Sen. Deb Fischer offers up 'canned food' as alternate to USDA food bank cuts
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) seemed to defend the Trump administration's cuts to local food purchasing for schools and food banks, saying Thursday that 'canned food' and other non-perishable options can also be 'wholesome.'
'I think there's different avenues we can take on that to make sure that still meet the needs of people,' Fischer said at POLITICO Playbook's First 100 Days breakfast series.
Fischer was responding to news earlier this week that USDA canceled two programs that gave schools and food banks money to purchase food from local farms, axing more than $1 billion in federal spending.
The Republican senator added that she continues to back food banks and supports having 'fresh food available,' but 'sometimes we forget that' canned food is 'always an option as well.'
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Atlantic
38 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Where Is Barack Obama?
Last month, while Donald Trump was in the Middle East being gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, Barack Obama headed off on his own foreign excursion: a trip to Norway, in a much smaller and more tasteful jet, to visit the summer estate of his old friend King Harald V. Together, they would savor the genteel glories of Bygdøyveien in May. They chewed over global affairs and the freshest local salmon, which had been smoked on the premises and seasoned with herbs from the royal garden. Trump has begun his second term with a continuous spree of democracy-shaking, economy-quaking, norm-obliterating action. And Obama, true to form, has remained carefully above it all. He picks his spots, which seldom involve Trump. In March, he celebrated the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and posted his annual NCAA basketball brackets. In April, he sent out an Easter message and mourned the death of the pope. In May, he welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ('a fellow Chicagoan') and sent prayers to Joe Biden following his prostate-cancer diagnosis. No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His 'audacity of hope' presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement. Obama occasionally dips into politics with brief and unmemorable statements, or sporadic fundraising emails (subject: 'Barack Obama wants to meet you. Yes you.'). He praised his law-school alma mater, Harvard, for 'rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt' by the White House 'to stifle academic freedom.' He criticized a Republican bill that would threaten health care for millions. He touted a liberal judge who was running for a crucial seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When called upon, he can still deliver a top-notch campaign spiel, donor pitch, convention speech, or eulogy. Beyond that, Obama pops in with summer and year-end book, music, and film recommendations. He recently highlighted a few articles about AI and retweeted a promotional spot for Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, a new Netflix documentary from his and Michelle's production company. (Michelle also has a fashion book coming out later this year: 'a celebration of confidence, identity, and authenticity,' she calls it.) Apparently, Barack is a devoted listener of The Ringer 's Bill Simmons Podcast, or so he told Jimmy Kimmel over dinner. In normal times, no one would deny Obama these diversions. He performed the world's most stressful job for eight years, served his country, made his history, and deserved to kick back and do the usual ex-president things: start a foundation, build a library, make unspeakable amounts of money. But the inevitable Trump-era counterpoint is that these are not normal times. And Obama's detachment feels jarringly incongruous with the desperation of his longtime admirers—even more so given Trump's assaults on what Obama achieved in office. It would be one thing if Obama had disappeared after leaving the White House, maybe taking up painting like George W. Bush. The problem is that Obama still very much has a public profile—one that screams comfort and nonchalance at a time when so many other Americans are terrified. 'There are many grandmas and Rachel Maddow viewers who have been more vocal in this moment than Barack Obama has,' Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, told me. 'It is heartbreaking,' he added, 'to see him sacrificing that megaphone when nobody else quite has it.' People who have worked with Obama since he left office say that he is extremely judicious about when he weighs in. 'We try to preserve his voice so that when he does speak, it has impact,' Eric Schultz, a close adviser to Obama in his post-presidency, told me. 'There is a dilution factor that we're very aware of.' 'The thing you don't want to do is, you don't want to regularize him,' former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close Obama friend and collaborator, told me. When I asked Holder what he meant by 'regularize,' he explained that there was a danger of turning Obama into just another hack commentator—' Tuesdays With Barack, or something like that,' Holder said. Like many of Obama's confidants, Holder bristles at suggestions that the former president has somehow deserted the Trump opposition. 'Should he do more? Everybody can have their opinions,' Holder said. 'The one thing that always kind of pisses me off is when people say he's not out there, or that he's not doing things, that he's just retired and we never hear from him. If you fucking look, folks, you would see that he's out there.' From the April 2016 issue: The Obama doctrine Obama's aides also say that he is loath to overshadow the next generation of Democratic leaders. They emphasize that he spends a great deal of time speaking privately with candidates and officials who seek his advice. But unfortunately for Democrats, they have not found their next fresh generational sensation since Obama was elected 17 years ago (Joe Biden obviously doesn't count). Until a new leader emerges, Obama could certainly take on a more vocal role without 'regularizing' himself in the lowlands of Trump-era politics. Obama remains the most popular Democrat alive at a time of historic unpopularity for his party. Unlike Biden, he appears not to have lost a step, or three. Unlike with Bill Clinton, his voice remains strong and his baggage minimal. Unlike both Biden and Clinton, he is relatively young and has a large constituency of Americans who still want to hear from him, including Black Americans, young voters, and other longtime Democratic blocs that gravitated toward Trump in November. 'Should Obama get out and do more? Yes, please,' Tracy Sefl, a Democratic media consultant in Chicago, told me. 'Help us,' she added. 'We're sinking over here.' Obama's conspicuous scarcity while Trump inflicts such damage isn't just a bad look. It's a dereliction of the message that he built his career on. When Obama first ran for president in 2008, his former life as a community organizer was central to his message. His campaign was not merely for him, but for civic action itself—the idea of Americans being invested in their own change. Throughout his time in the White House, he emphasized that 'citizen' was his most important title. After he left office in 2017, Obama said that he would work to inspire and develop the next cohort of leaders, which is essentially the mission of his foundation. It would seem a contradiction for him to say that he's devoting much of his post-presidency to promoting civic engagement when he himself seems so disengaged. To some degree, patience with Obama began wearing thin when he was still in office. His approval ratings sagged partway through his second term (before rebounding at the end). The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013 was a fiasco, and the midterm elections of 2014 were a massacre. Obama looked powerless as Republicans in Congress ensured that he would pass no major legislation in his second term and blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'Obama, out,' the president said in the denouement of his last comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in 2016. In Obama lore, this mic-drop moment would instantly become famous—and prophetic. After Trump's first victory, Obama tried to reassure supporters that this was merely a setback. 'I don't believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes,' he said in an interview with The New Yorker. Insofar as Obama talked about how he imagined his post-presidency, he was inclined to disengage from day-to-day politics. At a press conference in November 2016, Obama said that he planned to 'take Michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, and do some writing, do some thinking.' He promised to give Trump the chance to do his job 'without somebody popping off in every instance.' But in that same press conference, he also allowed that if something arose that raised 'core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes.' That happened almost immediately. A few days after vowing in his inaugural address to end the 'American carnage' that he was inheriting, Trump signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The so-called Muslim travel ban would quickly be blocked by the courts, but not before sowing chaos at U.S. points of entry. Obama put out a brief statement through a spokesperson ('the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion'), and went on vacation. Trump's early onslaught made clear that Obama's ex-presidency would prove far more complicated than previous ones. And Obama's taste for glamorous settings and famous company—Richard Branson, David Geffen, George Clooney—made for a grating contrast with the turmoil back home. 'Just tone it down with the kitesurfing pictures,' John Oliver, the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, said of Obama in an interview with Seth Meyers less than a month after the president left office. 'America is on fire,' Oliver added. 'I know that people accused him of being out of touch with the American people during his presidency. I'm not sure he's ever been more out of touch than he is now.' Oliver's spasm foreshadowed a rolling annoyance that continued as Trump's presidency wore on: that Obama was squandering his power and influence. 'Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That's very nice of him,' the anti-Trump writer Drew Magary wrote in a Medium column titled 'Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?' in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.' Obama did insert himself in the 2024 election, reportedly taking an aggressive behind-the-scenes role last summer in trying to nudge Biden out of the race. He delivered a showstopper speech at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned several times for Kamala Harris in the fall. But among longtime Obama admirers I've spoken with, frustration with the former president has built since Trump returned to office. While campaigning for Harris last year, Obama framed the stakes of the election in terms of a looming catastrophe. 'These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections,' he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Yet now that the impact is unfolding in the most pernicious ways, Obama seems to be resuming his ordinary chill and same old bits. Green, of the Progressive Change Institute, told me that when Obama put out his March Madness picks this year, he texted Schultz, the Obama adviser. 'Have I missed him speaking up in other places recently?' Green asked him. 'He did not respond to that.' (Schultz confirmed to me that he ignored the message but vowed to be 'more responsive to Adam Green's texts in the future.') Being a former president is inherently tricky: The role is ill-defined, and peripheral by definition. Part of the trickiness is how an ex-president can remain relevant, if he wants to. This is especially so given the current president. 'I don't know that anybody is relevant in the Trump era,' Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, who wrote a book called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Trump has succeeded in creating a reality in which every president who came before is suspect. 'All the standard rules of being an ex-president are no longer applicable,' he said. Still, Obama never presented himself as a 'standard rules' leader. This was the idea that his political rise was predicated on—that change required bold, against-the-grain thinking and uncomfortable action. Clearly, Obama still views himself this way, or at least still wants to be perceived this way. (A few years ago, he hosted a podcast with Bruce Springsteen called Renegades.) From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president Stepping into the current political melee would not be an easy or comfortable role for Obama. He represents a figure of the past, which seems more and more like the ancient past as the Trump era crushes on. He is a notably long-view guy, who has spent a great deal of time composing a meticulous account of his own narrative. 'We're part of a long-running story,' Obama said in 2014. 'We just try to get our paragraph right.' Or thousands of paragraphs, in his case: The first installment of Obama's presidential memoir, A Promised Land, covered 768 pages and 29 hours of audio. No release date has been set for the second volume. But this might be one of those times for Obama to take a break from the long arc of the moral universe and tend to the immediate crisis. Several Democrats I've spoken with said they wish that Obama would stop worrying so much about the 'dilution factor.' While Democrats struggle to find their next phenom, Obama could be their interim boss. He could engage regularly, pointing out Trump's latest abuses. He did so earlier this spring, during an onstage conversation at Hamilton College. He was thoughtful, funny, and sounded genuinely aghast, even angry. He could do these public dialogues much more often, and even make them thematic. Focus on Trump's serial violations of the Constitution one week (recall that Obama once taught constitutional law), the latest instance of Trump's naked corruption the next. Blast out the most scathing lines on social media. Yes, it might trigger Trump, and create more attention than Obama evidently wants. But Trump has shown that ubiquity can be a superpower, just as Biden showed that obscurity can be ruinous. People would notice. Democrats love nothing more than to hold up Obama as their monument to Republican bad faith. Can you imagine if Obama did this? some Democrat will inevitably say whenever Trump does something tacky, cruel, or blatantly unethical (usually before breakfast). Obama could lean into this hypocrisy—tape recurring five-minute video clips highlighting Trump's latest scurrilous act and title the series 'Can You Imagine If I Did This?' Or another idea—an admittedly far-fetched one. Trump has decreed that a massive military parade be held through the streets of Washington on June 14. This will ostensibly celebrate the Army's 250th anniversary, but it also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday. The parade will cost an estimated $45 million, including $16 million in damage to the streets. (Can you imagine if Obama did this?) The spectacle cries out for counterprogramming. Obama could hold his own event, in Washington or somewhere nearby. It would get tons of attention and drive Trump crazy, especially if it draws a bigger crowd. Better yet, make it a parade, or 'citizen's march,' something that builds momentum as it goes, the former president and community organizer leading on foot. This would be the renegade move. Few things would fire up Democrats like a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Obama. If nothing else, it would be fun to contemplate while Democrats keep casting about for their long-delayed future. 'The party needs new rising stars, and they need the room to figure out how to meet this moment, just like Obama figured out how to meet the moment 20 years ago,' Jon Favreau, a co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for the 44th president, told me. 'Unless, of course, Trump tries to run for a third term, in which case I'll be begging Obama to come out of retirement.'
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Trump and Musk aides have spoken amid pause in hostilities
The shaky detente in the social media strife between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is holding following a call between representatives for both sides Friday, according to two White House officials. 'He's stopped posting, but that doesn't mean he's happy,' one of the officials said about Trump's Truth Social hiatus with Musk. 'The future of their relationship is totally uncertain,' added the official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. Both men have paused their war of words that included Musk suggesting the president be impeached and Trump threatening to cut off federal contracts for the billionaire's companies. But neither wanted to, according to the two officials familiar with the reaction of both men. A spokesperson for Musk did not return a message seeking comment. Trump was particularly peeved by Musk insinuating the president was tied to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claiming Trump was 'in the Epstein files.' It's long been public that Trump and other prominent figures are referenced in documents released in court cases surrounding Epstein, though Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein. But Musk's boast that Trump couldn't have won without his support, including over a quarter-billion dollars in political contributions – is what really set the president spinning, the two officials continued. 'Such ingratitude,' Musk wrote on X after taking credit from Trump's victory in November. The feud came as the president and Republican leaders tried to shoulder through a major package of domestic policy legislation, which could be the biggest legislative achievement of Trump's second term. Musk criticized the so-called megabill for having a 'MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK.' When reached for comment, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told POLITICO, 'As President Trump has said himself, he is moving forward focused on passing the One Big Beautiful Bill.' The relationship began to sour before the dueling social media posts erupted last week. Trump was upset about what he saw as Musk overselling DOGE's inability to make massive cuts in the federal bureaucracy. Then the White House pulled the nomination for Jared Isaacman, the billionaire's pick to lead NASA, which was one of the final tethers in a tenuous alliance. White House personnel director Sergio Gor, who was behind that move, has had a long-simmering tension with the billionaire, according to both White House officials. Musk refused to work with Gor after a March Cabinet meeting where the president told his agency heads they were in charge of their departments — not Musk, who was in the room. That meeting happened after the Tesla founder set off a series of mass firings and warnings to government workers that in turn triggered lawsuits and criticism from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. While most lawmakers and Republican operatives agree that Trump ultimately has the upper hand should their feud reignite, there's never been an adversary quite like Musk: the world's richest man with an online megaphone to rival the presidential bully pulpit.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Foul-mouthed, frustrated Democrats seek a spine
ANAHEIM — California Democrats have learned one lesson from last November's national loss to Republicans: Voters want to see them fight. Especially for the working class. Their next challenge is actually doing it. And California Democrats have a prime opportunity to do so in an upcoming budget fight in Sacramento. Part of Donald Trump's appeal is that voters at least feel that he's 'fighting' for them even if it is largely performative. (Exhibit A: Trump's tax plan gives a $300 tax break to families earning $50,000 and $90,000 to a filer making $1 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. So the word 'fight' was omnipresent in every speech, often in profane ways, at the California Democratic Party's three-day convention that ended Sunday. Speaking of his Republican opponents, California Sen. Adam Schiff told attendees: 'We do not capitulate. We do not concede. California does not cower, not now, not ever. We say to bullies, 'You can go f— yourself.'' Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee and a keynote convention speaker, told delegates Saturday, 'We gotta be honest. We're in this mess because some of it is our own doing.' Walz acknowledged that as half of the losing presidential ticket, he may be 'the last person to lecture on this topic, but I'm going to tell you, none of us can afford to shy away from having hard conversations about what it's going to take to win elections.' 'We didn't just lose the working class to just anybody. We lost to a grifter billionaire giving tax cuts to his grifter billionaire buddies. That last election was a primal scream on so many fronts: 'Do something! Do something! Stand up and make a difference.'' America is dubious that Democrats can do something. A CNN poll released Sunday found that 16% of respondents felt Democrats are the party that could 'get things done.' More than twice as many respondents (36%) felt that way about Republicans. 'If you ask people today what a Democrat is, they say it is 'a deer in the headlights,'' Walz said. 'We've got to find some goddamn guts to fight for working people. … Nobody votes for roadkill.' 'That means having the guts to break down the power structures that are there. We know who's strangling our politics.' Lorena Gonzalez, president of the 2.3 million-member California Labor Federation, warned that Democrats shouldn't become 'Republican lite' by adopting their positions. She invoked the Depression-era song written by Florence Patton Reece, 'Which Side Are You On?' 'Are you on the side of the billionaires and the tech bros and Elon Musk and the Republican Lites?' Gonzalez said. 'Or are you on the side of working people, men and women who make this state work, who continue to go to work every day, hardworking people. Are you on the side of unions?' Case in point: It sounds hollow to hear California Democrats rail on Trump and congressional Republicans for their budget that would cut health coverage for 8.6 million Americans (according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office) when California is considering cuts to its most vulnerable citizens to close a $12 billion budget deficit. Gov. Gavin Newsom's May revised budget proposal i ncluded cuts to the In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides care to low-income elderly and disabled people. Those providers, who are predominantly women of color, earn about $17 an hour. The typical provider would lose about $20,000 in pay annually under the proposal, according to union leaders. These are the 500,000 workers who bathe, dress and take care of 850,000 frail Californians — our parents, children and siblings. Many providers are one paycheck away from homelessness, union organizers say. Such a pay cut 'would be devastating,' Cynthia Williams, an Orange County in-home provider since 2008, told me. If the cuts were passed, her family would likely have to move and use the local food bank even more. She cares for her disabled-veteran sister and her daughter, who is blind and disabled and has a gastric condition that requires her to have four or five small meals a day. 'So that (salary reduction) would cut down on what I would be able to do. Providing four or five meals a day would not be an option,' Williams told me. 'We don't need to keep milking the poor to give to the rich,' she said. 'We need to make sure that Democrats care for the people that are the most vulnerable.' Union leaders, whose members are the lifeblood of Democratic campaigns, say they are watching how Democrats handle this proposed cut. At a rally Saturday outside the Anaheim Convention Center where Democrats were meeting, United Domestic Workers Executive Director Doug Moore directed a message 'to our Democratic lawmakers. This rally is not just a protest. It's a warning. 'Balancing the budget on the backs of low-income children, seniors, people with disabilities and the caregivers who support them is not leadership, it's shortsighted cowardice,' Moore told rallygoers. 'Every Democrat inside this convention hall, this is your moment. Your integrity matters now more than ever. You can't claim to stand for justice, equity, working families in your speeches, then turn around and vote for budget cuts that hurt the very people who make this state function. 'It is time for you to have the courage to stand with us — or else. We are watching. We are the people who got you in the office.' California Democrats are looking for ways to stave off those cuts. Behind closed doors, Senate Democrats are considering several plans that would raise revenue from wealthy corporations to plug the budget deficit. One idea is to tax large corporations that do business in California but do not provide adequate or affordable health coverage to their employees and pay their workers so little that they must rely on Medi-Cal. It would require employers to pay a tax for each worker; details on the proposal are still being crafted. Other Democrats in the Legislature are privately discussing a proposal that would close the 'water's edge loophole' that would require corporations to report all their worldwide profits, not just the profits they claim were earned in the U.S. This proposal could enable California to collect taxes on its rightful share (an estimated $3 billion) of those total profits. Now, the percentage of national sales that occur in the state is the percentage of profit subject to corporate tax in California. Twenty-eight states plus Washington, D.C., require a version of water's edge reporting, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Polic y, The short-term question: Will Gov. Newsom veto this because he is concerned about being tagged as someone who 'raised taxes' — even if it is on wealthy corporations — if he runs for president in 2028 when his term ends? The long-term question: Whose side are Democrats on?
