Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

Happy Friday! In today’s edition, we take you behind the scenes of President Donald Trump’s sudden move to withdraw Elise Stefanik’s U.N. ambassador nomination. Plus, Kristen Welker writes that the Signal chat controversy highlights a key dynamic of Trump 2.0.

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— Adam Wollner

Inside Trump’s shock decision to pull the plug on Elise Stefanik’s nomination

By Garrett Haake, Melanie Zanona and Bridget Bowman

At a White House event honoring Women’s History Month on Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump took six minutes out of his speech to personally recognize many of the Republican women who were gathered in the audience. 

But one person in attendance that he did not mention was Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who was, at the time, Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

The omission, which several GOP lawmakers took notice of at the time, was all the more conspicuous given that Stefanik’s name was included on the list of women in Trump’s prepared remarks, according to a White House official.  

While it’s unclear whether Trump purposely chose to skip Stefanik’s name, less than 24 hours later, the president delivered another public blow to the congresswoman. He announced that he was withdrawing Stefanik’s nomination for the ambassadorship, citing concerns over Republicans’ razor-thin House majority and the prospect of a special election to fill her seat.

The sudden implosion of Stefanik’s nomination came as a surprise to many Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially given that she sailed out of the committee process earlier this year and would have likely garnered bipartisan support on the Senate floor. Plus, the trickiness of the House GOP’s narrow margins is hardly a new dynamic, with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., warning Trump almost immediately after the November election against plucking members from the House for the new administration. 

But over the last few months, there had been growing anxiety inside the GOP and the White House about the difficulties of governing as they try to pass Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda — a sentiment that was only further compounded by a special House election next week in Florida. 

Trump and Stefanik have spoken multiple times since the announcement, according to a Republican source familiar with the conversations, and the president heaped praise on her from the Oval Office Friday. 

“She is phenomenal, number one. She is a friend of mine. … But she’s very popular in her district. And I didn’t want to take a chance,” Trump said. “We have a slim margin. We don’t want to take any chances. We don’t want to experiment.” 

House Republican leaders are now scrambling to create a new spot on the team for Stefanik, who gave up her No. 4 leadership post in anticipation of her ambassadorship. Those discussions are still underway, according to a GOP leadership source, but anything they come up with will not carry the same weight or power as Stefanik’s previous post, which was an elected leadership position that came with additional staff and resources.  

Trump turns to Supreme Court as judges push back on the administration’s view of presidential power

By Dareh Gregorian and Gary Grumbach

The Justice Department has now submitted multiple filings with the Supreme Court that accused federal judges of abusing their constitutional powers, while lower courts criticized the Trump administration’s expansive view of presidential power.

The administration asked the high court to intervene in three cases it argues are hampering President Donald Trump’s agenda, including one where it’s been ordered to rehire thousands of dismissed federal workers. 

The latest filing, on Friday, focuses on the administration’s complaints about a judge who temporarily halted deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 18th century wartime law. Attorneys argued that the judge overstepped his authority, and complained about the overall number of temporary restraining orders imposed by federal judges as a result of legal challenges to Trump’s sweeping agenda.

The third case where the administration sought Supreme Court intervention involves hundreds of millions of dollars in education grants that were abruptly canceled by Trump officials. After a federal judge in Massachusetts ordered the Education Department to temporarily make the payments while the plaintiffs’ lawsuit proceeds, the administration petitioned the Supreme Court in a filing that argued the justices should “put a swift end to federal district courts’ unconstitutional reign as self-appointed managers of Executive Branch funding and grant-disbursement decisions.” 

What else to know from the Trump presidency today

• Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized Denmark and other European allies during his visit to Greenland, as the Trump administration continues to push U.S. ownership of the semi-autonomous territory.
• Trump had his first phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, calling it “productive” in a post on Truth Social.
• Trump called on the House to immediately consider Senate-passed legislation that would “fix” language in the recently passed government spending measure that addresses funding for Washington, D.C.
• Trump pardoned Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton, for his 2022 conviction of federal crimes related to defrauding investors with false claims about the success of the electric and hydrogen-powered truck maker.
• Trump signed an executive order taking aim at the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers.

Follow live updates →

Team Trump’s response to the group chat leak underscores a central tenet of his new administration

By Kristen Welker

The question continues to grip Washington: Will there be any accountability for the stunning realization that senior Trump administration officials sent sensitive military information on a text chain, made public after they accidentally added a journalist?

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg disclosed the revelation Monday that he had been inadvertently added to what appeared to be a small group of high-level Trump officials discussing impending military strikes in Yemen, a discussion the National Security Council has said “appears to be authentic.” 

The White House has closed ranks from the top on down. President Donald Trump and top Cabinet officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi have either attacked Goldberg or Democrats. And while national security adviser Michael Walz said he took “full responsibility” for the journalist ending up on the chain, he took to Fox News to not just call Goldberg “scum,” but question whether he “deliberately” found his way onto the private chat. 

All together, they’re refusing to concede an inch, or acknowledge what appears to many to be a clear mistake — at a minimum — by Trump’s national security team.  

Trump built his brand as a businessman on a simple phrase: “You’re fired.” And during his first term, he was more than willing to cut ties  with Cabinet officials and other key aides who waded into controversy. 

But the decision to dig in embodies this central tenet of Trump’s second term: No matter what hand they draw, Trump and his allies relish the fight. 

It’s why former Trump adviser Steve Bannon argued to me that he views the efforts to investigate the incident as nothing but an attack on Hegseth. 

“They are coming for Pete Hegseth — they’ve been coming for him since the very first day of his confirmation hearing. All this is a second confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth. And the MAGA base is 110% backing Hegseth,” Bannon said. 

“Right now, the administration should have a ‘no scalps’ policy,” he added. 

It’s why I hope you’ll tune into this Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” where we’ll speak exclusively to Goldberg, The Atlantic editor-in-chief at the center of the story. I’ll also hear from Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who leveled fiery criticism at key Trump officials at this week’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., one of Trump’s top allies in the Senate.

✉️ Mailbag: How to decipher early vote numbers

Thanks to everyone who emailed us this week! One reader wrote in to ask about the early voting numbers in Florida ahead of next week’s special House elections. (As Bridget Bowman reported, Republicans are nervous about early turnout among Democrats in two solidly red districts.)

“How usual is it to have election authorities to release reports of parties’ early returns? And is it meaningful, as in, predictive?” 

To answer that, we turned to senior politics editor Scott Bland. Here’s his response:  

Data on who votes is public record, and keeping track of early turnout by party (in states where voters register with a party) has become a big part of campaigns in recent years. Campaigns and outside groups use this data to make sure, among other things, that they’re targeting their appeals to people who haven’t already voted.

So the release of this data is very normal. (In fact, NBC News had a tracker in 2024 looking at the early vote before the general election.) The key question is how predictive this data can be, and the unsatisfying answer is that it’s very hard to glean predictive insights from early vote data. Currently, Republicans and Republican-leaning voters tend to turn out more heavily on Election Day, while Democrats and Democratic leaning voters tend to turn out more heavily in early voting. But since we can never know exactly how many people will turn out on Election Day before it happens, it’s hard to know what early turnout means ahead of time.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Faith Wardwell.

If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com