67,000 white South Africans have expressed interest in Trump’s plan to give them refugee status
Gerald Imray – March 20, 2025
FILE – White South Africans demonstrate in support of U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)FILE – White South Africans demonstrate in support of U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The United States Embassy in South Africa said Thursday it received a list of nearly 70,000 people interested in refugee status in the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate members of a white minority group he claims are victims of racial discrimination by their Black-led government.
The list was given to the embassy by the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., which said it became a point of contact for white South Africans asking about the program announced by the Trump administration last month. The chamber said the list does not constitute official applications.
Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 cutting U.S. funding to South Africa and citing “government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
Trump’s executive order specifically referred to Afrikaners, a white minority group who are descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. The order directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to prioritize humanitarian relief to Afrikaners who are victims of “unjust racial discrimination” and resettle them in the U.S. under the refugee program.
There are approximately 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa, which has a population of 62 million. Trump’s decision to offer some white South Africans refugee status went against his larger policy to halt the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
The South African government has said that Trump’s allegations that it is targeting Afrikaners through a land expropriation law are inaccurate and largely driven by misinformation. Trump has posted on his Truth Social platform that Afrikaners were having their farmland seized, when no land has been taken under the new law.
The executive order also criticized South Africa’s foreign policy, specifically its decision to accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a case at the United Nations’ top court. The Trump administration has accused South Africa of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran and taking an anti-American stance. The U.S. has also expelled the South African ambassador, accusing him of being anti-America and anti-Trump.
An official at the U.S. Embassy in the South African capital, Pretoria, confirmed receipt of the list of names from the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. but gave no more detail.
Neil Diamond, the president of the chamber, said the list contains 67,042 names. Most were people between 25 and 45 years old and have children.
He told the Newzroom Afrika television channel that his organization had been inundated with requests for more information since Trump’s order and had contacted the State Department and the embassy in Pretoria “to indicate that we would like them to make a channel available for South Africans that would like to get more information and register for refugee status.”
“That cannot be the responsibility of the chamber,” he said.
Diamond said only U.S. authorities could officially register applications for resettlement in the U.S. The U.S. Embassy in South Africa said it is awaiting further instructions on the implementation of Trump’s order.
GOP Lawmaker Who Ousted Liz Cheney Says It’s ‘Bizarre’ How ‘Obsessed’ People Are with Government at Explosive Town Hall
Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman laughed as constituents booed her on Wednesday, March 19 — at one point slamming the crowd’s “hysteria” and telling them to “calm down”
Meredith Kile – March 20, 2025
DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP/GettyWyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, the Trump loyalist who unseated former Rep. Liz Cheney
Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman faced an angry crowd at a local town hall on Wednesday, March 19, marking one of several recent incidents where constituents have confronted Republican members of Congress about the Trump administration’s aggressive actions.
Hageman — who ousted incumbent Liz Cheney in a landslide victory in the 2022 election for the state’s only congressional district — laughed aloud during the public event as a crowd of frustrated Wyomingites booed her praise for President Donald Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
“I voted in favor of the continuing resolution, or CR, which extends funding for the fiscal year until September 30,” Hageman said, prompting the booing to begin. “It keeps the lights on for President Trump and DOGE to continue their work.”
A local reporter with the Cowboy State Daily estimated that about three-quarters of the crowd of more than 500 attendees at the Laramie Plains Civic Center were there to protest Hageman.
The sophomore congresswoman ran in 2022 with the support of Trump, following Cheney’s work as vice chair of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Michael Smith/Getty Images; AP Photo/Mary Schwalm Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (L) beat incumbent Liz Cheney (R) in Wyoming’s 2022 election.
At times, Wednesday’s crowd devolved into chants of “Tax the rich!” and “January 6th!”’
But some of the loudest reactions of the night came when the congresswoman mentioned DOGE and Musk’s threats to cut Social Security.
Attempting to ignore the ruckus, Hageman told the crowd, “During the continuing resolution, we are not allowed to touch Social Security, so I would request that you actually watch some accurate TV and read valid news, because that is untrue.”
“It’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with federal government,” she added.
“There’s a massive amount of fraud of, basically, people submitting Social Security numbers for Social Security benefits, unemployment, Small Business Administration loans and medical care,” Musk said in Fox Business interview on March 10. “We’re trying to put a stop to all of that.”
The changing rhetoric on Social Security seemingly fueled the frustration toward Hageman for supporting Congress’ new funding plan, which has been criticized for giving Trump and Musk more power over the federal budget.
Reacting to her crowd’s anger, Hageman said, “You guys are going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down. I’m sorry, your hysteria is just really over the top.”
Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg/Getty Harriet Hageman speaks at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference
Wyoming residents aren’t the only people to get worked up about Musk’s influence on the current administration.
House Republicans around the nation have faced aggressive pushback at numerous public appearances recently, to the point that a national GOP official urged them to stop hosting in-person town halls for fear of the optics, The New York Times reported in early March.
Last week, Connecticut Rep. John Larson had a heated exchange with his Republican colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee, berating them for blocking the unelected billionaire’s testimony on Social Security cuts.
“Where’s the independence of the committee?” he yelled. “Where’s the legislature? We’re an equal branch of government.”
Even “shame” couldn’t bring Trump and Musk’s supporters to be honest about their true plans, Larson claimed.
“[Musk has] been on television the last couple of days talking exactly about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and what he intends to do: privatize it,” he continued. “The American people, some of them may have been born at night, but not last night.”
18 People Shared EXACTLY How They Want Democrats To “Fight Back” And Finally Start Taking Action
Alexa Lisitza – March 20, 2025
In the last 12 months especially, people have repeatedly expressed fatigue with the Democratic Party and what they perceive to be a lack of effort displayed by its leaders.
Knowing this, it’s not shocking that NBC News just dropped data from a poll showing the party has reached a new low in popularity as left-leaners are practically BEGGING leadership to fight back against the Trump administration’s unfavorable actions.
But what exactly does “fighting back” look like? Well, to find out, I asked our BuzzFeed Community what actions they’d like to see Democrats take.
BuzzFeed
Here’s what they said:
1.”Every Democratic leader needs to get on TV and start speaking the truth about the damage being done and what it means.”
“They need to hold town halls, talk to newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc., absolutely everywhere information goes should be used to reeducate the American public since it’s become apparent that we are one of the most ignorant countries considering the access to information we have yet don’t use.”
2.”Every single time Trump violates the law, the Democrats need to offer Articles of Impeachment. Every time.”
“No, he won’t GET impeached. What will happen is crystal clear proof of which members of Congress uphold the rule of law and which will support a dictator. That would be crucial in changing things in the midterm elections.”
4.”Leadership needs to retire — anyone over the age of 60 should not be a member of Congress.”
“They’re out of touch and know nothing about what it’s like to live in today’s world. It’s time for a much-needed (and regularly scheduled) changing of the guard.”
5.”The problem I have observed is that when Bernie had some momentum in the early 2010s, liberals who liked him were told they were too idealistic and too far left. They were basically told to get realistic and compromise. Well, over the course of the past 15 years, the far right hasn’t compromised for shit.”
“So the left had to move completely to the center to balance the ever-further-right-creeping Republicans. So now we have some watered-down, toothless Democrats versus the Hitler youth. Good work done by all.”
6.”Need them to take control of the narrative, and stop taking the bait and responding to every bit of chaos thrown out by the Trump admin. Most of it is spin, and a lot won’t stick. They need to unite on what is important and get a new strategist that listens to younger generations!”
“There were people that voted MAGA and AOC. I can’t wrap my head around that, but can a new strategy tell us how to reach those people? How to reach the over 1/3 of voters that did not bother to show up?”
7.”Democrats (and Republicans) were elected by the people to do a job. They get paid to do this job. Instead of quietly acquiescing to a narcissistic dictator, they need to represent their constituents.”
“We have a Constitution. Uphold it! We have laws and procedures. Enforce them! If each part of our government will do their job, our country will survive. Sit back and do nothing — and you will see the end of the United States!”
10.”Look to Jasmine Crockett, AOC, Bernie Sanders. Get out there and call him a liar, do town meetings in the Republican districts that have representatives too afraid to face their constituents and tell them what he’s doing to them, it’s brass knuckles time.”
“It’s time to replace Schumer and Jeffries. Let the young lead. Never miss an opportunity to tell the truth. Shut down FOX News. Call the courts out for not holding Felon 47 to defying their orders. HIT THE STREETS EVERY DAY.”
11.”They need to create some actual policies and not just have the policy of ‘Well, Trump’s evil, and we’re not him.’ That didn’t work the first time Trump was elected, and unfortunately, they didn’t learn that time around, so he was elected again.”
“Stop just focusing on what you’re not, and start convincing the undecided voters with what you are. Oh, and most importantly, don’t just go chasing for celebrity support. Most normal people don’t give a shit which famous people you’ve got behind you, they just want to hear some policies. Look at the shower of shite famous people Trump had behind him — Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan — and he still won.”
12.”Dems need to attack every single crazy ass thing he does and says. My God, the man is an endless supply of lies, fantasies, and conjectures that come from his little magical made-up mind.”
“We have become so numb to him bombarding us with crazy stuff, that we just shrug and say that can’t happen — then it does! We cannot be indifferent to a person like him. We have to stand up to the lunacy.”
13.”Enough with decorum, playing nice, and ‘taking the high road.’ Start using plain language and call out fascism for what it is.”
“Speak out and push back on harmful behavior and narratives. Stop censuring and dogpiling people who DO speak out. Fight the fuck back with everything you’ve got. Start actually holding your MAGA/MAGA-adjacent coworkers accountable.”
14.”They need to stop acting like these are normal times and normal things that call for normal diplomacy. This is the time to be getting in the streets and getting folks riled up.”
“We are past the point of educating those who don’t agree with us. You can’t educate them until you deprogram them. Get LOUD.”
15.”They need to get more information out to the people. Less about emotions and more about concrete, easy to understand facts.”
“Economy worse, people getting fired, cost of living increasing, etc. Please do not stoop to the level of Republicans; we don’t want the party turning into what we dislike and then have no leg to stand on, no right to complain or achieve better if we do what they do.”
16.”Not only increase the number of their own town hall meetings but be present at town hall meetings held by the opposition, and if one of those is canceled, announce they will be at that location at the same time. Alert the press about what you’re doing and when, even if the meeting’s duly elected rep is there.”
“Go to town hall meetings held by fellow Dems, so there’s more show of unity… Discuss what you will or want to do for us, not what you will do for ‘them.'”
17.”They need to get out of their own way and stop their, ‘This is the way we’ve always done it’ nonsense. We need actual change because there were so many people who simply didn’t vote.”
“Now we are heading somewhere that will be a cross of The Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, and when the Kens took over Barbie Land.”
18.And finally, “Find all the loopholes and use them. Fight back and fight just as dirty as they do. Unfortunately, now is not the time to keep to the higher ground.”
Regardless of where you stand, what would you like to see Democrats do going forward? Share your thoughts in the comments or, to remain anonymous, use this Google form. Your response may be featured in an upcoming post.
My Old Friend Is Helping Elon Musk Destroy America
Adam Green – March 20, 2025
I once took refuge from my political day job by attending laugh-filled game nights at the home of a person now firing tens of thousands of federal workers.
For Steve Davis, Elon Musk’s right-hand man at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), life has always been a game. A puzzle to be solved regardless of a larger vision or set of values.
But sadly, as I toldThe New York Times, my friend who was once a fun outside-the-box thinker is now a drone — blindly subservient to a corrupt billionaire on a self-enriching power trip.
Even worse for millions of Americans, Steve’s current tunnel vision doesn’t allow him to challenge the obvious flaw in the game handed to him by Musk. This game only gives points for cutting dollars in the federal budget, even if greater financial costs — plus the cost of human pain — are transferred to American families and businesses.
Most Americans have never heard of the guy hurting their lives. Here is what Americans should know about Steve Davis, especially Republican members of Congress caught between the ideal of “government efficiency” and the enormous pushback that their constituents are expressing every day.
Steve is eccentric. His former Washington, D.C. apartment looked like a start-up, with a ping pong table and beverage machine to delight guests. He once threw a dinner party that included a squire announcing people at the door, a magician, and playful Justin Bieber plates.
I passed on the opportunity to invest what Steve described as “fun money” in his bar, called Thomas Foolery. Customers could shoot each other with squirt guns and drink prices were left to a game of chance. Shockingly, the bar failed quickly.
Steve would shun political talk, saying, “I know nothing about politics.”
He was more interested in playing games with friends long into the night. He often created new rules, respecting those who were quick enough to keep up and throwing barbs at those who stumbled.
He was the lone Washington staffer for Elon Musk’s SpaceX for years. In order to get his first engineering job, Musk reportedly required Steve to reduce the cost of a $120,000 item. Steve got it down to $3,900. (Whether that new part ultimately transferred costs to customers is unreported.)
Friends were barely ever reminded of Steve’s employment — an exception being at a yearly scavenger hunt he threw at Mr. Yogato, his yogurt shop where people won discounts by doing dances, knowing song lyrics, and answering Seinfeld trivia. Winning scavenger teams received items that had been launched into space or won Tesla test drives.
I last heard from Steve in 2023 and don’t remember seeing him in person since 2018, when he departed Washington for Texas to be closer to SpaceX’s rocket launch site. The few times I engaged Steve about Musk a decade ago, their relationship seemed distant. But that changed, as did his innocent gamesmanship.
A recent book called Character Limitreports that Musk worked with many sycophants, but Steve “took it even a tad further” and “idolized” Musk.
He eventually became Musk’s loyal fixer. Steve described his relationship with Musk as “Look here, Davis, get this done!”
When Steve ran into regulatory roadblocks, Musk reportedly berated Steve and threatened to fire him — traumatic game rules that Steve would clearly carry with him. When asked about his vision of colonizing space, Steve said that vision question “is for the Elons of the world. I just want to see [the rocket] go up” — a scary automaton attitude when applied to the current Trump administration.
After Musk bought Twitter, Steve reportedly slept in Twitter headquarters with his newborn baby. According to court filings, as Twitter fired thousands of workers and refused to pay them money they were owed, Steve pushed workers to violate rent contracts and demanded they violate local permitting laws — all to meet Musk’s cost-cutting goal.
When Musk turned to investing hundreds of millions in Donald Trump’s candidacy, Davis moved to Pennsylvania. The games quickly began with an arguably illegal million-dollar daily giveaway to swing-state voters and handouts of $47 for signers of a petition.
A tragedy in this moment is that Steve’s loyalty to Musk is blinding him from seeing what’s before his eyes: The rules of the DOGE game are ridiculous. They increase inefficiency, and they make people’s lives worse.
Suppose it costs $10 to fill a giant pothole. This fix could prevent thousands of dollars in damage for family cars and business delivery trucks. That’s the definition of efficiency and a great use of government money for the common good. But in Musk’s DOGE game, the only thing that counts is reducing costs on the government’s balance sheet — not actually saving money for Americans.
Similarly, DOGE is firing thousands of Social Security employees, closing Social Security phone support lines, and shutting down many Social Security offices.
For millions of grandparents, this likely means checks get delayed, new applicants have trouble registering, and seniors with walkers have to physically travel long distances for the chance to get help securing their earned benefits.
Those who depend on their retirement checks to survive will suffer from increased medical bills when they cannot afford to eat or buy their medicine. Taxpayers will pay these bills via Medicare.
Adding further absurdity to the “efficiency” game, DOGE is neutering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which stops banks and credit card companies from ripping off Americans. The CFPB has already saved Americans over $20 billion, not one iota of which gets counted in the rules of the DOGE game. (This move conveniently shoots the financial watchdog just as Elon Musk enters the financial services industry — certainly efficient for at least one billionaire.)
Add in cuts to aviation safety, food inspection, nutrition assistance for kids, veterans health care, Medicaid, and clean water. As author Ezra Klein said recently, “Efficiency of what?… I want efficiency towards an end. Towards a vision of the future that isn’t terrible.”
But Steve is focused on the game, the puzzle of it all — not the vision.
I’ve received messages of genuine sadness from those who knew Steve during more innocent times. What’s truly heartbreaking to us is that the old Steve Davis — the brilliant, creative Steve Davis — could be doing inspiring work if he had the self-assuredness to question Musk’s rules.
Picture the games that giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy play to avoid taxes, leaving the rest of us paying more. Picture congressional insider stock trading, the bloated military budget, and the corporate welfare that flows when government insiders turn into lobbyists. Picture the price gouging by credit card companies, banks, health insurance companies, and at the grocery store. Heck, even picture the millions of hours Americans lose at red traffic lights with bad timers.
Much of this could be solved by a smart engineer leveraging technology, including artificial intelligence. If solving these problems were the game, Steve’s mind could raise quality of life for millions.
But instead, we have artificial intelligence of the worst kind. Brilliance blinded by loyalty. A game out of control. And every day Donald Trump turns the keys over to Elon Musk, who then hands them to my once friend, Americans are the losers.
Adam Green is Co-Founder of the Progressive Change Institute.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, seen here speaking before the United Nations in 2023, told reporters on Parliament Hill on Wednesday that China has executed four Canadians. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
March 20 (UPI) — China has executed four Canadians, according to Ottawa’s foreign affairs minister, who condemned Beijing for not heeding their calls for leniency.
Little is known about the executions. China’s embassy in Ottawa has yet to respond to UPI’s request for comment.
Melanie Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, told reporters on Parliament Hill following a cabinet meeting Wednesday that the four people executed were dual Chinese and Canadian citizens. She said their executions were related to drug charges.
“We strongly condemn the executions that did happen against Canadians in China,” she said.
Joly said she had been following the situation “very, very closely” for months and had personally asked Beijing for leniency, as had former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he was still office.
“We made sure to press on China how much we needed to make sure that, ultimately, these Canadians would be safe,” she said.
Teams in Canada and China are supporting the families of those executed, she said, adding, “We will continue to engage with China, as we’ll continue to not only strongly condemn but also ask for leniency for other Canadians that are facing similar situations.”
She would not say how many other Canadians were facing the death penalty in China, citing requests from their families to keep information private.
It was not clear when the executions occurred.
China leads the world in executions, according to Amnesty International, which believes Beijing carries out thousands every year.
In a statement Wednesday, the international human rights organization chastised Beijing for the executions and praised Ottawa for condemning China’s actions while calling on it to do more to protect its citizens abroad
“We are devastated for the families of the victims, and we hold them in our hearts as they try to process the unimaginable,” Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, said in a statement.
“Our thoughts also go to the loved ones of Canadian citizens whom China is holding on death row or whose whereabouts in the Chinese prison system are unknown. They deserve answers and justice, not the sickening worry they have been subjected to because of years of separation and uncertainty.”
The Canada-China relationship has been publicly fraught for years.
In 2018, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, at the request of the United States, where she was wanted on a slew of charges, including money laundering.
China, seemingly in retaliation, arrested two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, on espionage charges. However, they were released in September 2021, days after Meng reached a deal with U.S. prosecutors that facilitated her return to China.
China executes four Canadians, triggering international outrage
Our Foreign Staff – March 20, 2025
Melanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, condemned the executions but was unable to discuss details – Gleb Garanich/Reuters
China has said it acted “in accordance with the law” over the execution of four Canadian citizens in recent weeks.
Melanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that China had defied pleas for leniency.
“We strongly condemn the executions that did happen against Canadians in China,” Joly said.
She said she was unable to discuss details as the victims’ families had requested privacy.
However, Beijing suggested on Thursday the Canadians had been convicted over narcotics offences. “Combating drug crimes is the common responsibility of all countries,” Mao Ning, foreign ministry spokesman, said.
“China protects the legitimate rights of the parties concerned as well as the consular rights of the Canadian side, in accordance with the law.”
Beijing also defended the executions to Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
“Drug-related crime is a severe crime recognised worldwide as extremely harmful to society,” its embassy said.
“China always imposes severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards the drug problem.”
Statistics a state secret
Joly said she and Justin Trudeau, the former prime minister who left office last week, had asked China for leniency.
China classifies death penalty statistics as a state secret, although rights groups including Amnesty International believe thousands of people are executed in the country every year.
Beijing said this week a former Chinese engineer had recently been sentenced to death for leaking state secrets to a foreign power.
The arrest of a senior Chinese telecoms executive on a US warrant in Vancouver in December 2018 and Beijing’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.
Ties were strained further over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021.
In 2023, Joly expelled a Chinese diplomat who had been accused of targeting a Canadian opposition politician who criticised the ruling Communist Party, as well as his family.
Ottawa has also criticized a security crackdown in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
Leak Reveals Trump’s Full Bonkers Plan for the Kennedy Center
Leigh Kimmins – March 19, 2025
JIM WATSON / Getty Images
President Donald Trump wants to introduce non-woke musicals like “Cats,” honor dead stars from sports to business and even renovate the Kennedy Center, according to a leaked board meeting recording.
The center in Washington, D.C. has become the frontline of Trump’s effort to erode what he sees as “woke” culture built by the Democratic Party, and Trump intends to alter it by rolling out sweeping changes, according to audio of a private meeting obtained by the New York Times.
The president started this process by parachuting himself in as the center’s chairman in February. He has since gutted the board and installed loyalists to help him in his quest.
Trump leads a board meeting with (L-R) Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, President of The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees Richard Grenell and Interim Vice Chair Jennifer Fischer. / Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesMore
At his first board meeting Monday as chairman, Trump laid out his plans for the future of the cultural hub. He says that he would like the center to go “slightly more conservative” in terms of the stars that it honors, according to the recordings.
The Kennedy Center Honors, an annual awards ceremony at the site, will be re-designed in his image to push back against the influence on the event from “radical left lunatics.”
Traditionally, only those in the performing arts sphere are recognized with gongs, but Trump thinks figures in sports, politics and business could also be honored.
He even reportedly name-checked casino mogul Steve Wynn as a potential recipient. He is a major Republican donor and husband of Trump-appointed board member Andrea Hissom Wynn.
Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley and Babe Ruth are some names Trump also threw around. Agreeable board members also mentioned Celine Dion, Sylvester Stallone, Johnny Mathis and Andrea Bocelli.
But who to present this new-look honors bash? Well, the self-described “king of ratings,” of course.
“Believe me, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it,” Trump demurred in the recording, even though he was the one who put himself forward as host. “I have enough publicity. They’ll say, ‘Trump wants to be the host.’ I don’t want to. But I want this thing to be successful.”
He said the previous hosts were “always terrible.” Queen Latifah hosted last year.
He then described himself as “the king of ratings,” adding: “Whether we like it or not, the king of ratings.” Indeed, he looked like a king as he addressed the press from above as he stood in the presidential box earlier on Monday.
One might also expect Broadway shows of a certain vintage to become the new norm. Trump mused about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.”
After a board member asked if there were any new productions that were not “totally woke,” a Trump center lackey said there would be a partial split from the union representing actors, Actors’ Equity.
This “opens us up for a whole bunch of more options as well as a lot more money” the unidentified board member added.
Structurally, the Kennedy Center is in “tremendous disrepair,” Trump said later on. He announced that “the whole place needs work,” including the main hall, and that he will ask Congress to pay to help “bring it back.”
The exterior of the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts building is lit up in multiple colors in advance of the annual Kennedy Center Honors on Dec. 1, 2024. / J. David Ake / Getty Images
“They never covered the I-beam,” he said of the exposed structural girder that was left uncovered as a stylistic point. He added: “I think the I-beams should be covered with some incredible stone — probably marble, but marble’s a bad outdoor stone, but looks better than granite. But it should be covered. And we’ll do that. We’ll add that in. But it’s not a small job.”
He also suggested that the center should build a band shell on the Potomac River.
Trump then blasted the center’s 2019 expansion that added a series of spaces for rehearsals and performances. He dismissed the gardens, classrooms and cafe that were built as part of the privately-funded work as “nonsense” and “crazy rooms.”
“Think of it, they got $250 million,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out where they spent it. Somebody made a lot of money, that I can tell you.”
And, true to form, he managed to squeeze in a jibe at political rival and former president, Joe Biden. “I had no idea how big it was, because I just walked the whole place,” he said after a full tour of the site. “Believe me, Biden couldn’t have done it. He would not have been able to walk the place.”
Elon Musk, who is leading Donald Trump’s unprecedented purge of the federal workforce, claimed it doesn’t make sense that people dislike him because he’s only ever “done productive things” and has “never done anything harmful.”
Americans — to an ever increasing proportion — disagree. As tens of thousands of federal employees and their families wait in limbo to see if they will retain (or regain) their jobs, the economy takes a downturn, entitlement programs are cut or crippled, and international aid is slashed with devastating consequences, Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are pissing off a lot of people. A slew of recent polling has found that an increasing majority of Americans view the billionaire and his hack-and-slash treatment of the government negatively, even if they support major reforms.
On Tuesday, a federal judge found that Musk and DOGE “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways” when they shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development, America’s foreign aid bureau, and terminated thousands of employees.
Later that day, Musk appeared on Fox News and discussed a recent string of protests as well as attacks and vandalism against Tesla vehicles and dealerships — claiming it’s happening because he and DOGE are uncovering fraud.
“It turns out, when you take away people’s, you know, the money they’re receiving fraudulently, they get very upset, and they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this, this terrible waste and corruption in the government,” Musk said, adding: “Bad people will do bad things.”
At one point in the interview, Musk — who recently threatened to fire every federal worker who ignores his HR emails — demanded more empathy from Democrats amid the attacks on Tesla. “It’s really come as quite a shock to me that there’s this level of hatred and violence from the left,” he told Sean Hannity. “I thought the left Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring, and yet they’re burning down cars. They’re firebombing dealerships. They’re firing bullets into dealerships.”
He continued: “Tesla is a peaceful company. We’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve only done productive things. So I think we just have a deranged — there’s some kind of mental illness thing going on here, because this doesn’t make any sense.”
Former employees of Musk’s companies, government regulators, several of his ex-partners, his children, and the virtual sea of people being negatively affected by Musk’s work as an unelected shadow-president might disagree with the notion that the billionaire has “never done anything harmful,” and some are making themselves heard.
On Tuesday, Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) was confronted by furious constituents at a town hall in his home district, including with questions about Musk’s conflicts of interests. Musk’s company SpaceX has received billions in contracts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Trump administration is movingto incorporate Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet business, throughout the federal government.
“What makes you think that [Musk] has no conflict of interest?” one person asked Flood. “Do you think he would cut that before he would cut our Medicare or our Social Security or our jobs?”
Flood responded that he remained in full “support [of] Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency.” To which the room exploded into a chorus of boos and jeers against the Nebraska representative.
Flood is not the only lawmaker facing furious voters, to the point that earlier this month the National Republican Congressional Committee advised members of the GOP to just stop holding town halls. GOP leaders have — as is routine these days — accused critics of being paid protesters as a way of dismissing their constituents’ concerns. Musk has capitalized on the allegation.
“There are larger forces at work as well,” he told Hannity on Tuesday, speaking about the Tesla attacks and protests. “I don’t know who’s funding it and who’s coordinating it, because this is, this is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Hannity lamented that the people who worked for Tesla could potentially “lose their jobs.” Yet neither he nor Musk bothered to spare an empathetic thought for the thousands of Americans DOGE rendered unemployed the last two months, and the potentially devastating domestic and international ramifications of his corrupt political project.
Trump’s bluntness powered a White House comeback. Now his words are getting him in trouble in court
Chris Megerian and Lindsay Whitehurst – March 19, 2025
President Donald Trump greets Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin as he arrives at the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)Elon Musk flashes his t-shirt that reads “DOGE” to the media as he walks on South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Sunday, March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters near a red Model S Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Washington. (Pool via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s shoot-from-the-lip style kept Americans on the edge of their seats during last year’s campaign. But now that he’s speaking as a president and not as a candidate, his words are being used against him in court in the blizzard of litigation challenging his agenda.
The spontaneity is complicating his administration’s legal positions. Nowhere has this been clearer than in cases involving his adviser Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the driving force in his efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government.
The latest example came earlier this week when U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that Musk had likely violated the Constitution by dismantling the United States Agency for International Development.
The lawsuit turned on the question of whether the billionaire entrepreneur had overstepped his authority. Justice Department lawyers and White House officials insist that Musk is merely a presidential adviser, not the actual leader of DOGE.
But Trump has said otherwise — in speeches, interviews and public remarks — and Chuang quoted him extensively in his decision.
Trump most notably boasted of creating DOGE during his prime-time address to a joint session of Congress and said it was “headed by Elon Musk.” Republicans gave Musk a standing ovation, and he saluted from the gallery above the House chamber.
“Trump’s words were essential, central and indispensable,” said Norm Eisen, one of the lawyers for USAID employees who filed the lawsuit. “His admissions took what would have been a tough case and made it into a straightforward one.”
The looseness with words is a shift from predecessors like Democratic President Barack Obama, who used to say that he was careful because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling.
Trump has no such feeling of restraint, and neither do other members of his Republican administration such as Musk.
Chuang, who is based in Maryland and was nominated by Obama, also cited social media posts from Musk, who writes frequently on X, the platform that he owns.
For example, Musk posted “we spent the weekend feeding USAID to the woodchipper” on Feb. 3. The agency was being brought to a standstill at that time, with staff furloughed, spending halted and headquarters shut down.
“Musk’s public statements and posts … suggest that he has the ability to cause DOGE to act,” Chuang wrote in his ruling.
Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary at the White House, said Trump was fulfilling his campaign promise “to make the federal government more efficient and accountable to taxpayers.”
“Rogue bureaucrats and activist judges attempting to undermine this effort are only subverting the will of the American people and their obstructionist efforts will fail,” he said.
Anthony Coley, who led public affairs at the Justice Department during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, said statements involving civil litigation were always coordinated between his office and the West Wing.
“The words could be used to support what we’re doing or undermine what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s a carefully choreographed effort to make sure there was no daylight between what was said in the court of public opinion and what could ultimately play out in the court of law.”
In comparison to how things were done in the past, Coley said, Trump has a “ready-fire-aim approach of doing business.”
Trump doesn’t usually let legal disputes force him to turn down the volume. During a criminal investigation over his decision to keep classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump spoke extensively about the case in an interview with Fox News.
Longtime defense lawyers were startled because defendants are usually encouraged to keep mum while facing an indictment. But the situation panned out for Trump. His legal team delayed the case, and the special counsel’s office dropped the charges after Trump won the election last November — presidents can’t be prosecuted while in office.
DOGE has been the focus of nearly two dozen lawsuits. It’s often prevailed so far in cases involving access to government data, where several plaintiffs have struggled to convince judges to block the organization’s actions.
But it’s also run into challenges, such as a lawsuit over whether DOGE must comply with public records requests. The Trump administration asserted in court that DOGE is part of the White House, meaning it’s exempt.
Judge Christopher Cooper, also nominated by Obama, disagreed, siding with a government watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.
“Musk and the President’s public statements indicate that USDS” — the original acronym for the organization that was renamed as DOGE — “is in fact exercising substantial independent authority,” wrote Cooper, who is based in Washington.
Cooper concluded that DOGE can “identify and terminate federal employees, federal programs, and federal contracts. Doing any of those three things would appear to require substantial independent authority; to do all three surely does.”
He ordered DOGE to start responding to requests about the team’s role in mass firings and disruptions to federal programs. The administration unsuccessfully asked the judge to reconsider, saying the judge “fundamentally misapprehended” the agency’s structure.
The cases are still in their early stages, and the novel legal questions they’re raising will take time for the courts to consider, said Michael Fragoso, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and former chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“What Elon does on Twitter is not necessarily what DOGE does,” he said. “My hope would be courts take the time to sift between those two.”
Just because Musk claims credit online for deep agency cuts, that doesn’t necessarily translate to DOGE having authority in the eyes of the law, Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell argued in a recent debate on the issue.
DOGE is recommending changes, he said, but it’s the agency heads who are actually putting them into effect.
DOGE Wants to Cripple Social Security Phone Services
Nikki McCann Ramirez – March 18, 2025
Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is planning to restructure the Social Security Administration’s phone support services in a move that could force millions of seniors to require in-person services from the already understaffed agency.
According to a leaked memo obtained by Popular Information and later reported by Axios, Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz proposed adding additional online identity verification to Social Security claims processing in an effort to clamp down on alleged payment fraud. In reality, Social Security fraud is quite rare, affecting less than 1 percent of payments between 2015-2022. By Diaz’s own admission, the additional identity verification could cause increased wait times, and potentially delay or deny services to vulnerable seniors.
In the leaked memo, Diaz suggests that the SSA use “current internet identity proofing, for agency benefits claims and direct deposit changes done over the phone. For instances where a customer is unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identifying documentation.”
Social Security recipients are already required to go through an identity verification process if they utilize the agency’s phone service, and discrepancies are typically resolved by mailing copies of identifying documents to the SSA for verification. A former SSA official told Axios that the memo was crafted at DOGE’s request.
Requiring in-person verification would, as Diaz herself wrote, result in “75,000-85,000 additional visitors per week” to SSA offices, “longer wait times and processing time,” “increased challenges for vulnerable populations,” a higher demand for “resources, staff, and systems updates,” and “increased costs for identity proofing services and potential budget shortfalls.”
Sounds awful, so why do it? Well, the most likely result would be that thousands of people — either through delays, roadblocks, or inability to access in-person services — will stop receiving social security payments. Fewer payments mean less spending on Social Security, and that’s ultimately the Trump administration’s goal.
Last week, amid rumors that SSA telephone services would be cut off entirely, the agency issued a press release stating that phone services would remain available. “SA is increasing its protection for America’s seniors and other beneficiaries by eliminating the risk of fraud associated with changing bank account information by telephone,” the agency wrote.
DOGE’s incursion into the SSA has already wreaked havoc on the agency. Musk has accused the program of being “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” and falsely claimed that millions of payments are going out to dead individuals who are over 120 years old. Ten SSA field offices have already been shut down by DOGE, and Musk is floating over $700 billion in cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicaid.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the Trump administration is also planning to offload the cost of overpayments and other errors made by SSA officials onto the seniors who receive them. Earlier this month, interim SSA chief Leland Dudek announced that the agency would be increasing the amount of money it withheld from social security recipients who had been overpaid from 10-100 percent — potentially their entire check. For the millions of elderly Americans who rely on social security to make ends meet, an error made by the government could result in a devastating penalty.
Essentially, the Trump administration’s plan to cut back on Social Security seems to be focused on making it more difficult to access benefits, and increasing the amount of money they can withhold from recipients.
Questions also remain about what kind of access Musk and DOGE have to the troves of sensitive personal data housed and managed by the SSA. In February, Acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King stepped down from her post after refusing to provide representatives from DOGE access to systems containing sensitive recipient data. Similar conflicts have taken place at other agencies, including the treasury.
On Tuesday, top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a letter demanding that Musk and the Trump administration comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for “details on who really is in charge at DOGE, the scope of its authority to shutter federal agencies and get rid of more than 100,000 federal employees, the extent of its access to the government’s most sensitive databases, and whether DOGE is serving the interests of the American people or the interests of Mr. Musk’s companies and his foreign customers.”
“By filing these FOIA requests, which every American has the right to make in order to demand transparency from our government,” wrote Ranking Members Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). “The President, Mr. Musk, and DOGE can and will be held accountable to the American people, the original and ultimate source of all sovereign power in the United States of America.”
