from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, January 27th.

As it remains difficult to keep up with all the actions coming in these early days of the Trump

administration, here are a few

that I have my eye on. Not only have immigration raids begun in Chicago and the Dallas area,

Trump has issued a stop work order for federally funded lawyers who represent immigrants whose cases

are being heard in immigration courts. ABC News reports that will mean

many more adults and even some children will now be arguing their cases for permission to stay in

this country without an attorney while the Trump Justice Department lawyers present against them

to the judge. Another stopwork order, this one from the new Secretary of State,

Marco Rubio, went to the State Department and the agency USAID, which are supposed to stop

distributing most foreign aid now for the next 90 days, even aid that's already been allocated by

Congress. CBS News reports that even includes provision's already been allocated by Congress.

CBS News reports that even includes provision of life-saving antiviral medications in the government's much-praised PEPFAR program for HIV relief, which began during the George

W. Bush administration. Reuters reports that Trump issued a memo threatening disciplinary action against

any USAID staffers who try to ignore the stop work order and continue what they're doing

posted in some other country. That's reminiscent of the disciplinary action he threatened last week

against any federal worker who

fails to report a job in the government that involves diversity, equity, and inclusion work

so they can remove that position. Also on the personnel front, the Associated Press, National

Political Reporter Jill Colvin, who

join us in a second, reports that intense loyalty tests are now being applied to anyone

looking for work with the administration. She quotes some federal workers saying loyalty is

...