department aims to slash about 6,000 positions a month by simply not replacing workers who routinely leave.

A key concern is that service members may then be tapped to fill those civilian jobs. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide personnel details, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to ensure the cuts don’t hurt military readiness.

The cuts are part of the broader effort by the Department of Government Efficiency Service, including billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk, to slash the federal workforce and dismantle U.S. agencies.

▶ Read more about cuts at the Defense Department

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office, which helps provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and the environment.

The Office of Research and Development — EPA’s main science arm — currently has 1,540 positions. A majority of staff — ranging from 50% to 75% — “will not be retained,’’ according to a memo reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Remaining employees would be reassigned to other parts of the agency, the memo says.

Democrats and environmental groups assailed the planned action as a massive dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to protect public health and the environment.

The planned layoffs were first reported by The New York Times.

▶ Read more about cuts at the EPA

The Kremlin said in its readout of the call with Trump that Putin noted a key condition for settling the conflict is a full halt to foreign military aid and intelligence assistance to Kyiv.

It said Putin had a positive response to Trump’s proposal for Russia and Ukraine to halt strikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days and gave relevant orders to the Russian military.

The Kremlin added that the Russian leader told Trump that Russia was ready to guarantee that Ukrainian soldiers blocked in Russia’s Kursk region will save their lives and be treated in line with international law if they surrender.

It said Putin also responded constructively to Trump’s proposal to ensure safe shipping in the Black Sea, and the two leaders agreed to start talks to discuss details of the agreement.

Trump and Putin agreed during their call Tuesday to seek a limited ceasefire against energy and infrastructure targets in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the White House.

The White House described it as the first step in a “movement to peace” it hopes will eventually include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and a full and lasting end to the fighting.

The White House said negotiations would “begin immediately” on those steps. It was not immediately clear whether Ukraine is on board with the phased ceasefire plan.

Putin also called on Trump to end foreign military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine as the U.S. looks to bring an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.

▶ Read more about Trump’s call with Putin

Trump on Monday claimed that pardons issued by former President Joe Biden to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have no force because Biden signed them with an autopen instead of by his own hand, at least according to Trump. Trump didn’t offer any evidence to support his claims. Nor did the White House.

But presidents have broad authority to pardon or commute the sentences of whomever they please, and the Constitution doesn’t specify that pardons must be in writing. There is no law governing a president’s use of an autopen, and the signatures have been used before for substantive actions by presidents.

We don’t know how many times Trump has used the autopen himself. He said Monday that he has used the autopen but “only for very unimportant papers.”

▶ Read more about Trump’s objection to the autopen

That’s several days after declining to answer a question about his support of the Senate Democratic leader.

The two New York lawmakers met Sunday after a public rift over a Republican spending bill last week. Jeffries said Tuesday that they had a “good conversation about the path forward.” Asked if he supports Schumer’s leadership, he said “yes, I do.”

Last week, after Schumer announced he would vote to move forward on the Republican spending bill, Jeffries declined to answer a similar question, responding instead, “next question.”

House Democrats vehemently opposed the bill and were willing to risk a government shutdown if it didn’t pass the Senate. Schumer argued that a shutdown would be worse than the Republican legislation as President Trump has overseen mass firings across the government.

Trump and Putin have concluded the more than hour-long call as the White House pushes its 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine aimed at ending the grinding war.

The White House and Kremlin did not offer any immediate details about the substance of the conversation, but both have confirmed the call has ended.

Trump said before the call that he expected to discuss with Putin land and power plants that have been seized during the three-year war.

▶ Read more about Trump’s call with Putin

The AP’s Chris Megerian explains the display of conflict between the executive and judiciary branches on Tuesday, Mar. 18, 2025.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson refrained from commenting on Trump’s decision Tuesday but took the opportunity to criticize the outlets.

“I do not comment on U.S. domestic policy changes,” Mao Ning said when asked about it. “But as for the media you mentioned, their bad records in reporting on China are not a secret.”

The Trump’s administration put almost the entire staff of Voice of America on leave last weekend and ended grants to Radio Free Asia and other media with similar news programming.

Radio Free Asia has an extensive Chinese-language service and frequently reports on human rights issues, including the detention of activists and repression of ethnic groups in Xinjiang and Tibet. The government refutes allegations of abuse.

▶ Read more about Trump’s cuts to Voice of America

In an extraordinary display of conflict between the executive and judiciary branches, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected calls for impeaching federal judges shortly after Trump demanded the removal of the judge who ruled against his deportation plans.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a rare statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

In a Tuesday morning social media post, Trump described U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg as an unelected “troublemaker and agitator.” Boasberg recently issued an order blocking deportation flights under wartime authorities from an 18th century law that Trump invoked to carry out his plans.

▶ Read more about Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts

The Senate Finance Committee Chairman will hold the hearing to consider Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration on March 25.

The hearing comes as the agency institutes across-the-board cuts, which have prompted questions about the possible effects on benefits for tens of millions of recipients.

Among the changes at the agency are layoffs for more than 10% of the workforce and the closure of dozens of offices throughout the country. It’s all part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce.

The order applies to more than 100 teacher preparation and training programs the administration canceled in February.

The judge in Maryland issued the preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Center for Teacher Residencies.

The administration cut $600 million in grants to teacher training programs, saying they ran afoul of its policies against diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Grantees rejected the notion that their work was tied to DEI. Many programs used the money to hire teachers, to pay for college scholarships, and to address retention issues leading to staff shortages.

The White House says President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have begun a highly anticipated call as the U.S. administration looks to persuade the Russian leader to sign-off on a 30-day ceasefire proposal as a possible pathway to end the war.

Tuesday’s call comes after Ukrainian officials last week agreed to the American proposal during talks in Saudi Arabia led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, remains skeptical that Putin is ready for peace as Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine.

Trump, before the call, said he expected to discuss with Putin land and power plants that have been seized during the grinding three-year war.

▶ Read more about Trump’s call with Putin

The Trump administration’s “great plan” to jumpstart a resurgence of manufacturing in the United States is simple, the vice president said.

“We’re going to cut your taxes, we’re going to slash regulations, we’re going to reduce the cost of energy so that you can build, build, build,” he said at a summit on American dynamism in Washington.

Vance said innovation will be a key component and there’s too much fear that artificial intelligence will replace jobs. He recalled early concerns that ATMs would replace bank tellers.

“People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way. And that’s not pleasant,” Trump said in a video posted to the White House account on the X social media platform.

He said his administration is repurposing a Customs and Border Protection app first launched under the Biden administration into one people can use to voluntarily leave the country and avoid being forcibly removed as he executes on his promise of mass deportations.

Trump said anyone leaving the country on their own could potentially return legally at a future date.

But if they don’t, he said “they will be found, they will be deported and they will never be admitted again to the United States ever, ever again.”

On Tuesday, the president called for the impeachment of a federal judge who has tried to stop deportations to El Salvador.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Republican president’s latest post aligns him more with allies like Elon Musk, who has made similar demands.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “I have not heard the president talk about impeaching judges.”

Shortly after taking office, Trump directed his national intelligence director and attorney general to come up with a plan to release the sought-after records related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The killing has spawned countless conspiracy theories.

Trump said Monday that some 80,000 files will be released, but it wasn’t clear how many of them are among the millions of JFK records that have already been made public.

He said his instructions to his staff were, “don’t redact.”

Trump has hung a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office, according to images he shared on social media.

The Republican president’s official account on X showed two images Monday of a framed copy of the historical document hanging on the wall not far from the president’s desk.

It was not immediately clear where the copy came from and when it was installed.

“The Nationals Archives delivered the Declaration of Independence to the White House at the President’s request. It is displayed in the Oval Office where it will be carefully protected and preserved,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The original version of the Declaration of Independence is very faded and displayed in the Archives’ building. On the version hanging in the White House, according to the images posted, the words are clear and legible.

The White House and National Archives did not respond to messages inquiring what version of the document was in the White House.

▶ Read more about Trump’s new Oval Office decor

Vice President JD Vance’s speech will focus on support for American industry and workers, according to his office.

The summit is taking place at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington. It used to be a Trump hotel when Trump was president the first time.

According to the White House press office, Trump plans to sign executive orders in the Oval Office at 3:30 p.m. ET.

The White House has also confirmed Trump and Russian President Vladamir Putin will hold a call to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine on Tuesday, which is expected to happen between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. ET.

The Trump administration fired most of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and sent its new leader into the Washington headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.

The remaining three members of the group’s board — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — fired President and CEO George Moose on Friday, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

An executive order that President Donald Trump signed last month targeted the organization, which was created by Congress over 40 years ago, and others for reductions.

Current USIP employees said staffers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency entered the building despite protests that the institute is not part of the executive branch. USIP called the police, whose vehicles were outside the building Monday evening.

▶ Read more about the gutting of USIP

We’ll answer questions during our daily live coverage.

District Judge James E. Boasberg was incredulous over the administration’s contentions that his verbal directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed, that it couldn’t apply to flights that had left the U.S. and that the administration could not answer his questions about the deportations due to national security issues.

“That’s one heck of a stretch, I think,” Boasberg replied, noting that the administration knew as the planes were departing that he was about to decide whether to briefly halt deportations being made under a rarely used 18th century law invoked by Trump about an hour earlier.

Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli contended that only Boasberg’s short written order, issued about 45 minutes after he made the verbal demand, counted. It did not contain any demands to reverse planes, and Kambli added that it was too late to redirect two planes that had left the U.S. by that time.

▶ Read more about the Trump deportation flights