WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump denied on Friday a report that his senior adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, had clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and another cabinet official during a White House meeting.

According to The New York Times, Musk argued with Rubio and separately with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during a cabinet meeting chaired by Trump on Thursday.

Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a drive to slash costs and cut jobs across government departments, reportedly leading to tensions with department heads.

Musk reportedly faulted Rubio for having fired “nobody,” except for a staff member from Musk’s DOGE. He also told Rubio he was “good on TV,” as if to say he was not good for much else, the Times said.

An incensed Rubio lashed back at Musk for not being truthful. He countered that 1,500 State Department officials had accepted early retirement, and sarcastically asked whether he should hire them back just to sack them again more spectacularly.

In another exchange, Duffy accused DOGE of having tried to sack vital air traffic controllers right as he deals with the aftermath of several plane crashes, prompting Musk to accuse him of a “lie,” again according to the New York Times.

Trump reportedly intervened to halt the argument and suggest that henceforth the controllers be hired from the “geniuses” studying at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After the meeting, Trump announced that cuts would continue but with a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet,” implying that he had taken the opportunity to rein Musk in.

But, asked on Friday about the reported dispute, the president dismissed it.

“No clash, I was there, you’re just a troublemaker,” he told a reporter who asked about the report. 

He went on to insist of Musk and Rubio “they’re both doing a fantastic job ... they both get along fantastically well.”

Since coming to office, Trump’s administration has sacked or announced the departure of tens of thousands of federal employees in a scorched-earth efficiency drive.

Several US media have reported friction between Musk and senior officials, who accuse his young crew of DOGE officials — recruited from Silicon Valley — of exceeding their authority.

The meeting was convened following complaints about the Musk operation’s blunt-force approach from agency heads to top White House officials, including chief of staff Susie Wiles.

The White House Office of Legislative Affairs has been inundated with calls in recent days from frustrated Republican members of Congress all over the country, some of whom have faced anger from constituents at home.

(With AFP & Reuters)

ISTANBUL: Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.
On the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine.
The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women’s role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading “Family will not bind us to life” and “We will not be sacrificed to the family.”
Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women’s rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkiye from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkiye’s We Will Stop Femicides Platform says 394 women were killed by men in 2024.
“There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further,” Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.
Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination
In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don’t get the same treatment as men.
In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women.
Opening the center on International Women’s Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.
From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work.
In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious.
Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
In the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood.
Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women’s liberation movement.
In Russia, the women’s day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg.
Germany’s president warns of backlash against progress already made
In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
“Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces,” he said. He gave an example of ” large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new ‘masculine energy’ in companies and society.”