SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Cascade of headlines on the third weekend of President Trump's second term in office. Where to begin? A federal judge early today blocked Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, from getting access to Treasury Department records containing sensitive personal data from millions of Americans. Earlier in the week, another judge temporarily curbed the president's efforts to put USAID employees on leave. President Trump has also put a close ally in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Joined now by NPR national political correspondent Don Gonyea in Detroit. Don, thanks so much for being with us.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: I am glad to be here. Hi.
SIMON: Where to start? You first.
GONYEA: Boy, you used the word cascade. Maybe we could say fire hose. That's the one I use a lot. We expected a lot of aggressive action from the Trump administration right from the jump, because that's what they told us they would do. And we really are in a place where the fire hose is turned on, and every day, as you said, it is multiple big things.
SIMON: It's been less than two weeks since over 2 million federal employees received an email telling them they could resign by February 6 or stay in those positions without any assurances they would have a job. That deadline's been pushed to Monday, but where do things seem to stand now?
GONYEA: Now we get the legal battles. A judge ruled that the White House could not do what it did, that there are so many questions unresolved about who has the authority to cut these jobs, where the funding to pay workers through September, as proposed for some, would come from. So look for direction from the courts, but that may not stop the administration. And now, on top of this, comes the judge's order regarding Treasury Department data overnight, data on individual citizens. We are going to see a lot of this, and we still don't know if or how the White House will view orders that they comply with the courts.
SIMON: Of course, in Detroit, you are on the Canadian border. How are President Trump's threats to place steep tariffs on Canadian goods being received in Canada, even as talks continue?
GONYEA: And those tariffs were set to go in place. This past week, the White House called a 30-day pause on all of that. But, yes, the threat really does still exist, and economists will tell you that the tariffs would be very destructive to economies on both sides of the border. Detroit - Windsor, that's the city right across the Detroit River, is the nation's busiest border crossing. Automobile parts flow across that border. Production schedules depend on that. Tens of thousands of jobs depend on that. There are civic and business partnerships of all kinds across the Detroit River. And all of that's just the start of it. So nobody has relaxed at all.
SIMON: Tuesday, while meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump had this to say about the future of the Gaza Strip.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so - this could be so magnificent.
SIMON: Don, you, of course, have been reporting in the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. What reaction has there been there?
GONYEA: Dearborn is a majority-Arab American city. Biden won big there in 2020. But this last election, it was close, but it went for Trump, largely because of anger over the war in Gaza and the Biden administration's support for Israel. Again, it's not that these voters had great hopes for Trump, but they did seem caught off guard by remarks like what we just heard. People, to me, expressed offense no matter how they voted, offended - Trump saying Gaza would be taken over by the U.S., offended at the call to relocate Gaza's population, offended at the reference to it as a future Riviera. And there has been, Scott, some finger-pointing and blaming those who voted for Trump, but also even toward those who abstained, maybe stayed uncommitted. So it has been a difficult week in places like Dearborn, Michigan.
SIMON: NPR's Don Gonyea. Thanks so much for being with us.
GONYEA: It's a pleasure. Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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