"He's not getting anything," President Trump said of DOGE Chief Elon Musk in a Fox News interview with Brett Baier Sunday. "In fact, I don't know how he can devote time to it -- he's into it."

MONDAY 2/10/25

Steel and Aluminum – President Trump promises a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from every trading partner, The Wall Street Journal reports. Canada in particular is a major importer to the US of the metals. Trump also will announce reciprocal tariffs to be detailed Tuesday or Wednesday, and to take effect “almost immediately.”

“Very simply, they charge us, we charge them,” he told reporters on Air Force One on the way from Florida to New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. 

Musk is ‘terrific’ … In an interview with Fox News’ Brett Baier recorded at Mar-a-Lago before he flew off to the Super Bowl, President Trump called a federal court’s temporary halt on the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to Treasury Department records “crazy.” 

“I’ve had great help with Elon Musk, who’s been terrific,” Trump told Baier. 

Trump predicted the Kansas City Chiefs would win Super Bowl LIX. The Chiefs lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 40-22.

•••

CFPB Shuts Down – Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were informed Monday the Washington headquarters will be closed this week and that they must work remotely, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, citing an internal email it obtained. On Saturday night, CFPB employees were instructed by the agency’s new acting director, Trump Office of Management and Budget director and Project 2025 co-author Russell T. Vought, that they should “stop virtually all their work.” 

The White House initially replaced Biden CFPB appointee Rohit Chopra as director with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
MONDAY 2/10/25

DOGE staffer Marko Elez, rehired by Elon Musk after having resigned over racist social media posts was said to have read/access status for Treasury documents, according to WIRED. Scroll down for details.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY 2/8-9/25

UPDATE: Most Trump administration officials, including “special government employee” Elon Musk and his DOGE tech bros are blocked from access to sensitive US Treasury records for at least a week, according to Politico. US District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan issued his “middle of the night” ruling early Saturday on a lawsuit filed by 19 Democratic state attorneys general alleging DOGE’s access as allowed by the Trump administration and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent violates the law, endangers personal information and grants DOGE ability to unconstitutionally slash government spending already approved by Congress. 

Meanwhile … DOGE chief Elon Musk says he will rehire Marko Elez to his team of young tech bros ravishing the US Treasury’s payment system. 

--TL

_______________________________________________

FRIDAY 2/7/25

Can We Reconcile? – After a couple of weeks of Elon Musk’s DOGE ravishing the US Treasury and throwing USAID on the federal scrapheap, the Occupational Health & Safety Administration likely next and the Education Department to follow, the question must be asked: Would we notice a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass a budget reconciliation bill by March 14?

Yes, we would, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) told Politico in a brief interview last Tuesday.

“I don’t think anybody thinks a shutdown is a good thing,” Cole said. “But the politics are such that we could certainly stumble into one without meaning to.”

But House Republicans are racing to finish a “massive” budget reconciliation bill Friday, NPR reports. Thursday evening, the House GOP spent three hours in a meeting to push forward the reconciliation bill they’ve been talking about since before President Trump’s inauguration (he attended the meeting for the first hour, telling congressmembers to “get it done”). 

Optimism for reaching a deal doesn’t seem high among the House GOP. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) are ready to miss Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans and work through the weekend, Roll Call reports.

“We are almost there. A couple of final details that we’ve got to work out,” Johnson said.

A major sticking point is how to score the budget. Trump’s top priorities for the budget reconciliation package are a permanent extension of his tax cuts plus new tax breaks and spending. Those priorities would push the budget up by a couple of trillion dollars to nearly $6 trillion, according to the Roll Call report. Republicans have been trying to window-dress that expensive package with revenue from “expected” economic growth, spending cuts from Trump’s executive orders and potential revenue from tariffs. 

The in-party fight is between “unconventional” scoring methods that conflict with Congressional Budget Office scoring, or the budget cuts and economic growth that would cut $2 trillion from the federal debt over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus … continues its push to raise the $36 trillion statutory borrowing cap rather than have to make concessions to Democrats over the next five-plus weeks before a government shutdown. Trump has long called for removing the cap, possibly for his entire four-year term. 

Where is the Senate? … Senate Republicans are preparing their own reconciliation bill for markup next week with Trump priorities immigration and border security, military spending and domestic energy production. 

Where are the Democrats? … Willing to let Republicans fall over each other, apparently. But if and when House and Senate Republicans get their act(s) together, Democrats will not have the vote to stop them.

•••

Treasured No More – Marko Elez, 25, resigned from Elon Musk’s quasi-government Department of Government Efficiency Thursday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Wall Street Journal after the newspaper revealed in a scoop his since-deleted social media account spewed racism and eugenics. 

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” Elez posted in July, according to the WSJ’s review of archived @nullllptr posts.

The WSJ’s report does not specifically name Elez as the DOGE programmer who had “read/access” status – not just ability to read files, but also to write within them -- for the Treasury, which was reported earlier in the week by WIRED and NOTES ON THE CRISIS. Before Elez stepped down, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington signed off on a temporary agreement that allowed Elez and another DOGE operative, Tom Krause, “read only” access to Treasury Department records. 

Most recent @nullllptr post was in December according to the WSJ report, when Elez wrote, “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys.” “LLM” refers to an AI language model. H1Bs are the visas Musk has advocated in opposition to hardcore Trump administration anti-immigration advocates such as Stephen Miller. 

Elez, a Rutgers University graduate who had worked for Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink services, as well as on artificial intelligence for X-Twitter, had earlier posted “Normalize Indian hate” and in November, “You could not pay me to marry outside my ethnicity,” according to the WSJ. Insert quips about how much someone would have to be paid to marry Elez here.

--TL

_______________________________________________

Fed 'Resignation Deadline' Deferred -- THURSDAY 2/6/25

UPDATE: US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. granted a request by labor unions to pause until Monday the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer, NPR’s All Things Considered reports. O’Toole will hear arguments of the case 2 p.m. Monday.  

Deadline – More than 40,000 of the nation’s 2 million federal employees, roughly 2%, have accepted the Trump administration’s offer to keep pay and benefits through September 30, if they resign by Thursday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. But also on Thursday, Massachusetts US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, will consider a request from labor unions to issue a temporary restraining order and stay the deadline, in a video hearing set for 1 p.m. Eastern. The lawsuit was filed by the legal group Democracy Forward.

•••

To Access, or Not to Access – Marko Elez, the 25-year-old ex-SpaceX programmer and current member of Elon Musk’s quasi-governmental DOGE, which has taken over US Treasury and much of the rest of federal government, was given access to Treasury online files, WIRED magazine reported on Tuesday. In the day-plus since, the Trump White House has refuted news Elez has “read/access,” and DOGE has access Treasury’s $6 trillion worth of payments in “read-only” mode.

Pertinent terms for reporting purposes are “read only” access and “read/access.” The former means that Elez can only read the Treasury files. Confusingly termed “read/access” means Elez can manipulate the files. 

This is important because newsletter NOTES ON THE CRISIS reported Thursday, “Day Seven of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payment Crisis of 2025,” that Elez did indeed have read/access status since Saturday, February 1, when initially reported Tuesday, and it appears to have been rescinded since for “read only” access. The newsletter, written by an anonymous federal employee, cited “a source familiar with the situation” in reporting Elez’s “read/access.”

Even “read only” access by DOGE and Elez poses “enormous security risks and the ability to exploit extremely, absurdly, sensitive information to the benefit of Elon Musk, Trump and his inner orbit” or anyone else with whom Musk feels like sharing information.

On Wednesday, according to NOTC, Treasury reacted to media and public alarm over the access by revoking Elez’s “read/access” and allowing him “read only” instead. WIRED narrowly scooped the newsletter on Elez’s “read/access” status Tuesday, the newsletter notes. 

Two labor unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and Service Employees Union International, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, filed suit in federal court in Washington Monday to stop DOGE access of any sort, naming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Treasury and the Bureau of Fiscal Service as defendants in the civil action (per Newsweek). 

--TL

__________________________________________________

Expanding Expansionism

WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

UPDATE: A block of President Trump’s January 20 executive order preventing the children of migrants without permanent legal status from receiving birthright citizenship in the US was furthered by District Judge Deborah Boardman at a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, Wednesday, The Hill reports. 

Unless Boardman’s ruling is overturned by an appeals court, birthright citizenship will remain intact up to when she can issue a final ruling on the merits of the constitutional case put forth by plaintiffs in the suit against Trump’s EO, which is expected to take months. A federal judge in Seattle had previously put the EO on hold in a ruling that was set to expire Thursday.

•••

Middle Eastern Riviera – There’s Greenland and the Panama Canal, and Canada as our 51^st state (does the GOP figure they’re more likely to get one or two US senators out of our neighbors to the north, than from Washington, D.C. or Puerto Rico?). Now you can add the Gaza Strip to the list of foreign lands that interest the otherwise isolationist President Trump, who is floating the idea of taking it over, clearing it from the rubble of the Israel-Hamas war, and developing it, economically, The Hill reports. 

Trump Hotels for all our lands? 

Certainly, a better US investment than continuing to supply arms to Ukraine.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job – whether we’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out,” Trump said in opening remarks of a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – first foreign leader to visit Trump 47. “Create an economic development that will supply untold numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area, do a real job, do something different.”

Trump said it could become the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Certainly without any Palestinians, who would be exiled to a nearby Arabic state. Not a bad or crazy idea from Netanyahu’s point of view.

“You cut to the chase,” Israel’s prime minister said. “You see things others refuse to see.”

Trump saw that something in a year-old YouTube video interview of his son-in-law and former senior advisor Jared Kushner, from the Middle East Initiative of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Kushner, whose private equity firm at the end of Trump’s first term four years ago received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, said February 15, 2024; “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable to, if people could focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. You think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and all the munitions. If that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?” (Kushner’s YouTube comments were first reported by The Guardian last year.)

Did senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri have buyer’s remorse for spending all that cash on fighting Israel by building tunnels in the Gaza Strip and filling them with munitions? 

“We regret Trump’s statements,” Abu Zuhri said about Trump’s interest in turning the Gaza Strip into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ 

“We consider this a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,” he said (per Newsweek).

•••

FBI v. Retribution – The FBI Agents Association and the Center for Employment Justice filed separate lawsuits in a Washington, D.C. federal court Tuesday, to block Justice Department leadership from compiling lists of agents who investigated the January 6^thattack on the US Capitol plus criminal investigations of Donald J. Trump (per Politico). The suits argue that the DOJ’s lists of FBI agents are part of a retaliation campaign.

For example, the FBI Agents Association’s lawsuit points to calls by Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, after his pardon by President Trump, for the punishment of the agent who investigated his 1/6 involvement, resulting in his prosecution for seditious conspiracy. Once the Justice Department releases the FBI agent’s name, his or her personal information will be available permanently for anyone who wants to avenge Tarrio’s prosecution, the suit contends.

The Center for Employment Justice’s suit cites screenshots of the Justice Department’s three-page survey the center says is intended to identify thousands of FBI agents who worked on politically sensitive cases. 

Meanwhile… In related news, the Senate Tuesday confirmed by 54-46 vote Pam Bondi, an experienced prosecutor who is nevertheless a Trump loyalist, as attorney general, per Roll Call. All Republican senators plus John Fetterman voted for Bondi while all Democrats, except for Pennsylvania’s senior senator, voted against.

Others … Ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is headed for certain confirmation as Trump’s director of national intelligence after the Intelligence Committee forwarded her nomination, 9-8 along party lines. That confirmation is certain, because Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted against Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary said she supports Gabbard, Roll Call reports. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) also was considered a holdout, but has confirmed his support for Gabbard, who came under mostly Democratic pressure for her support of whistleblower Edward Snowden and a 2017 visit to Syria with then-dictator-leader Bashar al-Assad.

Former Rep. Doug Collins (R-VA) was confirmed 77-23 by the Senate as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

By Todd Lassa

Trump tariffs of 25% on our USMCA partners Canada and Mexico were front and center as World’s Richest Man Elon Musk took over the payment system of the United States Treasury and accused the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Monday of not cooperating with requests for information on how it spends taxpayer dollars. The Trump White House – or was it Musk himself? – handed control of USAID to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he was flying from Panama, where the administration wants to retake control of the canal, to El Salvador to negotiate over that country taking back undocumented immigrants to our country.

The Alliance for Retired Americans, whose Social Security and Medicare payments are now visible to DOGE, along with the American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO, and Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, have filed suit against Treasury and its secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop the handover to Musk and his group of 19-24-year-old insurgents.

Meanwhile, the White House has named Musk, who was not elected to anything or been subject to confirmation hearings or security clearances but did contribute a quarter-billion-dollars to the Trump campaign a “special government employee,” status that’s good for 130 days, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

In just the 16 days since Trump’s inauguration, the special government employee has granted Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer who has worked for two of Musk’s companies, direct access to the Treasury Department systems “responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government,” WIRED reports, citing two sources.

After Rubio met with Panamanian officials, he said of USAID; “Everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interests and the foreign policy of the United States.”

The Trump White House seeks to retake the Panama Canal because the president says it’s under Chinese control. (It’s not – China operates two ports at the canal.) While tariffs against Canada and Mexico were put on-hold Monday, presumably so Trump could re-negotiate a USMCA treaty that does more to change the North American Free Trade Agreement signed under President Clinton than rearrange countries’ names so that “US” is first, the 10% tariff on Chinese goods has stuck. China responded with targeted tariffs of 10% on coal, crude oil, farm equipment and some SUVs, Minnesota Public Radio’s Marketplace reports. China also has placed export controls on such vital metals as tungsten and is investigating Google as a monopoly.  

Meanwhile, China’s Belt and Road Initiative is gaining power and influence in much of the African continent, which is where USAID has concentrated much of its non-military assistance since it was established in 1961.

This raises the question of whether Musk, who grew up in Apartheid South Africa, thinks he knows what he is doing, whether his financial interests are guiding his work as DOGE chief and special government employee (Forbes reports that USAID spent $1 million on terminals from his satellite Internet provider Starlink last year) or whether he is misinformed because he is listening to President Trump?

For the last half-year at least, anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats have been warning of a technoligopoly and of the danger to our democracy of a second Trump term. 

The technoligopoly took over in the time between the presidential election and the inauguration. It turns out that since the inauguration, we have not been able to keep our democracy.

_____
TUESDAY 2/4/25

MONDAY 2/3/25

UPDATE -- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday morning she has reached a deal with the Trump administration to delay tariffs against her country, The New York Times reports. The 25% tariff on Canada and the 10% tariff on China are still on, so far.

Son of Smoot-Hawley – Tariffs threatened, tariffs delivered. They will be delivered on Tuesday and it looks like they are not to be dismissed as negotiable. Nor is President Trump about to be talked out of them by the more rational of his aides. 

“This will be the Golden Age of America! Will there be some pain? Yes and maybe (maybe not). But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social (per The Hill) Sunday. “We are a country that is now being run with common sense – and the results will be spectacular!”

Tariff Tuesday will impose a 25% tax on goods from Mexico and Canada, including, for example, auto parts and components that typically cross borders several times before being put together in US-assembled cars and trucks. 

Chinese goods face a 10% tariff Tuesday.

Except… The tariff on sour, heavy crude oil from Canada, refined primarily in the Midwest, will be 10%. Trump certainly doesn’t want to turn off Michigan and Wisconsin’s swing voters who swung for MAGA last November. 

Canadian retribution … Our northern neighbor will impose a 25% tariff Tuesday on US orange juice, peanut butter, wines, spirits, beer, coffee, appliances, apparel, footwear, motorcycles, cosmetics, pulp and paper, Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joy announced Saturday.

“A detailed list of these goods will be made available shortly,” according to the Government of Canada -- as if the above list is lacking in detail.

Mexican retribution … Our southern neighbor will impose tariffs of 5% to 20% on pork, cheese, fresh produce, manufactured steel and aluminum,” The Guardian reports, citing various sources.

Chamber of doom … US Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President and Head of International (his full title) John Murphy said in part in a release: “The President is right to focus on major problems like our broken border and the scourge of fentanyl, but the imposition of tariffs under IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) is unprecedented, won’t solve these problems, and will only raise prices for American families and upend supply chains.”

Bipartisan oppo … In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), a non-resident senior fellow at The American Enterprise Institute, and Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, now a Harvard University professor and president-emeritus, called out what they see as the folly of the Trump tariffs and compared it with the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs of 1930, which most economists then – and now – blame for triggering the Great Depression. 

Gramm and Summers wrote that “tariffs don’t have a predictable effect of reducing trade deficits, and trade deficits aren’t necessarily an adverse economic development. Indeed, trade deficits often arise as foreign investors choose the US as a preferred destination for their capital.”

DOGE grabs purse strings … While everyone’s attention was focused on the impending tariffs, Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent late Friday handed over full access of the federal payment system to lieutenants of the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief/SpaceX/Tesla CEO/X-Twitter-owner and World’s Richest Man Elon Musk. This hands Musk and DOGE a “powerful tool” to monitor and potentially limit government, according to The New York Times.

Before Bessent handed Treasury’s combination code to Musk, top Treasury official and career civil servant David Lebryk had resisted handing access over to DOGE. Lebryk was put on leave, and then suddenly retired last Friday, sources told the NYT.

So, yes, this does appear to be a significant maneuver by the Trump White House in trying to fulfill its quest of replacing non-partisan career civil servants with acolytes of the president. 

But wait, there’s more … If nothing else, the Trump White House earns kudos for its efficiency in making its grab for maximum power with minimum checks and balances. Also on Friday evening, the new administration forced out “dozens” of FBI officials, including chiefs of several field offices as well as agents who worked on the investigations of Trump’s federal criminal cases, according to The Hill, which reported earlier Friday that five executive assistant FBI directors were told they were being demoted. 

“It is deeply alarming that the Trump administration appears to be purging the most experienced agents who are our nation’s first line of defense,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 2/3/25

Bipartisan Pushback – Physician and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) joined Democrats in heavy grilling over anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (pictured) on the second day of confirmation hearings for President Trump's nominee for HHS secretary (NYT). Cassidy, who could provide a crucial fourth Republican vote against RFK Jr.'s nomination, did not indicate how he would vote. Senate hearings also were held for controversial nominees Tulsi Gabbard, for director of National Intelligence and Kash Patel, for FBI director.

FRIDAY 1/31/25

President’s Favorite Word – On Saturday we could find out just how beautiful President Trump’s favorite word, tariff, is. That’s when the White House will, or maybe will not, impose tariffs of 25% on goods crossing the border from Canada and Mexico (per NPR’s Morning Edition). 

These tariffs may very well turn out to be yet another The Art of the Deal-style negotiating tactic Trump is using to call out what he says is unfair trade, as well as illegal drugs and immigrants crossing the border, even after his first administration negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from the 1990s. 

That's what US businesses are hoping. Describing negotiations as a “fluid” situation, Trump aides are working on “several offramps” to avoid enacting such tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing unnamed sources.

If the tariffs are triggered, they will raise prices on everything from guacamole to gasoline, NPR notes. Automobiles, even if built in US plants have parts and components that come from Mexico and Canada, and typically cross the borders several times before final assembly, also will be hard-hit. Speaking to Wall Street analysts Tuesday for General Motors’ fourth-quarter and full year earnings report, CEO Mary Barra said that plant flexibility allows the automaker to shift production of its highly profitable full-size trucks between Mexican, Canadian and US plants.

“What we won’t do is spend large amounts of capital without clarity,” Barra told analysts. 

If nothing else, we should get some clarity on tariffs this weekend.

--TL

__________________________________________

THURSDAY 1/30/25

Trump Blames DEI for Crash – Less than 15 hours after an American Airlines flight carrying 64 passengers and crew from Wichita, Kansas, collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River as it approached Reagan National Airport, President Trump was ready to call out cause of the tragic accident. 

“We don’t know what caused this crash, but we have some pretty strong opinions,” he told reporters in his first appearance in the White House briefing room since his return to office.

“I changed the Obama standards from mediocre at best, to extraordinary,” during his first administration, Trump said, referring to standards for hiring air traffic controllers. After Trump left office in 2021, “Biden changed them back to lower than before.” But among Trump’s myriad executive orders since returning to the White House last week was an EO that would once again raise those standards, he said.

How?

Trump was referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs for all federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration “eliminated” by one of his first EOs. Such DEI policies, Trump suggested, allowed the FAA to hire air traffic controllers with hearing, vision and even psychological disabilities. 

New administrator … Meanwhile, Trump has named Chris Rocheleau as interim FAA administrator, according to The Wall Street Journal, filling a vacancy opened when Mike Whitaker, who had served in the position for less than a year, stepped down just prior to Trump’s inauguration.

History lesson … The FAA has dealt with air traffic control staffing issues for over 43 years. Barely half a year into his first term, the president for whom Reagan National Airport is named fired air traffic controllers en masse over a dispute with their labor union. Prior to the dispute, air traffic controllers in the US were hired in staggered years. But with the need to hire replacements for 11,345 striking Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization members all at once in August 1981 came the end of the staggered retirements. 

•••

More Hearings – Two more Trump White House nominees, like RFK Jr., face perhaps the toughest Senate hearings since Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Defense secretary last week. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is nominated to become President Trump’s National Intelligence director, so she appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, while Kash Patel, nominee to become FBI director, answers to the Judiciary Committee.

•••

Chaos is Working – The Trump White House’s executive order that would have clawed back up to $2 trillion in funding for programs the administration does not like, since rescinded following a federal judge’s temporary suspension issued Tuesday, has set Washington back on its heels. But the Democratic Party appears to be on top of Trump’s unconstitutional executive order, despite all the ensuing chaos. 

“It’s called impoundment, and it is illegal,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition Thursday. The president cannot single out certain allocations passed by Congress, though it has been tried in the past, she said. But instead of fighting it in court, the Trump administration is trying to stoke confusion.

“His administration has made it clear they don’t think the (impoundment) law should be there,” Murray said. “So instead of fighting it in court, what they’re doing is saying ‘we’re just going to – we don’t believe it’s a good law, so we’re not going to do it.’”

•••

Menendez Gets 11 Years – Bob Menendez, Democratic senator for New Jersey from 2006 to 2024, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his conviction last year on bribery, fraud and illegal foreign-agent charges, The Wall Street Journal reports. The 71-year-old career politician told a packed New York federal courtroom Wednesday; “I have made more than my share of mistakes and bad decisions, but I believe in my half-century of public service I have done far more good than bad.” --TL

_______________________________________________

WEDNESDAY 1/29/25

UPDATE – President Trump has reversed his controversial order that froze federal funding assistance for programs already approved by Congress in a memo released Wednesday, signed by acting Office of Management and Budget Director Matthew Vaeth. The reversal came after behind-the-scenes pushback from congressional Republicans, according to The Hill. (Scroll down to "Frozen funds.")

Trump Offers Federal Employees Buyouts – The Trump White House offered a buyout for nearly all federal employees, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The art of this deal is that career bureaucrats will get paid through September if they resign now. President Trump is looking to replace non-partisan federal bureaucrats, many with years to decades of experience, with workers who agree with his vision for the country. 

Frozen funds … The buyout offer comes hours after Judge Loren AliKhan, a Washington-based federal judge appointed by President Biden, issued an emergency administrative stay to block President Trump’s temporary freeze of about $3 trillion worth of federal funds, grants and loan disbursements that was to take effect at 5 pm Eastern time Tuesday. The judge’s order blocks the freeze until Monday, February 3. The Democracy Fund had filed a lawsuit to stop the executive order.

As with the federal buyouts, the president appears to lack the authority for such moves.

Trump’s federal funding freeze was aimed specifically at DEI programs, “woke gender identity” and the Green New Deal according to The New York Times, though opponents feared it would block state health agencies from Medicaid reimbursement. State officials believed pre-school community health centers, food for low-income families, housing assistance and disaster relief were at-risk, according to the report.

Just prior to Judge AliKhan’s ruling, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller appeared on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper and said the order would not affect any government services, entitlements or individual benefits, but was directed at left-wing chiefs of non-governmental agencies (NGOs) who were funneling such funds into immigration and “child trafficking.” 

“Either Donald Trump gets political control over this government and ends waste, abuse and fraud on the American people,” Miller told Tapper, “or, we let bureaucrats autopilot federal spending.”

What does this mean? … Every Republican and Democrat knew going into last November’s presidential election that a second Trump term would mean 1.) A better-organized White House full of cabinet secretaries and aids happy to carry out whatever policies Trump thought reasonable; and 2.) Far greater presidential authority at the expense of the legislative and judiciary branches. 

All anyone can remember from the weeks after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 is his “Muslim ban” of travel into the US by certain foreign nationals. 

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire writes that the strategy for a flurry of Trump EOs was determined at an early January gathering at Mar-a-Lago, where incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles suggested staggering the orders out over the first few weeks in office. 

A unanimous source who had attended the meeting said Trump responded: “No. I want to sign as many as possible as soon as we show up. Day One.”

Trump was a very green political novice when he became president eight years ago, but he learned a lot about the way the federal government runs from his first administration’s seasoned Washington aides, advisors and cabinet secretaries – the ones who were to keep Trump’s authoritarian tendencies in-check. 

Last year, he won his non-consecutive re-election by promising to blow up the federal government, and now with a flailing, leaderless Democratic Party warning of a constitutional crisis, Trump prevails. His political victory is certain even if just a couple of these executive orders survive federal courts.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 1/29/25