Week 13 — The Return

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

This is the second week of pandemonium in the U.S., by design. The number of broken norms this week are comparable to well into year two of the first regime. Seemingly following Project 2025 as a script, Trump and his regime are moving at a breakneck pace, testing the bounds of lawlessness, and setting up a myriad of court cases that will ultimately head to the Supreme Court, likely establishing expansions to presidential powers. The importance of writing it all down in this project is more clear than ever — likely in reading this week’s broken norms, you will find you have missed a lot since you were deluged by information, and exhausted by outrage. That is by design — a tool in the toolkit for authoritarians — flood the zone, leave them feeling helpless.

At this point, the Judicial Branch appears to be the only check on Trump’s unmitigated power. House, and this week Senate Republicans increasingly are going silent and backing Trump’s every whim, even as this week is full of examples of his neutering the Legislative Branch, usurping their roles and functions. As Elon Musk moved to takeover federal agencies, giving him unprecedented power for a non-governmental official, Rep. Jamie Raskin mused at a protest, “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk.” These are the dynamics a mere 17 days into the second Trump regime.

This week Trump moved with surprising efficiency in his efforts to deconstruct the federal government. He has learned from his mistakes in the first regime, when he installed loyalists who gradually degraded their agencies by changing rules, which were easily reversed by President Joseph Biden. This time he is pursuing a more direct, albeit unethical and perhaps illegal and definitely unprecedented tactic — installing loyalists who technically should not be there, and letting them do the work. Two examples: Trump firing the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and installing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting director — an action that breaks protocol. Bessent immediately halts all agency investigations, essentially shuttering it from within. Trump installing Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting director of the USAID — again, meant to be an independent agency, not normal — and you can expect the same results.

Notably as well, Trump has hit the ground running by appointing acting directors at agencies, who are not his nominees to lead those agencies. This is rather diabolical, as it allows his nominees to be teflon through their senate confirmation. For example, this week the regime orchestrated another Friday purge, this time of the FBI, literally the day after Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the bureau, told senators, “All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” It’s gaslighting of the highest degree!

This week Elon Musk came center stage as if co-president alongside Trump. Reminiscent of his takeover of Twitter, Musk borrowed employees from his companies, along with young coders just out of or still in college, who, working around the clock, burrowed themselves within federal agencies as part of his DOGE effort. Any federal employee who resisted was terminated. He and his unvetted employees were given unprecedented access to reams of non-public information, some of which had required security clearance, including all data from the Treasury Department’s payment system.

On the pushback front, in Week 12 I had noted that Democrats were at long last coming out of their slumber. This week they finally took to the streets! Protests of varying sorts took place around the country, including alongside elected Democrats in Washington D.C. The court system has been used to pause a few of Trump’s worst impulses: pausing his freeze on federal loans and grants (by two federal judges), his attempt to end birthright citizenship (by two federal judges), and to house transgender women in male prisons — notably two of these decisions were made by federal judges appointed by Ronald Reagan. A myriad of other lawsuits have been filed to push back on Trump’s lawless actions, including a bevy of internal legal objections at government agencies. In the meantime, Trump and his assistant Musk are full speed ahead, following the credo of move fast, break things, which will undoubtedly have repercussions we can hardly imagine in the coming months.

1. On Wednesday, the acting director for the Office of Management and Budget rescinded an order signed Monday night by Trump that froze federal grants and loans, marking a major capitulation by Trump.
2. Trump’s order had left schools, hospitals, nonprofits and other organizations scrambling to find out if they had lost their funding. The order also interrupted the Medicaid system, and left federal agencies in limbo.
3. At the same time, however, the regime ordered federal agencies to shut down programs, grants, and other initiatives that “promote or reflect gender ideology,” and to place all employees working on them on leave.
4. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order to block the regime’s executive orders to defund federal programs that do not align with Trump’s ideological agenda.
5. On Thursday, Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee boycotted the vote for Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the White House Office of Budget and Management, in protest of Trump’s federal freeze.
6. Three organizations — the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, the Project On Government Oversight, and EDF Action — wrote letters to senators in opposition of Vought. Nonetheless, the Senate committee voted 11–0, without Democrats, to advance his nomination.
7. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that USDA inspector general Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, was escorted out of her office after she refused to comply with her firing by Trump. Fong had an open investigation of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink.
8. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he would send the “worst criminal aliens” to a detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, saying some are so bad, “we don’t even trust the countries to hold them.”
9. On Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve did not heed his advice, leaving interest rates unchanged, Trump attacked Chair Jerome Powell and the Fed on Truth Social, claiming that they created inflation.
10. On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle his lawsuit over the company suspending his accounts after the Jan. 6 insurrection, a significant concession from a social media company. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren compared the payment to a “bribe.”
11. WSJ reported that Zuckerberg is in talks to reincorporate Meta’s legal residence to Texas, following a similar move by Elon Musk.
12. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss criminal charges against former GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry. Trump immediately praised the move, posting Fortenberry was the victim of “illegal weaponization of our justice system by the radical left Democrats.”
13. On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order that would encourage a “patriotic education,” and restrict K-12 schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about structural racism.
14. On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order to cancel visas and deport non-citizen college students and others who take part in pro-Palestinian protests. Legal experts said the order is unconstitutional.
15. On Wednesday, the Pentagon paused the celebration of Pride Month, Black History Month, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, Juneteenth, and other annual cultural events, conforming to Trump’s anti-diversity agenda.
16. On Wednesday, the Pentagon rolled back a Biden-era policy that covered travel costs for service members and their dependents who have to cross state lines for abortions and other reproductive care.
17. On Thursday, after an air traffic disaster of an American Airlines passenger jet colliding with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, Trump, in his first White House briefing, blamed, without evidence, DEI initiatives.
18. The briefing took place as bodies of crash victims were still being pulled from the Potomac, there was not yet a full list of victims, and without a full investigation. Trump did not show any empathy for lives lost.
19. Trump blamed “Obama, Biden and the Democrats” for their policy, which was also in place during the first Trump regime. He also blamed former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, whom he claimed ran the department “right into the ground with his diversity.”
20. Even after making this unfounded claim, he said the Army helicopter crew could be at fault. When a reporter questioned how knew before the investigation, Trump said, “Because I have common sense, OK?”
21. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Trump, saying, “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest.” Vice President J.D. Vance did as well, saying, “We want the best people at air traffic control.”
22. Buttigieg responded on X, saying during his tenure there were no commercial airline crash fatalities, and adding of Trump, “One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe.”
23. Later Thursday, Trump’s White House claimed in a memo that the Biden administration recruited “individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA” under DEI hiring. The false statement was met with an outcry.
24. Late Thursday, 24 hours after the air crash, the Trump regime’s Office of Personnel Management sent an email to FAA employees encouraging them to look for new jobs outside the government, where they can be more productive. Notably, there is a shortage of air traffic controllers.
25. On Friday, when asked by reporters if he would visit the crash site, Trump responded, “I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?”
26. On Sunday, in a reversal the Trump regime announced that federal employees involved in public safety positions, such as air traffic controllers, are not eligible for the buyout offer made to all federal employees in Week 12.
27. On Thursday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump during the first regime, ordered an investigation of NPR and PBS, saying it would be relevant to lawmakers’ decision on whether to continue funding the public news organizations.
28. On Friday, CBS said it would comply with a new demand from the FCC, now under the Trump regime leadership, and hand over the transcript and camera feeds from Kamala Harris’s October “60 Minutes” interview, related to Trump’s lawsuit.
29. On Thursday, a series of internal FBI emails related to the Trump 2020 election interference investigation were publicly released by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The emails revealed the names of several FBI agents and bureau officials, leaving them personally at risk.
30. On Thursday, five senior FBI employees, who were promoted under Christopher Wray, were told by the Trump regime to resign, or they would be fired.
31. The move came as Kash Patel told senators at his confirmation hearing on Thursday that he would not retaliate or look backwards as head of the FBI, saying, “All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.”
32. On Friday, an email sent to the FBI workforce by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove asked for information about potentially thousands of agents involved with the Jan. 6 cases, or a Hamas-related case.
33. The email also said that eight senior FBI executives were terminated. ABC News reported the Trump regime is compiling a list of agents around the country who will be fired.
34. Also on Friday, acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin fired 40 prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia who had previously worked on the Jan. 6 related cases.
35. Asked about the firing by reporters, Trump said it was a “good thing,” saying, “we have some very bad people over there,” and falsely claiming, “it was weaponized at a level that nobody’s ever seen before.”
36. On Sunday, James Dennehy, a top FBI agent in New York, told his staff in a defiant email to “dig in,” saying employees are being targeted “because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy,” adding that the agency was in “a battle of our own.”
37. On Tuesday, two anonymous groups of FBI agents filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s DOJ from publicly releasing the names of thousands of bureau employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases against Trump or insurrectionists, saying it was unlawful and retaliatory.
38. NYT reported Trump’s freeze of most foreign aid has intensified humanitarian crises: examples include soup kitchens in famine-stricken Sudan are shuttered, war refugees have been turned away in Thailand, Ukrainians near the front line are going without firewood.
39. The move cast doubt upon the role of the U.S. as a reliable global leader. Many organizations and groups are already calling into question their reliance on the U.S. Experts say this will give China an opening to present itself as a reliable partner.
40. On Friday, federal employees at several agencies were instructed to remove pronouns from their email signatures by the end of the day, citing two anti-DEI executive order signed by Trump on his first day.
41. On Friday, the Trump regime removed artwork from the walls of the U.S. Agency for International Development offices, to ensure the office decor aligns with Trump’s “America First” mission.
42. On Friday, Reuters reported that aides to Elon Musk locked senior career employees at the Office of Personnel Management out of the agency’s computer system, which contain the personal data of millions of federal employees.
43. On Friday, the Education Department sent a notice to K-12 schools and colleges advising that the regime would revert to policies of the first Trump regime which limited schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases and gave stronger rights to students accused.
44. The regime also said it would not enforce a Biden-era interpretation of Title IX, which recognized harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity to be a form of discrimination.
45. On Friday, NYT reported that federal and state health officials scrambled to meet the Trump regime’s 5 p.m. deadline for a vague directive to terminate any programs that promote “gender ideology.”
46. VA hospitals were told LGBTQ flags were no longer acceptable. Bathrooms in health agencies were to be set aside by a single “biological sex.” The word “gender” was to be removed from agency forms.
47. The directive was a complete reversal of decades of work to integrate LGBTQ people into research. CDC employees were confused on how to delete gender from decades old research.
48. As part of Trump’s “Defending Women” executive order, web pages describing initiatives about ending gender-based violence, supporting LGBTQ youths, and racism in health were taken down.
49. The CDC removed a swath of HIV-related content from its website before the 5 p.m. deadline.
50. On Friday, Robert Santos, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, resigned halfway through his five-year term. Santos, a Mexican-American, had emphasized inclusivity and outreach to overlooked communities.
51. On Friday, parts of the U.S. Census Bureau website went down, without explanation. The outage coincided with the 5 p.m. deadline.
52. On Friday, ABC News reported federal workers received a follow up email from top officials at their agencies, informing them that the resignation offer sent days before is “valid, lawful, and will be honored.” Employment lawyers questioned whether the offer was lawful.
53. On Friday, a second federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump regime’s spending freeze, in a case filed by 22 attorneys general, saying in an order that it is likely a violation of the Constitution.
54. On Friday, NYT reported that Trump had signed an executive order on his first day to dissolve the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, as part of his effort to reverse Biden’s “harmful” orders.
55. On Friday, the Trump regime began releasing significant amounts of water from two dams in California’s Central Valley, which experts said would serve little use, as Trump looked to make a political point and falsely blame Democrats for the Los Angeles wildfires.
56. On Friday, WAPO reported that Trump’s orders dramatically changed federal agencies’ websites. More than 8,000 federal webpages have changed since Trump’s inauguration. Trump told reporters, “I think DEI is dead.”
57. The most common changes include words like “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion” being completely deleted. “Climate change” was changed to “climate resilience.” “Pregnant people” has been replaced with “pregnant women.”
58. For the Agriculture Department, a page for the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities was deleted. The Forest Service’s website was scrubbed, including pages that explained how climate change impacts federally managed forests and grasslands.
59. On Friday, the Pentagon informed major news outlets, including NBC News, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Politico in an email that they would lose their dedicated workspace, as part of a “new Annual Media Rotation Program” to “broaden access.”
60. On Saturday, NYT reported that NYU Langone Health, a leading New York City hospital system, had cancelled treatment for two 12 year-old transgender children, following Trump’s order blocking care.
61. On Monday, New York AG Letitia James warned New York hospitals that complying with Trump’s order could well violate state anti-discrimination laws by denying care to pediatric transgender patients.
62. On Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services told grant fund recipients from the CDC in an email, any programs in any way related to “gender ideology” are “immediately, completely, and permanently terminated.”
63. On Saturday, WAPO reported the Trump regime put at least 50 employees at the Education Department on leave, related to his DEI purge, although none work in positions directly related to DEI. Some were involved in DEI initiatives in the past.
64. NBC News reported federal employees expressed alarm after a website called “DEI Watch List” published names and photos of employees across health agencies, labeling them as “targets.” Most of those listed were Black employees.
65. On Monday, a coalition of professors, diversity officers, and restaurant worker advocates sued to block the Trump regime’s DEI orders, alleging that he exceeded his authority in issuing them.
66. On Monday, WAPO reported Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department by dismantling it from within, using DOGE to cut funding and staff.
67. On Sunday, Reuters reported the SEC will now need to get permission from the politically appointed leadership Commission before launching probes, moving away from the norm of being independent. The current Commission has two Republicans and one Democrat.
68. On Friday, David Lebryk, a top career official at the Treasury Department who served as acting secretary while Trump’s nominee was confirmed, was pushed out, after resisting Musk DOGE employees.
69. On Saturday, the Trump regime fired Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chopra’s term was set to run through the end of 2026.
70. NYT reported Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Elon Musk’s DOGE team access to the federal payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government, late Friday after Lebryk’s sudden retirement. Musk’s team were made Treasury employees.
71. Access to the system would give the Trump regime another way to monitor and unilaterally restrict payments by the government. On Saturday, Musk criticized Treasury on X for not rejecting more payments as fraudulently or improper.
72. On Monday, in a letter to Sec. Bessent, Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, demanded answers on why DOGE was given access, calling it “extraordinarily dangerous.”
73. Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, called Musk’s DOGE access “completely unprecedented,” adding, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
74. On Monday, Trump named Treasury Sec. Bessent as the acting director of the CFPB. Bank lobbying groups cheered the move. Shortly after, Bessent halted the agency’s work to investigate and penalize corporate wrongdoing.
75. On Monday, unions representing federal workers sued the Treasury Department and Bessent, saying allowing Musk’s DOGE access was an unlawful disclosure of the personal and financial information of millions of people.
76. On Monday, top Senate Democrats used their news conference to condemn Bessent giving Musk access, calling it “unlawful,” and noting Musk is “an unelected, unaccountable billionaire with expansive conflicts of interest, deep ties to China and an indiscreet ax to grind.”
77. On Tuesday, in a letter to U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden called on the Government Accountability Office to investigate Bessent granting Musk and DOGE employees access to sensitive federal data.
78. Late Thursday, WSJ reported that Trump aides are scrambling to find off-ramps, hoping for an 11th-hour deal, to avoid enacting the 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico that Trump continued to threaten would start on Saturday.
79. On Friday, the Trump regime announced a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada, and 10% on China as of Saturday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the rationale was they “have all enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.” The stock market plunged.
80. On Saturday, Trump signed an order to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China to go into effect on Tuesday, calling it an economic emergency, and claiming it will “protect Americans.”
81. Trump posted on social media that he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1997, citing “the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl.”
82. On Sunday, Trump on Truth Social warned that Americans could feel some “pain” from his trade war with the three countries, but claimed it would be “worth the price that must be paid.”
83. On Sunday evening, on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said of Trump’s tariffs, “It will drive the cost of everything up…it’ll be paid for by American consumers,” adding, “why would you want to get in a fight with your allies over this?”
84. On Sunday, conservative WSJ Editorial Board criticized Trump’s tariffs in an op-ed, calling it “the dumbest trade war,” noting, “Canada and Mexico vow retaliation…amid new economic uncertainty.”
85. Late Sunday, in reaction to Trump’s tariffs, global stock markets tumbled, continuing into Monday morning when the U.S. market opened. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 650 points.
86. On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the province will rip up its $100 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink, saying, “Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy.”
87. On Monday, WSJ reported that Trump’s tariffs without a clearly stated goal had “spooked almost everyone,” including investors, economists, and some Republican lawmakers. Most Republican lawmakers remained publicly supportive.
88. On Monday, Trump, flanked by Bessent and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick, told reporters that he would like to see Canada become the 51st state rather than an independent nation.
89. On Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters she and Trump agreed to put tariffs on hold for a month. In the afternoon, Trump did the same with Canada. The stock market stabilized. Nothing of substance was gained by Trump’s machinations.
90. Later Monday, WSJ reported on the chaotic run-up to Trump’s tariff imposition, where he dismissed concerns of aides, who offered ways to exempt key industries or make targeted tariffs, and instead moved unilaterally both imposing, and then pausing broad tariffs.
91. The whiplash reverberated in boardrooms, with unions, and analysts and corporate leaders trying to plan for what comes next. Senior officials from Canada said it was difficult to get a read on what Trump wants.
92. On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service said it would no longer accept parcels from the China and Hong Kong, citing Trump’s China tariffs, which also ended a customs exception for small packages. On Wednesday, the USPS lifted the suspension without explanation.
93. Bloomberg reported that the USAID website went dark on Saturday. Two top security officials were put on leave after refusing to allow Musk’s DOGE employees to access systems at the agency, saying they lacked security clearances.
94. NYT reported Matt Hopson, a Trump appointee for USAID chief of staff, who had started his job days ago, resigned after the top agency officials — the director of USAID security and his deputy — were put on leave.
95. The Musk employees were trying to enter a secure area of the agency’s offices to get at classified material. On Sunday, Musk posted on X that “USAID is a criminal organization.”
96. WIRED reported that the DOGE employees being sent inside federal agencies included six inexperienced engineers between the age of 19 and 24, one of whom was still in college.
97. Employees from Musk’s xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company have also been sent inside federal agencies, including OPM, USAID, General Services Administration, and Treasury.
98. Trump signaled his support for Musk, telling reporters he was “doing a great job,” and criticized USAID as “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” Trump said he is freezing virtually all U.S. foreign aid, pending a 90 day review.
99. Later, in the middle of night, Musk posted an audio appearance on X, saying of the USAID, “We’re shutting it down,” adding, “we’re in the process” of “shutting down USAID.” Musk did not specify what legal authority the regime has to shut down an agency.
100. Overnight, an email sent to USAID personnel advised them not to come to work at the D.C. headquarters, saying personnel “will work remotely tomorrow” except for people who perform essential on-site duties.
101. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had taken over as the acting director of the USAID, an agency which has operated largely independently for more than 60 years.
102. On Monday, the Trump regime warned more than 1,100 E.P.A. employees in an email that they could be fired “immediately.” A spokesperson for Administrator Lee Zeldin said the goal was to create an “effective and efficient” work force.
103. On Monday, protestors demonstrating outside the USAID offices were joined by several Senate and House Democrats, saying they would fight Musk and support workers who face termination.
104. In one of the more dramatic escalations of pushback against Trump, several Democratic lawmakers tried to enter the USAID building, but they were blocked by officers from even entering the lobby.
105. On Tuesday, Democratic organizations led a protest outside the Treasury Department’s headquarters, slamming Musk’s influence. Once again, House and Senate Democrats who tried to enter a government building were denied.
106. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Trump’s foreign aid freeze was causing chaos in the aid and development field. Hundreds of contractors faced a severe cash crunch, leading to layoffs and millions of dollars of unpaid invoices.
107. On Tuesday, the AP reported Trump’s foreign aid freeze is victory for other authoritarian leaders, as funding for organizations that train poll workers to detect election fraud, and pro-democracy activists will lose funding. Authoritarian leaders were already said to be celebrating.
108. On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the UN Human Rights Council and UNRWA. Trump also signed an order that for the first time, called for a review of U.S. involvement in the United Nations.
109. Late Tuesday, a large group of USAID employees received an email from a DOGE representative saying they were put on administrative leave with pay. Attached to the email was a letter from acting deputy Pete Marocco saying they are on excused absence effective immediately.
110. On Saturday, Musk expanded a lawsuit against brands to include Lego, Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmolive, Pinterest and Shell International, accusing them of illegally boycotting advertising on X.
111. On Monday, the Trump regime named Musk as a “special government employee,” allowing him to work for the federal government, while avoiding some disclosure of conflicts of interest and finances.
112. NYT reported there is no precedent for a government official to have the scale of conflicts of interest as Musk, or to have the access and ability to reshape the federal workforce unchecked.
113. Trump, while indicating Monday that if there is a conflict, “then we won’t let him get near it,” has also given Musk vast power over the agencies that regulate his companies and awards them contracts.
114. Musk’s approach has been similar to his taking over Twitter, working round the clock, bringing in outsiders, and sleeping at the office. Dozens expressed concern to the Times, but feared going on the record.
115. WAPO reported the assault by Musk’s DOGE on federal agencies has resulted in a bevy of lawsuits. Internal legal objections have been raised at Treasury, the Education Department, the USAID, the GSA, the OPM, the EEOC, and the White House budget office, among others.
116. Lebryk told Musk’s team Treasury did not have the authority to cancel payments, before he was pushed out. Bessent was forced to take the unusual step on Tuesday of writing Congress to assure the payment system had not rejected any payments submitted by other agencies.
117. Experts also say although OPM assured federal employees that their buyout offer was valid, it is unlawful. Spending has only been approved by Congress through March 15, and the promise was through September 30.
118. As of Tuesday, more than 20,000 government employees, roughly 1% of the federal workforce, had accepted the buyout offer, and will resign.
119. On Friday, border czar Tom Homan told the Post the regime is seeking to give ICE officials access to a database at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which tracks hundreds of thousands of immigrant teens and children who crossed into the U.S. without their parents.
120. The regime installed Mellissa Harper, a career ICE official, to run the ORR. Homan said he would not rule out using the data for enforcement purposes in the future. A similar move during the first regime drew outrage from civil liberties groups.
121. Homan also told NBC News that ICE needs 100,000 beds, more than double what it currently has. In the regime’s first seven days, it is averaging 791 daily arrests. Homan tells officers and agents, “arrest as many as you can.”
122. On Friday, Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy issued an order which threatened to shift federal transportation funding away from local governments in so-called sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with ICE.
123. On Friday, in a post on X, Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged undocumented Colombians in the U.S. to quit their jobs “immediately” and return to Colombia, adding his government would offer them credits.
124. On Friday, a group of immigrant advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security for shutting down legal orientation programs for immigrants, including people detained at ICE facilities.
125. On Friday, three GOP senators introduced a measure which would limit birthright citizenship to those born to at least one parent who is either a U.S. citizen, a permanent resident, or an immigrant in active military duty.
126. On Friday, WH press secretary Leavitt attacked singer Selena Gomez for posting a video of herself crying after the recent ICE crackdowns, using whataboutism, citing a case of a young girl murdered by an undocumented immigrant.
127. On Sunday, NYT reported that the Trump regime has ended the Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the U.S., leaving them vulnerable to being deported.
128. On Sunday, thousands of anti-ICE protestors marched in downtown Los Angeles in protest of Trump’s mass deportations. The protestors blocked the 101 Freeway causing major gridlock.
129. On Monday, more than 60 unidentified businesses in Pittsburgh closed to protest the Trump regime’s deportation push and treatment of the Pittsburgh immigrant community.
130. On Monday, dozens of Latino-owned restaurants closed for the day, and hundreds of workers stayed home in the Metro Detroit area to protest Trump’s immigration raids.
131. On Monday, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who has used emergency powers to trample human rights, offered to accept convicted criminals, including U.S. citizens, for a fee. Rubio, while visiting, called the offer an “unprecedented, extraordinary” proposal.
132. Trump said he would deport U.S. citizen convicted of crimes “in a heartbeat,” adding, “These are sick people. If we could get them out of our country, we have other countries that would take him. They could.”
133. On Tuesday, the Trump regime began flying immigrants who entered the country illegally to Guantánamo Bay. Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem would not say whether women or children would be sent there.
134. On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups sued the Trump regime over its asylum freeze, saying the regime is making false claims of an “invasion” at the border.
135. On Tuesday, Nassau County, a suburb of New York City, became the second county in the state to join a federal program which uses local law enforcement officers as ICE agents.
136. On Wednesday, in the first use of American military aircraft for deportation, at least 100 migrants were flown to India, the longest deportation flight in Trump’s mass deportations.
137. On Tuesday, Republican Senators fell in line behind two of Trump’s most controversial nominees, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, advancing them to a full Senate vote, and signaling a broader retreat to regime pressure.
138. On Monday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters Greenland is not for sale, and called for a robust response from their European Union partners if Trump pushes forward with his threat to take control of the land.
139. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury and Commerce Departments to create a U.S. sovereign wealth fund that would make investments alongside sovereign funds in the Middle East and Asia. Trump said it could potentially also buy TikTok.
140. On Tuesday, speaking to reporters alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Trump said the U.S. “will take over” Gaza, and that the 2 million Palestinians should relocate.
141. Trump vowed to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Notably, his son-in-law Jared Kushner had floated the idea of developing Gaza months before. Trump did not cite legal authority, or address that forcibly removing a population violates the Geneva Convention.
142. WSJ noted that while Trump campaigned on ending foreign entanglements, he has articulated an expansionist worldview while in office, citing his remarks on Gaza, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada.
143. Late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, nominated by Reagan, temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order requiring transgender women to be housed in male prisons.
144. On Wednesday, a second federal judge blocked Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, issuing a nationwide injunction. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said it “boggles my mind” that a “member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order.”
145. On Wednesday, the CIA said it is offering its employees a “deferred resignation,” an option to resign and be paid through September, as part of Musk’s push to expand federal buyouts.
146. On Wednesday, the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of unions, launched a campaign to push back on Musk. Liz Shuler, the AFL-CIO president, said, “Government can work for billionaires or it can work for working people — but not both.”
147. On Wednesday, protests against Trump and Project 2025 were planned in cities across the country, organized around the hashtag #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.

People rally as they listen members of congress speak during a rally against Elon Musk outside the Treasury Department in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)