Ex-Presidents Under Fire for Silence on Trump: ‘The Time Is Now’
Liam Archacki – February 20, 2025
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Some Democratic are dismayed that the living former U.S. presidents have largely fallen silent amid the whirlwind first month of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Despite each offering some degree of criticism against Trump in the past, the four other presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden—have kept quiet during the Trump White House’s assault on political norms.
“No one knows more about the importance of our presidents respecting separation of powers and showing restraint than former presidents,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne toldThe Hill. “Given Trump’s ongoing power grab, those voices and perspectives of our ex-presidents would be critical to the public discourse at this moment.”
His stance was echoed by unnamed former senior Obama aide.
“I don’t know what they’re waiting for,” the insider told The Hill. “The time isn’t when Trump ignores court rulings. The time is now.”
Donald Trump arrives to welcome Marc Fogel back to the United States after being released from Russian custody, at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. / Al Drago / Getty Images
Since entering office on Jan. 20, Trump has given his critics plenty of fodder. He has installed loyalists in key administration positions, flouted the Constitution by issuing brazen executive orders, and fired thousands of federal employees (with Elon Musk’s help).
On Wednesday, Trump went as far as to refer to himself as a “king.”
All three of the Democratic presidents had been unsparing in their previous criticism of Trump.
In his farewell address, Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms.”
He emphasized the importance of staying “engaged” in the Democratic process.
Meanwhile, Obama and his wife Michelle Obama were two of Kamala Harris’ highest-profile surrogates during the 2024 campaign.
A month after Trump’s election, Obama gave a speech about the “increasing willingness on the part of politicians and their followers to violate democratic norms, to do anything they can to get their way.”
Obama did dip his toes into Trump criticism earlier this month, posting on X a New York Times op-ed slamming Trump and Musk’s push to end the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“USAID has been fighting disease, feeding children, and promoting goodwill around the world for six decades,” he wrote. “As this article makes clear, dismantling this agency would be a profound foreign policy mistake – one that Congress should resist.”
Otherwise, it’s been crickets.
Although Bush has seemed to cast indirect criticism at Trump and MAGA Republicanism, he has long refrained from explicit rebukes of his party member.
“It’s out of respect to the office,” a former Bush aide told The Hill. “It’s just not his style.”
In the past, presidents in general have steered clear of openly criticizing their successors—seemingly as sign of deference.
To that point, Democratic strategist Lynda Tran told The Hill that “in the age of Trump, it’s more important than ever that we respect and adhere to long-standing traditions,” like past presidents avoiding public debates with the sitting commander in chief.
She urged “faith in the other branches of government.”
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush and former President Barack Obama attend the inauguration of Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term. / Pool / Getty ImagesMore
Meanwhile, Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist who doesn’t support Trump, said that there would be no upside to criticism from the presidents.
“They can’t, and they know it,” she said. “If they lend their voices to the conversation, they’ll just be taken down by Trump. If they speak out, it’ll be for the history books, not to affect the Trump presidency now.”
Trump Secretary Reveals Next Giveaway to the Rich: Abolishing the IRS
Hafiz Rashid – February 20, 2025
Donald Trump’s new commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, says the president wants to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service.
“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Lutnick said to Jesse Watters on Fox News Wednesday, adding that the president’s planned “External Revenue Service” will fund the government with tariffs from the rest of the world.
Trump has already started cutting the government agency, with plans to lay off about 7,000 IRS workers beginning Thursday, despite tax season being in full swing. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has also demanded access to the private data of every single taxpayer, business, and nonprofit, and Musk claimed earlier this month that he killed a popular government program that allowed Americans a free and easy way to file their taxes.
In December, in negotiations to avert a government shutdown, Republicans already set the stage for Trump’s plan, cutting $20 billion in funding for the IRS, hurting its ability to conduct audits and adding $140 billion to the national debt, the Biden administration said at the time. Trump’s choice to run the agency, former Representative Billy Long, has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, but he repeatedly sought to abolish the IRS while serving in the House.
While killing the IRS might once have been a half-baked scheme for Republicans, that no longer seems to be the case. Trump has already destroyed one government agency, barring legal challenges. But will he actually be able to get rid of the IRS, which is responsible for bringing in the money that runs the federal government? It remains to be seen if he can overcome all of the legal issues with his goal, as well as Congress.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has caused uproar almost from the moment of its inception.
DOGE is not an official government department, despite its name. Only Congress can create new departments. But DOGE is an effort by President Trump and Musk to radically reform — and reduce — the size of government.
At one time, Musk had suggested it was possible to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. More recently he has indicated that half of that figure would be more realistic.
But even accomplishing $1 trillion in cuts would require massive cuts to government services and to its payroll.
The idea is welcomed by fiscal hawks, MAGA supporters and Musk’s own legion of fans.
But critics say DOGE is going to hurt millions of Americans by axing programs that they need, or the personnel that support them.
They also express concern about conflicts of interest, given that Musk’s companies have billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Here are the five biggest controversies so far.
Access to Treasury Department — and taxes?
Perhaps no single DOGE-related furor has captured the public imagination so much as his team’s access at the Treasury Department.
The issue is whether Musk and his acolytes have access to individual taxpayer data, which is subject to strict disclosure rules. At its most basic, the question is, “Can Elon Musk see your tax returns?”
The row has grown more intense in recent days after several news organizations reported that DOGE personnel had sought access to a specific system — the Integrated Data Retrieval System, or IDRS — which is home to some of the most sensitive information.
The Washington Post referred to IDRS as a system that “includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country.”
The Post also noted that the system “enables tax agency employees to access IRS records — including personal identification numbers — and bank information.”
This is only the latest development in the saga of DOGE and the Treasury Department.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas extended an earlier restraining order curtailing DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems.
Musk had previously targeted another judge who ruled against his quasi-department in the matter, calling for U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer’s impeachment.
Hollowing out USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a shell of its former self after DOGE got to work.
The agency’s management of roughly $40 billion was a particular target of Musk, who contended that far too much of the money went astray, either through fraud or because of misplaced priorities.
Musk has said that USAID is “beyond repair,” “a ball of worms” and an agency that he had spent one weekend “feeding … into the wood chipper.”
Musk also contended in early February that he had gotten Trump’s agreement to “shut it down.”
An official shutdown would be a matter for Congress to decide. But the Trump administration has done everything short of that to neuter the agency. Until recently, USAID had about 14,000 employees. It is now projected to have fewer than 300.
USAID’s defenders argue that the moves to hollow out the agency are both callous and shortsighted.
Samantha Power, who led the agency under former President Biden, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the de facto collapsing of USAID is set to be “one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in U.S. history.”
Power also contended that Musk and his allies had “imperiled millions of lives, thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars of investment in American small businesses and farms while severely undermining our national security and global influence — all while authoritarians and extremists celebrate their luck.”
The administration’s actions on USAID are the subject of several legal challenges.
Federal firings and the buyout offer
The Trump administration’s offer to buy out federal employees officially emanates not from DOGE but from the Office of Personnel Management.
But it has Musk’s fingerprints all over it — even in the way the subject line of the email that made the offer, “Fork in the Road,” echoed a similar email he sent to employees of the social platform X soon after taking over the company.
In the government case, federal workers were offered payment of their salaries and retention of their benefits until the end of September if they swiftly committed to resigning.
The administration has said about 75,000 employees took the offer before it closed on Feb. 12 — roughly 4 percent of the federal workforce.
Labor unions had sought to stop the program in the courts, but in the end they only briefly froze it.
Opponents argue that it’s not even guaranteed the workers will get their money, as Congress has not appropriated funding for that long or for the purpose of a buyout.
The buyout email had warned of forced cutbacks to come, telling government workers in a related document that “the federal workforce is expected to undergo significant near-term changes.”
So it has proven.
Reuters reported that the administration began firing thousands of workers last Thursday. The news agency reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs had laid off more than 1,000 employees who were in their probationary period and that the U.S. Forest Service was on the cusp of firing 3,000.
There has been little official word on how many workers have been fired in total, but the latest figures available, from roughly one year ago, indicated that around 220,000 federal workers were at less than 12 months on the job at that point.
Probationary workers appear to be the first group targeted for layoffs.
Putting a stop to the CFPB
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) grew out of the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis, intending to put financial institutions under greater scrutiny and to guard the interests of their customers.
But it was swiftly put under DOGE’s scrutiny instead, with Musk at one point posting on social media “CFPB RIP.”
In short order, DOGE helped to halt the bureau’s work.
The official move came from Russell Vought, a Trump loyalist who now presides over the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought instructed CFPB employees earlier this month to simply stop performing “any work tasks.”
The bureau has an unusual funding arrangement — its money comes from the Federal Reserve, not from a specific congressional appropriation — but Vought said that the next tranche of funding would simply not be drawn down.
Putting a stop to the CFPB’s work could have a payoff for Musk’s businesses, as critics were quick to note.
X has recently advanced plans for its own mobile payments service, apparently to be called an “X Money Account.” According to NPR, this service “would be directly regulated by the [CFPB] under expanded oversight powers it had finalized late last year.”
In other words, Musk’s team was in effect rendering impotent an agency that had the power to regulate elements of his business.
Delving into the vaults at Fort Knox?
As if he hadn’t made enough headlines with many of the moves listed above, Musk suggested on Monday that he would be putting Fort Knox under the microscope.
The Kentucky facility is synonymous with the vast amount of gold reserves stored there.
“Looking for the gold at Fort Knox,” Musk wrote on X on Monday.
Keying off a post from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) about allegedly being denied access to Fort Knox, Musk added, “Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not. That gold is owned by the American public! We want to know if it’s still there.”
Fort Knox famously does not allow visitors.
It was unclear exactly what Musk meant by his social media postings — whether he would demand some kind of auditing of the gold held in Kentucky or whether he was merely indulging his penchant for stirring controversy and publicity.
Musk’s DOGE seeks access to US tax system: reports
AFP – February 17, 2025
Efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access IRS data has sparked alarm that private data could be at risk (Kayla Bartkowski)Kayla Bartkowski/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/Getty Images via AFPMore
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sparked alarm by seeking access to a system with the US tax office that has detailed financial data about millions of Americans, US media reported.
Spearheaded by Musk, the world’s richest man, US President Donald Trump has embarked on a campaign to slash public spending deemed wasteful or contrary to his policies.
The Washington Post and others reported that the latest request is for DOGE officials to have broad access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) systems, property and datasets.
This includes the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), access to which is usually extremely limited and which offers “instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts”, according to the IRS.
As of Sunday evening, the request had not been granted, the reports said.
But it has sparked alarm within the government and among privacy experts who say granting Musk access to private taxpayer data could be extraordinarily dangerous, according to ABC News.
“People who share their most sensitive information with the federal government do so under the understanding that not only will it be used legally, but also handled securely and in ways that minimize risks like identity theft and personal invasion, which this reporting brings into serious question,” Elizabeth Laird, a former state privacy officer now with the Center for Democracy and Technology, told ABC.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said when asked about the employee’s potential access to the sensitive system, NBC News reported.
“It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.
“DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard-earned tax dollars on,” Fields added.
US media reported on Friday that the IRS is preparing to lay off thousands of employees as soon as this week as part of Trump and Musk’s drive to shrink the federal workforce.
‘They’re Not At The Gate Anymore’: Michael Steele Issues Most Chilling Trump Warning
Lee Moran – February 17, 2025
Both sides of the aisle drew fierce condemnation from former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, who accused both the GOP and Democrats of failing to stand up to Donald Trump’s second administration.
On MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” Steele’s co-host, Symone Sanders-Townsend, asked him, “What would you have us do?”
“I would like you to show that you give a damn,” Steele replied to his colleague, a one-time adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“That you got a little emotion about the fact that people are losing their jobs indiscriminately,” he continued.
Steele then noted that Trump has given “absolute power” to billionaire Elon Musk — whose unofficial Department of Government Efficiency is slashing public spending and attempting to cull the positions of thousands of federal workers — before continuing to speak to Sanders-Townsend’s question.
“So, I’d just like to see somebody wake the hell up and get excited about the fact that your country is under assault,” he said. “They’re not at the gate anymore, they’re in your bedrooms, they’re in your living rooms, they’re in your businesses, they got your data, dumbass, they got all your stuff.”
Co-host Alicia Menendez suggested Republicans are equally to blame.
“The hell with Republicans,” Steele replied. “They’re not going to do anything, they’re the problem.”
Elsewhere on this weekend’s broadcast of Steele’s show, the co-host accused Trump and his MAGA allies of trying to destroy U.S. democracy and the Constitution via what he called the “fake agency” of DOGE.
Warnock at National Cathedral: ‘Don’t tell me you reject DEI when you live in a White House built by Black hands’
Cheyanne M. Daniels – February 17, 2025
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) is issuing a sharp rebuke of President Trump’s flurry of executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) since his inauguration.
Speaking at the National Cathedral’s Holy Eucharist and Annual HBCU Welcome Sunday, Warnock said many of the president’s orders are a “wholesale unabashed assault” on DEI.
“Don’t tell me you reject DEI when you live in a White House built by Black hands,” said Warnock, a Baptist preacher. “The White House is a DEI house built by slaves who worked without the benefit of compensation.”
Just days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” in government and help find ways to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
Multiple federal agencies are purging their staffs of DEI-related positions, and major companies including McDonald’s, Target, Walmart, Amazon and Tractor Supply have all ended or rolled back their DEI programs, many made in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Trump and his supporters have falsely claimed DEI policies and programs discriminate against white candidates.
“Diversity is sometimes offensive. It makes you uncomfortable because when you are accustomed to privilege diversity might feel like oppression,” Warnock said.
The Georgia senator also addressed the president’s allegations that DEI was to blame for the deadly airplane crashes that happened just weeks into his second term.
“While dozens of bodies were still beneath the chilly waters of the Potomac, he was busy playing a sad and awful game,” Warnock said Sunday.
“I know a God who creates talent and genius and brilliance all over the town on all sides of the track in every area code in every Zip code,” Warnock concluded. “It takes all of us to fly, and if we won’t rely on all of us we’ll find that we’re stuck on the ground. I don’t know about you but I want to fly higher. I want all that God has imagined for America.”
Budde had implored Trump to have “mercy” for those who were scared for his second term, including members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants and people of color.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” Trump said on social media after the service.
“She and her church owe the public an apology!” he added.
Warnock commended Budde for her “powerful and prophetic voice” that “speaks truth to power and addresses the fear and the anxiety that so many are feeling right now.”
“In the midst of the dark clouds, she had the courage to stand in the best of our tradition and speak the truth, and I submit to you that she need not apologize to anybody,” Warnock said to applause.
“When the prophet speaks the prophet doesn’t apologize. Those who hear are called to repent.”
It’s a surprisingly hard question to answer. A White House record seen by Business Insider says his job is simply “unlisted.”
Though Musk has a White House access badge as of January 20 and has been widely described as the leader of DOGE, the White House has not officially confirmed Musk’s title. His X profile describes him as “White House Tech Support.”
When Donald Trump folded Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” into the White House, he did it by rebranding the US Digital Service — an Obama-era effort to bring modern software-development practices to the federal government — as the “US DOGE Service.” He also moved it under his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and created a “temporary organization” that would enable the new USDS administrator to recruit people faster, without going through standard federal hiring procedures.
But the order didn’t say who the USDS administrator was, nor did any of Trump’s statements designating leaders of various departments and offices. Ted Carstensen, who had been the deputy administrator of the USDS since last year, told staff on Thursday that it would be his last day.
“They’d better figure out his title,” said Richard Painter, a government-ethics expert and persistent Trump critic. “The structure of this organization needs to be explained to the American people.”
In a January 27 report, the Congressional Research Service said that “a USDS administrator has not yet been named.” House Democrats also flagged in a letter to the leader of the Small Business Administration on Monday that they’d seen “no formal communications from the White House naming Elon Musk as Administrator.”
But the presumption that Musk leads the office or has some defined official authority seems widespread. Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed a letter to him as “Administrator” of the “Department of Government Efficiency.” Earlier this week, a Texas state official published a press release praising “DOGE Chairman Elon Musk” for taking steps to shut down the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Musk, the White House Press Office, and Katie Miller, whom Trump has described as a DOGE advisor, didn’t respond to inquiries about who leads the USDS. The White House has said Musk is a “special government employee,” which means he can work for only 130 days a year. But that’s a classification, not a title.
Musk is known for being loose with titles. At Tesla, he gave himself the title of “technoking” in 2021. At Twitter, now known as X, his title was “chief twit.” “No idea who the CEO is,” he said in a 2022 post.
Even Tesla doesn’t seem to be sure what Musk’s government role is. In its annual report published on January 29, Tesla said Musk had management roles at several companies and was “involved in other ventures and with the Department of Government Efficiency.”
The ambiguity extends beyond Musk himself. Some of the techies linked to Musk who have gone to work at the Office of Personnel Management and agencies like the Treasury Department have nebulous titles like “senior advisor” and “expert.”
“I think that this is an intentional strategy to create confusion as to whether he actually has a formal title or whether he is just a part-time unpaid advisor to the president,” said John Pelissero, the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “If you are clear that if he is the administrator of DOGE, then he has to comply with various rules that are in place that apply to other executive branch employees.”
Painter, the ethics lawyer, suggested the White House may be trying to keep Musk’s financial disclosures out of the public eye. The executive order that renamed USDS also moved it out of the Office of Management and Budget and into the White House Office, a part of the executive branch that is harder for Congress and others to scrutinize because of executive privilege.
‘Anti-Trumpers’ plan protests in every state on Wednesday. What’s happening in Georgia?
Vanessa Countryman, Savannah Morning News – February 4, 2025
A group calling themselves the “50501 Movement” are planning protests across the country, and in Georgia, on Wednesday, Feb. 5.
The group claims to be fighting “fascism” by protesting against President Donald Trump and his actions in office.
How many people are in the 50501 Movement?
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2025.
The movement has platforms, including a website and social media accounts, but the number of members is unclear. The Instagram account has nearly 7,000 followers and its official Bluesky account has over 10,000 followers.
Where are people protesting in Georgia against Trump?
The group is planning to hold protests mostly at each state’s capitol building. Georgia’s will be held at Centennial Park in Atlanta at 2 p.m., according the groups social media.
More groups are forming around the state, including in Augusta at the Richmond County Courthouse from 4 to 7 p.m.
Why are people protesting against Donald Trump?
They are protesting Project 2025 because they believe that the president is attempting to destroy freedoms and human rights.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a movement started by over 100 conservative organizations. This movement is intended to get rid of the so-called ‘Deep State’ and give the government back to the people, according to its website. Here is a list of some of its policy suggestions:
Secure the border, finish building the wall, and deport illegal aliens
De-weaponize the Federal Government by increasing accountability and oversight of the FBI and DOJ
Unleash American energy production to reduce energy prices
Cut the growth of government spending to reduce inflation
Make federal bureaucrats more accountable to the democratically elected President and Congress
Improve education by moving control and funding of education from DC bureaucrats directly to parents and state and local governments
Ban biological males from competing in women’s sports
Vanessa Countryman is the Trending Topics Reporter for the the Deep South Connect Team Georgia.
Running the numbers: What if the US were to stop supporting Ukraine?
Elaine McCusker, opinion contributor January 30, 2025
Many Americans are understandably concerned about the cost of aid to Ukraine. But they are thinking about the issue the wrong way — we should be considering the cost of Ukraine losing.
Analysis conducted at the American Enterprise Institute has determined that Russia defeating Ukraine would cost American taxpayers an additional $808 billion over what the U.S. has planned to spend on defense in the next five years. This is about seven times more than all the aid appropriated to the Pentagon to help Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
This estimate is based on a scenario in which the U.S. stops providing aid and the resulting Russian victory requires us to adapt our military capabilities, capacity and posture in order to maintain our security. The study then uses the Defense Futures Simulator to estimate the spending required to deter and, if necessary, defeat Russia in Europe, while also preventing further conflict by emboldened adversaries in the Pacific and the Middle East.
Without U.S. support, Russia would advance in 2025 as Kyiv runs out of weapons. By 2026, Ukraine would lose effective air defense, allowing Russia to conduct continuous large-scale bombings. Ukraine’s conventional forces would continue to courageously fight but would likely collapse by the end of that year, allowing Russia to seize Kyiv and then drive to the NATO border.
An emboldened Russia would reconstitute its combat units, use Ukraine’s resources to bolster its capabilities, station its forces along the NATO frontier, and be ready to attack beyond Ukraine by 2030.
The notion that America should disengage from Europe and save its forces and money misses the global nature of conflict. While Europe should certainly invest more in its own defense, history has violently shown us the dangers of thinking we can ignore our interests in any given region. Such regional conflict is a thing of the past. Nothing has made that more clear than China, North Korea and Iran’s support of Russia’s war effort.
In order to protect itself — nationally, militarily, economically — the U.S. must remain a global power and invest in the capabilities it needs to protect its partners and itself. A failure of American resolve in Europe will only motivate aggression and threaten our prosperity across the globe.
If Ukraine is allowed to fall, Washington will need a military that is larger, more capable, more responsive, and positioned in more locations. To deter or, if necessary, defeat Russia, the U.S. armed forces would need 14 new brigade combat teams, 18 more battle force ships, eight additional Marine Corps infantry battalions, 555 more Air Force aircraft, and 266,000 more uniform personnel for the increased force structure.
The U.S. would need to fortify its presence in Europe, including prepositioning air defenses, supplies and munitions. Efforts to diversify and expand the industrial base that supports our military would also need to move much more quickly than it does now to fulfill the high demands of modern warfare.
Although a conflict on the European continent would be primarily led by land forces under the cover of air forces, Washington would need to invest in naval capabilities as well. The U.S. Navy would have to discard its plans to shrink its overall number of ships, stabilize its carrier fleet at 12 and buy additional craft — submarines, destroyers, frigates, and logistics and support ships to keep the fleet at sea longer.
The U.S. will also have to maintain a higher state of readiness for home-stationed and deployed forces, which means additional training, improvements to facilities and stockpiles of spare parts. It will need more and better special operations forces, which are essential to intelligence gathering, shaping the battlefield and disrupting the enemy.
Given that Russia is an experienced space and cyber power, the U.S. will also need better architecture and command systems for both domains.
Instead, if America and its allies accelerate assistance, a victorious Ukraine would see Russia retreat behind its own borders with a defeated and diminished military, a struggling economy, weakened partnerships, and a healthy dose of domestic challenges.
Ukraine, in contrast, would be vibrant and free, with a thriving industrial base and a modern military. Washington would be able to scale down its deployments and capabilities in Europe. It would still maintain a presence there, but it would be able to dedicate more resources and attention to the Pacific.
Not only is the U.S. safer when it is engaged, but it also saves money. The U.S. is faced with numerous national challenges. Illegal immigration, financing the national debt and an increasingly unpredictable global security environment all compete for attention and resources. But the stakes are especially high in Ukraine.
Even putting aside the security and moral reasons for supporting a free Kyiv, which are immense, backing Ukraine is a financially sound decision for the United States.
Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She previously served as the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller).
Granderson: Aiding Ukraine has been cheap. Caving to Russia would be far more costly
The Los Angeles Times – Opinion
LZ Granderson – November 22, 2024
Then-President Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia walk together at a 2019 G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
After 20 years and $2.3 trillion spent, after more than 100,000 American and Afghan lives lost, one would think our war in Afghanistan would be more of a reference point today. Yet, outside of a few jabs from conservatives regarding President Biden’s handling of the exit, the war was hardly brought up at all this election cycle — despite having ended just three years earlier.
A reminder of how fast society moves and perhaps a glimpse into the future.
When was the last time you heard someone mention Ukraine in casual conversation? Back in February 2022, when Russia invaded, there were vigils in our streets. Now, more than 1,000 days later, after Congress has approved $175 billion in aid, it’s likely to fade into distant memory. President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned funding Ukraine, has vowed to end the war quickly. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said he would like to do so through “diplomatic means” next year.
While the average American probably hadn’t thought much about Ukraine before the 2022 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been thinking about the country for more than 30 years.
“The breakup of the Soviet Union was the collapse of a historic Russia,” he said in a documentary that aired on Russia’s airwaves. Putin has also referred to his country’s 1991 fall as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” For those keeping score at home, he’s ranking the end of the U.S.S.R. as worse than both world wars and the 20 years in Vietnam. “We lost 40% of the territory, production capacities and population. We became a different country. What had been built over a millennium was lost to a large extent.”
Make Russia Great Again may not lend itself to a pronounceable acronym, but it does clearly define Putin’s foreign policy agenda. It’s one predicated on a worldview that sees Ukraine as a rebellious commonwealth and not an independent democracy.
“Throwing off oppression” is a story we know well in this country. It’s a story we teach our children and base our exceptionalism on. It’s a story of freedom. But as we all know, freedom isn’t free.
Under the Biden administration, America was willing to help Ukraine pay to keep its freedom. The incoming Trump administration has signaled this will likely not continue. Other nations will go on to help Ukraine in its fight, but without America’s military and economic power, this coalition will struggle to hold together against Russia’s might.
The gamble in not providing aid to Ukraine is that should that country fall, it won’t satisfy Putin. His desire to restore his country’s glory has been burning for three decades. Why would he stop just as resistance crumbles?
The phrase “elections have consequences” isn’t just about domestic politics. There are consequences abroad as well. When most voters supported Trump’s candidacy, did they fully understand what walking away from Ukraine would mean?
As former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told me: “Ukraine gave up its nukes, in exchange for peace. The fact that Russia is attacking now means that only nukes work as a deterrent, so you can expect nuclear proliferation throughout the world.”
As president, Trump was slow to respond after Russia fired on and captured Ukrainian vessels and sailors back in 2018. Based on that lukewarm response, and his comments about helping Ukraine, it does make one wonder if Trump has any “red line” for Putin, and if so, what it is and what he is prepared to do to defend it. Unfortunately, there weren’t many opportunities to have these conversations during this election cycle. If there had been, perhaps voters would have a better understanding about the money for Ukraine. According to Kinzinger, a member of the Air National Guard and an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, “the money spent on weapons is actually produced here in the United States and we send our old [weapons] to Ukraine. So, we’re actually building jobs and refreshing our own weapons.”
Normally the U.S. pays to have old weapons destroyed, Kinzinger said.
None of this rose above the noise that surrounded a campaign season saturated with misinformation. Trump’s pitch for isolationism, or his willingness to ignore Ukraine, apparently resonated with many voters. And given our habit of quickly moving on from talking about war, it’s doubtful many of us would even remember just how much supporting Ukraine cost us.
On the other hand, we might find abandoning Ukraine and caving to Russia has a far steeper cost — one that will be impossible for us to forget.
Trump makes moves to expand his power, sparking chaos and a possible constitutional crisis
Nicholas Riccardi – January 29, 2025
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the 2025 House Republican Members Conference Dinner at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla., Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Just a little over a week into his second term, President Donald Trump took steps to maximize his power, sparking chaos and what critics contend is a constitutional crisis as he challenges the separation of powers that have defined American government for more than 200 years.
The new administration’s most provocative move came this week, as it announced it would temporarily halt federal payments to ensure they complied with Trump’s orders barring diversity programs. The technical-sounding directive had enormous immediate impact before it was blocked by a federal judge, potentially pulling trillions of dollars from police departments, domestic violence shelters, nutrition services and disaster relief programs that rely on federal grants. The administration on Wednesday rescinded the order.
Though the Republican administration denied Medicaid was affected, it acknowledged the online portal allowing states to file for reimbursement from the program was shut down for part of Tuesday in what it insisted was an error.
Legal experts noted the president is explicitly forbidden from cutting off spending for programs that Congress has approved. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to appropriate money and requires the executive to pay it out. A 50-year-old law known as the Impoundment Control Act makes that explicit by prohibiting the president from halting payments on grants or other programs approved by Congress.
“The thing that prevents the president from being an absolute monarch is Congress controls the power of the purse strings,” said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Georgetown University, adding that even a temporary freeze violates the law. “It’s what guarantees there’s a check on the presidency.”
Democrats and other critics said the move was blatantly unconstitutional.
“What happened last night is the most direct assault on the authority of Congress, I believe, in the history of the United States,” Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said Tuesday.
While some Republicans were critical, most were supportive.
“I think he is testing the limits of his power, and I don’t think any of us are surprised by it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who is close with Trump.
At first blush, the Trump administration appeared to be following the correct procedures in identifying potential spending cuts, and the Impoundment Control Act outlines a procedure for how they could become permanent, said Rachel Snyderman, a former official at the Office of Management and Budget who is now at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Congress must eventually sign off on any cuts the administration wants to make, Snyderman said, though she noted that no president since Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has been successful in getting that done. Congress did not act on $14 billion in impoundment cuts Trump proposed during his prior term, she said.
“We have to see what the next steps are,” Snyderman said.
The attempt to halt grants came after Trump, who during the campaign pledged to be “a dictator on day one,” has taken a number of provocative moves to challenge legal constraints on his power. He fired the inspectors general of his Cabinet agencies without giving Congress the warning required by law, declared that there is an immigrant “invasion” despite low numbers of border crossings, is requiring loyalty pledges from new hires, challenged the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and is moving career staff out of key positions at the Department of Justice to ensure his loyalists control investigations and prosecutions.
On Tuesday evening, the new administration made its latest move, trying to prune the federal workforce by offering pay until the end of September for those who agree to resign by the end of next week.
The Trump actions have all led to a cascade of court challenges contending he has overstepped his constitutional bounds. A federal judge in Seattle has already put on hold Trump’s attempt to revoke birthright citizenship, calling it a blatant violation of the nation’s foundational legal document. On Tuesday, nonprofit groups persuaded a federal judge in Washington to put the administration’s spending freeze order on hold until a fuller hearing on Feb. 3.
Democratic attorneys general also rushed to court to block the order. New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat, said the swiftness of the court action against Trump’s spending freeze demonstrates the “carelessness” of the order.
“My hope is that the president, working with Congress, can identify whatever his priorities are and can work through the normal constitutional order that is well established that limits the power of Democratic and Republican presidents,” he said.
The grant freeze — administration officials described it as a “pause” — fit with a long-sought goal of some Trump allies, including his nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, to challenge the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act. They contend the president, as the person in charge of distributing funds, should be able to have some control over how the money goes out.
Though there’s little doubt the new administration wanted a court fight over its power to control spending, experts agree that this was likely not the way they hoped to present it.
“This is a really sloppy way of doing this,” said Bill Galston, of the Brookings Institution, adding that he thought it was an administration error. “This is just classic Trump. He believes it’s better to be fast and sloppy than slow and precise.”
In her first press conference, Trump’s new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Tuesday urged organizations that need the grants to call the administration and show how their operations are “in line with the president’s agenda.”
“It’s incumbent on this administration to make sure, again, that every penny is accounted for,” Leavitt said.
Republican lawmakers largely took the freeze in stride.
“This isn’t a huge surprise to me,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota during the House Republican retreat at one of the president’s Florida golf resorts. “Clearly, Donald Trump campaigned in no small part on the idea that the Biden administration was putting out a lot of money that was not consistent with Donald Trump’s values.”
But Democrats and others were furious at the move, which seemed designed to undercut congressional authority.
“If President Trump wants to change our nation’s laws, he has the right to ask Congress to change them,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said in a statement. “He does not have the right to violate the United States Constitution. He is not a king.”
Chafetz, of Georgetown University, said the lack of pushback from Republican members of Congress was especially alarming because the legislative branch is the one whose powers are most at risk in the latest power play.
Even if Trump loses the legal battle, Chafetz said, he and his followers might feel like they’ve won by pushing things to this extreme.
“Damaging the institutions they don’t like,” he said, “seems to be their whole theory of governance.”
Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Morgan Lee in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
