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    While our eyes are on the welfare state’s destruction, Trump is building a police state | Judith Levine

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    Last week, the federal human resources department sent out a seven-page memo ordering agencies to submit detailed plans on how they will work with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to slash their payrolls. To do this, they were to eliminate whole job categories – except one. Untouchable were positions “necessary to meet law enforcement, border security, national security, immigration enforcement, or public safety responsibilities”.While we’ve had our eyes on the wrecking ball–Doge pulverizing social services, environmental protection and scientific research, we’ve hardly taken notice of what is being constructed. In the footprint of the already shabby, now half-demolished US welfare state, the Trump administration is building a police state.In spite of Doge’s cuts to the FBI, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, is gearing up to turn the agency – whose job has always been to spy on US citizens, including enemies of the state as identified by the government in power – into Donald Trump’s personal secret police. At the state level, lawmakers are compiling their own enemies lists and filing bills to reward those who snitch on abortion seekers, transgender people, undocumented immigrants and school librarians suspected of harboring the wrong books.The Republican House budget includes $300bn in new funding for defense and border control. Among the Senate budget committee’s announced priorities are finishing the border wall, increasing the number of immigrant detention “beds”, hiring more border patrol agents, and investing in state and local law enforcement to assist in “immigration enforcement and removal efforts”. While no figures are provided in the attached budget, the Senate budget committee assures Americans that any new spending will be offset by reductions.Some of those reductions involve firing immigration judges and cutting federal supports to local police. Clearly, the right hand doesn’t know what the other right hand is doing. Still, cuts are not always cuts. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed senior staff to shave 8% off the department’s $850bn annual expenditures. Programs addressing the climate crisis and “excessive bureaucracy” are high on the list, of course. But, as the Intercept points out, savings will be repurposed for the president’s pet projects. For instance: the Iron Dome, an enormously complex, costly – and, critics say, unfeasible, unnecessary and even futile – space-based missile-defense and “warfighting” system that has been a fantasy of tech-drunk Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan. In keeping with Trumpian décor and his “golden age of America”, the Iron Dome has recently been rechristened the Golden Dome.The Golden Dome might also be a symbol of what a state devoted to protecting itself from enemies real and imagined offers corporate America. Because as the civil service shrinks, private industry – particularly the overlapping defense and tech sectors – will fill in the blanks. Project 2025, which is essentially being cut and pasted into Trump’s executive orders, calls on the administration to “strengthen the defense industrial base”, stockpile ammunition and “modernize” the nukes, while streamlining procurement from private contractors and involving them in decisions about what to produce. With Tesla and SpaceX contracts worth $38bn and of course, control of Doge, Elon Musk is already at the table. SpaceX practically owns Nasa’s rocket launch and space travel programs, freaking out engineers familiar with its bargain-basement manufacturing practices – and failures. Next up: artificial intelligence to replace human expertise.Trump’s war on immigrants also promises a windfall. During his first term, and Joe Biden’s as well, the creation and operation of a “smart” border wall – comprising mobile towers, autonomous drones, thermal imaging, biometric data collection and artificial intelligence – funneled billions of taxpayer dollars to Silicon Valley and Wall Street. A 2022 report by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on border militarization and corporate outsourcing called border security a “for-profit industry”, which perpetuates itself by lobbying for ever more draconian crackdowns on migrants.Those profits are about to explode. “The border security market is projected to reach $34.4 billion by 2029, from $26.8 billion in 2024,” with Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics the biggest beneficiaries, according to the market research firm MarketsandMarkets.Private prison companies – the two largest contractors are GEO Group and CoreCivic – anticipate unprecedented revenues too. Implementation of the Laken Riley Act, which mandates locking up undocumented people charged not just with violent crimes but with offenses as trivial as shoplifting, will require a huge buildout of detention facilities; Project 2025 recommends 100,000 available beds daily. Flying deportees to their home countries could generate $40m to $50m of business, according to GEO’s executive chairperson. “We believe the scale of the opportunity before our company is unlike any we’ve previously experienced,” crowed the chief executive officer, J David Donahue, on the company’s quarterly earnings call.The removal of millions of migrants will necessitate more than software, planes and prisons. It will need personnel. And wouldn’t you know it, an enterprising group of military contractors including the CEO of Blackwater has submitted a proposal to the Trump administration to deputize a mercenary border patrol of 10,000 private citizens. The plan also recommends payments to bounty hunters. Estimated cost: $25bn.These surveillance technologies and tactics are not targeted solely at foreign and extraterrestrial invaders, however. Government drones kept watch over the Black Lives Matter protests of 2017; at a protest against Israel’s war on Gaza at New York University, a student called my attention to a police drone circling above. In 2021 SpaceX signed a $1.8bn contract with the Pentagon’s National Reconnaissance Office for a network of low-orbiting spy satellites called Starshield. “A US government database of objects in orbit shows several SpaceX missions having deployed satellites that neither the company nor the government have ever acknowledged” but were identified by experts as Starshield prototypes, Reuters reported. It is unclear whether the network will be used for military or domestic spying, but its reach is vast. Said one Reuters source: “No one can hide.”The transformation of the US government is not just a matter of replacing an accountable civil service with self-interested private contractors. “It seems like they are using [Doge] to reshape the purpose of the government rather than execute it more efficiently,” Max Stier, president of the non-partisan Partnership for Public Service, told the Washington Post.That purpose, Trump tells us, is public safety from threats without and within. But a capitalist police state redefines public safety. Safety does not include housing or food security, disease prevention or disaster relief. The state protects companies, not workers, consumers or the environment. The “public” in “public safety” also attains new meaning: it embraces only native-born practitioners of the state religion, political loyalists and favored profiteers.As this inner circle shrinks, the outside expands. There are citizens and what the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls “margizens”, those who live in a country but do not benefit from its rights or protections. Not only are the margizens denied safety; they are deemed dangerous. To keep the nation “proud and prosperous and free”, as Trump described his America, the state will need to humiliate, impoverish, pursue, imprison and punish almost everyone.

    Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist and the author of five books. Her Substack is Poli Psy More

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      Civil servants are leading the American resistance – with GameStop as a guide | Virginia Heffernan

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      The most ferocious response to Elon Musk’s coup in the US is also the most disciplined. It’s a sustained act of civil disobedience by the civil service. Amid the malignant lies of the current regime, federal workers are steadily telling the truth.This strategy is more methodical than it at first seems. Yes, the distress and anger among federal workers is palpable. But the more anarchy Donald Trump’s executive orders and Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) operation loose upon the world, the firmer the federal employees are standing. Their protest might even be seen as a political short squeeze.Starting on 28 January, federal employees refused to leave their posts in spite of Musk’s campaign to bully them out. On the subreddit for federal employees, they exhorted each other not to quit. Their rallying cry soon became: “Hold the line, don’t resign.” Although 2 million workers were pressured to quit, only 75,000 of them took what looked like a sketchy “buyout” deal.Then, this past week, when on the job mass firings started, staying at work became impossible. Thousands of employees, many of them with excellent performance reviews, were terminated on the hollow pretext that their “performance has not been adequate to justify further employment”.But as these employees cleared out their desks, a vocal group refused to vacate their faith in the civil service’s excellence. They have, in short, opposed the lie that they and their colleagues are being fired for cause. In this way, they’ve converged on the policy that Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Soviet dissident, called “personal non-participation in lies”.On Reddit, one poster encouraged federal employees to think with a view to the public record. They should write letters, the poster urged, on behalf of the “trashed colleagues”. It was imperative to put on paper that these colleagues “did indeed have good performance despite the firing”.The poster offered a list of reasons to write these letters, among them that references help workers get new jobs. But the biggest reason to praise colleagues who have been fired under false pretenses is that, as the poster wrote, “it’s the truth.”This campaign to tell the truth is not the work of to-the-barricades types. Those being harassed, demonized and fired are middle-class workers in agencies established by elected officials in Congress. Their remit includes conducting cancer research, preventing fires and supporting veterans. By refusing to let Doge distort their service as wasteful or inadequate, they have taken a stand that the rest of us should emulate.Solzhenitsyn believed ideology itself was built of lies – the delusion that human society can be remade, from the top down, by social engineers serving an autocrat. This is exactly the kind of program spelled out in Project 2025 and being enacted by Trump’s increasingly totalitarian executive orders.“Our path is not to give conscious support to lies about anything whatsoever,” Solzhenitsyn wrote in a 1974 essay called Live Not by Lies. “Though lies embrace everything, we will be obstinate in this smallest of matters: Let them embrace everything, but not with any help from me.”In more 2025 terms, the civil service appears to be initiating a kind of short squeeze on the broligarchy. This is a maneuver akin to the so-called Gamestop affair of 2021, in which tiny-dollar investors banded together to put the screws to major hedge funds.During the pandemic, funds like Melvin and White Square were selling GameStop short – betting on it to fail. Keith Gill, a young financial educator, believed they were wrong, and he put his money on the company. Others wanted in. Not only was the video game store a fan favorite, but, in bleak Covid days, there was something inspiring about being believers in solidarity as opposed to friendless fatalists.Sound familiar? To stand with the US’s civil service today – to continue to believe in a government of, by, and for the people – is a risk. Not only will your wise-guy friends sneer at you, but you could miss out. If the big payouts are in nihilistic plays like crypto or Maga or Project 2025, you’ll feel like a jerk for putting your chips on dippy stuff like making roads and helping the poor.View image in fullscreenBut keeping faith is not as stodgy a project as you might think. With the GameStop short squeeze, everyman investors developed a boisterous lexicon of populist solidarity and above all tenacity. They enjoined one another to hodl the GameStop stonk with diamond hands.Their dominant slogan was just like that of the federal workers: “Hold the line.” And it worked. When they held, they kept the price of GameStop high and the hedge funds couldn’t afford to cover their short bets. Melvin Capital broke down, as did White Square.But back to the federal employees. The second they received the 28 January “Fork in the Road” email trying to drive them out, thousands did what the GameStop apes had done four years earlier: went to Reddit. It was electric. A campaign to save America from Trump-Musk crystallized. “When Tyranny becomes Law, Rebellion becomes Duty,” posted one anonymous federal worker.“Who knew that the fight against tyranny was me looking at some spreadsheets and trying to make Americans healthier?” another said. It was on. “They just created the imaginary deep state they convinced everyone they were fighting against.”And then it came: “Diamond. Fucking. Hands.”The GameStop words. “You made me double check which sub I was in,” someone said, with laughing-crying emoji. Here was the ethic of holding fast to something you believe in, even while tyrants conspire to destroy it.The feds held on. And even now, even among the jobless, they are refusing to lose faith in the American project. “Take up space, put a face to the stories,” said a recent poster to the fednews subreddit. “Make it uncomfortable for them. Let them know the human toll it takes.”Right now, it’s hard to imagine Musk or Trump will ever go bust. But emperors rise and fall. Those two have now bet against America. If the rest of us stay steadfast, they very well might, like those hedge funds, hit a bruising kind of margin call.Musk could have to answer for Tesla’s recent precipitous losses. There have been international boycotts of Tesla and creative, energized and widespread campaigns against it. Steve Bannon, one of the marquee Maga influencers, recently savaged Musk as anti-Maga, calling him “a parasitic illegal immigrant” who “wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values or traditions”.Trump, for his part, may have to face his 34 felonies one day, and pay the more than $500m he owes. Axios recently reported on a mounting revolt against Doge among Republicans in Congress. Then there are the people.In icy temperatures on Monday, thousands took to the streets, shouting: “No Kings on Presidents Day.” The goal of the organizers was to protest against “anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies”. And the legal actions against the Trump administration are piling up – more than 75 opposing his executive orders, with more being filed every day.Even people without conscience can be brought up short by realities like the erosion of their fortunes, their standing and their bases of support. The GameStop apes used to say: “I like the stock” when people asked them why they wouldn’t sell. If you like the civil service, hold the line. Keep the faith. The Trump-Musk administration wants the American people to shut up, pack up our desks and resign our roles as citizens. Don’t take the deal. More

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      All the executive orders Trump has signed so far

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      Donald Trump has signed dozens of executive orders in his first weeks back in office, including ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and “gender radicalism” in the military, and pardoning January 6 rioters.The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a “complete restoration of America”.Here’s what to know about the executive orders Trump has signed since retaking the White House.ICC sanctionsThe order: Trump signed an order authorizing economic sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC), accusing the body of “improperly targeting” the United States and its allies, such as Israel.What Trump said: Trump has been a vocal critic of the ICC and said the court had “abused its power” in issuing warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. “This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel,” Trump said.What it means: The order grants Trump broad powers to impose asset freezes and travel bans against ICC staff and their family members if the US determines that they are involved in efforts to investigate or prosecute citizens of the US and certain allies.Read moreEnding ‘anti-Christian bias’The order: Trump signed an executive order attempting to eliminate “anti-Christian bias” in the US government. The president announced the formation of a taskforce, led by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to end all forms of “anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” in the government.What Trump said: Trump said Bondi would work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide”.What it means: The order is meant to reverse alleged targeting of “peaceful Christians” under Biden. Critics say it changes the traditional understanding of religious liberty, with Americans United for Separation of Church and State saying in a statement that Trump’s taskforce would “misuse religious freedom to justify bigotry, discrimination and the subversion of our civil rights laws”.Read moreBanning trans athletes from women’s sportsThe order: Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sport. It directs federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, to interpret federal Title IX rules as the prohibition of trans girls and women from participating in any female sports categories.What Trump said: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”What it means: The order is the latest in a slew of Trump actions aimed at rolling back the rights of trans people. Trump also signed orders defining sex as “only male or female” and banning gender transitions for people under the age of 19.Read moreEnding Unrwa fundingThe order: Trump signed an executive order stopping funding for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and withdrawing US from the UN human rights council.What Trump said: The president criticized the entire United Nations as “not being well run” and “not doing the job”.What it means: In his first term, Trump cut Unrwa funding and withdrew from the UN’s human rights council. The Biden administration restored Unrwa funding and rejoined the council.Read moreImplementing tariffs on imports from Mexico, China, and CanadaThe orders: Trump signed three executive orders on 1 February placing tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada, to begin on 4 February.What the orders say: the Mexico order says that drug traffickers and the country’s government “have an intolerable alliance” that endangers US security. The China order says the country’s government allows criminal organizations to “launder the revenues from the production, shipment, and sale of illicit synthetic opioids”. The Canada order says that Mexican cartels are operating in that country, claiming the amount of fentanyl imported could kill “9.5 million Americans”.What it means: All three countries announced retaliatory actions. On 3 February, Trump agreed to postpone tariffs against Mexico and Canada for one month after they committed to increasing border enforcement. China has announced retaliatory tariffs on some American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google on 4 February after Trump’s tariffs took effect.Read moreCreation of a sovereign wealth fundThe order: Trump ordered the US treasury and commerce department to create a sovereign wealth fund. Such a fund, which requires congressional approval, would act as an investment fund for the country, operating outside the Federal Reserve and the treasury department.Trump offered few details about the fund, including where the cash would come from. His treasury secretary and the nominee for commerce secretary would spearhead efforts to create the fund. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the government would “stand this thing up within the next 12 months”.What Trump said: “We have tremendous potential,” Trump said. “I think in a short period of time, we’d have one of the biggest funds.”Trump also said that the fund could be used to facilitate the purchase of TikTok.What it means: More than 100 countries and 20 US states have sovereign wealth funds. Senior officials in the Biden administration had been quietly working on a sovereign wealth fund before the US election in November, according to multiple reports.Read moreMigrant detention center at Guantánamo BayThe order: Trump signed an executive order to prepare a huge detention facility at Guantánamo Bay that he said could be used to hold up to 30,000 immigrants deported from the US.What Trump said: Guantánamo could “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people”, Trump said during the signing of the Laken Riley Act, another of his administration’s hardline immigration policies.What it means: The order is part of a broader effort to fulfill Trump’s promise to remove millions of people from the country.Read moreGender-affirming careThe order: Trump signed an order that attempts to end gender transitions for people under 19.What Trump said: “It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” reads the order.What it means: The order directs that federally run insurance programs, including Tricare for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care. The order calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.Read moreReshaping the militaryThe order: Trump signed three executive orders on 27 January that would reshape the military: removing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, eliminating “gender radicalism” from the military, and reinstating soldiers who were expelled for refusing Covid-19 vaccines.What Trump said: “To ensure we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military. It’s going to be gone,” Trump said in Florida, according to CBS.What it means: Trump’s order does not yet ban transgender soldiers from the military, but directs the Pentagon to create a policy for trans members of the military.Read moreStart a process to ‘develop an ‘American Iron Dome”’The order: Trump signed an executive order on 27 January that would begin the process of creating a “next-generation” missile defense shield, which the administration is referring to as the American Iron Dome.What Trump said: “The United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the Nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield,” the order said.What it means: Creating a short-range missile defense system akin to Israel’s Iron Dome would take years to build. The order calls for a plan from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, within 60 days.Read moreReview of disaster agency FemaThe order: Trump ordered a review of Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the disaster response agency, and suggested there is “political bias” in the agency. Trump previously criticized the agency’s response to Hurricane Helene.What Trump said: “Despite obligating nearly $30 billion in disaster aid each of the past three years, Fema has managed to leave vulnerable Americans without the resources or support they need when they need it most,” the order stated.What it means: A review council – which includes the secretaries of defense and homeland security, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem – will report to Trump within 180 days.Read moreDeclassifying MLK and JFK filesThe order: Trump ordered the release of thousands of classified documents on the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.What Trump said: “The federal government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events. Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” the order said.What it means: Trump made this promise during the election campaign and made a similar pledge in his first term, but ultimately heeded appeals from the CIA and FBI to withhold some documents.Read moreRemoving ‘barriers’ to AI innovation and investing in digital financial assetsThe order: During his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of all Biden policies on AI, to remove policies that “act as barriers to American AI innovation”. A second order called for a working group to start work on crypto regulations.What Trump said: “We must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas” to maintain the US’s dominant position in AI technology, the order states.What it means: Former PayPal executive David Sacks has been tasked with leading a group to develop an AI action plan. Meanwhile another working group will start work on crypto regulations.Ending birthright citizenshipThe order: On his first day in office, Trump targeted automatic citizenship for US-born children of both undocumented people and some legal immigrants.What Trump said: The order specifies that it would limit birthright citizenship if a person’s “mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth”, or “when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary”.What it means: Birthright citizenship, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on US soil, is protected by the 14th amendment and any attempt to revoke it will bring immediate legal challenges. The order was temporarily blocked on 23 January, with the judge calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.Read moreskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPut a freeze on refugee admissionsThe order: Trump signed an order suspending the country’s refugee resettlement program starting on 27 January. Refugees maybe only be admitted on a case-by-case basis so long as their entry is in the “national interest”.What Trump said: The order cited “record levels of migration” to the US and said the country did not have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees”.What it means: Advocates say the move put lives in danger and has left families devastated. Thousands of refugees now stranded around the globe.Read moreLeaving the World Health OrganizationThe order: Trump signed an order to have the US exit the World Health Organization (WHO).What Trump said: “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen any more,” Trump said at the signing. He accused the WHO of mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises.What it means: The US will leave the WHO in 12 months’ time and stop all financial contributions to its work. The US is the biggest financial backer to the United Nations health agency.Read moreRenaming the Gulf of MexicoThe order: Trump ordered two name changes: the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Mount Denali.What Trump said: “President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American Civilization,” the executive order said in part.What it means: Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America” and will rechristen Alaska’s Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.It will have no bearing on what names are used internationally.Read moreRevoking electric vehicle targetsThe order: Trump revoked a non-binding executive order signed by Joe Biden aimed at making half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 electric.What Trump said: “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said.What it means: Part of an effort to repeal Biden’s environmental protections, Trump has also promised to roll back auto pollution standards finalized by Biden’s administration last spring.Read moreReclassifying federal employees, making them easier to fireThe order: Trump’s executive order reclassified thousands of federal employees as political hires, making it much easier for them to be fired.What Trump said: Aides to the president have long heralded mass government firings as part of an attack on the so-called “administrative” or “deep” state.What it means: Trump in effect reinstates “Schedule F”, an executive order he signed in the last year of his first term, seeking to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers. (Biden rescinded the order.)Key aides to Trump have called for mass government firings. Project 2025 made attacks on the deep or administrative state a core part of Trump’s second term. The rightwing playbook called for civil servants deemed politically unreliable to be fired and replaced by conservatives.Read moreDeclaring a national energy emergency and ‘unleash’ oil production in AlaskaThe order: Trump declared a national energy emergency as part of a barrage of pro-fossil fuel actions and efforts to “unleash” already booming US energy production that included also rolling back restrictions in drilling in Alaska and undoing a pause on gas exports.What Trump said: The order means “you can do whatever you have to do to get out of that problem and we do have that kind of emergency,” Trump said. The order also says it is US policy for the country to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources”.What it means: The declaration would allow his administration to fast-track permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure. It is likely that the order, part of a broader effort to roll back climate policy, will face legal challenges.Read moreCreating a policy recognizing only two gendersThe order: Trump signed an order to remove “gender ideology guidance” from federal government communication, policies and forms. The order makes it official policy that there are “only two genders, male and female”.What Trump said: “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination,” the order states.What it means: The order reverses a Biden-era executive action on the acceptance of gender identity.Read morePausing the TikTok banThe order: Trump signed an executive order temporarily delaying the enforcement of a federal ban on TikTok for at least 75 days.What Trump said: “I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have originally,” Trump said at the White House, as he signed executive orders, according to the New York Times.What it means: Trump ordered his attorney general to not enforce the law requiring TikTok’s sale. Trump says the pause allows for time to chart an “appropriate course forward” to protect national security and not abruptly shut down the popular app. In his first term, Trump favored a TikTok ban, but has since changed his position due to factors including his own popularity on the app.Read moreRescinding 78 Biden-era executive actionsThe order: Trump ordered 78 Biden-era executive actions to be rescinded, including at least a dozen measures supporting racial equity and combating discrimination against gay and transgender people.What Trump said: “I’ll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump told a crowd in Washington after his inaugural speech. He also said he would end policy “trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life” and push for a “color blind and merit-based” society.What it means: The orders signal a reversal of Biden-era policy that prioritized implementing diversity measures across the federal government. Trump repealed orders signed by Biden advancing racial equity for underserved communities and the aforementioned order combating discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.Declaring a national border emergencyThe order: Trump signed an order at the White House declaring an emergency at the southern US border, along with several other immigration-related policies.What Trump said: “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.What it means: The executive action paves the way to send US troops to the southern border and makes good on campaign promises to implement hardline immigration policies. There are limited details about how the administration plans to execute its sprawling set of immigration actions that were all but certain to face legal and logistical challenges.Immigrant communities across the country are bracing for Trump’s promise to carry out the “largest deportation program in American history”, beginning as early as Tuesday morning.Read moreIssuing pardons for January 6 defendantsThe order: Trump issued pardons for offenders and commutations related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. He will direct the Department of Justice to dismiss cases currently in progress.What Trump said: “I’m going to be signing on the J6 hostages, pardons, to get them out,” Trump said during his rally speech. “We’ll be signing pardons for a lot of people, a lot of people.” Trump said he has pardoned about 1,500 defendants charged in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and issued six commutations.What it means: Trump made his pledge to issue pardons for those with convictions related to the January 6 Capitol attack a core part of his re-election campaign. On the campaign trail, Trump often featured the national anthem sung by prisoners in a Washington DC jail. There are more than 1,500 people federally charged with associated charges.With Trump back in the White House, justice department investigations into January 6 crimes are expected to cease.Read moreWithdrawing from the Paris climate agreementThe order: Trump issued an executive action withdrawing the US from the 2015 Paris agreement, along with a letter informing the United Nations of the decision.What Trump said: “I am immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Accord rip-off” Trump said during a rally at the Capital One Arena. In his inaugural speech, Trump said he would use executive action to “end the Green New Deal”.What it means: In 2017, Trump exited the Paris agreement. Upon taking office in 2021, Biden rejoined. Monday’s order makes good on a Trump election promise to withdraw from the 2015 global treaty seeking to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.Exiting the Paris agreement is part of Trump’s broader efforts to roll back climate protections and policy. Trump has described Biden’s efforts to grow the US’s clean energy sector as “the green new scam”.Read more This explainer was first published on 29 January 2025 and is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects latest news developments. The date of the most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy. This article was amended on 30 January 2025. A previous version said the birthright citizenship executive order affected children of immigrants in the country illegally. It applies to children both of undocumented people and some legal immigrants. The subheading of this article was amended on 6 February 2025. An earlier version incorrectly said Donald Trump had abolished the Department of Education. More

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      Republicans take aim at subsidies that help tens of millions of women

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      As they prepare to take control of the White House and Congress next month, conservatives are eyeing cutbacks to federal programs that help tens of millions of women pay for healthcare, food, housing and transportation.Slashing or overhauling social support programs, long a goal of Republican lawmakers, could be catastrophic for women experiencing poverty. Supporters contend the social safety-net programs are already grossly underfunded.“With this new administration that is coming in … I really am concerned about the lives of women. We are seeing so many policies, so many budget cuts,” said Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women.Republicans say they want to keep campaign promises to cut government spending, and three major programs make easy targets: Medicaid, the joint state/federal health insurance program for people with lower incomes; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a cash-allowance program that replaced welfare; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), widely known as food stamps.While conservatives frame cuts as making government more efficient and even restoring freedom, advocates for and experts on families with little or no income say reducing these programs will throw more people – especially women and children – further into poverty.“It is going to fall heavily on women,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a non-profit research organization.Predicting precisely what Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration will do is difficult. Congressional leaders are close-mouthed about negotiations, and the president-elect has not finished putting together his advisory team. None of the spokespeople contacted for this story returned calls or e-mails.But organizations known to advise top leaders in Congress and the previous Trump administration have laid out fairly detailed roadmaps.Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the incoming administration, denies its proposed changes will harm women, saying instead that marriage and “family values” will improve their economic situations. “Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways,” reads the section on proposed changes to TANF and Snap.Numerous other groups that have studied the problem say forcing or even encouraging marriage will not make poverty disappear. And a recent study by a team at the University of South Carolina found that when state laws make it harder for pregnant women to get divorced, they’re more likely to be killed by their partners.Trump has promised not to attack the two most expensive and popular government programs: social security and Medicare. But he and Congress are up against a deadline to extend his 2017 tax reforms, which raised the federal deficit. They’ll have to cut something, and social spending programs, especially the $805bn Medicaid program, are low-hanging fruit for conservatives.Trump repeatedly tried to slash Snap during his last tenure in office: his 2021 budget proposal would have cut the program by more than $180bn – nearly 30% – over 10 years. Conservatives in Congress have continued these efforts and, with majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to get them through next year.The Republican Study Committee, whose members include about three-quarters of the House Republican caucus, recommends more work requirements for Snap and TANF.“SNAP and our welfare system should embrace that work conveys dignity and self-sustainment and encourage individuals to find gainful employment, not reward them for staying at home,” their plan, released in March, reads.A large body of research questions whether widening work requirements does anything other than force people off benefits without helping them find employment. “I think there is a misperception that people in need of help are not working,” said Mei Powers, chief development and communications officer at Martha’s Table, a non-profit aid organization in Washington DC. “People are a paycheck, a crisis, a broken-down car away from needing services.”Snap currently helps 41 million people buy groceries and other necessities every month. Women accounted for more than 55% of people under 65 receiving Snap benefits in 2022, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a gender justice advocacy group. About one-third of them were women of color, the NWLC said.Among other things, cutting these programs will trap women in dangerous situations, the NWLC said: “SNAP helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault establish basic economic security.”TANF, which provides cash assistance, overwhelmingly benefits women. In 2022, 370,000 TANF adult recipients were female and 69,000 were male, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.Perhaps Medicaid is the most tempting target for conservatives because they can use it to undermine the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The GOP has been gunning for the ACA since it was signed into law without a single Republican vote in 2010.The federal government shares the cost of Medicaid with states. The ACA aimed to make Medicaid cover more people by offering to pay for virtually all the extra costs. Many Republican-led states resisted for years, but as of November, all but 10 states had expanded coverage to an extra 21 million people, or about a quarter of all Medicaid recipients.Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the US, plus it covers new mothers for post-pregnancy-related issues for 60 days. It also pays for medical care for 60% of all nursing home residents, more than 70% of whom are women.According to the health research organization KFF, expanding Medicaid helped improve care for women before and during pregnancy and after they gave birth.But most Republicans in Congress have never approved of this federal spending. Proposed cuts to Medicaid funding, which would save hundreds of billions of dollars, are laid out by the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health thinktank headed by Brian Blase, a top health adviser to the first Trump administration.Experts predict states would be unable or unwilling to make up the difference. “Facing such drastic reductions in federal Medicaid funding, states will have no choice but to institute truly draconian cuts to eligibility, benefits and provider reimbursement rates,” Edwin Park, research professor at Georgetown University, wrote in an analysis.That would mean women, children, older adults and people with disabilities would lose coverage as facilities closed and providers stopped seeing patients.The effects, says the National Organization for Women, “will be widespread, devastating, and long-lasting”.This story is published in partnership with the Fuller Project, a non-profit newsroom dedicated to the coverage of women’s issues around the world. 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      Trump promises a crackdown on diversity initiatives. Fearful institutions are dialing them back already

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      In 2020, Donald Trump signed an executive order against “race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating” which would have set the stage for sweeping attacks on diversity initiatives in the public sphere. In January 2021, on his first day in office, Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s anti-DEI order and signed one promoting “racial equity and support for underserved communities”.Now Trump is returning to office, he expected to restore his directive and double down on it. The people that run diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at public and private institutions are expecting mass crackdown. Project 2025 has labeled them “woke culture warriors” and pledged to wield the full force of the federal government against their efforts to create a more equitable society.Trump and his advisers have already threatened the funds and accreditation of universities they have labeled the “enemy”, and pledged to dismantle diversity offices across federal agencies, scrap diversity reporting requirements and use civil rights enforcement mechanisms to combat diversity initiatives they see as “discrimination”.The multi-pronged attack is certain to be met with major legal challenges, but while they prepare for those, advocates warn about the ripple effects of an administration declaring war on inclusivity efforts.“The concern is the bigger footprint and symbol,” said Nina Ozlu Tunceli, chief counsel of government and public affairs at Americans for the Arts. “Federal policies do have a domino effect on other states, on foundations, on individual donors.”Last week, Walmart became the latest in a series of high-profile companies to announce a rollback of its diversity initiatives following a campaign of legal challenges by conservative groups. Other businesses and institutions small and large are trying to keep a low profile to avoid becoming the target of anti-DEI campaigns, those who work with them say.There are already concerns that institutions fearful of losing funding or facing lawsuits may overcorrect and dial back their programmes before they are required to do so, advocates warn.A climate of fearEven before Trump was re-elected, “educational gag orders” seeking to limit discussion of race and LGBTQ+ issues in school classrooms had been introduced in at least 46 states. Last spring, conservative legislators linked campus protests against the war in Gaza to DEI initiatives. Virginia Foxx, the chair of the House committee on education and the workforce, told the presidents of several colleges that her committee would be “steadfast in its dedication to attacking the roots of antisemitic hatred, including anti-Israel DEI bureaucracies”.Questioning by Foxx’s committee ultimately led to several resignations by college presidents.“That got everyone terrified, including private university presidents who previously had been pretty brave about these things,” said Jeremy Young, director of the Freedom to Learn programme at the free speech group PEN America. “It was just this sense that, they’re coming, they’re headhunting for leaders, and you just have to do everything they say or they’re going to fire you or they’re going to cut your budget.”View image in fullscreenEven where no laws have been passed, a broad fear of repercussions has prompted some campus leaders to cut back on DEI initiatives, noted Young.“A number of states have engaged basically in jaw-boning, where the lawmakers will go up to a university president and encourage them or threaten them to close their diversity office while dangling a threat of funding cuts or passing a law the following year,” he said. “So we’re seeing universities trying to comply with these restrictions, or with these threats, even though there’s no law compelling them to do so.”Young cited the University of Missouri, for instance, where campus leaders in July dissolved its division of inclusion, diversity and equity citing nationwide measures against DEI even though no such law was passed in the state.In Texas, where state law does ban DEI offices but exempts academic course instruction and scholarly research, the University of North Texas system began scrutinising course materials in search for references to DEI, in what Young called an example of overcompliance and a “complete overreaction”.It’s a domino effect that anti-DEI activists are exploiting, for instance by sowing confusion about the 2023 supreme court ruling, which was fairly narrow but is sometimes cited as evidence that all DEI initiatives in higher education are illegal, said Leah Watson, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program, where she focuses on classroom censorship.“We are very concerned about the broad chilling effect, and we see conservatives misrepresenting the status of the law in order to further the chilling effect,” Watson said. “Overcorrections are happening, and things are being cut that don’t have to be cut.”Some institutions have attempted to protect their work by downplaying their language around diversity to ensure that members from states with restrictions in place can continue to access them. Others have changed language about eligibility requirements for fellowships initially intended to promote access to people of color so as to avoid legal challenges.“There are institutions that want to continue their DEI programmes and they don’t want to be sued and they are really in a hard place with how to do that,” said Watson. “People are trying to fly under the radar at this point.”The new administrationGoing forward, the Trump administration is “likely to be the most virulent anti-DEI administration that we’ve seen”, said David Glasgow, the executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, which helps institutions navigate an array of recent legislative restrictions on diversity work.“People who do this work are nervous and anxious about what might be restricted but their commitment is still there, so it’s really about trying to figure out what they’re going to be able to do,” he added.So far, four states – Florida, Texas, Iowa and Utah – have banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or offices in universities, a primary target in the battle against DEI. A fifth, Alabama, has severely restricted them.In Florida, the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, also erased nearly all already approved state funding for the arts, ostensibly over a festival promoting inclusivity, which he dubbed a “sexual event”.View image in fullscreenThat may offer a blueprint for attacks on what conservatives see as “woke” culture under the incoming administration, said Tunceli, of Americans for the Arts.Institutions anticipating a similar backlash at the national level are already planning to emphasise projects the incoming administration may be more supportive to – like those celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, in 2026 – and to turn to alternative funding for those they expect will lose out on federal support.Many now believe that institutions will have to show bravery to uphold their values, even if it means risking funding. “What they need to do is find a backbone, and I say that with a lot of understanding and empathy for the situation they’re in,” said Young, of PEN America.“I worry when I see a university roll over for funding,” he added, calling on administrators to leverage their influence with alumni and their communities to stand up to legislators’ attacks. “A university that doesn’t have a new building is still a university, it’s just a poor university. A university that has lawmakers banning ideas and restricting the actions of the administration is really not a university at all.” More

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      Trump cabinet criticized as hodgepodge team unified only by ‘absolute fealty’ to him

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      During Donald Trump’s first administration, his vice-president became the target of an angry mob amid calls for him to be hanged. His top diplomat was fired via Twitter and branded “dumb as a rock”. His first attorney general was given his marching orders and called “very weak” and “disgraceful”.Despite it all, Trump has had no trouble recruiting a team eager to serve when he returns to the White House in January, even if his initial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was forced to back out amid allegations of sexual misconduct.Trump’s cabinet for his second term is nearly complete just three weeks after his stunning election victory over Kamala Harris. To his Maga (Make America great again) followers it is a team of all the talents, poised to enforce an agenda of mass deportations, gutting the federal bureaucracy and “America first” isolationism.To critics with memories of Trump’s first cabinet, however, it is an ideological hodgepodge glued together only by unquestioning fealty to the incoming 78-year-old commander-in-chief. Some have compared it to the gathering of exotic aliens in the Star Wars cantina. Others predict they will soon be fighting like rats in a sack as different factions compete for Trump’s attention.“The same thing that happened last time will happen this time,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “He cannot resist chaos. It is his drug. He will eventually start doing what he always does and turn on different people and start sandbagging his own choices for these various jobs.“It’s that pattern he has. He comes out one day and says, ‘I love so and so,’ and then the next he’s talking to his friends saying, ‘Hey, you think Tillerson’s doing a good job or is he screwing me over?’ Those things are patterns we’ve seen in Trump’s personal life, his business life and his prior administration. An 80-year-old man is not going to be a changed person.”Eight years ago, Trump arrived in Washington as a political neophyte in need of a helping hand. He appointed a cabinet that included traditional conservatives of whom he knew little. This time, he returns as a former president who has transformed the Republican party and prioritises unwavering loyalty and adherence to his agenda over qualifications and experience.This was most obvious sign of this was the selection of Gaetz for attorney general, a position key to Trump’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years. Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi, is a longtime ally who declared after Trump was criminally charged that the “investigators will be investigated”.View image in fullscreenThere was a similar motivation behind the choice of Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, for defence secretary despite him having no track record in government. Hegseth fits with a drive to purge perceived “woke” policies from the military. He has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California.Trump’s selections are sending mixed economic signals. The nomination of the Wall Street billionaire Scott Bessent to head the treasury implies an attempt to reassure markets (it is also notable because Bessent used to work for George Soros, the target of countless rightwing conspiracy theories). But Howard Lutnick, nominated for commerce secretary, has praised the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs. Vice-president-elect JD Vance is also among those pushing a more protectionist agenda on trade.And Trump’s pick of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a congresswoman from Oregon, as labor secretary could be one of the rare selections that draws bipartisan support. She is considered one of the most union-friendly Republicans in Congress, and her selection was viewed as a way for Trump to reward union members who voted for him.On foreign policy, Trump made a relatively conventional choice in Marco Rubio for secretary of state. The Florida senator has advocated in the past for a muscular foreign policy with respect to foes including China, Iran and Cuba. But the president-elect also intends to put Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who has previously made statements sympathetic to Russia, as director of national intelligence.Other picks include Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute thinktank, as agriculture secretary; Doug Burgum, a wealthy former software company executive, as interior secretary; and Linda McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, as education secretary – overseeing an agency that Trump pledged to eliminate.Then there is Robert Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist and sceptic of established science. Kennedy’s career as an environmental lawyer could put him at odds with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and figures such as Lee Zeldin, set to lead the Environmental Protection Agency with a mandate to slash environmental regulation. Kennedy has also been condemned by Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and other social conservatives for supporting abortion rights.Outside the cabinet, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency”, while lacking official authority, signals a strong push for drastic budget cuts and deregulation. And despite campaign trail denials, Trump has embraced Project 2025, a controversial plan from the Heritage Foundation thinktank, by appointing figures such as Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe person who will have to make sense of it all is Susie Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative who will become the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. She will hope to avoid the fate of chiefs of staff who failed to last the course of Trump’s first term as, like a sports coach, she seeks to make disparate players gel into a cohesive whole.In an analysis for the New York Times, David Sanger, who has covered five US presidents, identified “a revenge team”, “a calm-the-markets team” and “a government shrinkage team”, commenting: “How these missions will mesh and where they will collide is one of the biggest unknowns of the incoming administration.”But others argue that the cabinet’s range of experiences and worldviews will pale into insignificance when set against their devotion to the Trump cult. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “Regardless of whatever individual ideological leanings these people have had at varying points in their adult lives, it’s largely irrelevant because the only litmus test we have seen put forward is absolute fealty to Donald Trump.“As we have seen in the Republican party overall, absolute fealty to Donald Trump overshadows any ideological belief. We could take almost every issue that used to be a part of the Republican party and show how the party has moved to a diametrically opposite position. This is not a party governed by ideology any more. It is governed by personality. It is governed by loyalty to Donald Trump.”Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide, added: “They’re all going to get in a room and they’re just going to go: ‘Here’s what we think. What do you think, boss? Oh, OK, well, that’s what we’re all going to do.’ The idea that there’s going to be ideologically rooted debate, vigorous debate happening in the Trump administration is absurd. It’s laughable.”Notably, Trump’s cabinet is more diverse than in his first term, although it again has only three people of colour in secretary positions. Rubio would be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat; Bessent could become the first openly gay Republican cabinet member confirmed by the Senate; Gabbard would be the first director of national intelligence from the Pacific Islander community.But seasoned Trump watchers detect no method in the madness and suspect that the former reality TV star will once again act on impulse and thrive on conflict. Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, a book about White House chiefs of staff, said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that Trump has learned anything about governing since his first term.“There’s a lot of wishful thinking among a lot of commentators that OK, he’s had four years in office, he learned a lot, he’s had all this time to plan with Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute and he’s got his act together. I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t see any evidence that there’s any sort of plan here other than ‘this guy looks good for that job, and Robert F Kennedy Jr has got a cool last name’.” More

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      Biden must Trump-proof US democracy, activists say: ‘There is a sense of urgency’

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      The skies above the White House were cold and grey. Joe Biden greeted the championship winning Boston Celtics basketball team, quipping about his Irish ancestry and tossing a basketball into the crowd. But the US president could not resist drawing a wider lesson.“When we get knocked down, we get back up,” he said. “As my dad would say, ‘Just get up, Joe. Get up.’ Character to keep going and keep the faith, that’s the Celtic way of life. That’s sports. And that’s America.”Such events continue to be among the ceremonial duties of a “lame duck” president with waning influence. Biden has cut a diminished figure in recent months, first surrendering his chance to seek re-election, then finding himself sidelined by the doomed presidential campaign of his vice-president, Kamala Harris.But with his legacy imperiled by Donald Trump, the president is facing calls to mitigate the oncoming storm. Advocacy groups say Biden, who turned 82 this week, can still take actions during his final two months in office to accelerate spending on climate and healthcare, secure civil liberties, and Trump-proof at least some fundamentals of US democracy.Trump’s signature campaign promise was a draconian crackdown on illegal immigration. He has nominated officials including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, architects of family separations at the southern border during his first term, and vowed to use the US military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.The plans include mandatory detention, potentially trapping immigrants in inhumane conditions for years as they fight deportation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is leading an opposition effort, urging Biden to halt the current expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facilities, especially those with records of human rights abuses.Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU national prison project, said Ice detention facilities “characterised by abusive conditions, pervasive neglect and utter disregard for the dignity of people in their custody” are key to Trump’s logistical plan.Dozens of people have died in Ice detention facilities – mostly owned or operated by private prison corporations – over the past four years, according to the ACLU, and 95% were likely preventable if appropriate medical care had been provided. Yet the Biden administration has backed new Ice detention facilities in states where they did not existed before, such as Kansas, Wyoming and Missouri.“We are calling on the Biden administration to take action now, in the final days of the administration, to halt any efforts to expand immigration detention and to shut down specifically abusive facilities once and for all,” Cho told reporters on a Zoom call this week. “We don’t need to put down runway for the Trump administration to put in place these mass detention and deportation machines.”She warned: “We know that the anti-immigrant policies of a second administration are going to be far more aggressive than what we saw in the first term, and mass arrest and detention is going to become perhaps the norm to create and carry out these deportation operations unless we can do all we can to put a halt to them.”View image in fullscreenAnother crucial area for Biden to make a last stand is criminal justice. In his first term, Trump oversaw the execution of more people than the previous 10 presidents combined. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, then imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021.Trump has indicated his intention to resume such executions and even expand the death penalty. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued a public apology in 2013 while serving as Florida’s top law enforcement officer after she sought to delay the execution of a convicted killer because it conflicted with a fundraiser for her re-election campaign.Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s capital punishment project, told reporters via Zoom that Trump said “he will work to expand the death penalty. He’s going to try to expand it to people who do not even commit killings. He’s called for expanding the death penalty to his political opponents.“But perhaps most dangerously in Project 2025 [a policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation thinktank] – and we believe every word of it is this – he promised to try to kill everyone on death row, and the reason why we have to believe this and take it so seriously is the record that Donald Trump left where he, in a span of six months, carried out 13 executions.”The ACLU and other groups are therefore pressing Biden to commute the sentences of all individuals on federal death row to life in prison, fulfilling a campaign promise and preventing potential executions under Trump. Commuting “is really the thing that Biden can do to make it harder for Trump to restart executions”, Stubbs added.Pastor Brandi Slaughter, a board member of the pressure group Death Penalty Action, told reporters this week: “We know what the next president plans to do if any prisoners are left under a sentence of death under the Biden administration. We’ve been there, we’ve done that.”Biden has also received 8,000 petitions for clemency from federal prisoners serving non-death penalty sentences that he could either reduce or pardon. The former senator has long been criticised for his role in drawing up a 1994 crime law that led to the incarceration of thousands of Black men and women for drug offences.This week, members of Congress including Ayanna Pressley and James Clyburn led 64 colleagues in sending a letter to Biden urging him to use his clemency power “to reunite families, address longstanding injustices in our legal system and set our nation on the path toward ending mass incarceration”.They were joined at a press conference on Capitol Hill by Maria Garza, 50, from Illinois, a prison reform advocate who spent 12 years in a state prison. She said in an interview: “There is a sense of urgency because a lot of the people that are sitting waiting for clemency are people that have de facto life sentences that will die in prison if they don’t [receive clemency]. A lot of their unjust sentencing was because of the 1994 crime bill that he was the founding father of.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMitzi Wall, whose 29-year-old son Jonathan is incarcerated on a seven-and-a-half-year federal cannabis charge, called on Biden to keep a campaign promise to grant clemency to more than 4,000 people in federal prison for nonviolent cannabis crimes.“We voted for President Biden,” she said. “He gave us hope and we’re asking him to do nothing more than keep his promise.”Wall, 63, from Maryland, added: “President Biden was partly responsible for writing the 1994 crime bill that thrust families into abject poverty and pain. I know he feels bad about that and he can right that wrong with the power of the pen. I’m appealing to him as a father whose son [Hunter] could very possibly be going to prison.”In other efforts to protect civil liberties, the ACLU is recommending a moratorium on all federal government purchases of Americans’ personal data without a warrant. It is also asking Congress to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act to prevent potential abuse of surveillance technologies under the Trump administration.Meanwhile, Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and healthcare law and stop clean-energy development projects. White House officials are working against the clock to dole out billions of dollars in grants for existing programmes to minimise Trump’s ability to rescind or redirect these funds. Earlier this month, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, announced more than $3.4bn in grants for infrastructure projects across the country.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, notes that Trump will have the power of impoundment to stall the money flowing out of the government and can order rescissions to programmes funded by Congress.“The singular thing that Joe Biden can do is expedite the flow of federal dollars in all the programmes,” Schiller said.“Any money that is supposed to leave the treasury to go to schools, food safety, environmental protection – anything that is not yet distributed needs to get distributed. It’s like emptying literally the piggy bank before you go on a trip. President Biden needs to be literally getting as much money out the door in the hands of state, local and community organisations as he can.”Another priority for the White House is getting Senate confirmation of as many federal judges as possible, given the potential impact of the judiciary in challenging Trump administration policies. The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organisation, noted: “Federal judges restricted hundreds of Trump administration policies during his first term, and will likely play a significant role in determining the trajectory of his second.”Senate Republicans forced numerous procedural votes and late-night sessions this week in attempt to stall confirmations. Eventually a deal was struck that will bring Biden within striking distance of the 234 judicial confirmations that occurred in Trump’s first term – but four of Biden’s appellate court nominees will not be considered.The outgoing president could also engage with Democratic-led states and localities to bolster protections and establish “firewalls” against Trump’s agenda, particularly in areas such as immigration. These collaborations could involve reinforcing sanctuary city policies and providing resources to states that are likely to face pressure from the Trump administration.Chris Scott, former coalitions director for Harris, said: “What will be interesting is how or what can President Biden to work with states, especially where we have Democratic leadership in place, to be able to brace themselves and arm themselves with more protection. We already have places like a Michigan or Illinois where you have governors vowing to make sure that they have protections – even in the Trump presidency.”As Barack Obama discovered before handing Trump the keys to the Oval Office in 2017, however, lame duck presidents can only do so much. Trump will come into office with a flurry of executive orders, a supportive Congress and fewer guardrails than the first time around.Bill Galston, a former adviser in the Bill Clinton administration, said: “On January 20 Donald Trump will control all the instruments of government and, at that point, it’ll be up to the courts – and public opinion – to restrain him.” More

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      Five actions Biden can take to protect civil liberties before Trump’s presidency

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      In less than two months, Donald Trump will take office, threatening several areas of American life and international policy. The president-elect has pledged to take aim at LGBTQ+ rights, specifically for transgender and gender-non-conforming people. He has promised to conduct mass deportations and raids as a part of a far-right approach to US immigration. And he is expected to roll back data collection practices on police misconduct and stifle any hope of passing police reform in Congress – specifically the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Trump will largely be able to roll out his agenda, outlined in the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document, as Republicans took control of Congress during the 2024 general election. Joe Biden’s actions in his remaining time in office could be a crucial buttress against the expected impacts of the next four years.Six experts spoke with the Guardian about what the US president could do in his remaining time to protect the most vulnerable people:1. LGBTQ+ rights: fulfill executive order initiatives and confirm judgesAmong Trump’s collection of anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, his administration’s plans to redefine sex are of particular concern, said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.  Sex would be redefined “in such a manner that actually eradicates trans people”, said Redfield, and would not allow for “self-identification”. “The definition of sex that they would propose is that sex is defined based on anatomical characteristics at birth and is unchangeable.” The definition of sex is “at the core of some of the biggest civil rights conversations we’re having in the LGBTQ+ context”, said Redfield. The Biden administration has interpreted the definition of “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity. But with Trump, redefining sex could rollback protections and cause issues for transgender people attempting to access federal programs such as social security benefits, especially as many programs ask for participants to enroll with a gender identification. A redefinition of sex could also result in people being investigated for fraud if their gender doesn’t match across all federal identification documents, said Redfield. Many of these questions around the federal government’s ability to define sex will face legal challenges. So Biden, in tandem with Democrats, should continue to confirm federal judges who will probably hear legal cases about gender, Redfield said. Congressional Democrats have managed to confirm several and are only 15 short of the 234 judicial confirmations needed to match the record set by Trump during his first term. Biden should also complete everything outlined in his Executive Order 14075, including checking in with federal agencies to make sure they are well equipped to handle increased needs from LGBTQ+ people amid Trump’s presidency. “For example,” Redfield said, “if everyone’s changing their passports right now, they need to make sure they have enough staffing for that.”2. Police reform: make sure data on policing is publicly availableThrough executive orders, Biden largely increased data collection on patterns and practices of police departments, said Patrice Willoughby, the chief of policy and legislative affairs at the NAACP. But such data, which tracks police actions including traffic stops, arrests and use of force, will probably come to a “complete stop” under Trump’s administration, likely to boost “the narrative of Black violence” cited by conservatives. Willoughby added that Trump will not provide an opportunity to continue reform efforts seen under Biden, especially given past comments supporting a “violent day” of policing to end perceived increases in crime. With his remaining term, Biden must make sure that data on policing is “available publicly for advocacy organizations, state and local governments” and disseminated so it does not “disappear during a second Trump presidency”. Additionally, the Biden administration should ensure that the “methodology of collecting data” is available to state and local municipalities so it can be “replicated across different ecosystems”, said Willoughby. “States and localities that are interested in police reform [can] have the path forward in order to continue to collect data and apply it in their individual communities.”It’s also important for Biden to direct federal agencies to use funding that has already been earmarked by Congress to address police reform, especially, she said, as conservatives will probably “claw back” funding allocated towards equity and communities of color.3. Immigration: close detention centers and slow rate of detentions Biden should close the estimated 200 US detention sites that will be used by Trump to carry out mass deportation and slow down the current rate of detention for undocumented people, said Naureen Shah, deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU.“When I think about the Trump presidency, I’m anticipating an avalanche of anti-immigrant action from day one, from within hours of inauguration,” said Shah. She added that Ice will probably conduct raids using state and local law enforcement, targeting of undocumented students and attacks on birthright citizenship. The biggest issue is that the Biden administration has left “intact the infrastructure for abuse”, Shah said, including the US detention sites that will be used during Trump’s mass deportation. “We urged the Biden administration early on to close detention facilities across the country,” she said. “We argued that they needed to close the facilities so that another administration couldn’t come in and fill them up.”But instead, the number of detentions has increased throughout the Biden administration, now reaching approximately 37,000 a day, said Shah, with Trump planning to increase that amount. Shah warned that Trump would now have “the empty beds to fill” because “the Biden administration left it all there”. Biden also left in place 287(g) agreements, which allow Ice to tap local law enforcement to identify and place immigrants in the deportation pipeline. Requests for the Biden administration to end said agreements have gone unfulfilled, said Shah.“At this point, we’re calling on the Biden administration to at least slow down the expansion that is planned of Ice detention and to close facilities run by abusive sheriffs and private prison companies,” Shah said, naming the Baker county detention center as a site that advocates have been flagging for years.4. Gaza: end arms sales to Israel Biden could withdraw US military assistance and arms sales as well as allowing for an “honest assessment of Israel’s conduct”, said Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s not too late for Biden to invoke that leverage as US law requires and even in recognizing that Trump would probably reverse it, it still would be an extremely important statement,” Roth said. Allowing for a review of Israel’s actions, including the restriction of humanitarian aid and bombing shelters housing civilians, would make clear that such conduct “[are] war crimes”. “It would be more than just an important rebuke of how the Israeli government is fighting this war. It would help to lay the groundwork for potential international criminal charges,” Roth said, adding that Trump could later face charges for “aiding and abetting war crimes” if the war is still conducted in this manner. But such actions are unlikely. The Biden administration could have allowed the United Nations security council to insist on a ceasefire with “no political cost”, Roth said, comparing the moment to when Barack Obama allowed a security council resolution on the illegality of Israel’s West Bank settlements to go through before Trump’s inauguration in 2016. “[But] Biden wouldn’t do it. He vetoed it … [He] would not do the comparable thing, even though the stakes are much higher. “Biden has said all the right things. He’s pressed for a ceasefire, he’s urged greater attention to civilian casualties, he’s pressed for food and humanitarian aid to come into Gaza,” Roth said. “He’s done nothing to use his leverage to back up those pleas.”5. Education: broadly expand DEI effortsTrump’s plans to rescind diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) efforts from the Biden administration could embolden states that are already targeting such initiatives in education, through anti-CRT (critical race theory) laws, which often restrict classroom material and curriculum on topics including race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Jordan Nellums, a higher education senior policy associate at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank. “The problem that we’ve seen in some states like Texas is that now faculty are looking at their syllabi for classes and realizing that they can’t even use the word ‘race’ or any type of word that may indicate that there’s going to be a discussion on race in certain classes,” he said.With the Department of Education potentially being dismantled, it could also pause its work at making sure that students facing discrimination have a means of reporting it, specifically through the Office of Civil Rights within the education department. Education is largely a “state issue”, said Nellums, but the Biden administration could sign executive actions to mandate that agencies protect DEI efforts more broadly. In terms of student debt, an issue disproportionately affecting people of color and low-income people, Biden could also make sure that those who are eligible for student loan forgiveness, specifically with public servant loan forgiveness and individuals who were defrauded by their college, said Aissa Canchola-Bañez, policy director for the Student Borrower Protection Center. “The Biden-Harris administration has done so much great work in trying to  fix some of the programs that were broken under the last Trump administration, fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and fixing Income Driven Repayment program,” said Canchola-Bañez. But many people are still waiting to get debt relief due to bureaucratic backlogs, said Canchola-Bañez. “The Biden administration can also work to make sure that all those folks who were promised relief actually see it happen.” More

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      Project 2025: the Trump picks with ties to ultra-rightwing policy manifesto

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      On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025, saying he had “nothing to do” with the blueprint for a conservative presidency and didn’t know the people behind it. But as he starts to assemble his cabinet and White House staff, it seems likely he’ll get to know the people involved very well soon.Trump’s attempts to disavow the project before winning re-election seemed improbable, given that it was written by various members of his first administration and aligned on policy goals with his own proposed second term agenda.His transition team claimed it would not hire any people associated with Project 2025 because it was “radioactive”.But, in his selections for key roles, he has already tapped people with direct ties to the rightwing manifesto.Brendan CarrView image in fullscreenTrump’s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project 2025. In the chapter, Carr advocates for “reining in big tech”, in part by limiting the immunity tech platforms have from content posted by third parties. He specifically mentions abuses by Google, Meta and YouTube as examples of platforms requiring such reining in.Tom HomanView image in fullscreenHoman, chosen as Trump’s “border czar”, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025, though his name is not listed on any specific chapter or policy ideas.He also worked as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He penned op-eds, promoted by Heritage, that attacked the Biden administration over immigration and panned the bipartisan immigration deal. He wrote in one op-ed that “race-baiting Democrats” had called him names when he led Ice.Mike HuckabeeView image in fullscreenMike Huckabee, named by Trump to be his ambassador to Israel, interviewed the Heritage president and Project 2025 architect, Kevin Roberts, on his show in October 2024 as part of an effort to counter the negative press about the project.Karoline Leavitt View image in fullscreenThe incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, appeared in training videos for Project 2025. In addition to the policy manifesto, the project’s four pillars involved amassing a database of potential employees and creating a training program for conservatives who wanted positions in a rightwing presidency. In a video called “The Art of Professionalism”, obtained by ProPublica and Documented, Leavitt talks about her advice for people who would serve as staff. While she was the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, she claimed the project had nothing to do with Trump. She also appears in a promotional video for the project.Stephen MillerView image in fullscreenStephen Miller will be back in the White House, this time as deputy chief of staff for policy. He is the president of the America First Legal Foundation, a legal attack dog non-profit for rightwing causes.America First Legal was listed as a supporter of Project 2025 and appeared as a member of the project’s advisory board, though the group then asked to be removed from it. Miller also appeared in a promotional video for the project, which is still posted on the project’s website.John RatcliffeView image in fullscreenRatcliffe, offered the role of CIA director by Trump, was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where he was tasked with chairing a project to hold China accountable for Covid-19 and “helping Project 2025 build out policy recommendations for intelligence reform in the next presidential administration”, according to the Heritage website.Ratcliffe is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. He also is interviewed for the project, and excerpts of the interview went into a chapter on the intelligence community. In the chapter, Ratcliffe is quoted multiple times, on issues such as making sure the intelligence community is accountable to the director of national intelligence and on countering China.“I had an $85bn combined annual budget for both the national intelligence program and military intelligence program,” he is quoted in Project 2025. “My perspective was, ‘Whatever we’re spending on countering China, it isn’t enough.’”JD VanceView image in fullscreenTrump’s vice-president has close ties with Roberts, the Heritage president. Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts’ book, which was released after the election.Roberts “is somebody I rely on a lot who has very good advice, very good political instincts”, Vance told news outlet Notus in January 2024. In the foreword, Vance praises Roberts’ ideas and boldness, saying the book advances a “fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics” and a “surprising – even jarring” path forward for conservatives. More