In “Trump’s grant gambit threatens to wreck the goldilocks economy he inherited,” Allison Morrow writes at CNN Politics: “A two-page memo, totaling less than a thousand words and packed with right-wing rhetoric, threw the fate of the US economy into uncertain territory late Monday as the Trump administration ordered the suspension of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans….The document from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget states explicitly that federal funds should align with Trump administration priorities and focus on “ending ‘wokeness.’”….It’s difficult to overstate the chaos that the directive, with its ambiguous wording, unleashed within organizations across broad swaths of the economy that rely on federal funds — including programs that provide essential medical services, emergency aid for farmers, cancer center support and even a program covering the cost of caskets for deceased veterans with no next of kin, my CNN colleagues Jennifer Hansler, Andy Rose and Tami Luhby reported….By Tuesday evening, a federal judge had temporarily blocked part of the freeze on federal aid….And while there were still countless questions left unanswered — a White House spokesperson initially couldn’t say whether Medicaid funding would be paused, for instance — what was clear is that any disruption to the flow of federal funds would have undeniable ripple effects throughout the US economy….The gambit is part of Trump’s stated desire to wrest control over spending from Congress, and is, according to legal experts, almost certainly illegal.” As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse put it, “Trump’s power grab was plucked directly from the Project 2025 playbook….It’s hard to tell if this is incompetence or mischief, but this funding freeze is illegal and unconstitutional, and every single American has a stake in getting it undone.”
Kaine issued his warning on the Senate floor on Tuesday, following reports of the buyout proposal. “The President has no authority to make that offer,” said Kaine. “There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work … If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.”….Trump has been accused of not paying workers what he promised, dating back to his days when private contractors said he ripped them off, and even attorneys he hired who said he stiffed them for legal services. ….The buyout offer, which reportedly extends to every worker in the entire federal civil service, does not appear to actually entitle government employees to a compensation package without work; rather, it lets them take a “deferred resignation,” where they can remain in their job for up to 8 months and be exempt from Trump’s new executive order mandating federal employees return to full-time in-office work.” As Ed Mazza notes, further, at Huffpo, via Yahoo News: “Don’t be fooled,” Kaine said. “He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors.”
The big buzz continues about former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s warning about her cousin, RFK, Jr.’s nomination to head HHS as hearings begin. Aria Bendix writes at nbcnews.com: “In a letter Tuesday urging the Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health and human services secretary, Caroline Kennedy referred to her cousin as a “predator.”….Caroline Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador to Australia and the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, said RFK Jr. was unqualified to lead HHS, which oversees 13 federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services….Among her many criticisms in the letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Kennedy said that “siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death.”….“Bobby is addicted to attention and power,” Caroline Kennedy said, using her cousin’s nickname. “Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”….“Bobby is willing to profit and enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer,” Caroline Kennedy wrote….“Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign, and then groveled to Donald Trump for a job,” she said….“Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father,” she added. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations.”
It’s pretty clear now that Trump’s grand strategy for invoking his imagined imperial authority is to “flood the zone” with so many outrages that Democrats won’t have time to unite behind an effective strategy for defending democracy. As Sahil Kapur explains at nbcnews.com: “Less than 48 hours after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a closed-door meeting with Democratic lawmakers to issue a warning and a clarion call….The new administration was going to “flood the zone,” and Democrats couldn’t afford to chase every single outrage — or nothing was going to sink in for the American people, Jeffries told them….Jeffries, D-N.Y., urged members to focus their message on the cost of living, along with border security and community safety….Burned by their failures to end the Trump era the first time, Democrats are crafting a new playbook for his second administration that departs from the noisy resistance of his first presidency. The new approach, according to more than a dozen party leaders, lawmakers and strategists, will be to zero in on pocketbook issues as they lay the groundwork for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. And they plan to focus less on his cultural taunts and issues that don’t reach the kitchen table….The strategy will test Democrats’ ability to break through in a cluttered and rapidly evolving information environment….Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was in many ways the face of the first resistance to Trump, agreed with the approach. “I think we have to pick our fights and not chase after every crazy squirrel,” Schiff said in an interview….the stuff that really matters — the trade wars that are going to raise costs on people, the mass deportations that are going to raise food prices and cause suffering among huge numbers of families, the pardoning of criminals who beat police and now the focus on tax cuts for really rich people that will do nothing for working families. These are the big fights that we need to focus on.”….Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, a member of the Democratic leadership team, begrudgingly admitted Trump is talented at distracting his critics by making them chase shiny objects. This time, he said, the resistance needs to focus on the GOP economic agenda….“We are going to talk every day and every week about what a rip-off this whole enterprise is,” Schatz said in an interview….“One of the things that congressional Democrats have done poorly, frankly, is that we talk about one thing one week and then something else the following week,” he said. “And I think that’s especially the dynamic with Trump in charge, because he’s extraordinarily skillful at commanding attention. And so one of the things that we’re going to make a conscious effort to do is: Whatever else is going on, our message is going to be: They are ripping you off.”
