Trump administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares88 Views

      in US Politics

      US agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers

      by

      The US agriculture secretary has suggested that increased automation and forcing Medicaid recipients to work could replace the migrant farm workers being swept up in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, despite years of evidence and policy failures that those kinds of measures are not substitutes for the immigrant labor force underpinning American agriculture.Speaking at a news conference with Republican governors on Tuesday, Brooke Rollins said the administration would rely on “automation, also some reform within the current governing structure”, and pointed to “34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program” as potential workers.“There’s been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where the president stands and his vision for farm labor,” Rollins said. “There are plenty of workers in America”.Trump signed legislation on Friday creating the first federally mandated work requirements for Medicaid recipients, set to take effect by the end of 2026. Medicaid is a healthcare safety net program that currently covers pregnant women, mothers, young children and the disabled, with 40 states having expanded coverage to working poor families earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level.However, agricultural experts and economists have repeatedly warned that neither automation nor welfare reforms can realistically replace the migrant workforce that dominates American farming.According to USDA data, 42% of US farm workers are undocumented immigrants, and just under 70% are foreign-born.And a March report from the Urban Institute found that most Medicaid recipients are either already working, exempt or face some sort of instability.Previous state-level immigration crackdowns are also evidence of the challenges facing Rollins’s proposed solution. Georgia’s 2011 immigration law resulted in a shortage of more than 5,200 farm workers and projected losses of hundreds of millions of dollars at the time, according to a University of Georgia study. Alabama farmers reported similar struggles, with locals telling the Associated Press in 2011 that American workers lasted about a day at their new farm jobs.While agricultural automation is advancing fast, it still appears to remain years away from replacing manual labor in fruit and vegetable harvesting.Rollins acknowledged the administration must be “strategic” in implementing deportations “so as not to compromise our food supply”, but held that Trump’s promise of a “100% American workforce stands.”Trump himself appeared to soften his stance last week, telling Fox News he was considering exemptions for undocumented farm workers.“What we’re going to do is we’re going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge,” he said. More

    • 188 Shares60 Views

      in US Politics

      Ice is about to become the biggest police force in the US | Judith Levine

      by

      On Thursday, congressional Republicans passed Trump’s 1,000-page budget, and the president signed it on Saturday. The rich will get obscenely richer. The poor will be hungrier and sicker, work more precarious, and the planet unrelentingly hotter. The symmetry is elegant: cuts to healthcare and food programs average about $120bn each year over the next decade, while the tax cuts will save households earning more than $500,000 about $120bn a year.Trump got what he wanted. But enriching himself and his wealthy friends at the expense of everyone else has long been his life purpose. It was not until he became president, with the Heritage Foundation’s wonks, the deportation czar Stephen Miller, and six loyal supreme courtiers behind him, that he could reshape the US in his own amoral, racist, violence-intoxicated image. In fact, the latter goal may be dearer to him than the former.The night before the Senate vote, JD Vance summed up the administration’s priorities: “Everything else,” including the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit estimates and “the minutiae of the Medicaid policy”, he posted, “is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions”.The vice-president’s indifference to the lives of millions of Americans – particularly to the class of Americans from which this self-described “hillbilly” hails – enflamed the Democrats and the left. But his comment also woke everyone up to another major set of appropriations in the budget. As Leah Greenberg, co-chair of the progressive activist group Indivisible, put it on Twitter/X: “They are just coming right out and saying they want an exponential increase in $$$ so they can build their own personal Gestapo.”The press had been focused on the wealth gap the budget turns into the San Andreas fault. It had been dutifully mentioning increases in funding for the military – to an unprecedented $1.3tn – and “border security”.Set aside for a moment that phrase’s implication, that the US is being invaded – which it isn’t – and it is still not apt. The jurisdiction of the federal police force that this budget will finance promises to stretch far beyond immigration; its ambitions will outstrip even the deportation of every one of the nearly 48 million immigrants in the country, including the three-quarters of them who are citizens, green-card holders or have temporary visas.The colossal buildup of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will create the largest domestic police force in the US; its resources will be greater than those of every federal surveillance and carceral agency combined; it will employ more agents than the FBI. Ice will be bigger than the military of many countries. When it runs out of brown and Black people to deport, Ice – perhaps under another name – will be left with the authority and capability to surveil, seize and disappear anyone the administration considers undesirable. It is hard to imagine any president dismantling it.Ice will receive $45bn for immigrant detention, to be spent over four years – more than the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations combined. The agency says it is planning on a total of 100,000 beds. But grants to the states loosely slated for “enforcement” total $16.5bn. If they use the money to build and lease more detention camps, the American Immigration Council estimates, capacity could reach 125,000, just under the population of the federal prisons.Dipping into a pot totaling $170bn, the Department of Homeland Security intends to hire 10,000 new Ice agents, bringing the total to 30,000, as well as 8,500 border patrol agents. For comparison, the FBI has about 23,700 employees, including 10,000 special agents.Like Ice’s budget, DHS’s is fat with redundancies: $12bn to DHS for border security and immigration; $12bn to Customs and Border Protection for hiring, vehicles and technology; $6.2bn for more technology. And then there’s over $45bn to complete the jewel in the king’s crown: Trump’s “beautiful” border wall. That’s on top of approximately $10bn spent during his first term for a project he promised would cost less than $12bn – and be bankrolled by Mexico.To balance the expenses of the hunt, the government will raise revenue from its prey. The cruelty written into the fees seems almost an afterthought. According to the New York Times’s breakdown, for a grant of temporary legal residence, for instance, a refugee pays $500 or $1,000, depending on whether they are fleeing armed conflict or humanitarian crisis. There’s a new $250 fee to apply for a visa for a child who’s been abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent.Immigrants must fork over as much as $1,500 for status adjustments ordered by a judge. And if they are arrested after a judge’s removal order for missing a hearing, they will be charged $5,000. The budget does not specify whether you pay for a downward adjustment to your status or what it costs to be snatched when you do show up at court, which is now regular Ice procedure.Observed as from a Google satellite, the outlines of a wide-ranging, increasingly coherent police state come into focus. The boundaries between federal and local, military operations and civilian law enforcement are smudged. During the anti-Ice protests in Los Angeles, Trump federalized the national guard to put down an uprising that didn’t exist, and an appeals court let him. The marines, restricted by the Posse Comitatus Act from civilian law enforcement, detained a US citizen anyway. To circumvent the prohibition against deploying the military to enforce immigration law, the president declared an “invasion” at the southern border, and the Pentagon took more territory under its control. Last week it added 140 miles of land to the marine air station in Arizona and has announced plans for 250 miles more, in Texas, under the air force’s aegis. Heather Cox Richardson reports that national guard troops have been deployed by Governor Ron DeSantis to “Alligator Alcatraz”, the new immigrant lockup in the Florida Everglades. Two hundred marines have been sent to Florida to back up Ice, and Ice agents will be stationed at marine bases in California, Virginia and Hawaii. The military budget earmarks $1bn for “border security”.A budget is the numerical representation of its makers’ values. So the upward redistribution of wealth that this budget exacerbates and the police state it invests trillions of dollars in are of a piece. What connects them is not just the profit to be made building, leasing and managing the infrastructure. When people lack food, medicine and housing, when public spaces deteriorate and families have little hope of security, much less mobility, rage and crime rise. And when that happens, the police – whether Ice or the marines, local cops or private security officers – will be mobilized to put down dissent and protect the oligarchs’ property from a desperate populace.

      Judith Levine is Brooklyn-based journalist, essayist and author of five books. Her Substack is Today in Fascism More

    • 163 Shares91 Views

      in US Politics

      Undocumented builders face unchecked exploitation amid Trump raids: ‘It’s more work, less pay’

      by

      As the Trump administration ramps up its crackdown on immigration, undocumented workers in the construction industry claim raids and arrests have emboldened some contractors to cut pay and increase hours.Rogelio, a tile setter, works for various contractors in the the Tucson, Arizona, region. He is undocumented, and did not provide his full name.When Donald Trump returned to office in January, Rogelio said his employers cut their rates by 30% to 40%. Other laborers told him they had endured similar treatment.“They decreased the pay by piece because they know most of the tile setters don’t have social security numbers, so they take advantage of that. We are in their hands,” Rogelio told the Guardian. “It’s more work, less pay. We have no choice right now.“We’re struggling with bills. We’re struggling with food. We’re struggling with everything because we don’t get enough money to pay whatever we need to pay.”Many of the undocumented immigrants Rogelio knows are only leaving home to work, Rogelio said. “We have a lot of fear,” he told the Guardian. “We look for news in the morning to see if we’re able to go to work or not.”With approximately 2.9 million US construction workers – about 34% of the workforce – foreign-born, construction sector lobbyists have publicly urged the Trump administration to soften their hardline stance on immigration. “While the need for safe and secure borders is paramount, mass deportation is not the answer,” Buddy Hughes, chairperson of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a statement.Advocates for workers rights say some operators in the sector are using Trump’s crackdown to abuse undocumented workers.“Especially in construction, there’re a lot of subcontractors that take advantage of this situation by not paying them the fair wage or not even paying them at all,” said Laura Becerra, movement politics director of the non-profit Workers Defense Project based in Texas.Undocumented workers are unlikely to lodge an official complaint, she added. “Since people don’t want to say anything because they don’t want to be put on the radar, and they’re also getting retaliated against if they do say something.”The administration is pushing ahead with public raids on undocumented immigrant workers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency is arresting an increasing number of immigrants without any criminal history, according to a Guardian analysis of federal government data.“It’s an attack,” Becerra said. “It’s taking a toll on families, families that need to make ends meet, that are already suffering from low wages and doing work no one wants to do.”In Tucson, undocumented workers are avoiding freeways, according to Rogelio. “Freeways are one of the worst places to drive right now because of all the police and border patrol and they look for mostly hispanic people to stop,” he said. “We are living day by day and not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow.”In some areas “there are spots where you can work with no problem,” he said. “But others, there are racist people living there and they don’t want us. They want our work, they want cheap labor, but they don’t want us.“We came here because we want to work and provide for our families. The only reason I’m here, personally, I have two kids who are American citizens. I’m not asking for any benefits from the government.”Reports from across the US suggest undocumented workers are facing unprecedented pressure.Savannah Palmira, director of organizing for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades district council 5, which covers workers in states around the Pacific north-west, said the threat of raids is making it harder for workers to organize.A roofing company in Washington was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) earlier this year after workers filed safety complaints, Palmira claimed, with the fear of retaliation stemming from that case spreading to other job sites, and leaving workers reluctant to speak out and file complaints against abusive work practices.“What contractors are doing is taking an opportunity to not be held accountable for their bad practices,” said Palmira. “The more and more people are starting to talk about workers getting taken advantage of, Ice is getting called on them. They’re taking a tool away from us to be able to put bad contractors on notice.”In Washington, another undocumented construction worker – who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation – said many of his coworkers were “thinking about going back to their countries” due to the reality of life in the US.“The last company I worked for took advantage of people in every situation,” he said, from dissuading injured workers from getting medical attention to denying overtime and breaks.“They say, you are undocumented, so they will pay you $10 an hour because you have no work permit,” he added. “And if not, they will tell Ice.”“In Washington state, immigrants make up 25% of the trades workforce in construction. With a consistent labor shortage and demand for housing constantly growing, residential construction needs all the skilled workers available,” a spokesperson for the Building Industry Association of Washington said in an email. “We’ve provided our members with guidance on how to legally employ immigrants, including verifying the identity and US employment authorization of all employees. We also generally support improving US Immigration policy to allow responsible and law-abiding undocumented worker a pathway to achieving citizenship.”Arizona Builders Alliance did not respond to multiple requests for comment.On a national level the construction industry has repeatedly warned of the negative impacts of immigration raids on what they claim has already been a severe labor shortage in US construction.Asked about contractors allegedly using the ramp up in immigration enforcement to cut pay and increase workloads, the National Association of Home Builders issued a statement from Hughes, its chairperson, which did not directly address the claims.“With the construction industry facing a deficit of more than 200,000 workers, policymakers must consider that any disruption to the labor force would raise housing costs, limit supply and worsen the nation’s housing affordability crisis,” Hughes said. “To address this pressing national issue, NAHB is urging Congress to support meaningful investments in our nation’s education system to encourage students to pursue careers in the skilled trades.“Policymakers should also support sensible immigration policies that preserve and expand existing temporary work visa programs while also creating new market-based visa programs that will accurately match demand with available labor.” More

    • 225 Shares80 Views

      in US Politics

      New York City’s congestion pricing has cut pollution and traffic – but Trump still wants to kill it

      by

      It has faced threats and lawsuits and even had its death proclaimed by Donald Trump as he startlingly depicted himself as a king in a social media post. But New York City’s congestion charge scheme for cars has now survived its first six months, producing perhaps the fastest ever environmental improvement from any policy in US history.New York vaulted into a global group of cities – such as London, Singapore and Stockholm – that charge cars for entering their traffic-clogged metropolitan hearts but also ushered in a measure that was unknown to Americans and initially unpopular with commuters, and was confronted by a new Trump administration determined to tear it down.But the six-month anniversary, on 5 July, of congestion pricing highlights a string of remarkable successes. Traffic congestion in Manhattan, site of the $9 charge zone, is substantially down, cars and buses are moving faster, air quality is improving as carbon emissions drop, a creaking public transportation system has new verve and there are fewer car accidents, injuries and opportunities for incandescent New Yorker honking and yelling.In an era of assaults upon climate policy and societal betterment in general across US and around the world, New York’s congestion busting has been a rare flicker of progress in 2025. “It’s been even more obviously beneficial than even the most fervent proponents had hoped, and there have been really tangible improvements that are really gratifying,” said Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a New York-based pro-transit group. “It’s been incredible to see.”Congestion pricing in New York had a tortured birth – the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, initially delayed it and cut the charge for drivers from $15 to $9, citing cost-of-living concerns – but since its January introduction the system appears to be achieving its aims.Spanning the southern tip of downtown Manhattan northwards to 60th Street, the congestion charge zone has slashed traffic delays by a quarter, with around 2m fewer cars a month now entering streets previously gridlocked in traffic. Vehicles that were previously crawling at a pace slower than a horse and cart are now moving more smoothly, with traffic speeds rising by 15%.Carbon pollution, meanwhile, has dropped by about 2.5%, with air pollution such as soot that can bury deep in people’s lungs also down. Despite the faster traffic, fewer people are being directly hurt by car accidents, too. The experiment has been a reminder that cities aren’t intrinsically noisy even if cars are – Furnas said that one of his favorite stats is that noise complaints along Canal Street, a key artery in lower Manhattan, have reduced by 70%.“The quality-of-life improvement has been dramatic,” he said. “Reducing pollution is often seen to involve a lot of sacrifices, but this has been different. People can see the improvements to their lives. There was this cynical assumption that this was a bullshit charge and life will stay the same but that assumption has gone away now.”Scaling public unpopularity in this way isn’t new – London’s congestion charge met initial opposition in 2003 and then, more recently, an expansion of the city’s ultra-low emission zone (or Ulez) was bitterly contested. London’s air quality has improved markedly and support has since edged up, though, a forerunner of the New York experience, where more people now support the charge than oppose it – a reversal of what the polls showed prior to its imposition.A primary motivation for the congestion charge was to raise funds for the beleaguered Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which presides over one of the most extensive public transport systems in the world but has struggled with a spluttering subway that runs on antediluvian technology through often squalid stations. Fears of subway-based crime, regularly amplified by the Trump administration, have also bedeviled the MTA’s attempts to lure commuters back following Covid.Congestion pricing revenue, though, is on track to reach $500m this year, allowing upgrades to the subway, the purchase of several hundred new electric buses and improvements to regional rail. Hochul, with the zeal of new convert, said the scheme has been a “huge success” and pointed out that people are still flocking to Manhattan stores, restaurants and Broadway shows, with pedestrian activity up 8% in May compared with the same month last year. Subway visits have also increased by 7%.“We’ve also fended off five months of unlawful attempts from the federal government to unwind this successful program and will keep fighting – and winning – in the courts,” the governor said. “The cameras are staying on.”Trump has continued his quest to kill off congestion charging in his native city, however, prematurely declaring success in this endeavor in a memorable February post on X in which he was depicted in an oil painting wearing a crown, triumphantly standing in front of the Empire State Building. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” the president wrote.Trump’s Department of Transportation has attempted to withdraw federal approval of the scheme but its deadlines to end congestion pricing have so far been thwarted by the courts and the department has, in frustration, replaced its own lawyers, accusing them of undermining its case.Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, has said the charge is unfair to drivers and is “classist” against the working poor (even though they overwhelmingly take buses or trains, rather than drive), and threatened to cut federal funding to New York transit.View image in fullscreen“If you can’t keep your subway safe, if people can’t go to the subway and not be afraid of being stabbed or thrown in front of tracks or burned, we are going to pull your money,” Duffy said in March.The administration confirmed it will forge ahead with its legal battle. “In the 11th hour of his failing administration, Joe Biden cowardly approved this absurd experiment that makes federally funded roads inaccessible to many taxpayers without giving them a toll-free alternative,” said a Department of Transportation spokesperson.“We can all agree that the New York City subway needs fixing, but drivers should not be expected to foot the bill.”But the series of courtroom defeats suffered by the Trump administration have strengthened the congestion charge’s future, according to Michael Gerrard, an environmental law expert at Columbia Law School. “The administration have suffered a series of resounding defeats, they haven’t got anywhere,” said Gerrard. “It’s clear that Donald Trump doesn’t like New York City and wants to do anything he can to increase the use of fossil fuels. I don’t know if Donald Trump has ever been on the subway.”Other opposition remains, too, although it has become more muted of late. A leading critique of congestion pricing was that it will simply pile up traffic at the boundaries of the charge zone, although a recent report found the opposite has occurred – traffic delays are down 10% in the Bronx and have even been reduced by 14% in the commuter belt of Bergen county, in New Jersey.“Conceptually it’s a good idea, but let’s get a fair deal for Jersey,” conceded Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, on a recent podcast with the comedian Hasan Minhaj. Murphy previously called the charge a “disaster” and is still involved in legal action to stop it, although he now says he will accept a “deal” whereby his state gets some of the revenue and the toll is lowered somewhat.Murphy acknowledged traffic is down but he questions if it will last. “The data from London suggests it won’t continue,” said the governor, pointing to how the UK capital is now the most congested city in Europe, with drivers spending an average of 101 hours sitting in traffic last year, despite its own toll.However, others think New York may be different, a long-term habit switch from driving thanks to its dense public transport links. If it survives its Trumpian attack, the scheme may even be replicated by cities elsewhere in the US. If highways and bridges can be tolled, as they often are in the US, why not the core of cities too?“It’s been such a success that I think others will look at this,” said Furnas. “Not everywhere has New York’s public transit, but we would be wise to apply these sort of benefits to other places, too.” More

    • 125 Shares101 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president complains about Putin’s ‘bullshit’

      by

      Donald Trump has voiced his irritation with Vladimir Putin, telling a cabinet meeting he was getting increasingly frustrated with the Russian leader.The US president told the televised meeting of top officials: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”Asked if he wanted to see further sanctions against Russia, Trump replied: “I’m looking at it.” He refused to give further details but said any action would come as “a little surprise”.Here’s more on that and other key US politics stories of the day:Trump promises to send Ukraine 10 Patriot missilesAs well as voicing his frustration with Putin, Trump promised to send 10 Patriot missiles to Ukraine, according to an official familiar with the matter. Trump had announced on Monday that US weapons deliveries would resume, just a few days after they were halted by the Pentagon.On Monday, the president said he was “disappointed” with Russia’s president and would send “more weapons” to Ukraine. “We’re gonna send some more weapons we have to them. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now,” Trump said, alongside a US and Israeli delegation.Read the full storyUS ‘only has 25%’ of all Patriot missile interceptors neededThe United States only has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs for all of the Pentagon’s military plans after burning through stockpiles in the Middle East in recent months, an alarming depletion that led to the Trump administration freezing the latest transfer of munitions to Ukraine, according to sources in the government.Read the full storyTrump threatens to escalate trade war amid confusion over new tariff ratesTrump vowed to further escalate his trade wars on Tuesday, threatening US tariffs of up to 200% on foreign drugs and 50% on copper, amid widespread confusion around his shifting plans. Hours after saying his latest deadline for a new wave of steep duties was “not 100% firm”, the US president declared that “no extensions will be granted” beyond 1 August.“There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump wrote on social media, a day after signing an executive order that changed the date from 9 July.Read the full storyTrump gets green light for mass federal layoffsThe US supreme court has cleared the way for Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten crucial government services.Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds. The decision could result in hundreds of thousands of job losses at the departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and other agencies.Read the full storyExclusive: Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons’, report findsA new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.The report, from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War, said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.Read the full storyDeadly floods could be new normal as Trump guts federal agenciesThe deadly Texas floods could signal a new norm in the US, as Trump and his allies dismantle critical federal agencies that help states prepare and respond to extreme weather and other hazards, experts warn.Read the full storyAI scammer posing as Marco Rubio targets officials in growing threatAn unknown fraudster has used artificial intelligence to impersonate the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, contacting at least five senior officials.According to a state department cable first seen by the Washington Post and confirmed by the Guardian, the impostor sent fake voice messages and texts that mimicked Rubio’s voice and writing style to those targets, including three foreign ministers, a US governor and a member of Congress.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A Houston pediatrician is “no longer employed” after a posting on social media that the “Maga” voters in Texas “get what they voted for” amid deadly flash flooding.

      A federal judge has ruled against five non-profit organizations that sued the Trump administration over the rescinding of hundreds of millions of dollars meant to prevent and respond to issues such as gun violence, substance abuse and hate crimes.

      Fifa’s relationship with Trump now has a physically tangible marker, with soccer’s world governing body announcing it has opened an office in Trump Tower in New York City.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 7 July 2025. More

    • 163 Shares65 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings

      by

      The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.The decision could result in hundreds of thousands of job losses at the departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and other agencies.Democrats condemned the ruling. Antjuan Seawright, a party strategist, said: “I’m disappointed but I’m not shocked or surprised. This rightwing activist court has proven ruling after ruling, time after time, that they are going to sing the songs and dance to the tune of Trumpism. A lot of this is just implementation of what we saw previewed in Project 2025.”Project 2025, a plan drawn up by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, set out a blueprint for downsizing government. Trump has claimed that voters gave him a mandate for the effort and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, though Musk has since departed.In February, Trump announced “a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy” in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the workforce and gutting offices.In its brief unsigned order on Tuesday, the supreme court said Trump’s administration was “likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order” and a memorandum implementing his order were lawful. The court said it was not assessing the legality of any specific plans for layoffs at federal agencies.Liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from the decision, which overturns San Francisco-based district judge Susan Illston’s 22 May ruling.Jackson wrote that Illston’s “temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture”.She also described her colleagues as making the “wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground”.Illston had argued in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments that challenged the administration. “As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” she wrote.The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programmes. Illston also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out.Illston’s ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul pursued by Trump and Doge. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programmes or have been placed on leave.The administration had previously challenged Illston’s order at the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals but lost in a 2-1 ruling on 30 May. That prompted the justice department to make an emergency request to the supreme court, contending that controlling the personnel of federal agencies “lies at the heartland” of the president’s executive branch authority.The plaintiffs had urged the supreme court to deny the justice department’s request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its “breakneck reorganization”, they wrote, would mean that “programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe supreme court’s rejection of that argument on Tuesday was welcomed by Trump allies. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, posted on the X social media platform: “Today, the Supreme Court stopped lawless lower courts from restricting President Trump’s authority over federal personnel – another Supreme Court victory thanks to @thejusticedept attorneys. Now, federal agencies can become more efficient than ever before.The state department wrote on X: “Today’s near unanimous decision from the Supreme Court further confirms that the law was on our side throughout this entire process. We will continue to move forward with our historic reorganization plan at the State Department, as announced earlier this year. This is yet another testament to President Trump’s dedication to following through on an America First agenda.”In recent months the supreme court has sided with Trump in some major cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January.It cleared the way for Trump’s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face. In two cases, it let the administration end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants.It also allowed Trump to implement his ban on transgender people in the US military, blocked a judge’s order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees and twice sided with Doge. In addition, the court curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies.On Tuesday the Democracy Forward coalition condemned the supreme court for intervening in what it called Trump’s unlawful reorganisation of the federal government. It said in a statement: “Today’s decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy.“This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution.” More

    • 225 Shares101 Views

      in US Politics

      Supreme court lifts order blocking Trump’s federal layoffs, paving way for mass job cuts – US politics live

      by

      The supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume carrying out mass job cuts and the restructuring of agencies, key elements of his campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government.The justices lifted San Francisco-based US district judge Susan Illston’s 22 May order that had blocked large-scale federal layoffs called “reductions in force” affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, while litigation in the case proceeds.Workforce reductions were planned at the US departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and more than a dozen other agencies.Illston wrote in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments that challenged the administration.“As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illston wrote.The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programs. She also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out.Illston’s ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul being pursued by Trump and Doge.The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 ruling on 30 May denied the administration’s request to halt the judge’s ruling.It said the administration had not shown that it would suffer an irreparable injury if the judge’s order remained in place and that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their lawsuit.The ruling prompted the justice department’s 2 June emergency request to the supreme court to halt Illston’s order.Controlling the personnel of federal agencies “lies at the heartland” of the president’s executive branch authority, the justice department said in its filing to the supreme court.“The constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers,” the filing said, referring to the constitution’s section delineating presidential authority.The plaintiffs urged the supreme court to deny the request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its “breakneck reorganization”, they wrote, would mean that “programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs”.The Supreme Court’s ruling today will allow the Trump administration to proceed with its plans to layoff vast swaths of federal workers. The impacted agencies will include: the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.Pam Bondi, the attorney general, applauded the supreme court’s ruling today allowing the Trump administration’s mass federal layoffs to proceed.Writing on social media, Bondi said: “Today, the Supreme Court stopped lawless lower courts from restricting President Trump’s authority over federal personnel.”“Now, federal agencies can become more efficient than ever before,” she added.The supreme court’s ruling to allow Donald Trump’s mass federal layoffs to continue “dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy”, the unions, non-profits and local governments that filed the lawsuit said in a statement today.The plaintiffs added that the court’s ruling “does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our constitution”.It appears that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House for his closed-door meeting with Donald Trump.A White House pool reporter says that Netanyahu’s motorcade has arrived, though press did not see Netanyahu enter the White House as he used a different entrance.Travelers will soon be able to keep their shoes on while traversing US airport security, the Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem announced today, in a reversal of a nearly two decades old policy.In a press conference at Reagan airport today, Noem announced the new Transportation Security Administration policy, which she said she hoped would make travel to the United States easier ahead of the Olympics, World Cup and 250th anniversary of the country.“The Golden Age of America is here,” she said. “We’re so excited that we can make the experience for those individuals traveling throughout our airports in the United States more hospitable.”The TSA policy requiring travelers to remove their footwear dates back to 2006.Donald Trump’s scheduled meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting later than the announced 4.30pm ET start time. We’ll bring you the top lines once it begins.Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the Supreme Court to dissent in the court’s recent ruling clearing the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume mass job cuts and the restructuring of federal agencies.In her dissent, Jackson criticized the court’s “enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture” and called the decision “hubristic and senseless”.She warned that the administration’s actions “promises mass employee terminations, widespread cancellation of federal programs and services, and the dismantling of much of the Federal Government as Congress has created it”.Marco Rubio is headed to Malaysia this week, the Washington Post reports. The trip will mark the secretary of state’s first visit to Asia, which comes as the White House has just announced steep tariffs on goods imported from many other Asian nations.Yesterday, Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on goods from Malaysia, and equal or higher tariffs on goods from Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.Relatedly, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, told CNBC today that US officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts to discuss trade between the two countries next month.The supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume carrying out mass job cuts and the restructuring of agencies, key elements of his campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government.The justices lifted San Francisco-based US district judge Susan Illston’s 22 May order that had blocked large-scale federal layoffs called “reductions in force” affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, while litigation in the case proceeds.Workforce reductions were planned at the US departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and more than a dozen other agencies.Illston wrote in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments that challenged the administration.“As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illston wrote.The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programs. She also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out.Illston’s ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul being pursued by Trump and Doge.The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 ruling on 30 May denied the administration’s request to halt the judge’s ruling.It said the administration had not shown that it would suffer an irreparable injury if the judge’s order remained in place and that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their lawsuit.The ruling prompted the justice department’s 2 June emergency request to the supreme court to halt Illston’s order.Controlling the personnel of federal agencies “lies at the heartland” of the president’s executive branch authority, the justice department said in its filing to the supreme court.“The constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers,” the filing said, referring to the constitution’s section delineating presidential authority.The plaintiffs urged the supreme court to deny the request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its “breakneck reorganization”, they wrote, would mean that “programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs”.Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet again on Tuesday evening to discuss Gaza, a day after they met for hours while officials conducted indirect negotiations on a US-brokered ceasefire.Trump and Netanyahu dined together on Monday at the White House during the Israeli leader’s third US visit since the president began his second term on 20 January.Netanyahu spent much of Tuesday at the Capitol, telling reporters after a meeting with House speaker Mike Johnson that while he did not think Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian territory was done, negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.“We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’ military and government capabilities,” Netanyahu said.Netanyahu’s plan to return to the White House at 4.30pm ET pushed back his meeting with Senate leaders to Wednesday.Shortly after Netanyahu spoke, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said he hoped to reach a temporary ceasefire agreement this week.“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s cabinet earlier.In his remarks to reporters at Congress, Netanyahu praised Trump, saying there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country’s history.A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War program at Brown University said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said.The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020 to 2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period.Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump’s flagship sweeping tax and spending bill, the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000.“The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,” the authors of the report wrote. “Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.”That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that “there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1tn on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things”. Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon.The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the US to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting past public statements by officials from both countries.The revelation was contained in court filings on Monday by lawyers for more than 100 migrants who are seeking to challenge their deportations to El Salvador’s mega-prison known as Cecot.“In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities,” Salvadorian officials wrote in response to queries from the unit of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.The UN group has been looking into the fate of the men who were sent to El Salvador from the US in mid-March, even after a federal judge had ordered the planes that were carrying them to be turned around.The Trump administration has argued that it is powerless to return the men, as they are beyond the reach of US courts and no longer have access to due process rights or other US constitutional guarantees.But lawyers for the migrants said the UN report shows otherwise. American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email:
      El Salvador has confirmed what we and everyone else understood: it is the United States that controls what happens to the Venezuelans languishing at Cecot. Remarkably the US government didn’t provide this information to us or the court.
      Skye Perryman, CEO and president of Democracy Forward, said the documents show “that the administration has not been honest with the court or the American people”. The ACLU and Democracy Forward are both representing the migrants.A justice department spokesperson declined to comment. White House and homeland security department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press.The US education secretary, Linda McMahon, yesterday threatened the state of California with legal action after the state refused to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports as demanded by the Trump administration.“@CAgovernor, you’ll be hearing from @AGPamBondi,” McMahon wrote on X, using the handles for California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.McMahon’s statement was the latest salvo in the culture wars over transgender youth and ratchets up the personal rivalry between Trump and Newsom. Trump has made reversing advances in transgender rights a priority since returning to office on 20 January, while California law has allowed student athletes to participate in sports in alignment with their gender identity since 2013.The justice department declined to comment and the education department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for clarification on the meaning of McMahon’s comment.California’s state education department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Newsom’s office and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the governing body for high school sports, declined to comment.The US education department issued a statement in June declaring California in violation of the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IV, the education law banning sex-based discrimination, and demanding the state alter its policy. The state rejected the federal government’s directive, and in June filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit against the US justice department in anticipation of legal action.With controversy brewing ahead of the state high school track and field championship in June, the CIF allowed girls displaced from the finals by a transgender athlete to also be granted space to compete. The CIF also allowed girls to appear on the winners’ podium if they would have won a medal without a transgender athlete competing.As a result, the CIF crowned two champions in the girls’ high jump and triple jump after transgender girl AB Hernandez won both events.During his cabinet meeting, Donald Trump also suggested his administration was looking into taking over governance of Washington DC.Trump said his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was in close touch with the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, a Democrat.It is not the first time the president floated a federal takeover of the city, home to the White House, Congress and the supreme court.Trump told reporters in February: “I think we should take over Washington DC – make it safe. I think that we should govern District of Columbia.”Under home rule, Congress already vets all laws in the city and federal lawmakers can overturn some of them. However, it would take an act of Congress to make federal rule a reality.Both houses would have to vote to repeal the 1973 Home Rule Act. It would be a controversial move and unlikely to make it through.Donald Trump said he would announce a 50% tariff on imported copper on Tuesday. The Trump administration announced a so-called Section 232 investigation into US imports of the red metal in February.Trump had ordered the investigation into possible tariffs on copper imports to rebuild US production of a metal critical to electric vehicles, military hardware, semiconductors and a wide range of consumer goods.Trump signed an order directing the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to start a new national security investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the same law that Trump used in his first term to impose 25% global tariffs on steel and aluminum.A White House official said any potential tariff rate would be determined by the investigation, adding that Trump preferred tariffs over quotas.The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said first responders in Texas are “still looking for a lot of little girls” who remain missing after a devastating flood in Texas.Noem described the scene in Texas as Trump met with his cabinet at the White House on Tuesday.Noem visited Camp Mystic in Kerrville on Saturday after the catastrophic flood on Friday.You can read our Texas live coverage here:A temporary ceasefire agreement in Gaza could be finalized by the end of the week, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said at the cabinet meeting.Witkoff added that proximity talks had reduced outstanding issues from “four issues … to one”.“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire,” Witkoff said. “Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released.”Trump added that he would meet with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, later to discuss Gaza “almost exclusively”, describing the situation as “a tragedy” while claiming that the prime minister has been “very unfairly treated” because of his corruption trial.“He’s been very unfairly treated. I think what they’ve done to him in Israel is very unfair. Having to do with this trial, he’s a wartime prime minister, had an unbelievable outcome, and I think he’s been treated very unfairly,” Trump said of Netanyahu. More

    • 175 Shares85 Views

      in US Politics

      Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons’, report finds

      by

      A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said.The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020 to 2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period.Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000.The rapid growth in military spending that began under the Bush administration’s post-9/11 and the “global war on terror” has now been continued on spending to counter China as the US’s main rival in the 21st century, as well record foreign arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine.“The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,” the authors of the report wrote. “Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.”That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that “there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1tn on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things”. Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon.The growth in spending will increasingly benefit firms in the “military tech” sector who represent tech companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, the report said, that are “deeply embedded in the Trump administration, which should give it an upper hand in the budget battles to come”.“High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are ‘for the troops’,” said William D Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an author of the report. “But as this paper shows, the majority of the department’s budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning. Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages.”“These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,” said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War project.Calculated for inflation, the military spending dwarfs an approximate $356bn that Congress had appropriated for US diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid.The Trump administration has continued to slash money spent on aid. Last month, the Guardian revealed that a White House review of grants to the state department recommended a near total cut on democracy promotion programs.The Guardian has contacted the Pentagon for comment. More