Trump Didn't Nominate Anyone Good For His Cabinet
Wisely, all 47 Senate Democrats— even John Fetternan, Jeanne Shaheen and Elissa Slotkin— voted against confirming Russell Vought to head the Office for Management and Budget. Fetterman wasn’t around but all the Democrats present voted against confirming Pam Bondi at Attorney General. All 47 (+ Mitch McConnell) voted against confirming Putin patsy Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Same with RFK Jr. All Dems present voted against confirming Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary. All 47 Democrats + Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted “no” on Kash Patel. All the Dems + 3 Republicans voted “no” on Pete Hegseth resulting in a tie that had to be broken by JD Vance.
On the other hand, some Trump nominees found plenty of Democratic support: John Ratcliffe, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, Doug Collins, Sean Duffy, Chris Wright, Doug Burgum… and now-Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. John Fetterman (D-PA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Angus King (I-ME), Gary Peters (D-MI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), exhibited disqualifyingly bad judgement in joining all the Republicans to confirm him, as though they were ok with a “normie.” After all, he’s a Wall Street guy— a competent billionaire hedge fund manager with decades of experience in global finance who once worked for George Soros— gravitas, openly gay with adopted children… How bad could he be? They very much wanted to see him as a capable technocrat, not an ideologue or unfit nominee worth obstructing. And they ignored Ron Wyden’s warning that’s he’s just another crooked Republican who dodged paying nearly a million in Medicare taxes by using a shady hedge fund loophole.
Will senators— particularly the Democratic senators— eventually be held accountable by voters for Bessent’s bad decisions and actions? Yesterday, Bessent “made it clear,” wrote Heather Cox Richardson, “that the Trump administration’s goal is to slash the federal government and to privatize its current services. As the stock market has dropped and economists have warned of a dramatic slowdown in the economy, he told CNBC ‘There’s going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending. The market and the economy have just become hooked, we’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period.’ Bessent’s comments reveal that the White House is beginning to feel the pressure of the unpopularity of its policies… The administration’s dramatic— and likely illegal and unconstitutional— cuts are infuriating Americans who did not expect Trump to reorder the American government so completely. While Musk and Trump repeatedly say they are cutting only ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ from the government, that insistence appears to be rhetorical rather than backed by fact. And yesterday, new cuts appeared to continue the gutting of government services that generally appear to be important to Americans’ health, safety, and economic security.”
In another blockbuster story that dropped yesterday, the Social Security Administration announced it will begin to withhold 100% of a person’s Social Security benefits if they are overpaid, even if the overpayment is not their fault. Under Biden the agency had changed the policy to recover overpayments at 10% of monthly benefits or $10, whichever was greater.
Those who can’t afford that level of repayment can contact Social Security, the notice says, but acting commissioner Leland Dudek has said he plans to cut at least 7,000 jobs— more than 12% of the agency— although its staff is already at a 50-year low. He is also closing field offices, and senior staff with the agency have either left or been fired.
Dudek yesterday retracted an order from the day before that required parents of babies born in Maine to go to a Social Security office to register their baby rather than filling out a form in the hospital. Another on Thursday would also have stopped funeral homes from filing death records electronically.
…Trump has said that Social Security “won’t be touched” as his administration slashes through the federal government.
Trump also said there would not be cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, but on Wednesday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which figures the financial cost of legislation, said that Republicans will have to cut either Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program in order to meet their goal of cutting at least $880 billion from the funding controlled by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Cutting the funding for every other program in the committee’s purview would save a maximum of $135 billion, Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post noted, meaning the committee will have to turn to the biggest ticket items: healthcare programs.
Also yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security said it was getting rid of union protections for the approximately 47,000 employees of the Transportation Security Administration who screen about 2.5 million passengers a day before they can board airplanes. A new agreement in May 2024 raised wages for TSA workers, whose pay has lagged behind that of other government employees. Union leaders say the move is retaliation for its challenges to the actions of the administration toward the 800,000 or so federal workers it represents.
As Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times have reported more detail about the Cabinet meeting Trump convened abruptly on Thursday, we have learned more about Musk’s determination to cut the government. As Musk appeared to take charge of the meeting, he clashed with Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who complained that Musk’s team at the Department of Government Efficiency is trying to lay off air traffic controllers.
Swan and Haberman report that Duffy asked what he was supposed to do. He continued by saying: I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers? Musk said it was a lie that they were laying off air traffic controllers, and also insisted that there were people hired under diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives working as air traffic controllers. When Duffy pushed back, Musk said Duffy should call him with any concerns, an echo of the message he gave to members of Congress. Like them, Cabinet members are constitutionally part of the government. Musk is not.
What Musk is, according to an interview published today by Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson in Public Notice, is a businessman who believes that there is waste wherever you look and that it is always possible to do something more cheaply. Ryan Mac and Kate Conger, who wrote a book about Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Character Limit, said that creating confusion is part of the point. Musk creates drama, Conger said, to scare away workers he doesn’t want and attract ones he does.
The pain that he is inflicting on the country is not making him popular, though. Protests at Tesla dealerships that handle his cars are growing, as are instances of vandalism against Tesla dealerships and charging stations, which now number more than a dozen, including attacks with bottles filled with gasoline and set on fire. Pranshu Verma and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post report that Tesla’s stock has dropped more than 35% since Trump took office. Tesla sales have dropped 76% in Germany, 48% in Norway and Denmark, and 45% in France.
On Thursday, another of Musk’s SpaceX rockets exploded, raining debris near south Florida and the Bahamas. The Federal Aviation Administration said 240 flights were disrupted by the debris.
The New York Times editorial board today lamented the instability that Musk is creating, noting that the government is not a business, that “[t]here are already signs the chaos is hurting the economy,” and that “Americans can’t afford for the basic functions of government to fail. If Twitter stops working, people can’t tweet. When government services break down, people can die.”
The editorial board did not let Trump hide behind Musk entirely, noting that he has increased instability not only with DOGE, but also “with his flurry of executive orders purporting to rewrite environmental policy, the meaning of the 14th Amendment and more; his on-again-off-again tariffs; and his inversion of American foreign policy, wooing Vladimir Putin while disdaining longtime allies.”
One of the things that the radical extremists in power hated about the modern American state was that it was a nonpartisan machine that functioned pretty well regardless of which party was in charge. Now Musk, who is acting as if he is not bound by the constitution that set up that machine, is taking a sledgehammer to it.
In the Public Notice interview, Thor Benson asked Ryan Mac: “What’s something about Elon’s huge role in the Trump administration that people perhaps aren’t understanding?” Mac answered that Musk is the manifestation of the nation’s extreme wealth inequality. “What happens,” he asked, “when there is unfettered capitalism that allows people to accumulate this much money and this much power?”
The Republican shutdown is on Friday at midnight. MAGA Mike is trying to pass a CR to fund the government through Sept 30 before then, tomorrow being his preference. And if the House passes is, he cuts the week short and everyone goes home, Democrats to hold town hall meetings with their constituents, Republicans to hide from their constituents. Trump has insisted that every single Republican vote for it: NO DISSENT. As you can see from Fox anchors, the worry that Trump's economy is already collapsing is taking root. Greg Sargent: “‘We are sliding towards a recession,’ Newt Gingrich fretted on Fox News the other day. Gingrich blamed Biden for this, naturally, but the admission stands: Trump, you’ll recall, promised that economic nirvana would arrive on day one. Meanwhile, Fox host Larry Kudlow recently suggested that it’s time for Trump to clearly explain to the public how his program will facilitate growth… The Trump-Musk cuts are already seriously threatening the economy. Miraculously, this is also something Fox is registering: Bartiromo recently suggested on the air that DOGE cuts might ‘induce a recession.’ She, too, managed to blame this on Biden, but the acknowledgment is a significant one. The Trump-Musk agenda has grown so damaging and toxic that this warning must go forth, even if it means admitting to the heresy that cutting government is bad for the economy— and admitting to it right on Fox News.”
So what about the Trump-GOP Recession heading our way? Michael Birnbaum, Mariana Alfaro and Yeganeh Torbati reminded readers of the Trump-aligned Bezos newspaper that won’t rule out a recession this year. “Trump’s recognition of the turbulence in the U.S. economy was a reversal from previous cheering that his policies would deliver quick victories to voters and businesses, and it stood in contrast to reassurances from his own advisers on Sunday that no recession was in sight. Trump also downplayed the dropping stock market despite years in which he has claimed credit for its rise, saying in the Fox News interview that ‘you have to do what’s right’ even if markets don’t like it.” I have a feeling markets today will react pretty badly to that.
The recognition of the economic disruption was notable given that Trump swept into office in part because of voter discontent about years of inflation under Biden. But that inflation had slowed in Biden’s final year in office, and most economists say that Trump inherited a fairly strong and stable economy.
Trump pushed Biden on the stock market, inflation and the overall economy— all issues on which he is now telling voters to look the other way.
Asked by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo whether he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”
Trump said his economic policies shouldn’t be swayed by the broad-based market sell-off in recent weeks as he has moved to impose tariffs on countries around the world, most notably hiking levies on China. Mexico and Canada are also facing large new tariffs, although Trump has repeatedly postponed them.
The S&P 500 index is down 3.8 percent since Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20, and down 6 percent from its all-time high on Feb. 19. Consumer sentiment is at a 15-month low as worries compound about layoffs and rising prices.
… Trump and his top aides have started to try to shift the discussion around inflation after hammering Biden and former vice president Kamala Harris about it for years, as they say their “America First” economic policies are focused more on building jobs and opportunities inside U.S. borders than prioritizing low prices for consumers.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream. The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility and economic security,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the New York Economic Club on Thursday. “For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this. International economic relations that do not work for the American people must be reexamined.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that there were no plans to change the steel and aluminum tariffs— and unlike his boss, he dismissed concerns about a recession.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is now forecasting that U.S. economic output will decline 2.8 percent in the first quarter of 2025 after nearly three years of growth. Economists define a recession as two successive quarters of decline.
Economists repeatedly warned about a looming recession during Biden’s four years in office, but it never materialized.
Americans should “absolutely not” brace for a recession, Lutnick said on the program.
Trump is “going to win for the American people. That’s just the way it’s going to be. There’s going to be no recession in America,” he said. “What there’s going to be is global tariffs are going to come down because President Trump has said, ‘You want to charge us 100 percent? We’re going to charge you 100 percent.’”
Lutnick added: “I would never bet on recession. No chance.”
Trump and his advisers have argued that the end result of his policies will be that prices for U.S.-made goods are lower while foreign-made ones are higher, and that the health of the overall economy will be better once their policies are allowed time to take effect, with a lower deficit and lower interest rates. They point to decisions by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which announced plans for a $100 billion investment in Arizona, and similar announcements from other major companies as evidence that their efforts are already working.
Many economists disagree with their assessment, saying that tariffs will significantly increase prices, posing a challenge to efforts to lower interest rates. Rebuilding the U.S. manufacturing sector will be far more complex than reimposing trade barriers, some of them say, noting that U.S. manufacturing jobs have been declining for generations because of a complex cocktail of automation, trade policies, the rise of China and shifts in corporate behavior.
And Trump’s vow not to touch the politically popular programs that are the major elements of federal spending— Social Security and Medicare— will make cutting the deficit nearly impossible, economists say, especially as Trump proposes new tax cuts.
“It’s important for people to realize we run $2 trillion deficits and Donald Trump is going to try to balance the budgets of the United States of America,” Lutnick said. “We’re going to bring manufacturing back, that’s where we’re going. … Will there be distortions? Of course. Foreign goods may get a little more expensive, but American goods are going to get cheap.”
Ultimately, the senators who enabled Scott Bessent and the rest of Trump’s wrecking crew will have to answer for their votes— not just in the abstract, but in the tangible suffering those votes have caused— perhaps starting with Jeanne Shaheen next year. It’s one thing to rationalize confirming a “competent technocrat” when Wall Street assures you that he’ll bring stability. It’s another to explain why you helped hand Social Security over to a man who treats the elderly like liabilities, or why you trusted a Treasury Secretary who believes the economy needs a “detox” from public investment while millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes.
Democratic voters deserve more from their senators than the ability to say “Well, at least I didn’t vote for Pam Bondi or Tulsi Gabbard.” The bar cannot simply be refusing to confirm the most openly unhinged nominees while rubber-stamping those who wear a mask of respectability. Bessent's policies— and the broader gutting of the federal government under Trump and Musk— should force a reckoning. If Democrats in Congress still believe government should exist to serve the public, they need to start acting like it. And if they won’t hold the line, voters should start asking why they deserve to be there at all.