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Worse Than Signalgate? New Security Lapse Bombshell Hits White House

Worse Than Signalgate? New Security Lapse Bombshell Hits White House

Less than two weeks ago there was SignalGate, the Trump administration’s national security scandal that potentially endangered the lives of U.S. service members, and risked exposing military plans, by using an insecure channel to discuss, map out, and announce progress of an attack in Yemen. Then there was the Trump administration’s passwords scandal, where passwords, email addresses, and phone numbers of top Trump national security officials were easily found online. And just yesterday, GmailGate, the Trump administration’s use of the even less-secure commercial email app, to conduct government business.

All three crises involved President Donald Trump’s national security team, including White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, who admitted to setting up the insecure Signal chat.

On Wednesday afternoon, Politico reported that Waltz’s team actually had set up 20 or more different Signal group chats, for national security crises.

“National security adviser Mike Waltz’s team regularly set up chats on Signal to coordinate official work on issues including Ukraine, China, Gaza, Middle East policy, Africa and Europe, according to four people who have been personally added to Signal chats,” according to Politico. “Two of the people said they were in or have direct knowledge of at least 20 such chats. All four said they saw instances of sensitive information being discussed.”

“Waltz built the entire NSC communications process on Signal,” said one of the four sources.

Experts have warned that the use of Signal in certain circumstances may violate national security regulations, as well as federal law surrounding retention of government communications.

The use of Signal on personal cell phones is also problematic because those mobile devices can easily be compromised, experts say. CISA, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has recommended the use of Signal instead of less secure platforms, but not for classified or sensitive communications.

“None of the four individuals said they were aware of whether any classified information was shared, but all said that posts in group chats did include sensitive details of national security work,” Politico noted.

Additionally, on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported more concerning national security lapses.

“Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats,” the Journal reported. It was not clear if these were among the 20 or more chats Politico reported on Wednesday.

“In under 10 days, we’ve heard about journalists added to unclassified chats and sensitive data being shot around on personal emails,” lamented Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “And now we’re hearing there’s dozens more chats. It’s a never-ending parade of sloppy, reckless incompetence.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), also responding to the latest news from Politico, wrote: “President Trump must put our troops and national security first. Waltz must step down. If he won’t, President Trump should fire him.”

Democratic congressional candidate Cait Conley is a former National Security Council official who “spent nearly 20 years in the military, including a stint working on counterterrorism for the National Security Council under former President Biden,” The New York Times has reported. She also worked at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“This is not an Administration that’s serious about protecting America. Every person on those (20!) group chats should have known better,” Conley observed.

“The national security advisor continues to put our country at risk by using chats to discuss sensitive issues, allowing our adversaries to potentially intercept these messages,” commented Sabrina Singh, former deputy Pentagon press secretary and former special assistant to the president. “This is not putting America First – it’s the opposite.”

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), a former Air Force JAG officer, wrote: “National Security Adviser Waltz should resign for repeatedly playing fast and loose with OpSec. Signal should not be used to discuss sensitive information. The Pentagon warned against using Signal even for unclassified information.”

MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend snarked, “Amateur hour at the OK Corral and that’s even offensive to the amateurs.”

“This is Trump’s CLOWN CAR CABINET!,” charged CNN commentator Maria Cardona. “Incompetent, unqualified, unserious. AND these massive national security blunders, put US all is SERIOUS danger! They need to go!!”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bill Cassidy

'You Own This': Top GOP Senator Burned As Kennedy Wrecks Health Services

As the Trump administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., presses forward with a mass firing in a sweeping effort to downsize the agency tasked with safeguarding the nation’s well-being—including removing top leaders from key programs, including from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—a Republican Senator who cast the pivotal vote that enabled the controversial anti-vaccine activist to take the helm of the massive public health agency is facing scrutiny and backlash.

During Kennedy’s confirmation process U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana became an important voice and crucial vote in persuading his fellow Republicans to support what many saw as an extreme candidate. Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is a medical doctor who worked for decades in public hospitals, and is an active vaccine advocate.

Senator Cassidy “ultimately provided the one-vote margin needed to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate,” as the Los Angeles Times had reported.

Defending his vote to confirm Kennedy, Senator Cassidy said the scion of the American political family had made assurances to him that convinced him to support his nomination.

Cassidy “said he was swayed by Kennedy’s commitments to support the immunization schedules recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, maintain systems used to vet new vaccines and monitor their safety, preserve statements on the CDC website assuring the public that vaccines don’t cause autism, and meet with Cassidy ‘multiple times a month,’ among other things.”

“I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines,” Cassidy said.

STAT News reported that Senator Cassidy “said he would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s keeper.”

Over the weekend, Cassidy was sharply criticized—and blamed—when HHS forced out Dr. Peter Marks, the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration division responsible for assuring the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, as CNN reported. Dr. Marks resigned but was “given the choice to resign or be fired.”

On Tuesday, The Hill reported that Kennedy “won’t acknowledge the scientific consensus that childhood vaccines do not cause autism.”

“That skepticism over seemingly settled science appeared to come to a head over the weekend when the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top vaccine official was forced out and issued a fiery public letter blasting Kennedy.”

That official was Dr. Marks.

Cassidy appeared to express concern, but nothing more.

“I thank Dr. Marks for his dedicated service to the health of our country,” the Senator wrote. “His departure is a loss to the FDA. Commissioner Makary and Secretary Kennedy should replace him with someone of similar stature and credibility amongst the scientific community, who will lead without bias.”

Tuesday afternoon, CNN’s Manu Raju reported that he asked Cassidy about the firings of 10,000 HHS employees.

“I’m trying to understand it,” Cassidy said. “They say that they are consolidating duplicative agencies.”

Asked if he supports the firings, Cassidy replied: ‘Like I said I’m investigating.”

Back in January, Cassidy had asked RFK Jr. if he could “trust” him, as Politico reported.

Asked “if he thinks RFK Jr is backsliding on his commitments,” Raju reported, Cassidy said: “We’re in dialogue about that.”

Kennedy had told Cassidy that he was “not going to go into HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at HHS. I’m going to empower the scientists to do their job.”

Many of those scientists were fired on Tuesday at 5 AM.

MSNBC analyst and Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn blasted Cassidy, writing: “Sen. Bill Cassidy, you violated the Hippocratic oath when you supported RFK Jr.’s nomination and you own this—and all the horrific consequences to come.”

Corn added a screenshot of a post from a popular epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, detailing a few of the consequences of Tuesday’s firings.

Cassidy also came under fire on Tuesday for telling CNBC, “Is there some way that we can cut Medicare—excuse me—reform Medicare—so that benefits stay the same, but that it’s less expensive, more efficient?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Published Texts Of Hegseth Signal Chat Shatter 'Bungled' Coverup

Published Texts Of Hegseth Signal Chat Shatter 'Bungled' Coverup

In response to the Trump administration’s disinformation-and-discredit campaign, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has released the full Signal chat at the center of the growing national security scandal. National security experts and other analysts and experts, after reviewing the exchange, are sharply rejecting the administration’s efforts to downplay the severity of the breach. Many assert that, contrary to official claims, classified information was clearly shared by unsecured means—violating established protocols, internal policy, and potentially federal law.

The Trump administration and its Republican allies have been waging a disinformation campaign and pushing back against the credibility of The Atlantic and its editor-in-chief, after he revealed on Monday that he had been inadvertently added to a group text chat on Signal that took place over a number of days and involved the planning of a military strike against a terrorist group in Yemen.

The use of what has been called an unsecured chat on the messaging app Signal, likely on private, not government phones, while various members of the 18-person group were traveling overseas, including in Moscow, constitutes extreme violations of accepted national security practices, experts say. The conversations should have been held via secure communications, inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).

The president, the White House press secretary, the director of national intelligence, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the secretary of defense, and other officials — along with top Republican lawmakers and right wing media outlets—have all claimed that information in the Signal chat was not classified.

In sworn testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the CIA both insisted none of the information shared in the Signal chat was classified.

Experts disagree.

“The information Secretary of Defense Hegseth disclosed in the Signal chat was classified at the time he wrote it, especially because the operation had not even started yet, according to a US defense official and another source who was briefed on the operation,” CNN Pentagon and national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reported.

“It is safe to say that anybody in uniform would be court martialed for this,” the official said, according to Bertrand. “We don’t provide that level of information on unclassified systems, in order to protect the lives and safety of the servicemembers carrying out these strikes. If we did, it would be wholly irresponsible. My most junior analysts know not to do this.”

Barbara Starr, the iconic correspondent who covered the Pentagon on CNN for two decades, focused on National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who admitted he set up the chat and inadvertently included Goldberg. She wrote:

“Waltz revealed an extraordinary detail when he said there was intel showing the top Houthi missile guy walked into a building. You only know that if you have overhead surveillance, comms intercepts, or an operative on the ground. It means the US had ‘pattern of life’ surveillance. How is that not classified?”

NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong reports that two House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Republicans are denouncing the Trump administration’s handling of Signalgate.

“The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data. They should just own up to it and preserve credibility,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said.

After reviewing the Signal text chain, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) “said he is concerned about Hegseth sending this detailed information over the messaging app,” Wong also reported.

DesJarlais, chairman of the HASC subcommittee on strategic forces said: “It should have never happened and must not happen again.”

Joseph J. Collins is a retired U.S. Army colonel, professor of national security strategy at the National War College, and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. He currently leads the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defense University.

Dr. Collins, responding to Starr’s remarks, wrote: “Important point … this fiasco compromised or potentially compromised sources and methods, possibly including our agents and stringers on the ground.”

Veteran, activist, and Amherst College political science lecturer Paul Rieckhoff declared: “Hegseth must step down or be removed. Any member of the Department of Defense that did this would be in prison. There is no way someone that did this can lead our military as SecDef. And even he knows it.”

“Everyone on this chat probably has to go. Everyone. They all know the rules,” he continued. “Loose lips sink ships. Everyone who’s ever served knows that line. It’s OPSEC 101 that every Private learns in Basic Training. And a f— up like this could have cost American lives. There is no spinning it. Hegseth’s got to go.”

“We can’t have a SecDef who doesn’t follow the same rules and standard he’s expected to hold for millions at DoD,” Rieckhoff added. “There’s no wiggle room. Stakes are too high. Our troops lives depend on it. And our enemies are celebrating.”

Former Transportation Secretary and veteran Pete Buttigieg is one of a handful of top Democrats who have been vociferously contesting the administration’s claims. Based on his extensive military and high-level of government service, late Wednesday he simply wrote: “Well, they lied. Obviously.”

Former CIA lawyer Brian Greer posted screenshots from The Atlantic’s report, and the regulations surrounding what is classified information. He wrote: “This is all very plainly classified at the SECRET level. They all lied. They should all lose their jobs.”

Apparently referencing Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing during which the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified, claiming there was no classified information shared, Greer wrote: “There was quite a bit of perjury yesterday.”

See his social media posts below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Tulsi Gabbard

'Putin Is Giddy': National Security Agency Knew Russians Could Hack Signal

The National Security Agency was reportedly aware of vulnerabilities in the messaging app Signal weeks before 18 top Trump administration national security and defense officials used the app in a group chat to plan the recent bombing of Yemen. Those vulnerabilities, an NSA memo warned, were being exploited by Russian hackers. Details have also emerged that at least two top administration officials who were in the chat were overseas, including one in Moscow — where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The use of the Signal app by the upper echelon of Donald Trump’s national security and defense team has rocked the nation, fueling concerns over the mishandling of sensitive—and potentially classified—information in ways that may be unlawful. These fears are seemingly compounded by Trump’s alleged mishandling of hundreds of classified documents, which led to criminal charges that were ultimately dropped after the U.S. Supreme Court granted presidents broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.

CBS News reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), an arm of the Pentagon, had “sent out an operational security special bulletin to its employees in February 2025 warning them of vulnerabilities in using the encrypted messaging application Signal.”

The NSA operates under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

The Pentagon also sent out a memo warning of Signal’s vulnerabilities and use by Russian hackers, just days after that group chat.

“Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing the Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information,” NPR reported Tuesday.

“Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ features to spy on encrypted conversations,” the Pentagon’s memo warned.

It also notes that Google has identified Russian hacking groups who are “targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.”

The Pentagon memo reminded users that “third-party messaging apps (e.g. Signal) are permitted by policy for unclassified accountability/recall exercises but are not approved to process or store non-public unclassified information.”

NPR’s Quil Lawrence noted that “NPR has seen DoD memo as far back as 2023 prohibiting mobile apps for discussing even much less sensitive info like ‘controlled unclassified information.'”

Last month, a Google Threat Intelligence memo warned of the use of apps like Signal by “military personnel, politicians, journalists, activists, and other at-risk communities.”

Critics argue that the use of Signal for “war plans” was against policy. During Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing CIA Director John Ratcliffe had insisted Signal was approved for use.

National security experts, including at least one former Trump administration official, have been highly critical of the use of the app by the 18-members in a chat.

President Trump’s Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff “was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials — and inadvertently, one journalist — on the messaging app Signal,” CBS News reported on Tuesday. “Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise Signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were shocked to learn senior Trump administration officials had used to discuss sensitive military planning.”

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, acknowledged on Tuesday during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that she was overseas during the Signal chat. The Associated Press reported the DNI “wouldn’t say whether she was using her personal or government-issued phone because the matter is under review by the White House National Security Council.”

The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov appears to be one of the first to note that Witkoff had been in Moscow during the time the chat had been organized. He notes: “The Signal app itself has high encryption. But if your phone is inside Russia, and especially if your WiFi and Bluetooth are not disabled, Russia can see what is inside your phone pretty easily.”

On Tuesday morning, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted: “Not a single person out of 18 of the very most senior officials in this Admin — including the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director — voiced any concern with highly classified military plans circulated on Signal. You also can be sure this is not the only time.”

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and scholar, responded to Rep. Goldman, writing: “Putin is giddy. He has compromised the phones of every top national security official in the Trump administration. No doubt has enough juicy information from what is likely to be multiple Signal chats to deeply damage American security. And possibly to blackmail some of them.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Donald Trump

'I Don't Know Anything': Trump's War Plans Leak Denial Backfires

President Donald Trump’s claim that he was unaware of a cabinet-level breach of classified information—an incident reportedly involving up to 18 top national security officials discussing sensitive details of a planned military strike—appears to have backfired, raising questions about his knowledge of the actions of his top officials, and, as Commander-in-Chief, his knowledge of U.S. national security and military operations.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed Monday afternoon that he inadvertently had been included in the 18-person group chat on the unclassified messaging app Signal. Experts say those discussions should never have been held over the app, but rather inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or inside multiple SCIFs.

On Monday afternoon at a press conference, a reporter asked the commander-in-chief for his reaction to the story in The Atlantic.

“I don’t know anything about it,” was Trump’s immediate response. His next response was to attack the media outlet.

“I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic, it’s, to me it’s a magazine that’s going out of business,” the president declared. “I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”

He then asked the reporter to explain to him what had been reported in The Atlantic.

“You’re saying that they had what?” “Having to do with what?” he asked twice. “What were they talking about?”

After the reporter gave him more information, Trump, seemingly still not understanding all the details, declared that the leak “couldn’t have been very effective because the attack was very effective, I can tell you that.”

He again denied any knowledge of the leak.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump repeated. “You, you’re telling me about it for the first time.”

The White House has acknowledged the leak occurred. Axios called it a “mind-boggling security breach.” The Washington Post reported that “the disclosure raises questions about how the administration has discussed classified issues and whether anyone will be disciplined.”

“As the bombing campaign moved ahead, Hegseth’s [Signal] account shared details that Goldberg said he believed could put at risk the safety of U.S. troops or intelligence officials, especially those deployed in the Middle East,” the Post reported. “Those details, the Atlantic article says, allegedly included the specific weapons to be used and in which sequence the Houthi targets would be hit.”

Military and national security experts are stunned — not only that this massive leak occurred, but that the President was not informed until a reporter asked him about it on Monday.

“If the President is telling the truth and no one’s briefed him about this yet, that’s another story in itself. In any other administration, CoS would have been in the Oval within nanoseconds of learning about something like this, wroteThe Atlantic’s Tom Nichols via social media, referring to the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Nichols is a retired U.S. Naval War College professor who is an expert on national security, international affairs, Russia, and nuclear weapons.

“Heads need to roll for this. They have broken laws and endangered the lives of our service members with this idiocy,” commented Army veteran of 22 years, Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Journalist Wajahat Ali wrote, “What’s worse is that he HAS no idea, allegedly, about the story, which makes it even worse and more terrifying. Like, bro, why don’t you know?”

“One wild thing about Trump,” observed journalist Isaac Saul, “is that he is notoriously insulated from certain information streams by his team. Absolutely believable that he went out to the podium having not been informed of this massive story bc the people who brief him on info were culpable in the leaks.”

“Here’s some insight,” offered Sophia Kinzinger, a former press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “The White House has an entire department, staffed by military professionals, dedicated to facilitating secure communications. They travel with staff, provide devices, and set up SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) whenever and wherever needed, operating 24/7. There is absolutely no excuse for mishandling classified information, especially for someone leading the National Security Council at the White House. Their actions clearly demonstrate a lack of qualification for such a critical role. we deserve better!”

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) added: “If it’s true that the President of the United States had no idea that his war cabinet and VP were discussing war plans on a Signal chat that included a journalist, that is astounding ignorance and profound incompetence.”

Derek Martin, who conducted supply chain counterintelligence at the National Security Agency (NSA), asked: “If Trump doesn’t know about a major incident involving his VP, Chief of Staff, NatSec Advisor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, and CIA Director, then who exactly is running the government?”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), according toDeadline, wrote: “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally – that would normally involve a jail sentence. We can’t trust anyone in this dangerous administration to keep Americans safe.”

In his report at The Atlantic, Goldberg noted that “coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story.”

Goldberg also explained that he chose to not publish all of the texts, noting that, “if [some] had been read by an adversary of the United States, [they] could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Alina Habba

Belligerent Trump Lawyer Habba Named US Attorney In New Jersey

President Donald Trump has named his former personal attorney Alina Habba, who has been serving as White House counselor, the interim, or acting, United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Habba immediately lashed out at the Garden State’s top Democrats.

Trump said the he is also nominating the current acting U.S. Attorney, John Giordano, who has been in that role for a mere three weeks, to a new post: U.S. ambassador to Namibia. Giordano is listed as a member of the White House Historical Association.

Habba, who recently faced backlash for suggesting that veterans dismissed from federal jobs may be “not fit to have a job at this moment,” quickly went on the offensive against Sen. Cory Booker and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (video below), claiming they have “failed the state of New Jersey.”

Telling reporters that “there is corruption, there is injustice, and there is a heavy amount of crime right in Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor Murphy,” Habba vowed, “that will stop.”

“I look forward to working with Pam Bondi and with the Department of Justice and making sure that we further the president’s agenda of putting America first, cleaning up mess, and going after the people that we should be going after, not the people that are falsely accused,” she said, a possible reference to the numerous state and federal charges Trump had faced until winning back the White House.

Politico describes Habba as Trump’s “legal attack dog.” Trump remains a convicted felon after being convicted by a jury in the State of New York on 34 counts of business fraud in what prosecutors said was an effort to influence the 2016 election.

The New York Post’s Manhattan courts reporter Molly Crane-Newman noted on Monday that “Habba’s behavior during Trump’s defamation trial last year was so far outside the bounds that Judge Kaplan threatened to imprison her.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported that “Habba previously represented Trump in the New York civil cases where he was ordered to pay $450m for inflating his net worth and $83m for defaming E Jean Carroll.”

“In 2023, a federal judge also ordered Trump and Habba to pay $1m in sanctions for filing a frivolous claim against Hillary Clinton and others, calling the lawsuit ‘a hodgepodge of disconnected, often immaterial events, followed by an implausible conclusion,'” Lowell added.

Critics blasted the decision to name Habba.

Talking Points Memo founder and editor Josh Marshall appeared to compare Habba to an underboss in the Mafia, writing: “lol Alina Habba is now the capo of New Jersey.”

Former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner wrote, “I served as an AUSA in the District of NJ from 2001-04.”

“I’m disgusted by this,” he said, adding: “Caligula’s horse would have been a better choice.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chuck Schumer

'Delusional': Schumer Under Growing Pressure After Hayes Interview

Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in an attempt to cauterize the self-inflicted wound from his decision to help Republicans pass their “CR,” continuing resolution, last week—a move backed by President Donald Trump—may have only deepened what some rank-and-file Democrats see as a crisis of leadership.

In what some are calling a “devastating” interview on Tuesday evening with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, the Democratic leader appeared unwilling to grasp the full extent of the current threat level to American democracy, that our democracy is now at a crossroads—a fact well-documented by experts on democracy, and proclaimed by a Democratic U.S. Senator—and struggled to acknowledge that the nation is facing a constitutional crisis.

Trying to defend what is being seen as a lack of strategy, an inability to grasp the gravity of this moment in American history, and a refusal to fight the battle that is actually before him, Schumer made his argument to Hayes.

President Donald Trump’s approval “numbers have started to go down, from 51 to 47. If we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective,” Schumer insisted.

Schumer additionally claimed that “we will find the moments where we shouldn’t give them votes.”

But Schumer was sitting in Hayes’s studio exactly because he did give Republicans votes. He canceled his book tour that was supposed to start this week, reportedly due to security threats, and instead has been hitting the talk shows and cable news defending his decision — and his leadership position.

“There’s this weird asymmetry right now,” Hayes observed, noting that Republicans “are acting in this totally new way, in which they are ambitiously trying to seize all power and create a presidential dictatorship in the United States of America, and the Democratic opposition is acting like, ‘Well, if we can get their approval rate down a few points.’ Then what? Then what happens?”

“Well,” Schumer, still in defensive mode, declared, saying that “what happens is, look, first, we get it way down, he’s gonna have much like we—this worked in 2017.”

For some on social media, that appeared to be the inflection point—the moment that Schumer exposed that he is using the old playbook that the Trump administration, MAGA, The Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 burned long ago.

“You say now it’s a different government,” Schumer acknowledged.

“It’s different, though,” Hayes pressed.

“Oh, it is different, but health care: we beat them. Taxes: we beat them, and guess what we did? Guess what we did, Chris? We took back the House and won in the Senate, and that got and then we were allowed to do all those good things.”

Hayes also honed in on Schumer’s 2017 reference.

“I don’t disagree with that, but the difference to me between 2017 and now,” he explained, is that it “is a full-fledged assault on the Constitutional order that has not been seen.”

And Hayes asked, “but then the question becomes, what is the role of the minority in resisting that, that’s distinct from ‘we’re gonna beat them on health care, we’re gonna beat them on spending with Medicaid.'”

Then Schumer said, “If our democracy is at risk—”

“It is at risk,” Hayes declared.

“Sorry. It is certainly at risk,” Schumer acknowledged, after Hayes made that declaration, but then he ignored Hayes’s question: “Do you believe” it is at risk?

Schumer moved on, appearing to say that if the federal courts ultimately fail to hold Trump, “we’ll have the court of public opinion, and if that happens, as you pointed out, we have had rule of law since the Magna Carta, okay?”

“The people will have to rise up, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just, you know, people everybody. But our democracy will be at stake then,” he said, again, not appearing to grasp that, as experts say, it is right now.

“And if the people make their voices heard as strong and stand up, and we join them, I believe we can try to beat that back.”

“We can beat that back, but it’s it’s it’s up on that one, if democracy is at risk, that’s a little different than what we’re talking about now — even a shutdown as horrible as it is.”

“We’ll all have to stand up and fight back in every way,” Schumer concluded.

Critics, and rank-and-file Democrats, and some elected Democrats, say the fight should have started when Trump was elected.

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a noted political scientist, responded to a clip of Hayes’ interview with Schumer, declaring, “Chuck is delusional.”

That word has repeatedly surfaced.

“‘This worked in 2017’ is all you need to hear. I can understand Schumer’s logic on the shutdown, but he’s delusional if he thinks that’s a winning strategy,” observed Cosmopolitan editor Olivia Truffaut-Wong.

“You know, I watched Sen. Schumer on Chris Hayes and really tried to hear him defend his actions in good faith,” wrote Charlotte Clymer, a former Human Rights Campaign press secretary who has called for Schumer to resign, “but by the end of their discussion, it just felt impossible for me to avoid this very deep sense of dangerous foreboding. Big ‘tempting fate’ energy in the worse way. Honestly scary.”

One day before Schumer’s MSNBC interview, Clymer on Monday had already made the case for “Why Chuck Schumer Should Step Down.”

“We have lost our way not because of what we believe in,” she wrote, referring to rank-and-file Democratic voters, “but because of our party leadership’s reluctance to fight for what we believe in.”

Sam Seder, the progressive political commentator and host of “The Majority Report with Sam Seder,” declared Schumer’s interview with Hayes was “devastating for Schumer. ..ignoring the criticism from all corners of the party..can’t articulate a strategy. It’s bizarre. He thinks it’s 2017.”

He also wrote that Schumer was “trying to justify his lack of leadership and strategy on his failed dirty CR. He’s panicked and should be. He is not up to the era. Instead of fighting against every other Democratic leader he should resign for the sake of the country.”

Emma Vigeland, Seder’s co-host, wrote that Hayes “nailed Schumer at the end of tonight’s interview by getting him to equivocate about whether or not we are currently at risk of losing our democracy. This is entirely out of step with how the base feels and saying this on MSNBC could (and should!) cost him his leadership.”

Elected Democrats are starting to break their wall of silence and call for Schumer to resign as Senate Democratic Leader.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) on Tuesday, as C-SPAN reported, said: “I was deeply disappointed that Senator Schumer voted with the Republicans. You know you’re on bad ground when you get a personal tweet from Donald Trump thanking you for your vote…I’m afraid it may be time for the Senate Democrats to pick new leadership…”

Christopher Webb, a social media political commentator with a strong multi-platform following, posted edited video of the interview and also called it “devastating.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

At Justice Department, Trump Calls CNN And MSNBC 'Illegal'

At Justice Department, Trump Calls CNN And MSNBC 'Illegal'

President Donald Trump, just 54 days into his second term, declared himself “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” and labeled two major news organizations, CNN and MSNBC, as “illegal,” while further denouncing their coverage as “illegal.” His remarks Thursday afternoon were delivered to officials at the Department of Justice, in an appearance that shattered a decades-old norm designed to insulate the department from political interference—a safeguard established in response to President Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. Trump’s statements have drawn sharp criticism for their authoritarian tone and direct attack on press freedom, sparking alarm.

“I believe that CNN and MSNDC,” said Trump (video below), using his own derogatory twist on MSNBC’s name, “who literally write 97.6 percent bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.”

Trump also “rallied against the press,” in general, “claiming they are influencing judges and, without any evidence, claiming the media works in coordination with political campaigns, which is not allowed in the news industry,” The Hillreported.

It has been widely reported that during his first term in office, Fox News host Sean Hannity spoke with Trump “nearly every weeknight.”

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really, eh, changing law and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal and they do it in total coordination with each other,” the President alleged.

Trump’s remarks were just a part of a speech that lasted more than one hour, during which he “delivered an insult-laden speech that shattered the traditional notion of DOJ independence,” as Politicoreported. During those remarks, Trump also “labeled his courtroom opponents ‘scum,’ judges ‘corrupt’ and the prosecutors who investigated him ‘deranged.'”

“With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison.”

It is not the first time the President, who is a convicted felon, has declared MSNBC “illegal.”

Last month, when MSNBC host Joy Reid left the news network, Trump unleashed a torrent of hatred.

“Lowlife Chairman of ‘Concast,’ Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. “Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there. Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show. Rachel rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid.”

Trump’s Friday afternoon assault on the media was swiftly criticized.

“This is what a dictator sounds like,” wrote U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“Journalism is legal,” declared award-winning investigative journalist Lindsay Beyerstein. “Criticizing the president is legal. Being a Democrat is legal. Nothing Donald Trump is ranting about here is a crime and he’s disgracing himself and the Department of Justice by talking this way.”

Journalist Matt O’Brien observed, “Trump wants to get rid of freedom of speech because he wants to be a dictator. And unlike his first term, he now has a government full of fascists who are eager to make that a reality.”

Marlow Stern, adjunct assistant professor of journalism at Columbia Journalism School wrote: “sounds like putin.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote simply: “Enemy of the Constitution.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

New Quinnipiac Poll Shows Majority Reject Trump On Key Issues

New Quinnipiac Poll Shows Majority Reject Trump On Key Issues

Barely more than 50 days into his second term, President Donald Trump appears to be failing in the eyes of a majority of American voters on nearly every major issue — from the economy to immigration to the war in Ukraine to trade to his handling of the federal workforce and more —according to a new poll released Thursday by the highly-respected Quinnipiac University.

"A noticeable uptick of discontent can be seen over President Trump's handling of a range of issues: from Ukraine to the economy to the federal workforce," Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.

A majority of Americans, 53 percent, disapprove of the president's performance overall, with just 42 percent approving. That's a significant swing (11 points) on the disapproval side from Quinnipiac's January 29 poll, which found 46 percent percent of Americans approved of the new president's performance, and 42 percent disapproved.

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov gave an overview of the poll's results, telling viewers (video below), "So basically, he is underwater on everything."

On one of the most strongly-negative questions, 60 percent of voters oppose President Trump's plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Just one in three support it. Another major negative is Trump's position on trade with Canada: 58 percent of voters disapprove of his handling of that issue, just 36 percent approve. That is closely followed by trade with Mexico (56 percent disapprove).

Historically, the economy has been one of Trump's strongest approval areas. That is no longer the case.

A majority of voters, 54 percent disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy — just 41 percent approve.

"In the Quinnipiac poll released today, one percent of voters describe the state of the America’s economy as excellent. That’s not a typo," observed Democratic strategist Matt McDermott.

On that topic, Quinnipiac reported, a whopping "76 percent describe it as either not so good (45 percent) or poor (31 percent)."

According to Quinnipiac's numbers, voters thought President Joe Biden's economy was better in his last full month (December) than they think President Trump's is now.

Quinnipiac University's December 2024 poll found 34 percent described the economy "as either excellent (three percent) or good (31 percent) and 64 percent described it as either not so good (31 percent) or poor (33 percent)."

Immigration, also once a strong area for Trump, no longer is.

Nearly half of voters, 49 percent, disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration issues, while 46 percent approve.

Other negatives include his handling of the Russia - Ukraine war (55 percent disapprove), the federal workforce (also 55 percent disapprove), foreign policy (53 percent disapprove,) and the military (48 percent disapprove).

Nor did Trump's Oval Office dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky go over well with the American voter.

"Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of the way President Trump handled the recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, while 35 percent approve."

Trump's overall approval rating (42 percent) is actually one point below what voters gave President Zelenskyy (43 percent).

Meanwhile, six in ten voters (61 percent) think Trump is not hard enough on Russia, while half (50 percent) think he is too tough on Ukraine.

In fact, the only issue where Trump's overall favorable outweighed his unfavorable rating is trade with China, which has not made many headlines recently. On that issue, 46 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove, a narrow margin.

But even in areas not directly tied to Trump's approval rating, voters oppose the President's position, at least in part.

"More than half of voters (57 percent) think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should not be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities, while 35 percent think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities," Quinnipiac found.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Donald Trump Zelensky

Trump's Coziness With Russia Will 'Immediately' Cost Ukrainian Lives

In the week since Donald Trump and JD Vance launched a two-on-one televised attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the American president, his administration, and his allies have escalated actions that undermine—and even endanger—Ukraine and its people on multiple fronts, leading critics to denounced President Trump’s “betrayal.”

Trump and his administration reportedly will be targeting Ukrainian refugees in the U.S., and have already crippled a key military tool vital to Ukraine’s defense, halted weapons shipments, and ordered a top Pentagon agency to suspend operations and planning against Russia’s cyber offensives. Trump’s close allies reportedly are looking to back Zelenskyy’s political opponents in Ukraine. Critics—and even Russian state propagandists—say these moves send an unmistakable signal to the world: the United States has “switched sides” in Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine.

“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently declared, as MSNBC reported Tuesday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”

President Trump “was asked for his reaction after the Kremlin said the White House was largely aligned with Moscow. He didn’t answer — but he didn’t have to,” observed MSNBC’s Steve Benen.

Reuters is reporting that the Trump administration will move to revoke the legal protected status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion to come to the United States. These refugees, under a Biden administration program, were required to pay fees, be fully vetted, and have proof of a sponsor and financial means.

“The move, expected as soon as April, would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration,” according to Reuters, which noted that at least some could be put on a fast track to deportation.

While Reuters reports its sources say the plan was in place before President Donald Trump’s and Vice President. JD Vance’s Oval Office blowup, it also comes amid moves that appear to put the Trump administration on the side of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this week, President Trump ordered a suspension of critical intelligence sharing with Ukraine, a move that is “expected to cripple Kyiv’s ability to target Russian forces,”The Wall Street Journalreported.

The Trump administration also “suspended weapons shipments to Ukraine earlier this week,” after the “contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the Journal reported. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, “said Trump, after that meeting, had also ‘asked for a pause’ of intelligence sharing.”

For years, the CIA and other U.S. Intelligence agencies “have forged deep ties with Ukrainian counterparts,” according to the Journal. Now, that has changed.

“We have taken a step back and are pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship,” Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told reporters Wednesday.

Trump’s decision to halt intelligence sharing “will cost civilian lives almost immediately, dismayed Ukrainians said Thursday,” NBC News reported. The President’s decision also came as European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “convened a summit in Brussels as they attempt to cope with an upended landscape in which the Trump administration appears to be treating them with hostility while seemingly warming to the Kremlin.”

In another escalation against Ukraine and an apparent move toward Russia, on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that the war in Ukraine is “a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end.”

Reuters reported that the Kremlin “said on Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s view that the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war between the United States and Russia is in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own assessment.”

On Thursday, Politico Europe exclusively reported that “senior members of Donald Trump’s entourage have held secret discussions with some of Kyiv’s top political opponents to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just as Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job.”

“The discussions centered on whether Ukraine could hold quick presidential elections. These are being delayed in line with the country’s constitution because Ukraine remains under martial law. Critics of holding elections say they could be chaotic and play into Russia’s hands, with so many potential voters serving on the front lines or living abroad as refugees.”

Politico notes that while the Trump administration denies interfering in Ukraine’s domestic politics, “the behavior of Trump and his officials suggests quite the opposite. Trump has accused Zelenskyy of being a ‘dictator without elections,’ and hinted he would not be ‘around very long’ if he didn’t do a deal with Russia. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has falsely accused Kyiv of canceling the election.”

University of Copenhagen award-winning professor of political science, Marlene Wind, blasted the news.

“This is just appalling. Is Trump secretly planning a coup in Kyiv by replacing @ZelenskyyUa with a pro-Russian politician?” she asked.

Bartłomiej Gajos, a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, asked: “Is it official US policy to seek regime change in Ukraine? That would be my question to the administration if I were a journalist.”

Meanwhile, critics are also condemning Secretary Rubio’s remarks—with some calling them Russian talking points. And President Trump’s decision to target the nearly quarter-million Ukrainian refugees in the U.S. is also being denounced.

Critics Sound the Alarm

“This is nasty, heartless, un-American and dangerous,” declared veteran and veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff. “It’s sending innocent civilians back into a war zone to die. These are women and children and seniors. The latest move to deepen Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine. And American values. He continues to drive the knife deeper into the back of Ukraine. And NATO. Putin is celebrating. And the Statue of Liberty is weeping. Congress must exhaust every option to block this. I’d expect Canada or another good nation to step up to accept these Ukrainians. As America continues to fail and fall. And become more isolated and less safe.”

“Hold on,” said the Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimo, “didn’t President Trump just say that half of Ukraine is flattened and that his main motivation is care for innocent Ukrainian lives?”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser remarked, “How to see this as anything other than a betrayal of people who fled for their lives? The US welcomed them… and now we’re throwing them out, and switching sides in Putin’s war.”

Last week, Glasser wrote: “the United States of America has switched sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The country is no longer on the side of Ukraine.”

Late Thursday morning Glasser posted video of a French lawmaker, calling it a “Powerful speech about Trump’s betrayal of the democratic world.”

“My question watching this — where is the American version?” she asked. “Why hasn’t US’s own opposition to Trump been able to speak out with such clarity and force? Tempus fugit.”

Jesuit priest James Martin, a New York Times best-selling author, and editor-at-large of America magazine, responding to the news Ukrainian refugees may lose protections and be deported, wrote simply: “‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me’ (Mt 25).”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson

Republican Party Warns Members And Senators: No More Town Halls!

Following a wave of humiliating viral videos capturing congressional Republicans being berated by their own outraged constituents at town halls nationwide, GOP lawmakers are now being told to stop holding such events altogether.

Last month, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) "tried asking for unity at his 'community coffee' event," but "his audience had screamed, cussed and called him a Nazi," The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. "The crowd was furious that Obernolte had defended the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers. They yelled when he said he was glad billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was 'looking at all of the waste' in the federal budget."

"And in reference to Trump, they shouted: 'No king! No king! No king!'"

This week, President Donald Trump, without providing any proof or evidence, claimed that voters caught on camera confronting their elected representatives at town halls—largely in outrage over the mass termination of tens of thousands of government employees and the cancellation of critical, life-saving programs, under the eye of Musk and his DOGE team—were actually "paid" operatives and suggested they were Democratic shills. His allegation has been swiftly echoed by numerous Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and their MAGA supporters.

On Tuesday, in a closed-door meeting among House Republicans, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), "very dramatically told members to put down their phones and listen," reportedThe Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers.

"He said no one should be doing town halls. Likened it to 2017, [he] said the protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse. Another congresswoman got up and complained that they’ve been picketing at her house and targeting her kid, this source says." Beavers noted that Hudson meant in-person town halls.

Democratic House Judiciary Committee chief counsel Joshua Breisblatt went even further: "this has hardcore 2010 vibes..." he remarked, appearing to refer to the Tea Party's anti-Obamacare town halls.

Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman added that Rep. Hudson "told Republicans they should be doing tele town halls instead of in person town halls. He said it is a more efficient way to reach constituents. And he said Dems will send someone to an in-person event to get a viral clip."

Hudson "said Democratic activists are hijacking town halls to organize, drowning out constituents with real issues. He said virtual events could reach thousands of constituents."

That claim targeting Democrats does not appear to align with numerous viral videos with millions of views on social media platforms, like this one, which has been viewed nearly 5 million times on just one social media platform in just three days:

Sherman also reported that it was Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-C) who "said that people are harassing her children at her house."

"Hudson said the paid resistance people are out there like in 2017,” The Daily Beast's Juliegrace Brufke added.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) responded to the 2017 comment: "Republicans think pissed off voters showing up at their town halls are 'paid resistance.' Did the 'paid resistance' cause them to lose 41 seats in the House the next year, too?"

The Bulwark's Sam Stein reported that some House Democrats said if Republicans won't do in-person town halls, they will hold them — in Republican districts.

Bipartisan criticism came swiftly.

"If you don't have the courage to face your constituents -- the majority of whom just voted for you -- you certainly don't have the courage to stand up for your country," charged Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). "Cowardice is the opposite of leadership. And it's all the @GOP has."

Five-term Republican former Rep. Justin Amash blasted his former colleagues: "If you can’t handle contentious town hall meetings, then you shouldn’t be in Congress. Who cares if a questioner has an agenda? An honest legislator doesn’t fear these exchanges. They always represent an opportunity to persuade constituents, even if you can’t sway the questioner."

Although not a member of Congress, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, the former vice presidential nominee, offered to hold town halls himself.

"If your Republican representative won’t meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will. Hell, maybe I will. If your congressman refuses to meet, I’ll come host an event in their district to help local Democrats beat ‘em," he vowed.

Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop remarked, "House GOP advised to hide from their constituents rather than try to publicly defend the Trump/Musk agenda."

Democratic strategist Matt Corridoni added, “'Stop talking to your constituents' is one hell of a message."

Town halls are a rich tradition in America, as University of Texas political science professor Mark Hand wrote in 2023:

"The first town halls in America were mini governments, not Q&A sessions—and we don’t really know where they came from. Today, when a representative goes back to their district, it’s mostly listening and responding carefully to constituent concerns. But the first town hall meetings in Massachusetts in the 1630s were experiments in community-level direct democracy, a tradition that continues today in some Massachusetts towns," he wrote.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'I'm -- We Are The Federal Law"' Sputters Trump As He Threatens Maine Governor

'I'm -- We Are The Federal Law"' Sputters Trump As He Threatens Maine Governor

Just 48 hours after declaring himself “king,” President Donald Trump, in a highly public display, launched a verbal attack on Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills over his stance on transgender girls in sports. He threatened to cut all federal funding — literally defund the entire state — and vowed to end her political career, in what is being called a “terse” exchange.

“The president directly threatened Mills over the state’s refusal to comply with a recent executive order that would bar transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams,” NBC affiliate NewsCenter Maine reports.

Speaking to a bipartisan group of governors at the White House, Trump asked Governor Mills (video below) if her state would not “comply” with his executive order.

“Is Maine here? Is the governor of Maine here? Are you not going to comply with it?”

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Mills replied.

“Well, I’m — we are the federal law,” Trump angrily shot back. “Well you’d better do it. You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you’d better comply, because otherwise you’re not getting any — any — federal funding.”

“See you in court,” Mills responded.

“Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, ’cause I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”

Governor Mills later released a statement.

“If the President attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of Federal funding, my Administration and the Attorney General will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides. The State of Maine will not be intimidated by the President’s threats.”

Critics are slamming the president.

“An incredibly revealing exchange, but especially a window into Trump’s view when he says ‘We are the federal law.’ As opposed to, you know, actual laws (& constitutional provisions) that authorize and limit what he can do,” noted CNN senior political analyst Ronald Brownstein.

“L’etat c’est moi as Louis XIV might (or not) have said,” Brownstein added, which loosely translates into “I am the state,” or, “I myself am the nation.”

“Not so easy to cosplay as a king when you aren’t hiding behind a phone screen,” Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf commented.

“The distance between the most benign possible interpretation of Trump’s public statements and clear autocracy has narrowed to the width of a hairline fracture. Yet Republicans continue to insist that what he ACTUALLY meant was something totally cool and not autocratic,” observed veteran Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier.

“THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. Right in the White House, Maine Gov Janet Mills goes toe to toe with Trump. Wow,” remarked veteran journalist turned media critic Jennifer Schulze.

Democratic former Washington governor Jay Inslee applauded the Maine governor: “Governor Janet Mills has brought thousands of heat pumps to Maine and now has brought some righteous heat to Donald Trump. Way to bring the heater Janet!”

Trump has signed at least four executive orders threatening the civil rights of transgender people in America.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bobby Lied: Violating Senate Commitments, RFK Jr. Seeks To Thwart Vaccines

Bobby Lied: Violating Senate Commitments, RFK Jr. Seeks To Thwart Vaccines

One week after being sworn into office, President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is reportedly preparing to make significant changes to the vaccine approval process—actions that critics say violate the “commitment” he made to several Republican senators. These assurances, senators claim, were key conditions for their votes to confirm the Kennedy, an attorney known for his “role in legitimizing anti-vaccine activism.”

Secretary Kennedy “is preparing to remove members of the outside committees that advise the federal government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, according to two people familiar with the planning,” Politico reported Thursday. “Kennedy plans to replace members who he perceives to have conflicts of interest, as part of a widespread effort to minimize what he’s criticized as undue industry influence over the nation’s health agencies.”

The apparent most likely target is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which “plays a key role in setting vaccine policy. Kennedy and his top aides are also scrutinizing a host of other outside panels, including those that advise the Food and Drug Administration,” according to Politico.

In anticipation of this possibility, before leaving office, President Joe Biden and his HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, “approved the appointments of eight new candidates” to ACIP, STAT News reported in January. The medical news outlet called it “a burst of activity within a matter of a few months that could, in theory, make it more difficult for the Trump administration to shape the panel with its own appointees.”

But experts believe that “any attempt to protect the status quo at the ACIP will prove to have been futile. People who sit on this committee have at-will appointments,” they noted.

Multiple news outlets on Thursday reported that ACIP’s first scheduled meeting of the year, slated for next week, has now been postposed, a development raising concerns.

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a noted virologist, responded on social media to the rescheduling, remarking: “This is how RFK Jr will administratively destroy vaccination programs.”

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy is a Louisiana Republican and a medical doctor who “co-founded the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic, a clinic providing free dental and health care to the working uninsured,” his Senate bio reads. “Bill also created a private-public partnership to vaccinate 36,000 greater Baton Rouge area children against Hepatitis B at no cost to the schools or parents. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Bill led a group of health care volunteers to convert an abandoned K-Mart building into an emergency health care facility, providing basic health care to hurricane evacuees.”

Politico reports that the assurances RFK Jr. “provided helped clinch his confirmation, after Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he received commitments that changes would not be made to the CDC’s vaccine committee.”

On February 4, standing on the floor of the Senate, Dr. Cassidy delivered a speech detailing those commitments.

“After seeing patients die from vaccine preventable diseases, I dedicated much of my time to vaccine research and immunization programs. Personally witnessing the safety monitoring, and the effectiveness of immunization. But simply, vaccines save lives,” Cassidy said (archived).

“This is the context that informed me when considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the nominee to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,” Cassidy continued, explaining why he was choosing to vote to confirm RFK Jr. “Regarding vaccines, Mr. Kennedy has been insistent that he just wants good science and to ensure safety. But on this topic, the science is good, the science is credible. Vaccines save lives. They are safe. They do not cause autism. There are multiple studies that show this. They are a crucial part of our nation’s public health response.”

Crucially, Senator Cassidy said that Kennedy “committed that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP] without changes.”

Cassidy was not the only Republican who voted to confirm Kennedy based on commitments he personally made to them.

Defending her vote to confirm Kennedy, widely recognized as one of the least qualified among all of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) issued a lengthy statement repeatedly explaining that RFK Jr. had made “commitments” to her, personally, that were sufficiently satisfying to earn her vote — despite his lengthy reported history of anti-vaccine activism, his statement that, in his opinion, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective,” and what has been recorded as his documented history of promoting conspiracy theories.

“I continue to have concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s views on vaccines and his selective interpretation of scientific studies, which initially caused my misgivings about his nomination,” declared Senator Murkowski. “Vaccines have saved millions of lives, and I sought assurance that, as HHS Secretary, he would do nothing to make it difficult for people to take vaccines or discourage vaccination efforts. He has made numerous commitments to me and my colleagues, promising to work with Congress to ensure public access to information and to base vaccine recommendations on data-driven, evidence-based, and medically sound research. These commitments are important to me and, on balance, provide assurance for my vote.”

One week ago CNN’s Manu Raju reported, “Asked Lisa Murkowski if she trusts RFK Jr on vaccines, and she said: ‘We are going to hold him accountable and that’s how we will get the trust.'”

Thursday afternoon, the nonprofit Protect Our Care, issued a statement strongly criticizing Senator Cassidy.

“Just one week in, RFK Jr. has already begun enacting some of the most radical parts of his conspiracy theory-filled agenda, breaking promises he made to on-the-fence Senators during his confirmation process. Coverage confirms that RFK Jr. will be removing members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee after canceling a critical meeting on vaccine approvals,” the group charged.

“RFK Jr. played Bill Cassidy like a fiddle,” the group’s president, Brad Woodhouse, added. “It hasn’t even been a week and he is already breaking his promises. After saying anything to on-the-fence senators to get confirmed, RFK Jr. is now showing his true colors as the anti-science, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist he always has been. The consequences of RFK Jr.’s broken promises, which were always bull—, will be more sick and dead Americans, including children, and Senator Cassidy and his colleagues who bought what Kennedy was selling will bear responsibility.”

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on another commitment RFK Jr. made to Senator Cassidy, one he appears to be preparing to rescind.

“To earn the vote he needed to become the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a special promise to a U.S. senator: He would not change the nation’s current vaccination schedule,” the AP reported. “But on Tuesday, speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, he vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insists President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, is complying with all federal laws. The Trump administration is under growing pressure to release Musk’s financial disclosure form and any conflict of interest waiver the President may have signed, if there is one.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who wrote the best-selling book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, made a rare appearance inside the White House press briefing room on Wednesday to challenge Musk’s actions.

“You talked about the transparency with DOGE and Elon Musk,” Haberman reminded Leavitt. “There is a conflict of interest law in place that says that people who have personal interests can’t interact with government entities that could touch on those. Has President Trump signed a waiver for Elon Musk, does such a thing and exist, if it does, will you guys release it in the interest of transparency that he’s committed to?”

“I have not seen the law that you are referring to,” Leavitt was quick to respond. “What I can tell you is that Elon Musk is, I’ve confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure. And he is complying with all applicable federal laws.”

“As you also heard, Elon addressed this directly yesterday in the alleged conflict of interest, and he said everything he’s doing is very public, and if you all perceive a conflict of interest, you’re welcome to bring that up.”

“And as the president said, if he feels like Elon is engaging in something that’s a conflict of interest, he will tell Elon not to do that,” she claimed. “Elon also said yesterday that before he moves forward with anything, he consults with the president of the United States. So, um, we’re very confident with the ethics and the guardrails that have been put in place here.”

On Tuesday during his Oval Office press conference, Elon Musk told reporters that there is no conflict of interest.

Musk’s SpaceX reportedly received a $38.8 million contract from NASA this week.

CNN on Tuesday reported that Musk has not filed and will not file a public financial disclosure form.

“Musk, speaking in the Oval Office, sought to underscore his belief that ‘transparency is what builds trust,’ and insisted that all of his team’s efforts were being made public on DOGE’s social media accounts and website,” CNN reported. “But he also seemed to chafe at some of the scrutiny he was receiving, likening it to a ‘daily proctology exam.'”

“Earlier in the day, a White House official said Musk would not need to file a public financial disclosure, allowing the world’s richest man to skirt public scrutiny of his potential conflicts. Musk’s various companies have billions of dollars in government contracts.”

“As an unpaid special government employee who is not a commission officer, he will file a confidential financial disclosure report per the norm,” a White House official told CNN, the news outlet reported.

“We wouldn’t let him” have a conflict of interest or a lack of transparency, President Trump assured reporters Tuesday.

But the New York Times on Tuesday reported that the White House had not responded to its request “for a copy of the waiver, a document that is required under federal law to be released. Ethics waivers are typically drafted based on conflicts identified through a financial disclosure filing, so it is possible that no waiver has been prepared yet.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Federal Judge Angrily Orders Trump To Restore Health Agency Websites

Federal Judge Angrily Orders Trump To Restore Health Agency Websites

A federal judge has directed harsh criticism at the Trump administration for removing countless public health web pages and websites, ordering them restored by midnight, and suggesting their deletion may have risked violating federal law.

U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, “ordered federal health agencies Tuesday to restore pages they removed from their websites last month to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on ‘gender ideology and extremism,’ saying the decision to pull them down could be detrimental to public health,” Politico reported. The order extends to the CDC, HHS, and the FDA.

“In his opinion,” Politico added, “Bates said the agencies’ decisions to take down certain webpages ‘likely’ constitute an ‘order’ that’s reviewable under federal administrative law.”

The Trump administration’s claims that the removal was necessary to review their contents and amounted to mere “maintenance” were not arguments the judge appeared willing to accept. Judge Bates instead denounced the “widespread disruption that defendants’ abrupt removal of these critical healthcare materials has caused.”

Bates blasted the Trump administration, writing, “it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare. These individuals rely on the care of doctors… If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”

In his opinion granting Doctors for America a temporary stay, Bates offered several examples of “irreparable harm” the government’s actions have already caused.

Doctors for America “has shown its members are already suffering such harm. To start, [one doctor] serves the students of ‘one of the most underserved high schools in Chicago.'”

“In this work, she ‘regularly’ relies on CDC’s resources on sexually transmitted diseases (‘STDs’)… The harm she has suffered since CDC removed those pages is neither hypothetical nor far off. The high school ‘recently had an outbreak of Chlamydia,’ and now that she is ‘[w]ithout t[he] crucial CDC resources,’ she is ‘not able to do [her] job to help address this urgent situation.'”

Bates also cited a statement from a leading physicians’ group, and wrote that “the lost materials are more than ‘academic references—they are vital for real-time clinical decision-making in hospitals, clinics and emergency departments across the country.'”

“Without them, health care providers and researchers are left ‘without up-to-date recommendations on managing infectious diseases, public health threats, essential preventive care and chronic conditions.'”

Politico reports Doctors for America had sued “the Office of Personnel Management, the CDC, the FDA and HHS last week, claiming the missing information ‘deprives’ doctors and researchers of ready access to data that’s critical to treating patients and addressing public health emergencies.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Russ Vought

Senate Democrats Will Filibuster Christian Nationalist Vought's Nomination

Senate Democrats are uniting to block — or at least delay — the confirmation process for Russ Vought, the self-described “Christian nationalist” architect of Project 2025, as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. To push back against his confirmation, they plan to hold the Senate floor starting Wednesday afternoon, vowing to speak “all night.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who has urged Democrats use their power to stall Trump’s agenda, announced that “more than 35 United States senators on the Democratic side” will “take the floor for 30 hours.”

“Russ Vought is the main author of Project 2025,” Schatz said. “He’s the guy that established this federal funding freeze. He is the architect of the dismantling of our federal government, harming us with Medicaid portals shut down, with Head Start shut down, with agencies illegally stormed and the servers being seized. We’ve got to fight back and we’re united, all 47 Democrats in opposition to Russ Vought’s nomination.”

“If confirmed, Russ Vought may be the most important man that no one’s ever heard of,” declared Senator Schatz on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.

Vought has been getting some attention in the press.

“In times past, Vought — who famously asked ‘Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’’ in Newsweek in 2021 — would have been seen, and dismissed, as an over-the-top extremist well outside the boundaries of mainstream politics,” wrote Thomas B. Edsall in a New York Times opinion column on Tuesday. “Today, he is a lauded Trump loyalist on the verge of his second tour of duty with the president, in one of the most powerful posts in the federal government.”

“In Vought’s vision of the apocalyptic battle for the soul of America,” Edsall continued, “Democrats are ‘increasingly evil.’ The federal work force, in turn, is the enemy that must be forced into submission. ‘When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,’ Vought, who is 48, declared last year. ‘We want to put them in trauma.’ ”

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to have Vought confirmed this week.

Last month during Vought’s confirmation hearing, Senate Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-MI) told him that when he ran OMB during President Trump’s first term, “you consistently ignored laws passed by Congress that directed how taxpayer dollars should be spent.”

“In 2020, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that OMB, under your leadership, broke the law eight times.”

Peters said Vought “inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria,” and “knowingly delayed getting critical resources to communities following a disaster even after Congress passed a law specifically requiring the funds be disbursed on time.”

He also, Peters charged, “pushed for” replacing “nearly 50,000 nonpartisan, career civil servants with appointees whose only qualification was their political loyalty.”

Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray has called Vought “incredibly alarming,” and one of Trump’s “anti-abortion extremists.” She noted that Vought was “the lead author of Project 2025, which called for ripping away birth control, allowing states to nigh women, lifesaving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide.”

“He has said he wants abolition of abortion in the United States,” Murray added. “In other words, a national abortion ban without any exceptions, even in the cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk.”

“Vought has called to outlaw medication abortion, block funding, for Planned Parenthood, and advocated for President Trump to appoint a new special assistant in the White House to coordinate anti-abortion policies across government.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'You Will Have Blood On Your Hands': Cassidy Ripped For RFK Jr. Vote

'You Will Have Blood On Your Hands': Cassidy Ripped For RFK Jr. Vote

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician with a record of working to help the uninsured and underinsured, on Tuesday voted in committee to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, an attorney and not a physician, has never managed an enterprise anywhere near the scale of the $1.6 trillion department that encompasses over a dozen vital agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The final floor vote on Kennedy’s HHS nomination is expected to come next week.

Directly or indirectly, HHS’s decisions touch every human being in the United States.

Senator Cassidy had hinted, some believed, as The New York Times had reported, that he would vote against confirming Kennedy, after he posted a biblical passage on courage to social media this weekend:



Cassidy’s vote has been seen as pivotal for Kennedy’s confirmation.

Kennedy has been labeled a conspiracy theorist who “continues to push the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism,” the BBC reported. He has said: “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” He also has spent years advocating against vaccines, and has a financial interest in having vaccines perceived as dangerous, and has a financial stake in anti-vaccine lawsuits.

“Kennedy has not only gained a public following for his outlandish claims, he has also made a lot of money broadcasting them. And he could stand to make more from his anti-vaccine crusade as America’s top health official — the kind of brazen self-dealing that’s become all but normalized in Trump’s America,” Vox‘s Dylan Scott reported.

Despite Kennedy’s history, however, Senator Cassidy on Tuesday told Americans that if confirmed, RFK Jr. and he “will meet regularly,” and the HHS Secretary would meet quarterly with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And he said Kennedy committed to giving the HELP Committee 30-day notice if he wants to change vaccine monitoring programs.

“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy announced (video below).

On social media media Cassidy added: “I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

Backlash against Cassidy has been swift.

“Having very intense conversations with a liar is not a good way to discover the truth,” wroteThe Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds.

“You are a coward,” charged Fred Wellman, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and is now a political consultant and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” “What did they threaten you with? This Administration never keeps promises. Why are you such a spineless fraud? Just disgraceful. You’ve gotten your footnote in the history books as a weak man who surrendered when challenged. Nobody remembers the cowards.”

“Our Republican Party has fully turned into the soulless United Russia party and act identical to the communist politburo,” observed Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an expert on Russian intelligence.

“Rarely does somebody get to flush two essential oaths, Hippocratic and Constitutional, down the toilet at once. May history remember you for this accomplishment,” noted former Obama and Biden administrations official Jesse Lee.

“You’re a doctor who just voted for an anti-vax conspiracy theorist. You’ve made children less safe. You’ve made Americans less safe. This is your legacy,” declared political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

“Disgusting. I feel for anyone who had him as a Doctor—or a Senator. Kennedy is the most unqualified, disqualified, radical and ridiculous nominee for this role in history. Anyone who votes for him has no integrity,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Reickhoff.

“You are a moral coward. When children die because they are unvaccinated for measles and polio, you will bear responsibility. When people die from a pandemic because the CDC has been hollowed out, you will have blood on your hands. Shame,” saidThe Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet