On today’s show: The Hill reports on how Elon Musk’s weekend email asking federal employees to describe their accomplishments led a number of agencies to push back. Soldiers are arriving at the border — but hardly any migrants are crossing. The Washington Post’s Arelis Hernández reports from the town of Del Rio. The conservative Christian Democratic Union won elections in Germany on Sunday, likely making its leader, Friedrich Merz, the next chancellor. Reuters reports on how the far-right Alternative for Germany party also saw big gains. Plus, Israel says it will delay the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, how one man found out his partner was on the American Airlines flight that collided with an army helicopter, and American skier Mikaela Shiffrin wins her 100th World Cup title with a women-led team guiding her.
Chapter 1: What is Elon Musk's controversial email about?
But first, over the weekend, about 2.3 million federal employees received an email with the subject line, What did you do last week? The email instructed federal workers to list what they have accomplished at work in the past five days. Elon Musk, the head of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, said anyone who doesn't respond by the end of the day today is effectively resigning.
Chapter 2: How are federal agencies responding to Musk's demands?
Reuters reports that workers at the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, as well as at the IRS and National Institutes of Health, were told not to respond, pending further guidance. ABC News reports some officials in the White House were even caught off guard.
And the move is raising more questions about the extent of Elon Musk's authority and whether firing government employees in this way is even legal. Here's Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen speaking on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday.
Chapter 3: What are the legal implications of Musk's actions?
You've got Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal government and important services. And there's no Article 4 in the Constitution that gives Elon Musk that authority. And the way that he's been sort of, quote, delegated authority is illegal. And the actions he's taking are illegal. And we need to shut down this illegal operation.
Republicans have been critical, too. Here's Senator John Curtis on CBS.
If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. It's a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well. We can do both.
In response to criticisms, Musk posted on X on Sunday that the email is a, quote, This email is the latest in Musk's efforts to drastically reduce government staffing levels. More than 200,000 workers across more than a dozen agencies have already had their jobs eliminated. That figure includes around 1,600 U.S.
AID jobs cut as of yesterday, as well as 75,000 federal workers who voluntarily resigned, though it remains unclear whether they'll receive the buyouts they've been promised. Many federal employees say this firing spree has been personally devastating and doesn't seem to be in the interest of reducing fraud or waste, as Musk has claimed.
Sydney Kerman is a soil conservationist who, until recently, worked for the USDA in Rhode Island. Kerman told a local NBC affiliate that the Trump administration's decision would have far-reaching effects for farmers.
A lot of farmers live, like, month to month in terms of their budget. And so if they're expected to pay for a $150,000 tractor out of pocket because we promised that we would pay them, but we don't have enough people to, like, get the work done, then that's going to be devastating for them.
In some instances, the Trump administration has had to backtrack on firings. For example, Musk's team recently fired roughly 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees whose staff entrances maintain the parks and rescue hikers who are hurt or lost. Some parks and national monuments announced they would have to reduce hours due to lack of staffing. There's been widespread public outcry.
And now, according to the AP, at least 50 jobs are being restored. And separately, in a memo put out last week, the Park Service is being authorized to hire up to 7,700 seasonal workers. That's about a 20 percent increase in seasonal positions.
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Chapter 4: What is the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border?
I decided to go there to see where things were at right now in terms of numbers, because I had heard from locals that they had seen troops, active duty military in town. They were eating at restaurants and buying condoms at Walgreens. And people were really wondering, well, what are they here to do?
The reason locals are asking that question is the border has been incredibly quiet lately.
Historically, when we've had troop deployments to the border, they've been for a very specific amount of time to respond to a crisis. In this case, the crisis, if you will, had largely abated when these troops arrived.
Chapter 5: Why are troop deployments to the border questioned?
Agents that patrol this part of the border say they're apprehending fewer than 50 people a day. That's a major drop from 2023, when agents were stopping closer to 5,000 people a day.
What I think very few people knew or understood is that starting around mid-2024, the numbers of people who were crossing the U.S.-Mexico border had been dropping precipitously and sort of continually month after month. And there's a lot of reasons for that.
One reason is because Mexico has been cracking down more heavily on migrant caravans trying to cross through Mexico into the U.S. The other big reason is because under President Biden, the asylum rules changed. Then when Trump took office, he declared an emergency and effectively closed off the border. What that means is that border crossings are way down.
In fact, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks told CBS News last week that unlawful crossings at the southern border are down 94 percent from the same period last year. Things are so quiet that many Texas migrant shelters are close to empty. In one county along the border, a local sheriff told the Post they are back to, quote, getting cats out of trees and helping little old ladies with their groceries.
At the same time, the number of troops at the border has surged. Between America's deployment of troops and Mexico's deployment of 10,000 more, there's roughly one soldier or officer for every migrant trying to cross each month. Now locals told Hernandez they are happy to have active duty troops in town. They're good for the economy. At least two hotels are sold out.
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Chapter 6: How has the U.S.-Mexico border situation evolved?
Some stores are offering discounts for them. But other than that, locals say there doesn't seem to be very much for them to do. U.S. Northern Command, which is in charge of the deployment, told the Post that troops are reinforcing border barriers and helping with intelligence on cartel activity. And there are limits to how they can be used.
They can't put their hands on migrants. They can't technically arrest anyone, but they can call a Border Patrol agent and say, hey, I've got five people moving through the brush in this section. And that's really, I think, the large extent of what they're doing.
Hernandez also reports this quiet period for the border could change. There are some 300,000 people in Mexico waiting and watching to see if and how U.S. policy will shift in the next few months.
Now to Germany, where citizens went to the polls this weekend and voted for sweeping change as concerns over a stagnating economy, an immigration crisis and deteriorating international alliances led leaders to call for a snap election.
The center-right Christian Democratic Union led exit polling Sunday with a commanding 28 percent of the vote, making party leader Friedrich Merz the likely next chancellor of Germany. He declared victory on Sunday. Perhaps the more surprising result, however, is the rise of the far-right party called Alternative for Germany, or AFD.
The AFD, which was once considered a fringe movement, doubled its support from the last elections four years ago to about 20%. It's the party's largest election victory in its 12-year history, though it was lower than many in the party were hoping, especially after receiving endorsements from Elon Musk and Vice President J.D. Vance.
Here is Musk during an AFD rally he joined virtually about a month before the election.
It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.
And here's Vice President Vance a few weeks ago speaking in Munich, chiding European leaders for excluding far-right parties from power.
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