White House sources have confirmed the successful execution of 19-year-old college sophomore Evan Dixon late last night by an elite team of special forces.
Elon Musk arrived triumphantly in Washington “brimming with Silicon Valley swagger,” Zachary Basu writes for Axios. He leaves (to spend more time with his several families?) “with his reputation wounded, relationships severed, companies in crisis, fortune diminished — and little to show for DOGE but chaos and contested savings.” His plan to slash $2 trillion in “bureaucratic fat” from the government has worked as well as his self-driving cars.
Don’t go spending your “DOGE dividend” on tariff-inflated consumer goods just yet. DOGE, an enterprise worthy of the Trump name, has cut only about $150 billion. And that number is contested.
But wait! There’s less!
Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times explains:
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.
Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.
“Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. “He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come.”
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake sees other “myriad signs that [Trump’s] second-term project may be falling apart.” Trump’s approval ratings are tanking:
Multiple polls this week showed Trump hitting new lows. His approval rating has been double-digits underwater in surveys from the Pew Research Center (minus-19), Economist-YouGov (-13), Reuters-Ipsos (-11) and now Fox News (-11).
The Fox News poll showed Trump doing well on border security (+15), but his numbers on foreign policy (-14), the economy (-18), tariffs (-25) and inflation (-26) are all worse than his overall approval rating. His tariff gambit has pushed his economic numbers lower than they ever were in his first term, with concerns being widespread and bipartisan.
Blake runs through several other figures showing Trump’s slumping approval numbers in various policy areas.
But it’s early. Trump could rebound by the midterms save for his reflex for quadrupling down rather than admit mistakes and reverse course. He came into office in 2017 with zero experience in governing but largely populated his first administration with experienced hands to ignore. Not this time. Trump 2.0 has hired, and the Republican Senate majority approved, some of the least-experienced but camera-ready team of incompetents a world power has ever seen.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure has devolved into multiple high-profile problems that bolster the criticisms that the former Fox News host simply lacked the experience for such an important job. That includes his sharing of highly sensitive information on the unclassified Signal app and fighting between him and some recently departed top aides. One of those aides just published an extraordinary op-ed citing the “total chaos” at the Pentagon and suggesting Hegseth can’t continue.
I didn’t believe my ears in the car on Thursday. Trump declared progress toward peace in Ukraine when asked what concessions his man-crush, Vladimir Putin, was prepared to make.
“Stopping the war. Stopping — taking the whole country,” Trump declared. “Pretty big concession,” he added. Putin not killing anyone who gets in his way? That’s some Art of the Deal.
On that, Heather Cox Richardson wrote on Thursday:
“Vladimir, STOP!” wrote President Donald Trump on his social media site this morning. Yesterday Trump berated Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky for rejecting a peace deal that heavily favored Russia; hours later, Russia launched its deadliest assault on Kyiv since last July, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 70 others. “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,” Trump posted. “5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”
Trump won the presidency by assuring his base that he was a strong leader who could impose his will on the country and the world. Now he is bleating weakly at Putin.
It’s not just the Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices who have sided against him on deportation issues; it’s also Republican appointees ruling against him and using strong language. In just the past three weeks, a trio of GOP-appointed judges have cast the administration as making no real effort to comply with the law, including using such phrases as “brazen” and “a path of perfect lawlessness.”
In sum: It’s all an increasing mess. Trump might try to muddle through — including by pressing forward on tariffs and risking a constitutional crisis by challenging the courts to actually make him abide by their orders. Trump has clearly demonstrated he feels more untethered in his second term, and congressional Republicans have shown very little appetite for standing in his way.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa (“How to Stand Up To a Dictator”) watched a dictator rise and democracy fall in her native Philippines. She warns that, incompetent or not, “Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.”
I ignored advice, looked at my retirement funds and wondered how long it will take for them to claw their way back. Or if it will matter by then.
Donald Trump is targeting a massive Democratic fundraising tool in an upcoming presidential memorandum banning foreign donations in U.S. elections, according to reporting from Politico.
Donations platform ActBlue, which almost all Democratic candidates use in both primary and general elections, has often been criticized by Republicans—without evidence—for what they see as fraudulent donations from foreign actors. Republican Representative Bryan Steil ordered ActBlue to turn over its records in October and found nothing of the sort. There was actually evidence of ActBlue’s new program for automatic rejections of donations from foreign nationals.
ActBlue raised $400 million in the first three months of 2025, and Trump’s order would effectively choke off donations to the Democratic Party.
That’s the idea.
It’s a real “I know you are but what am I” charge that they are taking foreign donations considering all the Republicans who’ve been caught doing that but that’s how they roll. The right has always been jealous of the success of Act Blue (which is simply a pass through program for small donors) because they were never able to replicate it. So they must destroy it.
I have no idea if this gambit will work. But I always knew they’d try.
Americans are quickly souring on Donald Trump’s handling of his job as president
54% strongly or somewhat disapprove and 41% approve
As recently as one month ago, more Americans approved than disapproved of Trump’s job performance
In that time, the share approving of Trump’s job handling has fallen from 93% to 86% among Republicans, from 40% to 30% among Independents, and from 10% to 7% among Democrats
Trump’s approval is underwater among 18- to 29-year-olds (33% approve vs. 57% disapprove), 30- to 44-year-olds (35% vs. 58%), 45- to 64-year-olds (47% vs. 50%) and adults 65 and older (47% vs. 52%)
More Americans disapprove than approve of Trump’s job managing the economy
41% approve and 53% disapprove
His net approval of -12 on jobs and the economy is the worst Americans have ever rated Trump’s handling of these issues as president; Americans were more likely to approve than disapprove of it throughout Trump’s first term
While Americans have been growing more critical of Trump’s handling of the economy for weeks now, this week’s poll also shows Trump underwater on an issue where he was previously popular: immigration
45% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling immigration, while 50% disapprove, a net approval of -5
That’s down from 50% approval and 44% disapproval — a net approval of +6 — on Trump’s handling of immigration when it was last asked about two weeks ago
49% of Americans say Trump’s approach to immigration has been too harsh, while 38% say it’s been about right and just 5% say it’s been too soft
Americans overwhelmingly say the government should “try to solve problems carefully… even if that means they might solve the problem more slowly” (81%) than that government “should try to solve problems as quickly as possible, even if that means they make more mistakes” (19%)
The negative views about Trump’s handling of immigration come among a populace that views immigration’s effects more positively than Americans did during Joe Biden’s term
40% of Americans say immigration makes the U.S. better off, while 29% say it makes the U.S. worse off and 19% say it doesn’t make much difference
Before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Americans for years were more likely to say immigration made the U.S. worse off than better off
He’s actually managing to make Americans feel more sympathetic to immigrants with this draconian nonsense. I guess we can call that a silver lining?
In a completely unhinged interview, Steven Miller suggests the Supreme Court is made up of “rogue radical communist left-wing” judges and demands America sides with Trump “to remove these terrorists from our communities.”
I don’t think this is actually very smart. Maybe Alito and Thomas (and their equally unhinged spouses) are applauding but I kind of doubt the rest of them are amused.
This is the man who is in charge of Trump’s immigration policy.
Margaret Sullivan made a super important point in her newsletter the other day. The way the press is reporting on these Executive Orders, which is the only thing he’s actually doing,
Immediately after retaking the presidency in January, Donald Trump began signing executive orders with lightning speed. Wielding his fancy pen like a wrecking ball, he acted like he was autographing new copies of “The Art of the Deal” for his fans.
[….]
In his first three months in office, Trump has signed more than 120 executive orders — not only a record number for any president in that short time but closing in on what some former presidents have signed in their entire terms.
And the media — particularly in credulous headlines and news alerts — has too often covered them as if they’re settled law, accepting Trump’s inflated sense of his own power. A few examples:
“Trump Signs Order Barring Transgender Student-Athletes From Women’s Sports,” said a New York Times headline .
“Trump signs executive order to dismantle the Education Department,” according to NBC News.
“Trump Signs Order Requiring Citizenship Proof to Vote in Federal Elections,” blared another Times headline.
Deeper in the stories, journalists often pointed out serious legal or constitutional issues, but you’d never know it from the headlines…
But as I’ve noted before, many people never get very far into a news story. They scan a headline or a social media post, and come away with a conclusion that’s incorrect. And while it’s true that it’s difficult to get much nuance or context into a six- or eight-word news alert, it’s the media’s responsibility not to leave the public with a false impression.
To put it bluntly, these orders aren’t the law. Legally, executive orders essentially are memos to Trump’s subordinates to act within their existing powers. Those powers are authorized by laws enacted by this organization you might have heard of? It’s called Congress. (And, after all, Congress gets top billing in Article I of the Constitution as the body that gets all legislative powers. The president, says Article II, is supposed to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.)
Obviously, Trump doesn’t understand that his Executive Orders aren’t laws. He thinks he’s signing legislation. But the rest of us should be very clear that these are not laws and do not have the same authority.
It will be up to courts to decide just how much power Trump actually has to enact his own imperial orders (let’s hope not much) but a lot of what he’s doing is in contravention of laws passed by congress and signed into law which should force the courts to order that they not be followed. We’ll have to see. But none of us should ever think that this flurry of presidential decrees have the force of law in and of themselves. They do not.
The media should make that clear every time he signs one.
I’d never heard of this guy Andrew Shultz and his podcast. I understand he’s a significant manosphere influencer. Buttigieg did what people insist Democrats need to do by going into those alternate media spaces that lean right to make his case and I think he was effective:
Some more highlights:
I love to hear him talk about reclaiming values & democracy, but Pete Buttigieg talking about *belonging* in politics is still my favorite thing.
This clip is right at the end of him telling a story of not correcting an older woman who told him she’d met his wonderful “friend”. pic.twitter.com/UGFsXVKotI
Amazing. In *two* minutes, Pete Buttigieg got Andrew Shulz to see why government research is necessary.
That is why these conversations matter. A lot of the hosts & audience would never hear a message like this one. But when they do, it makes sense. pic.twitter.com/GKtV3lYicw
Pete Buttigieg on DOGE. He started this segment making the distinction that if DOGE was about efficiency he’d be all for it because the layers of process in government make stuff hard to achieve & it’s what he worked on as mayor. But it’s not, it’s about consolidating power. pic.twitter.com/gQKJBH5FVn
I’m not entirely convinced that this is the silver bullet to get young men into the Democratic party but it sure can’t hurt. Just showing another side to the arguments, especially when wielded by someone as good at this as Buttigieg is worth trying.
Gavin Newsom bringing Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast to tell them how wonderful they are is something else. That’s sane washing the worst of the worst. He’s behaving like a patsy in front of his own audience and persuading the wingnuts that their fringe dwellers owned him. If he did what Buttigieg just did, which he used to be good at, he might make some strides with the influencers who aren’t 100% in the tank, like this guy and Joe Rogan.
US President Donald Trump is moving too fast, alienating allies, making Americans poorer, and tarnishing the sterling reputation of US assets, Citadel CEO and founder Ken Griffin said Wednesday.
Though the president may have identified real problems, his methods to solve them don’t appear to be working, and are unlikely to revive American manufacturing, Griffin told Semafor’s Gina Chon at the World Economy Summit in Washington, DC.
Previously, Griffin said, “no brand compared” to US Treasurys, the strength of the US dollar, or the nation’s creditworthiness. But Trump’s tactics have “eroded” that reputation. “We put that brand at risk,” the billionaire hedge fund manager said. “It can be a lifetime to repair the damage that has been done.”
Investors have dumped US stocks and Treasurys in recent weeks in response to Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs on imports to the US. While most countries have been granted a 90-day reprieve, Trump has increased duties on China and suggested he might fire Jerome Powell, the respected governor of the US Federal Reserve. (Trump walked back those comments, saying he has no plans to remove Powell.)
Using the euro as a reference, the US “has become 20% poorer in four weeks,” Griffin said, an environment that produces no winners or bright spots. “There’s no great opportunity when the pie is rapidly shrinking,” Griffin said. “All you’re trying to do is tread water and not drown.”
Griffin said his “gravest concern” is whether officials can conduct themselves so that they don’t “diminish the stature” of the US. “How does Canada feel about our country today versus two months ago? How does Europe feel about the United States today versus two months ago?” Griffin said.
He was signaling that he was going to get his revenge on his enemies, which included Canada and Europe, all during the campaign. I know I was expecting it and anyone who watched him carefully should have expected it too.
Griffin spent over $100 million on Republicans including Donald Trump[ in the last campaign. And now he’s whining because he’s getting exactly what he paid for. It’s maddening.
Griffin is one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors and has previously downplayed the threat of trade duties.
Still, the tariffs have been a major focus for Citadel, at a time when Griffin had expected a breather from the pressures of new regulations under the Biden administration.
Griffin had been relishing “the idea that I have four years to focus on my business.” But thanks to tariff turmoil, the country “has devolved into a nonsensical place” where business leaders are distracted by concerns such as supply chain disruptions.
Pete Buttigieg is comfortable in his own skin. Unlike Democrats who walk into a public space on the defensive or ready to do battle (fewer), Buttigieg’s affect is, “This is who I am. Take it or leave it.” It’s not only refreshing, but his openness allows some potential adversaries to lower their guards and listen.
On Wednesday, Buttigieg appeared on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast. “A Democrat has entered the manosphere,” declared The Verge:
According to co-host Akaash Singh, Flagrant, which has drawn controversy for its hosts’ willingness to engage with racist content, was unable to get Democrats to agree to come on the show, prompting Buttigieg to call them out for turning down the invitation. “We have to be encountering people who don’t think like us and who don’t view the world the way we do, both in order to become smarter and better and make better choices and take better positions, and also to persuade,” he said.
Piercing the bubbles
Coverage of the appearance is more about the novelty of it than the substance. Daily Beast presented a couple of quotes and described it as “the latest in a string of media hits for the former transportation secretary, popular Democratic surrogate, and potential 2028 presidential nominee who has urged the party to improve its anti-Trump attacks.”
In a nearly three-hour appearance on Flagrant—the bro-y, wildly popular podcast hosted by comedians Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, and crew—Buttigieg showed that a Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar, former mayor, and former presidential candidate can chop it up with some of YouTube’s biggest comedy bros without sounding rehearsed, robotic, or condescending.
Amid rising concern within the Democratic Party about its growing disconnect with male voters — particularly younger men — the conversation doubled as a political case study: What does it look like when a high-profile Democrat engages the “manosphere” not with disdain, but on its own turf, and its own terms?
Buttigieg described the learning curve he’s climbing in how to care for his Black daughter’s hair. He spoke to the threat posed by growing economic inequality, competition with China, and the risks of unchecked corporate consolidation. And about coming out to his parents.
Openness breeds trust
Hillary Clinton in 2016 was perhaps the most qualified candidate Democrats had ever run for president. Except after decades of relentless right-wing attacks, her public affect was a woman looking at you over the top of a shield. Even if it was Wonder Woman’s, it didn’t make her feel open and approachable to many voters. She was a highly skilled public servant. Not so skilled as a candidate. Buttigieg has skills.
The conversation turned to Democrat’s ability to speak to voters’ concerns. Or lack of it. Republicans know better how to reach voters on an emotional level, Schulz noted (Daily Beast):
“If you want to help them, say the thing that you think they need help with out loud directly and say that you’re going to do it and then endeavor to do it,” Schulz said. “We already expect you guys not to do it so the least you could do is f—ing lie to me. You don’t even lie to me!”
In the clip above, Buttigieg replies by laying out the kind of country he wants, Democrats want, even if they are ineffective at expressing it. [start at timestamp 1:38:55]
“I want you to have good public transit to get to where you’re going, and then when you get to that job, I want you to be paid well,” Buttigieg said. “If you’re about to have a kid, I want you to know that you’re going to have parental leave when you have that kid and if you don’t want to have a kid I want you to have the the right to choose whether to have a kid.”
Schulz said he agreed with Buttigieg’s ideals, but he felt that Democrats’ lack of action plans and emotional appeals contributed more to a Trump victory than Trump himself.
“Give me the solution to the feeling that I have,” Schulz continued. “I think that there’s a lot of Americans who are at the end of their hope.”
“It seems you know exactly what we’re feeling because that was beautiful,” Schulz added. “But I need the statements that are going to satisfy those feelings because that’s what gets people to sway over and that’s what [Republicans are] f—ing good at.
All of us should be so comfortable in our own skins and beliefs. The left is fighting an asymmetrical messaging war funded by right-wing billionaires. We need to turn their weapons to our advantage.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R) missed a chance to show up for his constituents. So the sponsors added a new twist to old “empty chair” routine.
So sponsors asked “ChatGOP” AI to improvise answers based on Davidson’s public statements.
And even though he wasn’t there, we asked AI—as we called it, “ChatGOP”—to draw from Warren Davidson’s public statements to approximate the answer he might provide if he’d bothered to show up here, or at any town hall.
