Elon's Email Results, White House Makes Major Media Changes, Town Hall Truth: AM Update for 2/26

Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly.
It's Wednesday, February 26th, 2025, and this is your AM update. The president and Elon and his entire cabinet are working as one unified team, and they are implementing these very common sense solutions.
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt provides some clarity to the doge, what did you do lastdo-last-week email confusion and announces a major change to the White House press access. Congressman McCormick was not exactly welcomed home at a town hall meeting in Roswell, Georgia last night.
Media reveling in chaotic GOP town halls, using the scenes as proof of bipartisan backlash against Doge. But there's more to the story.
And a Texas border rancher killed by an improvised explosive device near the border, who authorities say is behind the deadly blast. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.
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What did you do last week? The Saturday email initially came with a deadline of 11.59 p.m. Monday and a warning from Elon Musk.
Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. Some departments like the FBI, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense told employees not to respond.
The Doge guidance was subsequently loosened, deferring to cabinet heads on how to best handle each department. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt with a further clarification yesterday afternoon.
Those responses should be directed to agency leadership, and the president defers to his cabinet secretaries, who he's obviously entrusted, to pursue the guidance relative to their specific workforce. And for some of the agencies that you've seen who have said, please don't send these emails, it's in their best interest for that specific agency.
And the president supports that. And let me be very clear, the president and Elon is his entire cabinet are working as one unified team, and they're implementing these very common sense solutions.
President Trump expressing support for the email, commenting on it from the Oval Office on Monday. We have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government.
So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist. That's how badly various parts of our government were run by, and especially by this last group.
So what they're doing is they're trying to find out who's working for the government. In her briefing, Ms.
Levitt saying many workers have complied with the request so far. I can announce that we've had more than 1 million workers who have chosen to participate in this very simple task of, again, sending five bullet points to your direct supervisor or manager, CCing OPM.
I actually participated in it myself. It took me about a minute and a half to think of five things I did last week.
I do five things in about 10 minutes. And all federal workers should be working at the same pace that President Trump is working and moving.

We have a country to save, and we want this federal government to be responsive to the

needs of the American people who reelected this president to have historic, massive reform. And

that's what the intention of this idea is. According to the Congressional Budget Office,

the federal workforce is made up of 2.3 million employees, so more than 43 percent have responded. The Trump administration shaking up the press pool.
The president is trailed around by a press pool of reporters from varying legacy media outlets, the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, New York Times, Washington Post. They fly on Air Force One with him.
They get to enter the Oval Office, the smaller areas that not everyone can fit into, a separate, more exclusive group than what you see gathered in the briefing room. From there, they send updates to the rest of the media.
The AP was recently banned from the pool because of its refusal to acknowledge the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The AP was not banned from the briefing room or the White House premises.
It just lost its highly exclusive spot in the pool and promptly sued, alleging a First Amendment violation. On Monday, a federal judge sided with the Trump administration, refusing to temporarily restore the full AP access.
A hearing is scheduled for March 20th. In the meantime, Caroline Levitt yesterday announcing sweeping changes to how the pool reporters will be chosen.
Asking the president of the United States questions in limited spaces such as the Oval Office in Air Force One is a privilege that unfortunately has only been granted to a few. It is not a legal right for all.
As you all know, for decades, a group of D.C.-based journalists, the White House Correspondents Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the President of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.
Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not, but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.
Miss Levitt says the five major TV nets will continue coverage on a rotating basis, but aside from the TV outlets, streamers will now be included, along with more local radio hosts and others who have previously been denied access. The goal, according to the press secretary, is to broaden out White House coverage, more closely aligning it with modern media consumption.
However, typically, it is the press, not the president, that decides who will handle pool coverage. The legacy media was not happy.
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, harshly criticized the move, posting to X, quote, having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign. This reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.
Even Fox News White House correspondent Jackie Heinrich wrote, quote, this move does not give the power back to the people. It gives power to the White House.
White House Correspondents Association President Eugene Daniels releasing a statement that reads, this move tears at the independence of a free press in the U.S. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.
President Trump, flanked by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and HHS Secretary RFKJ, signing a new slate of executive orders in the White House last night, one aimed at imposing price transparency on health care costs, one looking at foreign versus domestic copper supply in America, and an executive order to strip security clearances from law firms associated with the Jack Smith cases against Donald Trump. Amid signing the orders, the president announcing a new initiative his administration is looking at called the gold card.
It'll be very, very good. We're going to be selling a gold card.
You have a green card. This is a gold card.
We're going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that's going to give you green card privileges plus. It's going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.
They'll be wealthy, and they'll be successful, and they'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. and we think it's going to be extremely successful.

President Trump saying the card will not grant citizenship, which would need to involve Congress, but it will be a path to citizenship, though how remains unclear. Later today, the president will hold his first cabinet meeting of the second Trump administration.
Elon Musk will be in attendance. Coming up, a contentious town hall in a deep red district captivated the media.
Evidence of bipartisan backlash against the Doge Boys or something else. And a Texas border rancher killed by an improvised explosive device near the border, who authorities say is behind the deadly blast, coming up in just a moment.
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Act now before the IRS acts first. A local Georgia town hall over the weekend garnering significant media coverage.
Georgia Republican Congressman Rich McCormick, who won about 65 percent of the vote in his district, faced significant backlash from his constituents angry about doge cuts, a sample of what it sounded like. The people would like to know what you, congressmen, and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.
When you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected. Other GOP officials reportedly experienced similar confrontations.
MSNBC went wild with the story, running multiple segments. Congressman McCormick was not exactly welcomed home at a town hall meeting in Roswell, Georgia last night.
A room full of ordinary voters who gathered at a town hall in Georgia last night to hear Republican Congressman Rich McCormick. And he's the one who got an earful from his constituents.
The problem? They haven't quite captured the whole story. The Washington Free Beacon reporting, quote, George Soros-funded groups Indivisible and Move On were at the center of the demonstrations.
Both groups launched national mobilization efforts targeting the Trump-Musk agenda and Trump-Musk coup. The organizations provide resources for members, directing them to local town halls.
One prominently cited operative the media mentioned in reporting on the Rich McCormick Town Hall in Georgia, Maggie Goldman, a self-described Democrat and political activist, reports the Free Beacon. On Facebook, Goldman shared write-ups of the town hall, writing, We were on fire! Most of the reporting failing to mention the left-wing activists behind the town hall outrage.
A Harvard-Harris poll published Monday shows 72% of voters actually support existence of a U.S. government agency focused on efficiency initiatives.
That same poll says 60% of voters think Doge is helping make major cuts in government expenditures. President Trump's overall approval rating is at 52% in that poll compared to 43% who disapprove.
Democratic Party approval at 36%, a record low. The Washington Post reporting on conditions at the migrant detention facility in Guantanamo Bay as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spends the day touring the area.
The Post, citing three people held at the center,

says detainees are subjected to humiliating and invasive strip searches and prolonged periods in isolation. Asked about that reporting, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt responded.
If you invade our nation's borders, if you break our country's laws, and if then you further commit heinous, brutal crimes in the interior of our country, like raping and murdering innocent, law-abiding women and girls and committing heinous acts of violence, then you are going to be deported from this country and you may be held at Guantanamo Bay. These are criminals we are talking about.
Don't forget that. Secretary Hegseth toured the facility yesterday afternoon, where he was once deployed while in the Army National Guard, receiving briefings on base operations.
In a post on X, Mr. Hegseth calls the naval station the front lines of the war on America's southern border.
Approximately 200 illegal immigrants were deported back to Venezuela from Guantanamo Bay last week. Two killed, including a Texas rancher and one other injured in a blast caused by a suspected cartel-planted IED on the Mexican side of the border near Brownsville, Texas.
A 74-year-old rancher killed along with a non-U.S. citizen.
The explosion occurred earlier this month as the rancher drove his car. The Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, issuing a statement calling for extreme caution along the border.
Miller urges those in the agricultural industry to stay vigilant, remain aware of their surroundings, avoid dirt roads and remote areas, and refrain from touching unfamiliar objects that could be explosive devices. Late last week, the Trump administration designated eight cartels, including Tren de Aragua and MS-13, as terrorist organizations.
That allows the government to freeze cartel assets, penalize anyone aiding the groups, and justify military action. A week ago, the New York Times reported the CIA is increasing surveillance drone flights over Mexico to monitor cartel activity.
The cartels operate multi-billion dollar industries, most notably drug trafficking. Human trafficking, including sex trafficking and border smuggling, also a big moneymaker for these vicious gangs.
Yesterday, the administration reported a 15-year low in illegal border crossings, no doubt a major financial blow to the cartel's bottom line. That'll do it for your AM Update.
I'm Megyn Kelly. Join me back here later

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