Latest news with #InsideWashington
Gulf Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Trump's ‘Bill' just put the Senate in play for Democrats
On Sunday, Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, announced that he would not seek re-election. This came after numerous threats from President Donald Trump because of Tillis' opposition to the so-called "One Big, Beautiful" bill. Trump had even floated the idea of endorsing a primary challenger against Tillis. But when The Independent caught up with Tillis, he seemed sanguine about the whole affair. "I respect President Trump, I support the majority of his agenda, but I don't bow to anybody when the people of North Carolina are at risk and this bill puts them at risk," he told The Independent. Trump's decision to bash a senator from a state he won and Republicans need to keep could be seen as reckless. But it also jeopardised Republicans' chances of holding onto a Senate seat Tillis consistently won by narrow margins. Tillis simply recognised a political truth: it's nearly impossible to take away an entitlement once it is embedded in federal law and people have benefited from it. Voters tend to punish the party they see as trying to take away a benefit, particularly something as intensely personal as health care. Trump should have learned this in 2017 after he failed to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, when the late Arizona Sen. John McCain delivered his dramatic thumbs down. But Trump's bulldozing style and demand for absolute fealty from Republicans means he might be jeopardising the future of the Republican majority in the Senate. Democrats already had Tillis in their crosshairs after he had voted to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and he shepherded Kash Patel's confirmation for FBI director. With an open seat, they have an even greater opportunity. A few months ago, Inside Washington listed North Carolina as the Senate seat most likely to flip. That prospect is much more likely with Tillis' departure. But Tillis is not the only swing-state Republican who faces a bind because of the bill. Inside Washington listed Susan Collins' seat in Maine as the No. 3 Senate seat most likely to flip. Collins faces a major challenge considering the bill caps the taxes on healthcare providers that states use to raise matching funds for Medicaid. As a result, Collins has put forward an amendment to increase the amount of money to shore up rural hospitals from $25 billion to $50 billion. That will certainly anger fiscal conservatives, to say nothing of Trump, despite the fact that many of his most die-hard supporters live in areas that depend on rural hospitals. Collins seems poised to run for re-election, especially after she defied gravity and beat back a Democratic challenger in 2020. But she faces a bind: if she votes yes on the bill, she will have hurt her most vulnerable voters after wringing her hands for weeks. If she opposes it, she will have crossed Trump. At age 72, choosing not to run next year is always a viable option. Republicans have 53 seats at the moment. So two seats flipping will not lose them the majority. But they also face the prospect of a bloody primary between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas, which could create an opening for a Democrat to win in the Lone Star State. And just like how the passage of Obamacare and its ensuing aftermath led to Republicans winning Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, as well as Democratic-held seats in Arkansas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the vote on this piece of legislation could easily put Republicans on the defensive in states previously considered safe like Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. A perfect example comes from recent Democratic history. When The Independent spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, last month, he compared it to the election that sent him to Washington. "I believe in most part, in 2006 that one of the reasons I got elected to Congress in a tough district was over Social Security," Walz told The Independent. Just the year before, George W. Bush had floated an idea to gradually replace Social Security with private retirements accounts.
Business Mayor
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Mayor
Trump admin pushes Supreme Court to allow it to fire thousands of federal workers
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to allow its plans to fire thousands of federal workers to proceed. In an emergency appeal on Friday, the administration pushed the highest court in the country to lift an order by a lower court temporarily stopping the firings. It's the latest attempt by the administration to cut back the federal workforce, and it came after the Supreme Court lifted a lower court order last month that blocked mass layoffs of probationary workers at six departments, Politico reported. The new attempt is an even broader effort to fire federal workers, which several agencies are looking to terminate according to an executive order from February that states that 'Agency Heads shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.' Last week, Clinton appointee U.S. District Judge Susan Illston blocked the administration from enacting the firings. In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General John Sauer claimed that the judge incorrectly encroached on President Donald Trump's 'unquestioned legal authority to plan and carry out' firings and to reorganize the federal workers. Solicitor General John Sauer argued for the Supreme Court to allow the Trump administration to fire thousands of federal workers (Getty Images) 'More concretely, the order has brought to a halt numerous in-progress [reductions in force] at more than a dozen federal agencies, compelling the government to retain — at taxpayer expense — thousands of employees whose continuance in federal service is determined by agencies not to be in the government and public interest,' Sauer wrote, claiming that the order from Illston has stopped 40 current reductions in force at 17 agencies. Read More Floating solar increases greenhouse gas emissions on small ponds Trump's order was challenged by the largest federal workers' unions in the U.S. as well as a number of nonprofit organizations and local governments. Additionally, more than 20 Democratic-leaning states have filed briefs in support of the workers. Illston held that the Trump administration isn't adhering to the legal and procedural requirements that apply when governments want to enact mass firings, such as the amount of time that a worker has been at an agency. She noted that a president has to have 'the cooperation of the legislative branch' when putting in place massive reorganizations that the president is pushing for. Illston noted that Trump called on Congress to pass a bill to support similar efforts during his first stint in the White House. The order issued by Illston shielded 21 agencies, including the Department of Government Efficiency, as well as the departments of Commerce, Energy, Interior, Health and Human Services, State, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, the National Labor Relations Board, National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration, Americorps, and Social Security Administration.
Gulf Today
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
‘Original Sin' depicts Biden's mental, physical decline
John Bowden, The Independent Democrats are not doing themselves any favours with their reactions to the new book on Joe Biden coming out from Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper. The two reporters are due to release Original Sin, a collection of their reporting on the cover up around Biden's mental and physical decline, on May 20. The book's excerpts are already causing a ruckus, as they detail startling instances of Biden's gaps in mental acuity that were reportedly hidden from the public through 2024. Biden, whom aides reportedly considered putting in a wheelchair at points, reportedly did not recognise Hollywood megastar George Clooney at an event the president had flown in to Los Angeles specifically for Clooney to host on his behalf. Other excerpts claimed he forgot the names of longtime aides, including that of his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The top quote of the week: 'It's all Biden.' David Plouffe's declaration in Original Sin gives voice to the party's furious silent undercurrent of supporters, many of whom did vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 but still watched helplessly on election night as she underperformed nationally and lost ground to Republicans even in deep blue states. The architect of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign juggernaut, Plouffe's complaint followed an evisceration of the Biden administration policy on IsraelGaza by the Obamaworld hosts of Pod Save the World. The right, meanwhile, keeps hammering the two reporters and the Washington media at large for the so-called revelations. Arguing that reporters (including from Tapper's network, CNN) led the charge to hide Biden's deficiencies, Republicans argued this week that the two are attempting to cash in on their own failures. They are correct to do so. Democrats (led by Biden's inner circle and a defiant president himself) willingly undermined their own credibility by getting the party into this mess, and should show some capacity for self-reflection — not more breathless attacks on the press — to overcome it. 'I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest,' said Tapper on Wednesday. Inside Washington claims at least partial innocence here; in February of 2024, we wrote that Biden's age provoked real questions for voters, and that his team 'risk(ed) being seen as trying to conceal something' by ignoring those concerns. But with the imminent release of Tapper and Thompson's book, questions are likely to be raised about just how far back the former president's decline really went. Many Bidenworld loyalists continue to circle the wagons, in true Trumpian fashion. Whether denying the book's revelations outright or chastising reporters falsely for 'focusing' on the issue, the former president and his loyalists continue to insist that they are beyond reproach. 'The only reason I got out of the race was because I didn't want to have a divided Democratic Party,' he told the hosts of The View this month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, interviewed this week by CNN's Kasie Hunt, dodged questions on the issue entirely. MSNBC's Chuck Todd, who called the criticism of the media a 'right-wing manufactured' narrative, tore into Schumer on a CNN panel. 'He's as responsible as anybody else,' said Todd. 'He was a leader in the party. He could've said something sooner, and he didn't.' The defenses are beginning to become grating to hear even for Democrats, who believe that Biden is doing himself no favours. Steve Schale, who ran the 'Draft Biden' PAC ahead of the 2016 primary, said: 'There is a way for President Biden to build his post-presidency, but this isn't it. 'I really wish he'd embrace the thing that's been his calling card for 50 years: his humanity.' Most importantly: the president's defenders give voters the impression that Democrats are still engaged in deception — at a time when the party's supposed advantages include Donald Trumps' low marks for honesty and integrity. The ex-president was underwater on this issue through the entirety of 2024. The release of Original Sin is going to be the last nail in the coffin, not the first. No one is going to believe the denials now — especially when many of the people making them insisted that there were no problems and that the president wouldn't even consider withdrawing from the race. It's time for Joe to ride off into the sunset. His defenders need to stop lashing out at everyone around them and get back to rebuilding voter trust ahead of the next election cycle.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats keep trying to move past the cover up around Biden's decline. It's not helping their credibility
Democrats are not doing themselves any favors with their reactions to the new book on Joe Biden coming out from Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper. The two reporters are due to release Original Sin, a collection of their reporting on the cover up around Biden's mental and physical decline, on May 20. The book's excerpts are already causing a ruckus, as they detail startling instances of Biden's gaps in mental acuity that were reportedly hidden from the public through 2024. Biden, whom aides reportedly considered putting in a wheelchair at points, reportedly did not recognize Hollywood megastar George Clooney at an event the president had flown in to Los Angeles specifically for Clooney to host on his behalf. Other excerpts claimed he forgot the names of longtime aides, including that of his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The top quote of the week: 'It's all Biden. He totally f***ed us.' David Plouffe's declaration in Original Sin gives voice to the party's furious silent undercurrent of supporters, many of whom did vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 but still watched helplessly on election night as she underperformed nationally and lost ground to Republicans even in deep blue states. The architect of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign juggernaut, Plouffe's complaint followed an evisceration of the Biden administration policy on Israel/Gaza by the Obamaworld hosts of Pod Save the World. The right, meanwhile, keeps hammering the two reporters and the Washington media at large for the so-called revelations. Arguing that reporters (including from Tapper's network, CNN) led the charge to hide Biden's deficiencies, Republicans argued this week that the two are attempting to cash in on their own failures. They are correct to do so. Democrats (led by Biden's inner circle and a defiant president himself) willingly undermined their own credibility by getting the party into this mess, and should show some capacity for self-reflection — not more breathless attacks on the press — to overcome it. 'I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest,' said Tapper on Wednesday. Inside Washington claims at least partial innocence here; in February of 2024, we wrote that Biden's age provoked real questions for voters, and that his team 'risk[ed] being seen as trying to conceal something' by ignoring those concerns. But with the imminent release of Tapper and Thompson's book, questions are likely to be raised about just how far back the former president's decline really went. Many Bidenworld loyalists continue to circle the wagons, in true Trumpian fashion. Whether denying the book's revelations outright or chastising reporters falsely for 'focusing' on the issue, the former president and his loyalists continue to insist that they are beyond reproach. "The only reason I got out of the race was because I didn't want to have a divided Democratic Party," he told the hosts of The View this month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, interviewed this week by CNN's Kasie Hunt, dodged questions on the issue entirely. MSNBC's Chuck Todd, who called the criticism of the media a 'right-wing manufactured' narrative, tore into Schumer on a CNN panel. 'He's as responsible as anybody else,' said Todd. 'He was a leader in the party. He could've said something sooner, and he didn't.' The defenses are beginning to become grating to hear even for Democrats, who believe that Biden is doing himself no favors. Steve Schale, who ran the 'Draft Biden' PAC ahead of the 2016 primary, said: 'There is a way for President Biden to build his post-presidency, but this isn't it. 'I really wish he'd embrace the thing that's been his calling card for 50 years: his humanity.' Most importantly: the president's defenders give voters the impression that Democrats are still engaged in deception — at a time when the party's supposed advantages include Donald Trumps' low marks for honesty and integrity. The ex-president was underwater on this issue through the entirety of 2024. The release of Original Sin is going to be the last nail in the coffin, not the first. No one is going to believe the denials now — especially when many of the people making them insisted that there were no problems and that the president wouldn't even consider withdrawing from the race. It's time for Joe to ride off into the sunset. His defenders need to stop lashing out at everyone around them and get back to rebuilding voter trust ahead of the next election cycle.
Business Mayor
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Over 200 lawsuits, 142 executive orders, and 24 days golfing: Trump's first 100 days by the numbers
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email O ne hundred days into his second term in the White House and Donald Trump has commanded a chaotic reordering of the federal government, the nation's economy and targeted virtually every aspect of American life. He broke records — including his own — introducing tariffs and executive orders, and he faces more than 200 lawsuits against him and his administration. Here, The Independent explores the numbers behind the beginning of Trump's second term, from a crashing stock market to mass deportations and purges of the federal workforce. Ruling by executive order Republicans control the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, but Trump's legislative agenda isn't getting any action in Congress. Virtually all of Trump's agenda is being pushed through a blitz of executive orders — since taking office, the president has signed a whopping 142 of them. More than a dozen are focused on immigration, nine are aimed at expanding coal and oil and gas production, and at least two deal with election administration and voting rights, baselessly asserting his narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from him in a White House document. signed into law Other orders cover Trump's culture wars, with at least four explicitly targeting transgender Americans, and at least another four attacking DEI and accessibility initiatives. federal judges nominated, with 46 vacancies to fill Within 100 days, the president has signed only five bills into law — the least amount for a new president within seven decades. At this point in his first term, he had signed 24 bills into law. Chaos in the stock market Trump has taken a brute-force approach to trade and the economy, whether it's blanket tariffs or sweeping cancellations of federal contracts — and stock markets in particular have seen historic swings. Since Trump entered office, the Dow Jones and NASDAQ indices have both been in decline. The most dramatic drops happened around Trump's threatened tariff announcements on so-called 'Liberation Day' April 2. In just a few short days, the Dow Jones index dropped by more than 10 percent, one of the most significant hits to the stock market since COVID-19. Government treasury bonds, which are typically more robust than the stock markets, have also seen spikes amid the panic. Dollar falls to three-year low The U.S dollar is historically strong and, as a result, is the currency underpinning global markets and the benchmark for other currencies. But it's been in near-consistent decline since the end of January. The value of the dollar hit its lowest in over three years. The value of the dollar dropped by 2 percent on 'Liberation Day,' marking the worst single-day crash in roughly a decade. in imports exposed to tariffs Tariffs were a contentious feature of Trump 1.0, but his second administration has taken the trade war to levels previously unseen in U.S. policy. Almost every country in the world is now facing some form of tariffs on goods exported to the U.S. Yet Americans will likely be the worst hit, according to analysis from the Kiel Institute. Consumer prices are predicted to increase by 7.2 percent in the short term, and exports could go down by 20 percent, making it harder and more expensive to get products. The United States imported more than $4.1 trillion in products last year, roughly 31 percent more than it exports. Nearly all of these goods coming into the country will now face tariffs. days spent golfing Trump launched product-specific tariffs averaging 25 percent on imported cars, automotive parts, steel and aluminum. Canada, Mexico and China were all hit with levies due to alleged involvement in fentanyl supply chains. On April 2, Trump unleashed a minimum 10 percent tariff on all goods, plus 'reciprocal' tariffs between 11 and 50 percent against imports from countries with 'trade barriers' to the United States. Those tariffs are temporarily paused, but a 10 percent base rate remains. Meanwhile, the trade war between the United States and China has only escalated, with 145 percent total tariffs on Chinese goods, and retaliation from Beijing. American businesses sell billions each year to China and rely on key Chinese materials for production – including Elon Musk's Tesla, which has suffered stunning profit losses since Trump entered office. appearances from Melania Trump in Washington, D.C. Billions slashed from federal agencies Trump's creation of a so-called Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by the world's wealthiest man, has faced intense legal scrutiny from the start. Cuts proposed by DOGE have been widespread and brutal. But the actual scale of those cuts is a subject of debate — even among the department itself. Musk recently downgraded his ambition for government savings from $1 trillion to $150 billion. The official DOGE website says agency cuts have gutted an estimated $160 billion. But a recent investigation from The New York Times suggested the majority of those cuts (roughly $92 billion) are not yet accounted for. injunctions issued against the Trump administration Of those itemized cuts which have already been posted with receipts, federal grants have faced the most cuts ($32.5 billion). But some of these numbers are subject to change, with reports of millions being mistaken for billions, and credit taken for cuts from Joe Biden's administration. Separately to DOGE, Trump announced sweeping cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which alone funded around $43 billion in foreign aid programs in 2023. Federal workers brace for mass firings estimated federal layoffs DOGE's work has contributed to more than 280,000 planned layoffs across 27 federal agencies within the last two months, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Canceled contracts and cuts to federal aid have imperiled more than 4,400 other American jobs, largely impacting nonprofits and health organizations. Court filings have outlined the scope of DOGE's destruction, which has upended virtually all global aid, obstructed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and throttled funding for libraries, public health research and combating homelessness. But the administration has not officially tallied cuts to the workforce, and judges have blocked some firings while others have cleared a path for the DOGE agenda. Layoffs have come in the form of 55,000 confirmed cuts, more than 76,000 employee buyouts, and more than 145,000 other planned reductions impacting the roughly 2.4 million civil employees in the federal workforce, according to The New York Times. USAID workers left The U.S. Agency for International Development employed as many as 10,000 people before the Trump administration virtually eliminated the agency, which supports hundreds of life-saving missions around the world. The agency is expected to keep only 15 positions, meeting the bare minimum required under federal law. Trump's immigration agenda Trump's campaign promoted the 'largest deportation operation in American history,' but the administration has largely concealed from the public concrete details about immigration enforcement, including where people are arrested and who is being removed. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted near-daily updates on the number of arrests within the first weeks of the administration but stopped when daily arrests and removals declined. Within the first weeks of the Trump administration, from January 25 to February 8, more than 9,700 people were deported, according to data from the nonpartisan TRAC research group. Another 8,300 people were deported in the two weeks that followed, and another 9,600 people were removed between February 23 and March 8. ICE posted near-daily updates on the number of arrests within the first weeks of the administration but stopped when daily arrests and removals declined. Total removals reached at least 27,772 within Trump's first six weeks in office, a rate of 661 people a day, according to TRAC. But that's roughly 11 percent fewer than daily removals under the Biden administration. Trump is pushing federal judges and the Supreme Court to back his anti-immigration agenda and summary deportations, including the removal and continued imprisonment of Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia (AFP via Getty Images) Border crossings plummeted after the administration effectively ended any legal pathways for people to enter the United States by claiming asylum under U.S. and international law. Border agents tallied more than 96,000 encounters in December. In January, that figure dropped to roughly 66,000, according to Customs and Border Protection. There were roughly 11,000 in February and another 11,000 in March. Alien Enemies Act removals Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the fourth time in U.S. history to summarily deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members from Venezuela. Under that authority, at least 137 men were removed from the United States and sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison, where they face the prospect of indefinite detention, though administration officials admit in court documents that 'many' of those men have no criminal record. In total, the administration has deported at least 278 people from the United States to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador since March 15. Some 48,000 people were held in ICE detention in facilities across the country, as of April 6, reaching an all-time high, according to TRAC. Nearly half — approximately 22,249 people — have no criminal record. Adams County Detention Center in Natchez, Mississippi held the largest number of ICE detainees within the last year, averaging more than 2,000 detainees on any given day. Texas holds the most ICE detainees in the country, with more than 12,000 people held in facilities there within the last year. Louisiana's facilities held more than 7,000. student visas revoked Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked at least 1,500 student visas from roughly 250 universities, targeting dozens of international student activists for their pro-Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza. Two failed ceasefires, thousands of lives lost A ceasefire between Israel and Palestine — which was negotiated by the Biden administration days before Trump entered office — deteriorated under his watch. And more lives have been lost. Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis in Gaza on April 24 (AP) On March 18, Israel launched a series of air strikes across Gaza which it said targeted Hamas, resuming attacks after two months of ceasefire. Since then, approximately 1,652 people have been killed in Gaza, with 4,391 more wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Some 420,000 people have been displaced in this period alone, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Around this time, Trump also tried — unsuccessfully — to negotiate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. The administration promised to bring peace to Ukraine within 100 days. Now, that time is up. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Donald Trump while in Vatican City for the funeral of Pope Francis on April 26 (Ukraine Foreign Affair Ministry) After tense discussions between Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky and Trump, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire on March 11. Russian leader Vladimir Putin refused. Then, on March 18, both parties appeared to agree to a temporary ceasefire on energy infrastructure alone, following a 90-minute call between Putin and Trump. mentions of 'tariffs,' his 'favorite' word But in just a few hours, both parties accused the other of hitting energy infrastructure. And Ukraine's government has recorded more than 30 attacks since then, according to the Kyiv Independent . Hundreds of Ukrainians have died since Zelensky first met with Trump at the end of February, with more injured, according to figures from the United Nations. Truth Social posts Hundreds of Truth Social posts The president owns more than 100 million shares, or roughly 53 percent, of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of social media platform Truth Social, where he fires off more than a dozen posts a day. His stake in the company — which was transferred into a trust controlled by Donald Trump Jr. after taking office — is worth $2.7 billion. The president has posted roughly 27,000 times since officially joining the platform in 2022. Since taking office, he has posted more than 1,500 times, or at least 15 times a day on average. He has mentioned 'illegal' immigration at least 70 times.
