Category Archives: US Politics

‘Very retaliatory’: the federal workers caught up in Trump’s DEI purge

Posted on by

Employees condemn ‘unprecedented and scary’ effort to push out those who had worked on diversity programs

Jeremy Wood thought he was safe from the shuttering of federal government diversity initiatives that he expected to start as soon as Donald Trump was sworn in.

A Raleigh, North Carolina-based career civil servant in the US agriculture department, Wood had been among those tasked with implementing policies ordered by Joe Biden to curtail discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation and gender identity in the federal government.

Continue reading...

US gas prices likely to go up with Trump tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil

Posted on by

Tariffs on imports mean higher costs for finishing fuels, much of which is likely to be passed on to consumers

US consumers will see higher prices at the gas pump from Donald Trump’s decision on Saturday to apply tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil, according to analysts and fuel traders.

The likely hike in fuel prices reflects the double-edged nature of Trump’s trade protections, which are designed to bolster domestic business and pressure US neighbors to curb illegal immigration and drug smuggling, but which will also run counter to his promises to tackle inflation.

Continue reading...

USAid website offline as Trump moves to put agency under state department

Posted on by

Move would threaten life-saving global humanitarian aid programs, from HIV/Aids treatments to clean water access

The website for the US Agency for International Development, or USAid, appeared to be offline on Saturday, as the Trump administration moves to put the free-standing agency, and its current $42.8bn budget for global humanitarian operations, under state department control.

A message stating that the “server IP address could not be found” appeared when attempts were made to access the website on Saturday.

Continue reading...

Ken Martin elected new chair of Democratic National Committee

Posted on by

Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor chair to lead party still reeling from extensive losses

Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor party, won the crowded race to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday.

The move provides Martin with a powerful perch to determine the messaging and trajectory of a party that is still reeling from its extensive losses in the November election and confronting four more years of Donald Trump’s leadership.

Continue reading...

Pentagon swaps desk for New York Times reporters for New York Post

Posted on by

Other swaps due to new ‘rotation’ include NPR for Breitbart, NBC for One America News and Politico for HuffPost

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network will replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

Continue reading...

Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis

Posted on by

Forest service website among many sites affected as agencies scramble to comply with president’s orders

On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to unpublish its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.

By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”

Continue reading...

The Maga backlash against Trump’s crypto grab: ‘This is bad, and looks bad’

Posted on by

Trump’s meme coin has some conservatives complaining over ‘most blatant ponzi scheme in history’

When Donald Trump announced – three days before assuming the presidency of the United States, and followed shortly by Melania Trump – that he was launching a self-named “meme coin” cryptocurrency, many in the crypto industry were quick to express frustration. Ethics experts were also alarmed.

Among Trump’s base, however, a similar backlash – smaller, more muted, but similarly anguished – has been taking hold.

Continue reading...

Pardoned January 6 attacker sentenced to 10 years for fatal drunk-driving crash

Posted on by

Emily Hernandez, 24, killed Victoria Wilson, 32, and injured her husband in a 2022 Missouri wreck

One of the US Capitol attackers pardoned by Donald Trump at the start of his second presidency has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for killing a woman in a drunk-driving crash, according to authorities.

Emily Hernandez served 30 days in federal prison after she joined the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and was photographed holding the broken nameplate of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker at the time.

Continue reading...

Tulsi Gabbard grilled on Snowden, Assad and Putin in tense Senate hearing

Posted on by

Skeptical senators ruthlessly questioned Trump’s national intelligence director nominee ahead of confirmation vote

Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, refused to call the whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” but sought to rein in her unorthodox views on foreign dictators and opposition to electronic surveillance during a tense confirmation hearing that could sink her nomination to oversee the country’s sprawling intelligence community.

In a three-hour hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, Gabbard, a former congresswoman and member of the Hawaii army national guard, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, said she had “no love” for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and denied meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a trip to Lebanon in 2017.

Continue reading...

‘America’s gulag’: Trump’s Guantánamo ploy tars migrants as terrorists

Posted on by

The president wants to detain thousands of people at a site that is notorious for its secrecy and history of abuse

It has been denounced as “America’s gulag”: a secretive, abuse-ridden Caribbean prison camp for terror suspects that Donald Rumsfeld once said contained “the worst of the worst”.

“All of us have scars in our souls, deformities, from living at Guantánamo,” a former Yemeni inmate recalled of his time at the notorious military detention facility in south-east Cuba.

Continue reading...

Trump’s US aid freeze will drive migration from Latin America, experts warn

Posted on by

Abrupt decision to pause all foreign aid could exacerbate violence in region already struggling with organized crime

The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to immediately pause all US foreign aid programmes could exacerbate violence in Latin America, driving more migration from a region already struggling with the rise of organised crime, experts have warned.

The world’s largest aid provider by far, the US disbursed $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to South American countries in the 2023 financial year, funding a broad range of projects, including humanitarian, military, environmental and economic aid.

Continue reading...

Canada and Mexico can avoid tariffs before Saturday’s deadline, says Trump’s commerce pick

Posted on by

Howard Lutnick testified at his US Senate confirmation hearing for his nomination to head commerce department

Donald Trump’s nominee to run the commerce department, Howard Lutnick, said on Wednesday that Canada and Mexico can avoid looming US tariffs if they act swiftly to close their borders to fentanyl, while vowing to slow China’s advancement in artificial intelligence.

Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street CEO, at his US Senate confirmation hearing said he has advised Trump to pursue across-the-board tariffs country by country to restore “reciprocity” to America’s trading relationships and said he would erect stronger curbs on China’s access to US technology, including advanced AI semiconductors.

Continue reading...

Fed holds interest rates steady amid uncertainty over Trump’s impact on economy

Posted on by

President has made clear he wants rates to fall as benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%

Federal Reserve officials decided on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s impact on the US economy looms and inflation remains above the central bank’s target levels.

This is the first time Fed policymakers have met since the president, who has made clear he wants rates to fall, returned to the White House. The benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.

Continue reading...

White House revokes spending freeze in face of legal challenges

Posted on by

Move come after federal judge blocked freeze that disrupted payments to medical and childcare providers

Donald Trump’s administration pulled back a proposed spending freeze that threatened to disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to US programs, a White House official said on Wednesday.

The first major domestic policy reversal of the Republican president’s new term came after one federal judge had temporarily blocked the freeze and before another judge was due to hear a separate legal challenge. The proposal had thrown the federal government into chaos and disrupted payments to medical and childcare providers.

Continue reading...

Federal workers decry Trump attempt to force mass resignations as ‘cruel joke’

Posted on by

Advocates say email sent to 3 million employees offering resignations is dangerous and ‘of questionable legality’

Federal workers and their advocates on Wednesday condemned the Trump administration’s attempt to encourage them to resign en masse, describing an unprecedented email from the government’s human resources department office as a ham-handed attempt to create hostility in their workplaces and offer a false promise of an easy transition out of government service.

On Tuesday, the US office of personnel management (OPM) sent nearly all of its 3 million employees an email offering them deferred resignations and warning that, if they choose to stay, they may be laid off or reassigned.

Continue reading...

Trump offers US federal workers buyouts to resign

Posted on by

Government employees’ union says offer pressures career workers to quit and will cause chaos in federal programs

The Trump administration has offered federal workers buyouts worth more than seven months’ salary if they would leave their jobs by 6 February as the White House attempts to slash the civil service in an unprecedented overhaul of US government.

The office of personnel management, the government’s human resources agency, sent a memo to the federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating, including a full-time return to the office for most employees. It also said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and warned that most agencies would be downsized.

Continue reading...

Special counsel prosecutors were fired on instructions of White House

Posted on by

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says late-night dismissals came after White House’s personnel office issued memo

The justice department fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors involved in the two criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump after receiving instructions to do so from the White House, indicating the late-night purge was a political directive that deputized the justice department.

The termination of the career prosecutors were ostensibly at the direction of the acting attorney general, James McHenry, according to the notices sent to anyone remaining on the trial team of 18 who had worked for former special counsel Jack Smith.

Continue reading...

Alarm as Trump administration pauses all federal spending on grants and loans

Posted on by

Memo says social security and Medicare are excluded but congressional Democrats express ‘extreme alarm’

Donald Trump’s second presidential administration has paused all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, potentially upending programs relied upon by millions of Americans.

In a two-page internal memo, Matthew Vaeth, Trump’s acting head of the office of management and budget (OMB), instructed all federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Continue reading...

Woman at heart of birthright citizenship lawsuit reacts to Trump’s order: ‘This is a right’

Posted on by

A pregnant mother from Venezuela responds to Trump’s executive order that would render her baby stateless

On his first day in office, Donald Trump signed an order ending constitutionally recognized right of birthright citizenship. Thousands of expecting parents across the US suddenly had to consider that their babies would be born into a legal limbo.

Among them is Monica, a woman expecting her first child after escaping political persecution in Venezuela. If Trump’s order stands, Monica’s baby will be born stateless.

Continue reading...

Trump orders review of Fema after saying disaster agency ‘is not good’

Posted on by

Council including defense and homeland security secretaries will report within 180 days on future of agency

Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into whether there should be a radical shake-up of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the US government’s body for responding to natural disasters, after saying he supported its abolition.

In a new executive order, the returning president appointed a review council to examine the workings of the agency, which he accused of political bias and of denying aid to his supporters.

Continue reading...