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In a freakish snapshot of the GOP's descent into brutal, gonzo nihilism, this week saw the brash Nazi-Oligarch-in-Chief helming an Oval Office presser to hype his political, economic, cultural demolition of democracy "in compliance with the President’s executive orders" - no more health care or feeding hungry kids, lots of Kid Rock - as his four-year-old son wiped boogers on the Resolute desk where an impassive, discomfited Trump sat in the "most powerless image of a President ever." Nothing to see here.
In a record three weeks - it took Hitler 53 days - the Musk/Trump regime has created, mostly illegally, a Stasi-like state in the name of "right-sizing the Federal inventory," which in their wee twisted minds means slashing almost every government agency to eliminate, according to their Orwellian mantra, "fraud, waste and abuse" Offering no evidence, and with his usual depth and nuance, Trump says they've already eliminated "billions and billions of dollars" that didn't need to be spent, coincidentally, invariably on behalf of helping vulnerable, marginalized, hungry or sick people. "The whole country looks like it's a fraud. It's fraud, waste and abuse," he exclaimed. "What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable." Unbelievably brazenly, he has now called on the heads of all federal agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" with the lofty goal of him and his rich buddies getting ever more ginormous tax cuts.
Meanwhile, countless innocents are being swept up in the Stalin-esque purges. They range from U.S. civil servants losing their jobs for doing their jobs to law-abiding, newly arrived Venezuelans disappeared to Guantanamo as "high-threat illegal aliens" for Michael Jordan tattoos to millions worldwide, Burma to Ukraine to South Africa, losing vital support from the shuttering of USAID, including over 280 million hungry people in 59 countries. Already thousands of aid workers have lost their jobs; over 475,000 metric tons of U.S.-grown food, enough to feed 36 million people, is at risk of going bad; Uganda has ended Ebola screenings; multiple African countries have closed HIV/AIDS clinics, hospitals in war-torn Syria have shut down; millions of Sudanese refugees are at risk of cholera and malaria; hundreds of millions of girls who lost access to schooling may become victims of trafficking. Says one expert, “People will starve, babies will die, poverty will skyrocket."
At home, where Trump vowed he'd bring down prices "on Day One" and protect basic safety net programs, prices are soaring and the House GOP is poised to decimate those programs. On Thursday they discussed a plan to cut $880 from Medicaid and $230 billion from food stamps over 10 years - cuts MAGA Mike expects to pass "unanimously," even though over 80% of voters oppose them, 20 million people could lose their health insurance, and it still wouldn't make a dent in the $4.5 trillion tax cuts they want for fat cats. Meanwhile, Musk just burrowed into New York City accounts to steal $80 million - or per Kristi Noem, "clawed back" the funds from "deep state activists" - allocated for sheltering migrant families in budget hotels the richest man in the world called "luxury." Then he fired four employees who tried to stop him. "If we're going after fraud and abuse," noted one Dem, "maybe go after abuse of power by the two billionaire freaks currently looting the government."
The day before, those freaks put in a "jarring," take-my-presidency appearance in the Oval Office, ostensibly for Trump to sign (another!) executive order to continue the looting and expand the power of Musk's DOGE, never mind the flood of lawsuits and court orders they face for slashing cancer research, kids' education, food for poor people and your Social Security in a flagrantly illegal power grab. In a bizarre spectacle, Trump hunched behind the Resolute desk, mostly silent, hands folded, eyes vague, randomly nodding - and often impotently babysitting Musk's fidgety four-year-old son X while ignoring X's whispered entreaty he had to pee and scowling as he picked his nose and wiped what he found on the sacred desk - as the Nazi native son of South Africa and richest guy in the room stood tall in his heedless black t-shirt and cap and offered up to the gaggle of press a murky load of chutzpah and bullshit to elucidate how American democracy works, or doesn't.
After making broad claims of fraud with no evidence, he babbled about the dangers of a political system run by "unelected bureaucrats," evidently, spectacularly unaware he, too, is unelected. Decisions should be made by "elected representatives, the president, House, Senate," he explained. "If unelected bureaucrats are in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?...We don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy." His baffling solution: "So we close that feedback loop, we fix it." Umm, okay. He admitted he made up the claim the U.S. sent $50 million in condoms to Gaza - it was sent to Mozambique to help control HIV - but dismissed it with, "We will make mistakes - not everything I say will be correct." To concerns of transparency or his billions in conflicts of interest, he hilariously disingenuously insisted, "All of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict,' they are going to say it immediately.” Super convincing.
DOGE's new guidelines demand agencies hire just one employee for every four who depart, and agency heads must "consult with a DOGE Team Lead" for approvals, which isn't Big Brother-ish at all. But Musk argued it's justified: "The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get." Except they didn't: Trump won about 32% of the vote, Harris 31%, and almost 38% voted for neither. Many felt Musk used his son, 1 of his 11 kids, to deflect questions - "La la la I can't hear you" - which seemed creepy, especially after X's mother, musician Grimes, said she's "made it clear" she considers her kids in the public eye "a personal tragedy." To Lawrence O'Donnell, the spectacle of Musk "doing his billionaire thing" behind Trump as he awkwardly turned to interact was "a picture of presidential subservience the likes of which we have never seen." Musk, he said, "is doing everything he possibly can to tell the world (that) Donald Trump is not the boss of me."
The same day, the House held their first DOGE subcommittee meeting, headed by Klan Mom MTG, who used the occasion to say, "Taxes are collected by law at gunpoint!” “The American people are $36 trillion in debt. Somebody should be fired," and, for fun, “The gentleman’s time is expired." The day's highlight came when California's Dem Rep. Robert Garcia noted the ironic presence of supposed decorum fan MTG: In the last Congress, he said, "She literally showed a dick pic. So I thought i'd bring one as well." Then he hoisted a large photo of Musk, adding, "This of course is President Elon Musk." Cue appreciative chortling in the House. Later he was asked by a wide-eyed pundit if "calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging." Garcia didn't blink. "Well, he is a dick," he said. "And he's harming the American public in an enormous way. What I think is really important, and what the public wants, is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is a fight for democracy."
It's also a fight, Zack Beauchamp argues, where both institutional and citizen resistance, most effectively by federal workers, will be needed as a weak president with slim margins of victory continues to depend on "flagrant lawbreaking." For now, too many are being bullied into silence; says one critic, "Profiles in cowardice will be a very thick book." Often, the crimes are thoughts or words - important ones like "diversity" or "inclusion," and really, really dumb ones like "Gulf of Mexico." The Associated Press was banned from the Musk/X debacle because it didn't use the term "Gulf of America" to "align its editorial standards with the President," who is clearly a feckin' moron. Ugly rumors are also floating that other culprits will not get a Happy Meal or Fruit Cup. Juvenile much? Gulf of Idiocracy. The dream of many: For a reporter, thrown out of a press conference for saying something "the whiny one" has forbidden, to yell back, "Would you people fucking grow up??"
Still, heroes have emerged. While Google, Disney, PBS have folded on DEI - the latter, adding a mealy-mouthed assurance to "continue (to) reflect all of America" - Comcast, owner of NBC, has refused; it will now be investigated "to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination." Manhattan's Trump-appointed, Federalist Society prosecutor Danielle Sassoon just resigned rather than obey a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams; she was then ultimately joined by six more prosecutors under her. "The Department of Justice (says) it will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct," Sassoon wrote in a fiery resignation letter. "Dismissal of the indictment would be all three.” And U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed and blasted Trump's illegal firing of a top federal watchdog for being "disruptive" with, “It’s as if the bull in the china shop looked back over his shoulder and said, ‘What a mess!’”
Meanwhile, Drop Site News, a new investigative site by The Intercept's Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill, has launched to follow the money trailing Musk and his Nerd Reich. They exposed a federal procurement announcement that the guy squawking about abuse is set to make $400 million for purchases of his armored Tesla Cybertruck, which he claimed was bulletproof though it seems the windows aren't. After Drop Site's story ran, the feds removed the Tesla name, changed the buy to generic "electric armored vehicles," and said the document naming Tesla was "incorrect." As Musk scrambles to hide his profits, Trump stays busyl incomprehensibly yammering. He just raved that Marxists aren't using hydraulics "that go through hurricanes" but are spending "billions and billions of dollars" on magnets - "It's a new theory!" - to "lift up the ships that come into LaGuardia." "Waste, fraud and abuse this country is going through..." he muttered. 'We have to straighten it out."
Between rants, acting on a longtime grudge, he's also taken petty revenge on the uppity Kennedy Center - "We didn't like what they were showing and various other things" - by firing its top officials and Biden-affiliated board members, replacing them with clueless lackeys including his former caddy, and announcing they'd "unanimously elected" an "amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” to launch a "GOLDEN (white) AGE of American Arts and Culture," and "it's not going to be 'woke.'" Instead, it will presumably be Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, WWE wrestling, Lara Trump, The Village People, and Bible salesman Lee Greenwood croaking out God Bless the USA. So we guess it's true: Like shrieky Kimberley Guilfoyle once famously hollered, "THE BEST...IS YET...TO COME!!" Macro carnage, micro carnage, dystopian hellscape, the looming dread of Cabaret's final scene. Orwell: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Climate and public health advocates were outraged on Wednesday after a trio of U.S. Senate Democrats
voted with Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.
Critics have warned that Zeldin—like other Cabinet nominees—will serve billionaire polluters, not the American people and the planet, since Trump named him in November. They renewed those warnings after Democratic Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) voted with Republicans to confirm him as EPA administrator.
After Zeldin's confirmation, the youth-led Sunrise Movement called him "a disaster for our planet and a win for Big Oil."
Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt said in a statement that "Lee Zeldin's confirmation as EPA administrator is a catastrophic blow to the health of Americans, the climate, and the economy. Under Zeldin's leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer protect the American people and our communities—it will protect polluters."
Pointing to the new administrator's record and public statements, Alt said that "this dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels that cost families at the gas pump."
"Americans didn't vote for dirtier air, more asthma attacks, or rising healthcare costs, yet that is exactly what Zeldin's EPA will deliver. Vulnerable communities, especially children, and seniors will bear the brunt of these policies, while a few fossil fuel executives rake in profits," she continued. "Zeldin's confirmation is a tragic failure for all Americans."
Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance, declared that "this is a make-or-break moment for clean water, and the American people deserve leadership that puts their needs above the influence of corporate polluters."
While praising Zeldin's past rejection of offshore oil drilling and support for "sensible policies" on "forever chemicals," Yaggi said that "his history of voting against critical infrastructure and environmental funding and opposing clean water and air protections raises serious concerns about his commitment to effectively leading the Environmental Protection Agency."
Moms Clean Air Force suggested a rebrand for the EPA under Zeldin and Trump: Extreme Pollution Agency.
Since returning to the White House just 10 days ago, Trump has already
taken various executive actions to attack the planet.
"The EPA's stated mission is to protect human health and the environment," Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said. "In the wake of Donald Trump's dangerous executive orders and illegal push to freeze all federal funding, the new EPA administrator will face a decision of whether to carry out the necessary duties of the role, or fold to Trump's deadly fossil fuel-backed agenda and broken promises."
"The American people want to breathe clean air and drink clean water," she stressed. "They want a healthy environment for their families today and the future generations of tomorrow. And they want to know that their government is doing everything in its power to protect them from the destructive impacts of the climate crisis that we sadly witness more and more of each day. That is now Lee Zeldin's charge, and we will do everything in our power to hold him accountable to the American people."
The trade war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched over the weekend by announcing sweeping new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China drew intense criticism from experts and analysts across the ideological spectrum, including those who believe strategically deployed tariffs can help protect domestic jobs and workers.
"Tariffs are a powerful, effective tool to deliver certain goals. But Trump's Canada/China/Mexico tariffs make zero sense. And even undermine tariffs' legit uses," Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote on social media late Sunday, expressing agreement with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Fain said in a
statement that the UAW "supports aggressive tariff action to protect American manufacturing jobs as a good first step to undoing decades of anti-worker trade policy," pointing specifically to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor agreement that Trump negotiated during his first White House term.
The union does not, however, "support using factory workers as pawns in a fight over immigration or drug policy," Fain continued. "The national emergency we face is not about drugs or immigration, but about a working class that has fallen behind for generations while corporate America exploits workers abroad and consumers at home for massive Wall Street paydays."
The officially stated purpose for Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% tariffs on Chinese imports is to confront what the White House described as the "extraordinary threat" posed by the movement of migrants and drugs across the southern and northern U.S. borders.
But Wallach argued Sunday that using tariffs to address immigration and the flow of drugs "is like trying surgery using a saxophone—wrong tool!"
"After decades of an American trade policy run by and for the largest corporations and to the detriment of American workers, independent farmers, and small businesses, we certainly do need a new approach," she added. "But simply imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and another 10% on China will not rebuild American manufacturing/create U.S. manufacturing jobs or raise wages. Particularly, if such tariffs can be axed, lowered, or upped at the president's whim for reasons unrelated to trade/jobs."
"While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."
Trump told reporters late last week that he is "not looking for a concession" in response to the new tariffs, which prompted swift retaliation from Canada, Mexico, and China.
The announced tariffs, which are set to take effect on Tuesday, also shook U.S. and global equity markets as Trump threatened additional duties against imports from European Union nations and admitted Americans could experience "some pain" stemming from the trade war. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her country reached an agreement with Trump to delay implementation of the tariffs on Mexican imports for a month, reportedly in exchange for the deployment of 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the country's northern border.
Contrary to Trump's insistence that tariffs are paid by targeted nations, they are in fact paid by U.S. importers, who then either eat the costs or pass them on to consumers through higher prices. Economist Dean Baker noted that the new tariffs amount to "a tax increase of roughly $200 billion a year ($1,600 per family) that will overwhelmingly be paid by moderate-income and middle-income families."
"It is the largest tax increase on them that has ever been imposed," Baker wrote Sunday. "And retaliation from both countries is likely to impose additional costs."
Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "no matter the intractable problem, Trump's go-to playbook is to bully our neighbors through tariffs and to scapegoat immigrants."
"Instead of addressing the actual causes or seeking real solutions to the complex public health crisis surrounding fentanyl, Trump jumps to impose damaging and self-defeating across-the-board tariffs and to spout more hateful rhetoric that dehumanizes our immigrant neighbors," said St. Louis. "While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."
"Using tariffs to bully countries to advance an anti-immigrant and anti-humanitarian agenda will do nothing to support U.S. workers and will make our immigrant neighbors less safe," she added.
The tariffs also drew backlash from the right-wing Wall Street Journaleditorial board, which slammed the president for launching "the dumbest trade war in history."
"Bad policy has damaging consequences," the editorial board wrote late Sunday, "whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to admit it."
The president of Mexico on Thursday expressed hope that Google "reconsiders" its decision to change its online maps to reflect U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that he has the authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order announcing he was changing the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.
For U.S. users of Google Maps, the gulf was listed as the Gulf of America as of Thursday. Google, whose CEO attended Trump's inauguration along with other tech moguls, said last month it has "a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."
But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned Thursday that her government "will file a civil suit" against Google if it does not revert back to labeling the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico.
"Our legal area is already looking into what that would mean, but we hope that [Google] reconsiders," said Sheinbaum in a press briefing.
The president added that Trump does not have the authority to rename the gulf because the U.S. only "has sovereignty... up to 22 nautical miles from the coast."
Trump's decree has received mixed responses from various authorities on geographic names. Apple Maps and Bing Maps have made the name change in their systems, while Encyclopedia Britannica said it will not use the name Gulf of America, noting that the gulf "is an international body of water, and the U.S.'s authority to rename it is ambiguous."
The Associated Press has said it will continue using the name Gulf of Mexico while acknowledging Trump's executive order. The decision resulted in the outlet's reporters being barred from the White House this week—a move U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called "straight-up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination."
Before threatening legal action against Google, Sheinbaum mocked Trump's claim that he can unilaterally change the name of an international body of water, asking at a public event: "Why don't we call [North America] 'Mexican America?' Sounds nice, doesn't it?"
After temporarily blocking a deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump's deferred resignation program to purge the federal workforce, a judge on Wednesday allowed the initiative to move forward, ruling that the labor unions challenging it lacked the standing to do so and the court didn't have jurisdiction over their claims.
District Judge George O'Toole Jr. initially halted the program's progress last Thursday, just hours before a deadline for federal workers to decide whether to take the "Fork in the Road" offer seemingly inspired by Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. The billionaire is now chairing Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which the president further empowered last Tuesday.
After a Monday hearing, O'Toole, a Boston-based appointee of former President Bill Clinton, issued Wednesday's five-page order declining to grant the unions' request for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction against the program—under which workers who resign supposedly could be put on leave and continue receiving pay through the end of September.
The case was filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE Local 3707, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program."
"Today's ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it's not the end of that fight," AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a Wednesday statement. "AFGE's lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps."
"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program," Kelley stressed. "We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk."
AFSCME president Lee Saunders similarly said that his organization "and our partners remain committed to stopping this illegal attack on the freedoms of public service workers. It is critical that we act swiftly to protect working people against the billionaires who want to take our power and block us from serving our communities. Today may be a step back, but we won't back down."
Government Executivereported Wednesday that the Trump administration "said Monday that 65,000 employees had accepted the deferred resignation offer thus far" and the Office of Personnel Management, the federal human resources agency, "did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding what the new deadline would be."
The outlet also noted that "around the same time that O'Toole issued his decision, a new lawsuit brought in Washington, D.C., by a union for Treasury Department employees asked a judge to declare the deferred resignation program illegal."
Trump and Musk's sweeping attacks on the government since the Republican returned to the White House last month have been partly thwarted by the federal judiciary—leading to concerns that the administration will simply defy court orders.
Even before Wednesday's rare court victory in the "fork" fight, Trump on Tuesday continued his push to overhaul the federal workforce with an executive order directing leaders of nonmilitary federal agencies to develop hiring plans with DOGE.
The unions behind the case before O'Toole also criticized that order. Kelley said that "firing huge numbers of federal employees won't decrease the need for government services... It will just make those services harder or impossible to access for everyday Americans, veterans, and seniors who depend on them."
"Americans just want government to work when they need it," the AFGE leader stressed. "These reckless, unjustified cuts will accomplish only two things: huge tax cuts for Musk and Trump's billionaire buddies and a broken government for the rest of us."
AFSCME's Saunders said: "It is unsurprising that an administration run by billionaires is eliminating oversight and firing dedicated federal workers. They know federal workers protect the public against corporate abuse and won't allow them to use taxpayer dollars as their own personal slush fund."
"So, instead of trying to improve the lives of working people, they are creating a staffing crisis in the public service that hurts children, seniors, people with disabilities, working people, and those most vulnerable," Saunders added. "We won't stand for it, and we will keep fighting back."
This article has been updated with additional comment from AFSCME.
The leading Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem was among those voicing outrage Monday in response to an Israeli police raid on a pair of renowned Palestinian-owned bookstores in illegally occupied East Jerusalem over the weekend.
Haaretzreported that after confiscating books they claimed were "inciteful," Israeli officers on Sunday arrested the owners of the two branches of the Educational Bookshop.
"The Educational Bookshop chain is the most well-known bookstore chain in East Jerusalem, with three locations on Salah al-Din Street and in the American Colony Hotel complex," the Israeli newspaper noted. "The stores specialize in Arabic and English books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of Jerusalem, and they are well-known to researchers, diplomats, journalists, and tourists."
Mourad Muna, the brother of Mahmoud Muna—one of the shop owners who was detained—said Israeli police "used Google Translate" to determine which books to seize. Among the books confiscated was one titled, "From the River to the Sea: A Colouring Book."
"They even found a Haaretz newspaper with a picture of the hostages and asked what it was, saying it was incitement," said Mourad Muna. "They took every book with a Palestinian flag on it."
The owners were arrested on suspicion of "violating public order."
B'Tselem said in response to the raid that "Israel is continuing its war on the entire Palestinian people."
"The attempt to crush the Palestinian people includes harassment and arrest of intellectuals," the group said. "Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, well-known figures in the Jerusalem cultural scene, run the Educational Bookshop—a meeting point for cultural and political discussion. Israel must immediately release them from detention and stop persecuting Palestinian intellectuals."
In the wake of the raid and arrests of the Educational Bookshop owners, Haaretz reported that "protesters gathered outside the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court" in a show of opposition ahead of a hearing on the detention of Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna.
"Diplomatic representatives from the Netherlands, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, and the E.U. all visited the courthouse in Jerusalem where the hearing is due to take place, to show support for the bookshop owners," the Israeli newspaper added.
Although the move was "largely symbolic" due to lack of such mandates, one expert still warned it is "legitimization of anti-science and anti-vax noise."
Amid fears of what U.S. President Donald Trump's second term will mean for global health and public education, the Republican on Friday signed an executive order to defund schools that require Covid-19 vaccination for students.
Trump's order bars federal funding "from being used to support or subsidize an educational service agency, state education agency, local education agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education that requires students to have received a Covid-19 vaccination to attend in-person education programs," according to a White House fact sheet.
The order, first reported by Breitbart News, also directs the secretaries of education and health and human services (HHS) to develop a plan "to end coercive Covid-19 vaccine mandates, including a report on noncompliant entities and a process for preventing federal funds from supporting educational entities that impose Covid-19 vaccine mandates."
While signing the order in the Oval Office, Trump—who was president during the onset of the pandemic and has received intense criticism for his handling of the public health crisis—said, "OK, that solves that problem."
The White House claimed that "parents are being forced into a difficult position: comply with a controversial mandate or risk their child's educational future." However, according toABC News, Trump's move was actually "largely symbolic" considering that no states currently require K-12 students to have the Covid shots.
The Associated Pressreported that "some colleges started requiring students to be immunized against Covid-19 during the pandemic, but most have dropped the requirements. A few continue to require vaccines at least for students living on campus, including Swarthmore and Oberlin colleges. Most of those colleges allow medical or religious exemptions."
As ABC noted:
One open question is whether the new administration could opt to go beyond Covid vaccines and put pressure on schools to drop requirements for other vaccines.
Currently, all 50 states mandate that students receive certain vaccinations, including to prevent the measles. Many states, however, offer religious exemptions.
"This is anti-vax pandering," Timothy Caulfield, a professor focused on public health and law at Canada's University of Alberta, said of Trump's order. "Still worrisome, however. It is yet more normalization and legitimization of anti-science and anti-vax noise."
The new measure came a day after Senate Republicans voted to confirm vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary and Trump signed another executive order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission.
Also on Thursday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon, the billionaire GOP megadonor and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO nominated to serve as education secretary, even though Trump has signaled that he ultimately intends to fully dismantle the department.
"It's time to do your job and stop this outrageous sabotage of justice in the interests of naked political corruption," said the lawmaker.
Amid reports that attorneys in the Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Department of Justice—those tasked with fighting political corruption—were being intimidated into dismissing the federal criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday, Congressman Jamie Raskin demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi "immediately halt" the actions of DOJ leaders.
A day after three top federal prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned following a demand from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to drop the case against Adams, MSNBC legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade reported that DOJ leaders had given the remaining lawyers in the anti-corruption unit an ultimatum.
They "put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with one hour to decide who will dismiss [the] Adams indictment or else all will be fired," said McQuade.
Reutersreported Friday afternoon that one of the attorneys, veteran prosecutor Ed Sullivan, agreed to file a motion to dismiss the charges in order to spare the jobs of his colleagues in the Public Integrity Section.
On Thursday, Danielle R. Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned after receiving a memo from Bove saying the charges against Adams would interfere with his ability to fight "illegal immigration and violent crime."
The acting head of the Public Integrity Section and the acting head of the DOJ's Criminal Division also refused to drop the case and resigned.
Adams was charged with bribery, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy offenses last year, with U.S. attorneys saying an investigation had found that he allegedly took bribes from foreign nationals, including to allow a skyscraper in Manhattan to open without a fire inspection.
In a letter to Bondi, Sassoon wrote that "Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed."
A lawyer for Adams toldThe New York Times Thursday that the allegation of a quid pro quo was "a total lie," but President Donald Trump's border czar, Thomas Homan, alluded to the deal in a Fox News appearance with Adams on Friday.
"If he doesn't come through," said Homan, "I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'"
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of immigrant rights group America's Voice, said the Trump administration's engagement in the alleged deal reflected the president's "obsessive focus on mass deportations."
"His obsession to purge America of immigrants seems to have no limit: cutting a quid pro quo with Mayor Adams, to drop criminal charges in return for immigrant roundups; diverting resources from stopping fentanyl at ports of entry to deport workers; gutting entire immigrant-dependent industries that put food on the table and keep prices low; and intruding into the homes and apartments and going door-to-door to instill fear among people mostly legal, many citizens," she said.
Raskin (D-Md.) demanded that Bondi "put an immediate halt to this illegal and unconscionable intimidation campaign."
"Your Department of Justice has been caught engaging in a corrupt deal with Mayor Adams and now attempting to cover it up," he said in a statement. "It's time to do your job and stop this outrageous sabotage of justice in the interests of naked political corruption."
"We the people will not live under a king," said one progressive organizer. "We will not allow Trump and Musk's administrative coup."
Organizers of nationwide protests planned for Monday, when the U.S. will mark Presidents' Day, appealed to those who oppose President Donald Trump and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk's agenda with a simple message ahead of the actions: "All are welcome. You are not alone. Defend equality. Fight fascism."
The call for defenders of democracy to gather with like-minded people comes nearly four weeks into the Trump administration's "flood the zone" strategy, aimed at overwhelming its political opponents with a relentless flow of executive orders, attacks on long-held constitutional rights, and the attempted takeover of agencies across the federal government.
"In unity, we find our power; in protecting one another, we build our movement," said the 50501 Movement—whose name stands for 50 states, 50 protests, one day—after organizing nationwide rallies against Trump and Musk earlier this month. "Let's stay vigilant, compassionate, and strong as we work towards a brighter, more just future."
The second nationwide protest day is titled "Not My Presidents' Day," with attendees rejecting Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda whose proposals have been well-represented by the administration's actions so far; Musk's takeover of agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development through the executive order-created Department of Government Efficiency; and Trump's appointment of Cabinet members with numerous corporate ties and conflicts of interest, despite the president's campaign last year focusing partly on the high cost of living for working people.
"We the people will not live under a king," said progressive organizer Kai Newkirk. "We will not allow Trump and Musk's administrative coup."
On February 5, said the 505051 Movement, "grassroots organizers—without any budget, centralized structure, or official backing—pulled off over 80 peaceful protests in all 50 states."
"The protests were covered by every major media outlet, showing the world that the American working class will not sit idly by as plutocrats rip apart their democratic institutions and civil liberties while undermining the rule of law," said the group, which partnered with the organization Political Revolution to organize the demonstrations.
More than 75 protests have been scheduled for Monday so far, with a number of events planned at state Capitols.
A representative for the 50501 Movement, which grew out of a discussion on the social media platform Reddit, toldNewsweek that the group is pushing Not My Presidents' Day "as more of a 'day of action,' which would include email and phone banking, participating in volunteer activities that directly help those affected by Trump's policies, donating to charities, etc. There will still primarily be protests, though."
The organizers are also planning other nationwide protests in the future, with some supporters discussing another public action on March 5, according to Newsweek.
"This movement is about more than just one day—it's about standing firm in our beliefs and seeing it through, no matter the challenges we may face," organizers said in a social media post.