The huge banner of a glaring Trump in front of the USDA is a literal sign the U.S. has lost its democracy

The Advocate

The huge banner of a glaring Trump in front of the USDA is a literal sign the U.S. has lost its democracy

John Casey – May 16, 2025

Donald Trump official presidential portrait
Donald Trump official presidential portrait

colossal, brooding image of Donald Trump now looms over the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters in Washington, D.C. The banner is unmistakably authoritarian in both style and scale. It features a stone-faced Trump gazing down upon the capital like a watchful overlord.

This is not a campaign advertisement. It is a signal. A warning. A literal and metaphorical sign that democracy in America is no longer functioning as intended.

Historically, such displays of obnoxiousness have not heralded democratic renewal. Quite the opposite. They’ve marked the entrenchment of dictatorship. Authoritarian regimes the world over have relied on these massive visual monuments to instill fear, demand obedience, and project omnipresence.

For decades, and most especially during World War II, Stalin’s steel-eyed portraits towered over Soviet streets and public buildings, reminding citizens that the state saw everything. Mao Zedong’s image hung from Tiananmen Gate like a secular deity watching over the masses. It was massive, larger than life, eternal, aloof for a reason..

History books and other visions etched in my memory bring images of Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and of course Hitler, who all followed the same playbook. They saturate public space with the leader’s face and saturate your mind with the leader’s authority.

Imagine, for a moment, if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had plastered massive banners of his face across Washington during World War II. Hanging a 30-foot portrait from the Treasury Building or looming over war bond posters with cold, impassive eyes. The public would have been outraged. Congress would have rebelled. Even amid war, Roosevelt respected the distinction between democratic leadership and personal cult.

Trump has now joined this visual canon of despots with his banner brooding over a government institution. It is not just “deeply creepy,” as some observers have said. It is the textbook behavior of a man who believes the state belongs to him. It is fascist iconography, domesticated.

This chilling banner didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Since being sworn in for his second term on January 20, Trump has governed not as a president but as a ruler unbound by law, or at least he thinks he’s unbound by law.

His Department of Justice has been purged of independence, its prosecutors reassigned or fired if they resisted Trump’s will. And don’t even get me started about the “yes, yes, yes” attorney general, Pam Bondi, who is a perfect lackey for the wannabe dictator. No to Trump in not in her vocabulary.

Trump’s suggestion that he should be allowed a third term because one was supposedly “stolen,” is no longer a fringe fantasy. It’s a real and present threat, floated not only at rallies and interviews but by White House aides and conservative media outlets that now function more like state-run propaganda than independent journalism.

He has declared that federal workers must show “personal loyalty” to him. Inspectors general and career civil servants have been removed en masse and replaced with unqualified loyalists. Programs that support education, public health, and environmental protection have been gutted in favor of funding massive security forces that answer directly to the Executive Branch.

And his takeover of the Kennedy Center, his chosen board of directors, naming himself as chairman, is just another check-mark on the autocrat bucket list and that is control of the arts.

Meanwhile, efforts to erase and rewrite history are accelerating. Trump’s allies are systematically removing references to slavery and civil rights from textbooks, recasting the January 6 insurrectionists as “patriots,” and purging LGBTQ+ references from public libraries. This is not governing. It’s regime-building, complete with a giant portrait.

As Trump’s face stares down from the side of a federal agency building, it’s a 30-foot reminder of who is in charge, who is watching, and who cannot be questioned.

This use of personal imagery as a weapon of psychological control is not just about ego, and it’s a key mechanism of authoritarian rule. During Stalin’s Great Purge, his image became synonymous with the state itself. To criticize Stalin, even in private, was to invite arrest, or worse.

Saddam Hussein commissioned thousands of portraits of himself, placing them in every school, airport, and office in Iraq. The size and frequency of his image sent a clear message that this country was his.

So too with Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong il, and his son Kim Jong Un. whose portraits are reportedly required in every home in North Korea, and most people clean them on a regular basis. Disrespecting the image is a punishable offense.

These leaders understood something simple but potent: Symbols shape reality. And control of the visual environment is control of the collective psyche.

The USDA banner is not just gaudy or excessive. It’s strategic. It’s authoritarian. It’s a message not just to the public but to the bureaucracy itself that loyalty flows up, power flows down, and both are enforced with fear.

Democracy depends on a humble, limited executive, and while we’ve had some egomaniacs as president here in the U.S. (think Richard Nixon), we’ve been fortunate not to have one who plasters banners of himself outside of government buildings.

Our presidents have been elected, not enthroned. They serve, not rule. The placement of a massive Trump banner on a government building reveals that this line has been crossed, and we are no longer a republic. We are living under the cult of one man.

When the government starts using public property to display the ruler’s image, when dissent is criminalized, when history is rewritten and power is centralized, we are not looking at the future. Instead, we are seeing the end of something. The end of accountability. The end of democratic pretense. The end of America as we knew it.

The banner may yet come down. But the damage it represents is already done.

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Trump weighs in on House special election races in Florida as GOP fights to keep majority

ABC News

Trump weighs in on House special election races in Florida as GOP fights to keep majority

Oren Oppenheim – March 28, 2025

In a pair of back-to-back rallies held over the phone on Thursday night, President Donald Trump praised the two Republican candidates in the upcoming special elections for Florida’s 6th and 1st Congressional districts, amid recent concerns among Republicans over whether their candidate in the 6th Congressional District, State Sen. Randy Fine, can keep the seat in Republican hands.

Fine has lagged behind his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, in fundraising, and Republicans have expressed concerns about his campaign, although many still believe he will be able to hold the seat in the ruby-red district.

The special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, which is on the state’s eastern coast and includes the city of Daytona Beach, is being held on Tuesday, April 1, to fill the vacancy created by former Rep. Mike Waltz when he resigned to become Trump’s national security adviser.

MORE: ‘Proud to be a team player,’ Stefanik says after Trump pulls UN nomination

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, March 26, 2025.  (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, March 26, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

The tele-rallies also came amid broader concerns among Republicans about maintaining their razor-thin majority in the U.S. House, and on the same day that Trump asked Rep. Elise Stefanik to withdraw her nomination to be United Nations ambassador, citing “a very tight Majority” in the U.S. House.

House Republicans currently hold a narrow majority with 218 Republicans to 213 Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson has a two-vote cushion for his majority.

Fine, at the start of the telephone rally for him, emphatically praised Trump and said he would serve in Congress as one of the president’s strongest allies.

PHOTO: Florida State Rep. Randy Fine, answers a question about his House Bill 3-C: Independent Special Districts in the House of Representatives, April 20, 2022, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla.  (Phil Sears/AP, Files)
PHOTO: Florida State Rep. Randy Fine, answers a question about his House Bill 3-C: Independent Special Districts in the House of Representatives, April 20, 2022, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. (Phil Sears/AP, Files)More

“Mr. President, I’m immensely grateful for your unwavering support, trust and confidence in me. I believe that God saved your life in Butler, Pennsylvania, so that you could save the world,” Fine said, referencing the July assassination attempt Trump survived. “And it will be one of the most profound honors of my life to be one of your foot soldiers as you make America great again.”

Trump praised Fine’s early endorsement of him during the 2024 election cycle, adding, “that’s why Randy will always have a very open door to the Oval Office. He will be there whenever I need him, and he wants to be there whenever we need him. He wants to be there for you.”

MORE: Republicans raise concerns about Florida special election as candidates vie to replace Mike Waltz

“I’ve gotten to know him under pressure situations, and he can react well under pressure. So go vote for Randy,” Trump said later.

Fine reiterated he would work to carry out Trump’s agenda in Congress.

“It’s not overstating things to say that your agenda is at stake in this election, and this district can’t let you down. Your agenda is on the ballot on April 1,” he said.

MORE: Democrats push to emphasize ‘fight’ post-Signal scandal, but is that enough?: ANALYSIS

During the earlier telephone rally supporting the Republican candidate in the 1st Congressional District, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, Trump praised Patronis’ work in Florida and framed the special election as important for his own agenda.

That special election, which will determine who takes the seat vacated by now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz, has gotten less concern from Republicans.

PHOTO: Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis speaks during a meeting between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state cabinet at the Florida capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., Mar. 5, 2025. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP, Files)
PHOTO: Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis speaks during a meeting between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state cabinet at the Florida capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., Mar. 5, 2025. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP, Files)More

“The 1st Congressional District is special, and I won it by a lot, and Jimmy is going to win it by a lot. And remember, you’re five days away from this all important special election taking place in your district on Tuesday, April 1, so April Fool’s Day. So it’s going to be the fool for the Democrat candidate, who happens to be terrible,” Trump said of Patronis’ Democratic opponent Gay Valimont, a gun violence prevention activist.

Praising Patronis, Trump said, “Jimmy’s done an outstanding job as the chief financial officer of the state of Florida, helping to guide your state to tremendous economic success. And now he wants to keep on fighting for Florida in Congress.”

DOGE and Musk’s USAID shutdown probably violated the U.S. Constitution

Mashable

DOGE and Musk’s USAID shutdown probably violated the U.S. Constitution

Mashable – March 19, 2025

A message appears on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) website on February 5, 2025 in San Anselmo, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways.” While this doesn’t mean USAID is back up and running, the order does put a temporary halt to DOGE head Elon Musk‘s plans to scrap the agency.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk killing USAID would hurt America’s future. Here’s why.

In an 68-page opinion filed in the Maryland District Court on Tuesday, judge Theodore Chuang granted a preliminary injunction preventing DOGE from further dismantling USAID. A vital foreign aid organisation, USAID offered humanitarian assistance to other countries on behalf of the U.S. government, including disaster and poverty relief. Unfortunately, billionaire Musk apparently considered such spending wastefulshutting down USAID, reportedly reducing a workforce of over 10,000 to 611, and abruptly cutting off billions in foreign aid shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The temporary injunction doesn’t restore USAID to what it was prior to DOGE’s intervention. However, it does mean that DOGE cannot fire any more USAID employees, end its contracts or grants, or shut down its offices and IT systems. The court further ordered DOGE to reinstate all current USAID employees’ access to their email, payments, security, and other electronic systems, as well as restore deleted emails.

Why was DOGE shutting down USAID potentially unconstitutional?
Supporters of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAid) rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on February 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Supporters of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAid) rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on February 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The case was brought by 26 USAID employees and contractors, some of whom the court noted had been stranded overseas without vital security software or funds for basic living expenses when DOGE shut down USAID’s systems. In his ruling, Chuang agreed with the plaintiffs’ assessment that Musk and DOGE violated the U.S. Constitution on more than one occasion, finding that their case was likely to succeed.

Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the Constitution’s Appointments Clause was breached because Musk operated as an Officer of the United States without being appointed as such.  The defense refuted this, claiming that Musk was merely acting in an advisory capacity, and wasn’t the one actually calling the shots. Chuang found this unconvincing.

“To deny [this claim] solely on the basis that, on paper, Musk has no formal legal authority relating to the decisions at issue, even if he is actually exercising significant authority on governmental matters, would open the door to an end-run about the Appointments Clause,” wrote Chuang.

“Musk’s public statements and posts on X, in which he has stated on multiple occasions that DOGE will take action, and such action occurred shortly thereafter, demonstrate that he has firm control over DOGE…. [T]he present record supports the conclusion that Musk, without having been duly appointed as an Officer of the United States, exercised significant authority reserved for an Officer…”

The plaintiffs further argued that Musk and DOGE breached the separation of powers because USAID is a federal agency that can only be created or abolished by Congress. As such, DOGE’s shutdown of USAID allegedly exceeded the authority of the executive branch to encroach upon the legislative branch. Chuang also considered this argument strong.

“Congress has made clear through statute its express will that USAID be an independent agency, and that it not be abolished or substantially reorganized without congressional approval,” said Chuang. “[Musk and DOGE’s] present actions to dismantle USAID violate the Separation of Powers because they contravene congressional authority relating to the establishment of an agency.”

Predictably, Musk quickly took to X to decry the rulingquestioning Chuang’s integrity as well as sharing and agreeing with posts claiming a “judicial coup.” He did not specifically address any of the legal and factual issues raised in the case.

The White House has also alleged a political motivation for the judgement, confirming that it will appeal the decision. Appearing to employ a “no you” approach to the situation, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly bizarrely accused Chuang of breaching the separation of powers himself, claiming that “rogue judges are subverting the will of the American people in their attempts to stop President Trump from carrying out his agenda.” Under U.S. law, the judiciary has the power to assess the constitutional validity of federal laws as well as the actions of the executive branch.

Elon Musk’s DOGE has worked quickly to cut federal agencies. Here’s a list of what’s been targeted so far.

Business Insider

Elon Musk’s DOGE has worked quickly to cut federal agencies. Here’s a list of what’s been targeted so far.

Grace Eliza Goodwin – March 6, 2025

  • Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency to cut federal spending and root out waste.
  • Under Elon Musk, DOGE has already targeted a number of federal agencies, including USAID and the DoD.
  • Here’s a list of the government programs and agencies DOGE has gone after so far.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has wasted little time sending his newly created DOGE office after federal agencies.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order officially creating DOGE. With billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk as its de facto leader, the group has taken swift action toward its stated goal of rooting out government fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Here’s a list of the agencies DOGE has targeted so far and other key initiatives from the new organization.

Social Security Administration

The Trump administration has sent DOGE to find fraud within the Social Security Administration, arguing that the agency sends out payments to dead Americans. A Business Insider analysis of recent SSA audits found that errors like overpaying beneficiaries and paying dead people amount to less than 1% of the SSA’s total benefits payouts — far less than Trump and Musk have claimed.

The SSA — which manages Social Security benefits and payouts — has been the target of DOGE’s sweeping reduction of the federal workforce, cuts that SSA workers have warned could delay payments to beneficiaries and hinder frontline workers’ ability to handle claims and issue Social Security cards.

As part of the Trump administration’s efforts to restructure the SSA, the agency banned its workers from reading the news on their work devices. One worker told BI that they sometimes need to access news sites to, for example, confirm deaths through obituaries, and without that ability, recipients’ claims could be slowed down.

Department of Defense

DOGE is now going after the Department of Defense, the oldest and largest government agency in the US, with a total budget of over $800 billion.

In early February, Trump said that he expected DOGE to “find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse” in the Pentagon. That includes what Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz has called the “absolute mess” of US shipbuilding.

DOGE posted on X on February 14 that it had begun looking into the DoD.

“Great kickoff with @DeptofDefense,” the post said. “Looking forward to working together to safely save taxpayer dollars and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.”

DOGE staffers have been at the Pentagon collecting lists of probationary employees across defense agencies, and it’s expected that many could soon be terminated, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

Internal Revenue Service

DOGE has set its sights on the IRS.

The task force sought access to the Internal Revenue Service’s data system that houses highly sensitive information about every taxpayer, nonprofit, and business in the country, The Washington Post reported on February 16.

The IRS considered granting DOGE broad access to its systems and data, including its Integrated Data Retrieval System, which lets IRS workers view and adjust taxpayer accounts and data, the Post reported.

But The White House later agreed to block DOGE’s full access to the IRS’s payment systems, instead granting read-only access of taxpayer data that has been anonymized, the Post reported on February 20, citing people familiar with the arrangement.

Before the agreement to make the data anonymous and read-only was reached, officials sounded alarm bells about the kind of access DOGE would have. Even within the IRS, access to this data is strictly monitored, and employees are prohibited form accessing their own files or those of their friends and family, according to the agency’s employee handbook.

Democratic Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, a ranking member of the Committee on Finance, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a ranking member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, wrote a letter to the IRS on February 17 urging DOGE to disclose the extent of its access to IRS systems.

The senators argued that giving DOGE access to sensitive taxpayer data raises “serious concerns that Elon Musk and his associates are seeking to weaponize government databases containing private bank records and other confidential information to target American citizens and businesses as part of a political agenda.”

The IRS was also one of several federal agencies where probationary employees were fired en masse. The agency’s enforcement of tax evasion could be hit especially hard by the cuts.

And the IRS is working up plans that could cut its 90,000-person workforce in half through a variety of layoffs, attrition, and incentivized buyouts, the Associated Press reported on March 4 citing people familiar with the matter.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health — the federal agency that funds and conducts medical research under the Department of Health and Human Services — announced in a directive on February 7 that it was cutting how much of its funding can be used for administrative overhead.

The NIH said it would be placing a 15% cap on “indirect costs” related to research projects, which includes things like personnel, facility maintenance, and equipment. The NIH said on X that this limit would save the agency $4 billion per year, “effective immediately.”

After separate lawsuits from state attorneys general and organizations representing hospitals and research institutions, a federal judge temporarily blocked the funding cuts in February, and in March, extended that pause in a preliminary injunction.

The NIH has also been targeted by Trump and Musks’s widespread staffing cuts across the federal workforce, with the agency losing over 1,100 staffers, according to an internal email obtained by Reuters.

Federal worker layoffs

As part of Trump and Musk’s promise to reduce the federal budget, the Trump administration has laid off thousands of probationary workers — typically, employees who have been in their roles for less than two years — from a wide swath of federal agencies.

That includes workers at the Forest Service, the Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Education, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Internal Revenue Service, Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that provides healthcare to more than 160 million Americans, said in a press release on February 5 that its officials were working with DOGE to find “opportunities for more effective and efficient use of resources in line with meeting the goals of President Trump.”

In response to a post containing a Wall Street Journal article about CMS collaborating with DOGE, Musk wrote on X, “Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening.”

On February 12, a group of 32 Democratic Senators wrote a letter to Trump urging him and Musk to keep their “hands off Medicare or Medicaid.”

“DOGE is invading CMS, posing immeasurable risks to Americans’ health care,” the letter reads. “DOGE representatives, with no training or expertise, could make unilateral, politically motivated decisions to target both beneficiaries and health care providers while blocking access to care and essential payments for services.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA is also on DOGE’s hit list.

While at the Commerce Space Conference in Washington DC on February 12, the space agency’s acting administrator said that NASA was expecting a visit from DOGE.

“So we are a federal agency. We are going to have DOGE come. They are going to look — similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies — at our payments,” said Janet Petro, in comments reported by Bloomberg.

On February 14, the space agency confirmed to Flying, an aviation-focused magazine, that DOGE staff were on-site to review its payments.

NASA has done quite a lot of business with Musk’s own space company, SpaceX, amounting to around $14.5 billion in contracts between the two.

In a February 6 letter to NASA’s Janet Petro, Democratic Representatives Zoe Lofgren, a ranking member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and Valerie Foushee, a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, demanded the space agency provide answers on whether it was working with DOGE.

And in a follow-up letter sent on February 21, the representatives — now joined by Rep. Emilia Sykes, a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight — again urged the agency to disclose the extent to which it is working with DOGE, arguing that Musk’s involvement is a dangerous conflict of interest.

Department of Education

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education (ED). On February 12, he told reporters that he wants the department closed “immediately,” adding that it “is a big con job.”

Along with some GOP lawmakers, Trump has said that education should be handled at the state and local level, and that a federal agency isn’t necessary.

On February 12, DOGE said that it had cancelled a number of ED contracts — including a “$4.6M contract to coordinate zoom and in-person meetings,” a “$3.0M contract to write a report that showed that prior reports were not utilized by schools,” and a “$1.4M contract to physically observe mailing and clerical operations.”

The cost-cutting group has also said that it has terminated 89 contracts at the ED, totaling $881 million.

Trump has said that he wants his newly confirmed education secretary, Linda McMahon, to put herself out of a job — a task McMahon herself hinted at in an email to ED staff about the agency’s “historic final mission.” And that may come sooner rather than later — Trump is expected to imminently issue an executive order disbanding the Education Department, the Wall Street Journal reported in March, citing people familiar with the matter.

DEI Initiatives

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order terminating federal roles, offices, and programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And on January 31, just 11 days into its existence, DOGE announced it had terminated 104 government contracts related to DEI programs and initiatives.

DOGE said the cuts — spanning 30 agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Personnel Management, Environmental Protection Agency, and many more — created over $1 billion in savings.

US Agency for International Development

Musk has been working to shut down the US Agency for International Development, which funds humanitarian efforts around the world. As the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, the US channeled nearly $32.5 billion through the agency in 2024, providing aid to countries like Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia.

In a post on X on February 3, Musk accused the agency of being a “criminal organization” and said he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Hours later, USAID workers were told to stay home from work, and within days, the agency announced that all direct hire personnel would be placed on leave globally, with a few exceptions — a move that would have reduced its workforce from over 10,000 employees to less than 300.

Following a lawsuit from federal employee labor unions, a federal judge partially blocked Musk and Trump’s attempted shutdown of USAID — which legal experts argue is illegal without approval from Congress. The judge’s order temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing USAID workers on leave, first until February 14, and in another extension, until at least February 21.

But by the end of February, USAID workers were told to clear out their desks at the agency’s Washington, DC headquarters after the Trump administration said it was ending 90% of the department’s contracts.

On March 5, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration‘s freeze on foreign aid, allowing the release of nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funds.

Experts have warned that a shutdown of USAID would make China more powerful on the world stage.

Federal worker buyout

As part of Musk and Trump’s efforts to trim government spending and reduce the federal workforce, the Trump administration emailed a buyout offer to around 2 million government employees. The deferred resignation, sent by the Office of Personnel Management at the end of January, offered to pay employees their full salary and benefits through September, without the need to work during that time, in exchange for their resignation.

The offer was met with mass confusion, shock, and outrage from federal employees, many of whom questioned whether the government could actually promise to pay them through September with a looming government shutdown in March when current funding runs out.

The offer appeared to come straight out of Musk’s playbook, right down to the title of the email sent to federal workers: “Fork in the Road.”

After federal labor unions filed a lawsuit arguing that the offer is illegal, a federal judge twice extended the deadline for employees to accept the buyout, but ultimately ruled that it can proceed.

The offer finally closed on February 12, with 75,000 workers accepting the buyout, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Federal Aviation Administration

Following the deadly American Airlines plane crash in Washington DC in January, Musk announced he would be going after the Federal Aviation Administration.

Days after the crash, Musk wrote on X that the FAA’s “primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours,” adding that, as a result, Trump gave the DOGE team his approval to “make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed Musk’s role, saying the DOGE team was “going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — who chairs the committee that oversees the FAA — said he’s confident in Musk’s ability to upgrade the FAA, adding that the American people should take “real comfort in his ability to navigate complicated technologies.”

Not everyone has so much faith in Musk.

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington argued in a letter to Duffy that, as the CEO of SpaceX, Musk has a clear conflict of interest that should prohibit his involvement with the FAA.

Last year, the FAA proposed fining SpaceX more than $600,000 for two occasions where the rocket company is said to have violated its launch licenses.

On February 19, Duffy said on X he had enlisted SpaceX engineers “to help upgrade our aviation system.”

The FAA said in a statement to Business Insider on February 25 that it had begun testing out a SpaceX Starlink internet terminal at its facility in Atlantic City and two terminals at its “non-safety critical sites in Alaska.”

Treasury Department

Trump said he granted Musk and his DOGE team access to the Treasury department’s digital payments system, which controls trillions of dollars in payments to Americans — everything from Social Security benefits to tax refunds.

The Treasury Department said Musk’s team was only granted “read-only” access to the system, but the move still sparked criticism, particularly from Democratic lawmakers and federal workers’ unions. The unions sued the Treasury Department, arguing that the agency had illegally granted Musk access to sensitive personal and financial information.

Trump defended Musk’s access to the platform, telling reporters it was only so that DOGE could find additional areas to cut government waste.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we will give him the approval where appropriate,” Trump said.

On February 14, the Treasury Department’s acting inspector general said in a letter obtained by the AP that he was launching an audit of the payment system’s security controls and would be looking into whether any “fraudulent payments” had been made, as Musk has alleged. The Government Accountability Office also said it would be opening a probe into DOGE’s access to the payment system, according to a letter sent to lawmakers that was obtained by Politico.

For now, a federal judge has barred DOGE officials from accessing the Treasury Department’s sensitive payments systems until a lawsuit alleging the access is illegal concludes.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Trump has threatened to overhaul, or entirely scrap, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides aid to Americans following natural disasters like Hurricane Milton and the LA wildfires.

The president has called the agency, which employs more than 20,000 staff around the US, a “very big disappointment” that is “very bureaucratic,” “very slow,” and costs “a tremendous amount of money.”

On February 10, Musk wrote on X that “FEMA betrayed the American people by diverting funds meant for natural disasters to pay for luxury hotels for illegal migrants.”

But New York City officials said that FEMA had correctly allocated the funds, which were never part of a disaster relief grant and were not used on luxury hotels, as Musk had said, The New York Times reported.

Hours after Musk’s post, FEMA’s acting director, Cameron Hamilton, posted on X that the payments had been suspended and that the responsible personnel will be held accountable.

On February 11, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security announced that four FEMA officials had been fired in connection to the payments, including the agency’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts, and a grant specialist.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

On February 6, a group of Democratic lawmakers accused “unelected and unvetted associates of Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency” of targeting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA is in charge of forecasting the weather, analyzing climate data, and tracking extreme weather events.

Senator Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Jamie Raskin, along with other Maryland Democrats, penned a letter alleging that DOGE bureaucrats had been visiting NOAA headquarters, housed within the Department of Commerce, with the intent to break up the agency and merge it with the Department of the Interior.

In their letter, the lawmakers urged the leaders of the US Department of Commerce, Howard Lutnick and Jeremy Pelter, to maintain the independence and integrity of the NOAA, as Lutnick had promised to do in his confirmation hearing.

The lawmakers argue that DOGE is illegally attacking NOAA without congressional approval, in an attempt to dismantle and privatize the agency which they say would rob American farmers, businesses, and citizens of crucial, life-saving services.

The Trump administration has already laid off hundreds of workers at NOAA, which meteorologists say will degrade weather forecasts and public safety.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Musk has repeatedly called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established in 2011 after the Great Recession to oversee financial products and services offered to Americans. It seeks to protect Americans from financial scams and abusive practices, like excessive overdraft fees.

“CFPB RIP,” Musk wrote on X on February 7 next to a tombstone emoji.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ordered the CFPB to halt most of its work and told the consumer watchdog agency to stop issuing “public communications of any type.”

The CFPB has told staffers to “not perform any work tasks” while it shuts down its DC headquarters amid an uncertain future.

The agency followed up by sending termination notices to dozens of employees, some of whom had already accepted the buyout offer, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC.

The agency’s first director, Richard Cordray, has warned that shuttering the CFPB would turn the consumer finance world into the “wild, wild west,” adding that Musk’s attempted shutdown is unethical and, with his plans to offer financial services through X, could be considered a conflict of interest.

Productivity email sent to federal employees

DOGE sent a mass email to federal workers on Saturday, February 22 asking them to provide five bullet points explaining what work tasks they had accomplished in the past week. They were given a Monday night deadline to respond, and if they didn’t, Trump threatened that they could be “semi-fired” or “fired.” While at first Musk said anyone who didn’t respond would be terminated, he later changed course to say workers would be given another chance.

The “What did you do last week?” email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management, followed Trump’s instruction to Musk to”get more aggressive” in reducing the size of the federal workforce.

In a post on X on February 24, Musk explained the email as “basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email.”

The email caused mass confusion among federal workers, who received conflicting guidance from their superiors on whether to respond or not.

It’s not yet clear how the differing guidance across federal agencies will be resolved, but Musk said on X that the “mess will get sorted out this week.”

“Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality,” his post continued. “They don’t get it yet, but they will.”

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Haboob tears across Southwest with near-zero visibility, shutting down interstates

CNN

Haboob tears across Southwest with near-zero visibility, shutting down interstates

Angela Fritz and Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologists – March 3, 2025

A haboob, or dust storm, swept across southwest New Mexico on Monday, pushing visibility down to near zero. - National Weather Service El Paso
A haboob, or dust storm, swept across southwest New Mexico on Monday, pushing visibility down to near zero. – National Weather Service El Paso

A fast-moving dust storm shrouded southwestern New Mexico and parts of northern Mexico in darkness Monday morning, prompting an emergency alert for drivers to “shelter in place” as officials tried to get cars off the interstate.

The dust storm, known meteorologically as a haboob, swept across Deming and Doña Ana counties in New Mexico at a breakneck pace with near-zero visibility and winds of 45 mph, the National Weather Service warned. State officials closed parts of Interstates 10 and 25 as well as US Highway 70 because of the “dangerous, life-threatening” travel conditions.

The haboob grew as it whipped east across the dry, dusty landscape. High wind warnings were in effect Monday in the Southwest alongside low humidity, increasing the threat of wildfire.

NOAA weather satellites captured the haboob’s size and movement from space, seen below highlighted in yellow with NOAA’s dust product, which detects dust and sand-sized particles in the air and distinguishes them from clouds.

A haboob is an extreme type of dust storm that persists for multiple hours. It’s essentially a wall of dust and debris that can grow up to 5,000 feet tall as it’s blown forward by strong winds.

You can see the haboob’s wall of dust coming from a distance but by the time it reaches you, it’s too late to seek shelter — especially if you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle. It’s nearly impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you in the worst of these storms as the dust chokes out light.

Drivers should pull as far off the road as possible when they encounter such a storm, the National Weather Service says. It also recommends engaging the parking or hill brake and turning off all lights — including making sure the driver’s foot is off the brake so the brake light is not illuminated — to avoid confusing any vehicles approaching from behind.

Dust storms are most common in dry, desert areas of the Southwest. A massive haboob rolled through parts of California last November.

A haboob is just one of the many ways a day can go from calm to dangerous in a matter of moments. Blizzards — like the one expected in the Plains this week — and dense fog also make it difficult or even impossible to see what’s ahead.

A massive, deadly pileup occurred during a bout of “super fog” in Louisiana in 2023 after fog and smoke from nearby wildfires combined to crater visibility along Interstate 55.

House budget calls for $2T in cuts. Could Bucks County SNAP, other programs see impacts?

Bucks County Courier Times

House budget calls for $2T in cuts. Could Bucks County SNAP, other programs see impacts?

Chris Ullery and Riley Beggin – March 3, 2025

The Republican-led House passed a federal budget resolution Tuesday night as the GOP seeks to pass one “big, beautiful bill” rolling President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda into the spending plan.

The proposal passed by a near party-line vote of 217-215 sets up a reconciliation bill that includes extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while implementing new ones at a cost of $4.5 trillion, but also requires lawmakers to find $2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade.

House Democrats, like Pennsylvania’s 4th District Rep. Madeleine Dean, of Lower Merion, have called the tax cuts a “betrayal of the middle class” and will be offset by programs that millions rely on, including Medicaid and SNAP, the food assistance program formerly known as food stamps.

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks with press while walking into the House Chambers to vote on February 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks with press while walking into the House Chambers to vote on February 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.

“In Pennsylvania, nearly three million people rely on Medicaid’s Medical Assistance and CHIP for healthcare — including 39% of all the Commonwealth’s children, 47% of adults with disabilities, and 64% of people living in nursing homes,” Dean wrote in a Facebook post explaining her vote against the resolution Tuesday.

Republican leadership have pushed back on that notion, saying that enough savings can be found through implementing work requirements and rooting out waste.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that Republicans are “committed to preserving Medicare benefits for those who desperately need it, deserve it, and quality for it. What we’re talking about is rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.”

Locally, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-1, of Middletown, seemed to echo Johnson’s comments in a statement on his website saying the “procedural” vote is one of many steps in developing the budget.

“The word Medicaid is not mentioned or addressed anywhere in this procedural bill. We will continue to keep a close eye on these deliberations as they continue, to ensure that the interests of our PA-1 community are protected,” Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick’s office did not return request for comment on if he would oppose a bill that cut Medicaid or how much of the $2 trillion in spending cuts could be covered by alleged “fraud, waste and abuse” cited by Johnson.

Does the resolution cut Medicaid and SNAP?

While the resolution doesn’t specifically mention Medicaid, SNAP or student loan assistance programs, groups like the nonprofit Tax Foundation say those programs are likely to face some reductions in the face of massive spending cuts.

The proposed spending plan directs multiple committees to cut billions of dollars, including an $880 billion reduction from the Energy and Commerce Committee — which has broad jurisdiction over numerous programs including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Trump has already ruled out signing off on cuts to Medicare and Social Security, which makes Medicaid likely to see cuts, according to a report from the foundation.

The Education and Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over education programs, school lunch programs and work requirements for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, would be directed to cut $330 billion. The Agriculture Committee, which has oversight over farm programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, would be required to cut $230 billion from programs under its jurisdiction.

Senate passes its own bill: Senate passes Republican border security bill without Trump tax cuts

The cuts were added to the resolution as a last-minute effort to bring members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus on board with a plan that raised the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, increased defense and border security spending by $300 billion and would add almost $3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

Republicans hold a narrow 218-215 majority in the House, which meant that the GOP could lose support from just one of its members for the vote to pass.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. was the lone GOP no vote.

SNAP and Medicaid recipients in Pennsylvania

If Republicans can’t find all of their spending cuts in alleged wasteful spending, changes to SNAP and Medicaid could affect millions of Pennsylvanians, according to data from the state’s Department of Human Resources.

The number of SNAP recipients in Pennsylvania has held steady at about 2 million people each month since October 2023 and as of last month’s reported totals. About 1.97 million people used SNAP in January 2023.

Over that same period, the total benefits sent out to people in eligible low-income households have decreased by about $5.3 million, from $367 million to $362 million in January.

In Bucks County, an estimated 48,710 individuals received more than $8.7 million in SNAP assistance in January, an increase of about 2,000 people and $244,000 compared to October 2023.

Medicaid data from the human services department, which includes TANF, General Assistance and aid for people with disabilities, only provides a breakdown of total recipients and how many were under 21.

About 3 million Pennsylvanians received some form of assistance in the Medicaid data in January, down from about 3.6 million people two years ago.

While the total amount of people have dropped, the percentage of underage recipients has increased statewide, from almost 40% in 2023 to 42% last month.

Philadelphia, the state’s most populous city, has more people using Medicaid than any other county, but only 39% of the 673,869 people enrolled are under 21.

Bucks County has followed the same trend as the state since 2023. About 42% of the 112,121 recipients reported in January 2023 were under 21 compared to 44% of 90,778 recipients last month.

In January, Bucks County ranked 10th for most residents receiving Medicaid and the 13th highest percentage of recipients under 21.

About 46% of the 120,926 people receiving Medicaid in Montgomery County were under 21, the third highest county in the state for percent of under 21 recipients and the fourth highest for total recipients.

Almost half of the 59,712 people enrolled in Medicaid in Chester County are under 21, the highest percentage in the state and 14th highest for total enrolled.

The Hill: Most Americans in new survey support funding increases as Trump admin seeks cuts

GOP Budget Cuts Stand to Deal Tremendous Damage to Rural Economies

The New Republic

GOP Budget Cuts Stand to Deal Tremendous Damage to Rural Economies

Grace Segers – March 3, 2025

As congressional Republicans mull ways to slash federal spending while offsetting trillions of dollars in tax breaks, key social safety net programs may be on the chopping block. A massive budget proposal approved in the House last week directs the committees that oversee health care spending to cut $880 billion over the next decade, and the Agriculture Committee to cut $230 billion—a blueprint that Democrats warn will kneecap programs relied upon by low-income Americans, namely Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, also known as food stamps.

Nearly 43 million people receive such program benefits annually. Around 80 percent of SNAP households include a child, an elderly adult, or an adult with a disability. Because of its widespread use, any potential future cuts to SNAP would affect constituents of every ideological leaning, including rural Americans who live in Republican areas.

“SNAP is important everywhere. In every state, in every congressional district, it’s really important for our nation,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist at Northwestern University who studies policies aimed at alleviating childhood poverty.

Strictly by the numbers, there are more SNAP recipients in metropolitan areas than rural ones; however, rural Americans experience disproportionately high rates of food insecurity and nonmetro areas have higher participation rates in SNAP. A 2022 report by Schanzenbach found that SNAP helped lessen rural childhood poverty, reducing the poverty rate by 2.6 percentage points for children in 2020, a greater impact than for children living in SNAP households in metro areas.

Conducting additional research for this story, and using data from states that provide county-level information, Schanzenbach reported that—by the 2023 definitions of “metro” and “nonmetro” counties—SNAP participation rates were consistently slightly higher in nonmetro counties than in metro ones from 2019 through 2023. In January 2023, for example, the SNAP participation rate in nonmetro counties hovered above 15 percent, compared to roughly 12 percent in metro counties.

Salaam Bhatti, the SNAP director at the Food Research and Action Center, noted that “accessibility and affordability” are two of the greatest challenges facing rural Americans. “Grocery stores and convenience stores are few and far between” in rural areas, said Bhatti, “and that’s if you even have transportation.” Public transportation is either unreliable or nonexistent in many parts of the country. Once a SNAP recipient makes it to the grocery store, their tight budget—program benefits amount to roughly $6.20 per day—makes it difficult to buy the most expensive items at the supermarket, such as fresh produce and meat.

“If any part of that benefit is decreased, then that has a ripple effect across the entire supply chain,” said Bhatti.

Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson, the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has insisted that he does not want to make cuts to SNAP. This message was repeated by a committee staffer, who said that “neither the chairman nor our conference are interested in cutting SNAP benefits.” According to the Republican committee staffer, Thompson’s priorities for SNAP include cutting down on fraud, tightening work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents, and reevaluating the Thrifty Food Plan, the method by which SNAP benefits are calculated, which was revised by the Biden administration in 2021.

However, analysis by the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP, predicts that changes to the Thrifty Food Plan would amount to future cuts to SNAP benefits for recipients. This same report found that efforts to limit states’ abilities to request waivers for the three-month time limit for able-bodied adults without dependents to seek employment could cut hundreds of thousands of people from the SNAP rolls.

Another recent policy brief by CBPP argued that “rural unemployment is often higher, work can be more variable, and work opportunities are often farther away and harder to reach,” which could make it more difficult to meet those work requirements. (House Republicans note that work requirements can be met through volunteering and job training, in addition to direct employment.)

Tightening requirements would not necessarily decrease the number of hungry people in the country—just the number that actually received benefits. “The way to really reduce spending is to reduce the number of people in the program,” said Jonathan Coppess, director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “That doesn’t mean that people aren’t hungry. It doesn’t mean they’re still not trying to put food on the table and struggling to make ends meet. They just can’t get into the program, or they give up because it’s too onerous.”

Then there is the potential impact that cuts to SNAP could have on the local economy. For example, in West Virginia—where a large percentage of the population lives in a rural area—one in five rural households received SNAP benefits, according to a fact sheet by the Food Research and Action Center. The report also found that SNAP supported more than 2,000 retailers in West Virginia, including grocery stores and farmers markets. In Texas, the state with the largest rural population by numbersone in eight rural households rely on SNAP.

Haley Kottler, who serves as a voter engagement director at the anti-hunger organization Kansas Appleseed, recalled speaking with a grocer in a rural part of Kansas. “I spent around 45 minutes talking to a grocer about how important SNAP is to her community,” said Kottler, adding that “it really highlighted for me how important SNAP is both to folks who need access” and to the producers providing them with food—and benefiting from their business. Kansas is in some ways unique because of limits the state legislature imposed a decade ago restricting access to SNAP; Kottler noted that cuts on the federal level would compound the squeeze felt on the state level.

“The need has always been there, and the need continues to rise,” Kottler said.

Rural communities would also be hit particularly hard by cuts to SNAP because of potential impact on farm producers. Coppess identified three nodes of connection between farmers and SNAP recipients: the political intersection, as major agriculture programs and nutrition benefits are both governed by the massive legislation known as the farm bill; the symbiotic relationship between food consumers and producers, as giving low-income Americans the means to purchase vegetables or meat indirectly helps farmers; and the impact that SNAP recipients and farmers alike have on their local communities.

One report found that, during the recovery period from the Great Recession, SNAP expenditures had a greater impact on rural economies than urban ones, increasing rural output and employment by more than 1 percent between 2009 and 2014.

“Cutting $230 billion from SNAP hurts the farmers who grow our food, the truckers who haul it, the manufacturers that produce its packaging and the grocery stores that sell it,” Representative Angie Craig, the Democratic ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement. “These cuts endanger hundreds of thousands of jobs along a food supply chain that starts in rural America and ends at dinner tables in every community across the country.”

Republicans note that the $230 billion set out in the budget resolution is still a guideline, rather than a directive: Republicans in both the House and the Senate still need to agree on a budget resolution that satisfies both chambers as well as President Donald Trump, and the final numbers of that measure are still to be determined. Senate Republicans passed their own “skinny” budget resolution last week and have expressed serious doubts about the blueprint approved by their colleagues in the House, although the source of those complaints does not necessarily appear to be related to potential cuts to nutrition programs.

Regardless, experts warn that it would be impossible to reduce the cost of SNAP without affecting benefits. “We are going to quickly see that this just can’t all come from waste, fraud, and abuse,” Schanzenbach said. “And so we’re going to cut into muscle, not just fat.”

The Cool Down: Ranchers devastated by side effects of commonly used fertilizer: ‘It’s destroying our lives’
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Trump’s Mass Layoffs Leave Federal Workers Baffled, Angry

TIME

Trump’s Mass Layoffs Leave Federal Workers Baffled, Angry

Nik Popli – February 18, 2025

Protesters demonstrate in support of federal workers outside of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on February 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Organizers held the protest to speak on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts. Credit – Anna Moneymaker–Getty Images

A mid-level probationary worker with the U.S. Department of Agriculture read the letter in disbelief. It was from the USDA’s human resources department explaining he no longer had a job. The letter said the decision had been made “based on your performance.” But it didn’t make sense to him.

“There’s no way to tie me to a specific performance issue because I’m six weeks on the job,” says the employee, who works out of Phoenix and, like others interviewed for this report, spoke with TIME on the condition of anonymity. He says no one had mentioned any issues with his work before receiving the letter.

The USDA employee was among thousands of federal workers across the country hit with layoffs that began on Thursday with little prior notice, targeting probationary workers—those who have been employed by the federal government for less than one or two years and are easier to fire. The Trump Administration has ordered most agencies to let go of nearly all probationary employees who haven’t yet gained civil service protection.

The layoffs have shaken both federal employees and the unions that represent them, prompting widespread condemnation and setting the stage for future legal battles. Many in the federal workforce see the aggressive nature of the cuts as proof that the Trump Administration isn’t just trying to cut costs, but dismantle the federal workforce and reduce its capacity to serve the public.

“I feel like right now the administration is kind of demonizing federal workers,” says a senior IRS agent from New York who was hired in July and “fully expects” to receive a termination notice in the coming days.

The firings are part of a broader push spearheaded by the Trump Administration and the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative run by billionaire Elon Musk to streamline government operations. Musk has gone so far as to suggest that entire agencies should be “deleted,” likening them to “weeds” in need of eradication. Legal experts and union representatives argue many of DOGE’s actions are not legal.

The letter for the USDA employee, viewed by TIME, cited guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, claiming that probationary employees have “the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual.” Soon after Trump’s inauguration, the leadership at OPM was replaced with Musk allies.

Elsewhere, thousands of workers were laid off in group calls or via pre-recorded messages, with their government access revoked immediately. Others were told they would be formally fired by emails. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides crucial services and benefits to military veterans, laid off more than 1,000 employees on Thursday alone, with VA Secretary Doug Collins claiming that the move would save the department $98 million per year. The vast majority of probationary employees, including those in the VA’s health care system, were exempted from the layoffs.

The abrupt and seemingly callous manner of conducting layoffs has left many workers stunned. One HR manager at the Veterans Health Administration, who has worked for the department for more than two decades, said that he had never witnessed anything like this in all his years of service. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” he says. At a staff meeting on Friday, he says leadership told them they were finding out about the terminations at the same time as the rest of the agency’s staff, and that the decisions were being made by a small group in the Office of Personnel Management backed by DOGE. “We’re paralyzed because we don’t know what’s happening tomorrow,” he adds.

The HR manager noted that he voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections and “will never make that mistake again.”

“If the GOP wants to win someone like me back, they would need to start making changes right now,” he says. “I have not voted for a Democrat in two decades. I will vote Democrat in the midterms and the next presidential race for sure.” Other federal employees who mentioned voting for Trump in the past say they are reconsidering their support for the Republican administration.

The layoffs come soon after a federal judge in Massachusetts allowed the Trump Administration to proceed with an offer for federal employees to leave their jobs with the promise of continuing to be paid through September. That offer expired on Wednesday, Trump officials said. The White House said that 77,000 workers, or around 3% of the civilian workforce, agreed to the buyout.

Jourdain Solis, a 27-year-old fuel compliance officer at the Internal Revenue Service in Fresno, Calif., accepted the buyout earlier this month, feeling it offered more security than staying in a job that didn’t seem like a priority under the new Administration. “I couldn’t guarantee that my program would stick around,” he said. “Taking this offer would have been much better than being laid off and only qualifying for unemployment.”

Solis also acknowledges feeling undervalued by the government with the ongoing rhetoric about job cuts and waste. “Our value as public servants gets questioned all the time,” he says. “So I just really didn’t want to work for a country that doesn’t respect public servants as much as they should.”

But many federal workers declined to take the resignation offer, in part because they were worried about its validity. The buyouts are technically not funded, as Congress hasn’t appropriated funding beyond March 14. “There are too many questions and concerns,” one worker at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told TIME. “It’s a joke,” says the probationary IRS agent. “There’s all kinds of issues with the funding. Nobody trusted it.” Solis admits he still has some questions about the legality of it all but says he’s prepared to take legal action if the government doesn’t follow through with the offer.

The ramifications of the staff reductions go far beyond the individual workers, potentially shifting the government’s relationship with the rest of its workforce. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents many of those dismissed, has vowed to challenge the firings in court, calling them a violation of workers’ rights. “These firings are not about poor performance,” said Everett Kelley, the union’s president. “There is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.”

As the cuts continue, agencies are bracing for more uncertainty, and federal workers remain on edge. “I can feel it in my interactions with people,” said the former USDA employee. “People are nervous because they don’t know what’s going on with their jobs. And even the senior leadership at most of the agencies doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Some of these workers say they had hoped the changes under the new administration would be gradual. The speed and abrupt nature of it all has left many feeling blindsided.

Federal workers typically have the option to appeal layoffs or suspensions to the Merit Systems Protection Board, a process that involves an initial review by administrative judges before a final decision is made by the board itself. However, many workers fear that these legal avenues may not be enough to protect their rights in the face of an administration determined to impose sweeping changes.

For many, the recent firings are a stark reminder of how quickly the administration is willing to reshape the government, even if it might undermine its effectiveness. Asked about DOGE’s operations, the VA employee said: “They obviously are out of their depth and are struggling desperately to make whatever it is that they are trying to do work,” he adds. “I don’t think they will succeed.”

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Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China Could Start This Weekend

Reason

Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China Could Start This Weekend

Eric Boehm – January 31, 2025

Shipping containers
Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash

Huge new tariffs on goods imported from Canada, China, and Mexico could begin as soon as this weekend.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a Friday press conference that the Trump administration was prepared to impose a new 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, along with a 10 percent tariff on imports from China. Aside from that statement, Leavitt offered few specifics and the White House has so far not released any further details about the new import taxes.

That leaves many unknowns, such as: Under what authority is President Donald Trump implementing those tariffs? Are there exceptions for certain goods, or are the tariffs being charged on all imports from the three countries? Do those tariffs apply on top of existing import duties—for example, is the new 10 percent tariff on goods from China imposed on top of the tariffs on many Chinese imports that Trump implemented during his first term—or in place of them? Will there be a process for certain companies and industries to seek relief from tariffs for goods that cannot be sourced in the United States, like tequila?

Adding to the confusion: Reuters reported earlier on Friday that those tariffs will be implemented on March 1. Leavitt called that report “false.”

Canada, China, and Mexico are the United States’ three largest trading partners. In 2023, the last full year for which data are available, the U.S. imported $475 billion of goods from Mexico, $426 billion from China, and $418 billion from Canada.

In her remarks to reporters, Leavitt said the new tariffs were being issued in response to the “illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country.” In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro also claimed that “fentanyl…that comes from China and Mexico” was the prime motivator for the new import taxes.

This makes very little sense. How will higher taxes on legal imports affect the flow of illegal drugs?

What the tariffs will do is raise prices for American businesses and consumers.

Though much uncertainly remains about how these tariffs will function, a full-fledged 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, plus a 10 percent tariff on all imports from China, would be a tax increase of $111 billion this year and would shrink the U.S. economy by 0.4 percent, according to estimates by the Tax Foundation.

“Several industries would experience severe disruption, including autos, oil & gas, and agriculture,” wrote Erica York, vice president of policy at the Tax Foundation, in a post on X shortly after Leavitt announced the new tariffs.

Auto manufacturers, which rely on supply chains that stretch across the whole of North America—thanks to free trade agreements—figure to be some of the hardest hit. “Steep tariffs on vehicles would not only raise prices north of the border and shock the Mexican auto sector and its workers. They would also cost jobs in the United States,” warned the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in December. “Because of the highly integrated value chains in the North American auto sector, a high share of US-origin parts are embedded in Mexico’s motor vehicle exports. US suppliers of these parts could soon be caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war.”

Fruit and vegetable imports from Mexico will be another victim. “If you put tariffs on Mexican fruits and vegetables, there’s no doubt about it, you’ll have inflation in the supermarket and you will have bare shelves,” Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, told The Packer, a trade publication, in November. “Consumers will not be happy with that.”

Tariffs on crude oil imports from Canada will likely drive up prices at the gas pump. More than 50 percent of the crude oil imported to the U.S. comes from Canada, and analysts believe tariffs could cause prices to jump by 40 cents or even 70 cents per gallon. If those tariffs spiral into a broader trade war, energy companies are already warning about “volatility in crude oil prices, impacting refineries and downstream fuel markets, especially for gasoline and diesel.”

There are also unanswered questions about how the other countries might respond. “All three governments have promised to answer Mr. Trump’s levies with tariffs of their own on U.S. exports, including Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky peanut butter,” The New York Times notes.

Make no mistake, this is a trade war of choice being launched unilaterally by Trump. It is a foolish and self-destructive move, one that (in the case of tariffs on Canada and Mexico, at least) directly violates a trade deal Trump signed during his first term and hailed as “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made.”

Tariffs are not a path to peace or prosperity, and igniting a trade war with America’s three largest trade partners is sure to have negative consequences no one can foresee at the moment.

“Sound fiscal policy and effective incentives to work, save and invest can increase economic growth, but the implementation of broad-based tariffs impedes that growth and in a full-blown trade war would overwhelm it,” warned economists Phil Gramm and Larry Summers, in a powerful op-ed published Friday in The Wall Street Journal. “We therefore urge Congress not to adopt the administration’s proposed tariffs and urge the president not to implement those tariffs by executive order.”

Congress should act immediately to block these tariffs, reassure America’s top trade partners and other allies, and revoke much of the president’s authority over trade.