This has been a wild week, with way more news coming out of the new administration than anyone can follow.

And that’s likely by design.

“The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.”

So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them.

“All we have to do is flood the zone,” he said. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never—will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”

The first three weeks of the Trump presidency have lived up to that idea, often with far more than three things happening each day. There have been dozens of executive orders, an attempted remaking of the federal government led by Elon Musk, potentially consequential Cabinet appointees confirmed, some promised tariffs put in place (and others delayed), deportations, far-reaching and controversial assertions and a new version of America put forward on the world stage.

Through this analysis, we will attempt to wade through the flood, identify and explain some of the biggest things that happened each week, and draw attention to some that have been overlooked.

Just this week:

• President Trump said he wants the U.S. to take over Gaza and make it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
• Musk’s informal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, pushed forward accessing agencies’ records, including sensitive payment information at Treasury; encouraging federal workers to resign (a court pushed the deadline to Monday for the “deferred resignation” program); and pushing for the shutdown of USAID, responsible for doling out about half of U.S. foreign aid. 
• Trump’s Cabinet appointees moved forward, including two who were seen as the most controversial — Robert F. Kennedy Junior for health and human services secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard for Director of national intelligence. Both faced tough questioning from Democrats and Republicans in their confirmation hearings, but they cleared hurdles and were advanced out of committee. 
• Pam Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General. Among her first moves was to create a “weaponization working group” to review all cases undertaken against Trump. 
• The first migrants in the U.S. without legal status were deported to Guantánamo. El Salvador offered to take not just immigrants, but even American criminals. Trump said he liked the idea — if it could be done legally. Trump promised to level significant tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China. He wound up delaying tariffs against Canada and Mexico for 30 days, but put 10% tariffs in place against China. 
• Trump signed an executive order banning trans athletes in the NCAA. And there was a memo circulated from West Point banning various clubs, including for women, Black cadets and Hispanics.
• Russia confirmed that Trump and Vladimir Putin had spoken about Ukraine, and Trump said in a separate press conference that he wants Ukraine to turn over rare earth minerals in exchange for continued U.S. funding.
• Trump called for a new air traffic control system, and he revealed that his private jet uses a system from another country, though he did not reveal which.

Here’s everything that happened this week, by day:

Sunday:

• Elon Musk warns that the Treasury Department is making “fraudulent” payments and said, “Yes,” that the U.S. government should be put on blockchain.
• Photos of women and minorities covered up at the National Cryptologic Museum. After public outcry, they were uncovered at the museum. An FBI wall of diversity values is painted over. 

Monday:

• Trump signs executive order creating a “sovereign wealth fund,” potentially opening the door for the government to try and buy TikTok. 
• Trump hints at curbs on Musk’s powers, telling reporters gathered in the Oval Office: “Elon can’t do – and won’t do – anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t.”
• A questionnaire circulates at the FBI to find out the roles of agents in Jan. 6 cases. 
• Trump says he wants rare earth minerals from Ukraine in exchange for continued funding. 
• Trump said he would implement tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but agrees to delay them for a month. He says Mexico will send 10,000 troops to the border. Tariffs on Canada were delayed to see if an economic deal could be figured out.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visits the southern border. 
• Musk says Trump has agreed to shutter USAID. “It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm in it,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. … We’re shutting it down.” Musk and the broader DOGE team were denied access to classified documents by USAID officials because they lacked clearance. Musk responded, saying, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Trump told reporters Sunday of the agency: “It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out.” Rubio declares himself acting USAID administrator. (A president, however, cannot unilaterally dissolve USAID legally, signaling a potential court fight.)
• The Office of Personnel Management sends a second “Fork in the Road” email, titled, “Fork in the Road: Today’s FAQs.” This is the email giving federal workers the chance to resign by Friday in exchange for “deferred resignation” benefits, what some have termed a buyout.
• CBS News sends raw transcripts and footage of its interview with former Vice President Harris to the Federal Communications Commission. Trump sued CBS, alleging CBS made Harris look better after editing. CBS chief Shari Redstone appears to be considering settling for millions of dollars despite the news division’s strong objections. Former legendary CBS News correspondent Marvin Kalb said on Facebook: “Now, more than ever, only a fearless press stands between an aggressive [White House] and the public. If news organizations such as CBS bend a knee before a president, then we have all taken a big step towards autocracy.”

Tuesday:

• Federal judge temporarily blocks moving transgender women to men’s prisons and ending their medical care. 
• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announces on Fox News that the first flights of immigrants in the U.S. without legal status arrive at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. 
• El Salvador offers to put immigrant criminals – and even Americans in prison – for a fee. Trump says he likes the idea – if it’s legal.
• Trump accuses USAID of being corrupt and getting kickbacks. USAID website goes back up with a message stating that all staff overseas were being recalled with some minimal exceptions. A Congressional Research Service report is published and notes that “the president does not have the authority to abolish it [USAID]; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move or consolidate USAID.”
• Musk, per the New York Times, “has told administration officials that he thinks they could balance the budget if they eliminate the fraudulent payments leaving the system.” But it’s not clear what his basis for that is because the “federal deficit for 2024 was $1.8 trillion. The Government Accountability Office estimated in a report that the government made $236 billion in improper payments — three-quarters of which were overpayments — across 71 federal programs during the 2023 fiscal year.”
• There are reports about what young DOGE workers are doing at agencies, including installing a server at OPM and having the ability to rewrite code at the Treasury Department. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. call for the Government Accountability Office to investigate.
• Workers at the quasi-independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are told to halt work by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Trump tapped Bessent to also act as CFPB director.
• Trump nominee to lead National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, draws controversy because of ties to far-right extremist groups. Darren Beattie is also put in an acting role despite also having ties to white nationalists and a tweet he wrote four months ago, stating: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.” He was fired as a speechwriter in the first Trump term for attending a conference with white nationalists. 
• FBI agents sue over probe into those who worked on Jan. 6 cases. 
• Sen. Bill Cassidy votes for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. despite concerns he raised over RFK Jr.’s stances on vaccines. With Cassidy’s vote, RFK Jr. clears a key Senate committee on a party-line vote, 14-13. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard also clears a key committee for director of national intelligence despite concerns raised by senators in both parties.
• Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet and hold a bilateral news conference. Trump calls for Gaza to come under U.S. control and for Palestinians to be permanently resettled out of Gaza. “I see it as a long-term ownership position.” He says it potentially could be “The Riviera of the Middle East.” He says he might use troops if necessary. (Later in the week, he walks back saying he would use troops.) Stakeholders in the region and U.S. allies publicly shoot down the idea. That includes Saudi Arabia, which Trump said “is going to be very helpful.” The Saudi Foreign Ministry affirmed that its support for a Palestinian state was “firm and unwavering.” 
• 10% tariffs on China go into effect. China issues retaliatory tariffs. 
• Trump signs executive order pulling out of UN Human Rights Council. 

Wednesday:

• Democrats engage in an all-night talk-a-thon in the Senate to protest Russell Vought’s nomination to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. Democrats could not stop the nomination because of a change implemented a decade ago that eliminated filibusters for presidential nominees.
• Employees working with former USDS, now DOGE, told to stop using Slack until they can transition to a platform that is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 
• Ahead of the “deferred resignation” deadline, federal workers use spoon emojis in response to Musk’s “Fork in the Road” email subject line. It’s the same subject line Musk used when he downsized Twitter, now X.
• IRS workers told they have to stay on the job through at least May 15, even if they already resigned, if they are deemed “critical” during tax season.
• Leavitt partially walks back Trump’s comments about Gaza, saying the U.S. would not be paying for a rebuild of Gaza, that he’d instead work with stakeholders in the region and there would be no U.S. military boots on the ground: “It’s been very made very clear to the president that the United States needs to be involved in this rebuilding effort, to ensure stability in the region for all people. But that does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. It does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort. It means Donald Trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in a region.”  
• Trump signs executive order banning transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports. The NCAA says it will adjust to the order. NCAA President Charlie Baker, a former Republican governor from Massachusetts, was asked about how many trans athletes there were in the NCAA, he said 10 or less out of 510,000. 
• A federal judge in Maryland indefinitely blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. A federal judge out of Seattle previously blocked it for 2 weeks.
• Russia confirms talks with the Trump White House on a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.
• U.S. Postal Service reverses course, lifting a ban it put in place a day earlier on packages coming from Hong Kong and China. The ban could have meant disruptions for shoppers on apps like Shein and Temu on inexpensive clothing coming from China.
• Trump nominates Neil Jacobs, who was cited for misconduct because of his role in “Sharpiegate,” to lead NOAA. He previously led it in an acting role during the last Trump administration
• A memo circulates at West Point disbanding various clubs and events related to diversity in some form – whether it’s Women Engineers, the Latin Club, a Korean-American relations forum or the National Society of Black Engineers. 
• Pam Bondi sworn in as attorney general. Trump says Bondi “will be as impartial as you can possibly be.” Within hours, she issues a directive to review all of the cases against Trump. It is being called the “Weaponization Working Group.” Bondi also disbands a  Biden-era foreign influence task force, which was aimed at seizing assets of Russian oligarchs as part of an effort to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. 
• The acting deputy attorney general accuses FBI leadership of “insubordination” for refusing to identify a “core team” that worked on Jan. 6 cases. 
• Buyouts offered to CIA, Office of the Director of Intelligence and National Security Administration. The CIA sent an unclassified list of staffers hired within the past two years and who are still on probation, making it easier to fire them. Intelligence professionals told the New York Times that the sending of the list outside of a classified system makes them concerned that it makes them more vulnerable to being identified by Chinese or Russian hackers. 
• A military plane of about 100 Indian migrants in the country without legal status landed in India.

Thursday:

• The Justice Department sues Chicago and Illinois over immigration “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with the federal government to deport people in the U.S. without legal status. 
• Federal judge in Massachusetts pauses “deferred resignation” deadline to Monday. A new hearing is set for Monday as well.
• Vought expected to be confirmed as OMB director along party lines.
• Judge limits DOGE access at Treasury pending labor union lawsuit over access to private information. Musk and team will be limited to “read only” access.
• Trump doubles down on the idea of taking over Gaza in social media post. “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he wrote. He contended, though, that U.S. troops wouldn’t be necessary. “The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth. No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed!”
• CNN reports that Musk’s DOGE team wanted to shut off USAID spending from the Treasury. Emails show sharp exchanges between a career Treasury official and a Musk associate.
• Trump meets with House Republicans to discuss budget priorities.
• Ten migrants, members of a Venezuelan gang, are now being housed at Guantanamo in a part of the prison that previously held members of al Qaeda. 
• Trump says at the National Prayer Breakfast that he wants to root out “anti-Christian bias” and has asked Bondi to set up a task force looking into it. At the same event, he calls for a new computerized air traffic control system. He also says that his private jet uses a system from another country because U.S. air traffic control is “so bad.” “When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country,” he said, because I won’t tell you what country… because the captain says this system is so bad, it’s so obsolete, that we can’t have that.” Forbes reports that Trump appears to be conflating his plane’s navigation system with air traffic control.

Friday:

U.S. education policy is at a crossroads.

The White House wants to close the U.S. Department of Education, and has placed dozens of employees on paid leave with little explanation. Its plan, which it confirmed to NPR, is to quickly shutter programs that are not protected by law and to call on Congress to do the rest.

President Donald Trump and Republicans have also voiced a desire to use their congressional majorities to overhaul higher education and create a federal tax credit program that would help families nationwide pay for private schooling.

Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to figure out how to stop him.

Amid all this turmoil, on Wednesday, the House education committee – its members charged with forging consensus on the nation’s education policy – held its first meeting of this new congressional term. At the convening, aptly titled “The State of American Education,” some of the nation’s biggest disagreements around education exploded into full view.

On closing the U.S. Education Department

“I’d like to first start with the elephant in the room,” began the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia. “The irony is not lost on me that we’re here to discuss the state of American education while the current administration is actively discussing how to dismantle the main federal agency responsible for ensuring a safe, quality education for all students.”

The U.S. Department of Education does many things. It sends billions of dollars to schools that serve lower-income students, safeguards the civil rights of kids with disabilities, and it runs the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan program.

During the hearing, Scott and his fellow Democrats fiercely defended the department, while Republicans cheered Trump’s efforts to close it.

“I very much support President Donald Trump for his courage to promote local elected school boards with the elimination of the duplicative, wasteful, interfering and federal Department of Education,” said Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican. “The [federal] funding clearly should go to the students and not to bureaucrats.” 

Missouri Republican Bob Onder added: “There are some good functions in the Department of Education, [special education] and so on, but they could be spun off.”

In one heated exchange, California Democrat Mark Takano reminded his Republican colleagues “a president cannot unilaterally dismantle an agency or department that was established in law. … I mean, this hearing is called ‘The State of American Education,’ but from what I’m seeing from the other side’s behavior, it really should be called, ‘The Republicans Surrender to a Would-be King.’ “

Some agreement on student achievement

Republicans and Democrats did largely agree on at least one thing:

K-12 student learning is not where it should be.

“There’s much work that needs to be done,” said the committee’s new chairman, Republican Tim Walberg of Michigan. “Results from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress show that students have still not recovered from the pandemic, if that’s the key excuse. Students are still scoring at lower levels in math and reading than they were in 2019.”

Walberg is right, and Democrats joined him in sounding the alarm.

“I spent 40 years in the classroom, 40 years. So I didn’t read about education in a report, I lived it,” said Rep. Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat. “And I’ll tell you right now that the way things are going, we’re failing our children.”

What Democrats and Republicans could not agree on was why and what to do about it.

Adams suggested putting more money into teaching.

“If we don’t invest in the people standing at the front of the classroom, we can’t expect students to succeed.“

Republicans argued a different malady. Students are struggling, Walberg claimed, because “many schools have lost focus on teaching the core skills needed for successful careers… Many systems have become fixated on teaching divisive ideologies.”

On those “divisive ideologies” 

This idea that public schools have been pushing liberal views on race and gender is not new. It’s fueled an explosion in requests that school libraries remove books that some adults find offensive. In the 2023-24 school year, PEN America documented more than 10,000 school book bans across the U.S.

Trump has also begun sidelining Education Department staffers believed to be associated with DEI programs and issued an executive order on Wednesday threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that allow transgender women and girls to compete in women’s sports.

Little surprise, this fight over race and gender took center-stage in the hearing, too.

Nicole Neily, who testified before the committee as president of the conservative-leaning Parents Defending Education, inveighed against Biden administration efforts to encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in K-12 schools.

“Identity politics permeate districts across America in word and deed,” she said. “Children are regularly treated differently based on race… 80 years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregated activities persist in the guise of affinity groups where students and teachers are included or excluded because of skin color.”

Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., a former high school history teacher and 2016 National Teacher of the Year, offered the hearing a personal history lesson on why, she said, the federal government must continue to safeguard educational opportunities for traditionally marginalized children.

“While many of you have a very short memory, I chose to go to college because my grandmother could not. There were laws prohibiting it,” said Hayes, who is Black.

On school choice

Then there was the debate over allowing families to use public dollars to send their children to any school they choose, including private and religious schools. Currently, the federal government can do very little to encourage this so-called private school choice, but President Trump wants to change that.

The lone witness at the hearing who was invited by Democrats, Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, argued fiercely against Trump’s plans.

“Sadly, [Brown v. Board‘s] mandate to provide all students with quality learning experiences that respect their full humanity, intelligence and dignity… is under fierce attack,” Nelson said.

She did not mince words, invoking the former Alabama governor who famously demanded “Segregation forever!” when she argued that this choice movement “seeks to achieve what George Wallace and his extremist acolytes could not: The hoarding of public resources to fund private education for a privileged few at the expense of the many.“

The lone Black Republican on the committee, Burgess Owens of Utah, disagreed. He argued that parents shouldn’t have to wait for their public schools to improve.

“We have Black mothers and fathers lining up to get into a choice, a voucher program, because they’re living in a zip code [where] their kids cannot get educated.”

Owens’ solution: “Giving our parents a choice.”

During his first term, Trump championed a plan to create a $5 billion federal tax credit to help parents pay for private school tuition. Republicans are renewing a push for a credit in 2025.

According to the most recent federal data, 4.7 million children attend private schools.

Nearly 50 million children attend the nation’s public schools.

This fight will likely play out all over again next week, when the Senate education committee meets for the confirmation hearing of Linda McMahon, Trump’s choice to lead – and potentially unwind – the Education Department.

US President Donald Trump signs an executive order on January 23, 2025.

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

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ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

US President Donald Trump signs an executive order on January 23, 2025.

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

Have you been dodging the news lately? Feeling a familiar sense of info fatigue creeping in? You’re not alone. This week, Brittany is joined by NPR’s White House reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire to unpack the Trump administration’s “Flood the Zone” strategy – and how listeners can stay afloat.

Support public media and receive ad-free listening. Join NPR+ today.

This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Jasmine Romero. Our Supervising Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our Executive Producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.