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President Donald Trump revealed on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast an executive order instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek out and prosecute "anti-Christian bias."

"To confront such weaponization and religious persecution, today I'm signing an executive order to make our Attorney General, who's a great person — she's going to be a great Attorney General — Pam Bondi the head of a task force, brand new, to eradicate anti-Christian bias," Trump said. "About time, right? Anti-Christian bias. Yeah, never heard of that one before, right?"

"So many times you hear, but you don't hear the anti-Christian bias," he continued. "The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible."

Trump suggested the FBI and IRS were "terrible" for targeting Christians.

"In addition, the task force will work to fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide," he added. "You've never had that before, but this is a very powerful document I'm signing."

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"You get it now. First time you've had it. If we don't have religious liberty, then we don't have a free country. We probably don't even have a country."

Watch the video below from Newsmax or click the link here.

The U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., ruled Thursday morning that Elon Musk and his team of coders have been blocked from further accessing government databases.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved the temporary restraining order outlining the conditions.

Kollar-Kotelly previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) and was appointed by the late conservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.

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Norm Eisen posted on Blue Sky a "big win by us at the State Democracy Defender's Action and our partners, including Public Citizen."

The case alleged that Musk and his team had access to the personal information of government employees and others without having the proper security clearance and congressional oversight.

The ruling barred "any person who is an employee (but not a Special Government Employee) of the Department of the Treasury and who has a need for the record or system of records in the performance of their duties."

"This Order shall remain in effect until such time as the Court rules on the Plaintiffs' forthcoming Preliminary Injunction Motion," the ruling said.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is increasingly angering many of his House Republican colleagues by antagonizing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over the plan to pass President Donald Trump's agenda, The Daily Beast reported.

This comes as the House and Senate continue to wrestle over the best way to move forward with the legislative calendar; the House and Trump largely want to pass a single, large bill containing energy, border security, and tax cuts, as a bargaining chip to reach a grand compromise with the far-right Freedom Caucus, while the Senate would like to split the tax cuts into a second bill to maximize the chance at least some of Trump's agenda will pass.

Donalds, according to one anonymous GOP lawmaker, is irritating the rest of the caucus by attacking Johnson over the slow pace of lawmaking: “Byron Donalds is more and more frequently being obnoxious towards the speaker. Angry at the time it’s taking. Parroting [Rep.] Chip [Roy]. I don’t mind making one’s point but the rudeness is uncalled for,” said the lawmaker, who added, “He did the same in Miami,” at the House GOP's retreat at Trump's property.

Donalds, well known as a rising pro-Trump star who is considering a run for governor of Florida, told the Beast he is unconcerned with this complaining: “Everybody’s frustrated. If they think it’s rude to have a direct conversation with the leadership, as opposed to everybody slapping each other on the back, then so be it.”

Moreover, Donalds is not the only one angry about the lack of progress, with another lawmaker telling the Beast, “This isn’t rocket science,” and they're sick of “listening sessions over and over and over again” from House GOP leadership.

As all of this is unfolding, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is handling much of the budget talks on the Senate side, has unveiled his own proposal for a $300 billion budget resolution on defense and the border.

Sen. Ron Wyden is calling foul on the Trump administration's insistence that it's not letting X owner Elon Musk run roughshod over congressional checks and balances.

In an interview with the New Republic's Greg Sargent, Wyden casts doubt on a letter sent from the Treasury Department to Congress this week claiming that Musk and his minions are simply undertaking an "audit" of the federal government and are not making unilateral decisions to destroy government agencies despite Musk's claim over the weekend that he put the United States Administration of International Development (USAID) into a "wood chipper."

“This letter reeks of a cover-up,” Wyden told Sargent. “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

Sargent then goes on to dissect the letter, which claims Musk underline Tom Krause merely has “read-only access” to “coded data” of Treasury’s payment systems and is not authorized to cut off payments on a whim.

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However, Wyden tells Sargent that his staff have talked with former Treasury officials who say there is no precedent from previous administrations for the kind of scope and access to data that have been granted to outsiders such as Musk.

“We have no indication that this story about an ongoing audit of the payment system is legit,” Wyden told me. “There is no good reason for political operatives to get into these systems.”

Wyden also raised concerns about Musk, who is himself a government contractor thanks to his ownership of SpaceX, gaining access to secret information about his competitors.

"“The possibilities for corruption are endless,” he said. “Whistleblowers are needed now more than any time in my time in public service.”

The chair of the Libertarian Party's National Committee suddenly resigned last month as embezzling allegations swirled around her — and she quickly accepted a job in Donald Trump's administration.

Angela McArdle stepped down from the national organization on January 24, three days after Jack Porter, a former Libertarian candidate for Iowa governor, went public with his investigation into a company called Freedom Calls LLC. He claims the party chair had used it to direct more than $45,000 in party funds to her domestic partner Austin Padget, who had apparently set up the company, reported Reason.

"Porter discovered that McArdle's domestic partner and father of her child, Austin Padgett, was the incorporator of record for that entity," Reason reported. "The operation's website says it offers phone banking, canvassing, and website and email services, but the 'Who are you?' squib merely says they are 'a radical group of individuals who've come together to change the system. We are futurists. The tech industry is full of disrupters and secret dissidents.' No names are provided. Porter says he could find no Federal Elections Commission records of any other entities paying Freedom Calls."

"The LNC had previously decided to suspend a series of monthly payments directly to Padgett in January 2024," Reason added. "The payments to Freedom Calls began the following month."

The party requires that contracts or agreements for payments with legal relatives, domestic partners and business associates be disclosed to the committee and then approved by a vote, which didn't happen in this case. McArdle levied a series of accusations against other party members on her way out the door before eventually finding herself a job with the Trump administration.

"The LNC is reacting as best they can in the face of constant attacks by unstable litigants like Caryn Ann Harlos, and my cyber stalkers Todd Hagopian and Jake Porter," McArdle told Reason in a statement. "I have retained an attorney to deal with the aggressive cyberstalking by these men."

"I will be working with new appointees in the Trump administration to find out if the FBI and State Dept have been involved in the attacks on the LP and me," McArdle added. "There are lots of unclassified documents on Reason Magazine and yourself, Brian Dougherty [sic], in the State Dept archives. We know the feds have a strong interest in disrupting the Libertarian movement, especially at a moment like now when we have freed Ross Ulbricht - the biggest political victory the LP has ever achieved."

McArdle claims that she persuaded Trump to pardon Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road online black market, and she angered other Libertarians last spring by inviting the now president to speak at their national convention.

Abortion foes worried before his election that President Donald Trump had moved on, now that Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion policy, as he said on the campaign trail, “has been returned to the states.”

Their concerns mounted after Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime supporter of abortion rights, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services — and then as he signed a slew of Day 1 executive orders that said nothing about abortion.

As it turns out, they had nothing to worry about. In its first two weeks, the Trump administration went further to restrict abortion than any president since the original Roe decision in 1973.

Hours after Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance spoke to abortion opponents gathered in Washington for the annual March for Life, the president issued a memorandum reinstating what’s known as the Mexico City Policy, which bars funding to international aid organizations that “perform or actively promote” abortion — an action taken by every modern Republican president.

But Trump also did something new, signing an executive order ending “the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion” in domestic programs — effectively ordering government agencies to halt funding to programs that can be construed to “promote” abortion, such as family planning counseling.

Dorothy Fink, the acting secretary of Health and Human Services, followed up with a memo early last week ordering the department to “reevaluate all programs, regulations, and guidance to ensure Federal taxpayer dollars are not being used to pay for or promote elective abortion, consistent with the Hyde Amendment.”

The emphasis on the word “promote” is mine, because that’s not what the Hyde Amendment says. It is true that the amendment — which has been included in every HHS spending bill since the 1970s — prohibits the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions except in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life.

But it bars only payment. As the current HHS appropriation says, none of the funding “shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.”

In fact, for decades, the Hyde Amendment existed side by side with a requirement in the federal family planning program, Title X, that patients with unintended pregnancies be given “nondirective” counseling about all their options, including abortion. Former President Joe Biden reinstated that requirement in 2021 after Trump eliminated it during his first term.

So, what is the upshot of Trump’s order?

For one thing, it directly overturned two of Biden’s executive orders. One was intended to strengthen medical privacy protections for people seeking abortion care and enforce a 1994 law criminalizing harassment of people attempting to enter clinics that provide abortions. The other sought to ensure women with pregnancy complications have access to emergency abortions in hospitals that accept Medicare even in states with abortion bans. The latter policy is making its way through federal court.

Trump’s order is also leading government agencies to reverse other key Biden administration policies implemented after the fall of Roe v. Wade. They include a 2022 Department of Defense policy explicitly allowing service members and their dependents to travel out of states with abortion bans to access the procedure and providing travel allowances for those trips. (The Pentagon officially followed through on that change on Jan. 30, just a few days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took over the job: Service members are no longer allowed leave or travel allowances for such trips.) The order is also likely to reverse a policy allowing the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide abortions in some cases, as well as to provide abortion counseling.

But it could also have more wide-ranging effects.

“This executive order could affect other major policies related to access to reproductive health care,” former Biden administration official Katie Keith wrote in the policy journal Health Affairs. These include protections for medication abortion, emergency medical care for women experiencing pregnancy complications, and even in vitro fertilization.

“These and similar changes would, if and when adopted, make it even more challenging for women and their families to access reproductive health care, especially in the more than 20 states with abortion bans,” she wrote.

Anti-abortion groups praised the new administration — not just for the executive orders, but also for pardoning activists convicted of violating a law that protects physical access to abortion clinics.

“One after another, President Trump’s great pro-life victories are being restored and this is just the beginning,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement.

Abortion rights groups, meanwhile, were not surprised by the actions or even their timing, said Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. The association represents grantees of Title X, which has been a longtime target of abortion opponents.

“We said we didn’t think it would be a Day 1 thing,” Coleman said in an interview. “But we said they were coming for us, and they are.”

HealthBent, a regular feature of KFF Health News, offers insight into and analysis of policies and politics from KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner, who has covered health care for more than 30 years.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.