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Germany's right turn, Musk's email threat and Trump's Pentagon purge

 
Today's INTERnATIONAL story

Germany's conservatives win power amid far-right gains

What happened
Germany's center-right Christian Democrats/Christian Social Union bloc won a 28.5% plurality in yesterday's national election, making CDU leader Friedrich Merz the presumptive next chancellor. The election was held seven months early due to the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition in November. Scholz's Social Democrats earned just 16.4% of the vote, while the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party jumped to second place with 20.8%, nearly double its previous high.

Who said what
The CDU's "lackluster victory" capped a campaign marked by "widespread discontent and not much enthusiasm for any of the candidates," The Associated Press said. The dominant themes were "worries about the yearslong stagnation of Europe's biggest economy and pressure to curb migration." Voter turnout was 83%, the highest since East and West German reunified in 1990.

Merz (pictured above) said his first priority was to "create a functioning government in Germany as quickly as possible." Scholz took responsibility for the Social Democrats' "bitter election result" and said he would not hold a ministerial role in a grand coalition government with the CDU, considered the most likely outcome of the election.

President Donald Trump congratulated the "conservative party in Germany" for its victory, and in a "characteristically bizarre manner," Politico said, he also "claimed the conservative victory was part of his own success, somehow." Vice President J.D. Vance and top ally Elon Musk had thrown their support behind the AfD. Merz criticized that "intervention from Washington" and said his "absolute priority" was to "strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S." That's something "I never thought I would have to say," he added, "but after Donald Trump's statements" in recent weeks it is "clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

What next?
Merz, 69, reiterated that the AfD will not be part of his government, retaining the "firewall" between Germany's political mainstream and a far-right party that "routinely flirts with Nazi slogans and whose members have diminished the Holocaust," The New York Times said. AfD leader Alice Weidel said if Merz did not include her party, his government would not last, he would be an "interim chancellor" and in the next election, "we'll come first."

 
 
Today's National story

Musk's email to all federal workers prompts blowback

What happened
Workers across the federal government received emails Saturday afternoon instructing them to reply with approximately "5 bullets of what you accomplished last week" by the end of Monday. Earlier Saturday, Elon Musk said on X that "failure to respond" to the upcoming email would be "taken as a resignation." The emails were sent from the White House Office of Personnel Management, which "has been largely taken over by Musk's U.S. DOGE Service," The Washington Post said.

Who said what
Federal employees and administration officials "scrambled throughout the weekend to interpret Musk's unusual mandate," The Associated Press said. After issuing sometimes confusing and contradictory guidance, "appointees of President Donald Trump" at the FBI, Directorate of National Intelligence and the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services told their employees not to respond to the email.

Those instructions effectively "countermanded" Musk's order, "challenging the broad authority" Trump has "given the world's richest man to make drastic changes to the federal bureaucracy," The New York Times said. "The public pushback reflects a growing unease — and, in some cases, alarm — behind the scenes across the Trump administration" about Musk's apparent "unchecked power." The email scheme "came together in a matter of hours" after Trump said on social media he wanted Musk and DOGE to "get more aggressive" in shrinking the government, The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?
The episode set in motion a "power struggle between Musk" and Trump appointees, Politico said, marking the "first sign that even staunch Trump loyalists are beginning to flex their political muscle against Musk, an unelected 'special government employee.'"

 
 
Today's National Security Story

Trump purges Pentagon, puts MAGA pundit at FBI

What happened
President Donald Trump began the weekend by firing top military leaders including Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ended it by announcing he was appointing right-wing pundit and podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI. Trump said he would nominate retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine as the next joint chiefs chair.

Who said what
Trump's "Friday night purge" of Brown (pictured above, left), Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force and other senior officers thrust the Pentagon "into uncharted territory," The Washington Post said. Critics warned of the "encroachment of political warfare on an organization bound by the Constitution to remain nonpartisan."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended Trump's Pentagon firings on "Fox News Sunday," saying other presidents had also fired generals and Trump "deserves to pick his key national security advisory team." Asked about Georgetown Law professor Rosa Brooks's tweet that firing "any lawyers who might try to slow you down" is what you do when "you're planning to break the law," Hegseth said he wanted military "lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don't exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything."

What next?
Appointing Bongino as No. 2 to FBI Director Kash Patel puts "two steadfast Trump loyalists" who "have never served as FBI agents" in charge of the nation's premier law enforcement agency, The New York Times said. They will be the "least experienced leadership pair" in bureau history. Patel was also "expected to be sworn in early this week as the acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives," the Post said.

 
 

It's not all bad

Every morning, Bill Tallyn rides his bike around his Mesa, Arizona, neighborhood, delivering treats to the dogs along the route. The 96-year-old Korean War veteran has been doing this for years, visiting more than 50 dogs (and some cats) daily. If one of his furry friends is not home, Tallyn leaves behind a biscuit. He is an "inspiration," one neighbor told ABC 15, while another said Tallyn "brightens everyone's day. The dogs all know and love him."

 
 
Under the radar

As many people know, after-work drinks can occasionally get embarrassingly out of hand. But for a government employee in Japan, a recent night out resulted in the loss of files containing information about an ongoing drug smuggling investigation. 

Booze-fueled blunders involving delicate personal data have sparked debate in Japan over alcohol's place in its work culture, as well as the country's stubbornly analog bureaucracy. During an outing with colleagues this month, a Japanese finance ministry employee drank nine glasses of beer over a five-hour session and lost a bag containing the personal data of 187 people suspected of smuggling and buying drugs. 

It may sound like an "astonishing blunder," but it's "not the first time something like this has happened," said CNN. In 2022, another government employee lost a USB flash drive containing the personal details of every resident in the city of Amagasaki after boozing with colleagues and falling asleep on the street. 

Alcohol has been "seen as a social lubricant" in Japan for thousands of years, said the BBC. Business deals and difficult issues are often "discussed over bottles of beer and sake." It's not unusual to see groups of men in business suits "chugging beer" late into the evening or "slumped in the middle of the street" following "marathon drinking sessions" designed to "secure deals" and "curry favor in the workplace," said CNN. But when you "combine that drinking culture" with Japan's "particularly old-fashioned preference" for "analog technologies" over cloud storage, there's an inevitable danger of sensitive data "going astray."

 
 
On this day

February 24, 1942

A series of anti-aircraft maneuvers took place in the Los Angeles skies in response to reports of a Japanese attack on the city; this incident, which took place two months after the U.S. entered World War II, would come to be known as the "Battle of Los Angeles." However, it was later proven that the Japanese attacks were false reports.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Anger at town halls hints at broader backlash" as "Republicans struggling to defend" President Donald Trump's "policy blitz," The New York Times says on Monday's front page. "Trump's 1st month was just a preview," USA Today says. "Democrats caught between backers' wrath, Trump blitz," The Boston Globe says. "Ukraine backers: 'We must act now,'" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. "Kyiv presses for better deal with U.S. on mineral rights," The Wall Street Journal says, looking also at "how Trump embraced Russia" after years of effort. "Trump turns back to an older world order," The Washington Post says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

You break it, you buy it

Police in Fukuoka, Japan, arrested a woman for squeezing a bun too hard in the bread aisle of a convenience store. The unidentified shopper said she was checking the firmness of the black sesame and cream cheese rolls, but authorities claim a bun was "damaged after she pressed it with her right thumb" and the bag could not be sold, said the BBC. After refusing the owner's demand that she buy the bag of buns, the woman was arrested for criminal damage.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Chas Newkey-Burden, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Ina Fassbender / AFP via Getty Images; Valerie Plesch for The Washington Post via Getty Images; Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images