Democrats and protesters rally outside treasury department to protest Elon Musk’s access to sensitive information – live

Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reportedly entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Department of Commerce in Washington DC today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency.

“They apparently just sort of walked past security and said: ‘Get out of my way,’ and they’re looking for access for the IT systems, as they have in other agencies,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former Noaa official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “They will have access to the entire computer system, a lot of which is confidential information.”

Project 2025, written by several former Trump staffers, has called for the agency to be “broken up and downsized”, claiming the agency is “harmful to US prosperity” for its role in climate science.

Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed reporters at the White House, where the US president announced his intention to take over the Gaza Strip, move Palestinians to neighbouring countries and redevelop the territory for occupation by “the world’s people”. Here are the main takeaways from their joint press conference on Tuesday evening:

• In a shock announcement, Trump said the US will “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. The US president said he envisioned a “long-term” US ownership of the territory after all Palestinians were moved elsewhere. He did not explain how and under what authority the US can take over the land of Gaza. “We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said. He said the US would “level” destroyed buildings and “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

• The US president called Gaza a “symbol of death and destruction” and that the only reason people want to go back there is because they have nowhere else to go. The 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza should move to neighbouring countries with “humanitarian hearts” and “great wealth”, Trump said. Earlier he had called for Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states to take in Palestinians. He said they could be split up across a number of separate sites. Forced displacement of the population would probably be a violation of international law and would be fiercely opposed not only in the region but also by Washington’s western allies. Some human rights advocates liken the idea to ethnic cleansing.

• He went on to say that Gaza could become “the Riviera of the Middle East” where “the world’s people” could live there, echoing the previous sentiments of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who said Gaza had very valuable “waterfront property”.

• Trump gave a vague answer when asked a question on whether he supported a two-state solution. Asked if his view that Palestinians should be relocated from Gaza was a sign that he was against the two-state policy that has been the foreign policy approach of the United States for decades, Trump said no. “It doesn’t mean anything about a two-state or one state or any other state. It means that we want to have, we want to give people a chance at life,” he said. “They have never had a chance at life because the Gaza Strip has been a hellhole for people living there. It’s been horrible.”

• Trump claimed high-level support among unnamed leaders he had spoken to. “This is not a decision made lightly,” he said, adding that “everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land.” He said the move would bring “great stability to that part of the Middle East”.

• Trump did not rule out sending US troops to secure Gaza. “As far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that,” he said. On Trump’s idea of taking over Gaza, Netanyahu said the US president “sees a different future for Gaza”, adding: “I think it’s something that could change history.”

• Trump said he would probably announce a position on Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank in the next month. “We haven’t been taking the position on it yet,” he said. Trump added that he planned to visit the Gaza Strip, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

• Netanyahu described Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House”. The Israeli leader said “we have to finish the job in Gaza”, and said “Israel will end the war by winning the war.” Netanyahu praised Trump for “thinking outside the box with fresh ideas” and “showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking”.

• The Saudi government, in a statement, stressed its rejection of any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land and said it would not establish relations with Israel without establishment of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile Hamas condemned Trump’s calls for Palestinians in Gaza to leave as “expulsion from their land”. The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations said that world leaders and people should respect Palestinians’ desire to remain in Gaza.

Stunned US lawmakers have been responding to Donald Trump’s proposal to seize Gaza and expel its population.

Robert Mackey

While the White House sold Trump’s shocking announcement that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip” and take “a long-term ownership position” in the Palestinian territory” as proof of his “unwavering pursuit for peace”, current and former members of Congress expressed shock and outrage.

“He’s totally lost it. A US invasion of Gaza would lead to the slaughter of thousands of US troops and decades of war in the Middle East” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote on X. It’s like a bad, sick joke.”

“I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza”, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Jewish Insider. “It might be problematic.”

“That’s insane”, Democratic Senator Chris Coons told NBC News. “ I can’t think of a place on earth that would welcome American troops less and where any positive outcome is less likely.”

Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s war in Gaza, was more open to the idea. “It’s a provocative part of the conversation, but it’s part of the conversation, and that’s where we are” Fetterman told Jewish Insider. “The Palestinians have refused, or they’ve been unwilling to deliver a government that provided security and economic development for themselves”.

Justin Amash, a former Republican member of Congress whose father was expelled from his home by Israeli forces in 1948, was appalled. “If the United States deploys troops to forcibly remove Muslims and Christians – like my cousins – from Gaza, then not only will the US be mired in another reckless occupation but it will also be guilty of the crime of ethnic cleansing” Amash wrote on X. “No American of good conscience should stand for this.”

A US judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from moving transgender women to men’s prisons and ending their gender-affirming care, Reuters reports.

In a broad ruling temporarily halting an executive order that Trump, a Republican, signed on his first day back in office on 20 January, US District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington found that three transgender inmates who sued would probably succeed in arguing the policy was unconstitutional.

The decision marked the second time that a federal judge had sided with LGBTQ legal rights groups who sued to prevent the U.S. Bureau of Prisons from implementing the order.

Lamberth’s order applies to all 16 transgender women currently housed in federal women’s prisons. It goes further than a 27 January decision by a federal judge in Boston blocking prison officials from transferring an individual transgender woman to a men’s facility.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department, which defended the Trump administration in court, declined to comment. The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Near the tail-end of the demonstration, news broke that the treasury said Musk’s team had been granted “read-only” access to “coded data” of the government’s payments system, according to Bloomberg.

In a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, Jonathan Blum, the treasury’s principal deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs, wrote that the system remains “robust and effective” and that no valid payment requests from government agencies had been rejected.

But that did little to quell protesters’ concerns about Musk’s involvement with systems in the first place, including many who were former federal contractors, such as Alexa Fraser, who worked in public health research.

“What protections did he turn off to get in there? Who has he sold it to?” she told the Guardian. “We have no reason to think his security situation is better now.”

Dave Stoakley, who drove more than two hours from central Virginia to protest, saw the situation as part of a larger pattern. “I think it’s an intentional dismantling of the government,” he said. “They’re throwing out the good with the bad.”

Blumenthal captured the crowd’s fears in stark terms: “Every American’s information is at risk. What does Elon Musk do with everything he touches? He makes money!”

Hundreds of protesters and a contingent of Democratic lawmakers rallied outside the Department of the Treasury in Washington on Tuesday, denouncing what they called Elon Musk’s “hostile takeover” of federal financial systems, as demonstrations spilled on to, and took over, the street outside the building.

The protests targeted reports of the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team’s reported access to sensitive government financial data, including information related to social security payments, Medicare reimbursements, and tax refunds – systems that process trillions of dollars in annual transactions.

“He has access to all our information, our social security numbers, the federal payment system,” Representative Maxwell Frost told the crowd. “What’s going to stop him from stealing taxpayer money?”

About a dozen members of Congress, including Maxine Waters, Al Green, Ayanna Pressley, and senators Jeff Merkley and Richard Blumenthal, joined the condemnations. Jasmine Crockett’s voice boomed across the crowd: “We are not going to sit around while you go and desecrate our constitution. We are going to be in your face and on your asses!”

Minutes earlier, a handful of lawmakers, including Crockett, Pressley, Frost and Jamie Raskin, had attempted to get inside the treasury department before being rebuffed:

The US Treasury said on Tuesday that Elon Musk’s government-efficiency team has been granted “read-only access” to its payment system codes but denied that this cut off any government payments including for Social Security or Medicare, Reuters reports.

The confirmation of a Musk associate’s access to the system codes came in a letter from a Treasury official to Democratic Senator Ron Wyden that said the review was being undertaken to “maximize payment integrity for agencies and the public”.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has not commented on reports in recent days that Musk’s informal Department of Government Efficiency had gained access to the system responsible for disbursing more than $6tn of annual government spending.

Several thousand people gathered outside the Treasury on Tuesday to protest DOGE’s Treasury access amid his sweeping incursion into government operations, which this week led to the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development, merging its aid mission into the state department.

The payment system review “is not resulting in the suspension or rejection of any payment instructions submitted to Treasury by other federal agencies across the government.” Jonathan Blum, principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Legislative Affairs wrote to Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon.

“In particular, the review at the Fiscal Service has not caused payments for obligations such as Social Security and Medicare to be delayed or re-routed,” Blum’s letter said.

The DOGE team at Treasury conducting the review is led by technology firm chief executive Tom Krause, whom the letter described as a “Treasury employee.” Krause is CEO of Cloud Software Group, which owns former independent software firms Citrix and Tibco.

Wyden raised alarms over the weekend when reports first surfaced that a team under the direction of Musk, appointed by President Donald Trump to conduct a broad review of government operations.

“I’m sure the Treasury Secretary and the president want to save face and downplay the risks as Elon Musk seizes power, but nothing they’re saying is believable or trustworthy,” Wyden said in response to Blum’s letter.

The Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as US attorney general Tuesday evening, putting a longtime ally of Trump’s at the helm of a Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican president.

The vote fell almost entirely along party lines, with only Senator John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, joining with all Republicans to pass her confirmation 54-46.

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist, is expected to oversee a radical reshaping of the department that has been the target of Trump’s ire over the criminal cases it brought against him. She enters with the FBI, which she will oversee, in turmoil over the scrutiny of agents involved in investigations related to the president, who has made clear his desire to seek revenge on his perceived adversaries.

Republicans have praised Bondi as a highly qualified leader they contend will bring much-needed change to a department they believe unfairly pursued Trump through investigations resulting in two indictments.

Amnesty International has described the US as, “showing contempt for international justice” by failing to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the international criminal court issuing a warrant for his arrest in November last year.

He is wanted by the ICC to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a series of posts on X, Amnesty wrote:

By welcoming Israeli PM Netanyahu, wanted by the ICC to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the United States is showing contempt for international justice.

The Biden administration flouted any efforts at international justice for Palestine. Now, by not arresting Netanyahu or subjecting him to US investigations, President Trump is doubling down welcoming him as the first foreign leader to visit the White House since the inauguration

The US has a clear obligation under the Geneva conventions to search for & try or extradite persons accused of having committed or ordered the commission of war crimes. There must be no ‘safe haven’ for individuals alleged to have committed war crimes & crimes against humanity.

The US has been consistently provided with evidence that US-origin weapons contributed to war crimes, and the US continues to violate the obligation to prevent genocide knowing that its weapons are used as part of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

Complying with ICC arrest warrants & pursuing accountability in domestic courts is crucial to bring to justice those responsible for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the continued dispossession and oppression of Palestinians under Israel’s unlawful occupation and system of apartheid

In a press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that ended a short while ago, US President Donald Trump called the Gaza Strip a “symbol of death and destruction” for many decades and an “unlucky” place.

He said Gaza should not “go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that … lived a miserable existence there.”

Instead, he says Palestinians should go to other countries, without naming any specific countries.

“It could be sites or it could be one large site” where people would live “in comfort and peace”, he said.

“They’re not going to be shot at and killed,” Trump says, claiming that the “only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is that they have no alternative”.

He said that “The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.”

Asked whether US troops will be deployed to Gaza, Trump said

We’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that place.

Trump said he couldn’t say whether the Gaza ceasefire will hold, adding that “we weren’t helped very much by the Biden administration”.

“We hope it holds,” he adds.

The Senate is heading towards a confirmation vote for Pam Bondi asUS attorney general this evening, potentially putting a longtime ally of Donald Trump at the helm of a Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican president.

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist, is expected to oversee a radical reshaping of the department that has been the target of Trump’s ire over the criminal cases it brought against him. She would enter with the FBI, which she would oversee, in turmoil over the scrutiny of agents involved in investigations related to the president, who has made clear his desire to seek revenge on his perceived adversaries.

Bondi has faced intense scrutiny over her close relationship with the president, who during his term fired an FBI director who refused to pledge loyalty to him and forced out an attorney general who recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.

While Bondi has sought to reassure Democrats that politics would play no part in her decision-making, she also refused at her confirmation hearing last month to rule potential investigations into Trump’s adversaries. And she has repeated Trump’s claims that the prosecutions against him amounted to political persecution, saying the Justice Department “had been weaponized for years and years and years, and it’s got to stop.”

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• Donald Trump has called for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, casting it as a humanitarian move “to resettle people permanently”. Sitting alongside his longtime political ally, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House, Trump was asked how many people he believed should be resettled from Gaza. “All of them”, Trump replied.

• Democratic congressional leaders assailed Elon Musk for operating a “shadow government” of billionaires and presented new legislation designed to curb his reach. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, previewed a bill aimed at preventing “unlawful access” to the treasury department’s payment systems, after staff members at Doge – Elon’s “department of government efficiency” – were granted entry.

• Democratic members of Congress attempted to enter the treasury building to perform oversight into the activities of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”, which has been granted access to sensitive information, including federal payment systems. In video posted on Bluesky and X from outside the treasury, Representatives Maxwell Frost, of Florida, and Jasmine Crockett, of Texas, explain that they are there to demand answers.

• Donald Trump said he would support sending US citizens to serve time in overseas jails, after El Salvador’s president told secretary of state Marco Rubio he’d be willing to house prisoners from the United States.

• Donald Trump just signed executive orders preventing the United States from providing support to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, and ending its cooperation with the global body’s human rights council. He also signed an order to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran as his administration renews efforts to curb its nuclear program. The United States has had an on-again-off-again relationship with the UN human rights council, and is not currently a member. Trump’s executive order criticizes the body for anti-US bias. Under Joe Biden, the US also froze funding to Unrwa amid allegations some of its employees participated in the 7 October attack, and the order Trump signed prevents future funding to the agency.

• Donald Trump reiterated that his administration would seek to dismantle the US Department of Education and leave standards at schools up to the individual states.

• Taking questions in the Oval Office after he signed executive orders, Donald Trump confirmed that his administration will “wind down” USAid, and alleged fraud at the agency tasked with implementing the United States’s foreign aid agenda, Reuters reports. Politico reports that almost all USAid employees at its Washington DC headquarters will be put on leave on orders of the Trump administration.

• CNN reports that the FBI has turned over to the justice department the names of thousands of FBI agents who worked on January 6-related cases, while officials connected to Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” have been seen at the agency’s headquarters. The demand for the names came from Emil Bove, who is now the acting deputy attorney general after previously representing Donald Trump as he faced state and federal prosecutions during Joe Biden’s presidency.

• A group of anonymous FBI employees who were involved in cases related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol or the criminal investigations of Donald Trump have filed a class action lawsuit against the justice department and the acting attorney general, James McHenry, over efforts to compile a list of employees who worked on these cases, which the agents fear could be used for termination or disciplinary action.

• Donald Trump launched the opening salvo in his trade war by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to immediately slap its own levies on US imports and announce an anti-trust investigation of Google. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro raised hopes of a deal by saying the US president would speak with Xi Jinping today, but a US official has reportedly said that call is off.

• The Senate’s finance committee voted to advance Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination as health and human services secretary despite his peddling of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and Tulsi Gabbard won the support of two Republican holdouts ahead of the Senate intelligence committee’s vote on her nomination for director of national intelligence at about 2pm.

• Approximately 20,000 federal workers have reportedly accepted the deferred resignation offer connected to Elon Musk, but that’s a far cry from his stated goal to trim the government workforce.