WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s first week in workplace was a blitz of govt orders and memos — some vital, others little greater than press releases on fancy letterhead — designed to overwhelm Washington into submission.
Week Two confirmed Trump’s maximalist second-term instincts have been extra than simply a gap bid. It revealed how the president many People grew to mistrust in his first time period — erratic, chaotic, and unwilling or unable to give attention to uniting the nation quite than dividing it — has probably not gone wherever.
The consequence, for a lot of Trump critics in Washington, is a mix of worry and hope: worries about purges of the civil service and unconstitutional energy grabs by Trump, blended with a revival of hopes that Democrats can combat a president who’s confirmed more practical at blustering than taking actual motion.
Trump, who has largely shed the phantasm he isn’t making an attempt to implement massive chunks of the Mission 2025 agenda, is unlikely to let up. And in contrast to in early 2017, Trump and his core allies are extra accustomed to the federal authorities and easy methods to bend it to their will.
“It’s vastly totally different. There’s a stage of preparedness and focus that frankly we didn’t have final time,” stated Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White Home press secretary. “The 4 years out of workplace have actually allowed the president to consider the folks he desires to encompass himself with, the folks he desires to keep away from, the insurance policies he desires to pursue and the method by which he can get these issues performed.”
However Trump’s second-week struggles, together with a brazen and probably unconstitutional try and freeze all federal spending and the likelihood that two of his Cupboard nominees might not be confirmed, show Trump’s “golden age” is just not a certain guess.
“I feel one of many issues that we’re remembering this week is that no politician, no administration, is unconstrained by politics,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) advised HuffPost. “Everyone is topic to the legal guidelines of politics and the legislation of gravity.”
Federal Funding Fracas
On Monday night, the Workplace of Administration and Finances issued a stunning memo ordering federal businesses to pause all monetary help grants. The order threatened to disrupt a broad swath of federal security web insurance policies and represented an affront to the constitutional separation of powers, because it’s alleged to be Congress that controls spending, not the White Home.
Organizations that obtain federal grants, equivalent to charities like Meals on Wheels, stated they have been involved they’d be unable to offer providers. A spokeswoman for Meals on Wheels America advised HuffPost the order “would presumably halt service to hundreds of thousands of weak seniors who don’t have any different means of buying or getting ready meals.”
The White Home initially insisted the order had been misconstrued and that it wouldn’t have an effect on any program that helps People of their houses. Two days later, after a courtroom injunction and studies of Medicaid techniques outages, Trump officers did an about-face and rescinded the order. But they continued to insist the intent of the memo remained in power, prompting a federal decide to threaten to slap a second injunction on the order simply to ensure it was useless.
Completely different White Home factions appeared eager to blame one another in the press, a dynamic frequent in Trump’s chaotic first time period. It was such a multitude that even some congressional Republicans appeared relieved to maneuver on.
“I feel that possibly a few of his advisers ought to have actually parsed by means of that,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) advised HuffPost. “They’re transferring rapidly, so once they realized it was going to trigger issues, I feel it was a good suggestion to simply say, Let’s pull it again and get it proper.”
“I assume the easiest way to place it’s: Advise and consent nonetheless type of works occasionally,” added Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), referring to pushback from Congress to Trump’s funding freeze.
Mission 2025 Is Right here
The primary two weeks proved Trump is quickly working towards dismantling and reshaping the federal government as specified by Project 2025, the unpopular conservative coverage blueprint that Trump distanced himself from throughout the 2024 marketing campaign. In keeping with its suggestions, high federal officers are being purged and hundreds of thousands of federal staff are being pressured to give up, together with with promises of imprecise “buyouts.”
Trump fired 18 inspectors basic whose job is rooting out authorities corruption, axed appointees at two key labor boards, ousted senior officials on the Division of Justice and the Division of Treasury and took a wrecking ball to U.S. international support applications, together with america Company for Worldwide Growth.
The gorgeous government-wide effort to push out profession civil servants gave the impression to be not less than partly pushed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who chairs the Division of Authorities Effectivity, an advisory panel tasked with figuring out sources of presidency waste. Musk’s fingerprints were all over an e-mail authorities staff obtained providing an eight-month severance bundle to depart their jobs.
“It regarded prefer it was the brainchild of Elon Musk,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) advised reporters this week. “I feel it’s actually vital that federal staff acknowledge this administration is launching an all-out assault on the merit-based system. That’s what their Schedule F proposal is all about, to switch merit-based federal staff with political cronies.”
“I don’t know if it’s authorized, however I’d advise them to ensure if they’re interested by it, we all know that Donald Trump has a historical past of not following by means of.”
A Tragedy On The Potomac
Trump’s first days again in workplace have additionally examined his response to main disasters. Final Friday, the president visited North Carolina and California — one state nonetheless recovering from devastating flooding and one other battling traditionally harmful wildfires.
However the first catastrophe to happen solely on Trump’s watch was Wednesday evening. An American Airways business jet and Military helicopter collided in midair over the Potomac River close to Washington, D.C., killing practically 70 folks.
Trump wasted no time politicizing the occasion, blaming diversity hiring practices for what he falsely characterized as a lowering of standards for air traffic controllers (the outcomes of a preliminary investigation are pending). In actuality, Federal Aviation Administration controllers bear rigorous coaching and evaluation; the largest impediment the company faces is a essential scarcity of personnel.
The president, from the White Home press briefing room Thursday, learn off an inventory of hiring standards for various candidates from the FAA’s web site that have been seemingly in place all through Trump’s first time period — meant to indicate {that a} give attention to range hiring has correlated with worse outcomes for the company. “We wish sensible folks doing this. This can be a main chess recreation on the highest stage,” Trump stated.
The briefing was a chance for Trump to advance his anti-DEI agenda, blaming the company’s hiring practices — which are the subject of a long-simmering class-action lawsuit — for what Trump characterised as an avoidable tragedy.
But a few of Trump’s Senate allies have been hesitant to leap to the identical conclusion and not using a thorough investigation.
“Clearly a number of folks made a devastating and catastrophic mistake, however we should always wait to look at the proof and perceive precisely what went on,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) advised HuffPost this week.
‘We Nonetheless Do Not Have A Plan’
And for all of the vigor Trump goals to undertaking immediately from the White Home, the GOP’s margins in Congress stay slim sufficient to severely constrain his expansive legislative ambitions. Republicans are divided over whether or not to move Trump’s formidable home coverage agenda — together with tax cuts, spending cuts, border safety and deregulation — in a single big bundle or a collection of smaller payments.
The dearth of progress on this entrance elicited frustration from a key Home Republican, who huddled this week with Trump and her colleagues on the president’s resort in Miami.
“After two days at our Home Republican winter retreat, we nonetheless wouldn’t have a plan on price range reconciliation and our Speaker and his staff haven’t provided one,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) complained on-line Wednesday.
In the meantime, Senate Republicans are urgent ahead with their very own plan, no matter whether or not their Home counterparts get it collectively. They hope to move a bundle that features funding for border enforcement and vitality manufacturing whereas tacking an extension of Trump’s tax cuts in a while.
Nominees ‘In Jeopardy’
Three of Trump’s Cupboard nominees confronted robust questions throughout their affirmation hearings on Capitol Hill this week, and two of them — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — seem in actual hazard of being blocked by the Senate.
Kennedy, Trump’s well being secretary nominee, sought to guarantee senators he doesn’t oppose vaccines regardless of his lengthy document of spreading misinformation about them. However one Republican, Sen. Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, appeared skeptical on Thursday.
After Kennedy refused to provide a straight reply on whether or not vaccines trigger autism, Cassidy stated, “That’s type of a yes-or-no query. The info is there.”
Cassidy is a doctor and chairman of the Senate’s well being committee, and his opinion on the nomination might have additional sway over his fellow Republicans. He’s additionally crossed Trump earlier than, voting to convict him in a Senate impeachment trial over his position within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
However the Louisiana Republican is going through stress at residence: he’s up for reelection in 2026 and Trump allies have already threatened to assist his major challenger if he doesn’t vote to substantiate the president’s nominees.
Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for director of nationwide intelligence, additionally confronted tough questions from Republicans in her listening to earlier than the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The previous Democratic congresswoman-turned-Republican firebrand failed to satisfy a number of GOP senators by refusing to name Nationwide Safety Company leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor.”
It might probably take 4 Republican ‘no’ votes on the ground to cease any Trump nomination. Final week, Trump’s protection secretary, Pete Hegseth, barely squeaked by after three GOP senators voted in opposition to him: Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
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