Top officials in Donald Trump’s administration have walked back the president’s comments yesterday that US troops should deploy to the Gaza Strip and its residents should be dispersed to other countries.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “has not committed to putting boots on the grounds in Gaza”, while secretary of state Marco Rubio said the president only wanted to offer US help to clean up war-ravaged parts of the territory.

We have a live blog covering the fallout from the president’s controversial comments, as well as the wider crisis in the Middle East, and you can follow it here:

Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of the security detail of Mark Esper, his former defense secretary during his first term, the New York Times reports.

Esper has since faced threats from Iran over the 2020 assassination of general Qassem Suleimani. Despite that, Trump ordered the withdrawal of security details from a small number of his former administration officials after he was sworn in again last month, including Esper.

Here’s more, from the Times:

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Esper’s security detail was called off. A White House spokesman and a Pentagon official did not immediately comment. Mr. Esper declined to comment.

Mr. Esper is the latest former senior U.S. official to have his security detail pulled since Mr. Trump, who has also faced threats from Iran, took office. Pentagon officials last week removed Mr. Esper’s portrait as secretary of the Army.

Within hours of his inauguration, Mr. Trump began to systematically pull security details from nearly a half-dozen people who had served in his first term. The U.S. intelligence community has said Iran has sought revenge against American officials involved in the drone strike that killed Iran’s Gen. Qassim Suleimani in early January 2020.

Mr. Esper was protected by federal officials because of ongoing threats from Iran. Four other officials from Mr. Trump’s first administration facing Iranian threats also had their details pulled. The others are: John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser; Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state; Brian Hook, one of Mr. Pompeo’s top aides and a specialist on Iran; and the retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who Mr. Trump picked to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Those security details were provided by the Biden administration based on assessments from the intelligence community that the threats from Iran were ongoing and credible. The Biden administration had briefed the incoming Trump administration about the threats.

Mr. Trump also pulled protection from Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious diseases doctor who had advised the White House on its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and who has become a target among Mr. Trump’s supporters.

Sam Levin

A US judge has blocked federal prisons from transferring transgender women to men’s facilities, halting one of Trump’s first executive orders seeking to erode trans rights behind bars.

In a lawsuit filed by three incarcerated trans women challenging Trump’s anti-trans order, US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington ruled late Tuesday that the US Bureau of Prisons must “maintain and continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20”. The president’s day-one order had also directed federal prisons and detention centers to deny gender-affirming healthcare to trans people in custody.

The judge said the trans women had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” if they are denied healthcare and forced into men’s institutions. US officials “have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them”, the judge added. The family of one plaintiff said her life would be threatened if she was moved.

The judge said there were only sixteen trans women housed in women’s facilities, and the ruling applies to all of them. Last week, trans women across US prisons shared accounts of a brutal crackdown following Trump’s order, reporting that they were placed in solitary confinement awaiting transfers, losing access to healthcare and being harassed and taunted by guards:

Donald Trump will this afternoon again turn the focus of his barrage of executive orders towards LGBTQ rights, with the signing of a decree intended to prevent transgender athletes from playing in women’s sports. His administration is also looking at reviewing transgender visa applicants for “fraud”, while the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group warns the new order threatens young people with “harassment and discrimination”. On Capitol Hill, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said he would support dismantling the department of education, while the president of the largest federal employees union warned that Trump has launched “the biggest assault” on the government workforce in its history.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Pam Bondi was sworn in as attorney general, and told Trump, “I will make you proud”.

• Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship lost for the second time in federal court, with a judge issuing an indefinite nationwide injunction on the president’s executive order.

• Emil Bove, a former Trump attorney who is now a top justice department official, attempted to assuage concerns over his request for the names of every FBI agent who worked on January 6 cases.

Top justice department official says targeting only FBI agents who ‘acted with corrupt or partisan intent’ in January 6 cases

Hugo Lowell

A top justice department official has tempered a memo perceived as launching a retaliation campaign against FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases, saying only those who “acted with corrupt or partisan intent” could face penalties.

Emil Bove, a former lawyer for Donald Trump who is now the acting deputy attorney general, last week asked the FBI to compile a list of all agents who worked on the prosecutions of rioters who stormed the Capitol. The request prompted lawsuits from two groups of bureau employees to attempt to stop the sharing of the information.

In an email today, Bove said he requested the full list of employees because the FBI’s leadership refused his request to identify “the core team in Washington DC” who handled the prosecutions.

“The purpose of the requests was to permit the Justice Department to conduct a review of those particular agents’ conduct pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order concerning weaponization in the prior administration,” Bove said, adding that because of “that insubordination”, he opted to request a list of all FBI agents who worked on January 6 related cases.

Bove then said:

Let me be clear: No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties. The only individuals who should be concerned about the process initiated by my January 31, 2025 memo are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from Department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI.

However, he did not specify what “weaponizing” means, and it is unclear at this time whether FBI agents who were zealous or aggressive with their January 6 cases will run afoul of that criteria. Bove’s email was supposed to calm anxiety but instead provided few answers.

The leader of the largest union for federal employees has warned a congressional committee that Donald Trump’s campaign to dramatically downsize the government amounts to “the biggest assault” on its workforce in American history.

“In just the past week, we have seen the administration issue a legally dubious policy to drain departments and agencies of experienced and dedicated professionals, clearly with the objective of crippling the ability of federal agencies to do their jobs and setting them up to fail in the eyes of the American taxpayer. What is happening today is not a drive to streamline government but to destroy it,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement submitted today to the House oversight committee, which is holding a hearing focusing on Trump’s government reform campaign.

Kelley pointed to Trump’s order to reclassify tens of thousands of nonpartisan government employees in a way that will make them easier to fire, calling it “the biggest assault on the federal workforce in American history.”

“Make no mistake about it: if the assault that the Trump Administration initiated last month continues unchallenged, every member of Congress will soon hear from angry or confused constituents about why their VA claims have not been processed or why their Social Security retirement benefits have not been delivered,” Kelley said.

Pam Bondi has been sworn in as attorney general by supreme court justice Clarence Thomas in an Oval Office ceremony.

Donald Trump was also in attendance.

In brief remarks after she took the oath, Bondi told Trump:

I will not let you down. I am truly honored, honored, that you have asked me to take on this role, and I will make you proud and I will make this country proud.

…

I will restore integrity to the Justice Department and I will fight violent crime throughout this country and throughout this world, and make America safe again.

Donald Trump’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship has been blocked by a second federal judge, Reuters reports.

Maryland-based district judge Deborah Boardman issued a nationwide injunction against the executive order Trump signed shortly after taking office, which will go into effect 19 February. The judge ruled in favor of two immigrant rights groups as well was five pregnant women who had argued their children would be unconstitutionally denied citizenship.

“Today, virtually every baby born on US soil is a US citizen upon birth,” said Boardman, an appointee of Joe Biden. “That is the law and tradition of our country. That law and tradition are and will remain the status quo pending the resolution of this case.”

Her decision came after a similar injunction was handed down by a federal judge in Seattle, just days after Trump signed the order:

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said his lawmakers would support dismantling the department of education.

Donald Trump signaled he supported the idea yesterday, saying, “What I want to do is let the states run schools.”

At a press conference today, Johnson was asked if he would support passing a law to codify the department’s abolition, if Trump were to have it closed by executive order. “I think that is an idea whose time has come,” Johnson replied.

“Like everything else, you gotta wait for more details to be laid out, but you’re going to see a lot of support among House and I think Senate Republicans for the general idea of pushing the decisions down, back down to the local level. I think that’s something that would serve us all well.”

LGTBQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign has warned that the executive order Donald Trump will sign today meant to stop transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports could create a hostile environment for students nationwide.

“We all want sports to be fair, students to be safe, and young people to have the opportunity to participate alongside their peers,” the group’s president Kelley Robinson said in a statement.

She continued:

But an attempted blanket ban deprives kids of those things. This order could expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look. And it comes at a time when the Trump Administration continues to distract and divide the country, handing the keys to the federal government to unelected billionaires and refusing to address urgent issues that the country is facing. Participating in sports is about learning the values of teamwork, dedication, and perseverance. And for so many students, sports are about finding somewhere to belong. We should want that for all kids – not partisan policies that make life harder for them.

As part of its campaign against transgender athletes, the Trump administration plans to review visa applications from transgender people for “fraud”, Reuters reports.

Citing a White House official, Reuters also reports that the education department will also investigate the implementation of Title IX, the federal law that prevents sex discrimination at schools.