Tracking presidential actions and other news.
91 posts
Trump II Transition Team Tardy With Ethics, Conflict of Interest Documents and Signatures.
Trump II Names Election Lawyer Bill Mcginley White House Counsel. Almost missed this one.
Trump II Picks S.D. Governor Kristi Noem to Head Up DHS.
Former Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Trump II’s Choice to Become Director of National Intelligence.
Trump II Makes Nomination of Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State Official, Finally. I wonder what caused the delay.
Trump II Nominates Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
Former Arkansas Governor Mick Huckabee Named Trump II’s Ambassador to Israel. Thought about skipping this one because it’s only an ambassadorship. But it’s an important one. And we’re all caught up.
Trump II Chooses Republican Congresswoman of New York Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the UN. Late with this one have added it now!
Trump II Names Personal Lawyer Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General.
Trump II Names Campaign Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt White House Press Secretary.
Trump II Picks ND Governor Doug Burgum to Lead Department of the Interior. Missed this yesterday. Apparently this man is also now Trump II’s ‘Energy Czar’.
Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright to Be Trump II’s Energy Secretary.
Trump II Selects Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to Lead the Agency.
Trump II Taps Fox Business Personality and The Real World alum Sean Duffy to Lead Department of Transportation.
Trump II Announces Linda McMahon to Head Department of Education.
Trump II Nominates Dr Mehmet Oz to Lead Centers for and Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oof.
Trump II Selects Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary.
Former Trump I Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Gets Ambassador to NATO Nom from Trump II.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi Picked to be Trump II AG Nominee.
Trump II AG Nominee Matt Gaetz Withdraws From Consideration.
Trump II Names Wall Street Investor Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary.
Trump II Nominates Former Florida Republican Congressman Dave Weldon to Lead CDC. A vax skeptic, natch.
Trump II Nominates Oregon Republican Congresswoman Laurie Chavez-DeRemer to Head Department of Labor. Not a bomb-thrower, according to this write-up.
Trump II Nominates Russell Vought, Former Trump I Official and Project 2025 Architect, to Lead Office of Management and Budget.
Trump II Taps Brooke Rollins, Head of the America First Policy Institute, to Lead Department of Agriculture.
Trump II Fails to Disclose Transition Organization Donors. This is a result of the Trump II transition team failing to sign ethics and other documents related to the handover process.
Trump II Nominates Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as Surgeon General. Missed this yesterday.
Trump II Taps Dr. Marty Makary as FDA Commissioner. Also missed this yesterday. Probably I should create a separate post with a list of nominees/leaders (once confirmed).
Trump II Chooses Jay Bhattacharya to Lead National Institutes of Health.
Trump II Names Trade Hawks Hassett and Greer to Top Trade Posts.
Trump II Transition Team Signs Documents Required for Staffer Background Checks. They’d been resisting signing these docs, as well as memoranda covering ethics agreements and cooperation with the White House (thatone was signed last week). A Trump II spokeswoman said the transition team would post an “Ethics Plan” to a government website soon.
Trump II Boosts Billionaire Jared Isaacman to Lead NASA. The 10th Billionaire to be nominated to join Trump II’s administration. Serious conflicts of interest with Musk’s SpaceX.
Trump II Names a New White House Counsel (David Warrington) to Replace the One He Announced Three Weeks Ago (Bill McGinley). McGinley will take the top legal role at Musk’s DOGE advisory board.
Trump II Names Former PayPal COO David Sacks WH ‘AI and Crypto Czar’. Trump said Sacks will also lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.
Attorney Alina Habba to Be Trump II’s Legal Counselor. She’s represented Trump in LOTS of recent civil litigation.
Trump II Announces Lawyer Harmeet Dhillion to Head the DOJ’s Civil Rights division.
Trump II Picks Kimberly Guilfoyle as Ambassador to Greece.
Trump II to Promote FTC Member Andrew Ferguson to Commissioner. Ferguson will replace current commissioner Lina Khan.
The Voice of Trump II (Truth Social) Truthed That Kari Lake, Former News Personality From Arizona, Will Lead the Voice of America.
Trump II Picks Billionaire Stephen Feinberg for Deputy Defense Secretary.
Trump II Fires Inspectors General of at Least 12 Federal Departments and Agencies. Congress is supposed to get 30 days notice before IG removals can happen.
Trump II Fires NLRB Officials, Breaks Law in Doing So.
Trump II Fires Two Democratic Commissionersof the EEOC, Leaving It Without a Quorum
Trump II Fires Head of CFPB. Mr Chopra somehow survived for two weeks.
Appointments to the White House Faith Office.
Trump to Fire Kennedy Center Board, Name Himself Chairman.
OMB Director Russell Vought Named Acting Director of CFPB.
Implementing the President’s “Dept of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative. Instructs agencies to limit hiring to 1 new employee per 4 departures. Instructs agencies to prepare for a reduction in force. Gives DOGE teams authority to recommend staff cuts.
Federal Layoffs at Dept of Ed, SBA, elsewhere.
Forest Service RIF takes 3,400 Workers. The USFS has (had) about 35,000 employees. Firefighters, public safety staffers spared. Smokey Bear had no comment.
Thousands of Federal Health Research Employees Fired.
Trump II to Layoff 9,000 IRS Employees. It’s tax season. There are about 100k folks working there. 10k came on in the past year.
More Mass Firings at Federal Health Agencies. FDA, Medicare, and Emergency Response group.
Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies. The president here claims the right to direct and control independent agencies such as the FCC, the SEC, the Federal Reserve based on his role at the top of the executive branch. (The order has a carve out for Fed monetary policy.) There’ll be lawsuits.
Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. Identifies a handful of boards and committees to be eliminated or have budgets reduced. Directs selected agencies (CFPB, FDIC) to identify additional boards and committees for elimination.
Trump Fires Top General, Other Leaders, Nominates New Joint Chiefs Chairman. General Brown, three top JAG officers, Chief of Naval Operations all out. Retired USAF General Dan Caine is the new nominee. Replacements for the others TBD.
2/25/2025: Memo:Suspension of Security Clearances and Evaluation of Government Contracts. Directs agencies to remove clearances for the law firm Covington & Burling (and a named attorney, Peter Koski), and to evaluate government contracts with the firm. Koski and Covington & Burling worked with former Special Counsel Jack Smith (Trump criminal cases).
Trump II National Security Officials Include Journalist in Text Group Discussing Secret War Plans.
Department to lose about a quarter of its staff. More details: Thousands at CDC, FDA Laid Off.
The order directs Federal agencies to receive nominations for various positions. The Department of the Army is to consider Marc Andersen, William Gillis, and Jules Hurst III for the role of Assistant Secretary. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Labor are to consider Gregory Autry and David Brian Castillo respectively for the position of Chief Financial Officer. Donald Bergin III is nominated for Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Congressional and Legislative Affairs), Marc Berkowitz for Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Jonathan Berry for Solicitor for the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor is also to consider Anthony D’Esposito for Inspector General and Andrew Rogers for Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. The Navy is to consider Benjamin Kohl
Trump II administration has let go hundreds of climate scientists who volunteered to produce the nation’s next climate assessment, which is supposed to be completed in 2028. No reason was given for the dismissals.
The Trump II administration has sacked the Vice Chair of the NTSB, Alvin Brown. No explanation was given.
The president withdrew the nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat for Surgeon General after questions about her medical degree were raised. The president also announced Nesheiwat's replacement: Casey Means, a wellness influencer with a medical degree from Stanford. She has been an advocate of of the view that chronic illnesses are metabolic in origin. (RFK Jr shares those views.)
A federal judge has temporarily blocked mass layoffs and restructuring at two dozen agencies. The judge said the Trump administration's actions were illegal without authorization from Congress.
In a major restructuring, the National Science Foundation will slash the number of temporary scientists it employs to review grant requests from more than 350 to 70. In a memo, NSF leadership said the reduced staffing will be more in line with the agency's expected reduced future funding.
The order directs the Archivist of the United States, through the Office of the Federal Register, to collaborate with the Director of the Government Publishing Office to reduce publication delays and modernize systems. The Archivist is also required to review and adjust the fee schedules for publication in the Federal Register, ensuring that fees reflect the actual costs of publication. The order specifies that agencies are currently charged between $151-$174 per column of text to publish each rule in the Federal Register.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two officials from the National Intelligence Council amid what Gabbard's office has called an effort to correct the 'weaponization' of intelligence agencies. The fired staffers had earlier made public intelligence findings that contradicted the White House's assertion that the Venezuelan government was directing the actions of Tren de Aragua, the criminal gang the administration has targetted for deportation using the Alien Enemies Act.
A federal judge ordered the Trumpo II administration to reinstate nearly 200 workers who screen coal miners for black lung disease. The judge said the administration lacked the authority to shutter the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, which was created in 1969 under the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. The workers were back on the job a day after the ruling.
This week the Trump administration fired hundreds of workers at broadcaster Voice of America. Contractors, mostly journalists, made up the bulk of the nearly 600 removals. The administration also put up for sale the building that houses the organization in Washington.
A federal judge ruled that two Democratic board members fired in January from their jobs with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board were removed illegally, and must be returned to their positions. The board is charged with protecting Americans' privacy and civil rights from government counter-terrorism efforts. It was formed based on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Supreme Court said President Trump likely has the authority to fire independent agency board members. The ruling stayed a lower court order that had reinstated a National Labor Relations Board member and one from the Merit Systems Protection Board. In its order, the Supreme Court carved out an exception for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, saying the president did not have the authority to fire the head of that particular independent agency.
A federal judge blocked the administration's efforts to take apart the Education Department. The judge ordered the administration to rehire the hundreds of department staff it had fired previously and blocked the administration plan to move the department's loan programs to the SBA. The judge ruled the administration does not have the authority to get rid of the department without Congress's approval.
In a court filing last week Department of Homeland Security officials revealed plans for sharp cuts to staffing at internal oversight offices. The new plan would see smaller staff levels at the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The CIS Ombudsman's office would shrink from 40 employees to 10; the ID ombudsman's office from 100 to 8; and the CRCL office from 140 to 22. Collectively these offices handle tens of thousands of complaint and investigatory case files at DHS.
President Trump nominated Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official, to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania). Previously Bove represented Trump as his private attorney in several cases during the Biden era.
This week the Office of Personnel Management released a memo describing its new "Merit-Based Hiring Plan," which instructs federal agencies in the administration's updated hiring processes. Key changes include ending DEI in the hiring process, easing academic degree requirements and replacing with "skills-based" assessments, re-focusing recruitment targets to include trade schools, affinity groups, homeschoolers and more, and requiring applicants for higher-level positions (GS-5 and above) to write essays demonstrating their commitment to carrying out executive orders and supporting presidential policy perspectives. Find more context on the evolution of the current merit-based federal hiring system, and the significance of the changes described in the memo in this analysis from Adam Bonica, Stanford University associate professor of political science.
President Trump is withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire associate of DOGE leader Elon Musk, to head-up NASA. No reason for step was offered in the president's announcement, save for a cryptic comment about Isaacman's "prior associations."
The National Weather Service said it would hire about 100 new employees to "fill positions at field offices where there is the greatest operational need." Earlier this year the NWS let go almost 600 employees during cuts ordered by the Trump administration.
All 12 board members of the Fullbright program that promotes educational exchanges around the globe resigned because of what they said is political interference in the program's operations. Exiting board members point to the State Department's cancellation of 200 scholarships as an example of the administration's illegal, political interference. Those scholarships were rejected after State Department staff reviewed the scholars' research. In addition, the department is reviewing 1,200 scholars from other countries, even though they have already been approved.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr chose eight people for an influential vaccine advisory panel. Picks include a well-known pediatric infectious disease expert and several anti-vax or vaccine-skeptical people. Earlier the Secretary fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee in Immunization Practices. The committee requires eight to function. The first meeting of the RFK, Jr selected roster is June 25-27.
The memo notifies the Senate of new appointees and nominations. Notably, Riley Barnes is appointed as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Alan Boehme is appointed as an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs; and Karen Brazell is appointed as Under Secretary for Benefits of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Additionally, several individuals are nominated for roles as U.S. District Judges for various districts, and others are appointed to various roles within the Department of State, Department of Defense, and other federal entities.
Hundreds of Voice of America employees received layoff notices this week, effectively shutting down the news outlet that had been in service providing American-produced news and info around the world since WWII. Among the 639 employees let go were employees of VOA's persian-language service who had been brought back from administrative leave a week ago following Israel's bombardment of Iran. All told, 1,400 people have been let go from VOA and its parent agency. Kari Lake, the Trump II administration appointee overseeing the agency, blasted it as a "bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy ... riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now."
The memo notes the nomination of numerous individuals to various federal positions. These include Ademola Adewale-Sadik as United States Director of the African Development Bank for a five-year term, Lee Beaman and others to the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority for terms expiring in 2028, 2029, and 2030, and various appointees as United States Attorneys for terms of four years in multiple districts. New positions include James Caggy as an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Rosario Palmieri as an Assistant Secretary of Labor.
The nominations sent to the Senate include Nicholas Adams of Florida for Ambassador to Malaysia, Eric Meyer of California for Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Sean O'Neill of Virginia for Ambassador to Thailand, and Julie Stufft of Ohio for Ambassador to Kazakhstan.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm and will begin firing hundreds of scientists. The Office of Research and Development provides the research that backstops almost all of the agency's policies and regulations. The office had around 1,100 employees at the beginning of the Trump II administration, but more than 300 have already left, having accepted DOGE deferred resignation offers. The department didn't say how many of the remaining 830 employees would ultimately be let go.
The order directs the Senate to consider the nomination of Edward Forst, from Florida, to the position of Administrator of General Services, following the resignation of Robin Carnahan.
The order directs the Senate to consider several nominations, including Tammy Bruce to serve as Deputy Representative of the United States to the United Nations and other UN roles, Brent Christensen as Ambassador to Bangladesh, Sergio Gor as Ambassador to India, Stephanie Hallett as Ambassador to Bahrain, James Holtsnider as Ambassador to Jordan, and William Long as Ambassador to Iceland. Stephen Miran is nominated for a position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The order also includes nominations for several U.S. District Judges and Associate Judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
The order directs federal agencies to nominate several individuals to various positions. Erwin Antoni is nominated as Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, for a term of four years. Laura DiBella and Robert Harvey are nominated as Federal Maritime Commissioners for terms expiring in 2028 and 2029 respectively. Steven Haines is nominated as an Assistant Secretary of Commerce, George Holding as United States Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Sriprakash Kothari as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Ryan McCormack is nominated as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy, Peter Metzger as Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Department of the Treasury, and Brian David Miller as United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania for
The order directs federal agencies to make several nominations and appointments. Daniel Bonham is to be Assistant Secretary of Labor, Mark Ditlevson as Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Paul Ferguson as United States Marshal for the Northern District of West Virginia. William Hewes III is to be a Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Benjamin Landa as Ambassador to Hungary, and Arvind Raman as Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology. Robert Rotter, Daniel Satterlee, and David St. Pierre are to be United States Marshals for their respective districts. Jennifer Wicks McNamara is to be Ambassador to Vietnam. The nomination of Mark Brnovich as Ambassador to Serbia has been withdrawn.
The order directs the Senate to consider the following nominations: Daniel E. Burrows, of Colorado, for the position of Assistant Attorney General, replacing Aaron Reitz; Stevan Pearce, of New Mexico, as Director of the Bureau of Land Management, replacing Tracy Stone-Manning; and Douglas Weaver, of Maryland, as a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the remainder of the term expiring June 30, 2026, replacing Annie Caputo.
The order directs federal agencies to nominate individuals for various roles within the U.S. judicial system. Andrew Benson has been nominated to be United States Attorney for the District of Maine, Megan Blair Benton to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri, and William Boyle to be United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, among others. Each nominee is set to serve a term of four years in their respective roles.