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This massive disaster laid bare a dire danger under Trump

On Nov. 26, 2025, in a quiet northern suburb of Hong Kong, an aggressive fire broke out in the middle of the day. The fire was unusual in its intensity and duration, consuming seven of eight high-rise towers in a residential complex. Despite the quick response of well-equipped fire trucks, the blaze spread quickly and burned for more than 43 hours.

Although the death toll is not final, at least 160 people suffered the most horrific deaths imaginable, with dozens so charred they may never be identified.

The ferocity of the fire has been blamed on a private contractor’s use of highly flammable materials including polystyrene foam boards placed over windows, along with substandard scaffolding netting that failed to meet fire-retardant codes. The buildings were undergoing renovations when the fire hit, and numerous fire alarms also failed to warn.

A tragedy like this gives pause, in part because it should have been prevented. Fire analysts say that more rigorous inspections, including thorough sample testing of materials used on higher floors, not just of easily accessible ground level floors, would have identified the use of non-compliant, cheaper materials before the blaze started.

Although the Chinese government will never admit any fault for the inadequate inspections and has instead jailed people for asking, it’s already clear that standard building inspections would have prevented the loss of life. Lapsed and loose inspections, and possible corruption, meant officials did not detect that flammable materials were used where they should not have been, or that fire safety systems were not functioning, despite residents alerting officials of these problems a year prior to the fire.

It’s also the kind of tragedy lying in wait in the US, ready to strike after Donald Trump's all-out war on safety standards and regulations meant to protect the public.

Americans in danger

Since his re-election, Trump has rewarded corporate donors by dismantling costly regulations they dislike. In the process, time-honored regulations and safety standards that quietly protected life have been gutted, setting us up for a Hong Kong-esque tragedy of our own.

Federal government regulations designed to protect health and lives include, in the broadest sense, workplace safety, transportation safety, food and drug safety, and environmental protection. Under Trump 2.0, each of these categories of protection have either been gutted outright, or are now so attenuated due to funding cuts they barely function.

Each federal agency with regulatory authority, including OSHA, the FDA, the EPA, and DOT, among others, has been significantly weakened with reduced investigations into wrongdoing and corruption, and fewer cases for failing to comply with safety and environmental standards. Trump has also imposed across the board budget cuts for regulatory enforcement, including inspector staffing across a wide spectrum of industries.

None of these changes will continue in a vacuum; other than ignoring climate change which is already wreaking havoc, we won’t know what other unenforced regulation will lead to tragedy until it strikes.

Under Trump’s profits-first-people-last strategy, the EPA has launched the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. Trump dismantled EPA regulations protecting air, water, and soil, relaxed emissions standards for power plants, increased toxic vehicle emissions, weakened water protections, limited scientific research into the risks, and rolled back greenhouse gas reporting and soot standards, all to boost industry profits at the expense of citizens who live and work in those communities.

Trump also shuttered 11 OSHA offices in states reporting unusually high workplace fatalities, most of them Republican-controlled. Louisiana, for example, ranks the sixth-most dangerous state for workers in the U.S. It is also home to more than 200 chemical plants and refineries dotting an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River dubbed “Cancer Alley,” because of the high rates of cancer and birth defects linked to petrochemicals.

Former OSHA Director David Michaels said that with these closures, “enormous oil and petrochemical facilities with significant safety and health hazards will be inspected even less frequently than they are now.”

According to DOGE, the government will save $109,346 from the closures.

Blame game

If Hong Kong-type tragedy strikes, Trump will first block information about it, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will call it fake news, and Fox won’t report it. Then, after the tragedy dominates mainstream media headlines, the whole administration will pivot to blaming Joe Biden.

But the danger is real, it is now, and it is not about politics.

Americans have lived for generations with barely-there inspections, leading to Cancer Alleys, occupational disease, dangerous products, collapsing infrastructure, etc. But now Trump has expelled almost all regulatory watchdogs in service to his corporate donors. Because less regulation means higher profits, corporate America is rewarding Trump handsomely in what amounts to quid pro quo.

In a functioning democracy, this would amount to criminal recklessness. In a rule-of-law republic, the resulting tragedies, when they strike, would lead to charges of foreseeable homicide.

  • Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

The shutdown's true costs are chilling

After 43 days, the U.S. government shutdown finally came to an end late on Nov. 12, 2025, when Congress voted through a long-overdue funding bill, which President Donald Trump promptly signed.

But the prolonged gap in government-as-usual has come at a cost to the economy.

The Conversation spoke with RIT economist Amitrajeet A. Batabyal on the short- and long-term impact that the shutdown may have had on consumers, on the gross domestic product and on international trust in U.S. stewardship of the global economy.

What is the short-term economic impact of the shutdown?

Having some 700,000 government workers furloughed has hit consumer spending. And a subset of those workers believed they may not have a job to come back to amid efforts by the Trump administration to lay them off permanently.

In fact, the University of Michigan’s monthly index on consumer sentiment tumbled to a near record low in November — a level not seen since the depth of the pandemic. Because lower consumer sentiment is related to reduced spending, that has a short-term impact on retailers, too.

And because parks and monuments have been closed throughout the shutdown, tourism activity has been down — a decline no doubt worsened by the reduction in flights enforced due to shortages in air traffic controllers.

The effect was particularly pronounced in places like Washington D.C. — one of the most popular destinations for tourists — and Hawaii. This short-term effect will likely extend to secondary businesses, such as hotels. Indeed, prior to the shutdown, the U.S. Travel Association warned that such an event would cost the total travel industry around US$1 billion a week.

And the longer-term impact?

Estimates range, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that the cost to America’s gross domestic product in lost productivity is in the range of $7 billion to $14 billion — and that is a cost from a self-imposed wound that will never be recovered.

And from an international macroeconomic point of view, trust in the U.S. has been hit. Even before the shutdown, political dysfunction in Washington contributed to a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating — something that could result in higher borrowing costs.

The shutdown further erodes the United States’ standing as the global leader of the free market and rules-based international order. Accompanied by the economic rise of China, this shutdown further erodes international investors’ impression of the U.S. as an arbiter and purveyor of the established trade and finance system — and that can only hurt Washington’s global economic standing.

Has the economic pain been felt evenly?

Certainly not. Large numbers of Americans have been hit, but the shutdown affected regions and demographics differently.

Those on the lower end of the income distribution have been hit harder. This is in large part due to the impact the shutdown has had on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. Some 92 percent of SNAP benefits go to American households below the federal poverty line.

More than 42 million Americans rely on SNAP payments. And they were caught up in the political maelstrom — left not knowing if their SNAP payments will come, if they will be fully funded and when they will appear.

There is also research that shows Black Americans are affected more by shutdowns than other racial groups. This is because traditionally, Black workers have made up a higher percentage of the federal workforce than they do the private sector workforce.

Geographically, too, the impact of this shutdown has been patchy.

California, Washington D.C. and Virginia have the highest proportion of federal employees, so that means a larger chunk of the workers in those regions were furloughed. Hawaii has also been disproportionately hit due to the large number of military there. One analysis found that with 5.6 percent of people in the state federally employed, and a further 12 percent in nonprofit jobs supported by federal funding, Hawaii was the second-hardest-hit state during the shutdown.

How easy is it for the US to recover from a shutdown?

Because shutdowns are always temporary, recovery depends on how long it has gone on for. Traditionally, the long-term economic trend is not badly affected by the short-term pain of shutdowns.

But it may be slightly different this time around. This shutdown went on longer than any other shutdown in U.S. history.

Also, the nature of this shutdown raises some concerns. This was the first shutdown in which a president said that backpay was not a sure thing for all furloughed federal employees. And the uncertainty over those threatened with layoffs again broke from past precedent. Both matters seemed to have been settled with the deal ending the shutdown, but even so, the ongoing uncertainly may have affected the spending patterns of many affected.

And we also do not know what the economic impact of the reduction of domestic flights will be.

Have other economic factors exacerbated the shutdown affect?

While the shutdowns in Trump’s first administration did take place while tariffs were being used as a foreign policy and economic tool, this year is different.

Trump’s tariff war this time around is across the board, hitting both adversaries and allies. As a result, the U.S. economy has been more tentative, resulting in greater uncertainty on inflation.

Related to that is the rising grocery prices that have contributed to an upward tick in inflation.

This all makes the job of the Federal Reserve harder when it is trying to fine-tune monetary policy to meet its dual mandates of full employment and price stability. Add to that the lack of government data for over a month, and it means the Fed is grasping in the dark a little when it comes to charting the U.S. economy.

Here's how the GOP is burning its own in the shutdown fight

Before the No Kings demonstrations two weekends ago, I suggested that the shutdown of the government would look different afterward.

Previously, the view had been that the congressional Democrats were demanding health insurance subsidies expanded during the Covid era. That made it look like a policy fight. If you wanted Obamacare subsidies renewed, you took their side. If you didn’t, you didn’t.

Then 7 million Americans came out in a massive display across 50 states. They protested against a president whose ambitions are clearly despotic and whose claims to authority are illegal and illegitimate.

Deepening the impression was Donald Trump’s reaction. He posted a fake AI video of him wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet and bombing protesters with what can only be called s--t. That, however, paled compared to him bulldozing the entire East Wing of the White House, an act of utter impunity for the law, the Constitution and the republic.

This combo of allegation and reaction appears to be reshaping some perceptions of the shutdown. Instead of fighting over health insurance premiums, which are painful enough, the Democrats look like they’re advancing a legitimate form of resistance against an illegitimate ruler.

This new perception came to light in reporting by the Associated Press published over the weekend: “Democrats are confident they have chosen a winning policy demand on health care plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but there is an undercurrent that they are also fighting to halt Trump’s expansion of power” (my italics).

That report was featured on the front page of the Hartford Courant, under the headline: “Trump using shutdown to consolidate powers.”

The AP report says the Democrats’ resolve will be tested later this week. At that point, it will be a month since federal employees went without pay. SNAP benefits will end Nov. 1. (One in eight people lives on food stamps.) Plus there’s a shortage of air-traffic controllers. The report suggests the more airport delays there are, the more pressure there is on Democrats to vote for the GOP’s “clean CR.”

But the reverse is more likely to be true. The Republicans are feeling heat from below, as their supporters face dramatically increasing health insurance premiums, especially in states without expanded Medicaid coverage. Food stamps benefit plenty of Republicans, too. Oklahoma has the fourth-greatest number of recipients, according to one survey. Louisiana has the second-most. (New Mexico is No. 1.)

If I’m right, and the shutdown is being seen more broadly as legitimate resistance to Trump’s illegitimate rule, the point could be made more memorable by GOP voters going hungry while watching Trump build his gold-gilt “ballroom” paid for by “friends.” And if that pain goes on long enough, the Republicans risk reminding their base that, though they dislike the Democrats, their lives are entwined with their policies.

It’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who need an off-ramp. They risk revealing that Trump’s power is more important to him, and to them, than the health, well-being and freedom of their supporters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the legal explanation by the White House for why it can’t fund food stamps beyond Nov. 1 “certainly looks legitimate to me.”

“The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now,” Johnson said.

The law, in other words, stops Trump from taking action.

But the law never stopped him before.

Most recently, the president broke federal law to cover the Pentagon’s payroll. (There is no military funding during a shutdown so the White House raided a separate account unrelated to defense funding in violation of the Antideficiency Act and Article 1 of the Constitution. He robbed the American people of their power to control their money)

So Trump will break the law to consolidate his power — in this case, in the hopes of buying the loyalty of those in the armed forces — but won’t break the law if anyone but him is the beneficiary of the crime.

And Johnson isn’t saying which is better.

In essence, Trump and the Republicans are acting like they can do whatever they want to the government, even inflict serious injury, in the belief that their base will stand behind them no matter what. They believe that they can hold their own people hostage in order to create leverage over the Democrats, and that the Democrats, in their rush to win over disillusioned Republicans, will pay their ransom.

That kind of thing has worked for as long as I can remember, but key to the Republicans’ success has always been the idea that government shutdowns were a consequence of policy disagreements and that resolutions to those disagreements were also a question of policy.

However, the Democrats have elevated, or are in the process of elevating, the shutdown so that it’s seen as a weapon against tyranny. After the No Kings protests and after Trump demolished the East Wing (and after a pardoned J6 insurrectionist threatened his life), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Democrats were fighting corruption as much as they were fighting for affordable health care.

“We have an American president behaving like an organized crime boss, stealing taxpayer dollars in real-time in front of everyone in plain sight,” Jeffries said. “And the Republicans have nothing to say about the emerging crime scene at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Importantly, the Democrats are positioning themselves so that victory can’t come from Trump and the Republicans conceding to demands of policy – whether to renew health insurance subsidies, for instance. Victory can only come from them conceding to demands of power. Indeed, it’s a demand so noble that it’s worth pursuing at any cost.

The Republicans are used to burning their own people as leverage.

They are not used to the Democrats saying, “let them burn.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is among a handful of Republicans raising the idea of nuking the filibuster. (That’s the Senate rule that requires a supermajority of 60 votes for legislation to pass.) Right now, that’s being seen as a sign of strength. After all, the filibuster is the only thing the Democrats have to stop the Republicans.

But I think it’s the opposite.

The Republicans must be aware that even if they gave the Democrats what they asked for, the Democrats can’t accept without complicity in the “emerging crime scene at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Expanded health insurance subsidies won’t be satisfactory, not when the demand is the return of congressional authority that was stolen by Trump.

And the Republicans must know that Trump will never do that. He will never stop acting like a criminal president, even if every Republican who voted for him sees their lives and livelihoods turned to ash.

This jolting reaction is a clear warning to Trump — yet he marches on

In December, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tragically gunned down in Manhattan after receiving numerous threats relating to his company’s denial of healthcare coverage. The shooter, Luigi Mangione, harbored hatred towards corporate America. In a rage over corporate profiteering that hurts the little guy, he shot Thompson in the back as he was going to a meeting.

While the violence was shocking, even more shocking was that a sizable number of Americans sympathized with the murderer rather than his victim. Public polls found that a majority could personally relate to Mangione’s rage over deny, delay, don’t pay rejections of private insurance claims.

What is clear is that Americans harbor pent-up resentment and despair toward private insurance. Ordinary Americans report ongoing battles with coverage denials, ballooning medical bills, and cumbersome appeals processes that drag on for months or years as insurers seek to maximize profits by minimizing what they pay.

Trump’s plan to privatize the federal government

Characteristically tone deaf to the wants and needs of ordinary Americans, Donald Trump is seeking to increase rather than decrease privatization of all government services, seeking to extract profits from heretofore not-for-profit entities.

Thanks to Citizens United, the disastrous 2010 Supreme Court case that gave wealthy corporations outsize influence over elections, Trump is indebted to hundreds of industry leaders from tech, auto, education, banking, arms, prison, healthcare, and fossil fuel sectors. Attuned to quid pro quo expectations, Trump is working out which government agencies to hand over to his billionaire donors, and which agencies should be shuttered altogether because they are unable to turn a profit.

Pursuant to the mandates of Project 2025, which Trump disavowed adamantly but disingenuously during his 2024 campaign, the Trump administration is actively seeking to defund many departments entirely. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a tool of “creepy billionaires” who seem to get unhealthy pleasure from depriving Americans of the government services their tax dollars have paid for.

In service to Project 2025’s oligarchic takeover of the remaining agencies, Trump is targeting these federal agencies for privatization:

  • U.S. Postal Service (USPS)
  • Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
  • National Weather Service
  • Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage companies
  • National Parks
  • Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Handing agencies to wealthy donors

Trump and his billionaire cabinet are either unaware or uninterested in the fact that most Americans oppose privatizing most government services. In a 2022 survey, 85 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans said the federal government should play a major role, for example, in responding to natural disasters.

It also doesn’t take much imagination to envision national parks Disneyfied for maximum profit, or how Trump’s plans to extract resources like coal and rare earth minerals will affect America’s public lands and the remaining animals that live there.

In a 2025 survey, the vast majority of Americans also opposed privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, with APWU’s president noting that plans to privatize the Post Office “are about enriching Wall Street and not serving Main Street,” as privatization will lead to higher prices for postal services across the board.

Research confirms system abuses, other ugly effects

While some claim a profit motive could make some government services more efficient, research shows the harmful effects of privatization across a broad spectrum:

  • Healthcare: A recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine examined outcomes at hospitals over a 10-year period, concluding that private equity ownership of hospitals resulted in measurably higher— 13 percent--death rates among Medicare emergency patients caused by corporate owners’ pursuit of higher profitability. Data illustrate that when hospitals companies cut costs leading to staff cuts, lower wages, and more patient transfers, more patients die.
  • Education: Research from the National Coalition for Public Education concludes that vouchers do not significantly increase test scores on average, and may even result in worse outcomes for students. Not only do many students’ test scores deteriorate when they attend private schools through voucher programs, research from the Economic Policy Institute confirms that vouchers also harm the quality of education delivered in public schools by diverting resources from them.
  • Corruption: Privatized corrections also introduce a new avenue for corruption. One documented example was the “kids for cash” scandal in Pennsylvania, where judges were bribed by a private prison company to give harsher sentences to juvenile offenders instead of probation, to order to increase occupancy at for-profit detention centers.

The transfer of governance to private entities not only consolidates power in private hands, but also erodes fundamental legal safeguards, including environmental, civil rights and accountability. We have recently seen how Trump’s private ICE detention centers evade standards of civil rights imposed on government-run facilities, resulting in cruelty and violations that remain hidden from public view unless someone sues, and even then, public disclosures may be limited by protective orders.

In his poignant Substack essay The Age of Bought Loyalty, former Wall Street healthcare analyst Mark McInerny observes, “What we’re seeing isn’t generosity. It’s the transfer of sovereignty from public to private hands.” To paraphrase the rest, when billionaires run the government, they aren’t patching a hole in the system — they’re proving the system now belongs to their class.

  • Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

These forgotten Americans hold the key to Trump's downfall — and they'll use it soon

Even at the absolute highest level, at some point, just getting the basic job done — sawing wood, blocking and tackling — is the only means to sway critical elements of the American electorate toward support or disdain for this or most other administrations.

For that reason, and precious few others, it is only a matter of time until the floor drops out from under Trump's MAGA express and its adolescent scorched-earth second run.

Such a low-key, mealy-mouthed pronouncement kind of sounds absurd at first.

After all, at any given point, 35 percent of this country is in a cold civil war with the opposite 35 percent. The red side of that equation believes that Trump's Department of Justice is about to deliver Obama and Hillary's Q-inspired imprisonment, all while they cheer the deployment of troops to Portland. Probably Portland, Maine, given this administration's incompetence.

Meanwhile, many of us on the blue side believe we're a day or two away from Trump passing out on the podium as the Epstein files prove that he played a major role in the most notorious teen sex-trafficking scheme in modern history. (And don't think that he doesn't love the government shutdown as a diversion.)

The reality is likely more in the middle — though that's one hell of a middle, to be sure.

Real hope for moderating or deflating Trump and company will likely spring more from that middle 30 percent, the kind that don't believe that pitchforks are warranted yet, so long as someone answers the damned phone when they call Social Security, gets their tax rebate before Memorial Day, wants FEMA positioned before the storm, and prefers hamburger that is at least cheaper than Bitcoin.

Because Trump et. al. can implement Project 2025 in all its horror, putting troops in American cities, deporting actual American citizens, firing women and POC as presumptive "DEI hires," all of it, with the 35-35 dynamic and a "thirtyish" middle that is practically asleep, just wanting American s––– to work.

To deal with an obvious issue, no, that middle should not be forgiven for being asleep at the wheel as Trump steals American democracy, but that's a topic for another day.

There is reason to believe, however, that the middle is about to lose its precarious tolerance of Trump as his regime continues its nosedive into banana republic despot despair.

First and foremost, there is the fact that no one can afford anything, whether it is groceries, a house, Amazon Prime, never mind health insurance. Trump is in the White House based on one issue — inflation, and not only has he failed spectacularly to bring it down, but there is every indication that it will only get worse. Prices alone will move that middle to disapproval faster than nearly any other factor.

But now watch what happens when air traffic control, or the lack thereof, makes Thanksgiving and next summer an utter nightmare. Yes, that's a "First World Problem" but we are or were "the First World," and very easily angered when such entitlements are threatened.

We got damned lucky this hurricane season. FEMA got "DOGE'd" but wasn't tested in August or September, and good thing too: We could have had a disaster on top of a disaster. But just because the trade winds favored us doesn't mean that a major upheaval, such as an earthquake, fire, or next year's hurricane season, won't expose the breathtaking incompetence we know to be in place.

There is a darker side, too. As the Trump administration fully politicizes the FBI, pulling agents into political conflicts and away from international attacks, all under the leadership of a former podcaster, we are terrifyingly more exposed to terrorist attacks, whether of the old variety, such as bombs, or the newer threats to our networks and grids. The political folly of the FBI, replacing so many honed-in apolitical veterans, can and likely will be exposed in something where minutes matter. It is more likely than not.

And then there is the relatively easy stuff that is already souring, as mentioned: Social Security calls going unanswered, VA appointments dropping off, SNAP dissolving, and Medicaid cuts closing hospitals, all of that toll takes only time — and the administration has lots of it remaining.

It is really easy to spend an hour on X and fully believe that the United States is about to start the Civil War 2.0 — and, no doubt, our democracy is being burgled by the hour, the post-Constitutional America may well be "here." But the administration still has to fear that middle because in this hyper-polarized climate, it takes only a good 15 percent sway in the electorate and very suddenly the administration has little room to move without serious risk.

There is a major, major difference in the authoritarian battlefield between a presidential approval rate of 45 percent versus a true 35 percent, and as has been written here before, Trump has never had to defend his "burn it all down" approach in a souring economy — never mind a wholly dysfunctional government.

This is not a call to sit back and wait. No. The dangers are present and clear, the agenda is damned dangerous, and its implementation is now weekly. Stand and resist, spread the word, don't give an inch, all that. But do not scroll the phone thinking that we're one big revelation away from MAGA implosion.

If we have learned one thing in the Trump era, it is that scandal doesn't touch him ... unless the economy sucks, the phones go unanswered, and a real bomb drops. He has never faced a major revelation with an angry middle.

It is coming. The incompetence can only remain hidden for so long. Just don't count on overwhelming shock about any one revelation, until such time as the middle gets miffed.

At some point, competence matters. The federal government, whether it is TSA, Social Security, the FBI, or FEMA, has actually "worked" fairly well, going back a generation. We have had legions of politically agnostic civil servants earn the expectation that they can be counted on. But most of them are gone, perhaps primarily because they kept politics out of the office, all to usher in just a few "true believers."

And their absence is about to be felt, month by intolerable month.

The somewhat perverted "good news" is that it is coming, and as the middle turns against Trumpism, some of his worst plans will be abated. The bad news is that it cannot come soon enough, and questions linger over whether there will be much left worth saving.

Fight now. Resist today. And know that replacements are coming. Whether they can be forgiven for waiting until abject incompetence set in is a question for history.

But it most certainly is coming — this administration has shown that it cannot be counted on to answer the phone, blocking and tackling, and that's on a nice day. Wait for a real storm and not the "Q" type.

The administration will soon find out that competence matters most.

  • Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, American attorney, author, and can also be found on Politizoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

Trump's latest threat is nothing short of domestic terrorism

If Donald Trump's lips move, he’s lying. Or trying to solicit a bribe. Or slandering Democrats. Or, now, taking hostages.

Most recently, he’s started lying about what congressional Democrats are demanding in exchange for giving the GOP the votes they need in the Senate to keep the government open past Oct. 1.

And now, Trump has announced that he's taking hostages. Federal employees will be fired, rather than temporarily furloughed, if there is a government shutdown.

But I’ll get to that in a moment. It isn’t where he started lying, bribe-getting, and slandering Democrats this week.

That was when the entire world watched, aghast, as Trump fulfilled his commitment to the fossil fuel industry and repeatedly lied before the assembled United Nations about fossil fuels, renewable energy, and climate change.

Back in April of last year, he’d addressed a private group of fossil fuel executives and billionaires, and said that he was offering them a “deal”: if they’d give his campaign massive contributions, he’d do pretty much whatever they wanted. The Hill has documented almost $140 million in bribes/contributions that followed the speech, and there’s likely far, far more in dark money contributions that we’ll never know about.

Thus, an embarrassed America had to watch as the entire world was treated to the president of the United States lying repeatedly in exchange for over a hundred million dollars. After all, his lips were moving.

The Emiratis placed a bet recently when they put $2 billion into a little crypto company that the Trump family and Steve Witkoff's family had started. Apparently in exchange, Trump authorized the transfer to the UAE of about a half-million top-tech chips, that had been blocked by national security concerns.

Generally, that’s called a “bribe,” although without the FBI doing an investigation we won’t know for sure. At the very least, it’s a conflict of interest. Ryan Cummings of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, said:

“If this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States and it’s not even close.”

As our Constitution says:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” (emphasis added)

And now, on the verge of a government shutdown, Trump has rolled out one of the most audacious lies of the past … er … week. On his Nazi-infested failing social media site, he wrote:

“After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.

“They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”

Let’s examine that:

— “over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending” is extraordinarily misleading. Even Republicans claim that would be the cost over 10 years to continue the Affordable Care Act subsidies, so people’s insurance costs don’t explode at the start of next year. And don’t forget that Republicans cut that trillion dollars in ACA and Medicaid spending so they could give a $3.5 trillion in tax breaks to Trump and his billionaire friends.

— “to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens” is up to the states, not the feds, as they control how their Medicaid dollars are disbursed. Most Blue states make their programs available to all legal immigrants, and some extend that to undocumented people, particularly pregnant women (and most Red states don’t). The reason is simple: we all share the same space. You don’t want the undocumented person standing behind you in line at the grocery store to have an active case of TB, for example; keeping everybody healthy is only common sense.

— “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors” is complete horses––t. The Democratic leaders’ public position in the shutdown talks is an “ironclad” extension of ACA premium tax credits and reversing recent Medicaid cuts, full stop.

— “have dead people on the Medicaid roles [sic]” is another lie. Democrats’ Continuing Resolution (CR) demand is entirely and 100% about health coverage affordability and undoing cuts, not “funding dead people.”

— “allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits” is even beyond a lie, it’s a slander against both immigrants and Democrats. There is nothing even remotely close to letting anybody “steal” anything in their CR demand.

— “try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World,” is another libel against Democrats and the Biden administration. No president of either party since the 1920s has tried to “open our borders” to anybody, particularly criminals. And, again, the only firm Democratic demand is to extend the ACA/Obamacare subsidies and undo the cuts to Medicaid.

— “allow men to play in women’s sports” is both another lie and an attempt to inflame his queer-hating base. There’s no mention of this anywhere in anything any Democrat has said with regard to the CR and it’s not in their formal proposal. And the official Democratic Party position is that officials with responsibility for every sport should be able to decide if they want to allow trans athletes to compete or not (would anybody care if the sport was a Chess tournament?). Ironically, that’s the “small government” position.

— “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody” is so absurd as to be laughable, if it wasn’t that so many Republicans actually believe things Trump and his lickspittles in the rightwing media sewer put out.

On top of all that, the Trump administration announced today that if Democrats won’t vote to help keep the government open, they will begin mass layoffs of federal employees. This is pure hostage-taking, and radically raises the stakes for the Democrats in the Senate.

At the moment, the only solid demands Democrats are making in exchange for their vote to keep the government open are to extend the Obamacare subsidies and eliminate the Medicaid cuts that will phase in during January, 2027 just after the 2026 midterm elections.

They should, in my opinion, add the release of the Epstein files and the unmasking of ICE to that list.

America deserves to know if, in addition to having had a jury already determine that this convicted felon committed sexual abuse, our president was also involved in the abuse of young girls.

And polling shows that Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with unaccountable, masked secret police patrolling our streets and violently attacking citizens and protesters.

Whatever they do, though, I agree with the comment former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, now a Democrat, said on my SiriusXM radio program yesterday:

Every Democrat in the Senate should spend the next month in the reddest parts of their states doing town halls where Republicans refuse to, leaving the administration to twist in the wind of the bad publicity as the government shuts down and they begin firing federal workers.

Or conducting mock hearings about the UAE chips-bribery and the Epstein files.

What Trump’s doing with his mass firing threat is nothing short of economic terrorism against the American people.

For decades, government shutdowns meant temporary furloughs that were painful but reversible. Now, Trump and his cronies are using the threat of mass, permanent firings to gut the very institutions that protect our food, our air, our water, our workers, and our democracy itself.

This isn’t about budgets; it’s about power. It’s about dismantling the federal government so only Trump’s priorities — ICE, border patrol, and his authoritarian machinery — are left standing.

It’s a smash-and-grab of our constitutional order, a direct assault on Congress’s power of the purse, and an act of extortion against the American people: “Give us what we want, or we’ll torch the house.”

And here’s the bottom line: Democrats must never give in to hostage takers, because if you pay the ransom once, the next demand will be even bigger, the next threat even worse. Authoritarians don’t just bend the rules, they burn them down, and the only way to stop them is to refuse to play their game.

Courage!

If the US government is a neofascist regime run by a sociopath, should we shut it down?

The U.S. government runs out of money Sept. 30.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would see that as a huge problem. I was Secretary of Labor when the government closed down, and I vowed then that I’d do everything possible to avoid a similar calamity in the future.

Under ordinary circumstances, people like you and me — who believe that government is essential for the common good — would fight like hell to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30.

But we are not in ordinary circumstances. The U.S. government has become a neofascist regime run by a sociopath.

That sociopath is using the government to punish his enemies. He’s using the government to rake in billions of dollars for himself and his family.

He’s using the government to force the leaders of every institution in our society — universities, media companies, law firms, even museums — to become fawning supplicants: pleading with him, praising him, and silencing criticism of him.

He is using the government to disappear people from our streets without due process. He is using the government to occupy our cities, overriding the wishes of mayors and governors.

He is using the government to impose arbitrary and capricious import taxes — tariffs — on American consumers. He is using the government to worsen climate change. He is using government to reject our traditional global allies and strengthen some of the worst monsters around the globe.

Keeping the U.S. government funded now is to participate in the most atrocious misuse of the power of the United States in modern times.

So I for one have decided that the best route is to shut the whole f------ thing down.

Morally, Democrats must not enable what is now occurring. Politically, they cannot remain silent in the face of such mayhem.

To keep the government funded, Senate Republicans need seven Democratic senators to join them.

Last March, when the government was about to run out of money, Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, voted to join Republicans and keep the government going. Schumer got enough of his Democratic colleagues to follow him that the funding bill passed.

As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has argued, even if you supported Schumer’s decision then, this time feels different.

By now, Trump has become full fascist.

Congressional Republicans are cowed, spineless, deferential, unwilling to make even a small effort to retain Congress’s constitutional powers.

The public is losing faith that the Democratic Party has the capacity to stand up to Trump — largely because it is in the minority in both chambers of Congress.

But this doesn’t mean Democrats must remain silent.

If they refuse to vote to join Republicans in keeping the government open, that act itself will make them louder and more articulate than they’ve been in eight months.

It will give them an opportunity to explain that they cannot in good conscience participate in what is occurring. They will have a chance to show America that they have chosen to become conscientious objectors to a government that is no longer functioning for the people of the United States but for one man.

They will be able to point out the devastating realities of Trump’s regime: its lawlessness, its corruption, its cruelty, its brutality.

They will be able argue that voting to fund this government would violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Then what?

They can then use their newfound leverage — the only leverage they’ve mustered in eight months — to demand, in return for their votes to restart the government, that their Republican compatriots give them reason to believe that the government they restart will be responsible.

It is time for Democrats to stand up to Trump. This is the time. This is their clearest opportunity.

  • Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
  • Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.

'Chump at the table': Dems can't get enough as Trump sparks new right-wing civil war

WASHINGTON — After a slow start, President Donald Trump has been ramping up the pace of judicial nominations — but it remains to be seen if his recent public breakup with the increasingly far-right Federalist Society will impact the quality of his picks.

While Senate Republicans have tried to stay out of the fray, Democrats have enjoyed watching the brewing right-wing civil war.

“I love it. It's delicious,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Raw Story.

“It's a fine sight to have those two corrupt factions warring with each other, and it puts the point on the fact that this is, in fact, a captured [Supreme] Court. Trump is just discovering that the wrong people captured it.”

‘Got what they wanted’

In late May, after Trump’s new tariff regime was blocked in federal court, the president lashed out at first-term allies who helped him transform large swaths of the federal judiciary.

“I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, before lashing out at one of the group’s longtime leaders by name.

“But then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”

Leo is the fundraising Svengali behind a range of right-wing groups who has become a bête noir of Democratic progressives.

Leo did not fire back at Trump — in public, at least — choosing to tell reporters he was "very grateful for President Trump transforming the federal courts.”

Regardless, Democrats can’t get enough.

“Listen, those are judges that Trump nominated,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told Raw Story. “The whole strategy of the Federalist Society was to create a court that ruled in favor of corporations and the rich. They got what they wanted.

“If you want a conspiracy thesis that is actually true, it's how [the Federalist Society was] created 30 years ago for this purpose, basically, to ensure that we don't have government by and for the people, but by and for the powerful, and the Federal Society succeeded.”

Other Democrats agree that Trump got played.

“It's a little bit Bizarro World,” Sen. Whitehouse said, referring to the world in the Superman comics in which everything is the opposite of the same thing on Earth.

“But it's not Bizarro World if you have thought that you appointed a court that was going to do what you wanted and you've discovered that you've appointed a court that's going to do what the polluter billionaires want, and you got had in the scheme.

“You were the chump at the table. You weren't the person who was calling the shots.”

Whitehouse pointed to the libertarian-leaning Koch brothers — billionaires Charles and David Koch, the latter now deceased — and their political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

“That was real combat back then,” Whitehouse said.

But the former Rhode Island attorney general said it was evident the Koch brothers came around to Trump after he pledged to only nominate Federalist Society approved judges for lifetime appointments.

“The combat evaporated, and the Federalist Society list emerged,” Whitehouse said.

“Now it wasn't the Federalist Society list. The Federalist Society never considered a list, never approved a list, never had a list on the agenda — not a thing. But they called it a Federalist Society list to give it some cover.

“Every clue points to there having been a deal where the Koch political apparatus would back off of thrashing Trump and the Kochs would get to appoint his Supreme Court justices.

“House of Trump is beginning to figure out that they had their pants pulled down around their ankles by the House of Koch.

“It appears now that Trump has finally figured out that he was the chump in the scheme, and that his rivals, who he despised, the Kochs, actually picked his Supreme Court justices.

“They've got the 100 percent batting record at the Supreme Court for polluter interests, and he does not have a 100 percent batting record.”

‘Those who will serve him’

Republican senators have tried to avoid the rift between Trump and the Federalists altogether.

“What have you thought of this little spat between Trump and the Federalist Society?” Raw Story asked.

“Who? I don’t keep up with that — why would I keep up with that?” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said. “It’s for you guys. We got day jobs.”

The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee also shrugged off the spat.

“I don't know anything about the fight between the Federalist Society and Trump,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Raw Story.

In Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans confirmed 234 of his picks to fill vacancies on the federal bench. But after former President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats confirmed 235 federal judges between 2021 and 2025, there just aren’t many vacancies left to fill.

That’s partly why Trump didn’t get his first federal judicial nominee confirmed until July 14th, just before senators left Washington for their summer recess.

Before Trump sent five more nominations to the Senate on August 12th, an Associated Press review found “roughly half” of his first 16 judicial nominees had “revealed anti-abortion views, been associated with anti-abortion groups or defended abortion restrictions.”

While such views are in line with those of the Federalist Society, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), said Trump was deploying a new litmus test.

“Don't look for any consistency. He is just looking for those who will serve him personally,” Durbin told Raw Story.

“Occasionally the Federalist Society, which was the secret handshake of Republicans for so many years, disappoints him.”

How one Trump lackey embodies his utter contempt for the law

The Trump administration’s contempt for the law and for the people of New Jersey is on full display yet again in the new fight over control of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

With its push to keep a Trump loyalist as our state’s chief federal prosecutor, the White House is not only ignoring the law, but also tarnishing the reputation of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and sowing chaos in a state that’s already seeing enough chaos these days, thank you very much.

Here are the details: Alina Habba, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, was appointed interim U.S. attorney back in March, but her 120-day appointment expires this week and Trump only just nominated her for confirmation by the U.S. Senate, so her nomination has yet to move. Federal law says the state’s federal judges can name her replacement until the Senate votes to confirm her, so on Tuesday they announced they chose Habba’s deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace.

The judges did not say why they rejected the Trump administration’s push to keep Habba in the post. I have some ideas:

Whatever the reason, federal law gives our district judges the power to choose the U.S. attorney when the president’s nominee is not confirmed. So they did, and now the Trump administration is accusing them of colluding with Democrats to punish Dear Leader.

“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on social media.

“The district judges in NJ just proved this was never about law — it was about politics,” said Bondi deputy Todd Blanche.

This is dangerous nonsense. Bondi and Blanche know that federal law is on the judges’ side here, but they’re taking advantage of the public’s ignorance of the law to cast the judges as enemies of the state.

I worry about how this will end. The Trump administration claimed they removed Grace, whose sole crime is that the federal judges who oversee cases in New Jersey think she’s better qualified than Habba (considering Grace has worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for nearly a decade, that’s unquestionably true). But Grace told the New Jersey Globe she intends to take over as U.S. attorney on Saturday. I can’t imagine that will sit well with all the president’s men.

If what’s happening in New York is any indication, we’re stuck with Habba. Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney in New York’s northern district, John Sarcone, was not chosen to remain in the position by that district’s judges, so the president gave him a different title, and now Sarcone is still the district’s acting U.S. attorney.

Good news for Trump. Bad news for anyone interested in a government that works for anyone but him.

This part of Trump's lawlessness is most troubling of all

Rule of law. Due process. Separation of powers.

Many of us were taught that these are the core principles of our government that protect us and our democracy. Now, we’re living through dire threats to these fundamental values. Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a relentless assault on America’s judiciary and legal system — with dire consequences for people across the country.

Trump’s systematic dismantling of judicial authority isn’t a Beltway issue for Washington insiders. The American people recognize these actions for what they are: a threat to their own rights and ability to be treated fairly by the courts. Our polling of voters in battleground states demonstrated that 74% of those voters — including Democrats, Independents, and Republicans — are concerned that Trump’s actions could allow the government to violate their rights with no consequences.

And the administration’s flouting of the law has already directly threatened Americans’ basic safety: Trump’s unprecedented deployment of the military and national guard in California, against the wishes of state and local governments, escalated an already volatile situation and put civilians in danger.

It goes without saying that our courts aren’t perfect — and, indeed, as the administration’s assault on their independence demonstrates, real reforms will be needed to our judiciary and legal system in the years ahead to right the ship.

But put simply, this administration has no respect for the separation of powers — attacking judges who issue opinions contrary to Trump’s agenda and signaling a clear willingness to circumvent the rule of law altogether.

One of the earliest examples of Trump’s defiance of lawful court orders came just a few weeks after he was sworn back into office, when Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered the unfreezing of billions in federal grant money. The administration's refusal to comply meant communities nationwide lost funding for essential services, causing mass panic and confusion across the country. When the administration ignores orders to reinstate critical support for communities, American families and children suffer.

And now, Trump and his administration openly admit to ignoring the courts. For months, the Department of Justice provided excuse after excuse for why they hadn’t facilitated the Supreme Court-ordered return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father they wrongfully sent to El Salvador. Last month — though the administration continues to persecute him — Garcia was brought back to the U.S., proving that had the federal government wanted to obey the Supreme Court in April, they could have.

This creates a dangerous precedent for everyone in America: Legal protections are meaningless if the government can disregard them at will. What happens when your Social Security benefits are wrongfully denied? When your healthcare coverage is illegally terminated?

This pattern of defiance goes hand in hand with Trump and his allies’ targeting of the legal system overall.

Trump’s MAGA Republicans in Congress have filed articles of impeachment against federal judges Trump doesn’t like, and Republican leadership is advancing harmful legislation to kneecap the power of the courts. They are working to eliminate the power of the judiciary to pause Trump’s dangerous, illegal executive actions nationwide. Without this protection, your rights would depend entirely on where you live. An unconstitutional policy could be paused in California but continue harming families in Texas, Florida, and Ohio.

The administration’s shake down of our nation’s largest and most lucrative law firms similarly impacts access to justice. By punishing firms for political reasons, and then extorting them for nearly a billion dollars in legal services, Trump is trying to create a culture of fear in the legal community where few are willing to challenge government actions and all work to bolster his power.

Our judiciary or legal system overall is not perfect. Far from it. And when we’re out of this mess, work must continue to strengthen the independence and fairness of our courts.

But we need strong courts and strong lawyers more than ever at this moment. Without them, Trump and his congressional allies will have free rein to enact any and all harmful policies regardless of established law or the Constitution. And hardworking Americans who just want to care for their families and loved ones will be the ones to suffer.

But the American people are seeing right through these attempts to rig our government in favor of the rich and powerful. Since Trump’s inauguration, millions of people have participated in protests across the country.

When ordinary people are willing to take to the streets, it is time for the most powerful among us to call a spade a spade and not duck away from the full crisis facing our country.

The momentum is starting to shift: Members of Congress have begun sounding the alarm on Trump’s unprecedented attacks on judicial independence, and law firms like WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Jenner and Block are fighting back against Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders.

We need more courageous action. And while it is critical that the protests and civic engagement we’ve seen across the country continue, we also need that action to come from the most powerful: lawmakers at all levels of government, law firms, corporations, and university systems.

If we value our ability to seek justice when wronged and ensure equal protection under law, we must recognize our justice system is under siege. Defending our courts isn’t only about preserving institutions — it’s about protecting our rights and our freedoms before it’s too late.

  • Maggie Joe Buchanan is the interim executive director at Demand Justice

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