Granderson: Aiding Ukraine has been cheap. Caving to Russia would be far more costly

The Hill Opinion

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).

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Granderson: Aiding Ukraine has been cheap. Caving to Russia would be far more costly

The Los Angeles Times – Opinion

LZ Granderson – November 22, 2024

FILE - In this June 28, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin walk to participate in a group photo at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Russia says it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing observation flights over military facilities following the U.S. exit from the pact. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday, Jan. 15, 2021 that the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty last year "significantly upended the balance of interests of signatory states," adding that Moscow's proposals to keep the treaty alive after the U.S. exit have been cold-shouldered by Washington's allies. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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.

Read more: Opinion: Western aid isn’t prolonging the war in Ukraine. This is

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.”

Read more: Biden for the first time OKs Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles in Russia

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.”

Read more: Column: Trump talks tough on Russia now, but as president he bowed to Putin

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.

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Trump makes moves to expand his power, sparking chaos and a possible constitutional crisis

Associated Press

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.

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RFK Jr. Stuns ‘Daily Show’ With The ‘Worst’ Possible Answer To 1 Simple Question

HuffPost

RFK Jr. Stuns ‘Daily Show’ With The ‘Worst’ Possible Answer To 1 Simple Question

Ed Mazza – January 30, 2025

“The Daily Show” correspondent Michael Kosta said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent his Senate confirmation hearings trying to backtrack from his views on vaccines.

Kennedy, whom President Donald Trump nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services, has frequently spoken out against vaccines. But he spent part of Wednesday’s hearings denying that he was an anti-vaxxer and at one point insisted that his own children were vaccinated.

“What are you going to believe, his well-documented decades-long record, or the thing he said today when he was trying to get a job?” Kosta asked. “Besides, all of his kids are vaccinated. He definitely doesn’t regret that, right? Right? Right?”

Kosta rolled footage of Kennedy in 2020 saying that, if he could go back in time, he would stop his children from getting vaccinated.

“I would do anything for that,” Kennedy said. “I would pay anything to be able to do that.”

Kosta was flabbergasted.

“That is the worst answer to what you would do with a time machine that I have ever heard,” Kosta said, adding in disbelief: “You can’t think of anyone else in your family that you would go back in time and try to prevent a shot from happening, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? No one else?”

Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963.

See more in the Wednesday night “Daily Show” monologue:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=a7MJP7zYhLQ%3F

I Just Got Trump’s “Buyout” Offer at My Job. Let Me Tell You How That’s Going.

Slate

I Just Got Trump’s “Buyout” Offer at My Job. Let Me Tell You How That’s Going.

Denise Cana – January 29, 2025

The author is a federal civil servant who has been granted the use of a pen name to protect them and their family from reprisals.

The new Trump administration’s effort to both get a grip on and dismantle the federal workforce has also been a dystopian farce, climaxing Tuesday evening, after the Office of Personnel Management sent an email offering what the media has described as a “buyout” to all federal employees. This saga began shortly after Donald Trump took office, when someone asserting the authority of OPM began spamming federal workers with emails demanding a reply. In one breath, the message asked all employees to respond “Yes” to confirm that the system was working, but it also warned employees to be cautious about the contents of emails coming to them. Meanwhile, the note itself was flagged, for recipients with a government email account, as having come from an “[EXTERNAL]” source—and thus not necessarily one to be trusted.

Then, Tuesday night, federal workers were sent an email announcing a “fork in the road.” Again, the message was flagged by government servers as “[EXTERNAL].” This email, much of which was copied and pasted from a similar message sent to Twitter employees after Elon Musk—Trump’s pick to lead his effort to overhaul the civil service, otherwise known as the Department of Government Efficiency—took over that company, proclaims that the federal workforce will be undergoing significant changes. Anyone who didn’t want to participate in this new vision was invited to reply “Resign” to the flagged-as-external email address and collect six months’ salary, without having to perform any additional work, while they looked for a new job. The details of this offer are confusing, conflict with later OPM “FAQs” about the program, and seem to run afoul of long-standing legal caps on severance packages.

Welcome to government by chatbot.

This latest buyout directive is evocative of A.I. gobbledygook, beyond evidently being a copy-and-paste job from Musk’s Twitter exploits. When technologists assess a new A.I. language tool, the go-to metric is generally not the accuracy of its product, or even the consistency of its answers. It is engagement. Substance is pushed aside in pursuit of simply keeping human eyeballs trained on its messages for as long as possible. Once considered a proxy for content’s ability to be “valuable” or “worthwhile,” attention itself has become the commodity we’re after: looks, likes, clicks, play next episode. Unfortunately, one of the easiest ways to engage people is to enrage them.

Like a chatbot in training, the Musk-Miller-Trump administration is not a principled political entity concerned with substance, consistency, or competence. In the administration’s executive order regarding TikTok, for instance, the president endeavored to grant rights to private companies in one paragraph (the DOJ “shall take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act”), while specifically disclaiming the gift to TikTok in another (“this order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States”). This was a presidential pinky-swear with his fingers crossed.

Even before Tuesday’s email, the original, outside-the-government Department of Government Efficiency project spearheaded by Musk immediately ran afoul of regulations protecting against corruption that keep our democracy from slipping into an oligarchy. When the administration pivoted to bring the project inside the government, meanwhile, it immediately ran afoul of safeguards against citizen surveillance and privacy protections that keep our democracy from slipping into an autocracy.

Which brings us back to the buyout. Putting aside Musk’s failed promises to Twitter employees who had hoped for a similar buyout, the vision of the federal workforce announced in the email is no more sensible than the TikTok executive order, no more effective at considering governmental protections than the early DOGE efforts. One “pillar” of this supposed new federal workforce presumes the flexible assignment and reassignment of anyone who works for the federal government to whatever task, agency, or group the president wants, whenever he wants. In other words, it assumes that the president can usurp the priority-setting prerogatives exclusive to Congress when it sets its budgets and directs funds toward or away from various mandates.

In another pillar, the vision asserts the president’s right to reclassify federal works to at-will employees. But to do that, he should have to pass new regulations, legislation that would require planning, process, public comment, and (likely) judicial review. And to skip that process, he’d have to revoke the Administrative Procedure Act, a move that should require an act of Congress and (likely) judicial review.

If that sounds like a lot of red tape worth cutting through, think of it this way: If the president can do what this memo suggests he can do to federal workers, then he can do pretty much anything to pretty much anyone at pretty much any time. He can change substantive law on a whim—banking codes, safety regs, union protections, taxes.

These are not the actions of a thoughtful, careful, or competent government. It is not the one envisioned by our founders or present throughout the first nearly two and a half centuries of the American experiment. This is the empty chatter of a bot trained on revenge fantasy scripts that lacks a fourth grader’s understanding of the branches of government and separation of powers.

But, hey, it’s good for grabbing headlines.

White House blames Biden for killing ‘100 million chickens,’ refuses to admit Trump broken vow on costly eggs

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Trump’s First Big Fiasco Triggers Stephen Miller’s Rage—Take Note Dems

The New Republic

Trump’s First Big Fiasco Triggers Stephen Miller’s Rage—Take Note Dems

Greg Sargent – January 29, 2025

Admitting failure is anathema to the authoritarian leader, who is perpetually in danger of being diminished only by those who are resentful of his glory—which is why White House adviser Stephen Miller is frantically searching for scapegoats to blame for the unfolding disaster around President Donald Trump’s massive freeze on federal spending. “Welcome to the first dumb media hoax of 2025,” Miller angrily tweeted on Tuesday night. “Leftwing media outright lied, and some people fell for the hoax.”

What Miller is actually angry about is that the media covered this fiasco aggressively and fairly. Miller insists that the press glossed over the funding pause’s supposed exemption for “aid and benefit programs.” But this is rank misdirection: The funding freeze, which is likely illegal, was indeed confusingly drafted and recklessly rolled out. This is in part what prompted the national outcry over the huge swath of programs that it threatened, Medicaid benefits included—and the media coverage that angered Miller.

All of which carries a lesson for Democrats: This is what it looks like when the opposition stirs and uses its power in a unified way to make a lot of what you might call sheer political noise. That can help set the media agenda, throw Trump and his allies on the defensive, and deliver defeats to Trump that deflate his cultish aura of invincibility.

“This has been a red-alert moment for weeks—but now no one can deny it,” Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who has argued for an emergency footing against Trump, told me. “For my colleagues that didn’t want to cry wolf, the wolf is literally chomping at our leg right now.”

Until this crisis, the Democratic opposition has mostly been relatively tentative and divided. Democrats were not sufficiently quick, forceful, or unified in denouncing Trump’s illegal purge of inspectors general and his deranged threat to prosecute state officials who don’t comply with mass deportations. Internal party debates suggest that many Democrats believe that Trump’s 2024 victory shows voters don’t care about the dire threat he poses to democracy and constitutional governance, or that defending them against Trump must be reducible to “kitchen table” appeals.

But the funding-freeze fiasco should illustrate that this reading is highly insufficient. An understanding of the moment shaped around the idea that voters are mostly reachable only via economic concerns—however important—fails to provide guidance on how to convey to voters why things like this extraordinary Trumpian power grab actually matter.

Democrats need to think through ways to act collectively, to utilize something akin to a party-wide strategy, precisely because this sort of collective, concerted action has the capacity to alert voters in a different kind of way. It can put them on edge, signaling to them that something is deeply amiss in the threat Trump is posing to the rule of law and constitutional order.

Generally speaking, some Democrats have several objections to this kind of approach. One is that voters don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly impact them and that warnings about the Trump threat make them look unfocused on people’s material concerns. Another is that if Democrats do this too often, voters will stop believing there’s real cause for alarm.

The funding-freeze fiasco got around the first objection for Democrats because it did have vast material implications, potentially harming millions of people. But Democrats shouldn’t take the wrong lesson from this. A big reason this became a huge story was also that it represented a wildly audacious grab for quasi-dictatorial power. Democratic alarms about this dimension of the story surely helped prompt wall-to-wall coverage. Democrats can learn from that.

Faiz Shakir, a progressive dark-horse candidate for Democratic National Committee chair, suggests another way around the first objection—that Democrats can seize on Trump’s abuses of power in a way that does appeal to the working class. The party, he argues, can enlist elected officials and influencers with working-class credibility to explain that those abuses should matter, not just to working-class voters’ bottom lines but, critically, because his degenerate public conduct should disgust them as well. He says Democrats can argue: “The way he is acting is a betrayal of working-class values and your working-class interests.”

Shakir also suggests an intriguing way for the party to act in concert. As chair, he’d aggressively encourage as many elected officials as possible to use the video-recording studio at the DNC in moments like these, getting them to record short takes on why voters should care about them, then push the content out on social media.*

Shakir said he sees a model in Murphy, who regularly serves up short, hyper-timely videos that use phrases like “Let me tell you why this matters.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1884297054136021224

The goal, Shakir said, would be to provide Democrats with research and recording infrastructure enabling elected officials to find their own voices and flood information spaces with civic knowledge. This also would give Democrats who want to stick to a “kitchen table” approach a way to shape their own warnings around that.

Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin, a leading DNC chair candidate, agrees that speed and unity are paramount. “We can’t be waiting several days to organize a response to each of these things from Trump—we have to move quick,” Martin said, adding that the “larger party apparatus” should all be “singing from the same sheet of music.”

The second objection to a concerted approach—that it risks a “cry wolf” effect—is also seriously flawed. It’s already clear some Democrats are using this to avoid hard fights, for instance in hints about “working with” Elon Musk or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who each pose serious threats to bedrock ideals of public service. Also, if Democrats bestow bipartisan legitimacy on Trumpian moves like appointing those two walking civic basket cases, it complicates sounding the alarm in even more grave situations.

“It is hard for us to argue that our democracy is falling if we’re helping to confirm all of his nominees,” Murphy told me.

Taking too much of an à la carte approach to Trump’s abuses of power also risks squandering leverage. Democratic strategist Jesse Lee notes that the party’s lawmakers could consider a unified, future-oriented approach to abuses like the funding freeze. “The fight is real and here,” Lee said, arguing that Democrats can “make it clear” to GOP leaders that “they will get no Dem votes bailing them out while this power grab is in place.” (On Wednesday, the Trump administration rescinded the funding pause, strengthening the case for an aggressive opposition.)

Nobody denies that the Democratic Party is a big, sprawling, highly varied organism with elected officials facing a huge spectrum of different political imperatives. Of course there will be variation in how they approach each Trumpian abuse. But as Brian Beutler puts it, the answer to this cannot be to “lodge passing complaints about Trump’s abuses of power, but turn every conversation back to the cost of groceries.” This incoherently implies that the abuses themselves are not serious on their own terms.

How to corral Democrats who don’t want to sound warnings in particular situations is not easy to solve. But some of the ideas above are a start. And regardless, at a minimum, we need clearer signs that party leaders, at the highest levels, are seriously thinking through how to act concertedly in ways that clearly signal to voters that we’re in a civic emergency, and will argue to wayward Democrats that this is in their interests as well.

“People will not take us seriously if we don’t do our jobs every day like we’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis,” Murphy told me. “Today, everybody understands that he’s trying to seize power for corrupt purposes. But tomorrow, we have to start acting with purpose to stop what he’s doing.” If you doubt the efficacy of this, Stephen Miller’s anger confirms it as clearly as anyone could want.

* This article is about a breaking news story and has been updated. It has also been edited to include mention of the DNC’s existing recording studio.

Trump’s Milley retribution sends chilling signal to military brass, critics say

The Hill

Trump’s Milley retribution sends chilling signal to military brass, critics say

Brad Dress – January 29, 2025

Hegseth cutting Milley’s security detail, eyes stripping him of starScroll back up to restore default view.

President Trump this week revoked a security detail for retired Gen. Mark Milley and announced an investigation into the former Joint Chiefs chair’s conduct, enacting promised retribution while also sending a chilling message to military brass.

Trump, who also revoked Milley’s security clearance in orders to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has long clashed with Milley, who has been outspoken against the president in books and public comments.

But taking public revenge against him and launching an investigation are moves with little precedent in civil-military relations, and Democratic senators and experts called his actions reckless and petty.

“I think it is completely unjustified,“ said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “Another act of retribution and revenge that shows the smallness of the president.”

Richard Kohn, emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina and an expert on civil-military relations, said Trump’s move will discourage senior officers from doing their jobs and honestly advising the president, noting a former Joint Chiefs chair has never had their security detail revoked before.

“Trump will be very difficult to deal with because he’s really a very insecure person,” Kohn said. “I think he feels jealous of the legitimacy and the respect that senior officers get in American society. So as a result, it just makes it more difficult for them to do their job and to deal with political leadership in an honorable and candid way.”

Pentagon chief of staff Joe Kasper confirmed that Milley’s security detail and clearance were revoked and that the Defense Department Office of Inspector General will conduct an investigation into Milley’s conduct, which will include a review of whether a star can be revoked from the retired four-star general.

Kasper said that “undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security.”

“Restoring accountability is a priority for the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership,” Kasper said in a statement.

Trump signaled he was out for revenge against Milley on the campaign trail, suggesting at one point the retired general should be executed, and on his first day back in office he decried pardons that former President Biden issued for Milley and other Trump foes.

Just hours later, the Pentagon confirmed that a portrait of Milley recognizing him as a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was taken down.

But critics say taking away Milley’s security detail is a much more serious move, risking the life of the former highest-ranking military officer who carried out Trump’s orders to strike on a top Iranian commander, Qassem Soleimani, in early 2020.

Trump has also revoked security details for other former officials-turned-critics: former national security adviser John Bolton and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, both of whom Iran has threatened.

Roger Petersen, a professor of political science emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies civil-military relations, said he was concerned about Trump’s actions creating a more politicized civilian-military environment, particularly among high-ranking officials.

Petersen, the author of “Death, Domination, and State-Building: The US in Iraq and the Future of American Intervention,” also raised concerns that the current chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown, might resign if pressured to adhere to orders.

“That is giving a signal to military officers that if you go against the Trump program, we can reach you even in retirement, and affect your pension and your status,” he said.

Democrats were quick to slam Trump for revoking the security detail for someone he’s feuded with.

“Just like John Bolton, like Pompeo, these folks have been under real threats to their lives,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). “It’s wrong for the president to do that. We protect these individuals.”

Kelly expressed concern about the impact on the military at large, adding it sends a message that if “you do not fall in line, that there are consequences.”

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Milley “and other former Trump Administration officials continue to face credible, deadly threats from Iran because they carried out President Trump’s order to kill Iranian General Soleimani.”

“It is unconscionable and recklessly negligent for President Trump and Secretary Hegseth to revoke General Milley’s security detail for their own political satisfaction,” he said in a statement. “The Administration has placed Milley and his family in grave danger, and they have an obligation to immediately restore his federal protection.”

Republicans, however, were hesitant to comment on the move, both in person and on social media. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said he was unclear about the revocation of the security deal and hadn’t yet talked to Hegseth. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not answer a request for comment on Capitol Hill.

Milley and Trump’s feud has simmered for years. The retired U.S. Army general was tapped by Trump in 2019 to lead the Joint Chiefs, but the two soon clashed over the role of the military in responding to racial justice protesters in 2020. Milley also publicly apologized for appearing in a controversial photo shoot with Trump during the rioting.

Trump has also ripped Milley over reports the general called his Chinese counterpart to assure them that in the final days of Trump’s presidency, there was not a risk of escalating conflict or nuclear war.

Trump has tried to refute reports that Milley stopped him from launching an attack on Iran. The dispute is at the center of a now-shuttered Justice Department classified documents case against Trump, who was cited in an indictment as reading from an apparent classified document to make the case to people that Milley recommended an attack on Iran.

Milley, who retired in 2023, has admitted that he has been a source for anti-Trump commentary in books about his presidency. In the 2024 book “War” by journalist Bob Woodward, Milley called Trump “fascist to the core.”

Trump, in turn, has called Milley a “loser” and said he’s guilty of treason.

It’s unclear what exactly the Defense Department inspector general will investigate regarding Milley’s conduct.

In 2022, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who was then in the House, requested the inspector general investigate Milley. But Inspector General Robert Storch, who Trump fired last week, decided to drop the case after finding it unwarranted.

In a statement late Tuesday night, Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot said the inspector general will “conduct an inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding Gen. Milley’s conduct so that the Secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination.”

Milley’s call to his Chinese counterpart to reassure them could potentially be seen as overriding the chain of command, but Milley has also said he had spoken with a civilian counterpart before. Active-duty military have been punished for speaking against civilian authorities, including retired Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, whose aides were caught mocking then-Vice President Biden, leading to former President Obama firing him in 2010.

But most of Milley’s public criticism has come after retirement and not in active duty, analysts say.

Kohn, from the University of North Carolina, said although Milley has spoken a bit too candidly after leaving office, he does not believe there is anything to investigate.

“I don’t think he spoke against Trump. I think he tried to inform people and inform the other political leadership of how he behaved in the last, let’s say, six to eight months of his tenure, and why he did what he did,” he said. “But he didn’t really speak against Trump, except by implication.”

Peter Feaver, also a civil-military relations expert at the University of North Carolina, agreed.

Trump administration rescinds funding freeze. States pledge to proceed with lawsuits

Statesman Journal

Trump administration rescinds funding freeze. States pledge to proceed with lawsuits

Anastasia Mason, Salem Statesman Journal – January 29, 2025

(This story has been updated with new information.)

The Trump administration rescinded a federal grant freeze on Wednesday that Oregon leaders said caused confusion and chaos.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s other executive orders on federal funding issued since Inauguration Day will “remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies and departments.”

Oregon joined 22 other states and Washington, D.C. in filing a new suit, Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced Tuesday afternoon. The states’ request for a preliminary injunction will be considered Wednesday afternoon in Rhode Island.

Leavitt said the administration’s rescission “should effectively end the court case and allow the government to focus on enforcing the President’s orders on controlling federal spending.”

However, Jenny Hansson, spokesperson for Rayfield’s office, said “everything is still on. We’re suing to stop these actions, and given the chaos of recent days we don’t trust the administration when it says it’s going to stop these actions.  Also, as a legal matter, voluntarily ceasing conduct doesn’t moot out a lawsuit.”

The states intend to seek “permanent injunctive and declaratory relief, to ensure that their residents are protected against the damage and chaos that would be caused by the funding freeze,” Rayfield’s office said in a press release.

A federal judge issued a temporary halt Tuesday afternoon on the Trump administration’s efforts to pause some federal funding.

Disbursement of federal grants and loans to Oregon were scheduled to stop at 5 p.m. Tuesday and remain paused for review, as directed by the Trump administration.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered the Trump administration not to halt grant funding until at least Feb. 3, when another hearing will be held on the dispute.

The judge said her temporary ruling was intended to “maintain the status quo.” It does not block the Trump administration from freezing funding to new programs, or require it to restart funding that has already ended.

The announcement of the pause order led to “chaos and uncertainty” and impacted the state’s federal reimbursement portals for programs such as Medicaid and Head Start, said Gov. Tina Kotek, who urged Oregonians to continue using the services as usual.

“This does not impact you today. This is about how money is coming back to the state to pay for the services that you’re using, but do not delay care,” Kotek said during a joint press conference with Rayfield.

“There is complete confusion right now from the Trump administration about what they’re doing and what it means for Americans across the country,” the governor said.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Attorney General Dan Rayfield speak during a press conference about President Donald Trump's order pausing federal funding.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Attorney General Dan Rayfield speak during a press conference about President Donald Trump’s order pausing federal funding.

Rayfield said: “What we’re hearing from the White House is not what we’re experiencing on the ground.”

In a statement earlier Tuesday Rayfield said he was “deeply concerned” by the pause and “will explore any and all legal actions to challenge this harmful order from President Trump.” He said the DOJ’s child support portal also was affected.

Last week, Oregon joined suit with three other states against an executive order by President Donald Trump that would end birthright citizenship. A judge issued a temporary pause on the order.

U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, condemned the pause, saying, “if the president gets his way, children and seniors will go hungry, parents will pay more for child care, small businesses won’t be able to meet payroll, veterans will lose access to housing and health care, and rural communities won’t get the relief they need to prepare for and recover from wildfires and other disasters.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, criticized what he called a “cruel order” saying it was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“The president is not a king, and the laws Congress passes are not suggestions,” Merkley, a ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. “This cruel order will force schools, hospitals, food banks, and other community organizations to stop offering vital services. The list goes on and one thing is remarkably clear: President Trump’s Great Betrayal of working families knows no limit.”

Memo directing federal agencies to pause federal financial assistance

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo Monday directing federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” Reuters reported.

The purpose of the pause is so agencies can “review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities,” the memorandum reads.

The memo pointed to a legal definition of federal financial assistance, which includes grants, cooperative agreements, surplus donations, loans and interest subsidies. It exempts assistance received directly by individuals, including Medicare and Social Security benefits.

In a post on X, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, reported issues with Medicaid access.

“My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night’s federal funding freeze. This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed,” the post said.

Asked whether Medicaid was cut off as part of OMB’s funding pause and whether there was a guarantee that individuals on Medicaid would not be affected, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said: “I’ll check back on that and get back to you.”

“This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump administration,” Leavitt said during a briefing Tuesday. “The reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.”

Ways and Means co-Chair Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, issued a statement that said: “We have a long history of partnering with the federal government to the betterment of all Oregonians and it is unconscionable for the current administration to play politics with people’s lives.”

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” the memo says.

The memo refers to an executive order Trump signed on Jan. 20, which ordered department and agency heads to “immediately pause” new programs and disbursements of development assistance to foreign countries. The Department of State announced the pause on Sunday.

On the domestic side, the federal government issues grants for everything from road building to scientific research.

It was unclear which categories would be affected. While the directive is broad, including all federal financial assistance, the memo also includes a caveat that the pause can only affect federal assistance “to the extent permissible under applicable law.”

USA TODAY and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Hegseth cutting Milley’s security detail, eyes stripping him of star

The Hill

Hegseth cutting Milley’s security detail, eyes stripping him of star

Ellen Mitchell – January 28, 2025

Hegseth cutting Milley’s security detail, eyes stripping him of star

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to announce the immediate rescission of the personal security detail and security clearance for former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, several news outlets are reporting.

The Trump administration is also aiming to demote Milley in retirement. Hegseth is expected to direct the Pentagon’s new acting Inspector General to conduct a review board to see if enough evidence exists for the four-star general to be stripped of a star based on his actions to “undermine the chain of command” during President Trump’s first term, multiple senior administration officials told Fox News, which first reported on the plan.

Additionally, a second portrait of Milley inside the Pentagon will be removed as soon as Tuesday night. That portrait sits in the Army’s Marshall Corridor on the third floor and honors Milley’s service as a former chief of staff of the Army. The first portrait of him, which was removed just hours after Trump was sworn into his second term on Jan. 20, depicted his time as the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Taking down both Milley portraits means there will be no imagery of him inside the Pentagon.

Defense Department officials declined to comment on the potential directives, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump and Milley have long had an acrimonious relationship, starting in Trump’s first term, when Milley apologized for accompanying the president for a photo opportunity at Lafayette Square near the White House in 2020 during racial justice unrest in the nation’s Capitol.

Later, in the final days of Trump’s first term, Milley reportedly — without Trump’s knowledge — reassured Chinese officials there would be no threat to China amid fears of instability within the White House. The incident infuriated Trump to the point that he posted on Truth Social that Milley was “treasonous,” suggesting he be executed.

Since then, Trump has often vowed to take revenge against his enemies, naming Milley often as one such foe.

But Trump might be hard-pressed to stick Milley with any criminal charges, as the retired general was given a preemptive pardon issued by former President Biden on Jan. 20, his last day in office.

Milley — who in public and private has reportedly called Trump unintelligent and a “fascist to the core” — had been assigned personal security details since 2020, when Iran vowed revenge for the Trump-ordered drone strike killing of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani.

The removal of Milley’s security detail follows Trump’s decision last week to also end protective security details for his former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his onetime deputy Brian Hook.

Trump administration orders sweeping freeze of federal aid

Politico

Trump administration orders sweeping freeze of federal aid

Jennifer Scholtes and Nicholas Wu – January 27, 2025

One week in, the Trump administration is broadening its assault on the functions of government and shifting control of the federal purse strings further away from members of Congress.

President Donald Trump’s budget office Monday ordered a total freeze on “all federal financial assistance” that could be targeted under his previous executive orders pausing funding for a wide range of priorities — from domestic infrastructure and energy projects to diversity-related programs and foreign aid.

In a two-page memo obtained by POLITICO, the Office of Management and Budget announced all federal agencies would be forced to suspend payments — with the exception of Social Security and Medicare.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” according to the memo, which three people authenticated.

The new order could affect billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments while causing disruptions to programs that benefit many households. There was also widespread confusion over how the memo would be implemented and whether it would face legal challenges.

While the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance “provided directly to individuals,” for instance, it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to states or organizations and then provided to households.

The brief memo also does not detail all payments that will be halted. However, it broadly orders federal agencies to “temporarily” stop sending federal financial assistance that could be affected by Trump’s executive actions.

That includes the president’s orders to freeze all funding from the Democrats’ signature climate and spending law — the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure package enacted in 2021. It also imposes a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement decried the announcement as an example of “more lawlessness and chaos in America as Donald Trump’s Administration blatantly disobeys the law by holding up virtually all vital funds that support programs in every community across the country.”

The New York Democrat urged the administration to lift the freeze.

“They say this is only temporary, but no one should believe that,” he said. “Donald Trump must direct his Administration to reverse course immediately and the taxpayers’ money should be distributed to the people. Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law.”

Bobby Kogan, who worked at the White House budget office during the Biden administration, called the memo a “big, broad, illegal” order that violates impoundment law, which blocks presidents from unilaterally withholding money without the consent of Congress.

“This is as bad as we feared it would be,” said Kogan, who also served as a Democratic aide to the Senate Budget Committee and is now a director at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

The president of the National Council of Nonprofits, Diane Yentel, said in a statement that the order “could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.”

The funding pause, first reported by journalist Marisa Kabas, is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. Tuesday, a day after the memo was sent to agencies.

Carmen Paun and Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.

Trump demands apology, criticizes bishop’s prayer service remarks

The Hill

Trump demands apology, criticizes bishop’s prayer service remarks

Alex Gangitano – January 22, 2025

Trump demands apology, criticizes bishop’s prayer service remarks

President Trump early Wednesday morning slammed the reverend at a National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration who called on him to have mercy on transgender children and immigrant families.

Trump, in a lengthy post on Truth Social, called Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s remarks “nasty” and not smart.

“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,” he said.

“She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions,” the president added. “It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one.”

Trump also called on her and the church to apologize to him.

“She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Hours earlier, Budde made a plea to Trump during her sermon as he was sitting in the first pew at the service.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared. There are gay, lesbian, transgender children, Democratic, Republican, independent families — some who fear for their lives,” she said.

“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she added.

During her comments about migrants, Budde noted migrant workers “pay taxes” and are “faithful members” of U.S. churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, arguing their children “fear their parents are going to be taken away.” And, she called on Trump to aid people fleeing war zones and persecution.

Budde also told Trump that people in our country are scared of his presidency.

When Trump returned to the White House after the prayer service, he told reporters it “wasn’t too exciting.”

“They can do much better,” he added.

Others have joined Trump in criticizing the Bishop’s remarks, including Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who said on the social platform X that “the person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

Trump signed a flurry of executive orders Monday, including one recognizing only two sexes — male and female — and others restricting immigration, carrying out his campaign promise to target migrants, especially those who have committed crimes in the U.S.

He signed an order effectively pausing refugee admissions for a minimum of three months, signed an order that seeks to boost detention capacity in the U.S. to house migrants and said he would end birthright citizenship for children born to people living without legal status in the U.S.

He also reinstituted the “Remain in Mexico” program, which requires asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date, and he shut down the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) One app that facilitated appointments for immigration proceedings.