The Donald Trump Score Card

Trump sows uncertainty - and Xi Jinping sees an opportunity

excerpt:

"Beijing and Washington have gone toe-to-toe on tariffs before. But a lot has changed since Trump 1.0.

For one, the Chinese economy is not as reliant on the US as it was back in 2020. Beijing has strengthened its trade agreements across Africa, South America and South East Asia. It is now the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries."

 

RFK Jr. advances to full Senate vote.

It indicates the GOP has some confidence he will be confirmed.

Crapo and Cassidy voted for him.

 

White House preparing executive order to abolish the Education Department

excerpt:

In a July 2024 campaign email, Trump laid out his other priorities for American education, which included cutting federal funding for any schools or programs pushing “critical race theory,” opening civil rights investigations into schools discriminating against Asian Americans, implementing a new credentialing system to certify teachers who “embrace patriotic values,” and “find[ing] and remov[ing] radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education.”

 

White House says 20,000 federal employees have taken Trump's buyout offer.


The White House says more than 20,000 federal workers have taken buyouts — and they expect a 'spike' in the coming days

excerpt:

"The White House has said it expects between 5% and 10% of federal employees to take the deal. With more than 2 million Americans employed by the federal government, that would mean between 100,000 and 200,000 people accepting the buyout.

According to the Partnership for Public Service, more than 100,000 workers voluntarily leave the federal government — whether via retirement or simply by quitting — every year. On average, the nonpartisan nonprofit found an annual attrition rate of 6%, within the range of the White House's buyout goals."

 

Trump says he has given instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him.


Trump says he's given advisers instructions for Iran to be 'obliterated' if it assassinates him

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-...-secretary-hhs-trump-vaccines-cassidy-finance

excerpt:

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears likely to soon be taking the helm as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate Finance committee voted along party lines, 14-13, to favorably report his nomination to the full Senate.

A vote to confirm him likely will happen in the coming days or perhaps next week."

 

Becky Pringle remark.


White House preparing executive order to abolish the Education Department

excerpt:

“If it became a reality, Trump’s power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections," she said. "Americans did not vote for, and do not support, ending the federal government’s commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every child."

 

Similar to RFK Jr., Gabbard has advanced to a full floor vote.


Trump 2nd term live updates: Federal buyout offer extends to CIA

excerpt:

"The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence by a vote of 9-8 this afternoon, according to senators leaving the closed-door vote."

 

Trump demands that federal workers (whose jobs he's terminating) return from remote work to the federal buildings he is closing.


Trump and Musk demand termination of federal office leases through General Services Administration

excerpt:

"Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email shared with The Associated Press by a GSA employee.

The order seems to contradict Trump’s own return-to-office mandate for federal employees, adding confusion to what was already a scramble by the GSA to find workspace, internet connections and office building security credentials for employees who had been working remotely for years.

But it may reflect the Trump administration’s belief that it won’t need as many offices due to its efforts to fire employees or encourage them to resign."

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/trump-administration-usaid-staff-on-leave-00202411

excerpt:

"The Trump administration is making moves to place nearly all of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Washington-based staff on leave, according to two people familiar with the steps being taken.

A person familiar with the situation said some 1,400 people will be notified Tuesday, on top of about 600 who were placed on leave starting Sunday night. That amounts to the majority of Washington-based staff — many of them civil and Foreign Service officers, the person said."

 

FBI sues to try to stop Trump purge.


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/fbi-agents-jan-6-cases-lawsuit-00202376

 

What Does Trump Really Want From Canada and Mexico?

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“He thrives in chaos, he thrives in uncertainty,” John Feeley, the former U.S. ambassador to Panama and deputy chief of mission in Mexico, said of Mr. Trump. “He doesn’t need to have a metric. You’re making a mistake if you think he’s sitting there with a spreadsheet. He’s not. He’s sitting there looking at headlines.”

 

'Trust in Trump'.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...ard-netanyahu-tariffs-live-updates-rcna190377

excerpt:

“This is not our first rodeo," Navarro told anchor Maria Bartiromo. "We have to have institutional memory. And you, above all people, should remember the hysteria over the initial China tariffs, and all we had was prosperity and zero inflation. So let’s trust in Trump. Trust in Trump.”

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...ard-netanyahu-tariffs-live-updates-rcna190377

excerpt:

“It’s important to remind people always when they talk about tariffs, is why; 75,000 Americans are dying every year alone from fentanyl poisoning,” Navarro said. “The people who are dying are prime age workers, so that we’re actually having a severe economic impact.”

 

Why are Trump and the GOP even acknowledging deaths from fentanyl.

Two million Americans died during two years of the Covid pandemic and Trump and his people downplayed it and some said it was fake.

They could just as well spout truther narratives that the fentanyl deaths are fake or the resulf of something else, like diversity initiatives. Or they could blame it on vaccines like RFK Jr. does about autism.

Let them confirm RFK Jr. to run HHS. He will dispose of vaccines and fix the 'fentanyl' problem.

 

Trump is upset about that also.

He's threatening BRIC member countries with tariffs because he thinks they will start a currency that will replace the U.S. dollar.

 

CDC webpages go dark.


CDC webpages go dark as Trump targets public health information

 

Vance without evidence blames diversity programs for causing a shortage of air traffic controllers.

He makes that remark in the midst of Musk sending out notices to federal workers to resign.

Musk's slashing of federal workers isn't exactly going to make prospective air traffic controllers want to take federal jobs.


JD Vance Backtracks on DEI Slur After Pilot’s Identity Revealed

excerpt:

"And despite Vance himself taking, unprompted, to the White House briefing room podium, and blasting the previous administrations for “not having the best standards” in hiring, the vice president tried to claim Sunday it was the media responsible for pushing the diversity issue.

“It’s so funny to me the media has picked up on this,” Vance said. “Not you, of course, Maria, but others have picked up on this. The president made very clear that he wasn’t blaming anybody, but he was being very explicit about the fact that DEI policies have led our air traffic controllers to be short-staffed.”"

 

Marco Rubio empowers State Department official Pete Marocco to run USAID

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On Saturday, USAID's director of security and his deputy were put on administrative leave after they tried to block people working with DOGE from accessing USAID's secure systems.

“No one feels safe to go anywhere near the Ronald Reagan Building,” a USAID official told NBC News. “We just had Elon Musk call us a criminal organization. Our security chief was escorted out. We know we are being surveilled by DOGE.”

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/trump-government-retribution-legal-battles-011469

excerpt:

"Musk has sent a team of allies to take control of computer systems at Treasury and in the Office of Personnel Management, which are responsible for delivering appropriated funds and overseeing the entire federal workforce. It’s unclear what responsibilities they have. Amid reports some of those incursions have been met with pushback, Washington, D.C.’s interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin — a conservative culture warrior who was a prominent conspiracy theorist about the Jan.6 attack — offered to use his office to protect Musk’s efforts.

Martin suggested that “threats, confrontations or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws.” Martin ended his letter to Musk — which Musk quickly acknowledged — by warning Musk to be wary of subversive elements in government."