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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's War on the ‘Deep State' Will Hurt His Own Agenda
For nearly a decade, U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters have raged against the 'deep state' and how it has allegedly been weaponized against him and his followers. If one believes the MAGA narrative, a coterie of unelected bureaucrats implacably opposed to Trump's agenda have disregarded their obligations to implement it. Instead, they have engaged in a variety of strategic leaks, excessive lawfare and malign resistance to thwart his America First policies. A month into Trump's first term, for instance, his chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon, famously declared war on the 'administrative state.' The first Trump administration's attempts to accomplish this proved to be fitful at best. Just a few months into his second term, however, these redoubled efforts have had greater success at eroding the size and influence of the federal bureaucracy. These initiatives include staff layoffs overseen by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE; the planned expansion of Schedule F employees who can be fired at will; and the trauma inflicted on those bureaucrats who have stayed on. In other words, the deep state is getting shallower. The idea that the federal bureaucracy needs reform is hardly unique to Trump and his MAGA supporters. More than a decade ago, my Fletcher School colleague Michael Glennon argued in his book, 'National Security and Double Government,' that the unelected bureaucracy was now exercising unprecedented influence over U.S. foreign policy, superseding the Madisonian institutions that the U.S. Constitution empowered. The bureaucratic politics literature within political science is replete with hypotheses about how institutional imperatives and organizational culture can affect policy implementation. Bureaucrats within the federal government often possess an informational advantage over political appointees, making it easier for them to resist undesired policies. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. Furthermore, these bureaucratic issues have bedeviled presidents since long before Trump. After Dwight Eisenhower was elected president, Harry Truman famously said, 'Poor Ike! When he was a general, he gave an order and it was carried out. Now he's going to sit in that big office and he'll give an order and not a damn thing is going to happen.' And at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. military continued U-2 overflights of the USSR despite heightened tensions, John F. Kennedy bemoaned, 'There is always some [expletive] who doesn't get the word.' The bureaucracy has similarly stymied Trump's foreign policy preferences on occasion. During his first term, Trump often found himself rolled by the Pentagon on questions of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. In 2020, his outgoing Syria envoy infamously bragged to the press about the 'shell games' he and others played in order to obfuscate how many troops the U.S. had in the country after Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria in 2019. Even in his current term, there is evidence that elements of the national security bureaucracy are still up to their old tricks. When Trump asked for metrics to measure progress in the short-lived U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis, for instance, U.S. military commanders reportedly responded 'by providing data showing the number of munitions dropped.' Relying on quantitative metrics that are only loosely related to the stated policy goal is Bureaucratic Politics 101. As the Trump administration's efforts to winnow the bureaucracy have made inroads, one might expect to see a more docile bureaucracy that keeps its head down and tries to accomplish its assigned tasks. In actuality, however, the political science literature offers multiple cautionary tales against assuming that life is that simple. The most obvious and direct problem is that the ways in which the Trump administration has attacked the bureaucracy have weakened the state's capacity to perform any essential tasks. One can complain about unnecessary red tape all day long, but Americans like knowing that nuclear weapons will not accidentally explode, airplanes will land safely and extreme weather events will be detected and responded to. Despite its loud denials, however, the Trump administration's myriad staffing cuts at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Emergency Management Administration have put all of these essential government functions at risk. And despite the claims of the libertarians in the administration, like Elon Musk, the private sector will not necessarily be able to pick up the slack for the erosion of public goods. Indeed, the provision of public goods often facilitates the functioning of private markets. Unfortunately, that can work in reverse as well. The elimination of positions at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, will make private insurance more difficult to issue. A related problem is tasking bureaucracies with multiple, conflicting goals. That is a surefire way to reduce government efficiency, and yet this is exactly what Musk's DOGE has done time and again during the first half of this year. For example, the Social Security Administration, or SSA, has a longstanding history of efficiency at fulfilling its primary task: accurately and speedily processing payments to retirees and other beneficiaries. Its skill at this task was so good that James Q. Wilson made it one of his exemplary cases in his classic text, 'Bureaucracy.' As has been well-chronicled, however, DOGE's efforts to install anti-fraud measures at SSA proved debilitating to the agency's core mission. The DOGE-led staff reductions have slowed the pace of claims processing. DOGE's changes are causing the SSA's website to crash on a near-daily basis. Wait times on the phone have increased dramatically. All the while, minimal amounts of fraud have been detected, mainly because the claims of Social Security fraud, waste and abuse were wildly inflated among Trump's MAGA base. Perhaps the most pernicious effect has been in the areas where the shallow state is trying to comply with the administration's priorities, as the bureaucracy is often picking the lowest-hanging fruit to reach those goals. This has been on prominent display in the efforts to adhere to Trump's executive orders prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives as well as his crackdown on immigration. On the former, the bureaucracy's efforts to scrub anything DEI-related from official websites has led to absurd overreaches, such as wiping any references to the World War II-era aircraft that dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, because its name—the Enola Gay—probably tripped a keyword filter. Trump's defenders have accused the bureaucracy of 'malicious compliance.' But the problem also stems from the lack of clarity in Trump's directives, which can lead to overzealousness from bureaucrats seeking to avoid opening themselves up to charges of dereliction of duty. Even in areas where the administration has not cut staff to the bone, the shallow state is implementing Trump's preferred policies in a shallow manner. Consider the efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and deport undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States. Trump and his subordinates initially signaled that criminals and gang members would be the priority for these deportations. Over the past four months, however, the shallow state has implemented deportations in ways that expose myriad bureaucratic shortcuts, badly warping the process. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents have relied on caricatural metrics, like tattoos and hoodies, to identify gang members, with unsurprising results. The Cato Institute recently concluded that more than 20 percent of the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador in March had entered the U.S. legally and committed no criminal offense. ICE has also scooped up those who have scheduled meetings with immigration officials because, according to political scientist Auston Kocher, they are the easiest people for ICE to collect. Kocher's analysis of ICE data shows that detentions of immigrants with no criminal record have grown three times greater than those of convicted criminals. This has led to the internment of individuals who have endeavored to comply with all the rules. Trump might very well succeed in eviscerating his fantasized deep state. The result will not be a more efficient bureaucracy, however, but a shallow state that is unable to perform its vital functions—including carrying out the directives of the president of the United States. Daniel W. Drezner is distinguished professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is the author of Drezner's World. The post Trump's War on the 'Deep State' Will Hurt His Own Agenda appeared first on World Politics Review.
Metro
26-05-2025
- General
- Metro
Woman claims ghost she's spoken to for 12 years says the world will end tomorrow
Sorry to break it to you, but a woman who has spoken to a spirit for the last 12 years says it has predicted the world will end tomorrow. The phantom – who goes by the name Seven (or just '7') – appeared on a Ouija board being used by a woman only known as Cassie0peia7. For simplicity, we're just going to call her Cassie. Sharing her revelations on TikTok – insisting it's not a publicity stunt – she said 7 reckons we're all going to die as a result of a nuclear blast or space explosion tomorrow. (Or today, if you're reading this on May 27, 2025, and anyone reading after that date can stop reading at this point). Cassie and her husband, also unnamed, claim they first made contact with the spirit on July 5, 2013, when they whipped out the Ouija board because they were bored. She is convinced that 7's prophecies will come to pass because 7 once talked about a plague slowing down the human path to destruction. Less than seven years later, Covid struck. 7 would communicate in English, spell words in ancient languages and used binary code. It also communicated backwards. A couple of days later, they asked what message 7 would send to the world. The reply? 'That all must stop or Earth will die.' When the couple drilled down for more information and asked exactly what must stop in order to prevent the apocalypse, 7 responded: 'Stupid.' Offering some proof of its claims, the spirit said it was the third time it had made contact. On July 25 that year, 7 told them the 'first contact failed 24,825 ago'. That was the day the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. The second time 7 got in touch was successful, tracing back to October 27, 1962, when nuclear war was narrowly avoided in the Cuban Missile Crisis. (I hope you're keeping up with the timeline). Eerily, 7 said there would be a failed contact 29,149 days after Hiroshima, bringing us to May 27. Out of curiosity, Cassie and Mr 0peia7 asked who was going to die. 7 replied: 'All. Save 7'. Cassie said: 'I am a normal person, my husband is a normal person. We have jobs. We are not Satanists.' She has now released a 51-page transcript of 31 conversations the couple have had with 7, and has handily broken them down on multiple TikToks. But it's definitely not a PR stunt. Among the wisdom imparted by the phantom are ditties such as: 'To struggle is to grow, to grow is to learn, to learn is to find victory'. More Trending The 0peia7s also have a new theory about Cleopatra after their pet ghost told them the Egyptian queen 'died by a knife' rather than a fatal bite by a snake. They last spoke to 7 on May 8, coincidentally (and conveniently) just after their first video about their supernatural activities went viral. In that chat, they asked a series of questions like 'How can we communicate with the non-human intelligence?' and 'Is God lonely?'. Speaking in 10 different languages – including Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew – 7 told the couple 'swim'. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Mum told to pay police officer £50 for striking him in the face with toilet roll MORE: Inside 807ft skyscraper in a forest that's almost as tall as London's Shard MORE: Speed camera catches a duck doing nearly double the limit twice in seven years
Epoch Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Cuba Now a Strategic Battleground for China Against the US
Commentary Cuba has been impoverished by years of communist control, but it possesses a strategic vantage point that China prizes. Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in his congressional testimony on May 6 that Cuba is a 'strategic battleground' with China. Twenty sensitive U.S. government facilities in Florida are in range of the expanding Chinese Cyber and Signals Intelligence Collection network in Cuba. Even before the Russians minimized their presence in Cuba in 2002, the Chinese were eyeing the Caribbean country. 'According to an article in El Nuevo Herald, the two reportedly signed an agreement granting China access to a number of former Soviet listening stations across the island, including the Bejucal base less than 10 miles from the old Lourdes station,' he noted. Related Stories 5/14/2025 5/13/2025 As part of the path toward resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy pledged publicly Chinese Military and Intelligence Network Grows in Cuba In the summer of 2023, Cuba leapt onto the front pages with the sudden, Then, The Associated Press reported there was an anonymous Biden administration official who confirmed that this started in 2019, which was a clever way of deflecting responsibility toward President Donald Trump. Berg pointed out that then-National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby 'reversed course and admitted to China's spy bases in Cuba, but insisted that its presence had existed since 2019 under the first Trump administration, implying the Biden administration had 'inherited' the challenge.' 'Around the same time, reports surfaced that China was pursuing the construction of a military training base in Cuba,' he added. Kirby had apparently missed the 1999 visit by Gen. Chi Haotian. In July 2024, The Chinese regime's presence in Cuba is just one element of Chinese surveillance surrounding Florida. China has been Gen. Glen VanHerck, former commander of U.S. Northern Command, pointed out, before the Chinese spy balloon episode, Cuba Receives Promises of Chinese Support Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez in Moscow on May 9 during the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory in World War II. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said about the meeting, 'China is ready to work with Cuba to further strengthen their ironclad friendship, build a closer China–Cuba community with a shared future, and set an example of solidarity and cooperation between socialist countries and sincere interaction between developing countries.' In addition, the BRICS alliance—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—welcomed Cuba into the organization on Jan. 1, 2025, The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has developed an alliance with Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and South Africa in its 'no limits' strategy to take on the United States, and it appears Cuba is entering this grouping of communist and totalitarian countries. CCP Lures Latin American Countries Wi th Financial Offer Following the U.S.–China tariff truce, China hosted a forum with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Beijing on May 13. Left-leaning leaders in Latin America, such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, were in attendance. The CCP used a Belt and Road Initiative power play and extended a credit line of $9.2 billion to the Latin American countries in attendance, with a very important caveat: The currency used in the line of credit would be the Chinese yuan. The move, which excluded the global reserve currencies like the U.S. dollar, aimed to promote the yuan while China deepens its ties in the Americas. Of all the opportunities in the Americas, Cuba offers China the greatest return on investment. The short distance to the United States from Cuba allows the CCP a key intelligence observation point and a way to create a counterbalance of world support for Taiwan. There may not yet be missiles in Cuba, or at least they haven't been identified, but another Cuban crisis is developing. As a Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Straits Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
US' Rubio steers clear of branding Russia's Putin a ‘war criminal'
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifying during a fiery House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on May 21. PHOTO: REUTERS WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 21 steered clear of calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a 'war criminal,' saying the priority was negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict. In a fiery congressional hearing, Democratic Representative Bill Keating recalled Mr Rubio's heated criticism of Mr Putin's record when the top US diplomat served as a senator, and asked him if he still believed Mr Putin is a 'war criminal.' 'Crimes have been committed in the war on Ukraine, and there will be accountability for that, but our goal right now is to end that war,' Mr Rubio said. 'Because let me tell you, every single day that that war goes on, people are killed, more people are maimed and, frankly, more war crimes are being committed,' he said. Mr Keating accused Mr Rubio of being 'inconsistent' and 'equivocating.' Mr Rubio later responded to a fellow Republican by saying there was a value in speaking to Russia. 'If there had not been communications between the US and Russia in 1961,' Mr Rubio said, 'the world could have ended during the Cuban Missile Crisis.' President Donald Trump spoke on May 18 by telephone to the Russian leader and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his latest effort, so far unsuccessful, to end the war. Mr Putin, who had faced international isolation during former president Joe Biden's administration, has rebuffed US calls backed by Ukraine for a 30-day ceasefire. Tens of thousands have died, mainly civilians, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Early in the war, dozens of civilians were found dead in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha following a months-long occupation by Russian forces. Mr Putin faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the transfer of children from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine into Russia. AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. PHOTO: EPA-EFE Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Deccan Herald
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
Trump speaks to Putin amid 'impasse' on ending war in Ukraine
President Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
