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Musk says he will complete $1 trillion federal cuts in weeks

(Reuters) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom U.S. President Donald Trump has tapped to shrink the government, said on Thursday he would finish most of the work to cut $1 trillion in federal spending when his tenure ends in as soon as 64 days.

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Musk told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” that he was confident his Department of Government Efficiency could find $1 trillion in savings, slimming current total federal spending levels of about $7 trillion down to $6 trillion.

DOGE estimates it has saved U.S. taxpayers $115 billion as of March 24 through actions including workforce reductions, asset sales and contract cancellations.

However, the savings total published on the DOGE website is unverifiable and its calculations have been riddled with errors and corrections. Budget experts say Musk cannot reach his target without touching entitlement programs like Social Security, which Trump has vowed not to cut.

Trump withdraws Stefanik as his pick for United Nations envoy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had withdrawn his pick to be ambassador to the United Nations because the Republicans need to maintain their slim majority in the House of Representatives to advance his “America First” agenda.

Republican Representative Elise Stefanik is a close Trump ally and was chosen by the president for the U.N. role less than a week after he was elected in November. CBS News first reported that Stefanik’s nomination could be withdrawn.

Republicans hold a narrow 218-213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, where there are four vacancies, as they prepare to try to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and address a national debt that tops $36.6 trillion.

Stefanik was the last cabinet-level Trump nominee who had not been confirmed. She was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with some Democratic votes, on Jan. 30 and had been expected to be easily approved by the full Senate.

Judge orders Hegseth, Waltz and others to preserve Houthi texts

(NYT) — A federal judge in Washington on Thursday ordered several Trump administration officials who participated in a Signal group chat discussing the details of a pending attack in Yemen to preserve all of the messages they exchanged on the app in the days leading up to the strikes.

The decision by the judge, James E. Boasberg, came in response to a lawsuit filed this week by a nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight, which has accused President Donald Trump’s national security team of violating federal records laws by using Signal — an encrypted commercial platform — to chat about the highly sensitive attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The order by Boasberg, who sits in U.S. District Court in Washington, applied to top administration officials, including Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Vice President JD Vance.

It covered the period between March 11 and March 15 as the administration was putting together its plans to attack the Houthis.