Trump Administration Live Updates: Shutdown Looms as Democrats Say They Won’t Back Spending Bill

“Our caucus is unified” on such a measure to “keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” Mr. Schumer said in a brief statement from the floor.

The announcement left congressional leaders without a clear path to avert a shutdown that would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday should Congress fail to act by then to extend federal funding. Senate Republicans would need the support of at least eight Democrats to overcome procedural hurdles and bring a spending measure to a final vote. Just one, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has so far declared he would vote to break any filibuster.

The standoff puts Senate Democrats at risk of being blamed for any shutdown even as they complain about Trump administration disruptions to federal agencies. But they are under pressure from House Democrats and activists to stand against Mr. Trump and Elon Musk as they lead an effort to dismantle broad swaths of the federal bureaucracy, in some cases in direct defiance of Congress, which holds the power of the purse.

With two days left before the shutdown deadline, there is still time for a reversal by Democrats. But most of them have heaped criticism on Republicans’ stopgap spending measure, arguing that it would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk too much leeway to continue their unilateral efforts to slash government employees and programs.

Republicans, who control both chambers, have shown no willingness to compromise with Democrats on the spending measure. And even if they agreed to, changing the House bill or approving a different one would require the House to return and vote again, which is highly unlikely. Republican leaders deliberately adjourned the chamber on Tuesday night and left town after passing the spending legislation, known as a continuing resolution, to effectively force the Senate to accept it.

The private meetings this week have laid bare a major dilemma for Democrats as they wrestle with how to respond to the Republican legislation. Senators said they had two unappealing alternatives. They could oppose the G.O.P. plan and potentially take the blame for a damaging federal shutdown or surrender to Mr. Trump and incite the wrath of Democrats demanding that their representatives thwart the White House at every turn.

“There are really only two options,” said Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats. “One is to vote for a pretty bad C.R., or the other is to vote for a potentially even worse shutdown. It is a very tough choice.”

Even as Mr. Schumer declared his party’s opposition, Democrats privately continued to deliberate over a way to avoid a shutdown without appearing to capitulate to Mr. Trump. Some suggested allowing the stopgap spending bill to move forward as long as Republicans agreed to give them a chance to revise it on the Senate floor. That would afford Democrats the chance to make their political case against the measure and show that they were fighting it, even if their proposals for changes ultimately failed.

But as House Democratic leaders gathered for a retreat in Virginia on Wednesday, they pleaded with their Senate counterparts to follow their lead and oppose the government funding bill outright.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the measure “a power grab that further unleashes and entrenches Elon Musk’s efforts.” He applauded his caucus for sticking together on Tuesday in voting against it and sending a clear message of repudiation for its policies on the House floor. All but one Democrat opposed the measure in the House.

In the Senate, virtually all Democrats are opposed to the stopgap bill, which cleared the House largely along party lines on Tuesday. They view it as an abdication of congressional power and a woefully inefficient way of funding the government while providing Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk more opportunity to slice into federal agencies. They also noted that it broke from an earlier bipartisan deal on both domestic and military spending.

“Instead of writing a bill that gives our communities what they need, they wrote a bill that turns many of our accounts into slush funds,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. The bill, she added, “gives the final say over what gets funding to two billionaires who don’t know the first thing about the needs of our working families.”

She and her fellow Senate Democrats would much prefer to pass the individual spending bills that have been negotiated between the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Appropriations Committees. But House Republicans pulled back from those talks in favor of the decision to freeze most funding through Sept. 30, leaving only two remaining possibilities: blocking the spending bill or approving it.

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said Democrats should not give in “just because the House decided to leave town on a Tuesday night.”

“That doesn’t mean the Senate shouldn’t be a deliberative body,” he added.

Despite their opposition to the spending plan, top Democrats are leery of forcing the government into a shutdown, fearing the political blowback after years of castigating Republicans for shutdowns.

In addition, Democrats worried that a shutdown would play into the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, empowering them to keep hollowing out federal agencies. Democrats also argued that it remained unclear how any shutdown would end once it began. And they conceded that it could undercut their criticism of the Department of Government Efficiency as an out-of-control buzz saw shredding the government, if they were the ones refusing to extend funding for federal agencies.

Republicans were already trying to take advantage of their predicament.

“If I listen to our colleagues across the aisle, they claim to have a lot of concern for the federal workers that depend on government funding,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “So I find interesting that so many of them in the House cast a vote that would put thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of federal workers out of work.”

Relenting to Republicans was certain to inflame House Democrats and advocacy groups who were demanding that Senate Democrats remain united against the legislation.

More than 150 progressive and environmental groups on Wednesday sent Senate Democratic leaders a letter urging them to “stand strong until Musk and Trump stop their illegal actions to dismantle key federal programs.”

At least one Democrat said causing a shutdown would clear the way for additional harm.

“If any of those groups want to shut the government down, I would disagree with them,” Mr. Fetterman said. “It wasn’t that long ago that we were lecturing Republicans who were threatening to shut the government down. Now I think we are in the same situation.”

Democrats have excoriated Republicans, saying they acted irresponsibly in shuttering federal agencies in past funding fights.

Mr. Schumer and his fellow Democrats did prompt a shutdown in 2018 as they sought to win protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. But they capitulated after a brief weekend closure, when lawmakers concluded that the strategy was backfiring and angering the public.

They have sought to make certain they were not blamed in any government funding lapses since then.

Annie Karni contributed reporting from Leesburg, Va.

A federal judge in Washington reinstated Susan Tsui Grundmann, a Biden appointee, to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the agency that adjudicates labor disputes between federal employees and management, after President Trump moved to fire her last month. The ruling is the latest setback to President Trump’s efforts to purge the federal bureaucracy, and his administration’s legal stance that the president may fire almost any official in the executive branch at will.

Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan excoriated the government’s legal arguments in her 35-page ruling that they “paint with a broad brush and threaten to upend fundamental protections in our Constitution.” She continued, “But ours is not an autocracy; it is a system of checks and balances.”

The suit accused employees of Southwest Key, which has worked with the federal government for more than two decades, of exploiting “children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers and distance from family and loved ones” from 2015 through at least 2023, including President Trump’s first term.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in the statement, blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for enabling the abuses.

“Under the border policies of the previous administration, bad actors were incentivized to exploit children and break our laws: this ends now,” Ms. Bondi said, adding, “securing our border and protecting children from abuse are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration.”

Anais Biera Miracle, a spokeswoman for Southwest Key, maintained the nonprofit denied the claims of abuse. She said it was “pleased” that the Justice Department had dropped the case in its entirety, and that charges cannot be refiled.

“There is no settlement or payment required,” Ms. Miracle said in an email. “We are glad this matter is now concluded.”

Abuse and harassment were also alleged to have taken place during President Trump’s first term, including during his policy of family separation, which forced thousands of additional minors into federal custody. In a complaint filed in July, federal prosecutors reported that Southwest Key employees subjected minors to threats of violence to prevent them from reporting rape, solicitations of sex and entreaties for nude photographs, among other inappropriate conduct and abuse for at least eight years, across three presidential administrations.

At the time the complaint was filed, the H.H.S., which assumes responsibility for housing children who arrive at the southern border unaccompanied by parents or legal guardians, continued to place minors at shelters run by Southwest Key even as prosecutors asked that the nonprofit face penalties and that it pay damages to the victims.

The decision appears to conclude a gradual reversal of fortune for Southwest Key, which has worked with the federal government for more than two decades, operating more than 25 shelters across Texas, Arizona and California. It has been awarded more than $6 billion in federal funds since 2007. After the H.H.S. announced that it would review its grants to Southwest Key, Ms. Miracle, the spokeswoman, said that the government had frozen funding and put in place a stop placement order on Southwest Key shelters, forcing the nonprofit to furlough about 5,000 employees.

Housing underage migrants for the federal government has been a financial boon for contractors like Southwest Key, whose award money more than doubled during the family separation policy overseen by Mr. Trump in 2017 and 2018. It was one of several providers that cashed in as the administration scrambled to find shelter for more than 5,000 children forced into federal custody, turning the care of migrant children into a billion-dollar business with little transparency.

The New York Times revealed in 2018 that Southwest Key had funneled government money through a web of for-profit companies to convert public funds into private money for the organization and pay top executives millions of dollars. Shortly after, the Justice Department opened an investigation into possible financial improprieties. Southwest Key also began an internal inquiry, and high-level executives, including its founder and chief financial officer, eventually resigned.

The complaint filed by the Justice Department last year disclosed that Southwest Key had documented dozens of cases of abuse reported by children, the majority of whom were 13 to 17 and came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. But Southwest Key’s employees did not report abuse they had observed or knew of, or any violations of policies intended to protect minors.

By one account, a worker who sexually abused three girls ages 5, 8 and 11 threatened to kill their families if they told. In another case documented by Southwest Key, a supervisor deliberately changed shifts to be alone with a teenage girl he repeatedly raped, abused and threatened. At night, he would enter her bedroom and those of others in violation of Southwest Key’s policies. The girl was transferred to a different shelter after she reported the abuse.

At the time, a spokeswoman for Southwest Key said that the complaint did not “present the accurate picture of the care and commitment our employees provide to the youth and children,” and that the company remained focused on “the safety, health and well-being” of the children at its shelters.

The subpoena requested testimony and evidence from the hotel related to “an alleged violation” of federal immigration law. It asked the hotel for the names of entities and individuals responsible for the “funding and management of the illegal immigrant/migrant shelter program,” as well as any contracts or agreements related to it.

It was unclear why prosecutors sent a subpoena to the Chandler, a hotel on East 31st Street that was converted into a homeless shelter years ago but does not operate as a shelter for migrants.

The investigation appears focused at least in part on the management and funding of hotels acting as shelters, but its full scope was unclear as of Wednesday, as was whether other hotels had received subpoenas.

The grand jury subpoena was issued by the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. A spokesman for the office, Nicholas Biase, referred questions to the Department of Justice in Washington. A spokesman there declined to comment on what he said was “an ongoing criminal investigation,” adding that he could not discuss the scope or contours of the inquiry.

New York City, which is housing about 43,000 migrants in shelters across the city, including dozens of converted hotels, had not received a subpoena as of Wednesday, according to an official briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams, declined to comment, saying, “We cannot comment on any type of federal investigation.”

The Guardian first reported on Wednesday that a Manhattan hotel, which they did not name, had received a subpoena.

The city’s migrant shelters have been criticized and scrutinized by the Trump administration, which has made New York City, the country’s largest sanctuary jurisdiction, a target of its immigration crackdown.

The city entered into multimillion-dollar contracts with more than 100 hotels as it struggled to house the more than 230,000 migrants who have arrived in the city seeking shelter since early 2022. Republicans have long decried the use of hotels as shelters to house migrants as wasteful spending of taxpayer funding.

Last month, the Trump administration abruptly clawed back $80 million in federal funds from the city’s bank accounts that was meant to cover some expenses associated with paying hotels to shelter migrants.

In doing so, the federal government singled out the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown, which the city had converted into its main processing center for migrants. The Trump administration depicted it as a safe haven for migrant gangs. Shortly after, the city announced it would shut down the Roosevelt Hotel by June, citing a sharp decline in the number of migrants arriving in the city.

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

The spokeswoman, McLaurine Pinover, is not the only member of the Trump administration to have used her federal office to promote outside business interests, but former agency officials and ethics watchdogs say that the timing and content of the videos were both unlawful and especially tone-deaf.

Government watchdogs say the videos, coming from the spokeswoman of the agency driving the layoffs of thousands of federal workers, exemplify a widespread disregard for government ethics across the Trump administration.

“It’s illegal for a public employee to promote a private company in their government office,” said Donald Sherman, the executive director and chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group.

“On its own, maybe it would qualify as small potatoes, but context matters,” Mr. Sherman added. “In the context of a president and an administration that are routinely engaged in profiteering and using the office of the presidency for financial gain, in the context of someone who owns a private company, Elon Musk, coming into the administration and dismantling the government as he has, and in the context of O.P.M. being central to the administration’s attack on civil servants who actually want to be there to work for the American public, an O.P.M. political appointee engaging in this conduct is egregious.”

Though presidents are legally exempt from certain conflict of interest laws, President Trump has not divested from many business interests, some of which involve real estate deals with foreign governments that could influence his diplomatic decisions. Mr. Musk, the tech billionaire whom Mr. Trump deputized to slash the federal government, continues to pursue federal contracts for his private businesses.

And on Tuesday, the day news of Ms. Pinover’s Instagram account broke, Mr. Trump made a show of purchasing a red Model S from Tesla, of which Mr. Musk is chief executive, on the White House grounds, just a day after the company’s stock crashed.

Ms. Pinover’s short videos, each four to nine seconds, featured her in her office, lightheartedly modeling her clothes, applying makeup, working at her desk and occasionally blowing a kiss to the camera. They also included links to the clothes that would give her a commission from fans’ purchases.

The existence of Ms. Pinover’s accounts was first reported by CNN. The Instagram account has since been deleted, while the account that would supply commissions, ShopMy, has been wiped clean, save for Ms. Pinover’s name and picture and an invitation to “Shop my looks!”

In a statement, Ms. Pinover said she never made any money from the fashion videos.

“While I was battling breast cancer as a new mom, I felt so unlike myself. I turned to social media shortly after as a personal outlet,” she wrote. “I never made any income and with only about 800 followers, I’m surprised the so-called ‘newspaper of record’ finds this newsworthy. My focus remains on serving the American people at O.P.M.”

Whether she actually profited off the enterprise is irrelevant, Mr. Sherman said. The purpose of the account was to promote the clothing.

Ms. Pinover took on her role in the Trump administration in January, but her Instagram account — and the start of her fashion influencer videos — predated that job. Before she joined the Trump administration, she worked as a senior director for the Herald Group, a communications and advocacy firm, starting in August 2023. Before that, Ms. Pinover was a spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Former O.P.M. employees said that Ms. Pinover should have been warned against pursuing supplementary income streams, particularly on government property, as part of a standard ethics briefing employees receive when joining the agency.

It was not immediately clear if Ms. Pinover had been explicitly warned against such activity when she started the job. White House representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Use of public property to film one’s ‘fashion influencer’ videos should raise lots of ethical questions about how seriously the Trump administration is taking their oaths,” said Viet Tran, the deputy communications director of O.P.M. during the Biden administration, a political appointment. “Whether it’s Trump hawking Teslas on the South Lawn, SpaceX employees meddling in competitor contracts at F.A.A., or using your government offices for personal enrichment, it looks awful all around.”

President Trump hosted Micheál Martin, Ireland’s leader, and hundreds of Irish Americans at the White House on Wednesday evening for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

“We have come together to this beautiful White House this evening for the annual Shamrock Ceremony, a living symbol of the long and unique friendship between Americans and the Irish,” he said.

Several members of Trump’s cabinet attended the celebration, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. At the same event last year, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. invited many of Kennedy’s siblings and their children in a pointed rebuke of Kennedy’s independent presidential bid.

“From the campaign trail to Day 1 and beyond, President Trump has delivered on his promise to unleash energy dominance and lower the cost of living,” Mr. Zeldin said. “We at E.P.A. will do our part to power the great American comeback.”

Nowhere in the video did he refer to protecting the environment or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.

The E.P.A. has “no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment,” the first administrator, William D. Ruckelshaus, said as he explained its mission to the country weeks after the E.P.A. was created by President Richard M. Nixon. He said the agency would be focused on research, standards and enforcement in five areas: air pollution, water pollution, waste disposal, radiation and pesticides.

Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. would unwind more than two dozen protections against air and water pollution. It would overturn limits on soot from smokestacks that have been linked to respiratory problems in humans and premature deaths as well as restrictions on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin. It would get rid of the “good neighbor rule” that requires states to address their own pollution when it’s carried by winds into neighboring states. And it would eliminate enforcement efforts that prioritize the protection of poor and minority communities.

In addition, when the agency creates environmental policy, it would no longer consider the costs to society from wildfires, droughts, storms and other disasters that might be made worse by pollution connected to that policy, Mr. Zeldin said.

In perhaps its most consequential act, the agency said it would work to erase the E.P.A.’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by reconsidering decades of science that show global warming is endangering humanity. In his video, Mr. Zeldin derisively referred to that legal underpinning as “the holy grail of the climate change religion.”

Mr. Zeldin called Wednesday’s actions “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.” He added, “today the green new scam ends, as the E.P.A. does its part to usher in a golden age of American success.”

The announcements do not carry the force of law. In almost every case, the E.P.A. would have to undergo a lengthy process of public comment and develop environmental and economic justifications for the change.

President Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, campaigned on a promise to “drill, baby, drill” and ease regulations on fossil fuel companies. Since returning to the White House, he has degraded the government’s capacity to fight global warming by freezing funds for climate programs authorized by Congress, firing scientists working on weather and climate forecasts, and cutting federal support for the transition away from fossil fuels.

The United States is the world’s largest historic emitter of carbon dioxide, a planet-warming greenhouse gas that scientists agree is driving climate change and intensifying hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts, as well as species extinction. Last year was the hottest in recorded history, and the United States experienced 27 disasters that each cost at least $1 billion, compared to three in 1980, adjusted for inflation.

Democrats and environmental activists decried Mr. Zeldin’s moves and accused him of abandoning the E.P.A.’s responsibility to protect human health and the environment.

“Today is the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said. He called the E.P.A. moves a series of attacks on clean air, clean water and affordable energy. “Administrator Zeldin clearly lied when he told us that he would respect the science and listen to the experts,” Mr. Whitehouse said, referring to Mr. Zeldin’s confirmation hearing.

Gina McCarthy, who served as E.P.A. administrator in the Obama administration, said it was “the most disastrous day in EPA history. Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and well being.”

Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate change and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said repealing or weakening regulations on automobiles, power plants and more would lead to increases in asthma, heart attacks and other health problems. “At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” said Ms. Wong, whose organization successfully sued the first Trump administration repeatedly over environmental rollbacks.

The Trump administration had been signaling for months that it would reverse many of the climate regulations enacted during the Biden administration. But the cascade of announcements, timed with an op-ed by Mr. Zeldin in The Wall Street Journal and the online video, was designed to attract attention before he is expected to address the oil and gas industry at an annual gathering in Houston.

By midafternoon, the agency had counted 31 pronouncements that were designed, Mr. Zeldin said, to “unleash American energy.”

The top lobbying groups for the automobile, oil, gas and chemical industries, among others, applauded Mr. Zeldin’s plans.

Anne Bradbury, the chief executive of the American Exploration & Production Council, a lobbying group representing oil and gas companies, called the announcements “common sense.” John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the auto lobby, said the changes would keep the industry “globally competitive.”

Marty Durbin, a senior vice president at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, “American businesses were crippled with an unprecedented regulatory onslaught during the previous Administration that contributed to higher costs felt by families around the country.” He said “The Chamber supports a more balanced regulatory approach that will protect the environment and support greater economic growth.”

Groups that deny the established science of climate change also cheered Mr. Zeldin’s actions.

“The Biden E.P.A. ignored the will of Congress, infringed on individual freedom, trampled on property rights and tried to force the country to use unreliable sources of electricity, such as wind and solar,” said Daren Bakst, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that promotes climate denial, in a statement.

Some of the most significant policy changes Mr. Zeldin said he planned include:

• Rolling back restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Currently the E.P.A. requires existing coal-burning power plants and new gas plants built in the United States to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 90 percent by 2039.

• Rewriting tailpipe pollution standards that were designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.

• Easing limits on mercury emissions from power plants, as well as restrictions on soot and haze from burning coal. A Biden-era rule had aimed to slash by 70 percent emissions from coal-burning power plants of mercury, which has been linked to developmental damage in children.

• Greatly reducing the “social cost” of carbon, an economic estimate of the damage caused by each additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. That figure plays a significant role in weighing the costs and benefits of regulating industries.

Perhaps the most significant move, though, is an effort to revise a 2009 legal opinion known as the E.P.A. “endangerment finding” which concluded that rising greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health. The finding gives the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Eliminating it would make it virtually impossible for the E.P.A. to curb climate pollution from automobiles, factories, power plants or oil and gas wells.

Reversing the rule has long been the white whale for climate deniers. But doing so would require Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. to make and substantiate the argument that greenhouse gas emissions pose no foreseeable threats to public health, when decades of science says otherwise.

Jonathan H. Adler, a conservative legal expert and professor of environmental law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said he did not believe the Trump administration would succeed. “You’ve got to explain away decades of statements by every administration that there are negative consequences of climate change that can be reasonably anticipated,” Mr. Adler said.

He called the effort to unravel the endangerment finding “a good way to waste years of time and effort and accomplish nothing.”

Mr. Ezell had been ordered to appear before a San Francisco judge as part of a lawsuit brought against the Office of Personnel Management by unions representing some of the fired workers.

As the office’s acting chief, Mr. Ezell began issuing guidance in January that agencies interpreted as orders to fire federal employees, particularly those with probationary status. That guidance is at the heart of multiple legal challenges, with the once-obscure agency assuming a lead role in President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.

According to a legal complaint from the employee unions, Mr. Ezell held a meeting on Feb. 13 with the heads of many federal agencies in which he ordered them to fire tens of thousands of employees. The next day, O.P.M. provided a template to agencies to use for the termination letters, stating that employees were being fired for performance reasons, according to the plaintiffs.

The unions argued that O.P.M. does not have the authority to make such personnel decisions and asked the court to rule that the office’s orders were illegal and force the government to stop firing people at their direction.

Mr. Ezell filed a declaration on Feb. 26 asserting that he did not order the agencies to fire anyone, and that the memos from his office were intended only as “guidance.” The same day, lawyers for the unions filed examples of correspondence from O.P.M. that they argue show that the memos were indeed orders.

A day later, the judge presiding over the case, William Alsup of the Northern District of California, heard arguments from both sides about O.P.M.’s role in the mass firings at the agencies involved in the lawsuit, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Judge Alsup concluded that O.P.M. has no legal authority to order the agencies to fire anyone, ordered that the government retract the memos and said the government should put a stop to unlawful personnel moves. He also scheduled a hearing for Thursday, March 13, making clear he wanted Mr. Ezell to appear.

O.P.M. responded to his order by retracting the original memos, but the government disputed the need for Mr. Ezell’s testimony. Judge Alsup disagreed, ordering on Monday that Mr. Ezell come before the court.

“The problem here is that Acting Director Ezell submitted a sworn declaration in support of defendants’ position, but now refuses to appear to be cross-examined, or to be deposed,” Judge Alsup wrote Monday.

On Tuesday, the government confirmed that Mr. Ezell would not comply. Government lawyers said his testimony is not necessary “because existing documentary evidence and briefing demonstrates that O.P.M. is not directing agencies to terminate probationary employees.”

Since the lawsuit was filed, the unions have drastically expanded its scope, including fired employees from 28 agencies, up from the five in the initial complaint.

The broader scope reflects the extraordinary personnel actions that have been taken since Mr. Trump’s return to office and the opacity surrounding who is responsible for orchestrating the wholesale changes that have been ordered by O.P.M. — Mr. Trump or his government downsizing guru, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.

During his address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, Mr. Trump said Mr. Musk is the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is overseeing the culling of the federal government. Two days later, Mr. Trump told members of his cabinet that they are the ones in charge of reducing the number of employees at their agencies, not Mr. Musk.

Yet members of Mr. Musk’s team continue to show up at federal agencies demanding data and documents and operating with outsized importance.

Mr. Ezell’s testimony on Thursday would have given lawyers representing the unions the opportunity to press him on O.P.M.’s role in how Mr. Trump’s government overhaul is being carried out. According to a court filing after the government’s notice informing the judge that Mr. Ezell would not testify, the court clerk said Thursday’s hearing would go on as planned.

Mr. Ezell took over as leader of O.P.M. on Inauguration Day. Before that, he was a lower-level official at the agency, overseeing data analytics. He also previously served as a consultant to the agency, according to his LinkedIn page.

Zach Montague and Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.

That action came after he revoked security clearances held by any lawyers at the firm Covington & Burling who were helping provide legal advice to Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal indictments against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump’s actions, and open threats of more to come, have shaken law firms across Washington and beyond, leaving them looking at their client lists and wondering whether their representation could put them in the president’s cross hairs and endanger their business. Perkins Coie has acknowledged that in just the few days since Mr. Trump signed the executive order it “has already lost significant revenue” because of clients who have severed their relationship with the firm.

“This is certainly the biggest affront to the legal profession in my lifetime,” said Samuel W. Buell, who is a longtime professor of law at Duke University and a former federal prosecutor.

A federal judge on Wednesday sided with Perkins Coie in an initial courtroom skirmish with the White House, temporarily barring a major portion of Mr. Trump’s executive order against the firm from taking effect.

“I am sure that many in the profession are watching in horror at what Perkins Coie is going through,” said Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington. She added, “It sends little chills down my spine” to hear arguments that a president can punish individuals and companies like this.

Her reaction mirrored those of other legal experts who said the issues at stake go far beyond whether or not Mr. Trump will make life difficult for elite law firms and well-paid lawyers.

The experts say Mr. Trump’s actions could create a trickle-down effect in which those who find themselves under scrutiny from Mr. Trump and his administration struggle to find lawyers who are willing to defend them in the face of the vast powers of the federal government. Those facing scrutiny could be forced to turn to less skilled lawyers or firms that enjoy access or good ties to the White House, the experts say.

“If you’re a political enemy, you really need the best representation when the government comes after you for who you are,” said Daniel C. Richman, a professor of law at Columbia University and former federal prosecutor. “Chilling the lawyers who represent those people hurts the rule of law because when the government can’t be legally opposed, the law provides no protections to anyone and you start to live in an autocracy.”

Mr. Trump’s attack on Big Law comes as his administration has also gone after law schools, the American Bar Association and even lawyers inside the government itself who might question or hinder his agenda.

Last week, the top federal prosecutor in Washington threatened to stop hiring graduates from Georgetown Law School if its dean, William Treanor, failed to abolish the school’s diversity programs. Mr. Treanor all but dared the prosecutor, Ed Martin, to make good on his threats, saying that the First Amendment would forbid them.

Mr. Trump has often relied on pliant lawyers to do his bidding, and last month he fired the three top lawyers in the armed forces who are supposed to advise military leaders on the legality of various policies and operations. The lawyers, known as judge advocates general, were fired without reference to their professional performance, raising concerns that the administration wanted replacements who would be more amenable to Mr. Trump’s orders.

One of the first big tests of this new era arose late last week, setting off maneuvering that shows how big firms in Washington are rushing to adapt to the new challenges they face, according to interviews with people involved in or briefed on those discussions.

In his executive order targeting Perkins Coie, Mr. Trump was going after a firm that represented Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and repeatedly won election law cases in 2020 against Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Trump singled out Perkins Coie’s involvement in a dossier complied during the 2016 campaign by a former British spy about Mr. Trump’s potential ties to Russia.

Amid concerns in the legal community about a chilling effect, few, if any, major firms issued statements condemning Mr. Trump’s action. And amid that silence there was a question about whether any firm would take the even bigger step of agreeing to represent Perkins Coie in its effort to challenge Mr. Trump’s executive order in court.

Perkins Coie reached out to Derek L. Shaffer, a lawyer at the firm Quinn Emanuel. Mr. Shaffer had a long history of bringing civil actions against federal and state governments, and had argued before the Supreme Court three times. Perkins Coie wanted to see if he could take on the firm as a client and quickly go to court to file a suit against the Trump administration to stop the executive order.

Convincing Mr. Shaffer to take the case would come with a major potential bonus: close links to Mr. Trump and his allies.

Lawyers at Quinn Emanuel represent Elon Musk and provide ethics advice to the Trump Organization. The firm has also represented Mayor Eric Adams of New York as the Trump Justice Department has moved swiftly to drop corruption charges against Mr. Adams, a Democrat.

But Perkins Coie was rebuffed. Quinn Emanuel decided against taking the case. Its top leaders concluded that this was not an issue they wanted to jump into at this stage as they continue to build themselves into a power center in Mr. Trump’s Washington.

Other major law firms expressed concerns that if they represented Perkins Coie, they, too, could face Mr. Trump’s ire. Leaders of top firms asked: How would their own clients react if Mr. Trump cut off their access to the government?

In response, the elite Washington firm Williams and Connolly decided it would take on Perkins Coie as a client.

It’s unclear why Williams and Connolly was willing to take a risk that other firms were not. But lawyers at Williams and Connolly have long taken pride in their role as an adversary and check against the government, including by highlighting the firm’s role in protecting high-profile defendants against prosecutorial misconduct. The firm was founded by the well-known defense lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, who built his career on vigorously representing an array of clients before the government, including those out of political favor.

On Tuesday, Williams and Connolly, on behalf of Perkins Coie, filed suit against the Trump administration in Washington. That suit led to Judge Howell’s ruling on Wednesday imposing a temporary restraining order to block for now the section of Mr. Trump’s executive order that essentially barred Perkins Coie from dealing with federal officials and prevented it from entering government buildings. She said the executive order was most likely unconstitutional.

Other law firms have been discussing whether to file a joint amicus brief on behalf of Perkins Coie. While some major firms have signaled they are willing to sign onto it, others have said they are reluctant. On Wednesday, 21 state attorneys general filed their own amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie.

Covington & Burling, which had the security clearance stripped from a lawyer at the firm who was assisting Mr. Smith, has taken a different approach from that of Perkins Coie.

Covington has declined to fight Mr. Trump in court. Instead, the firm, concerned about a perception among its clients that it was falling out of favor with Mr. Trump, has begun discussions with other prominent law firms with fewer ties to Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies about becoming the face of some of their most important cases before the Justice Department.

But beyond what Mr. Trump has done to law firms, the political appointees he has placed at departments, agencies and commissions are taking on the legal profession in other ways.

One of Mr. Trump’s political appointees has ordered government officials under him to not renew their memberships to the American Bar Association, hold a position with the association or attend its events.

At the Justice Department, the attorney general has sent a letter to the American Bar Association questioning its diversity practices.

And last week, at an annual conference on white-collar crime for the association, a slew of top officials from the Justice Department — who regularly attend the event — canceled at the last minute. That meant that a conference designed to bring together the industry about an important topic was devoid of senior department officials in charge of enforcing the law.

Abbie VanSickle and Alan Feuer contributed reporting.

But news of the proposed appointment generated blowback on the right. A senior administration official said Ms. Gabbard reconsidered her choice given the criticism, and other officials confirmed the decision.

Mr. Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank with funding from Charles Koch that has a number of alumni in key positions in the Trump administration. Defense Priorities has taken a skeptical view of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and has supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to reach an immediate cease-fire in the war in Ukraine.

The abandoned appointment has highlighted an emerging foreign policy fault line in the new administration. The Trump administration has appointed both more hawkish Republicans, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, and officials far more skeptical of American intervention, including Ms. Gabbard.

The tug of war over Mr. Davis’s appointment also highlighted the strain among supporters of Mr. Trump’s over U.S. support of Israel.

Before Mr. Davis’s appointment was pulled, the Anti-Defamation League said on Wednesday that the appointment would be “extremely dangerous.” In a social media post, the group accused Mr. Davis of minimizing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack and undermining American support for Israel.

Consideration of Mr. Davis had also upset some hawkish conservatives in Congress who began quietly trying to get the administration to rethink it. These officials believed Mr. Davis’s skepticism of the war in Gaza could weaken the Trump administration’s support for Israel.

Former intelligence officials were also critical of the pick. Marc Polymeropoulos, a former C.I.A. operations officer and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Mr. Davis’s positions were outside the ideological mainstream of the Republican Party.

“His overt criticism of Israel and total opposition to any military action against Iran seems to run counter to current administration policy,” Mr. Polymeropoulos said.

Allies of Mr. Davis had defended him and said there was no hint of antisemitism or opposition to Israel in his work. He is skeptical of military action when it does not directly align with American interests, they say, and troubled by the use of proxies when the United States is unwilling to put its own troops in harm’s way.

While some of Mr. Davis’s criticisms of Israel are well outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, they are similar to certain critiques by liberal Democrats. He has spoken frequently about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for Palestinians to be removed from Gaza to allow it to be redeveloped into a beach resort, Mr. Davis has said the removal of people from the territory would be “ethnic cleansing.”

In January, he wrote on social media that U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza was a “stain on our character as a nation, as a culture, that will not soon go away.”

Consideration of Mr. Davis for the intelligence post was reported earlier by Jewish Insider.

Ms. Gabbard has said little about the war in Gaza recently. But many of Mr. Davis’s other positions, including a skepticism of American support for Ukraine’s war effort and his worries about the consequences of the fall of the Syrian government, match her views. And Mr. Davis’s social media feed has been supportive of Ms. Gabbard’s foreign policy positions.

During the Biden administration, the head of mission integration conducted many intelligence briefings at the White House. Beth Sanner, who was deputy director of mission integration through much of the first Trump administration, was the primary presidential briefer. Another intelligence official has had that responsibility in the current Trump administration, according to former officials.

In recent years, senior C.I.A. analysts with decades of experience have had the briefing responsibility. Robert Cardillo, who was the first person ever to hold the job, had been a senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“I can confirm that, at the direction of President Trump, Shelly Lowe has departed her position as chair of N.E.H.,” a spokesman for the agency, Paula Wasley, said in a statement. She said Mr. McDonald would serve as acting chairman “until such time as the president nominates and the Senate confirms a new N.E.H. chairman.”

Agency chairs are appointed for four-year terms, though some have served across administrations. Maria Rosario Jackson, the chair of the endowment’s sister agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, announced her resignation on Jan. 17, shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in 1965 and has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historic sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website.

Dr. Lowe’s departure comes as Mr. Trump has moved to put his stamp on federal cultural agencies, most prominently the Kennedy Center, where he purged Biden appointees from the bipartisan board, fired the center’s president and had himself elected chairman.

The president has also issued sweeping executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government while calling for the promotion of “patriotic history.” In one order issued in January, Mr. Trump included the heads of both the art and humanities endowments as members of his newly created Task Force 250, which is charged with providing “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American independence.”

Last month, the arts endowment, which is led by an interim chair, Mary Anne Carter, announced that it was canceling this year’s “Challenge America” grants, a relatively small program aimed at supporting projects serving underrepresented groups or communities.

Potential applicants were instead encouraged to apply for the agency’s much larger main grant program, which according to its website encouraged projects that “celebrate and honor the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity” during the lead-up to the 250th commemoration in July 2026.

In his first term, Mr. Trump repeatedly vowed to eliminate both agencies, which have an annual budget of roughly $200 million each. But they survived.

Information was not immediately available about any staff or budget cuts or shifts in its programs at the humanities endowment.

A federal judge on Wednesday sided with the law firm Perkins Coie, temporarily barring Trump’s executive order that crippled the firm’s ability to do business with the government. Trump signed an executive order last Thursday that essentially barred the firm’s lawyers from doing business with the federal government or entering federal buildings.

Trump said that he was targeting the firm because of its role in representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Judge Beryl Howell said that the executive order had a chilling effect on the entire legal profession. “I am sure that many in the profession are watching in horror at what Perkins Coie is going through,” she said, adding, “It sends little chills down my spine” to hear arguments that a president can punish individuals and companies like this.

The grants were issued to a total of eight nonprofit organizations through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which received $27 billion in funding from Congress through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

But since taking office, Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A.’s administrator, has tried to claw back the money, saying they were part of a “scheme” and citing as evidence a hidden-camera video from Project Veritas, a conservative group known for using covert recordings to embarrass its political opponents.

The E.P.A. can cancel the grant contracts if it can document examples of waste, fraud, and abuse by the grantees. But that hasn’t happened at this point.

Yesterday, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation into the E.P.A,’s freezing of the funds and what they said were Mr. Zeldin’s “false and misleading statements.”

Two of the nonprofit grant recipients, Climate United and the Coalition for Green Capital, said they will fight the cancellation. A court hearing on a related case is scheduled for Wednesday.

Here is what we know about the $20 billion in funding and how it became a target of the E.P.A.

How the controversy started

In February, Mr. Zeldin announced that he had found billions of dollars of “gold bars” of grant funding at Citibank, calling the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (or “green bank”) grant program a “scheme” and a “rush job with no oversight.”

Mr. Zeldin has embraced the Trump administration’s emphasis on spending cuts, touting his work with the Department of Government Efficiency. He has canceled scores of other E.P.A. contracts, totaling what the agency said is around $2 billion across more than 400 initiatives.

The “gold bars” comment was a reference to a video released in December by Project Veritas in which Brent Efron, then an E.P.A. employee, likened his agency’s efforts to spend federal funds on climate programs before leaving office to throwing “gold bars” off the Titanic.

Mr. Efron’s lawyer has denied his client was referring to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

After Mr. Zeldin’s statement, Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington D.C., asked Denise Cheung, a top federal prosecutor, to freeze the $20 billion held by Citibank. But she abruptly resigned after determining there was not enough evidence to order the funds frozen. The F.B.I. and the Justice Department continued their investigations.

Last week, Mr. Zeldin also referred the matter to his agency’s acting inspector general for a third, concurrent investigation.

The nonprofit grant recipients began executing their legal defense this past weekend, when Climate United sued E.P.A. and Citibank, claiming they were illegally withholding the money. Two other recipients filed suits against Citibank in the following days.

A hearing on Climate United’s request for a temporary restraining order to release the funds was scheduled for Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

What the nonprofits are saying

The cancellations surprised Climate United, a nonprofit organization that was awarded nearly $7 billion, said Beth Bafford, the group’s chief executive officer. She said she received an official termination letter a half-hour before the agency issued a public statement.

The nonprofits have been unable to access the funds in their Citibank accounts since mid-February. The funds have been held there under an agreement between the E.P.A. and the bank.

Without the promised funds, some groups said they are struggling to pay staff.

In a termination letter viewed by The New York Times, the E.P.A. said it had identified “material deficiencies” in the program, including the absence of adequate oversight and improper or speculative allocation of funds. It did not provide any evidence.

The Coalition for Green Capital, one of the largest recipients, called the E.P.A.’s decision “unauthorized and unlawful,” and said it was considering legal options.

What we know about the $20 billion program

The $20 billion program was designed to offer low-cost loans to businesses and developers for climate initiatives, which include things like installing solar panels and retrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient.

The E.P.A. distributed the money to eight nonprofits, which planned to distribute the money as loans as well as grants to local “green banks’” or credit unions, which would in turn make their own loans.

The idea was that the commitment of federal dollars would attract private investments to green projects.

Mr. Zeldin has made much of the fact that $20 billion in grant money was held at Citibank, portraying the E.P.A.’s decision to use an outside financial institution as an intermediary as an attempt to subvert oversight.

Grant recipients and former E.P.A. officials have disputed this characterization, and said that the agency has full visibility into transactions through the Citibank accounts for the nonprofit organizations and their sub-recipients

It’s not clear how much of the $20 billion was spent before the freeze was put in place.

A spokeswoman for the E.P.A. said it could not answer how much of the money has been loaned out by the nonprofits because the funds were spent under the Biden administration.

Citibank did not respond to request for comment.

Parents in the District of Columbia, whose budget would be slashed by more than $1 billion under the stopgap spending bill the House passed last night, are planning to stage a “Recess at the Capitol” protest on Thursday. A flier describing the protest says they plan to bring schoolchildren to the Hart Building near the Capitol to show lawmakers “exactly who they’re impacting.”

Persuading Senate Democrats to block the bill, however, will be a heavy lift. The plight of Washington residents is not top of mind for lawmakers who fear being blamed for a government shutdown if the bill is blocked.

Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary in the Biden administration, said in an open letter that the Trump administration’s move to gut the Education Department was “deeply disturbing” and would “undoubtedly hurt students.”

Cardona wrote that the cuts would sap resources for students with disabilities and that “vulnerable students in our country will feel the impacts the greatest.” He urged educators to stay “focused on your students and the great work you are doing, and know you are not alone.”

Mr. Rubio also downplayed any notion that he would encounter hostility from American allies because of President Trump’s recent tariffs. And he said he expected to have cordial talks with Canadian officials, despite Mr. Trump’s threat to annex Canada and make it the 51st state. The president has also imposed coercive tariffs on Canada.

“That’s not what we’re going to discuss at the G7, and that’s not what we’re going to be discussing in our trip here,” he said. “They’re the host nation, and I mean, we have a lot of other things we work on together.”

“It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada,” he added. He landed in Quebec City on Wednesday afternoon, as other foreign ministers were also flying in.

Mr. Rubio and Michael Waltz, the White House national security adviser, met for hours on Tuesday with Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to work out how to start a negotiation process with Russia to end the war. Hostilities began in 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and then launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.

After the meeting on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said they had agreed to an American proposal for a 30-day interim cease-fire. After berating the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the White House, Mr. Trump withheld U.S. weapons and intelligence aid to the Ukrainians to try to force them into negotiations. U.S. officials said after the Jeddah meeting that aid had restarted.

Mr. Rubio said U.S. officials planned to “have contact” with Russian officials on Wednesday to discuss the proposed cease-fire.

“If their response is no, it would be highly unfortunate, and it’d make their intentions clear,” he added.

Mr. Rubio said that when he, Mr. Waltz and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, met with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia last month, the Russians appeared open to the idea of a settlement to the war. “They expressed a willingness under the right circumstances, which they did not define, to bring an end to this conflict,” he said.

Mr. Rubio said one of his main goals at the Group of 7 meeting was corralling the other countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, all supporters of Ukraine — to have a united front on encouraging peace talks. The meeting begins with a reception in Quebec City on Wednesday night.

He said a “perfect statement” to be issued from the meeting “would be that the United States has done a good thing for the world in bringing this process forward, and now we all eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities, so people will stop dying, so bullets will stop flying and so a process can begin to find a permanent peace.”

Ukrainian officials want to ensure several issues are addressed in any talks, he said, including exchanges of prisoners of war, the release of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and humanitarian assistance.

When asked what was the American position on Ukraine’s request for security guarantees to help deter any future Russian assaults, Mr. Rubio simply said deterrence would be part of peace talks.

“There’s no way to have an enduring peace without the deterrence piece being a part of it,” he said, adding that any commercial minerals agreement between the United States and Ukraine would help enrich Ukraine, but was not a deterrent against Russian aggression.

Mr. Trump has insisted that the United States and Ukraine sign such an agreement, suggesting that investment by American companies in Ukraine would help stave off a hostile Russia.

Mr. Rubio said European promises to provide security to Ukraine would be part of peace talks as well. He said it was unclear when those nations would become more involved in negotiations, though European countries have insisted they would be central players in a settlement, if one were to happen.

“I would imagine that in any negotiation, if we get there hopefully with the Russians, that they will raise the European sanctions that have been imposed upon them,” Mr. Rubio said. “So I think that the issue of European sanctions are going to be on the table, not to mention what happens with the frozen assets and the like.”

The foreign ministers gathered in Quebec City expect to discuss the war, but Mr. Trump’s hostility to U.S. alliances, his alignment with Russia and his unpredictable tariff actions have created a host of issues that the diplomats intend to raise.

Mr. Rubio said Mr. Trump was imposing tariffs not to punish other nations but “to develop a domestic capability” for manufacturing, especially in defense industries.

Canadian officials, including the incoming prime minister, Mark Carney, are taking reciprocal actions on the tariffs and grappling with Mr. Trump’s other threats. Mr. Rubio said Mr. Trump’s statements on annexation were based on both economic and security concerns.

“What he said is they should become the 51st state from an economic standpoint,” Mr. Rubio said. “He says if they became the 51st state, we wouldn’t have to worry about the border and fentanyl coming across because now we would be able to manage that. He’s made an argument that it’s their interest to do so. Obviously, the Canadians don’t agree, apparently.”