The Conversation -- April 25, 2025
Marie: It's Friday afternoon -- the very best time of the week for Pete Hegseth to resign.
Michael Gold & Grace Ashford of the New York Times: “George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York whose outlandish fabrications and criminal schemes fueled an unforeseen rise and spectacular fall, was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison on Friday. His 87-month sentence was a severe corrective to a turbulent period in which Mr. Santos was catapulted from anonymity to political and pop cultural infamy, a national spotlight that, even when negative, he often relished more than rejected. Mr. Santos pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He acknowledged his involvement in a variety of other deceptions, including lying to Congress, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits and bilking campaign donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Hassan Kanu of Politico: “A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind collective bargaining rights from employees at nearly a dozen government agencies and departments. The order from U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman requires federal agencies to engage with their employees’ unions and to resume collecting dues payments, among other normal employee relations business. The judge’s order covers employees at the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Energy, the Office of Personnel Management and other major agencies.”
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “Across the executive branch, in agency after agency, it’s amateur hour under the Trump administration.” This is a gift link to a very good overview of the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Administration.
Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “F.B.I. Director Kash Patel said on Friday that agents had arrested a county judge in Milwaukee on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the arrest of a sitting judge, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations. The bureau arrested Judge Hannah Dugan on suspicion that she 'intentionally misdirected federal agents away from' an immigrant being pursued by federal authorities, Mr. Patel wrote on social media. He later deleted the post for reasons that were not immediately clear. An F.B.I. spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brady McCarron, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals, confirmed that the judge had been arrested by F.B.I. agents on Friday morning. The charging document against the judge was not immediately available in federal court records. The Trump administration has vowed to investigate and prosecute local officials who do not assist federal immigration enforcement efforts, denouncing what they call 'sanctuary cities' for not doing more to assist federal apprehensions and deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.” ~~~
~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: “F.B.I. agents arrested a Milwaukee judge on Friday on charges of obstructing immigration agents, saying she steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom while the agents waited to arrest him in a public hallway. The decision to charge a sitting state court judge is a major escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations.” ~~~
~~~ Amanda Friedman & Juan Benn of Politico: Patel “later reposted an identical version of [his deleted post].” ~~~
~~~ AND This from the NYT story linked above: “Pam Bondi, the attorney general, defended the arrest of the judge, telling Fox News that when someone obstructs justice by 'escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated.' 'It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to be prosecuted,' Ms. Bondi said. Ms. Bondi also discussed the recent arrest of a former judge in New Mexico, who was charged with obstruction over harboring a person federal agents said was a Venezuelan gang member. 'Some of these judges think they’re above the law. They are not,' she said. 'We will come after you and prosecute you. We will find you.'”
~~~ The charging document is here, via the federal courts. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I am hoping that Judge Dugan will successfully sue the FBI for false arrest & Kash for intentionally and wantonly defaming her.
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Things Fall Apart.... The Darkness Drops Again. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “Even as Trump nears that [100-day] milestone by which new administrations have increasingly gauged their early progress, there are myriad signs that his second-term project may be falling apart. A man who came into office vastly exaggerating the mandate that voters had just given him — and has governed accordingly — appears to have, per public polling, squandered whatever mandate he was given with his brazen actions. And indicators are increasingly dire on a number of significant policy fronts for him.... Perhaps more troubling for Trump, most of his major policies are even more unpopular than he is. That suggests his image is largely buoyed by loyalists who might not like what they’re seeing but still say they support him — for now.... But it’s not just the polls. It’s also the discord and the administration’s clear struggles to chart a path forward and avoid shooting itself in the foot.... In sum: It’s all an increasing mess.” ~~~
~~~ Rachel Maddow last night elaborated on Blake's report. ~~~
~~~ Todd Spangler of Variety: Donald “Trump is unhappy with Fox News Channel again over the conservative outlet’s poll finding that he has record-low approval ratings after the first 100 days of his second term in office. 'Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so,' Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. 'This “pollster” has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Trump added that Murdoch 'should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!'... Trump’s approval ratings in the first 100 days in office [44%] are lower than those for Biden (54%), Obama (62%) and George W. Bush (63%), per Fox News.”
Heather Cox Richardson writes a helpful summary of how we got to "where we're at," and as an historian, she has the wisdom to link it back to Republicans' embrace of "the myth of cowboy individualism" and Sir Ronald of Reagan.~~~
~~~ Marie: It's a good essay, and well worth a read. BUT. While obviously one cannot scrunch a comprehensive history lesson into a short essay, I do think Richardson is a bit too pollyannish when she concludes, "The American people seem to be realizing that the rhetoric of cowboy individualism is a very different thing than its reality." I don't think "the American people" "realize" much. They go to the store; they see the price of coffee and eggs. Their bosses won't give them raises because tariffs. They hear their friends & neighbors gripe. They're unhappy. They blame the president. In this case, they place the blame on the right head. But this "judgment" is accidental. Americans blame the president, any president, for bad weather and crap schools.
He’s actually selling access, personal access, to him and to the White House if people invest in this meme coin, which really has no intrinsic value.... If you are a foreign government burdened by tariffs, will you be enticed to invest? If you’re a criminal felon, will you maybe invest in hopes of they’ll give you an opportunity to make your case for a pardon? -- Virginia Canter, former White House associate counsel
... The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close. -- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
Drew Harwell & Jeremy Merrill of the Washington Post: “Buyers have poured tens of millions of dollars into ... Donald Trump’s meme coin since his team advertised Wednesday that top purchasers could join Trump for an 'intimate private dinner' next month, a Washington Post analysis found. The holders of 27 crypto wallets have each acquired more than 100,000 $TRUMP coins, stakes worth about a million dollars each, since noon on Wednesday, when the team announced that the 220 top coin holders would be rewarded with a 'night to remember' on May 22 at the president’s Trump National Golf Club outside Washington. Crypto wallets are generally anonymous, making it challenging to identify who the purchasers were.... The coin’s price has surged more than 30 percent since the announcement, to about $12, boosting the value of the crypto wallets owned by a digital firm affiliated with Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, by roughly $100 million....”
Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Thursday plans to direct the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the fund-raising platform that powers virtually every Democratic candidate and cause, according to a person briefed on the preparations. The move steps up Republicans’ effort to cripple their opponents’ political infrastructure. It will be the third time in three weeks that Mr. Trump has directed the government to target a perceived political enemy, a drastic expansion of his use of his powers to try to damage domestic opponents. Mr. Trump plans to call for an investigation by Attorney General Pam Bondi into ActBlue, which is used across the Democratic Party’s ecosystem to collect donations online. The inquiry is ostensibly meant to look into possible illegal donations made by people in someone else’s name, known as straw donations, as well as hard-dollar contributions from foreign donors.... Congressional Republicans have separately been investigating what they claim are the platform’s insufficient security provisions.” (Also linked yesterday.) Politico's story is here.
Pardon Her. Gregory Svirnovskiy of Politico: “... Donald Trump has pardoned a former Las Vegas City Council member and one-time Nevada gubernatorial candidate who was found guilty of fraud last year, the latest example of the president using his pardon power to reward allies. Michele Fiore — who has occasionally been dubbed 'Lady Trump' — was convicted in October of using $70,000 she solicited to build a memorial for two fallen police officers on personal expenses, including political fundraising bills and rent payments.”
~~~ Rio Yamat of the AP: Something else Fiore used the memorial fund for: cosmetic surgery. “In a lengthy statement Thursday on Facebook, the loyal Trump supporter expressed gratitude to the president while also accusing the U.S. government and 'select media outlets' of a broad, decade-long conspiracy to 'target and dismantle' her life.” MB: I guess that's why they call her Lady Trump: like her benefactor, she's a criminal who blames others for her misdeeds.
Say What? Ivan Pereira of ABC News: "For years..., Donald Trump has blasted politically damaging reporting by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as fake, made-up. His most recent criticism has been over Goldberg's bombshell story about a Signal chat he was accidentally invited to, one that included top members of Trump's national security team, conversing about an impending military attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen. Now, in a surprise twist, Trump said he would speak face-to-face with Goldberg on Thursday after claiming on Truth Social that Goldberg, along with The Atlantic writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, would sit down with him for an interview. 'The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, "The Most Consequential President of this Century," he said.... 'I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it's possible for The Atlantic to be "truthful,"' Trump posted. 'Are they capable of writing a fair story on "TRUMP"? The way I look at it, what can be so bad.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump may have all the best words, but he doesn't seem to know that "consequential" doesn't mean "excellent."
Marcie Jones of Wonkette took a realistic look at Trump's, uh, “economic policy,” brilliant negotiations with China and sundry perambulations: “The stock market paused its freefall on Tuesday after Art O’Deal said he was not going to 'play hardball' with China, insisting that he was in contact with China 'every day' and that tariffs 'will come down substantially.' But, two days later, in spite of rumors that they could go down to 35 to 65 percent (which is still insane and economy-wrecking) his 145 percent tariff has still not come down. And the only 'hardball' is Trump getting kicked in the balls, hard. By China! Within hours of Trump’s Oval Office press conference, China said it was FAKE NEWS, 假新闻, they had not been talking to Trump at all, and a spokesman re-iterated that they plan to 'fight until the end.' Because guess who manufactures and prints all the cards Trump claims to be holding? Then [Thursday], Trump insisted that he WAS TOO talking to China, but he can’t tell you with whom, it’s a big secret!” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Speaking of perambulations, did you Trump has been walking around the White House's wet, shoe-wrecking, hard-to-tread lawn and dictating places to put a couple of gimungus flags on 100-foot poles. And doing other gaudy decorating things when not actively ruining the country? I'm tellin' ya, the U.S. has never had such a consequential president*.
Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating. He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come. -- Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service ~~~
~~~ Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: Donald “Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a 'DOGE dividend' check in their mailboxes, when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government. Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details that DOGE is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion. That is about 15 percent of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8 percent of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year. The errors and obfuscations underlying DOGE’s claims of savings are well documented. Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a 'hatchet' to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts and building seizures that mostly wound up in court. The Partnership for Public Service ... 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.... 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.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: The IRS figures cited looks extremely low. That is, Musk has cost much more than $8.5 billion in uncollected tax revenue calculated in Williamson's report. According to a Washington Post analysis made a month ago, Musk's cuts to IRS employees will lead to a loss of $500 billion in revenue, not $8.5 billion. So the analysis above is an underestimate. So subtract only the "savings" Musk claims (without evidence) of $150BB from the $500BB he cost in lost tax revenue: $500BB - $150BB = $350BB. That is, Musk's chainsaw massacre will cost a minimum of $350BB per year, and that's before calculating the other costs Williamson cites. All of this disruption and loss of service for a net loss to federal coffers. Trump and Musk are either incredibly stupid or they are bent on destroying the country. I think it's the latter. ~~~
~~~ Dan Diamond, et al., of the Washington Post: A yelling match Elon Musk had with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outside the Oval office this week “was just Musk’s latest confrontation with a top Trump appointee in a three-month government stint that has been peppered with controversy. He has rebuked officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and economic adviser Peter Navarro in meetings or on social media, calling them incompetent or suggesting that they have lied. He also alienated Trump aides with unscripted remarks and abrupt edicts, forcing political appointees to scramble to explain his decisions.... Polls show a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of him and say he has had too much sway in government operations.... The White House has sought for weeks to put guardrails around Musk and his team’s activities.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Diamond, et al., after the dustup Musk & Bessent had outside the Oval, “Musk unfollowed Bessent on X, his social media platform.” Ooh, I wonder if Scott will take Elon off his phone contacts list. I know the POTUS* is a toddler, but the junior-high-school atmosphere around him is not much of an improvement.
Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: “A judge temporarily blocked election officials Thursday from implementing parts of ... Donald Trump’s executive order requiring people to prove they are citizens when they fill out federal voter registration forms. The sweeping order Trump signed last month sought to overhaul how the 2026 midterm elections are run, even though the Constitution says voting policies are to be set by the states and Congress. Democrats and voting rights groups quickly sued, leading to Thursday’s preliminary injunction. 'Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections,' Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for D.C. wrote in her opinion.... Kollar-Kotelly’s preliminary injunction put that part of Trump’s order on hold while she considers lawsuits filed by the Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters and others. Her ruling diminishes Trump’s chances of changing the form before the 2026 elections.... Under the ruling, the independent, bipartisan Election Assistance Commission is barred for now from changing the federal voter registration form to require people to provide passports or other documents proving their citizenship to get on the voter rolls. The ruling also prevents federal agencies from implementing a part of the executive order that tells them to determine whether someone is a citizen before providing the person a registration form.” (Also linked yesterday.) The AP report is here.
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Over the past two weeks, immigration lawyers, scrambling from courthouse to courthouse, have secured provisional orders in five states stopping the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, to deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a terrorism prison in El Salvador.... But at least so far, the one thing the lawyers have not managed to do is protect another — and harder to reach — group of Venezuelan migrants: about 140 men who are already in El Salvador, having been deported there under the act more than a month ago. Early Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union took another shot at seeking due process for those men. Lawyers for the group filed an updated version of a lawsuit they brought against ... [Donald] Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act on March 15, the first that challenged his invocation of the law. This time, the A.C.L.U. is asking a federal judge in Washington not to stop the men from being sent to El Salvador, but rather to help them return to U.S. soil.”
Alan Feuer & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to take steps to seek the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man who was deported to El Salvador last month, ruling that his removal violated a previous court settlement intended to protect young migrants with pending asylum cases. The decision on Wednesday by the judge, Stephanie A. Gallagher, came two weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the White House to seek the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, another migrant who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador as part of the same deportation operation. Judge Gallagher’s ruling, which cited Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case, was notable for the way it suggested that errors and violations of court directives continued to plague ... [Donald] Trump’s aggressive plan to deport as many as 1 million people in his first year in office.... The second case involves the 20-year-old Venezuelan identified in court papers only as Cristian.” Politico's report is here.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: “Of all the men we’ve rendered to this hell [CECOT prison], the one I can’t get out of my mind is Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela, sent to rot in El Salvador because the Trump administration claimed his tattoos link him to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.... (... USA Today would reveal that one of the two contractors [at a privately-run detention center who determined that the young man was a gang member] was Charles Cross Jr., a 'disgraced former Milwaukee cop with credibility issues' who’d been fired for driving his car into a home while drunk.)... Hernández Romero’s case exemplifies the carelessness that has marked the Trump administration’s arrangement with El Salvador from the beginning. And it highlights the rapid transformation of America from a place of refuge for at least some victims of oppression to a place where noncitizens often seem to have no human rights at all.... While America’s treatment of Hernández Romero is harrowing, it isn’t unique. As Bloomberg reported, around 90 percent of the migrants sent to CECOT have no criminal records aside from immigration or traffic violations.... And everything Trump is doing to these migrants, he would, if given the chance, do to Americans.”
Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “On April 7, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must give Venezuelan migrants notice 'within a reasonable time' and the chance to legally challenge their removal before being deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.... Before Saturday, when the Supreme Court issued a second order, which blocked the deportation of a group of Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, detainees slated for deportation were given a one-page form that stated 'if you desire to make a phone call, you will be permitted to do so,' according to ... a four-page declaration by an official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They then had 'no less than 12 hours' to 'express an intent' to challenge their detention, and another 24 hours to file a habeas corpus petition asking for a hearing before a judge, the declaration said. The form itself is written in English, but 'it is read and explained to each alien in a language that alien understands.'... Lawyers for detainees held elsewhere, who have sued in the Northern District of Texas, have disputed the government’s claims about being given notice. They also have said that the form was not explained to detainees and that they were simply told to sign the document....”
Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: “Federal agents did not have a warrant when they arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who had been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, according to court documents. Attorneys for the government argued that while generally an arrest warrant must be obtained, there is an exception to the requirement if the immigration officer 'has reason to believe that the individual is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.' Attorneys for Khalil, who had a green card marking him as a legal permanent resident, have asked an immigration judge to end efforts to deport him.... 'There’s no reason they couldn’t get a warrant,' said Baher Azmy, [an attorney for Khalil].... Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said in a memo submitted to the court that Khalil and another student helped foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States and that their presence would 'undermine U.S. policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States....'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'd like to remind Little Marco and his puppet-master that only one federal judge has ruled on the law under which he wants to deport Khalil. That judge found the law to be patently unconstitutional because it “confers upon a single individual, the secretary of state, the unfettered and unreviewable discretion to deport any alien lawfully within the United States.” That judge's name was Maryanne Trump Barry, and she was Donald Trump's sister.
Sara Schonhardt of Politico: “The State Department is eliminating the Office of Global Change, which oversees international climate change negotiations for the United States. Staff were told about the move verbally Thursday afternoon.... The news thrust the office into chaos.... 'This will hamstring international climate cooperation at the worst possible time,' said one official, referring to the upcoming global climate talks called COP30. It’s 'just strategically fucking dumb when it comes to China,' that person added, saying the move would leave a leadership vacuum that China could fill. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that the office is being eliminated to comply with ... Donald Trump’s directives to cease participation in international agreements.” Marie: I would say “fucking dumb” is an apt way to describe most if not all of Trump's orders -- unless maybe you're talking to a nun, in which case “extremely dumb” might be more listener-sensitive.
Dana Goldstein of the New York Times: “A federal judge in New Hampshire limited on Thursday the Trump administration’s ability to withhold federal funds from public schools that have certain diversity and equity initiatives. The judge, Landya B. McCafferty, said that the administration had not provided an adequately detailed definition of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and that its policy threatened to restrict free speech in the classroom while overstepping the executive branch’s legal authority over local schools. She also wrote that the loss of federal funding 'would cripple the operations of many educational institutions.' The decision followed a demand earlier this month by the Trump administration that all 50 state education agencies attest that their schools do not use D.E.I. practices that violate ... [Donald] Trump’s interpretation of civil rights law. Otherwise, they would risk losing billions in Title I money, which is targeted toward low-income students. About a dozen states, mostly Democratic leaning, refused to sign the document.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Reed Abelson of the New York Times: “The small government agency responsible for overseeing programs like Meals on Wheels is being dismantled as part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Roughly half its staff has been let go in recent layoffs and all of its 10 regional offices are closed, according to several employees who lost their jobs.... In ... [Donald] Trump’s quest to end what he termed 'illegal and immoral discrimination programs,' one of his executive orders promoted cracking down on federal efforts to improve accessibility and representation for those with disabilities, with agencies flagging words like 'accessible' and 'disability' as potentially problematic. Certain research studies are no longer being funded, and many government health employees specializing in disability issues have been fired.” (Also linked yesterday.)
No Country for Old Women. Meredith Wadman, et al., in Science: "... Donald Trump’s administration appears to be killing much, if not all, of a historic initiative that was the first, and is still the largest, National Institutes of Health (NIH) effort centered on the health needs of women. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) has enrolled tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials of hormones and other medications and tracked the health of many thousands more over more than 3 decades. Its findings have had a major influence on health care. WHI leaders announced yesterday that contracts supporting its regional centers are being terminated in September and that the study’s clinical coordinating center, based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, “will continue operations until January 2026, after which time its funding remains uncertain.” They added that the contract terminations for its four main sites “will significantly impact ongoing research and data collection … severely limit[ing] WHI’s ability to generate new insights into the health of older women, one of the fastest-growing segments of our population.” (There are about 55 million postmenopausal women in the United States.)” Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his commentary below. MB: Here's mine: This is infurating! (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Roni Rabin of the New York Times: “Following an outcry from scientists and health experts, federal health officials on Thursday said they would restore funding to the Women’s Health Initiative, one of the largest and longest studies of women’s health ever carried out. The findings of the W.H.I. and its randomized controlled trials have changed medical practices and helped shape clinical guidelines, preventing hundreds of thousands of cases of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. 'These studies represent critical contributions to our better understanding of women’s health,' said Emily G. Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. 'We are now working to fully restore funding to these essential research efforts,' she added.” (Also linked yesterday.) NPR's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sorry, but I don't believe Emily there. Little Marco promised, for instance, that he would restore PEPFAR funding that has saved millions of lives of people with HIV. Well, he didn't do a very good job, and some of those former recipients of PEPFAR-funded treatments are dying today.
⭐Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s personal phone number, the one used in a recent Signal chat, was easily accessible on the internet and public apps as recently as March, potentially exposing national security secrets to foreign adversaries. The phone number could be found in a variety of places, including WhatsApp, Facebook and a fantasy sports site. It was the same number through which the defense secretary, using the Signal commercial messaging app, disclosed flight data for American strikes on the Houthi militia in Yemen. Cybersecurity analysts said an American defense secretary’s communications device would usually be among the most protected national security assets. 'There’s zero percent chance that someone hasn’t tried to install Pegasus or some other spyware on his phone,' Mike Casey, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview. 'He is one of the top five, probably, most targeted people in the world for espionage.'” ~~~
~~~ Tara Copp of the AP: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press. The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance. Known as a 'dirty' internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites accessed do not have the same security filters or protocols that the Pentagon’s secured connections maintain.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Apparently President* Blabbermouth, He of the Public Bathroom Full of Classified Docs, will not fire a guy who essentially posts imminent battle plans online. That's fair, I guess.
Evan Hill of the Washington Post: “The Washington Post reviewed hundreds of cases involving contractors alleged to have used unauthorized technology or mishandled sensitive government information — the same types of security violations that experts have said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed last month when he disclosed the details of impending airstrikes in Yemen using ... Signal. The Post found that in at least five cases, the contractor lost their credentials.... 'These people had their security clearances either denied or revoked for conduct that was far less serious than ... what occurred with the Signal exchange,' said R. Scott Oswald ... of the Employment Law Group.... Such attack plans typically are considered so highly classified that accessing them requires a code word and a secure line of communication, former defense officials have said.... Security clearance guidelines are the same for contractors, civil servants and members of the military.” MB: And this doesn't even get to the issue of Drunk Pete's sending imminent air strike plans to his wife, brother & lawyer. (Also linked yesterday.)
Alex Galbraith of Salon: “According to the [Wall Street Journal, Pete] Hegseth threatened top officials with lie-detector tests to root out media sources on recent embarrassing stories. Shortly after word broke last month that the Pentagon might brief Elon Musk on secret war plans in China, Hegseth exploded at the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Christopher Grady. 'I’ll hook you up to a f**king polygraph!' Hegseth reportedly yelled at Grady, per two unnamed sources who spoke with the outlet. The Times of London reported that Hegseth has created "an atmosphere of intidimidation" via threats of lie-detector sessions.”
Paul McLeary & Jack Detsch of Politico: “The circle of top advisers in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orbit has shrunk in recent days to little more than his wife, lawyer, and two lower-level officials — leaving the Pentagon’s lead office without longtime expertise or clear direction. Hegseth’s decision to fire three senior aides last week and reassign his chief of staff has blown a hole in his leadership team, severing essential lines of communication across the department and leading to fears about dangerous slip-ups such as weapons program delays. The wholesale turnover ... has left the first-time government official without trusted staff who understand Washington — just as he faces fallout from a series of scandals that have led to rampant speculation inside the building about how long he’ll keep his job. 'It’s a free-for-all,' said one person familiar with the office dynamics....”
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff departed his post Thursday, he said, the latest twist in an extended period of turmoil at the Pentagon that has included infighting among Hegseth’s advisers, the firing of at least three political appointees and deepening scrutiny of the secretary’s stewardship of the government’s largest agency. Joe Kasper, the departing chief of staff, leaves the role voluntarily and will become a part-time special government employee with a focus on science, technology and industry, he told The Washington Post, though his exact role and title were not yet clear.... Kasper had been discussing the move with colleagues for weeks.... His exit follows weeks of friction between him and Hegseth’s other senior advisers, and questions about how the Pentagon is being managed under the former Fox News personality and the leadership he assembled upon taking office just three months ago.” Politico's story is here.
Borowitz Report: "In the latest embarrassment to rock the Trump administration, Pete Hegseth admitted on Friday that he accidentally texted Houthi rebels a detailed list of the makeup products he uses before appearing on television. The embattled defense secretary said that he had mistakenly sent the Houthis a cosmetics order intended for Sephora." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's fine for us to make fun of Drunk Pete, but the fact is that Donald Trump set him up to fail. Any intelligent person would know that Pete could not possibly run the Pentagon, which means both Trump & Pete are dumb as rocks ... OR Trump wanted Pete to fail and Pete is dumb as rocks.
Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Stefanos Chen & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: “The U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday said it took the extraordinary step of replacing the federal lawyers defending it in a lawsuit over New York City’s congestion pricing program, after accusing them of undermining the department’s bid to end the toll. The move came after the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District, which had been handling the case, said it mistakenly filed in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday night a confidential memo that questioned the department’s legal strategy and urged a new approach. In response, however, the department raised the possibility that the disclosure attempted to sabotage its efforts to halt congestion pricing. Transportation officials said they would transfer the case to the civil division of the Justice Department in Washington. The memo has since been removed from the public docket. In the letter, dated April 11, the three assistant U.S. attorneys on the case warned that Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, was using a shaky rationale to end the tolling plan and was 'exceedingly likely' to fail, the lawyers wrote.” The Gothamist's story is here.
Jeffrey Mervis of Science: “The director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced his resignation [Thursday], 16 months before his 6-year term ends, in a letter to staff obtained by Science.... Sethuraman Panchanathan, a computer scientist ... was nominated to lead NSF by then-President Donald Trump in December 2019 and was confirmed by the Senate in August 2020.... Although Panchanathan, known as Panch, didn’t give a reason for his sudden departure, orders from the White House to accept a 55% cut to the agency’s $9 billion budget next year and fire half its 1700-person staff may have been the final straws in a series of directives Panchanathan felt he could no longer obey.... On 14 April, staffers from ... DOGE set up shop ... at NSF and triggered a series of events that appear to have culminated in Panchanathan’s resignation. Two days later, NSF announced it was halting any new awards for grants that had been recommended for funding.... And NSF said pending proposals that appeared to violate any of Trump’s executive orders ... would be returned for 'mitigation.' On 18 April, NSF announced it was terminating what could be more than $1 billion in grants already awarded because they clashed with those directives and 'were no longer priorities' for the agency.... The same day, DOGE told Panchanathan to prepare a plan for massive layoffs across the agency.”
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Ukraine/Russia, et al. Ryan Grenoble of the Huffington Post: “When a reporter asked [Donald Trump] what concessions Russia has offered so far to move the needle closer to peace, Trump said, 'Stopping the war. Stopping — taking the whole country.' 'Pretty big concession,' he added.” Bear in mind that Trump has demanded that Ukraine cede to Russia all the territory Russia has captured in this invasion and in the 2014 invasion of Crimea. If Canada seizes control of Michigan, should the U.S. hand over Michigan to Canada? ~~~
~~~ Kim Barker of the New York Times: “Russia killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in a huge attack on the Ukrainian capital early Thursday, prompting ... [Donald] Trump to issue a rare public criticism of Moscow just hours after he lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.... On Thursday, Mr. Trump lashed out at President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the attack, showing how his administration’s positions can seem to flip-flop without warning. 'Vladimir, STOP!' Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, saying that he was 'not happy' with the Russian strikes. 'Not necessary, and very bad timing,' the post said.” The CBS News story is here.
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