Trump Administration Updates: Judge Pauses Plans for Mass Layoffs (2025)

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A judge temporarily blocks Trump’s plans for mass layoffs and program closures.

Ruling just hours after an emergency hearing on Friday, Judge Susan Illston of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California said the government’s effort to lay off workers and shut down offices and programs created an urgent threat to scores of critical services.

Congress set up a specific process for the federal government to reorganize itself. The unions and organizations behind the lawsuit have argued that the president does not have the authority to make those decisions without the legislative branch.

Judge Illston noted that process requires consultation with Congress on any plan to abolish or transfer part of an agency.

“It is the prerogative of presidents to pursue new policy priorities and to imprint their stamp on the federal government,” she wrote in a 42-page order. “But to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his coequal branch and partner, the Congress.”

Judge Illston listed services that could disappear if the offices that administer them were wiped out, including disaster relief funds for farmers after a flood, in-person appointments for Social Security recipients to discuss their benefits, workplace safety inspections in mines and grants that support kindergarten programs.

The scenario evoked what already happened at the Department of Health and Human Services — when mass layoffs caused major disruptions to programs — but on a larger scale. The deep cuts there indirectly hampered programs such as one that helps low-income families afford heating bills, and another that helps states track rates of chronic disease and gun violence.

While unions and other organizations have sued the federal government over other personnel actions, including indiscriminately firing thousands of probationary workers earlier this year, this is the first time such a broad coalition came together to challenge the administration’s actions. The plaintiffs in the ambitious lawsuit included labor unions, nonprofits and six cities and counties — including Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco and Harris County, Texas, home to Houston.

“The Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to reorganize the federal government has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation,” the coalition said in a joint statement. “Each of us represents communities deeply invested in the efficiency of the federal government — laying off federal employees and reorganizing government functions haphazardly does not achieve that.”

The lawsuit, which was filed last week, is the latest in a progression of challenges that have all focused on the erosion of the federal civil service since President Trump took office.

It chronicled a steady effort to gut agencies in recent months, which it said has not only harmed tens of thousands of federal workers and their families, but also the residents of the cities and counties involved, as critical health services, veterans’ benefits, environmental protections and disaster relief assistance have lapsed or been thrown into doubt.

At particular issue are the looming “reductions in force,” which represent the biggest piece of Mr. Trump’s government downsizing efforts. Earlier this year, his administration fired thousands of probationary employees. But the current phase is expected to cut hundreds of thousands.

Agencies were given guidance and a brief timeline to complete plans for this reorganization earlier this year. The government has done reorganizations this way before, but never on such a huge scale and on such a short timeline.

By April 14, agencies were to send their final plans to the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget, which were providing guidance. Some agencies announced initial layoffs even before the deadline.

The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, fired 10,000 employees in early April. In some cases, it shuttered entire offices and shut down programs. Employees were placed on administrative leave and locked out of their equipment immediately.

Employees at other agencies have been dreading the upcoming announcements and have received minimal information about who will be affected. In order to meet the White House’s demands for cuts, some agencies have been offering resignation incentives, which are currently being reviewed and processed. The additional reductions in force will be decided after agency leaders have a better sense of where there are vacancies after the pressured resignations and early retirements.

To supplement the lawsuit, lawyers filed some 1,300 pages of sworn statements from local health providers, housing inspectors, law enforcement and firefighters, and others documenting the ways cuts to federal government have impacted their life and work.

During Friday’s hearing, Eric Hamilton, an attorney from the Justice Department, contended that the coalition of groups behind the lawsuit was legally problematic, because the unionized workers facing layoffs and the nonprofits and local governments bearing the brunt of federal services being cut were in separate “categories,” with obviously distinct harms.

Mr. Hamilton added that Mr. Trump’s power to reorganize federal agencies is expansive and that the executive orders he had signed mandating changes were generally beyond the authority of the court to review.

Danielle Leonard, a lawyer representing the groups that sued, said the Trump administration’s vision was to fundamentally degrade the services that Congress funds agencies to carry out, raising a profound separation of powers conflict, as Congress set up a specific process for the federal government to reorganize itself.

“There’s a presumption of regularity that used to exist with respect to the government’s actions that I think they need to re-earn,” she said.

Ms. Leonard said the Trump administration has never been able to point to any specific authority through which the president could seize that power from Congress. And she said that the government has consistently offered competing and contradictory explanations of why Mr. Trump can authorize the massive restructuring without Congress.

“It’s an ouroboros: the snake eating its tail,” she said.

Trump calls for 20,000 extra officers to help with deportation efforts.

It was unclear how such an effort would be funded, one of several major logistical hurdles to such a large operation. There are now around 6,000 officers focused on deportation efforts at Immigration and Custom Enforcement.

Mr. Trump has pushed to deputize state and local law enforcement officers for immigration enforcement before, and Department of Homeland Security officials have already signed a series of agreements with local law enforcement in the months since took office. Late last month, local law enforcement officials in Florida assisted ICE in an operation that led to the arrest of more than 1,100 migrants across the state.

The Trump administration has spent the past few months attempting to make good on the president’s promise of mass deportations by conducting sweeping raids in major cities, arresting international students and allowing officers more freedom where they make arrests, like in courthouses. But it has still struggled to reach the pace that would be necessary for Mr. Trump’s expansive deportation goals.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has turned to pushing for migrants to leave the country on their own accord, a concept known as “self-deportation.” Earlier this week, department officials said they would pay migrants $1,000 and the cost of their travel if they left the country voluntarily and used a government app to do so.

In his proclamation Friday, Mr. Trump repeated that call, labeling it “project homecoming.”

“This proclamation establishes Project Homecoming, which will present illegal aliens with a choice: either leave the United States voluntarily, with the support and financial assistance of the federal government, or remain and face the consequences,” the proclamation read.

Mr. Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to begin a “nationwide communications campaign” to tell migrants of the self-deportation offer and to warn them that not doing so would lead to stiffer consequences.

Beyond being arrested and deported, the proclamation warned that migrants could face “fines as consistent with applicable law for immigration-related crimes; the garnishment of wages; and the confiscation of savings and personal property, including homes and vehicles.”

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Republicans lay out early plans to extend and expand Trump tax cuts.

But they also signaled that they wanted to take some of the 2017 tax cuts even further, drafting a series of temporary expansions for Mr. Trump’s second term. The bill proposes adding $1,000 to the size of the standard deduction for individuals — set at $15,000 this year — each year until 2029, with a larger increase for married Americans. The child tax credit would see a similar temporary boost, to $2,500 from $2,000, for just the next four years.

What House Republicans put out on Friday amounts to a first partial draft of the legislation. It does not address a host of important issues, including the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, Mr. Trump’s campaign pledges to exempt some forms of income from taxes, clean-energy tax credits and more. Raising the tax rate on income above $2.5 million, an idea Mr. Trump toyed with in recent days, is also not in the bill released Friday.

House Republicans are expected to address those thornier topics in more detail in the coming days, likely on Monday, before they bring the bill for consideration in the Ways and Means Committee. Many of the tax cuts released on Friday will most likely attract broad support from Republicans. Those include increasing a deduction available to many business owners, as well as raising the threshold for paying the estate tax.

Representative Jason Smith, the Missouri Republican who is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that the bill “will create jobs, grow wages and investment, and help usher in a new golden age of prosperity.”

The tax cuts are just one piece of the fiscal package Republicans are putting together. They are also preparing to cut spending on Medicaid, the health care program for the poor; raise the nation’s borrowing limit; and increase funding for the military and immigration enforcement.

Democrats have lined up against the legislation, focusing their criticism on the G.O.P. plans to cut spending on programs for the poor to help finance tax cuts that provide their largest benefits to the rich.

Representative Richard E. Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, accused Republicans of trying to hide their plans by releasing the bill on Friday night. “If you believe in what you are setting out to do, do it when the people are watching,” he said.

With Democrats opposed and with only a bare majority in the House, Republicans face a difficult path to passing the legislation, as moderate members balk at deep spending cuts that conservatives have insisted must be in the bill. If Republicans manage to pass the legislation in the House, it will still need to pass the Senate, which is likely to change the bill and return it to the House for another vote.

Even that may not be the end of the saga, though. Along with the larger standard deduction and child tax credit, Republican proposals for Mr. Trump’s calls to not tax tips, overtime or Social Security are also expected to last only for most of the duration of Mr. Trump’s second term. The expiration of many of the new tax cuts could prompt another tax battle in the coming years.

Marjorie Taylor Greene defiantly rules out a Senate run in Georgia, to the relief of G.O.P. leaders.

In her tirade against the forces she blamed for standing in her way, Ms. Greene ripped the National Republican Senatorial Committee, G.O.P. consultants, pollsters, wealthy donors, the institution of the Senate and the Republican lawmakers who serve in it who she said “sabotage Trump’s agenda.”

“No, Jon Ossoff isn’t the real problem,” Ms. Greene wrote in a post on X. “He’s just a vote. A pawn. No different than the Uniparty Republicans who skip key votes to attend fundraisers and let our agenda fail.”

She added: “Someone once said, ‘The Senate is where good ideas go to die.’ They were right. That’s why I’m not running.”

All eyes had tentatively turned to Ms. Greene this week after Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, the top potential recruit for the race, announced he would not run for the seat, a decision he made public at a gathering of wealthy donors in Sea Island, Ga.

Ms. Greene was a pariah within her party when she arrived in Congress in 2021 promoting conspiracy theories. But her popularity with the MAGA base has allowed her to rise and she now holds a gavel in the House. A close ally of President Trump’s, Ms. Greene basically has tenure in her red district.

But she is also an ambitious politician who has been vocal about her desire to hold statewide office, a move that is difficult for a hard-right election denier from a purple state represented by two Democratic senators and a Republican governor who is popular because of his contentious relationship with Mr. Trump.

Ms. Greene, in contrast to Mr. Kemp, is a true believer in Mr. Trump’s MAGA agenda. On Thursday, for instance, she spent her day on the House floor defending the merits of her bill to permanently rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, codifying Mr. Trump’s “America First” executive order.

In her Friday night post, Ms. Greene accused the “elites” in her party of “trying to carefully select someone who can dress up in MAGA just enough to trick the grass roots into thinking they’re one of us — someone who won’t dare challenge the Republican establishment or disrupt the status quo that has failed the people time and time again.”

She also implied that the Republican Senate campaign arm had discouraged her from running by disseminating polls showing that she would lose to Mr. Ossoff. (A recent poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed her trailing him by 17 points.)

“When I met with the N.R.S.C. a few weeks ago, they told me their internal polling shows any Republican can beat Ossoff,” Ms. Greene wrote. “But now they’re pushing a public poll of just 800 people claiming only certain Republicans can win. Funny how that works.”

A spokesman for the senatorial committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Democrats, for their part, had a simpler explanation for her decision that did not take all of Ms. Greene’s 1,600 words to spell out.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene has declined to run for the Senate. Why? Because she would be crushed by Senator Ossoff,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leader, wrote online.

Only one Republican candidate, Representative Buddy Carter, has entered in the race so far, but Mr. Ossoff is considered the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate and the race is expected to be highly competitive.

Ms. Greene appeared frustrated and angry at detractors in her own party.

“I won’t fight for a team that refuses to win, that protects its weakest players, and that undermines the very people it’s supposed to serve,” she wrote. “To the elite retreaters, the consultants, and the establishment: consider this your warning.”

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Does Trump have the power to install Jeanine Pirro as an interim U.S. attorney?

The question is whether presidents are limited to one 120-day window for interim U.S. attorneys, or whether they can continue unilaterally installing such appointees in succession — indefinitely bypassing Senate confirmation as a check on their appointment power. Here is a closer look.

What is a U.S. attorney?

A U.S. attorney, the chief law enforcement officer in each of the 94 federal judicial districts, wields significant power. That includes the ability to start a criminal prosecution by filing a complaint or by requesting a grand jury indictment. Presidents typically nominate someone to the role who must secure Senate confirmation before taking office.

What is an interim U.S. attorney?

When the position needs a temporary occupant, a federal statute says the attorney general may appoint an interim U.S. attorney who does not need to undergo Senate confirmation. The statute limits terms to a maximum of 120 days — or fewer, if the Senate confirms a regular U.S. attorney to fill the opening.

Is the president limited to one 120-day window?

This is unclear. The ambiguity underscores the aggressiveness of Mr. Trump’s move in selecting Ms. Pirro. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Democrats on the panel “will be looking into this.”

“Naming yet another interim U.S. attorney for D.C. is an untested and unprecedented use of the interim appointment authority that is contrary to congressional intent, undermines the Senate’s constitutional advice and consent role and could subject the interim appointee’s actions to legal challenge,” he said in a statement on Friday.

There are two conventional understandings of what might happen 120 days after the appointment of an interim U.S. attorney if the Senate still has not confirmed anyone. Each carries potential limits for Mr. Trump. The installation of Ms. Pirro suggests he is trying to establish a third option that would give him broader power.

What’s the judicial option?

According to the law, if an interim appointment expires after 120 days, the district court can appoint a U.S. attorney until the vacancy is filled.

This option could result in the appointment of a U.S. attorney the president does not like. That, in turn, raises the question of whether the president could fire that person, a topic that is somewhat contested.

Normally in the law, the official who appoints is the one who can fire. But the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, in a 1979 opinion, concluded that while an attorney general may not remove a court-appointed U.S. attorney, the president does have that power.

In 2020, the Trump administration ousted the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, who had first been appointed on an interim basis by the administration before being reappointed by a court. Attorney General William P. Barr tried to fire him, but Mr. Berman balked until Mr. Trump himself removed him. Mr. Berman did not challenge his firing in court.

What’s the acting option?

The Vacancies Reform Act generally addresses how presidents may temporarily fill open positions that normally require Senate confirmation. It allows the president to designate certain people as acting officials.

It is not clear whether a president who installed an interim U.S. attorney can follow that move by appointing an acting one, further avoiding a judicial appointment or Senate confirmation. But in a 2003 opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel concluded that Congress gave presidents the power to do so.

Still, Mr. Trump’s choices would be constrained. Someone selected for an acting role must already be serving in another Senate-confirmed role, or have been in a senior position at the same agency for 90 days before a vacancy. As a result, Mr. Trump cannot install outsiders like Ms. Pirro as acting U.S. attorneys.

What’s the third option Ms. Pirro’s appointment raises?

By naming Ms. Pirro, Mr. Trump appears to be trying to establish that he has the power to make successive interim appointments for U.S. attorneys, indefinitely bypassing the Senate confirmation process.

The administration has not explained its legal theory. But legal experts have pointed to a likely argument that would support its action. It relies on a potential loophole in the law’s text.

For one, the law does not expressly forbid successive interim appointments. For another, it says the court’s power to name the next temporary U.S. attorney is triggered when an interim appointment “expires” after 120 days. But Mr. Trump ousted Mr. Martin shortly before he reached his 120th day, so his term never expired.

A literal interpretation of the text, which arguably disregards the purpose and intent of Congress, could conclude that it permits successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys who could each get a fresh 120-day window if they leave before their terms expire.

Are there any legal guideposts?

Since the 19th century, courts could temporarily fill vacant U.S. attorney positions. But the attorney general’s ability to first appoint an interim one dates only to a November 1986 law. There is no definitive Supreme Court ruling interpreting the law, but it has occasionally drawn attention.

A footnote in an Office of Legal Counsel opinion about interim U.S. marshals says that in November 1986, Samuel A. Alito, then a lawyer in the office, wrote an opinion “suggesting that the attorney general may not make successive interim appointments.”

That opinion by the future Supreme Court justice does not appear to be public. It is not clear whether the office ever revisited the topic in other opinions the Justice Department has kept private.

A passing comment in a 1987 opinion by a federal judge in Massachusetts — in a case involving acting U.S. attorneys, not interim ones — cuts the other way.

“Although the drafters appeared to envision that the district court would act at the expiration of an interim appointment,” the judge wrote, “it is not clear from this court’s reading of the statute that the attorney general himself would be foreclosed from making a second interim appointment.”

There appear to have been a few successive interim appointments in the past, but they did not seem to attract much attention or lead to precedent-setting court tests.

In 2007, when Congress last altered the interim U.S. attorney law, the Congressional Research Service told lawmakers that it had identified several instances of successive interim appointments, including one person who “received a total of four successive interim appointments,” according to a House report about that bill. The report did not contain specific details.

What’s the risk?

For one, Mr. Trump is opening the door to a scenario in which the enforcement of criminal law in Washington — and in any other district where he repeats this move — could be disrupted.

People who are indicted for crimes in cases that Ms. Pirro approves could challenge their charges on the grounds that she was improperly appointed. Should the Supreme Court rule against the administration, the result would call into question every case she signed off on.

A similar situation happened last year, when a federal judge in Florida threw out a criminal case against Mr. Trump on the grounds that the special counsel prosecuting him, Jack Smith, had been improperly appointed. In 2020, a court struck down certain actions by the Department of Homeland Security, ruling that Mr. Trump had unlawfully appointed Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Should the Supreme Court side with the administration, presidents would face no clear limit on their ability to bypass Senate confirmation and serially install such prosecutors — not just in Washington, but across the country.

U.S. starts investigation into imported planes and parts.

President Trump has already used that authority to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel, and to start similar investigations, including one last month into semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.

As part of the new investigation, the Commerce Department said, it will seek industry input on demand for aircraft, engines and parts and whether that could be fulfilled domestically; the role that foreign suppliers play in the market; the extent to which foreign governments favor those businesses; and other issues.

Tariffs on imports could hurt the aerospace industry, which has produced one of the largest trade surpluses of any industry for years, but relies heavily on specialized suppliers that are spread out around the world. In some cases, crucial parts may be produced by only a few manufacturers or just one. The aerospace industry is expected to export about $125 billion this year, according to IBISWorld, second only to oil and gas.

“Our record of trade surpluses, job creation and innovative contributions to both air transport and national defense is the best news story for the American economy among all manufacturing sectors,” Eric Fanning, the president of the Aerospace Industries Association, said in a statement. “We look forward to engaging with the Department of Commerce to identify opportunities to strengthen our domestic supply chain while also maintaining the trade framework that has enabled our global leadership in aerospace.”

Boeing, which makes commercial airplanes, recently described the direct effects of the tariffs that Mr. Trump had imposed so far as minor, but said it was concerned about the toll they could have on its suppliers. The company’s chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, told Wall Street analysts last month that Boeing was paying 10 percent tariffs on components for wide-body jets imported from Japan and Italy, but that the company expected to recover those costs when the planes were sold.

RTX, which makes plane engines and parts, estimated last month that tariffs this year would cost it $850 million. GE Aerospace, another engine maker, said it expected $500 million in tariff costs this year.

Governments have often tried to protect and nurture their aviation industries with tariffs and subsidies. The United States and the European Union quarreled for many years over whether the other was providing unfair subsidies to Boeing and Airbus, the world’s largest makers of commercial planes. Airbus is based in France and has extensive operations in several European countries.

In 2021, the United States and Europe ended a 17-year fight over those subsidies, agreeing to work together against China’s dominance in major industries.

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The Pentagon furthers its crackdown on diversity policies with fresh order for review of library books.

The memo said books about diversity were “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology” that “are incompatible with the Department’s core mission.” It requires all department leaders to identify books that fall into that category and remove them from military library shelves by May 21.

At that point, the memo says, there will be further instructions on which books will be permanently removed.

This expands a similar purge recently at the Naval Academy library, in Maryland. Last month, civilian Navy officials, following orders originating from Mr. Hegseth, pulled from shelves books including one that critiqued “The Bell Curve,” a 1994 text that argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people. But the academy kept “The Bell Curve” itself on its shelves.

In a separate memo Friday, Mr. Hegseth also said that there would be “no consideration for race, ethnicity or sex” in admissions to U.S. military academies, which, he said, will focus admissions “exclusively on merit.” He ordered the service academies to rank candidates with “merit-based scores.” It was unclear what exactly that meant, but Mr. Hegseth added that “merit-based scores may give weight to unique athletic talent or other experiences such as prior military service.”

Mr. Hegseth did not say what he planned to do about the longstanding practice of United States senators recommending people for admission to military academies.

The drought in American military aid for Ukraine enters uncharted territory.

The exception to that rule was a 119-day period that began in December 2023, when Speaker Mike Johnson prevented a vote on more aid for Ukraine in the House of Representatives. That move nearly led to catastrophe for Ukraine as its troops began to run out of ammunition, prompting outrage from the White House, some members of Congress and the public.

Friday marks another grim milestone for Ukraine — the 120th day since the last new aid package was announced on Jan. 8, outstripping the length of Mr. Johnson’s devastating hold.

At the Pentagon there is silence. In contrast, during the Biden administration there were press briefings just days or weeks apart announcing arms shipments worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars each.

After Pete Hegseth became defense secretary in late January, his office promised to be “the most transparent Department of Defense in history,” but there has been only one Pentagon briefing for reporters during the Trump administration’s first 100 days.

There was no mention of additional assistance for Ukraine at the briefing, and only vague support for a cease-fire in Ukraine.

Mr. Hegseth’s office did not reply when asked whether he intended to spend the remaining $3.85 billion that Congress has authorized for additional withdrawals from the Defense Department’s stockpiles for Kyiv.

Ukraine’s bond with the United States, which once seemed unbreakable, appears to have been shelved.

During Mr. Johnson’s nearly fourth-month hold on aid, the Biden administration continued to apply pressure on Congress and kept lines of communication open with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. In November 2023, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III traveled to Ukraine to reassure Mr. Zelensky that the Biden administration had not abandoned his country.

Three months later, the Pentagon pieced together a single $300 million package that it said provided “a short-term stop gap” though “nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs.”

“Without supplemental funding,” the Pentagon said in a statement, it “will remain hard-pressed to meet Ukraine’s capability requirements at a time when Russia is pressing its attacks against Ukrainian forces and cities.”

Mr. Johnson allowed the House to vote on a new aid package in April 2024, and the Pentagon resumed the flow of arms to Kyiv. Ukrainian soldiers began to make up ground they had lost during the speaker’s hold. All told President Biden sent 74 packages of weapons during his time in office.

But there is a different holdup this year.

In February, soon after taking office the second time, Mr. Trump outlined a transactional offer that Mr. Zelensky would have to agree to in order to receive more arms shipments: share your critical minerals with the United States, or else.

On Feb. 28, when the Ukrainian president arrived at the White House — a place he had been warmly welcomed by the previous administration — in the hopes of securing a lifeline of arms shipments, he was met with a stream of verbal abuse by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance. All on live television.

It is unclear whether the two leaders spoke again before meeting face-to-face in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis in late April. Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky were seen talking privately for about 15 minutes in St. Peter’s Basilica, leading some Ukrainians to hope things might change in their favor.

But so far there is no indication additional aid packages for Kyiv are forthcoming from the United States. As a result, Ukraine has had to rely more on European allies as well as building up its own defense industry.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

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Trump seemed far less enthusiastic about the proposal in a social media post earlier Friday, raising the broken promise of “no new taxes” that came back to haunt President George Bush during his 1992 re-election campaign.

“Republicans should probably not do it,” Trump wrote of the tax increase this morning. “But I’m OK if they do!!!”

Mexico’s president says the country sued Google over the Gulf of Mexico name change.

But for Ms. Sheinbaum, who once playfully joked that the United States could be renamed “Mexican America,” even that compromise crosses a line. The unilateral attempt to rename the gulf has provoked ridicule and anger in Mexico, where many people have a negative opinion of Mr. Trump but generally approve Ms. Sheinbaum’s cool-headed approach to navigate his string of threats, according to recent polls.

“What we are saying is: ‘Google, abide by what the U.S. government has approved,’” she told reporters, referring to the order, which only renamed the maritime regions controlled by the United States — and not the entire gulf.

The Trump administration is well within its right to rename its own territory but the maritime zones that are under the control of Mexico or Cuba cannot be relabeled by the United States or anyone else, she said. “We would have no business in telling them to rename a state, a mountain, or a lake,” she added.

In February, Cris Turner, the vice president for government affairs and public policy at Google, sent a letter to the Mexican government justifying the change and confirming that people using Google Maps in Mexico would continue to see Gulf of Mexico.

“This is consistent with our normal operating procedure to reflect on our platforms geographic names prescribed by different authoritative government sources,” the letter said, including in places where those sources “may differ.”

The next day, Mexico’s foreign ministry said in another letter to Mr. Turner that relabeling the entire gulf, even for American users only, “exceeds the powers of any national authority or private entity.” Mexico, the ministry said, would take any legal action it deemed appropriate.

Ms. Sheinbaum did not say on Friday when or where exactly her administration brought the lawsuit against Google but she added that there had already been a “first resolution.” The presidency’s legal office told The New York Times that the suit was filed in a Mexican court in late March.

The name “Gulf of Mexico" came nearly 300 years before Mexico — which lays claim to most of the gulf — became an independent country, and it has appeared on maps for centuries. Mexicans and Cubans have expressed annoyance, defiance, confusion and amusement to Mr. Trump’s executive order, but they agree on one thing: their part will continue being the Gulf of Mexico.

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Trump plans to withdraw his nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A White House representative said the president intended to rescind that nomination and instead have Mr. McKernan fill the Treasury role.

Russell T. Vought, the White House budget office director, has been the consumer bureau’s acting director since early February. He has frozen most of the agency’s operations and sought to fire 90 percent of its staff — a move federal courts have temporarily blocked. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments for that case next week.

Also on Friday, the consumer bureau released a formal notice of its intention to withdraw more than 60 policy statements and guidance documents. Doing so would serve the public interest by reducing compliance demands on the companies the bureau regulates, Mr. Vought said in the notice.

Banking trade groups praised the guidance purge, while consumer advocates responded with alarm.

Better Markets, an advocacy group that favors financial industry oversight, said Mr. Vought’s move was likely a first step in dismantling the agency’s consumer complaints database, which helps people pursue claims against companies over financial disputes. Consumers have collected hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds and other relief in response to complaints filed with the consumer bureau.

“This is a calculated demolition of the tools consumers and advocates rely on to protect themselves from financial abuse,” said Brady Williams, a lawyer for Better Markets.

The American Bankers Association said it was pleased to see the agency drastically pare back its guidance. Those documents were intended to help companies understand how the agency interpreted various laws, but the consumer bureau often used them as a form of stealth rule making, the banking group said.

“This misuse of guidance creates unnecessary confusion for regulated entities,” said Rob Nichols, the group’s chief executive. “We’re hopeful that today’s action marks a turning point.”

Trump fired the librarian of Congress over D.E.I.

Ms. Leavitt did not offer any evidence of “D.E.I.” pursuits Dr. Hayden engaged in. She accused Dr. Hayden of allowing “inappropriate books in the library for children.”

The Library of Congress does not lend books to adults or children and as the world’s largest library houses over 34 million books and printed materials.

“We don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well,” Ms. Leavitt added. “So she has been removed from her position, and the president is well within his rights to do that.”

Dr. Hayden could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Dr. Hayden, whose dismissal shocked academics and infuriated congressional Democrats, was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016, and served throughout Mr. Trump’s first term.

Dr. Hayden was the latest high-ranking Black government official to be axed in the administration’s crusade against D.E.I. — which has become a hallmark of his second term and frequently targeted women and people of color.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q. who became only the second African American to be appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was replaced amid the president’s insistence that the military’s leadership was too mired in diversity issues.

Dr. Hayden had also become a conservative target as the administration ramped up efforts to purge the federal government of “woke” employees and entities.

Hours before Dr. Hayden was notified of her dismissal on Thursday, a conservative group called the American Accountability Foundation called for her firing on social media.

“The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” the organization posted. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”

Hours after her dismissal had been made public, the group praised the president. “THANK YOU @POTUS!!!!,” they wrote. “Woke & radical Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has been fired!”

Dr. Hayden became the librarian of Congress after a lengthy run as the chief librarian in Baltimore, her longtime home, where she had overhauled the city’s struggling public library system. She was fired in a two-sentence email from Trent Morse, the deputy director of White House personnel, which addressed the esteemed librarian simply as “Carla.”

In a letter to the library’s staff on Friday, Robert R. Newlen, Dr. Hayden’s deputy who has known her for 40 years and replaced her in the interim, praised her reputation as an “unbiased, nonpartisan, energetic public servant,” in the U.S. Congress.

Tim Balk contributed reporting.