The Sunday Subject: February 9, 2025
Week three: Trump and Musk continue to infiltrate federal agencies, purge and dismantle the federal government, censor federal websites, defy court orders, undermine international organizations and allies, impose tariffs, and more; Democrats and federal judges push back.
Musk and his unelected, unvetted DOGE-affiliated loyalists have continued to infiltrate federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Defense Department, National Institutes of Health, Education Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Labor Department, and more. An intelligence team within the Treasury Department said, in an email obtained by Wired, that DOGE staff’s access to federal payments systems represents “the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of Fiscal Service has ever faced.” According to Jared Yates Sexton, “The process of transformation is underway and what we are seeing from Musk and DOGE is an attempt to take full control of the administrative state and plug in their technology and tools so that its operation is dependent on them.”
Meanwhile, federal judges have blocked a several of the unconstitutional power grabs, including: parts of Trump’s efforts to shut down USAID; DOGE from accessing sensitive US Treasury Department material; the Justice Department from disclosing information about FBI agents linked to Jan. 6 probes; Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship; and the administration’s plan to slash NIH research funding to universities, medical centers, and other research grant recipients. The flurry of court orders led Musk and Vance to question the legitimacy of judicial oversight. Further, it appears the Trump administration has not been complying with all of the court rulings. Notably, twenty-three state attorney generals alleged the Trump administration has ignored US District Judge John McConnell’s order blocking the implementation of a spending freeze on grants and loans, including funding Congress approved in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Head Start programs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration, foreign aid, and more. The judge sided with the AGs and issued an order directing the administration to comply.
The administration also continued its efforts to dismantle and purge the federal government, including the CIA, FBI, DOJ, and military academy, and target transgender people for exclusion in what has been described as a “Jim Crow for trans people.” It also began scrubbing federal government websites of information and data that doesn’t align with its far-right agenda, removing information and tools related to diversity, public health data, vaccines, climate change, gender, hate crimes, scientific research, Spanish-language accessibility, and records of Jan. 6 charges, among others. Experts warn these erasures, which one scientist called a “digital book burning,” in addition to the firing of the head of the National Archives for the agency’s lawful handling of federal records, can have profound consequences for American democracy. In the same vein, Google Maps and Apple Maps changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America following Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, another demonstration of elites’ capitulation to Trump. Trump also imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, in addition to 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum – moves that could jeopardize investigations by the world’s only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide and raise prices for US consumers respectively, among other setbacks. Democratic leaders have also finally begun to step up and oppose the regime. Several Congressional Democrats were blocked from entering federal agencies in protest of Musk’s takeover, including the Department of Education, which Musk said Trump will “succeed” in shutting down.
Trump said the US will “take over” Gaza and forcibly relocate Palestinians.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’re going to take over that piece that we’re going to develop it,” he continued, describing his vision for Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The plan would involve displacing 2.2 million Palestinians from their homes, who Trump said should be “permanently” resettled in neighboring countries. In response, Netanyahu stated, “I think it’s something that could change history and it worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.” Later, Trump threatened to cut off aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don’t agree to take in Palestinians displaced by his proposed takeover. Human Rights Watch warned the plan, if implemented, would amount to an alarming escalation of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. It stated, “International humanitarian law prohibits the permanent forced displacement of the population of an occupied territory. When such forced displacement is carried out with criminal intent, it is a war crime. If carried out as part of widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population, reflecting state policy, it is a crime against humanity.”
The humanitarian ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo broke down.
The ceasefire, declared by an alliance of rebel groups, including M23, ended Tuesday morning. The capture of Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo, by M23 has marked an escalation in a decades-long conflict. At least 900 people have been killed in recent fighting.