Senior Trump administration officials attempted during a briefing with reporters on Saturday to make their case for the joint US-Israeli military assault on Iran that has so far killed hundreds and plunged the Middle East into chaos.

According to experts who listened to the briefing, which was conducted on background, the justification for war was incredibly weak. Daryl Kimball, president of the Arms Control Association, told Laura Rozen of the Diplomatic newsletter that the administration’s argument was “the flimsiest excuse for initiating a major attack on another country without congressional authorization, in violation of the UN Charter, in many decades.”

During his early Saturday remarks announcing the attacks, President Donald Trump claimed that “imminent threats from the Iranian regime” against “the American people” drove him to act. But Kimball said that administration officials “provided absolutely no evidence” to back that assertion during the briefing.

“What they posed as the threat they were trying to preempt—an attack by Iran against US forces—is so extremely implausible, it is also laughable,” said Kimball.

Following the start of Saturday’s assault, which Trump explicitly characterized as a war aimed at overthrowing the Iranian government, unnamed administration officials began leaking the claim that Trump feared an Iranian attack on the massive US military buildup in the Middle East, prompting him to greenlight the bombing campaign in coordination with Israel and with a nudge from Saudi Arabia.

Kimball, in a social media post, took members of the US media to task for echoing the administration’s narrative. “Reporters need to do more than stenography,” he wrote in response to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman.

“The American people were lied to about Iraq. The American people are being lied to again today—and once again, it is ordinary people who will pay the price.”

Trump and top administration officials also repeated the longstanding claim from US warhawks that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear weapon, something Iranian leaders have publicly denied—including during recent diplomatic talks. Neither US intelligence assessments nor international nuclear watchdogs have produced evidence indicating that Iran is moving rapidly in the direction of nukes, as claimed by the administration.

Rozen noted that some remarks from administration officials during Saturday’s briefing “suggested Trump’s negotiators”—a team that included Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff—“may not have had the expertise or experience to understand the Iranian proposal to curb its nuclear program.” Rozen reported that one administration official kept misstating the acronym for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

Trump administration officials, according to Rozen, seemed astonished that Iranian negotiators would not accept the US offer to provide free nuclear fuel “forever” for Iran’s peaceful energy development, viewing the rejection as a suspicious indication that Iran was opposed to a diplomatic resolution—even though, according to Oman’s foreign minister, Iran had already made concessions that went well beyond the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord that Trump abandoned during his first stint in the White House.

Experts said it should be obvious—particularly given Trump’s decision to ditch the previous nuclear accord—why Iran would not trust the US to stick by such a commitment.

The administration’s inability to provide a coherent justification for war tracks with the rapidly shifting narrative preceding Saturday’s strikes—an indication, according to some observers, that Trump had made the decision to attack Iran even in the face of diplomatic progress and left officials to try to cobble together a rationale after the fact.

In a lengthy social media post, Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted war was necessary because Iran “refused to make a deal” and because the Iranian government “has targeted and killed Americans,” hardly the claim of an imminent threat push by the president and other administration officials.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, noted in response that the Trump administration has “sidelined anyone who could articulate... a coherent argument, partly because expertise is deep state and woke and partly because they just don’t care.”

The result is another potentially catastrophic war that runs roughshod over US and international law, puts countless civilians at risk, and threatens to spark a region-wide conflict.

“President Trump, along with his right-wing extremist Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu, has begun an illegal, premeditated, and unconstitutional war,” US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement on Saturday. “Tragically, Trump is gambling with American lives and treasure to fulfill Netanyahu’s decades-long ambition of dragging the United States into armed conflict with Iran.”

“The American people were lied to about Vietnam. The American people were lied to about Iraq,” Sanders added. “The American people are being lied to again today—and once again, it is ordinary people who will pay the price.”

Bettors on the prediction platform Polymarket made a killing with suspiciously timed wagers that the United States would attack Iran by February 28, the day President Donald Trump announced a bombing campaign against the Middle East nation.

Bloomberg reported that six accounts on Polymarket, all newly created this month, “made around $1 million in profit” by betting on the timing of the US attack on Iran. The accounts, according to Bloomberg, “had only ever placed bets on when US strikes might occur,” and “some of their shares were purchased, in some cases at roughly a dime apiece, hours before the first explosions were reported in Tehran.”

One account with the name Magamyman raked in over $515,000 by betting roughly $87,000 that the “US strikes Iran by February 28, 2026.”

The lucrative bets quickly drew scrutiny from lawmakers. US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on social media that “it’s insane this is legal.”

“People around Trump are profiting off war and death,” Murphy alleged. “I’m introducing legislation ASAP to ban this.”

Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) wrote that “prediction markets cannot be a vehicle for profiting off advance knowledge of military action” and demanded “answers, transparency, and oversight.”

“Reminder that Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket’s advisory board and his firm invested double-digit millions into the platform last year,” Levin wrote, referring to the president’s eldest son. “The [Justice Department] and [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] both had active investigations into Polymarket that were dropped after Trump took office.”

There’s no concrete evidence that Trump administration officials or staffers were behind the hugely profitable bets, but the wagers heightened concerns about the possibility of insider trading using increasingly popular prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi. Last month, bettors used Polymarket to make big profits on suspiciously timed wagers on when the US would oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Polymarket currently allows users to bet on when Iran will have a new supreme leader, when the US and Iran will reach a ceasefire agreement, and when the US will invade Iran.

The celebrity news tabloid TMZ reported Saturday that “a group at a Washington, DC restaurant was talking openly in the bar area Friday afternoon about a national secret that was about to literally explode hours later—the bombing of Iran.”

As journalist David Bernstein noted, that—if true—leaves open the possibility that “these ‘insider’ bets have been placed by any rich person with good ears in DC.”

“Not to mention that for all we know these administration clowns were probably gossiping about it on a text chain with half a dozen people they accidentally invited,” Bernstein added. “This is hardly the locked lips brigade we’re dealing with.”

Pentagon officials are reportedly struggling to devise a plan to spend the extra $500 billion that US President Donald Trump wants to give the bloated, fraud-ridden agency in the next fiscal year, vindicating criticism of the funding proposal as immensely wasteful.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that “White House aides and defense officials have run into logistical challenges surrounding where to put the money, because the amount is so large.” The extra $500 billion, endorsed by the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, would push annual US military spending to a staggering $1.5 trillion after the Trump administration and congressional Republicans enacted unprecedented cuts to federal nutrition assistance and Medicaid last summer.

The Post noted that “the increase in military spending alone would amount to one of the biggest federal programs. One Democratic plan to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing benefits would cost $350 billion over the next decade, by comparison.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that a $1.5 trillion annual military budget would add $5.8 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

“This is ridiculous,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in response to the Post‘s reporting. “Or we could build 3 million new homes, lower the Medicare age, or add dental, vision, and hearing coverage. Not another cent for private defense contractors and forever wars.”

According to the Post:

The Pentagon has been grappling with how to rapidly replenish expensive munitions that it has relied on heavily, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot missile-defense interceptors and ship-launched munitions known as Standard Missile-6s, or SM-6s.It also is wrestling with how to upgrade its Cold War-era nuclear weapons program with expensive next-generation systems like the B-21 bomber and the Columbia-class submarine. The aircraft, with an estimated cost of about $700 million each, is expected to replace the Air Force’s fleet of B-1 and B-2 bombers. The Columbia-class submarines are expected to cost at least $9 billion each.

Trump is pushing for another $500 billion for the Pentagon as he moves the US to the brink of war with Iran, potentially another expensive and deadly conflict in the Middle East. The New York Times reported Sunday that “Trump has told advisers that if diplomacy or any initial targeted US attack does not lead Iran to give in to his demands that it give up its nuclear program, he will consider a much bigger attack in coming months intended to drive that country’s leaders from power.”

The Pentagon has failed eight consecutive audits of its books and is the only major federal agency that has not passed an independent audit. Roughly half of the Pentagon’s annual spending goes to private military contractors.

“Trump’s call for a $500 billion increase in Pentagon spending is a terrible idea that would starve the American people of resources needed to address critical issues across the U.S. American voters are fed up with inflation, health care costs, housing prices, and unemployment,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said earlier this month in response to the proposal.

“The Pentagon has repeatedly failed audits and has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on fraudulent defense contractors who abuse the system and steal from taxpayers,” said Weissman. “Trump has added to this wasteful legacy by spending vast sums of money on national guard deployments across the US, military intervention in Venezuela, and by pushing a ‘Golden Dome’ boondoggle. Congress must stop pouring more money into a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget beset with fraud and waste, at the expense of priority human needs.”

Leaders at the Social Security Administration are reportedly instructing agency employees to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with information about in-person beneficiary appointments.

Wired reported Friday that the instructions were “recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices.” The outlet quoted an unnamed employee with direct knowledge of the orders who said that “if ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time.”

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Social Security benefits, though they do contribute tens of billions of dollars per year to the program through payroll taxes. Noncitizens can qualify for Social Security, but Wired noted that they are “required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.”

“Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country,” the outlet observed. “In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.”

The revelation that SSA workers are being told to hand over appointment details to ICE came amid an ongoing congressional fight over proposed reforms to the immigration agency that has resulted in a funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security, which has a data-sharing agreement with the Social Security Administration.

“You’re seeing SSA becoming an extension of Homeland Security,” Leland Dudek, the former acting commissioner for the Social Security Administration, told Wired.

SSA is currently led by Frank Bisignano, a former financial services CEO who backed the Elon Musk-led assault on government agencies via the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Indications that ICE has Social Security field offices in its crosshairs as part of the Trump administration’s large-scale, lawless mass deportation campaign sparked outrage. In a joint statement, Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said that “under this administration, ICE has been transformed into Donald Trump’s secret police force—accountable to nobody.”

“They are killing Americans in our streets, sending masked agents to snatch mothers from their children, and illegally blocking members of Congress from even visiting their facilities,” Larson and Neal said Friday. “Today, we were informed that ICE is attempting to infiltrate the Social Security Administration too—using field offices to further round up and detain people, and scaring people out of getting the benefits they need.”

“It was bad enough that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have already used Social Security as a means to get immigrants to ‘self-deport.’ We led the effort to stop them and passed legislation to prevent them from continuing that policy,” the Democrats added. “Now, Congress needs to act to end ICE’s reign of terror in our communities and block this cruel and inhumane plan.”

Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal note of protest on Tuesday after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to enter the South American nation’s consulate in Minneapolis before being stopped by a staffer inside the building.

In a statement released following the incident, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said an ICE agent “attempted to enter the consulate premises,” but “consulate officials immediately prevented” the officer from getting through the door, “thus ensuring the protection of Ecuadorians who were present at the time and activating emergency protocols.”

The ministry said it “immediately presented a note of protest” to the US Embassy in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, “so that acts of this nature are not repeated in any of Ecuador’s consular offices in the United States.”

Under international treaties, law enforcement officers of host nations are barred from entering foreign embassies and consulates without permission.

One eyewitness to the incident in Minneapolis, a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation efforts, told Reuters that they saw ICE agents “going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them.”

Video footage posted to social media shows a consulate official walking quickly to the building’s entryway and repeatedly telling an ICE agent that he “cannot enter.”

The ICE agent can be heard telling the consulate staffer, “If you touch me, I will grab you.”

“ICE set off an international incident in Minneapolis today because agents tried to go into the Consulate of Ecuador without permission, and then yelled at their staff for trying to keep them out,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on social media.

“Note that there is a huge ‘consulate of Ecuador’ sign over the door,” he added, pointing to an image of the building.

The largest union of federal workers in the US on Monday demanded the resignation or firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller following the killing of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.

Pretti, who worked at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was a member of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3669. The union’s national president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement that “Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a ‘domestic terrorist.’”

“Noem was preceded in this false statement by Stephen Miller,” Kelley added. “Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately. If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them.”

AFGE represents tens of thousands of DHS employees, including Border Patrol agents. In 2022, the union split with its council representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

The union’s call for the ouster of Noem and Miller came amid mounting support from Democratic members of Congress for Noem’s impeachment.

“I’ve called for the resignation of Kristi Noem, and I will vote for her impeachment,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said late Monday. “She’s obstructing local authorities from investigating two murders committed in Minneapolis by DHS agents.”

While the White House is still publicly backing Noem, Pretti’s killing by as-yet unidentified federal agents has reportedly heightened internal scrutiny of her leadership at DHS. On Monday evening, according to the New York Times, President Donald Trump held a two-hour meeting with Noem in the Oval Office—but he reportedly did not suggest during the meeting that Noem’s job is at risk.

Politico noted that it was Noem who elevated Greg Bovino, Border Patrol’s commander, to the head of operations in Minneapolis, where federal agents have killed two people this month—Pretti and Renee Good, both US citizens.

The Trump administration has reportedly removed Bovino from Minneapolis. The Atlantic reported late Monday that Bovino has lost his job as Border Patrol’s “commander at large”; a DHS spokesperson wrote on social media that Bovino “has NOT been relieved of his duties” and is a “key part of the president’s team.”

Miller, for his part, “has continued to push for aggressive immigration enforcement, arguing the administration shouldn’t back down in Minneapolis” in the wake of Pretti’s killing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Miller smeared Pretti as a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement,” a lie that the White House press secretary repeatedly declined to endorse when pressed by reporters on Monday.

AFGE Local 3669 said in a statement that Pretti “was dedicated to caring for veterans and treated them with decency and respect, sometimes in their final moments—which is the exact opposite of how he was treated during his.”

“AFGE Local 3669 is disgusted by the abhorrent rhetoric of Trump administration officials following his killing. Alex was a son, a colleague, and a fellow union brother, not an ‘assassin’ or a ‘domestic terrorist,’” the union said. “Alex was the best of us and he will be dearly missed. Rest in power, brother.”

Republicans in the US Senate indicated Sunday that they planned to move ahead this week with government funding legislation that includes $10 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a federal agent gunned down intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a killing captured on video from multiple angles.

“My support for funding ICE remains the same,” declared Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), a sentiment echoed by other GOP lawmakers ahead of votes on a package of six government appropriations bills approved by the US House last week.

“We’re not defunding ICE,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) after the horrific shooting of Pretti. “Live with it.”

An unnamed Senate Republican aide told Punchbowl that “government funding expires at the end of the week, and Republicans are determined to not have another government shutdown. We will move forward as planned and hope Democrats can find a path forward to join us.”

One of the bills up for consideration in the Senate this week would provide $64.4 billion in taxpayer money to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including $10 billion for ICE—an agency that is already more heavily funded than many national militaries. Last summer, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump approved $170 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement, which ICE has used to massively jack up weapons spending.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly has the votes from his caucus to block the DHS funding bill.

Senate Democrats have proposed separating the DHS legislation from the rest of the appropriations bills to avoid a looming January 30 shutdown and debate ICE reforms. The American Prospect‘s David Dayen reported late Sunday that Democrats are “going to ask for real investigations into the murders (including an end to impeding the state/local investigations)” as well as an end to arrest quotas and mask-wearing by ICE agents.

“Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democrats’ top appropriator in the Senate. “I will NOT support the DHS bill as it stands. The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate—Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE.”

Murray also stressed that “blocking the DHS funding bill will not shut down ICE.”

“ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap, whether or not we pass a funding bill,” the senator added. “But we all saw another American shot and killed in broad daylight. There must be accountability, and we must keep pushing Republicans to work with us to rein in DHS.”

“The Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill. Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican appropriator, did not mention ICE funding in her statement on Pretti’s killing, saying only that “this tragic shooting needs to be thoroughly and transparently investigated.”

Assuming unified support from their caucus, Senate Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to pass the funding package with DHS appropriations included. Last week, seven House Democrats voted with Republicans to approve the DHS funding.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that “this federal enforcement agency is running rampant with an outrageous budget that dwarfs most countries’ militaries.”

“The Department of Homeland Security must get ICE off our streets now, and the Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill,” said Gilbert. “Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings.”

Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA’s director for refugee and migrant rights, asked, “How many more people must die before US leaders act?”

“The US Senate faces an urgent choice in the coming days: continue pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a lawless agency that endangers lives with impunity, or take meaningful action to rein in ICE and stop funding its abuses,” said Fischer.

US President Donald Trump declared Tuesday after a call with the head of NATO that “there can be no going back” on his push to seize Greenland as Denmark deployed more troops to the island, amid widespread concerns that Trump could try to take it by military force.

In an early morning post to his social media platform, Trump said he agreed to a “meeting of the various parties” in Davos, Switzerland and reiterated his view that Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, “is imperative for National and World Security.”

“There can be no going back—On that, everyone agrees!” the US president wrote. “The United States of America is the most powerful Country anywhere on the Globe, by far... We are the only POWER that can ensure PEACE throughout the World—And it is done, quite simply, through STRENGTH!”

Trump later appeared to leak text messages he received from French President Emmanuel Macron, who—according to screenshots posted by the US president—wrote to Trump: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”

“Let us try to build great things,” one of the messages reads.

Trump also posted a screenshot of a text message purportedly from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who wrote that he is “committed to finding a way forward on Greenland.”

The developments came as the head of the Royal Danish Army and a “substantial contribution” of soldiers reportedly landed in Greenland to participate in multinational military exercises known as Operation Arctic Endurance. Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland have also sent troops to Greenland in recent days.

Wielding the threat of economic warfare, Trump has demanded that European nations capitulate to a deal for “the complete and total purchase of Greenland” by the US. But the American president has also declined to rule out using force to seize the mineral-rich island, which Trump donors and allies have long been eyeing greedily.

Asked Monday whether he would try to seize Greenland by force, Trump replied: “No comment.”

US President Donald Trump left no doubt on Saturday that a—or perhaps the—primary driver of his decision to illegally attack Venezuela, abduct its president, and pledge to indefinitely run its government was his desire to control and exploit the country’s oil reserves, which are believed to be the largest in the world.

Over the course of Trump’s lengthy press conference following Saturday’s assault, the word “oil” was mentioned dozens of times as the president vowed to unleash powerful fossil fuel giants on the South American nation and begin “taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground”—with a healthy cut of it going to the US “in the form of reimbursement” for the supposed “damages caused us” by Venezuela.

“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be,” he added.

Currently, Chevron is the only US-based oil giant operating in Venezuela, whose oil industry and broader economy have been badly hampered by US sanctions. In a statement on Saturday, a Chevron spokesperson said the company is “prepared to work constructively with the US government during this period, leveraging our experience and presence to strengthen US energy security.”

Other oil behemoths, some of which helped bankroll Trump’s presidential campaign, are likely licking their chops—even if they’ve been mostly quiet in the wake of the US attack, which was widely condemned as unlawful and potentially catastrophic for the region. Amnesty International said Saturday that “the stated US intention to run Venezuela and control its oil resources” likely “constitutes a violation of international law.”

“The most powerful multinational fossil fuel corporations stand to benefit from these aggressions, and US oil and gas companies are poised to exploit the chaos.”

Thomas O’Donnell, an energy and geopolitical strategist, told Reuters that “the company that probably will be very interested in going back [to Venezuela] is Conoco,” noting that an international arbitration tribunal has ordered Caracas to pay the company around $10 billion for alleged “unlawful expropriation” of oil investments.

The Houston Chronicle reported that “Exxon, America’s largest oil company, which has for years grown its presence in South America, would be among the most likely US oil companies to tap Venezuela’s deep oil reserves. The company, along with fellow Houston giant ConocoPhillips, had a number of failed contract attempts with Venezuela under Maduro and former President Hugo Chavez.”

Elizabeth Bast, executive director of the advocacy group Oil Change International, said in a statement Saturday that the Trump administration’s escalation in Venezuela “follows a historic playbook: undermine leftist governments, create instability, and clear the path for extractive companies to profit.”

“The most powerful multinational fossil fuel corporations stand to benefit from these aggressions, and US oil and gas companies are poised to exploit the chaos and carve up one of the world’s most oil-rich territories,” said Bast. “The US must stop treating Latin America as a resource colony. The Venezuelan people, not US oil executives, must shape their country’s future.”

US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that the president’s own words make plain that his attack on Venezuela and attempt to impose his will there are “about trying to grab Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s billionaire buddies.”

In a statement, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed that sentiment, calling Trump’s assault on Venezuela “rank imperialism.”

“They have spoken openly about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world,” said Sanders. “It recalls the darkest chapters of US interventions in Latin America, which have left a terrible legacy. It will and should be condemned by the democratic world.”

As workers face slowing wage growth, a worsening cost-of-living crisis, and rising unemployment, the chief executives of top corporate retailers in the United States are reaping huge gains from the tax cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans extended over the summer.

An analysis released Friday by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimates that the CEOs of Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, TJX, and Walmart have collectively saved close to $35 million on their individual tax returns in the seven years the Trump tax cuts have been in effect.

Thanks to the Trump-GOP tax law, which took effect in 2018, the companies examined in the analysis paid a tax rate of just 17.5% between 2018 and 2024—roughly half what they paid prior to the law’s enactment.

“While at the same time prices have soared for consumers and retail workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs, big-store CEOs and shareholders have reaped higher profits and lower taxes,” David Kass, ATF’s executive director, said in a statement. “If we want a system that alleviates economic stress on average Americans instead of exacerbating it during the holiday season, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, invest in workers and families with expanded public services.”

Workers at the major retailers haven’t fared nearly as well. ATF noted that “the average worker at the eight stores was paid less than $32,000 in 2024.”

“Amazon—the world’s largest retailer—refuses to even sit down with its employees who have formed a labor union for better pay, benefits, and working conditions,” the group observed. “If Lowe’s had used the nearly $50 billion it spent on stock buybacks over the seven-year period to instead raise employee wages, its workers would have each been paid almost $200,000 more.”

Across the US economy, workers are seeing wage growth stagnate amid elevated and still-rising prices, which are forcing many to skip meals and ration their medications to make ends meet.

The Labor Department said earlier this week that wage growth decelerated to 3.5% year over year—the slowest pace since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment, meanwhile, rose in November to the highest level in four years.

The ATF analysis came days after Trump delivered a lie-filled primetime speech defending his handling of the US economy as his approval ratings tanked, with American voters across party lines increasingly furious over the high costs of housing, groceries, healthcare, and other necessities.

During the speech, Trump vowed that Americans would soon “see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history.”

But the richest people in the country are set to reap disproportionate benefits from the tax cuts. As Bloomberg reported earlier this week, “Many filers—particularly those who could most use the financial boost—may soon be disappointed.”

“Wealthy taxpayers in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey are the biggest winners,” the outlet noted.

Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House’s sweeping assault on the federal workforce.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions—many of which are unfilled—include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), described the jobs as “mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary.”

VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country.

“We are all doing the work of others to compensate,” one VA employee told the Post. “The idea that relief isn’t coming is really, really disappointing.”

Thomas Dargon Jr., deputy general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, said remaining VA employees “are obviously going to be facing the brunt of any further job cuts or reorganization that results in employees having to do more work with less.”

The advocacy organization VoteVets cast the job cuts as another step toward the longstanding GOP goal of privatizing the VA.

“This is outrageous,” the group wrote on social media. “It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized.”

“We must expand the VA, not hollow it out.”

News of the impending job cuts came months after the Trump administration moved to gut collective bargaining protections for many VA employees and as recent staffing cuts continued to hamper veterans’ services nationwide.

“Wait times for new mental health appointments have increased sharply since January in my home state, Connecticut,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during a Senate hearing earlier this month. “For example, the most recent data shows the current wait time for a new patient mental health appointment at the Orange VA Clinic in Connecticut—an outpatient facility specializing in mental health—is 208 days.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement Sunday that “it is unacceptable that the US Department of Veterans Affairs plans to eliminate as many as 35,000 healthcare positions this month.”

“This is especially outrageous given the reality that VA facilities in Vermont and across the country already face severe staffing challenges,” said Sanders. “When someone puts their life on the line to defend this country in uniform, we in turn must provide them with the best quality healthcare available. These layoffs are unacceptable and must be reversed. We must expand the VA, not hollow it out. And I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

US Sen. Rick Scott, former CEO of the company that was at the center of the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in American history, has emerged as the most vocal Republican proponent of healthcare reform, warning his fellow GOP lawmakers that continued refusal to engage with the issue risks a “slow creep” toward single-payer healthcare.

On Thursday, according to Axios, Scott (R-Fla.) is “convening a group of House and Senate conservatives on Capitol Hill to pore over fresh polling to develop GOP alternatives to the Affordable Care Act.”

Late last month, Scott unveiled his own proposal titled the More Affordable Care Act, which would keep ACA exchanges intact while creating “Trump Health Freedom Accounts” that enrollees could use to pay for out-of-pocket costs. Scott’s plan, as the health policy group KFF explained, would allow enhanced ACA tax credits to expire and let states replace subsidies in the original ACA with contributions to the newly created health savings accounts.

“Unlike ACA premium tax credits, which can only be used for ACA Marketplace plans, the accounts in the Scott proposal could be used for any type of health insurance plan, including short-term plans that can exclude people based on preexisting conditions,” KFF noted. “States could also waive certain provisions of the ACA, including the requirement to cover certain benefits.”

“While ACA plans would still be required to cover people with preexisting conditions under the Scott proposal,” the group added, “it is likely that the ACA marketplace would collapse in states that seek a waiver under his approach.”

Last month, amid the longest government shutdown in US history, Scott leapt at the opportunity to champion possible Republican alternatives to the healthcare status quo, despite his ignominious record.

In 2003, the US Justice Department announced that the hospital chain HCA Inc.—formerly known as Columbia/HCA—had agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and damages to settle what the DOJ characterized as the “largest healthcare fraud case in US history.”

Scott resigned as CEO of Columbia/HCA in 1997, days after federal agents raided company facilities as part of the sweeping fraud probe. The federal government and company whistleblowers said the hospital giant “systematically defrauded” Medicare, Medicaid, and other healthcare programs through unlawful billing and other ploys.

“In 2000, Scott invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a deposition as part of a civil case involving his time leading the company,” Florida Phoenix reported last year. A former HCA accountant accused Scott, who was never directly charged in the case, of leading “a criminal enterprise.”

Scott later served two terms as governor of Florida and is now one of the wealthiest members of Congress, and he maintains he was the victim of a politically motivated DOJ investigation.

“The Clinton Justice Department went after me,” Scott complained during his 2024 Senate reelection campaign.

It’s unclear whether Scott’s healthcare ideas will gain sufficient traction with President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers, who have seemed content to bash the existing system without proposing anything concrete or viable to replace it. Trump was supposed to unveil his own healthcare proposal last month, but the White House pulled the plug amid GOP pushback.

Some members of the Democratic caucus, meanwhile, are making the case for the very system Scott is warning his colleagues about.

“Let’s finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said earlier this week. “We need Medicare for All.”

Republican Matt Van Epps narrowly prevailed Tuesday in a special election for a Tennessee district that President Donald Trump carried by 22 points last year, a result that has the GOP increasingly worried about the party’s prospects in next year’s midterms as voters take out their growing anger over high living costs.

Van Epps defeated Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn in the US House race by roughly nine points, a strikingly narrow margin for a district that Republican Mark Green—who resigned from Congress over the summer—won by 21 points last year.

Behn placed affordability, which Trump has called a Democratic “scam,” at the center of her bid to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, replicating the playbooks of recently successful Democratic campaigns across the country.

“I don’t care what political party you belong to, but if you are upset about the cost of living and the chaos of Washington, then I’m your candidate, and I welcome you with open arms,” Behn said during the race, which drew national attention and millions of dollars in spending.

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), which backed Behn—a supporter of abortion rights—said late Tuesday that “the lesson from Aftyn’s campaign is clear: Voters are looking for leaders who will put healthcare affordability over billionaire special interests.”

“Every day that President Trump and his backers are in power, people suffer,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, PPAF’s president and CEO. “They’re seeing healthcare costs rise, abortion bans in 20 states, and health center closures leading to longer wait times and distances to get care—all worsening the healthcare crisis the Trump administration created.”

Notably, while Van Epps embraced Trump, much of the Republican messaging in the race focused on attacking Behn as a “radical” rather than championing the president’s economic agenda, which voters across the country blame for driving up costs. Behn, who received over 115% of the 2022 Democrat nominee’s vote total, said that Republicans were attacking her because “they don’t have a plan to make healthcare more affordable.”

The GOP scramble to defend a deep-red seat was seen by both Republicans and Democrats as a possible signal of what’s to come in next year’s midterms. One House Republican, speaking anonymously, told Politico that “tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a bitch of an election cycle.”

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that “what happened tonight in Tennessee makes it clear: Democrats are on offense and Republicans are on the ropes.”

“Aftyn Behn’s overperformance in this Trump +22 district is historic and a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms. Aftyn centered her campaign on lowering grocery, housing, and healthcare costs for Tennessee families,” said Martin. “The fact that Republicans spent millions to protect this Trump +22 district and still lost so much ground should have the GOP shaking in their boots.”

The Trump administration is reportedly looking to dramatically reduce the number of people who visit Social Security field offices across the United States, a plan that Democratic lawmakers warned is yet another scheme to disrupt and ultimately cut benefits.

Nextgov/FCW viewed internal Social Security Administration (SSA) planning documents showing that the agency is aiming for “no more than 15 million total” in-person visits to field offices in fiscal year 2026—half the level of the prior fiscal year.“Under Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the agency is aiming to push people to interact with Social Security online instead of going to a field office or calling the agency, although Bisignano told lawmakers in June that, even with his focus on technology, the agency is not ‘getting rid of field offices,’ despite reports of planned closures,” Nextgov/FCW reported Monday.

One anonymous SSA staffer told the outlet that agency leadership wants “fewer people in the front door and they want all work that doesn’t require direct customer interactions to be centralized.”

“They appear to be quietly killing field offices,” the staffer said.

The plan comes after the Trump administration carried out the largest staffing cut in SSA history, cutting the agency’s workforce by around 7,000. The cut left one SSA worker for every 1,480 beneficiaries, resulting in understaffed field offices and overwhelmed phone operations.

Beneficiaries have also repeatedly faced issues this year attempting to access the Social Security website, problems that SSA’s plan to curb field office visits could exacerbate.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the lawmakers spearheading a probe into Bisignano’s questionable tenure at the fintech company Fiserv, said in response to the new reporting that “this sure sounds like another way to make it even harder for Americans to get the benefits they’ve earned.”

In a social media post on Monday, Warren highlighted testimony from seniors who have faced long wait times and other difficulties while seeking assistance from SSA under Bisignano’s leadership.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Nextgov/FCW that “between staffing reductions, more restrictive documentation requirements for Americans to get assistance on the phones, and rapid reorganization of offices around the country, it’s difficult to see how” SSA’s goal of slashing visits to field offices “will lead to anything other than worse service and more challenges at Social Security.”

In yet another gift to corporate criminals, President Donald Trump has reportedly used his executive authority to commute the seven-year prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion.

David Gentile, the founder and former CEO of GPB Capital, was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and sentenced to prison in May, but he ended up serving just days behind bars. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House “argued that prosecutors had falsely characterized the business as a Ponzi scheme.”

One victim said they lost their “whole life savings” to the scheme and are now living “check to check.” Another, who described themselves as “an elderly victim,” said they “lost a significant portion” of their retirement savings.

“This money was earmarked to help my two grandsons pay for college,” the person said. “They had tragically lost their father and needed some financial assistance. So this loss attached my entire family.”

In a statement following Gentile’s sentencing earlier this year, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia—who was appointed to the role by Trump’s loyalist FBI director, Kash Patel—said the private equity executive and his co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, “wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success.”

“The defendants abused their high-ranking positions within their company to exploit the trust of their investors and directly manipulate payments to perpetuate this scheme,” said Raia. “May today’s sentencing deter anyone who seeks to greedily profit off their clients through deceitful practices.”

Critics said Trump’s commutation of Gentile’s sentence sends the opposite message: That the administration is soft on corporate crime and rich fraudsters despite posturing as fierce protectors of the rule of law and throwing the book at the vulnerable.

“Trump will deport an Afghan living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is accused of stealing $1,000,” said US Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). “But he’ll set a white dude free who was convicted of stealing $1.6 billion from American citizens to go commit more crime.”

After criticizing former President Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of death-row prisoners, Trump has wielded his pardon power to spare political allies—including January 6 rioters—and rich executives while his administration works to “delegitimize the very concept of white-collar crime.”

Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has halted or dropped more than 160 federal enforcement actions against corporations, according to the watchdog group Public Citizen. White-collar criminals reportedly view Trump as their “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“The most shamelessly corrupt administration in history,” journalist Wajahat Ali wrote in response to the Gentile commutation.

Even without the benefit of recent federal jobs data, which the Trump administration has withheld amid the government shutdown, a prominent US economist argued Wednesday that it’s clear the labor market under Donald Trump’s leadership is increasingly grim.

Citing private figures that have been used to fill the void left by two consecutive missed jobs reports from the federal government, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research argued that “we can infer” weak job growth in September and suggested Trump or his aides “likely reviewed the September data and made a decision not to release it.”

More broadly, Baker wrote, the payroll firm ADP “shows average private sector job growth of just 10,000 a month for the three months from July to October. Since this excludes the government sector, which likely shed jobs over this period due to federal layoffs (even pre-shutdown), the ADP data imply essentially zero job growth over this period.”

“The other part of the story is that wage growth also seems to have slowed especially for workers at the bottom end of the wage distribution,” Baker added. “It looks to me like we are looking at a labor market with near-zero labor force growth and near-zero real wage growth. This means that real labor income in the economy is essentially flat.”

“That is not a pretty picture from the standpoint of the bulk of the population, and it does not describe a very stable path of economic growth,” he continued. “When the AI bubble bursts, things might get really ugly really fast.”

Baker’s assessment came as CNN reported that President Donald Trump considered “traveling the country to give economy-focused speeches” as consumer sentiment craters, tariffs drive up prices, millions face skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and people across the country reel from the administration’s assault on safety net programs.

Publicly, Trump has dismissed the notion that people are struggling economically under his administration, calling polling to that effect “fake.”

“The economy’s the strongest it’s ever been,” Trump falsely declared during a recent Fox News interview.

On Tuesday, the White House was widely mocked for citing extremely limited data from the food delivery company DoorDash to proclaim that Trump’s agenda is “delivering real results for American families.”

Economist Paul Krugman wrote in a blog post on Wednesday that Trump is beginning to face “backlash against his attempts to gaslight the public about the true state of the economy,” pointing to “the blowout Democratic victories in last week’s elections” as just part of that backlash.

“Once again, these attempts aren’t about putting a positive spin on the data. They’re just flat-out lies,” Krugman wrote. “And Democrats should hammer those lies as proof not just that Trump is utterly dishonest, but that he’s completely out of touch with the reality of American life.”

Congressional Republicans are reportedly trying to insert anti-abortion language into government funding legislation as the shutdown continues, with the GOP and President Donald Trump digging in against a clean extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as insurance premiums surge.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sounded the alarm on Saturday about what he characterized as the latest Republican sneak attack on reproductive rights.

“Republicans said they might vote to lower Americans’ healthcare costs, but only if we agree to include a backdoor national abortion ban,” Wyden said in remarks on the Senate floor.

The senator was referring to a reported GOP demand that any extension of ACA subsidies must include language that bars the tax credits from being used to purchase plans that cover abortion care.

But as the health policy organization KFF has noted, the ACA already has “specific language that applies Hyde Amendment restrictions to the use of premium tax credits, limiting them to using federal funds to pay for abortions only in cases that endanger the life of the woman or that are a result of rape or incest.”

“The ACA also explicitly allows states to bar all plans participating in the state marketplace from covering abortions, which 25 states have done since the ACA was signed into law in 2010,” according to KFF.

Wyden said Saturday—which marked day 39 of the shutdown—that “Republicans are spinning a tale that the government is funding abortion.”

“It’s not,” Wyden continued. “What Republicans are talking about putting on the table amounts to nothing short of a backdoor national abortion ban. Under this plan, Republicans could weaponize federal funding for any organization that does anything related to women’s reproductive healthcare. They could also weaponize the tax code by revoking non-profit status for these organizations.”

“The possibilities are endless, but the results are the same: a complete and total restriction on abortion, courtesy of Republicans,” the senator added. “Trump said he’d leave abortion care up to the states. Well, this latest scheme makes it crystal clear: A de facto nationwide abortion ban has been his plan all along.”

The GOP effort to attach anti-abortion provisions to government funding legislation adds yet another hurdle in negotiations to end the shutdown, which the Trump administration has used to throttle federal nutrition assistance and accelerate its purge of the federal workforce.

Trump is also pushing a proposal that would differently distribute federal funds that would have otherwise gone toward the enhanced ACA tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

“It sounds like it could be a plan for health accounts that could be used for insurance that doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, which could create a death spiral in ACA plans that do,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF

The Trump administration is quietly waging an all-out regulatory war on a Biden-era corporate tax that aimed to prevent large companies from dodging their tax liabilities while reporting huge profits.

The corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) was enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Democratic legislation that former President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. The CAMT requires highly profitable US corporations to pay a tax of at least 15% on their so-called book profits, the figures reported to shareholders.

As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has explained: “Many of the special breaks that corporations use to avoid taxes work by allowing companies to report profits to the IRS that are much smaller than their book profits. Corporate leaders prefer to report low profits to the IRS (to reduce taxes) and high profits to the public (to attract investors).”

But since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has issued guidance and regulatory proposals designed to gut the CAMT. The effort is a boon to corporate giants and rich private equity investors at a time when the Trump administration is relentlessly attacking programs for low-income Americans, including Medicaid and nutrition assistance.

The New York Times reported Saturday that “with its various tax relief provisions, the administration is now effectively adding hundreds of billions of dollars in new breaks for big businesses and investors” on top of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.

“The Treasury is empowered to write rules to help the IRS carry out tax laws passed by Congress,” the newspaper added. “But the aggressive actions of the Trump administration raise questions about whether it is exceeding its legal authority.”

The administration’s assault on the CAMT has drawn scrutiny from members of Congress.

In a September 8 letter to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a group of Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) warned that the administration’s guidance notices “create new loopholes in the corporate alternative minimum tax for the largest and wealthiest corporations.”

“Most troubling, Notice 2025-27, issued this June, allows companies to avoid CAMT if their income—under a simplified accounting method—is below $800 million,” the lawmakers wrote. “The Biden administration previously set the safe harbor threshold precisely at $500 million in its proposed CAMT rule after calculating that a higher safe harbor threshold would risk exempting corporations that should be subject to CAMT under statute.”

“Now, less than nine months later and with zero justification, this new guidance summarily asserts that an $800 million safe harbor will not run that risk,” they continued. “We are seriously concerned that this cursory loosening of CAMT enforcement will simply allow more wealthy corporations to avoid paying their legally owed share.”

US Sen. Chris Murphy said Saturday that the GOP’s rejection of Democrats’ compromise proposal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits for a year in exchange for reopening the federal government shows that the Republican Party is “absolutely committed to raising your costs.”

“ Republicans are refusing to negotiate,” Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a video posted to social media, arguing that President Donald Trump and the GOP’s continued stonewalling is “further confirmation” that Republicans are uninterested in preventing disastrous premium increases.

“They are willing to keep the government shut down, they are so determined to make you pay more for healthcare,” the senator added.

More than 20 million Americans who purchase health insurance on the ACA marketplace receive enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t act. So far, the Republican leadership in the Senate has only offered to hold a vote on the ACA subsidies, with no guarantee of the outcome, in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government.

People across the country are already seeing their premiums surge, and if the subsidies are allowed to lapse, costs are expected to rise further and millions will likely go uninsured.

“Clearly, the GOP didn’t learn their lesson after the shellacking they got in Tuesday’s elections,” said Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse. “They would rather keep the government shut down, depriving Americans of their paychecks and food assistance, than let working families keep the healthcare tax credits they need to afford lifesaving coverage. Good luck explaining that to the American people.”

In a post to his social media platform on Saturday, Trump made clear that he remains opposed to extending the ACA tax credits, calling on Republicans to instead send money that would have been used for the subsidies “directly to the people so that they can purchase their own, much better healthcare.”

Trump provided no details on how such a plan would work. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who was at the center of the largest healthcare fraud case in US history, declared that he is “writing the bill now,” suggesting that the funds would go to “HSA-style accounts.”

Democrats immediately panned the idea.

“This is, unsurprisingly, nonsensical,” said Murphy. “Is he suggesting eliminating health insurance and giving people a few thousand dollars instead? And then when they get a cancer diagnosis they just go bankrupt? He is so unserious. That’s why we are shut down and Americans know it.”

Polling data released Thursday by the health policy group KFF showed that nearly three-quarters of the US public wants Congress to extend the ACA subsidies

“More than half (55%) of those who purchase their own health insurance say Democrats should refuse to approve a budget that does not include an extension for ACA subsidies,” KFF found. “Notably, past KFF polls have shown that nearly half of adults enrolled in ACA marketplace plans identify as Republican or lean Republican.”

Consumer sentiment in the United States has fallen to a near-record low and Americans’ view of current economic conditions has deteriorated under President Donald Trump’s administration, which is overseeing and contributing to price increases, large-scale layoffs, looming insurance premium hikes, and devastating cuts to food aid.

The University of Michigan’s closely watched Surveys of Consumers released updated data on Friday showing that consumer sentiment has fallen over 6% this month compared to October as Americans increasingly fear that the government shutdown will have “potential negative consequences for the economy.”

“This month’s decline in sentiment was widespread throughout the population, seen across age, income, and political affiliation,” said Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers. “One key exception: consumers with the largest tercile of stock holdings posted a notable 11% increase in sentiment, supported by continued strength in stock markets.”

The latest consumer sentiment survey posted a reading of 50.3, the second-lowest level since 1978.

The university’s “current economic conditions” index, meanwhile, fell to an all-time low of 52.3 in November, down nearly 11% from last month.

“Middle-class and lower-income Americans are scared right now... about the shutdown, high costs, and potentially losing their jobs in the next 12 months,” wrote Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in response to the consumer sentiment data that “Americans are losing faith in the economy because they’re losing ground.”

“Every day it becomes clearer that President Trump has no real interest in improving the lives of American families,” said Jacquez. “His economic mismanagement has left households buried under record debt and rising prices. It’s no surprise consumer sentiment is at its lowest point since 2022, and households are turning to leaders who didn’t just learn the word ‘affordability.'”

US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday implored his Democratic colleagues in Congress not to cave to President Donald Trump and Republicans in the ongoing government shutdown fight, warning that doing so would hasten the country’s descent into authoritarianism.

In an op-ed for The Guardian, Sanders (I-Vt.) called Trump a “schoolyard bully” and argued that “anyone who thinks surrendering to him now will lead to better outcomes and cooperation in the future does not understand how a power-hungry demagogue operates.”

“This is a man who threatens to arrest and jail his political opponents, deploys the US military into Democratic cities, and allows masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pick people up off the streets and throw them into vans without due process,” Sanders wrote. “He has sued virtually every major media outlet because he does not tolerate criticism, has extorted funds from law firms and is withholding federal funding from states that voted against him.”

If Democrats capitulate, Sanders warned, Trump “will utilize his victory to accelerate his movement toward authoritarianism.”

“At a time when he already has no regard for our democratic system of checks and balances,” the senator wrote, “he will be emboldened to continue decimating programs that protect elderly people, children, the sick and the poor while giving more tax breaks and other benefits to his fellow oligarchs.”

Sanders’ op-ed came as the shutdown continued with no end in sight, with Democrats standing by their demand for an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits as a necessary condition for any government funding deal. Republicans have so far refused to negotiate on the ACA subsidies even as health insurance premiums skyrocket nationwide.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is illegally withholding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding from tens of millions of Americans—including millions of children—despite court rulings ordering him to release the money.

In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Trump again urged Republicans to nuke the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate to remove the need for Democratic support to reopen the government and advance other elements of their agenda unilaterally. Under the status quo, Republicans need the support of at least seven Democratic senators to advance a government funding package.

“The Republicans have to get tougher,” Trump said. “If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want. We’re not going to lose power.”

Congressional Democrats have faced some pressure from allies, most notably the head of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to cut a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown and alleviate the suffering it has inflicted on federal workers and many others.

But Democrats appear unmoved by the AFGE president’s demand, and other labor leaders have since voiced support for the minority party’s effort to secure an extension of ACA subsidies.

“We’re urging our Democratic friends to hold the line,” said Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of the 185,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ.

In his op-ed on Sunday, Sanders asked, “Does anyone truly believe that caving in to Trump now will stop his unprecedented attacks on our democracy and working people?”

“If the Democrats cave now, it would be a betrayal of the millions of Americans who have fought and died for democracy and our Constitution,” the senator wrote. “It would be a sellout of a working class that is struggling to survive in very difficult economic times. Democrats in Congress are the last remaining opposition to Trump’s quest for absolute power. To surrender now would be an historic tragedy for our country, something that history will not look kindly upon.”

The US Coast Guard has purchased two luxury private jets for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a total cost of more than $170 million in taxpayer money as the federal government remains shut down, imperiling food aid and other assistance for tens of millions of Americans.

The decision to buy two Gulfstream G700 jets for Noem—a central figure in President Donald Trump’s lawless mass deportation campaign—drew swift criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who said the purchase underscores the administration’s corruption and contempt for those struggling amid a government shutdown with no end in sight.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the spending “wholly inappropriate,” “blatantly immoral,” and “probably illegal” in a statement issued Sunday.

“While the nation suffers under this corrupt and extreme administration, Secretary Noem is fleecing the American taxpayers to live in luxury,” said Thompson. “Not only does she now have multiple fancy jets to use, she lives rent-free on Coast Guard property.”

In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security—which oversees the US Coast Guard (USCG)—Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) pointed to Noem’s policy of personally reviewing and deciding whether to approve any contract exceeding $100,000 in value, an indication that the secretary signed off on the new procurement of private jets from Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation.

The purchase, wrote DeLauro and Underwood, “reflects a continuing trend of self-aggrandizement” during Noem’s tenure as head of DHS. The two Democrats demanded answers from the agency about the contract, including the names of those who reviewed it and the funding source.

“In addition to raising serious questions about your ability to effectively lead an agency whose procurement strategies appear to vary on a whim, the procurement of new luxury jets for your use suggests that the USCG has been directed to prioritize your own comfort above the USCG’s operational needs, even during a government shutdown,” DeLauro and Underwood wrote. “We are deeply concerned about your judgment, leadership priorities, and responsibility as a steward of taxpayer dollars.”

News of the Coast Guard’s private jet purchase, which DHS claimed was a “matter of safety,” comes as the Trump administration continues to exploit the government shutdown to inflict partisan funding cuts and accelerate its assault on the federal workforce.

Recipients of federal nutrition assistance are among those set to face significant harm if the shutdown persists.

According to the Trump administration’s own estimates, more than 40 million Americans could soon see disruptions or cuts to their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits if the government remains shut down into November.

The US Department of Agriculture reportedly warned state agencies last week that the federal government would have “insufficient funds” to fully pay out benefits. The average monthly SNAP payment is $177 per person, according to the USDA.

“Can’t pay federal workers. Can’t reopen the government. But sure, let’s buy Kristi Noem TWO private jets,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) wrote in a social media post on Sunday. “Republicans have lost absolutely all touch with reality.”

"We're taking father/son bonding to a whole new level."

That's how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday told social media users that it is lifting age limits for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) applicants—evidence, critics said, of the Trump administration's desperation to fill the ranks of federal agencies tasked with carrying out its cruel and illegal anti-immigrant policies.

In a move reminiscent of how the U.S. military attempted to stem flagging enlistment during the George W. Bush administration's so-called War on Terror by lowering recruitment standards to welcome felons, gang members, white supremacists, and high school dropouts, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday that "we are ENDING the age cap for ICE law enforcement."

Approved applicants will be joining an agency rife with human rights and legal abuses as it scrambles to satisfy alleged ICE arrest quotas and President Donald Trump's desire to carry out the biggest mass deportation campaign in the nation's history—a campaign of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and expulsion of innocent people, family separation, concentration camps, terrorization of American communities, alleged torture and sexual crimes, and many other outrages.

Noem told Fox & Friends Wednesday that in addition to lifting the 40-year-old age cap, ICE applicants can now be as young as 18.

"What could possibly go wrong?" independent journalist Tina Vasquez quipped on Bluesky.

Author Patrick S. Tomlinson wrote on X that "ICE opening up recruiting to teenagers because they can't find enough adults willing to be their racist storm troopers is some real dystopian s---."

Wednesday's announcement is the latest Trump administration effort to lure 10,000 new recruits, including by offering $50,000 sign-up bonuses and student loan repayment assistance—policies that can be paid for thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's historic funding for ICE.

Some critics pointed to a similar move to increase recruitment at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where lower hiring standards resulted in increased reports of sexual misconduct and corruption among Border Patrol recruits.

"If they start waiving requirements there like they did for Border Patrol, you're going to have an exponential increase in officers that are shown the door after three years because there's some issue," former senior ICE official Jason Houser told The Associated Press last week.

Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate campaign, offered some friendly advice for those considering working for ICE: "Instead of joining the Gestapo, perhaps find a unionized workplace that's not involved in kidnapping instead."

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Texas Democrats expressed defiance Sunday following Gov. Greg Abbott's threat to remove them from office for leaving the state to obstruct the passage of Republicans' extreme, Trump-backed gerrymandering plan.

"Come and take it," the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a short statement after Abbott issued an open letter vowing to "remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House" if they don't return by the time the body reconvenes late Monday afternoon.

Abbott cited a 2021 opinion authored by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, with the Republican governor claiming it empowers him to expel the Democrats who left the state and "swiftly fill" resulting vacancies.

But the attorney general's opinion does not actually conclude that it's unconstitutional to break a quorum, saying only that "a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office, thereby creating a vacancy."

In addition to threatening the Texas Democrats with expulsion on dubious grounds, Abbott alleged that any Democrats who have solicited or accepted donations while breaking quorum "may have violated bribery laws." The governor said he would use his "full extradition authority" to ensure the Democrats' return to Texas.

More than 50 Texas House Democrats left the state Sunday, many of them traveling to Illinois. At a press conference alongside some of the lawmakers, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pledged to "protect every single one of them" in the face of Abbott's threats.

" Donald Trump is trying to cheat the system in Texas, but these Democratic legislators refuse to let it happen without a fight," Pritzker wrote on social media. "Their fight is our fight. I'm proud to stand side by side with them as they protect their constituents."

The proposed congressional map that congressional Republicans unveiled last week "packs voters of color into as few districts as possible in some areas and cracks them across several districts in others, effectively reducing the overall number of districts where Black and Latino voters are able to elect candidates of their choice," according to an analysis by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Democratic members of the U.S. Congress have voiced solidarity with the Texas lawmakers working to block the GOP gerrymandering scheme—and expressed hope that the effort will spark similar fights across the country.

"For folks watching at home that believe that voters should get to pick their politicians instead of Donald Trump picking their member of Congress, call your governor, call your state legislator, and tell them to fight back against what's happening in Texas," said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus whose district would be impacted by the Republican gerrymandering plan.

"Donald Trump is trying to rig elections across the country," Casar added, "and those that care about democracy are fighting back—not just in Texas."

Rick Levy, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, similarly applauded Texas Democrats and said that "we need lawmakers at every level and in every state to fight to protect our rights, no matter what it takes."

"Texas may be the beginning of this redistricting battle," said Levy, "but workers across this country will win the war."

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The leadership of the European Union on Sunday struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that will leave tariffs significantly higher for many of the bloc's exports—including cars, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors—and at 50% for steel and aluminum.

News of the deal was met with sharp criticism, including from some European officials. François Bayrou, France's prime minister, wrote on social media that "it is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission."

Nick Dearden, director of the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, warned that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen "has just handed Trump the biggest victory he could hope for."

"We will all pay the price because in the process, she has strengthened him and his fascist project. Deeply depressing," Dearden wrote, arguing that the deal "simply empowers the bully" and likely won't last.

In her statement announcing the agreement with Trump, von der Leyen suggested the deal would avert further escalations from the U.S. president and bring "stability" to markets unsettled by his erratic threats.

"Today with this deal, we are creating more predictability for our businesses," she said. "In these turbulent times, this is necessary for our companies to be able to plan and invest."

The sweeping 15% tariff on E.U. products entering the U.S. is half the rate that the president threatened to impose earlier this month, but it is far higher than the estimated 1.5% rate prior to Trump's second White House term. The E.U. is the United States' largest trading partner.

Cailin Birch, global economist at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC that while the deal represents "a climb down from a much worse place," the 15% tariff "is still a big escalation from where we were pre-Trump 2.0."

Wolfgang Niedermark, a board member of the Federation of German Industries, called the deal "an inadequate compromise" that "will have a huge negative impact on Germany's export-oriented industry."

Trump and his team wasted no time bragging in bombastic terms about the agreement. Trump called it "probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity, trade or beyond trade," while the president's deputy chief of staff gushed that it is "impossible to overstate what a staggering achievement President Trump delivered for America today."

"Stephen Miller is boasting about Trump hitting us with a HUGE tax increase," responded economist Dean Baker, alluding to the fact that tariffs are often passed to consumers in the form of higher prices.

As part of the agreement, the E.U. pledged to buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over three years—including LNG and oil.

Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said in a statement Monday that "it's deeply shortsighted to see the E.U. strike a so-called 'deal' with the U.S. that locks us into expensive, polluting gas."

"Fossil gas is not only worse for the climate than coal, it comes at a higher cost," said Sieber. "This risks locking Europe into decades of fossil fuel dependence, volatile energy bills, and accelerating the wildfires and flooding already wreaking havoc across the continent. While Trump celebrates this as a win, communities on both sides of the Atlantic are suffering with deadly climate impacts."

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A top Trump White House official who has incessantly bemoaned wasteful government spending has reportedly billed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nearly $5 million for his security detail as he guts the agency's ability to fight for Americans scammed by predatory corporations.

Government Executive on Wednesday obtained a memo from the CFPB's deputy chief financial officer showing that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the consumer bureau "are entering into an interagency agreement to pay the costs" of Russell Vought's security.

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Vought currently serves as both OMB director and acting director of the CFPB—a longtime target of Trump, congressional Republicans, and corporate forces.

"The memo spelled out that the agreement was 'on a fast track,' despite the funding not being included in the bureau's fiscal 2025 budget," Government Executive noted. "The $4.7 million will cover Vought's security through December, meaning it will draw from both fiscal years 2025 and 2026."

Earlier this year, Vought described the consumer agency's budget—around $820 million for 2025—as "excessive in the current fiscal environment." An OMB spokesperson did not respond when Government Executive asked why CFPB is footing Vought's security bill.

David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, wrote sardonically that Vought—who has helped turn the consumer bureau into a shell of its former self—is "finally getting things done that matter at CFPB."

"And when I say that, I mean his security detail," Dayen added. "At heart, these guys are all kleptocrats."

Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, wrote that Vought is "simultaneously stopping CFPB from protecting American consumers from scams, while also charging it $5 million for his security team."

While the Trump administration's effort to dismantle the bureau entirely has been held up in court, Vought and Republicans in Congress have succeeded at slashing the consumer agency's budget and grinding its enforcement work to a halt. A pair of advocacy groups noted in a memo released in late May that the Vought-led CFPB has quietly dismissed more than 20 public enforcement actions against corporate wrongdoers.

Supporters of the CFPB, which was established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, have described the agency as a "model of efficiency," touting the fact that it has returned tens of billions of dollars to consumers since its creation.

But that's done nothing to slow the Trump administration's assault on the bureau.

The Prospect's Maureen Tkacik and James Baratta wrote earlier this month that for close to half of 2025, the CFPB's roughly 1,500 staffers "have been locked out of their offices and agency computers, while attorneys and judges deliberate over the degree to which Trump's wrecking crew is legally allowed to assassinate the bureau."

"In the meantime, formal entries into the CFPB's consumer complaints database have soared, suggesting that the business of junk fees, predatory terms, and routine swindles is booming," the pair wrote. "All told, 2.5 million complaints have flooded into the CFPB over the past six months, roughly a quarter of the total complaints the agency has recorded since its inception in 2011, with reports of everything from being shut out of bank accounts after a hurricane to scammers impersonating ICE officials who convince consumers to buy them gift cards in order to help them avoid deportation."

"The ability to force financial scammers to return ill-gotten gains to millions of customers is an awesome authority in a political system that makes it so difficult to materially improve people's lives," they added, "so Vought has unsurprisingly dedicated special effort to destroying that power."

A report released earlier this week by the nonprofit Better Markets notes that the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks at the CFPB have cost American consumers billions in savings and left them more vulnerable to corporate misconduct.

"The magnitude of the rollback and its costs for American consumers is staggering," said Brady Williams, legal counsel at Better Markets. "The Trump CFPB has aligned itself with industry interests, abandoning its mission to protect consumers."

The Writers Guild of America is calling on New York's attorney general to launch a bribery investigation into Paramount Global following the cancellation of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."

WGA, some of whose members worked on the CBS show, said in a statement that while "cancellations are part of the business," a "corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society."

"Paramount's decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organizations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR," the union said.

WGA noted that the show's cancellation—which CBS insisted was a "purely financial" decision—came after Colbert criticized Paramount's $16 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump.

In a July 15 segment, aired 48 hours prior to his show's cancellation, Colbert called the settlement with Trump a "big, fat bribe" aimed at greasing federal approval of Paramount's pending merger with the entertainment company Skydance. Paramount owns CBS, and Paramount's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has reportedly been monitoring the network's coverage of the president.

The day of the Colbert segment, the CEO of Skydance met with Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr to discuss the pending merger.

In its statement, WGA urged New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate "potential wrongdoing" at Paramount, which is headquartered in New York City.

"Given Paramount's recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that 'The Late Show' cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval," the union said. "We call on our elected leaders to hold those responsible to account, to demand answers about why this beloved program was canceled, and to assure the public that Colbert and his writers were not censored due to their views or the whims of the president."

Ahead of the official settlement announcement, California's Senate launched an investigation into whether Paramount "violated state laws against bribery and unfair competition" by offering Trump $15 million to end the legal fight, Semafor reported.

After news of the settlement deal broke earlier this month, Democratic U.S. senators called for a federal investigation.

"With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration's approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I'm calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision Friday to eliminate its scientific research arm drew horrified responses from public health experts and climate advocates, who warned that the Trump administration is targeting the foundation of the department's work to shield Americans from hazardous chemicals, toxic pollution, and drinking water contaminants.

"This is grim news," said Adam Gaffney, an ICU doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance. "For decades, the EPA's Office of Research and Development has produced the science that underlies the regulations and technologies that protect us from innumerable hazards."

"You can't put a number on the lives that it has saved. Now Trump and Zeldin are killing it," Gaffney added, referring to the president's handpicked EPA administrator.

Since taking charge at the EPA, Lee Zeldin has moved aggressively to implement President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at gutting the agency's staff and freeing oil and gas corporations from regulatory restraints.

The agency will soon have 12,448 employees, after starting the year with more than 16,000. Staffers at the targeted research office—which had more than 800 employees as of earlier this week—reportedly learned of what one public health expert called "the ultimate Friday night purge" through the EPA's public press release.

In the statement, Zeldin said the elimination of the Office of Research and Development would help "ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment."

But scientists said the closure of the research office would have the opposite impact, leaving the agency's ability to protect the environment and public health badly compromised.

Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that "it is absolutely devastating that Trump officials would shut down this office in its entirety."

"Science, data, and research underpin all of EPA's work, from protections from harmful chemicals to air quality standards to safe drinking water. It's hard to see how EPA can fulfill its mission without its scientific research arm," said Goldman. "The nation enjoys a cleaner environment thanks to the decades of high-quality research coming out of this office. Our nation cannot let this stand. Members of Congress must act."

In his public messaging, Zeldin has deemphasized the EPA's fundamental responsibility to protect the environment, instead casting the agency as a promoter of "energy dominance"—the slogan Trump administration officials have used to describe the president's commitment to boosting fossil fuel drilling.

Earlier this year, Zeldin boasted about launching "the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history," targeting power plant rules, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and other regulations.

"Out in the open, Zeldin's EPA has been dismantling protections against precisely the sorts of dangers that right-wingers warn are coming from alleged deep-state conspiracies: toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that corporations have lobbied to freely inject into our air, water, food, and bodies," The New Republic's Kate Aronoff wrote in a recent column.

"Among the broader suite of regulations Zeldin's EPA has promised to roll back," Aronoff wrote, "is one that would require coal-fired power plant operators to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities, limiting their ability to freely discharge toxins like mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead, and bromide and to threaten local drinking water supplies."

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Next year, Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges are set to pay significantly more for coverage—and experts say policies advanced by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are at least partially to blame.

An analysis released Friday by the health policy research organization KFF and the Peterson Center on Healthcare found that across a sample of more than 105 ACA marketplace insurers in 19 states and the District of Columbia, companies are set to increase premiums by a median of 15%.

The analysis noted that insurers have cited a number of factors to justify pushing up premiums, including Trump's tariffs—which could drive up drug, equipment, and supply costs—and the expectation that the Republican-controlled Congress will not extend ACA tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.

"If Congress takes no action to renew these enhanced tax credits, enhanced subsidies will expire at the end of 2025, which will cause premium payments for subsidized enrollees to increase by over 75% starting in January 2026," the analysis states. "Insurers expect a large share of enrollees to leave the market, and that those enrollees will be healthier on average, thus leaving the risk pool sicker on average."

While many health insurers submitted their rate-hike proposals prior to Republicans' passage of their sprawling budget reconciliation bill—which includes major attacks on the ACA and Medicaid—the measure could compel insurers to further raise premiums. Higher premiums would leave many more people unable to afford coverage.

The KFF-Peterson analysis also pointed to a Trump administration rule that imposes new restrictions on ACA enrollment.

"Early indications are that individual market insurers will be increasing premiums in 2026 by more than they have since 2018, the last time policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases," the organizations said.

Vox's Dylan Scott noted that "the Republican bill's changes to Medicaid don't take effect until the end of 2026, but they could also push premiums higher if millions of people lose coverage as expected."

"When people lose Medicaid, they are more likely to end up in the emergency room," Scott explained. "That requires more costly care than they'd get if they were insured. Those increased costs to hospitals are passed on to insured patients when providers negotiate their payment rates with health insurance plans."

Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement Friday that "Donald Trump and Republicans handed a massive tax break to billionaires and paid for it by ripping over $1 trillion out of our healthcare system."

"Now hard-working families are stuck with the bill," said Woodhouse. "Premiums are soaring, uninsured rates are growing, hospitals are closing, and millions are being forced to choose between affording care or covering rent. But this was no accident. It was the plan: decimate American healthcare to line the pockets of the rich, and leave working families to suffer the consequences."

"The fallout is now hitting working families hard," he added, "as premium costs are driven to new heights."

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Deadly flooding caused by torrential rain in central Texas late last week called attention to U.S. President Donald Trump's full-scale assault on the climate research and monitoring agencies tasked with studying and predicting such weather catastrophes, as well as his ongoing attacks on disaster preparedness and relief.

Though local National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters did issue warnings in the lead-up to Friday's flooding—which killed at least 82 people, including dozens of children—key roles were reportedly vacant ahead of the downpour, prompting scrutiny of the Trump administration's mass firings and budget cuts, in addition to years of neglect and failures by Republicans at the state level.

Asked whether he believes the federal government should hire back terminated meteorologists in the wake of the Texas flooding, Trump responded in the negative and falsely claimed that "very talented people" at NWS "didn't see" the disaster coming.

"This is an absolute lie," replied meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus. "Worse, this is the person responsible for making those kids less safe and he's trying to deny the damage he caused."

Holthaus wrote Sunday that Trump's staffing cuts "have particularly hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Environmental Modeling Center, which aims to improve the skill of these types of difficult forecasts."

"Though it's unclear to what extent staffing shortages across the NWS complicated the advance notice that local officials had of an impending flooding disaster," he added, "it's clear that this was a complex, compound tragedy of a type that climate warming is making more frequent."

"Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis."

Under the guise of "government efficiency," the Trump administration has taken an axe to staff at federal climate agencies and is trying to go even further with its budget for the coming fiscal year. The Washington Post noted Sunday that "a budget document the Trump administration recently submitted to Congress calls for zeroing out climate research funding for 2026, something officials had hinted at in previous proposals but is now in lawmakers' hands."

"But even just the specter of President Donald Trump's budget proposals has prompted scientists to limit research activities in advance of further cuts," the Post noted. "Trump's efforts to freeze climate research spending and slash the government's scientific workforce have for months prompted warnings of rippling consequences in years ahead. For many climate scientists, the consequences are already here."

Since the start of his second term, Trump has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who were working on the National Climate Assessment, moved to slash NOAA's workforce, and announced a halt to climate disaster tracking, among other changes—all while working to accelerate fossil fuel extraction and use that is supercharging extreme weather events. One NOAA veteran warned that Trump's cuts could drag the agency back to "the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s."

"The Trump regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons, at the very time we need a much better understanding of it," environmentalist Stephen Barlow wrote on social media on Sunday. "This is so reckless and dangerous, which is why I suggest we call these tragedies Trump events."

Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, said over the weekend that "Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis."

"These deaths are on Trump's hands," she added.

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