Tag: Policy

Trump Pushes for Lower Mortgage Rates, but Fed Pick Kevin Warsh Could Tighten Policy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a move that reeks of the same old establishment maneuvering, President Donald Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor with deep ties to Wall Street and neoconservative circles, to replace Jerome Powell as Fed Chair. Trump, ever the populist showman, has been pounding the drum for lower mortgage rates to ease the burden on everyday Americans squeezed by skyrocketing housing costs. Yet, his pick—Warsh, a vocal critic of the Fed’s bloated $6.6 trillion balance sheet—could very well steer policy in the opposite direction, tightening the screws on borrowers and inflating risks for the broader economy. This nomination, announced Friday amid Trump’s ongoing feud with Powell, highlights the president’s contradictory impulses: championing the working class while cozying up to financial elites whose agendas often prioritize globalist interests over Main Street relief.
Trump’s announcement came via his Truth Social platform, where he gushed over Warsh as “one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” describing him as “central casting” who “will never let you down.” It’s classic Trump hyperbole, but beneath the bluster lies a potential policy clash. The president has made housing affordability a cornerstone of his economic agenda, repeatedly vowing to slash interest rates to make homeownership accessible again. “We can drop interest rates to a level, and that’s one thing we do want to do,” Trump declared last month. “That’s natural. That’s good for everybody.” Mortgage rates, which hovered above 7% in early 2025, have become a political lightning rod, locking out first-time buyers and fueling resentment toward the elite-driven housing bubble.

But Warsh, with his history of hawkish stances on inflation and skepticism toward easy money policies, isn’t the dovish ally Trump might imagine. As a former Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, Warsh was knee-deep in the Bush administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, collaborating closely with Ben Bernanke on bailouts that propped up Wall Street at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. Critics, including those wary of neoconservative overreach, argue that era’s interventions—rooted in endless wars and deficit spending—set the stage for today’s economic distortions. Warsh has lambasted the Fed’s quantitative easing programs, which ballooned the balance sheet from $900 billion in 2008 to a peak of $9 trillion by 2022, before a modest rollback to $6.6 trillion today. In an April speech, he warned that such expansions “encroach further on other macroeconomic domains,” leading to “more debt accumulated… more capital misallocated… risks of future shocks magnified.”
Shrinking that balance sheet—holding $4.3 trillion in Treasuries and $2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities—could directly counteract Trump’s rate-cutting dreams. By unloading these assets or letting them mature without reinvestment, the Fed would flood the market with supply, pushing up long-term yields and, consequently, mortgage rates. As Yale professor and former Fed official Bill English noted, “If all he does is move to a smaller Fed balance sheet, it’s hard to see how that would be consistent with lower mortgage rates, and that creates some tension with the president.” This isn’t just academic jargon; it’s a recipe for higher borrowing costs that could exacerbate the housing crisis Trump claims to fight.
Market reactions were telling: The dollar surged while gold and silver prices tumbled, signaling traders’ bets against aggressive rate cuts under Warsh. Investors see him as a bulwark against political meddling, but skeptics view this as code for preserving the status quo favored by global financial powers. Warsh’s recent pivot toward openness on rate cuts—after criticizing the Fed’s September 2024 reduction—smacks of opportunism, aligning with Trump’s demands while masking his deeper reservations. As Harvard economist Jason Furman quipped, Warsh’s desire to trim the balance sheet might “collide with reality,” leading to gradual changes at best. Yet, in a Trump administration eager to project economic wins, such caution could frustrate the president’s base.
Warsh’s nomination caps a tumultuous saga with Powell, whom Trump appointed in his first term but later branded a “moron” for resisting deeper cuts. The feud escalated when the Department of Justice launched criminal investigations into Powell, an unprecedented assault on Fed independence that has alarmed even some Republicans. Senator Thom Tillis vowed not to confirm any nominee until the probe ends, calling it essential to protect the central bank from “political interference or legal intimidation.” Meanwhile, Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren blasted the move as Trump’s “latest step in [his] attempt to seize control of the Fed,” tying it to broader efforts to oust critics like Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
But let’s peel back the layers on Warsh himself. At 55, he’s a product of the elite circuit: A Morgan Stanley mergers-and-acquisitions banker turned Bush White House economic adviser, then the youngest Fed governor ever at 35. Today, he’s a fellow at the Hoover Institution—a bastion of neoconservative thought—and a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. His board seats at UPS and affiliations with groups like the Group of Thirty and the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisors scream establishment insider. More intriguingly, Warsh’s personal connections raise eyebrows among those questioning undue influences in U.S. policy.

Warsh is married to Jane Lauder, granddaughter of cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder, whose Eastern European Jewish immigrant roots built a billion-dollar empire. Warsh himself identifies as Jewish, and his father-in-law, Ronald Lauder—president of the World Jewish Congress and a fervent Zionist—has been a longtime Trump confidant since their Wharton School days. Lauder’s influence extends beyond cosmetics; he’s pushed Trump on issues like acquiring Greenland, where he has investments in development and bottled water. The World Jewish Congress, under Lauder, aggressively advocates for Israeli interests, often lobbying U.S. policymakers to prioritize Zionism amid global conflicts. Critics argue this network exemplifies how a small cadre of influential Jewish figures—tied to finance, media, and politics—wields outsized power, sometimes at the expense of American sovereignty. Warsh’s ascent, facilitated by these ties, fuels suspicions that Fed policy could subtly favor internationalist agendas over domestic relief, echoing neoconservative priorities that have dragged the U.S. into endless Middle East entanglements.
This isn’t to say Warsh lacks credentials; he was a key communicator during the 2008 crisis, bridging policymakers and markets. But his “hawkish” reputation—favoring tighter policy to combat inflation—clashes with Trump’s push for stimulus. Some economists speculate Warsh might invoke offbeat theories, like a productivity boom from AI justifying cuts, or even the fiscal theory of the price level, where lower rates reduce deficits and curb inflation. Yet, with labor force growth stalled by immigration crackdowns and aging demographics, the standard model warns against it. As one analyst put it, Warsh is “hamstrung” on multiple fronts, including the balance sheet.
Trump edged out other contenders like Fed Governor Christopher Waller, BlackRock’s Rick Rieder, and adviser Kevin Hassett, reportedly because Warsh signaled willingness to cut rates. In a Fox Business interview last year, Warsh backed easing to boost growth, critiquing the Fed for straying into “political areas” like climate change—areas outside its mandate, he argued. But his past objections to low rates during crises, including downplaying unemployment in 2008 as it neared 10%, paint him as a “chameleon,” per policy expert Skanda Amarnath. “His track record speaks to someone who is pretty partisan and political,” Amarnath said, noting Warsh’s shifts depending on who’s in power.
If confirmed—facing a Senate grilling over Trump’s Fed assaults—Warsh could assume the role by mid-May, when Powell’s term expires. Speculation swirls on whether Powell would step down early or dig in. Economists like Robert Rogowsky call Warsh a “solid pick” but warn of his potential as a “political opportunist”—hawk under Democrats, dove for Trump. Rachel Ziemba of the Center for a New American Security adds that Trump’s trade wars and immigration policies could stifle growth, making rate cuts ineffective anyway.
In the end, this nomination underscores the rot in Washington’s financial corridors: A president railing against elites while appointing one with Zionist and neoconservative baggage, potentially sabotaging his own pro-worker promises. Americans deserve a Fed that prioritizes domestic stability over global distortions, not another insider perpetuating the cycle of debt and inequality.
February 11, 2026
How a $30 Billion Welfare Program Turned Into a ‘Slush Fund’ for States
When the Trump administration targeted billions of dollars in federal welfare funds recently over fraud concerns, it singled out five Democratic-run states.
An examination by The Wall Street Journal found that the main federal aid program the administration is seeking to block, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, has long been plagued by poor financial oversight and questionable spending in states led by both Republicans and Democrats.
Auditors in numerous states, including Connecticut, Louisiana and Florida, have uncovered problems with TANF—once America’s primary welfare program for low-income families. Created three decades ago, it comprises more than $30 billion.
TANF funds flow annually through block grants to states, which have wide latitude to spend them and minimal reporting requirements—a structure critics say hampers oversight. Meant to allow states to be creative in serving needy families, it has resulted in a shift: States now award most of the money to nonprofits, companies and their own state agencies. An average of about 849,000 families got direct cash aid each month in fiscal 2025, federal data shows, down from about 1.9 million in fiscal 2010.
Average number of families receiving direct TANF aid
Average number of families receiving direct TANF aid
Note: Monthly averages for fiscal years ending in September
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Audits have shown a range of problems, including states inaccurately reporting large expenditures and disbursing millions of dollars to contractors without tracking how the cash was spent. State and federal records show red and blue states alike have directed hundreds of millions of dollars to programs with tenuous—or no—connections to TANF’s goals.
Questionable expenditures have included college scholarships that benefited middle- or upper-income families, antiabortion centers, a volleyball stadium in Mississippi, and an Ohio job-training nonprofit where leaders and employees were later sentenced to prison after prosecutors said they used TANF money for vacations, real estate and salaries for people who didn’t work there.
Both conservative and liberal groups—and repeated reports from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog—say the federal government for years hasn’t paid enough attention to how states use the money.
Last year, the GAO identified 37 states where recent audits found 162 deficiencies in financial oversight, “56 of which were severe.” It criticized “opaque accounting practices” by many groups receiving TANF funds.
States often use TANF money as a “slush fund” to plug budget shortfalls and finance initiatives that don’t help poor people get jobs or strengthen families, said Hayden Dublois of the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability. He describes TANF’s lack of oversight as “fraud by design.”
“There are very little, if any, safeguards,” said Dublois, who estimates one in five TANF dollars, or about $6 billion, is misspent every year.
Ann Flagg, the top TANF official under then-President Joe Biden, said she and other officials tried to rein in questionable state spending through a proposed regulation change that would have limited how TANF dollars can be spent.
“Knowing that there were so many layers between the activity on the ground and the federal perch, there were many, many instances, I am sure, that funds were used in crazy ways,” she said.

Then President Bill Clinton prepares to sign legislation in the Rose Garden of the White House overhauling America’s welfare system on Aug. 22, 1996. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Trump has focused on fraud after a safety-net scandal in Minnesota, but those cases don’t involve TANF. The most prominent scandal involving TANF funds, at least $77 million, took place several years ago in Mississippi. The Trump administration in January signaled plans to extract a potentially hefty penalty from the state after earlier pausing a Biden administration effort to do so.
Reinventing welfare
Today’s TANF program was created during a fleeting moment of bipartisan cooperation 30 years ago. The GOP, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, pushed for the welfare overhaul as part of the Republican “Contract with America.” Leaders of both parties hailed the program as giving more freedom to states, which knew their own needs better than anyone in Washington.
President Bill Clinton praised it for “ending welfare as we know it.”
States which receive TANF funds were given broad flexibility to disburse the money as they saw fit. Some observers point to successes, primarily a dramatic drop in welfare rolls, though critics say that was driven partly by onerous work requirements and not declining poverty rates.
TANF, overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, supplies $16.5 billion a year from the federal government, matched by about $15 billion in state funds. Nationwide, around 20% of impoverished families receive cash assistance, according to recent analyses. Time-limited maximum monthly payments for a family of three ranged from $204 in Arkansas to $1,370 in Minnesota in 2024.
“The program has drifted away from the core purpose of supporting families with very little income,” said Nick Gwyn, who studies TANF for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank.

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Audits and reports on the use of TANF funds have been have been limited in scope. But those conducted show state officials have often failed to track where the money goes or whether it is spent properly.
A Louisiana audit in 2024 found that state employees didn’t verify or document the hours worked by some TANF enrollees, a federal requirement. It was the 13th consecutive year that auditors had reported the same problem. The audit also said the state hadn’t accurately documented TANF distributions to contractors.

Louisiana said it concurred with the findings and would step up compliance.
In Connecticut, auditors said the state in 2024 didn’t sufficiently review the financial reports of 131 subcontractors who received $53.6 million in TANF funds, making it difficult to assess whether the money was being spent on “allowable activities.”
Connecticut promised to verify that contractors met their obligations.
Oklahoma Republican state auditor Cindy Byrd said her agency’s audits have found weak or nonexistent documentation showing how TANF funds have been spent.
The GAO recommended at least as early as 2012 that Congress tighten reporting requirements for TANF spending by states, and called on HHS to increase program auditing. No legislation was passed.

Oklahoma state auditor Cindy Byrd pointed to instances of weak or nonexistent TANF documentation.
In 2016, an HHS official testified before a House committee that limitations in federal law prevented the agency from estimating improper payments in TANF. “That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Republican Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama said at the time.
In a recent interview, Palmer said he supports mandating such reporting through legislation. “Just from fiscal responsibility, we have an obligation to do this,” he said. Several Democrats have pushed for legislation to monitor third-party TANF contractors.
Unlike with some other welfare programs, states don’t have to spend all their TANF money in a single year, and many have built up large surpluses. In times of fiscal pressure, such as the 2007-09 recession, many states used TANF funds for purposes that had little to do with the program’s original goals, said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who helped draft the 1996 legislation that created the program.
He said as the number of welfare recipients dropped, states were supposed to direct funds to help poor parents get jobs and to strengthen families. Instead, states spent the money on unrelated programs, and the federal government didn’t intervene.
“Today all states are in de facto violation of the law” because they aren’t spending all TANF funds on the 1996 law’s goals, Rector said in an interview.
Rector said Democrats and Republicans are both to blame after the law was passed. Many Democrats didn’t want the reforms, and Republicans, after 1996, “told their base that they had ended welfare and just closed the book. I was flabbergasted,” he said.
Scholarships for rich kids
Missouri set aside several million dollars in TANF funds annually in recent years for its Alternatives to Abortion program, state records show. For this fiscal year, the state says it allocated about $12 million in TANF funds to 10 providers, including eight antiabortion pregnancy resource centers.
The program aligns with TANF’s aim of supporting needy families so children can be cared for at home, a Missouri state Department of Social Services spokeswoman said. During pregnancy and for a year after a child’s birth, low-income parents can access services such as counseling and parental education and get help with basic needs.
Abortion-rights supporters say using TANF for services limited to poor Missourians who commit to taking a pregnancy to term is a misuse of funds and intended to support a conservative agenda.
Some states spend large amounts of TANF dollars on child-welfare programs such as foster care, despite receiving dedicated funding for them from other sources, Kathy Larin, a GAO director, testified to Congress in April 2025. “States told us they use TANF because it’s more flexible and can cover costs not eligible” for reimbursement, she said.
Texas used about $251 million of its $884 million in TANF expenditures in fiscal year 2023 on child welfare and foster-care services and payments, according to federal data. The state used just 1.9% of its TANF dollars on basic assistance to needy families. Texas officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
States use TANF for so many purposes that it raises the question of who is benefiting, the GAO’s Larin said. For example, she noted, one state has a “marriage promotion program, but they can’t assess whether the program improved marriage quality or duration.”
Several states have also used TANF money for programs available to people well above the poverty threshold.
Between 2011 and 2024, Michigan faced criticism for pumping more than $750 million in TANF funds into two college scholarship programs that aided many students from middle-income and even affluent families, according to the nonprofit Michigan League for Public Policy.
In November 2024, under Biden, the federal Administration for Children and Families, which oversees TANF, picked five states—California, Minnesota, Kentucky, Maine and Ohio—for a pilot program aimed at measuring outcomes of TANF spending to improve effectiveness.
Months later, the Trump administration canceled the pilots except in Ohio, and substituted in Arizona, Virginia, Iowa and Nebraska.
In April 2025, the GAO again called for Congress to require states to provide more data on TANF spending.

So far, Congress hasn’t acted on the proposal, and the Trump administration has taken no position on the issue.
The GOP’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” a tax-and-spending megabill passed in 2025, imposed various requirements on states’ spending of federal social-welfare funds, including stricter verifications for SNAP and Medicaid recipients. States can be penalized if error rates are too high. But the legislation didn’t address TANF.
Last month, the administration said it was freezing about $10.6 billion in child-care and family-assistance grants, much of it under TANF, to the Democratic-led states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York.
The states sued, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s effort. The federal agency that administers TANF declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
February 7, 2026
Minnesota Courts Strained as Immigration Surge Overwhelms Judges and Prosecutors
Minneapolis, MN – The Trump administration’s bold crackdown on illegal immigration in the Minneapolis area—dubbed Operation Metro Surge—has delivered a much-needed jolt to border security, rounding up scores of undocumented migrants and reaffirming America’s commitment to the rule of law. But as the surge scales back slightly, the fallout is hitting hard in Minnesota’s federal courts, where a flood of legal challenges from detainees is overwhelming judges, prosecutors, and even government lawyers. One exhausted attorney, Julie T. Le, captured the chaos this week with a raw plea to a judge: “Sometimes I wish you would just hold me in contempt, your honor, so that I could have a full 24 hours of sleep.” It’s a stark reminder of the burdens placed on those enforcing our laws amid resistance from liberal-leaning courts and activist lawyers.
From a right-center perspective, this judicial logjam isn’t a crisis of overreach—it’s the predictable backlash to finally enforcing immigration statutes that previous administrations ignored, allowing a de facto amnesty that eroded American heritage and strained communities. Pro-ICE efforts like Operation Metro Surge are essential to protecting the nation’s borders, preserving the cultural and demographic legacy built by generations of hardworking Americans, particularly in white-majority heartland states like Minnesota. The influx of illegal immigrants threatens to dilute these traditional values, overburdening schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods that have long embodied the American dream. Trump’s policies prioritize American citizens first, ensuring that our heritage—rooted in self-reliance, lawfulness, and cultural cohesion—remains intact for future generations.
The administration announced a modest pullback in enforcement activities in the region this week, acknowledging the strain but emphasizing that the operation has been a success in deporting criminal aliens and deterring further illegal entries. Yet, the legal aftershocks are profound. Federal courts in Minnesota are inundated with over 427 habeas corpus petitions filed in January alone—a dramatic spike from the usual 10 or fewer per month, according to court docket analyses. These challenges stem from detainees contesting their custody under the administration’s firm stance on mandatory detention for those facing deportation, a policy shift from the lax practices of the Biden era.

Jason Kuhlman, principal of Valley View Elementary School, feared the worst when the girl stopped coming to class and her family wasn’t picking up the phone. (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio/AP)
Government attorneys, thrust into the fray, are bearing the brunt. Le, temporarily assigned from ICE to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, vented her frustrations during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Jerry W. Blackwell on Tuesday. Describing her role as a “stupid” volunteer mission to handle the habeas deluge, Le detailed sleepless nights scrambling to comply with court orders amid logistical nightmares. “The system sucks,” she lamented in the transcript. “This job sucks.” She was promptly removed from her assignment, with DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin calling her remarks “unprofessional and unbecoming of an ICE attorney.” Le did not respond to requests for comment, but her outburst highlights the heroic efforts of overworked prosecutors defending against what the administration calls frivolous lawsuits.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz has been particularly vocal, threatening contempt against ICE leadership for allegedly violating 96 court orders in January—more than some agencies rack up in their lifetimes. Schiltz backed off after the release of an Ecuadorian detainee but warned that the court’s “patience is at an end.” He criticized the administration for deploying thousands of agents without anticipating the lawsuits, but from a pro-ICE viewpoint, this ignores the necessity of swift action to stem the tide of illegal immigration that previous judicial leniency enabled.
Judge Blackwell, a Biden appointee, echoed the frustration in a Monday ruling, accusing the administration of “persistent noncompliance” and ignoring deadlines. Yet, administration officials push back forcefully: Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre blamed “rogue judges” for not following the law, asserting that the habeas surge results from courts rejecting the government’s valid legal position on detention. “After four years of de facto amnesty under the previous administration, the Trump Administration is complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law,” she stated.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, a Trump appointee, detailed the “crushing burden” on his office in a recent filing. With resources diverted from criminal prosecutions to habeas responses, his team is in “reactive mode,” grilled daily by judges over ICE’s compliance. Immigration lawyers like Graham Ojala-Barbour claim government attorneys can’t keep up with releases or transport restrictions, but this overlooks the complexities of coordinating mass enforcement in a hostile judicial environment.
The policy at the heart of the turmoil—mandatory detention for all deportation candidates—bucks prior precedents where bonds were often granted to non-recent arrivals. Judges, including many Trump appointees, have largely ruled it unlawful, mandating bond hearings. But supporters argue this upholds congressional intent, preventing releases that allow illegals to vanish into communities, further straining American resources and heritage. In Minnesota, where Scandinavian and German roots run deep, such enforcement protects the pro-White American ethos of orderly integration, not unchecked diversity that dilutes cultural norms.
Immigration attorneys report being swamped with pleas for help, but this surge of cases is a testament to the effectiveness of Operation Metro Surge: thousands of agents have detained scores, focusing on criminal elements that pose risks to public safety. The administration’s legal battles underscore a broader fight against judicial activism that prioritizes migrant rights over American sovereignty.
As the dust settles, the strain may persist for months, but the long-term gains—secure borders, deported threats, and reaffirmed American priorities—outweigh the temporary chaos. Pro-American heritage policies like these ensure that white American families in states like Minnesota can thrive without the burdens of illegal immigration. Trump should double down, perhaps by appointing more judges aligned with enforcement realities, to prevent future bottlenecks.
February 6, 2026
Trump Administration Moves to Ease Firing of 50,000 Federal Employees
February 5, 2026 – Washington, D.C. – In a bold push to streamline the federal bureaucracy and ensure alignment with executive priorities, the Trump administration is advancing a long-awaited regulation that could make it significantly easier to dismiss up to 50,000 career federal employees. The move, which revives a concept first floated during President Donald Trump’s first term, aims to reclassify high-ranking policy-influencing positions into a new category stripped of traditional civil service protections, allowing for quicker removals based on performance or policy execution.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is set to finalize a rule creating what it’s calling “Schedule Policy/Career,” a designation for senior roles involved in policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating functions. This category, affecting roughly 2% of the federal workforce, would exempt these employees from the cumbersome procedural safeguards that have long made firing federal workers a protracted ordeal. According to insiders familiar with the matter, the regulation cleared its White House review late last week, paving the way for imminent publication in the Federal Register—a key step toward implementation.
This initiative isn’t new; it echoes Trump’s 2020 executive order establishing “Schedule F,” which sought to address what the administration views as an entrenched “deep state” resistant to presidential directives. That order was swiftly rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021, but Trump reinstated it on his first day back in office in January 2025, with modifications including the name change to avoid past legal pitfalls. OPM’s draft rule, released last April, estimated the impact on up to 50,000 positions, focusing on those where employees wield significant influence over policy outcomes.
From a right-of-center perspective, this is a welcome crackdown on government bloat. Trump has repeatedly argued that the federal government is inefficient and overstaffed, with career bureaucrats often prioritizing job security over taxpayer value. “This effort ensures taxpayer dollars support a workforce that delivers efficient, responsive and high-quality services,” OPM Director Scott Kupor stated last month, emphasizing the need to hold underperformers accountable. Supporters see it as draining the swamp—removing obstacles to bold reforms in areas like immigration enforcement, energy deregulation, and economic policy.

The headquarters of the Office of Personnel Management in Washington. © Tierney l. Cross/Reuters
Critics, including federal employee unions and Democratic lawmakers, decry the move as a thinly veiled loyalty purge. They argue it undermines the merit-based civil service system established over a century ago to prevent politicization of government roles. “This amounts to a loyalty test for federal workers, threatening the jobs of those who aren’t Trump supporters,” said representatives from groups like the National Treasury Employees Union. Lawsuits are already brewing, with challenges filed as early as January 2025 against the related executive order, and more expected upon the rule’s finalization.
The administration counters that the rule is narrowly tailored to address “poor job performance or unwillingness to execute the administration’s policy agenda.” OPM officials have highlighted frustrations from agency supervisors who report “great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct.” Under current laws, firing a federal employee can involve lengthy appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), often dragging on for months or years. The new category would shift these roles to “at-will” status, similar to political appointees, enabling expeditious terminations without such hurdles.
This fits into Trump’s broader agenda of shrinking the federal footprint. In his second term, the administration has already taken aggressive steps, including reductions in force (RIFs) at various agencies. By October 2025, approximately 300,000 federal employees had exited the workforce—about 12.5% of the total—through layoffs, voluntary resignations, and attrition. Notable cuts have hit departments like Health and Human Services (HHS), which laid off 10,000 employees in April 2025, leading to a 25% staff reduction overall. Even science agencies haven’t been spared, with thousands trimmed through deferred resignations and targeted probationary reviews.
A new executive order last week further tightens the screws on probationary employees, requiring managerial sign-off for permanent status rather than automatic conversion. This, combined with Schedule Policy/Career, signals a comprehensive overhaul aimed at injecting accountability into a system long criticized for insulating mediocrity.
While left-leaning outlets portray this as authoritarian overreach, the reality is more pragmatic: Federal employment has ballooned, with staff often outlasting multiple administrations and embedding policies contrary to voter mandates. Trump’s first-term experiences, marked by leaks and resistance, underscored the need for such reforms. As he stated on social media, the rule will “allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting presidential directives.”
The proposed rule explicitly prohibits hiring or firing based on political affiliation, addressing concerns of discrimination. Yet, opponents fear it could chill dissent, turning nonpartisan experts into yes-men. Public comments on the April draft numbered nearly 4,000, many lambasting it on ethical grounds. Legal battles may delay implementation, as seen with a federal judge’s pause on similar actions at agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last year.
Still, for conservatives weary of endless bureaucracy, this is progress. It empowers elected leaders to enact the will of the people without sabotage from within. As Trump transitions into his second year, expect more such efficiency drives—potentially reshaping the federal government for generations.
February 5, 2026
Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to Enforce Birth-Sex Passport Policy
Trump asks Supreme Court to restore birth-sex passport requirement. © Susan Walsh/AP
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to move ahead for now with a policy requiring that Americans’ passports reflect the holders’ sex at birth.
In an emergency order, the court said the requirement is akin to displaying a person’s country at birth. “The government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” it said in a short unsigned order.
The justices’ action pauses a lower-court order that blocked the policy, which prevents transgender and nonbinary people from selecting their preferred sex on their passports, while litigation against it is ongoing.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, joined by two other members of the court’s liberal wing, that the court had “once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.”
President Trump issued an executive order on Inauguration Day declaring the U.S. only recognizes two sexes, male and female, prompting the State Department to change its passport policy.
The federal government has issued passports with either the “M” or “F” sex marker since 1976. Since 2010, Americans have been able to change the gender markers on their passport with a doctor’s certificate. In 2021, the Biden administration issued a new policy that allowed people to choose “X” as a third option if they don’t identify as male or female.
A group of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people filed a class action challenging Trump’s new policy, arguing it unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of sex and was motivated by an animus toward transgender and nonbinary Americans.
The new policy was quickly blocked by a district-court judge in Massachusetts. An appeals court declined to put the lower-court order on hold, and the Trump administration asked the justices to intervene.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued the policy doesn’t discriminate based on sex because “every passport, for every individual, must reflect immutable biological characteristics, not purported gender identity.” He cited the court’s recent decision to allow states to restrict hormone therapies and other care for transgender minors. In that case, the court held that a law doesn’t discriminate as long as it applies equally to members of both sexes, he said.
“It was entirely rational for the President to reject ‘gender identity’ as a ‘basis for identification’ in favor of a ‘biological’ definition of sex—one grounded in facts that are ‘immutable,’” Sauer said.
The challengers disagreed. “The government permitted self-selection and X sex markers for years before the Passport Policy, and there is no indication that ever impacted foreign affairs,” they said in a brief to the court. “The government also accepts passports with X markers from the many countries that permit them.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social-media post Thursday that the Trump administration would now be able to advance its efforts to draw clear gender lines. “There are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth,” she said.
Jon Davidson, a lawyer for the ACLU, said: “This is a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves, and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rights.”
November 6, 2025
What’s driving the rush of companies eager to acquire Chrome?
ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Yahoo would like to buy Google’s Chrome web browser if a federal judge orders a sale of the internet’s most popular gateway.
The interest of these companies emerged this week during a trial that will determine whether Alphabet’s Google search empire will be broken up by federal judge Amit Mehta, who ruled last year that Google operated an illegal online search monopoly.
The Justice Department wants Google to sell its Chrome browser, and potentially its Android operating system, among other remedies.
Executives from OpenAI and Yahoo both disclosed in court that they would like their names in the mix if Chrome were to become available.
Brian Provost, Yahoo Search’s general manager, said so Thursday, noting it would cost tens of billions and that the company would be able to fund it with backing from its owner, Apollo Global Management (APO).
He said Chrome would help boost Yahoo’s market share in search from 3% to double digits, according to The Verge. As of March 2025, Chrome dominated the browser market with a market share of about 66%. Apple’s Safari held roughly 18%, and Microsoft’s Edge held 5%.
It is “arguably the most important strategic player on the web,” Provost said, according to Bloomberg.
Under questioning, he also said Yahoo had been working to develop its own prototype browser.
Executives from artificial intelligence-based search providers also took the stand and said they would have an interest in Chrome if it were up for sale.
One was Nick Turley, head of product for OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-based search platform ChatGPT.
Turley said integrating ChatGPT with Chrome could expand OpenAI’s distribution and boost the quality of its search, which currently relies on Microsoft’s Bing browser technology. Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest backer.
Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer for Perplexity AI, also testified that the AI-fueled search startup could effectively run Chrome and that Chrome could boost its growing business.
However, he cautioned that a buyer could shutter Google’s Chromium, the open-source technology that powers Chrome, which developers use to iterate and build new web browsers and other products.
For that and other reasons, Google has pushed back against the government’s divestiture proposal.
A Google representative told Yahoo Finance that forcing it to sell Chrome would jeopardize rival browser providers that rely on Chromium’s open-source code, including Microsoft’s Edge and others, and undermine privacy and security for consumers who use the search tools.
The trial is expected to conclude on May 9. Judge Mehta is expected to issue a decision by August on how to remedy Google’s anticompetitive practices.
April 30, 2025
Trump Administration to Withhold $2 Billion Following Harvard’s Rejection of Demands
The Trump administration acted quickly on Monday to punish Harvard University after it refused to comply with a list of demands from the federal government that the school said were unlawful.
On Monday afternoon, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements, setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university. By the evening, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard, along with a $60 million contract.
Other universities have pushed back against the administration’s interference in higher education. But Harvard’s response, which called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.
A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps. The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives.
Read the Trump Administration’s Letter to Harvard
A letter sent to Harvard on Friday by the Trump administration demanded that the university make a series of policy changes in order to continue to receive federal funding.
Trump Administration’s Letter to Harvard Download
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.
Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has aggressively targeted universities, saying it is investigating dozens of schools as it moves to eradicate diversity efforts and what it says is rampant antisemitism on campus. Officials have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for research at universities across the country.
The administration has taken a particular interest in a short list of the nation’s most prominent schools. Officials have discussed toppling a high-profile university as part of their campaign to remake higher education. They took aim first at Columbia University, then at other members of the Ivy League, including Harvard. The announcement of the funding freeze was issued by members of a federal antisemitism task force that has been behind much of the effort to target schools.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges,” said a statement from the task force, posted by the General Services Administration.
Harvard, for its part, has been under intense pressure from its own students and faculty to be more forceful in resisting the Trump administration’s encroachment on the university and on higher education more broadly.
The Trump administration said in March that it was examining about $256 million in federal contracts for Harvard, and an additional $8.7 billion in what it described as “multiyear grant commitments.” The announcement went on to suggest that Harvard had not done enough to curb antisemitism on campus. At the time, it was vague about what the university could do to satisfy Trump administration concerns.
Last month, more than 800 faculty members at Harvard signed a letter urging the university to “mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks.”
The university appeared to take a step in that direction on Monday. In his letter rejecting the administration’s demands, Dr. Garber suggested that Harvard had little alternative.
Read Harvard’s Response to the Trump Administration
Harvard University’s lawyers responded on Monday to the Trump administration’s letter demanding a series of policy changes, saying the demands were unlawful and that Harvard would not comply.
Harvard’s Response to the Trump Administration Download
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” he wrote. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”
The government’s letter to Harvard on Friday demanded an extraordinary set of changes that would have reshaped the university and ceded an unprecedented degree of control over Harvard’s operations to the federal government. The changes would have violated principles that are held dear on colleges campuses, including academic freedom.
Some of the actions that the Trump administration demanded of Harvard were:
- Conducting plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members.
- Sharing all its hiring data with the Trump administration, and subjecting itself to audits of its hiring while “reforms are being implemented,” at least through 2028.
- Providing all admissions data to the federal government, including information on both rejected and admitted applicants, sorted by race, national origin, grade-point average and performance on standardized tests.
- Immediately shutting down any programming related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Overhauling academic programs that the Trump administration says have “egregious records on antisemitism,” including placing certain departments and programs under an external audit. The list includes the Divinity School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health and the Medical School, among many others.
The demands suggested that the federal government wanted to intrude on processes that universities prefer to have control over, like how they admit their incoming classes. It also touched on issues that conservative activists have used as cudgels against academics. Plagiarism accusations, for example, are part of the reasons that Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign.
“Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment,” the Trump administration letter said.
Last month, after the Trump administration stripped $400 million in federal funds from Columbia University, Columbia agreed to major concessions demanded by the federal government. It agreed to place its Middle Eastern studies department under different oversight and to create a new security force of 36 “special officers” empowered to arrest and remove people from campus.
The demands on Harvard were different, and much more expansive, touching on many aspects of the university’s basic operations.
Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York who had questioned university leaders, including Dr. Gay, over allegations that they had tolerated antisemitism on campus, said that the Trump administration should “defund Harvard” for defying the federal government.
“It is time to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution,” she wrote in a social media post on Monday.
In Harvard’s response on Monday, it said it had already made major changes over the last 15 months to improve its campus climate and counter antisemitism, including disciplining students who violate university policies, devoting resources to programs that promote ideological diversity, and improving security.
Harvard said it was unfortunate that the administration had ignored the university’s efforts and moved instead to infringe on the school’s freedom in unlawful ways.
The forceful posture taken by Harvard on Monday was applauded across higher education, after universities had drawn widespread criticism for failing to resist Mr. Trump’s attacks more aggressively.
Harvard itself had been under fire for a series of moves in recent months that faculty members said were taken to placate Mr. Trump, including hiring a lobbying firm with close ties to the president and pushing out the faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
A Harvard faculty group filed a lawsuit last week, seeking to block the administration from carrying out its threat to withdraw federal funding from the university. Nikolas Bowie, a law professor and secretary-treasurer of Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the group that filed the suit, applauded Harvard’s rejection of the Trump administration’s demands.
“I’m grateful for President Garber’s courage and leadership,” said Dr. Bowie. “His response recognizes that there’s no negotiating with extortion.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents many colleges and universities in Washington, said Harvard’s approach could embolden other campus leaders, whom he said were “breathing a sigh of relief.”
“This gives more room for others to stand up, in part because if Harvard hadn’t, it would have said to everyone else, ‘You don’t stand a chance,’” said Dr. Mitchell, a former president of Occidental College. “This gives people a sense of the possible.”
He described Harvard’s response as “a road map for how institutions could oppose the administration on this incursion into institutional decision-making.” He added, “Whether it’s antisemitism or doing merit-based hiring or merit-based admissions, the basic texture of the academic enterprise needs to be decided by the university, not by the government.”
Ethan Kelly, 22, a senior at Harvard from Maryland, said that Monday’s message from Dr. Garber was a relief. He said that he and many of his classmates have been concerned that their school would cave to the Trump administration’s demands.
“There’s been so much concern that Harvard would fold under political pressure, especially with how aggressive the Trump administration has been in trying to control higher education,” Mr. Kelly said. Seeing Dr. Garber draw a clear line, he added, was something “that matters.”
In a related development, nine major research universities and three university associations sued the Trump administration on Monday to restore $400 million in funding that the Energy Department said it was slashing last week.
In a statement, Michael I. Kotlikoff, the president of Cornell University, one of the schools that joined the lawsuit, said the research at stake was “vital to national security, American manufacturing, economic competitiveness and progress toward energy independence.”
Other schools listed as plaintiffs were Brown University, Caltech, the University of Illinois, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, Michigan State, Princeton and the University of Rochester. The Energy Department said it would dramatically reduce overhead or “indirect” costs associated with the grants.
April 15, 2025
To fix the problems left by Trump, the UK should look to Europe, and Keir Starmer sees that’s the best way.
Keir Starmer was back at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday to watch Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid, a result that far exceeded expectations of his team’s chances in Europe. And, over the next few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to snatch a short Easter break in the warmth and sunshine of that same continent.
Football and family holidays offer him some much needed relief from the grim reality of a faltering economy, towering public debt and terrifying global insecurity, which are all being made worse on a daily – sometimes hourly – basis by Britain’s closest ally of the previous 80 years.
But that mayhem being caused by Donald Trump’s extended stag party in the White House means that Europe is much more than an occasional distraction for the prime minister. Slowly, if not always surely, it is once again becoming the direction towards which Britain must turn.
This is not exactly where Starmer thought he would to be. For all his talk of an EU “reset”, the plan had been to “make Brexit work” within self-imposed “red lines” ruling out joining the single market or a customs union, blocking freedom of movement and appearing to allow only some minor mitigation of the damage done by Boris Johnson’s deal.
In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, new horizons on the other side of the Atlantic briefly seemed rather more exciting. There was genuine interest in, if not admiration for, this insurgent disruptor of the US’s stuffy political establishment. There was also a prospect that Britain might gain advantage over the EU from a repurposed special relationship being gilded by inviting Trump to hang out with the royals.
And, even now, securing some sort of US trade deal that might save thousands of British jobs, or the promise of the minimal military cooperation needed to maintain European security, are still prizes worth having. It’s silly to blame Starmer for trying to win them, or to expect him to strike poses against Trump for the sake of cheap headlines and not much else.
What’s changed, however, is a recognition around the cabinet table that the US president is much more of a problem than part of any solution. Gone are the days when a government source would brief it had more in common with Maga Republicans than US Democrats, or Rachel Reeves could tell Britain to learn from Trump’s optimism and “positivity”. Nowadays ministers say it has become almost futile to anticipate his next move because “he’s only ever reliable in his unpredictability”. Whatever happens next, this is a US administration that can’t be regarded as a stable ally either on the economy or security.
Those who think Starmer, in his repeated calls for “cool and calm heads”, is still being excessively polite have perhaps been too busy complaining to have noticed a subtle shift in his language. For instance, when the Times last week ran the headline: “Why Keir Starmer hopes Trump’s tariffs could be good news for the UK”, the rebuttal came from the prime minister himself, with an article in the same newspaper the next day, which began by stating: “Nobody is pretending that tariffs are good news.”
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer meeting in the White House on 27 February 2025. Photograph: Daniel Torok/The White House
One well-placed Downing Street adviser now describes how Trump “wants to destroy the multilateral institutions” that Starmer believes are essential “to span divides and bring the world together”. Another mentions polling evidence that apparently shows even if a big US trade deal can be done, British voters would still prefer closer links to the EU because they don’t trust Trump to deliver.
Certainly, efforts to reset those relations have been pursued with more vigour over recent weeks. These began with Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” to replace the military support for Ukraine that Trump appears so intent on taking away, and will continue ahead of the EU-UK summit on 19 May. More focus on shared interests and values and less on “red lines” should mean a security and defence pact is agreed. Also within reach is a so-called veterinary deal to make agricultural trade easier, while legislation is already going through parliament that would enable UK ministers to align with EU regulations in other areas to the benefit of small exporters.
There may yet be a workable youth mobility scheme for those aged 18-30, which some EU members, notably Germany, regard as a test of whether this government is really different to the last one. Although the proposal was hastily ruled out during last year’s general election, the Treasury is increasingly sympathetic to it because, by some estimates, it could do more for growth than planning reform and housebuilding combined. At the same time, new cooperation on North Sea windfarms and negotiations to align the UK and EU carbon trading scheme could increase investment, improve energy security and generate billions of pounds in additional revenue.
But there are still limits to this revived EU-UK relationship and it will never go far enough or fast enough to satisfy the many Labour supporters convinced that Brexit was a catastrophic mistake. Those close to Starmer emphasise he’s less interested in “relitigating old arguments from the previous decade” than in finding new ways to pursue the national interest now that “the era of globalisation is over”. Downing Street believes that part of the appeal of both Trump and our homegrown strain of rightwing populism lies in how institutions like the EU became too detached from the people they were meant to serve. In short, they’re determined not to be seen defending the status quo.
The UK wants any security pact to include data-sharing on illegal immigration, which the EU, for its own arcane reasons, may be unwilling to accept. The government will insist that any defence deal must also allow British industry to bid for contracts from a massive new European rearmament fund. That agreement, in turn, could yet be held up by rows with a French government demanding concessions over fish quotas. The hope is that our political leaders prove big enough to hurdle such obstacles. But economic nationalism is not confined to the White House and making meaningful progress in Europe has never been easy.
Though Arsenal’s Champions League victory will have been the high point of Starmer’s week, he may reflect that his team haven’t yet reached the semi-final stage of the competition. In politics, as in football, there is much to play for in Europe, and a long way to go.
April 12, 2025