Thursday, February 13, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He forced the resignation of six federal prosecutors over his attempt to strike a corrupt bargain with indicted NYC Mayor Eric Adams.

Eric Adams, a Democrat and mayor of New York City, had been under investigation by the Biden administration for bribery. This culminated in federal grand jury indictments in September. Publicly reported details were lurid, with Adams's staffers joking with Turkish officials about how best to conceal the bribery by charging token amounts for airline tickets costing $15,000, or how Adams's name could be kept off of luxury hotel reservations.

After the election, Adams began publicly courting Trump for a pardon. He ordered staff not to publicly criticize Trump, and to cooperate with ICE raids even when they interfered with city business. 

Earlier this week, in a virtually unprecedented departure from normal practice, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to dismiss the charges against Adams. The reason given was that the Adams was the victim of political persecution by the (Democratic) Biden administration, and that he is a candidate for office. (Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign that it was improper for him to have to be put on trial for the same reasons.) Bove's order also forbade federal prosecutors from conducting any investigation into Adams going forward—in essence, declaring him off-limits for any federal law enforcement.

Bove's order also claimed that prosecuting Adams would prevent him from implementing Trump's immigration agenda at the local level—which, the New York Times is now reporting, is an argument that Bove's team coached Adams's lawyers to make.

Bove was one of Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyers in the New York trial last year that saw Trump convicted of 34 felonies. Alex Spiro, who represents Adams, is also Trump patron Elon Musk's lawyer.

In a letter dated yesterday, Acting United States Attorney Danielle Sassoon refused to drop the charges, and offered to resign if Bove was unwilling to retract the order. Bove fired her today and threatened to investigate her instead. (Sassoon was made AUSA only days ago and was not part of the Adams investigaiton.)

Sassoon is a Trump appointee, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, and a former clerk for arch-conservative former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Like other people in acting roles, she was hand-picked by the Trump transition team precisely because of her political loyalties.

Five other prosecutors involved in the Adams case announced their resignations in quick succession today. 

Sassoon's letter says in unambiguous language that she witnessed an explicit quid pro quo between Bove and Adams's defense team, in which Adams would support Trump's immigration policies in exchange for the dismissal of charges. She also notes that Bove yelled at a DOJ lawyer who was taking notes on the procedure.


According to NBC News, a seventh official was prepared to resign, but had not made it official as they were currently giving birth.

One of the precipitating events of Richard Nixon's resignation was the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre," in which his attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned rather than follow Nixon's illegal order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him. The reaction to this purge was so negative that Robert Bork, the official who did eventually carry out Nixon's order, failed to win Senate confirmation when he was nominated for a Supreme Court seat in part because he lost Republican votes due to his involvement.

Why does this matter?

  • There's corruption, and then there's corruption so obvious that even hand-picked loyalists will destroy their careers rather than participate in.
  • Politicians who commit crimes should be prosecuted for those crimes, not blackmailed into using their office to do what prosecutors want.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He "brought charges" against New York and various Democratic state officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today that the Trump Administration was "bringing charges" against the state of New York, its governor Kathy Hochul, its attorney general Letitia James, and Mark Schroeder, the commissioner of the state Department of Motor Vehicles. At issue is a state law that restricts federal access to DMV databases without a warrant.

Bondi's very public announcement was calculated to make it seem as though she was bringing criminal charges against the state officials: she mentioned "prosecutions" several times. But in fact, she is simply filing a lawsuit, and against a law that has been upheld by federal courts in the past. The first Trump administration threatened the state over the same law in 2020, briefly barring citizens of New York from federal "trusted traveler programs" like TSA Pre-Check, before backing down.

State governments cannot be compelled to enforce federal law. Likewise, under the Tenth Amendment, states retain sovereignty over matters not explicitly delegated to the federal government. 

Bondi's flashy announcement reflects the political motives at work. She was Trump's personal defense lawyer and impeachment counsel before becoming Attorney General—and so are the next two highest-ranking DOJ officials. When she was Florida's attorney general, she dropped the state from a lawsuit against Trump's fake university after receiving an illegal $25,000 campaign donation from his equally fake "charity." (The Trump Foundation was shut down by legal action, but while it operated as a non-profit, it was illegal for it to give to political candidates.) 

Letitia James brought a successful civil suit against Trump's business empire, winning $355 million in fines after proving that it had engaged in massive business fraud and tax fraud at Trump's instruction. James's office also aided in the successful criminal prosecution of the Trump Organization and several of its officers.

Gov. Hochul released a statement on the matter this afternoon:

Earlier today, Attorney General Pam Bondi marched in front of the television cameras for a dramatic media briefing to announce she was filing charges against New York State related to our immigration laws. Hours later, when legal papers were shared with reporters, we learned this was smoke and mirrors: the Department of Justice was filing a routine civil action about a law passed in 2019 that has been upheld by the courts time and again.

Here are the facts: our current laws allow federal immigration officials to access any DMV database with a judicial warrant. That's a common-sense approach that most New Yorkers support. But there's no way I'm letting federal agents, or Elon Musk's shadowy DOGE operation, get unfettered access to the personal data of any New Yorker in the DMV system like 16-year-old kids learning to drive and other vulnerable people.

New York is proud that immigrants from across the globe come here searching for a better life — people like my grandparents who left Ireland looking for the American dream. We welcome law-abiding individuals who want to work, pay taxes and contribute to our communities, while at the same time protecting the public safety of all New Yorkers by cracking down on violent criminals.

We expect Pam Bondi's worthless, publicity-driven lawsuit to be a total failure, just like all the others. Let me be clear: New York is not backing down. 

 

Why does this matter?

  • Immigration policy should be about what's best for the country, not getting personal revenge.
  • DOJ officials who do the President's personal bidding are not working on behalf of the American people.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to punish people who said things he didn't like.

The Associated Press, one of the oldest and largest news agencies in the country, was banned from an Oval Office event this afternoon because they referred to the body of water bordered by the land mass stretching from the Yucatán Peninsula to Florida as the Gulf of Mexico. This is the name it has been known by since the mid-1500s. Trump recently declared that he wanted it to be called the "Gulf of America," and has strong-armed some tech companies into using that name on internet maps within the United States.

The AP released a brief statement on the matter:

As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.

Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.

It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment. 

 
He also fired the Inspector General of the United States Agency for International Development, a day after he released a report identifying dangerous and counterproductive consequences to Trump's attempts to cripple the agency. USAID, which Trump is trying to unilaterally shut down in defiance of law and court orders, is one of the most effective means of exercising "soft power" in parts of the world where the United States has little commercial or military presence. 

Martin's report noted that the chaos unleashed by Trump's actions were directly benefiting anti-American terror groups and endangering American aid workers on the ground. He also pointed out that the unprecedented freeze means that some $500 million in food aid that would already have been delivered is about to spoil.

The sabotage of USAID also benefits China and Russia by creating an opportunity for them to replace the United States as a trustworthy source of aid during humanitarian disasters—and because, on occasion, USAID missions have allowed for crucial intelligence gathering that could not have been done any other way. Protecting that extremely sensitive information is why USAID officials resisted efforts to turn over their classified files to "DOGE" employees, some of whom are obvious security risks themselves.

Trump had previously fired about twenty other Inspectors General, in violation of a law requiring notice and cause. Some of these firings appear to have been done in order to disable any internal objections to his plans in advance. Others, like the firing of USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong, were retaliation for her investigation of Trump patron Elon Musk's company Neuralink. That company saw mass deaths of monkeys it used as its test subjects, often in gruesome fashion, that were brought to light by the USDA and other agencies. (Neuralink claims its products are safe for testing in humans.)

Why does this matter?

  • If you cannot stand to be contradicted in any way, you're too emotionally unstable to be president.
  • Governments composed entirely of people who can't or won't tell the leader "no" can't govern.

Monday, February 10, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said, via a surrogate, that he wants Americans to feel they can't afford to buy the things they want.

In an interview this morning on CNBC, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said that Trump's plan to fight inflation was to "increase supply [of labor] and reduce aggregate demand."

There are a few things to note here. First, Trump is beginning his term having inherited very low inflation, in spite of his campaign claims that inflation was out of control. His trade policies are inflationary—Americans will spend more money for foreign goods once Trump's taxes are added in to the price—but for the moment there isn't really very much excess inflation to fight.

Hassett said that Trump's plan to "increase the supply of labor" would come by slashing the payroll taxes that pay for Social Security. This would save money for employers and theoretically encourage them to hire more workers—although they could also simply take it as profit. Trump has claimed, falsely, that Social Security is insolvent—but shutting down the money it takes in from existing workers really would mean that it would go bust in the near term. 

"Reducing aggregate demand" for goods and services is even harder to sugar-coat. Virtually by definition, that means deliberately causing a recession. This really would lower inflation—prices come down when fewer people can afford what they need. 

Large companies tend to do relatively well during recessions, as they have the resources to weather it, and to buy up smaller competitors who can't. The same is true for wealthy individuals. But for the vast majority of Americans, "reducing aggregate demand" would mean trading a situation where they can buy the goods and services they want at 3% inflation for one where they didn't have the money they needed at 2% inflation.

Hassett did not elaborate on why Trump thought businesses would increase hiring while demand for their goods dropped.

Why does this matter?

  • "Let's intentionally cause a recession" is a Bond villain plan, not what a president should be saying.
  • The government should focus on fixing problems that exist rather than ones that don't.

Sunday, February 9, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He gave an interview, which—according to him—should be grounds for someone to file a $20 billion lawsuit.

Trump gave an interview with Fox News today, which aired ahead of the Super Bowl. It was pre-taped, and—as is common practice, and virtually mandatory to fit into broadcast schedules—was subtly but clearly edited before it aired.

Kamala Harris sat for an interview with the CBS news program 60 Minutes in October. CBS edited that interview too, as it always does for clarity, to fit segments in between commercial breaks, and to avoid wasting time airing its subjects drinking water or clearing their throats.

Trump is suing the parent company of CBS for $20 billion dollars because, he claims, it is "unfair" for a news organization to do such editing. It's not clear why Trump believes he was damaged or is entitled to money. He's also forced the Federal Communications Commission—which reports to him as president—to investigate.

Trump has a long, long history of filing lawsuits he knows have no merit in order to punish enemies who can't afford the cost of a trial, or to force the other party to endure years of delay before the case is finally resolved in their favor. In this case, the real motive appears to be to force CBS to cover him more favorably, because he will ultimately decide whether its owners can merge with another media company.

Fox News (which is not suspected of deceptively editing Trump) has not released the unedited footage, nor has Trump's FCC begun an investigation.

Other things that happened in the interview:

  • Trump predicted that the Kansas City Chiefs would win, on the strength of "the quarterback" whose name he could not appear to recall. Patrick Mahomes is an outstanding quarterback, but Kansas City was blown out by the Philadelphia Eagles, 40-22. (Earlier this week, Trump remembered Mahomes' name, but told an odd rambling story about how now-Sen. Tommy Tuberville said that Mahomes had made him into a great coach when they were at Texas Tech. As Mahomes confirmed, he and Tuberville have never met, much less been part of the same team.)
  • He declared today "Gulf of America" Day, the name he thinks people should call the body of water that has been known as the Gulf of Mexico since 1550.

Why does this matter?

  • It's bad to file frivolous lawsuits, and it's worse if Donald Trump really believes he needs 248.100 times the average American household income in emotional support money because someone interviewed a different presidential candidate.
  • It's okay if a president isn't a big football fan or picks the wrong team to win, but it's less okay if he can't tell when he's getting confused about the basic facts or his memories.
  • In a democracy, nobody is above the law and court rulings aren't optional.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got told by South Africa's "oppressed" "refugee" white minority that they were neither oppressed nor refugees.

Although apartheid rule ended thirty years ago, there are still massive racial imbalances in South African society. White South Africans make up about 7% of the population, but they own 70% of the nation's farmland, virtually all of which was stripped from Black landowners under apartheid. Recently, the government passed reform laws aimed at making sure that arable land was actually being used, and at redressing historical land seizures from Black citizens. Much like the eminent domain clause in the United States constitution, the new law defines a legal process through which the state can claim privately owned land in exchange for "just and equitable" compensation.

Trump, who has rarely shown any interest in South Africa, has suddenly become outspoken on their land reform debate. He signed an executive order yesterday barring foreign aid to South Africa, forbade his own Secretary of State from attending the G20 summit being held in Johannesburg, and offered to resettle the white Afrikaners displaced by the law in the United States.

(This may be the first and only time Trump has ever spoken positively of immigration from Africa, which he has previously referred to as "shithole countries.")

But as representatives of pro-Afrikaner advocacy groups pointed out today, there aren't any such displaced white landholders, and they don't want Trump's help—or to be cast as a downtrodden, helpless group when in fact they exercise enormous influence in South African politics.

There have been conspiracy theories and false reports of a genocide against white South Africans, and Trump has been fooled by them in the past. But more recently, he seems to be acting at the direction of his patron Elon Musk, whose family fortune dates back to the apartheid regime.

Trump, who has resumed his previous practice of taking long weekends at his golf resorts in Florida, did not comment on the matter today.

Why does this matter?

  • American foreign policy should serve American interests, not settle political scores for wealthy individuals.
  • It's embarrassing if both sides of a debate in another country's have to tell an American president he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Friday, February 7, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He purged the board of the Kennedy Center and appointed himself personally in charge of it.

Today, Trump posted to his private blogging site that he was appointing himself chair of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Arts, a performing arts center established by Congress in 1958 and operated as a public-private partnership. It is funded almost entirely by private ticket sales and donations.




It's not clear what, if anything, Trump meant by his reference to drag shows. Trump himself performed in a "drag show" when he appeared with then-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani in a sketch that aired during the 2000 Inner Circle Press Dinner. In that clip, Trump attempted to kiss "Rudia" and bury his face in her (fake) breasts.




Trump also recently announced that the 2026 National Endowment for the Arts grants would be restricted to art celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Why does this matter?

  • The President of the United States probably ought to have more important things to do than pick and choose an arts center's seasonal lineup.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He bragged about wasting billions of gallons of water hundreds of miles from any fire in California.

Trump attended the National Prayer breakfast today. Wandering away from his prepared remarks, he said this about the recent fires in the Los Angeles era: 

The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn't that easy to do. But I opened it up and it's pouring down and it's, it's a beautiful thing, and uh it shoulda happened, I told them to do— it in my last term, they didn't do it, but now we just did it, they didn't want to do it but we did it.

Earlier this month, Trump rattled off a series of inflammatory lies about how California officials were refusing to release water from elsewhere in the state to fight them. After taking office, Trump continued to insist that "pumps and valves" existed that could have brought water from northern California straight into the mountains around Los Angeles for firefighting. 

To prove the point, Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to open the spillways on reservoirs in the Sierra Nevadas. This released enormous amounts water into local rivers—meaning that it was unavailable for use by farmers, and more importantly, won't be there during the dry season when it's most needed. (Local farmers, who were an island of strong support for Trump in heavily Democratic California, were dismayed and frustrated.)

The water lost was also unavailable for firefighting. There are several mountain ranges between the Central Valley, where the water was lost, and Los Angeles. It did, however, threaten to cause floods and erode levees.

All told, 2.2 billion gallons were pumped out and, for the most part, lost into the water table. Southern California is in the midst of a severe drought.

Water from the "northwest parts of Canada"—or the northwest parts of the United States, for that matter—has even less to do with southern California, and in spite of Trump's claims today, his emptying of reservoirs didn't involve water from those places at all. As quite a few people noted online today, Trump's Canada water theory only makes sense if he assumes that water naturally flows "downhill" from north to south.

Why does this matter?

  • We shouldn't have to wonder whether the president understands geography as well as a third-grader.
  • Wasting billions of gallons during a drought to score political points is stupid.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made sure there was a check on Elon Musk's power—Elon Musk.

Press Secretary Karolina Leavitt was asked today how Trump would ensure that Elon Musk, who has been given an essentially unlimited portfolio of presidential power, would be kept from potential conflicts of interest. Musk owns several businesses which could not exist without massive government contracts (like SpaceX) or subsidies (like Tesla), and now has direct and personal control over the payment apparatus of the United States government. This also gives him access to proprietary information about his competitors.

Leavitt's answer was simple: Musk would be in charge of making sure that Musk recused himself from potential conflicts.

"Conflict of interest" has been a dead letter in the Trump White House since his first term. Trump refused to divest himself of any of his businesses, wrote tax laws to benefit himself personally, appointed a vast array of his relatives to government positions, made millions from charging his own Secret Service detail the maximum room rate at hotels he owned, hawked Trump-branded merchandise from the White House, and even tried to force the G-7 summit to happen at one of his golf courses. But even by those standards, today's admission about Musk was startling.

Trump's increasing deference to Musk comes as Musk himself is becoming a toxic political liability, unifying Trump's political enemies and deeply worrying his allies. Musk's own approval ratings have plummeted with both Democratic and Republican voters over the last few days. The ratings-obsessed Trump is normally exquisitely sensitive to that kind of thing, and has fired subordinates for less—at least, when he felt he was able to.

Why does this matter?

  • The richest and—arguably—most powerful person in the world shouldn't be allowed to use the United States government to make himself richer and more powerful.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He escalated his ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza into a U.S. invasion plan.

Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today. At a press conference following the meeting, Trump announced that he wanted the United States to "take over" and "own" Gaza, with American military forces if necessary. 

Gaza is a densely populated Palestinian territory roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C.  Trump also repeated his previous demand that Palestinians abandon the territory entirely. This would be ethnic cleansing

Pressed for an explanation, Trump insisted that the United States could not only occupy and rebuild the territory, which has been effectively demolished by the Israeli army, but that it could become "the Riviera of the Middle East"—but, he emphasized, one without any Palestinians living in it.

TRUMP: I don't want to be a wise guy, but the—Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so bad, this could be so magnificent, but more importantly than that is the people that have been— Absolutely destroyed, that live there now can live in peace in a much better, uh, situation because they're living in hell and those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class. It will be wonderful for the people. Palestinians, Palestinians, mostly we're talking about, and I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that— The general president, but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done. 


Jordan and Egypt, along with virtually every other Middle Eastern country, have already rejected Trump's forced resettlement plan. 

Asked if American military forces would be involved—and it is hard to imagine a scenario in which the United States would occupy some of the most bitterly contested territory on the planet without a massive military presence—Trump said, "If it's necessary, we'll do that."

At times in his remarks, Trump seemed to think that the United States would simply take ownership of Gaza outright, or that this was being offered by Israel. (It is not.) 

Trump claimed during the press conference that "this was not a decision made lightly" and that "everybody [he'd] spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land." But it's not clear that he'd discussed this with anyone—even Netanyahu, who appeared surprised and amused. The rollout for major shifts in policy like this are always coordinated, but no military or State Department officials were made available for comment, and no government website including the White House site had any information about the proposed occupation or invasion of Gaza.

One possible voice in Trump's ear was his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who like Trump is the heir to a real estate fortune. Kushner proposed last March that Gaza should be effectively razed for its valuable "waterfront property." Kushner, who is the grandson of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust and then fled Belarus, said that if he were in charge, he would "do my best to move the people out and then clean it up." 2.1 million people live in Gaza, including 1 million children under the age of 18.

The entire press conference can be seen here.

Why does this matter?

  • Ethnic cleansing is abhorrent and a crime against humanity.
  • A U.S. military invasion of the Middle East would be a catastrophically bad idea, even if it weren't for the purpose of building up "waterfront property."

Monday, February 3, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He appointed an out-and-proud racist to a top State Department position.

Darren Beattie was a speechwriter during Trump's first term, but was fired in 2018, when it came to light that he'd attended a white nationalist conference in 2016.

Since then, Beattie has leaned hard into white supremacist ideas. A few months ago, for example, he tweeted that "competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work," as explicitly opposed to women or non-whites.

Beattie's loathing of women and minorities appears to be genuine, and not just ideological trolling, as he's targeted them even when they are conservative Republicans. In 2021, he tweeted that Republican Sen. Tim Scott, a Black man, "needs to learn his place" and "take a knee to MAGA." He used the exact same language in a tweet about Kay Coles James, a Black woman who was the president of the Heritage Foundation, an ultra-conservative think tank.

Today, he was promoted into a senior leadership position at the State Department, as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy. In this role, he will be tasked with "strengthening the relationship between the people and Government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world," some of whom are neither white nor male. 

The White House is not responding to requests for comment on Beattie's hiring. It's not clear precisely how he rehabilitated himself in Trump's eyes, but one factor might be that his first job after being fired was as a speechwriter for then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, the now-disgraced figure who talked Trump into nominating him as Attorney General. He's also aligned himself with Trump by praising the Putin regime in Russia and saying that it was less of a threat to the United States than NATO.

Why does this matter?

  • Staffers who were fireable as racist embarrassments in a president's first term shouldn't be top-level picks for the second.
  • Government officials demanding that women and minorities "learn their place" isn't something most Americans want to go back to.
  • There are enough white supremacist trolls in the executive branch already.

Sunday, February 2, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He and a 19-year-old nicknamed "bigballs" started illegally dismantling government agencies and punishing post-Apartheid South Africa.

Mega-billionaire and South African immigrant Elon Musk runs the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency," which—at least in theory—reports to Trump. Over the weekend, Musk's agents have been seizing control of key government systems related to employment and payments. The people involved have, for the most part, refused to identify themselves to the public. Today, Wired reported out the names of at six of them, all men ranging in age from 19 to 24. They are Akash Bobba,  Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, Ethan Shaotran, and Edward Coristine—a 19-year-old intern at Musk's troubled brain-research company Neuralink, also known by his chosen internet nickname of "bigballs."

Musk has been trying to draw attention to himself all day by unilaterally shutting off contracted government payments to various organizations and agencies without explanation. Not only does Trump (and therefore Musk, or any of his anonymous "DOGE" volunteers) have no authority to cancel payments for debts authorized by Congress, but they are under a court order to not illegally freeze funds while his earlier attempts are litigated. 

Musk's targets today have included a suite of Lutheran social relief organizations, contracted by the United States government to provide services for Americans and refugees in disaster areas abroad. Musk called this "illegal" and quoted Trump's disgraced former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, questioning whether Lutheranism was even a real religion or just a "money-laundering" operation. (Roughly 3 million Americans are Lutherans.)

Musk also said that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency established by Congress in 1961, a "criminal organization" and that it was "time for it to die." People claiming to be acting on Musk's authority tried and eventually succeeded in gaining access to USAID's files today. This included highly classified information that, if released, could endanger American aid workers abroad or the populations they serve.

Neither Trump nor Musk has any legal authority to disband or disable independent government agencies. 

There was one other major development in government funding tonight: an announcement posted under Trump's name to his private social media site. It claimed that Trump would be freezing all foreign aid to South Africa because it was "treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY." 


Thirty-one years after the end of whites-only apartheid rule, there is still racial tension in South Africa. That is aggravating a land-redistribution plan, as white farmers who have retained their land since decolonialization worry about losing economic leverage. It is not a subject that Trump appears to have ever addressed before—but it is a fixation of South African-born Elon Musk, whose inherited wealth comes from his father's various apartheid-era business ventures.

Why does this matter?

  • Anonymous teenagers with no unusual technical skills should not be given the power to make the United States of America default on its debts.
  • It's not clear that Trump is willing or able to act independently of Musk.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He let Elon Musk run wild with the basic levers of government.

Trump's mega-billionaire patron, Elon Musk, has spent much of the last two days dramatically expanding the extent of his personal control over the mechanisms of government. This morning, with attention focused on the National Transportation Safety Board as it undertakes two major air accident investigations, it suddenly announced that it would be communicating with the public exclusively through Twitter (officialy known as "X"). 


Musk owns Twitter and has struggled with a mass exodus of users after he slashed its staff down to a fraction of its previous size. The decimation of the technical staff led to the site simply breaking, while Musk's decision to abandon most forms of content moderation has forced advertisers to abandon the platform in droves for fear of their products appearing next to—among other things—white supremacist or child sexual abuse material content. (Musk is suing his former advertisers on the theory that, in effect, businesses are not allowed to choose to withhold advertising dollars from him.)

Making Twitter an official state media organ of the United States would, at least in the short term, help keep media outlets from abandoning it as well. But it would also allow Musk or Trump administration officials to effectively prevent individual reporters from receiving "public" information by banning them from the platform. Musk routinely punishes people who hurt his feelings by suspending or banning their Twitter accounts.

Musk has installed people who are apparently meant to be part of his so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" in many government agencies to carry out these kinds of instructions. Over the past few days, they succeeded in gaining access to the basic payment system of the United States Treasury. This gives Musk and anyone he has brought with him access to extremely sensitive information on everything from individual taxpayers' employment histories and Social Security data, to the details of government contracts with companies he is in competition with. 

It also gives him the ability to unilaterally make the United States government default on its payment obligations. Virtually all of Musk's wealth originates from government contracts with companies he has bought, or taxpayer subsidies for the products he sells.

In a post to Twitter yesterday, Musk claimed that he would start freezing payments—he didn't say for what—and called people critical of his seizure of the Treasury system "grifters" and "terrorists."

There is no public information about who is carrying out these "DOGE" operations, except that they are not real government employees. Some of them are apparently SpaceX employees, while others may be people who responded to an open call that Musk posted on Twitter for unpaid volunteers with a grudge against government workers. 

There is also no evidence that the people involved have been given security clearances, or have passed even routine background checks, or are even necessarily American citizens. Musk himself is ineligible for a security clearance: he abuses the drug ketamine and is dependent on foreign governments, in particular China's, to prop up his enormous wealth.

Trump, for his part, has made no recent statements about Musk's actions at all. It's not clear if he is personally aware of what Musk is doing, or understands what it means.

Why does this matter?

  • Unelected billionaires who aren't even real government employees shouldn't have this much power over the people of the United States.
  • It's bad if a president doesn't know, doesn't care, or can't do anything about what people are doing in his name.