One of Elon Musk’s Starship rockets exploded over the Gulf of Mexico early yesterday evening, creating a spectacular fireworks-like display and disrupting commercial air traffic from Florida up through the eastern seaboard. Flight radar maps showed numerous commercial airliners in the eastern Caribbean scrambling to leave the debris zone. Starship is SpaceX’s new mega-rocket intended for missions to the moon and possibly Mars. I want to flag a couple details.

Musk had a running feud with former FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker and is generally believed to have helped force Whitaker into retirement when Donald Trump was sworn in in January, though the precise details are murky. Musk had claimed repeatedly that he was over-regulated by the FAA, especially after the agency fined SpaceX $633,000 for launching rockets with unapproved changes. He repeatedly called for Whitaker’s resignation and accused the FAA of “harassing SpaceX about nonsense that doesn’t affect safety while giving a free pass to Boeing even after NASA concluded that their spacecraft was not safe enough to bring back the astronauts.” The FAA also had to fine Starlink for skirting safety regulations.

If you want to understand the inner workings of TPM, there’s really no better person to seek out than Nicole. In addition to overseeing and authoring Where Things Stand and The Weekender, Nicole works as an editor with all of our reporters. Nicole first came to TPM as an editorial intern back in 2014 and then returned in 2017. So, suffice to say, she has seen a lot. Did you know she once worked at the Daily Caller and I thought she might be some kind of plant infiltrating TPM? We discuss that (she wasn’t, obviously.) How has TPM evolved to cover Trump II? We talk about that. What’s the philosophy behind The Weekender and Where Things Stand? She explains. Do you watch Rings of Power? We do, and we talk about it. So check it out, it’s a good one!

This is a Facebook post by Missouri state Rep. David Tyson Smith (D-Columbia). The Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) he refers to is one of the members of Congress who got rocked late last month in one of those townhalls where people were angry about DOGE.

Just found out that a new memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), dated March 5th, 2025, directs all acquisitions executives through the military to stop including language which requires contractors to agree that they will not use segregated facilities as a condition of being a DOD contractor.

You see in the feature well we have Josh Kovensky’s piece on the U.S. African Development Foundation’s efforts to resist takeover by DOGE and a purported new presidential appointee Pete Marocco. After we published this afternoon, Marocco and DOGE showed up with U.S. Marshals and forced their way into the Foundation’s offices, changed the locks and took over. The issue here is the U.S. Marshals. The U.S. Marshals are part of the Justice Department. But their primary function is to protect the federal judiciary and execute its orders. They also have statutory authority to enforce certain laws. They are not a police force working for the White House and they certainly aren’t a police force for DOGE. As far as I know there’s no court order here. So under what authority did any of this happen? Under what authority were the Marshals there and under what authority did they employ force to facilitate this takeover?

The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods is (or was) an advisory committee housed within the USDA (but also working with HHS) which provides outside expert advice to advance food safety across the U.S. and across different levels of government. It was ordered disbanded this afternoon.

Earlier this afternoon I told you how the GSA staffers who run the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix were abruptly fired with no warning or notification to anyone who works in the building. A bit later this afternoon I was able to speak to Debra Lucas, the District Court Executive and Clerk of the Court. To explain that job title Lucas is the senior judicial branch official at the courthouse in terms of the administration of the function of the courthouse. What Lucas told me basically squared with what sources had already told and which I shared with you in that earlier post.

They got no advance warning that this was going to happen. And they still haven’t gotten any explanation of what’s happening. “We’re still waiting for guidance,” Lucas told me. When I asked, guidance from whom? she said the GSA.