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Tag: the Trump administration

  • The Supreme Court will hear former FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter’s case

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    The Supreme Court has voted 6-3 in favor of hearing a lawsuit brought by a former member of the US Federal Trade Commission, CNBC reports. Democrats Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya were fired from their posts as commissioners in the FTC by President Donald Trump in March. As has been the case with several of the Trump administration’s actions to remove possible critics from their roles in civil service, the pair said their dismissal was illegal.

    Commissioners’ terms may only be ended early for good cause under a law designed to protect the FTC as an independent agency. The FTC is also not allowed to have more than three commissioners from a single political party, meaning Slaughter and Bedoya could not both be replaced by additional Republican members.

    In July, US District Judge Loren AliKhan ruled in favor of Slaughter, who has moved ahead with a suit to contest her dismissal, and a federal appeals court reinstated her to the FTC in September. Today, however, the Supreme Court ruled that her firing may stand while it considers her case.

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  • Thune steams while Democrats do the country a favor by slowing Trump’s nominees

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    U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, speaks at Dakotafest in Mitchell on Aug. 20, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

    U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was hot under the collar. It wasn’t just because of the August weather, or the crowd at the Dakotafest agricultural trade show in Mitchell, or the pole barn where the crowd was jammed in. Thune was hot because of the way he’s being treated by Senate Democrats.

    Those pesky Democrats have thrown up as many roadblocks as they can to delay the filling of more than 1,300 positions in the Trump administration that require Senate confirmation. “We spend two-thirds of our time on personnel in the United States Senate,” Thune said, according to a Dakota Scout story, calling the resistance from the minority party “unprecedented.”

    In a recent op-ed, Thune promised that Senate Republicans are working on a rule change that should hurry the process along.

    Gone are the days of the Senate gentlemen’s club where the prevailing tradition was that a president should be allowed to have the nominees he wanted. Thune said 90% of President Barack Obama’s nominees were approved by unanimous consent, a fast way to approve nominees that skips committee hearings and floor debate. About 60% of President Joe Biden’s appointees were approved that way. In Trump’s first term, about half of his nominees were approved without hearings or debates.

    The downward trend in using unanimous consent is a direct result of the ideological split in this country. To date, none of Trump’s appointees during his second term have been approved by unanimous consent.

    The irony here is that Trump can’t get approval for the people he wants to serve in his administration while, during his first months in office, he’s been busy firing or furloughing thousands of federal government employees.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has sworn to use every weapon in his arsenal to block the Trump agenda. It looks like that includes slowing the Senate confirmation process to a glacial pace.

    Senate Democrats may have acted more favorably toward Trump’s nominees if his Cabinet choices to be the leaders in his government weren’t so astoundingly unqualified. In Trump’s first term, he chose high-ranking officials as if casting a movie. They had to have the right look, but with the right look came a reasonable amount of competence. In Trump 2.0, the need for competence has been discarded. This time out, the prevailing quality to serve in the Trump administration is blind loyalty to the president.

    There’s no doubting that the likes of Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are loyal to Trump. Their competence at running the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and the nation’s health care are frequently and rightfully questioned. Life probably wouldn’t be so tough for Thune if he and his Senate Republican colleagues had shown some backbone and told the president that competence had to be the standard for Cabinet secretaries rather than just fawning loyalty to the president.

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    It’s easy to understand Thune’s frustration. However, he and Senate Republicans brought this on themselves by treating Trump’s Cabinet selections as if they were serious choices rather than a presidential power play to show that he could get anyone he wanted approved by the Senate.

    This space has been used before to note that Thune may come to regret, if he doesn’t already, his rise to the top Senate leadership post of his party during a Trump administration. As he complains about the long days he has to put in while fulfilling that role, he should remember that he won the office by claiming that Sen. Tom Daschle was paying too much attention to Senate leadership and not enough attention to South Dakota’s needs.

    Senate Democrats may be throwing up roadblocks to Trump’s agenda, but for Republicans this is a self-inflicted wound developed by currying favor with the president rather than doing their jobs. Despite Thune’s complaints, the slow pace of approval for Trump’s nominees is likely what’s best for the country. That’s particularly the case if the nominees Trump seeks to work in his government are anything like the clown car he calls a Cabinet.

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  • Bessent met with BlackRock’s Rieder as search for next Fed chair continues, source says

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    By Andrea Shalal

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with BlackRock Inc executive Rick Rieder in New York on Friday, as the Trump administration continued its search for a new chair for the Federal Reserve, a source familiar with the matter said.

    Bessent has now spoken with four of the 11 candidates on the administration’s list of candidates to replace Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May, the source said.

    Bloomberg first reported Bessent’s meeting with Rieder, BlackRock’s CIO of fixed income, and called him a rising contender for the post. The two met for two hours and discussed monetary policy, the Fed’s organizational structure and regulatory policy, it said.

    U.S. President Donald Trump had told reporters at the White House a week ago that his short list for the job included his aide Kevin Hassett, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and current Fed Governor Christopher Waller.

    At the time, Trump said he had eyed Bessent for the job, but the Treasury secretary declined.

    Bessent has said he will meet with the candidates to whittle down the list and present Trump with a list of top contenders.

    TRUMP HAS RAILED AGAINST POWELL

    Trump has made clear he intends to install a Fed leader more aligned with his push for rapid interest-rate cuts after months of railing against Powell for being “too late” to lower interest rates and bring down borrowing costs.

    Powell’s Fed has kept rates on hold all year on concern that Trump’s tariffs could reignite inflation, although his concerns have shifted recently to focus more on the slowing labor market.

    The U.S. Senate is slated to vote on Monday to confirm White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran to the Fed, which starts a two-day meeting Tuesday at which it is expected to cut its policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point. Miran will retain his White House job, but take an unpaid leave while at the Fed.

    Miran would replace Adriana Kugler, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden and resigned as Fed governor last month.

    Trump has sought to fire another Fed governor appointed by Biden, Lisa Cook, but that move has been blocked for now by a federal judge.

    (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Edward Tobin)

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  • Trump Administration Ends National Blue Ribbon Schools Program

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    This article was originally published in Chalkbeat.

    The Trump administration won’t be handing out any blue ribbons to schools this year.

    As President Donald Trump seeks to scale back the federal role in education in key respects, Education Department officials told state education agencies on Aug. 29 that they were ending the longstanding National Blue Ribbon Schools program, which honors high-performing schools and schools that have successfully narrowed academic gaps between student groups.

    Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the department, said in the letter that the move was “in the spirit of Returning Education to the States” — a common refrain from Education Secretary Linda McMahon as the Trump administration has slashed staff at the department and sought to reduce federal spending on education.

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    “State leaders are best positioned to recognize excellence in local schools based on educational achievements that align with their communities’ priorities for academic accomplishment and improvement,” Biedermann wrote. “Awards conceived by those closest to the communities and families served by local schools will do more to encourage meaningful reforms than a one-size-fits-all standard established by a distant bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.”

    The decision appears to have been made abruptly: States had already nominated schools for the award. In fact, the deadline for states to sign off on their picks was just one week prior to the cancellation letter. In some cases states had informed schools that they had won, pending the official federal announcement.

    The Alabama Daily News first reported the cancellation.

    The Blue Ribbon program’s goal is to highlight standout public and private schools and share best practices across the country. Winning the award typically brings positive attention and news coverage to schools, and is a badge of honor that can help attract new students, recruit teachers, and boost private fundraising.

    Biedermann said the department is still encouraging states to recognize the schools they nominated for the 2025 competition. But she added that states can now get creative and tailor their own recognition programs to celebrate exemplary schools in certain subjects, or focus on new areas, such as success in preparing students for the workforce and apprenticeships.

    Raven Hill, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Education, said the state is exploring next steps, but the pride that comes from national recognition won’t be easy to replace.

    “The schools that receive the Blue Ribbon recognition are our crown jewels,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how long ago a school was recognized, they carry that pride. We can revive our state program, but it would be difficult to replicate the prestige.”

    Terrel H. Bell, President Ronald Reagan’s first education secretary, created the Blue Ribbon program in 1982. Bell famously commissioned the study that became “A Nation At Risk,” which raised alarms about the quality of American education and spurred various reforms. Reagan also wanted to eliminate the Education Department at the time.

    There have been other attempts to get rid of the program, including in 1992 when Congress defunded the program, leading to the abrupt cancellation of the competition. Letters and phone calls poured into Congress, Education Week reported at the time, and funding was eventually restored.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. 

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  • Trump on possible National Guard deployment to Chicago: “We’re going in”

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    President Trump suggested Tuesday he’s planning to send National Guard troops to Chicago, in what could be the latest salvo in his controversial push to use federal forces to address crime, drawing pushback from local political leaders.

    “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, we’re going in,” Mr. Trump said in an Oval Office event, after a reporter asked if he plans to send the Guard to Chicago.

    Mr. Trump did not specify whether his administration will primarily send Guard forces or federal law enforcement agents to Chicago. He also didn’t say how many Guard troops could be deployed, or where they will hail from.

    He later suggested Baltimore could also draw a federal response.

    The president has vowed for weeks to intervene in Chicago and Baltimore, arguing the two cities have failed to contain violent crime. Chicago could be the third city to face a crackdown under the Trump administration: Thousands of Guard troops and federal agents have been deployed to the streets of Washington, D.C., since last month as part of an anti-crime initiative, and Guard forces were sent to Los Angeles in June to protect immigration agents.

    Mr. Trump said he hopes Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — a vociferous Trump critic — will call him and request that troops be sent to Chicago. But the president said: “We’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country.”

    In a press conference Tuesday, Pritzker called Mr. Trump’s comments “unhinged.”

    “No, I will not call the president asking him to send troops to Chicago,” he said.

    Pritzker said he expects federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies to surge in Chicago in the coming days. He said the president could then “use any excuse” to deploy military personnel.

    The governor said his administration is “ready to fight troop deployments in court.”

    Any Guard deployment to Chicago would likely draw legal pushback.

    The D.C. National Guard is controlled by the president, but the 50 states’ Guard forces are typically run by governors. Mr. Trump called members of the California National Guard into federal service without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s permission by invoking a law that applies to rebellions or situations where the president can’t enforce the law with “regular forces.”

    Newsom sued the Trump administration over the move. An appeals court ruled that Mr. Trump likely had the right to call up the California National Guard, but a lower court judge on Tuesday ruled the deployment violated a 19th century law prohibiting the military from being used for domestic law enforcement.

    Trump calls Chicago a “mess” — Pritzker calls his claims “absurd”

    The president has zeroed in on cracking down on crime in the nation’s major cities, beginning with the effort in D.C. — despite data showing crime has declined in the city in recent years.

    When Mr. Trump announced the crackdown in the nation’s capital, he said the effort “will go further,” saying the administration is “starting very strongly with D.C.” and suggesting it could then move to other cities. Since then, he has publicly lashed out over Chicago’s murder rate.

    “We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is,” Mr. Trump said last month. “We’re not going to lose our cities over this.”

    The president later praised the National Guard’s work with the police in D.C., saying, “After we do this, we’ll go to another location, and we’ll make it safe, also.”

    “Chicago’s a mess, you have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent,” Mr. Trump said last month. “And we’ll straighten that one out, probably next – that will be our next one after this.”

    The president predicted that, within a week of a federal intervention in Chicago, “We will have no crime in Chicago just like we have no crime in D.C.”

    In Tuesday’s press conference, Pritzker said “there is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops.” He called Mr. Trump’s characterization of crime in Chicago “absurd” and pointed to recent reductions in homicides, shootings and other violent crimes according to city statistics.

    “One violent crime is too many, and we have more work to do,” Pritzker said. “But we have made important progress on safety that Trump is now jeopardizing.”

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    Trump on potential National Guard deployment in Chicago: “We’re going in”

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  • Illinois Gov. Pritzker says sending troops to Chicago would be an “invasion”

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    Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told CBS News the Trump administration has not communicated with his state on a reported plan to send military forces to Chicago, calling the idea an “invasion” and arguing President Trump has “other aims” aside from cracking down on crime.

    Asked about a possible military deployment to America’s third-largest city, which was recently reported by The Washington Post, Pritzker told CBS News: “It’s clear that, in secret, they’re planning this — well, it’s an invasion with U.S. troops, if they, in fact, do that.”

    Mr. Trump has deployed National Guard forces and federal agents to the streets of two other major cities — Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — in recent months, part of what the president casts as a crackdown against illegal immigration, violent crime and civil unrest.

    Last week, the president said his administration could take similar steps in Chicago. Mr. Trump called the city a “mess” and lashed out against Mayor Brandon Johnson, saying, “We’ll straighten that one out probably next.”

    Mr. Trump is planning major immigration enforcement operations in Chicago that could start as soon as next week, echoing a similar operation in Los Angeles, sources told CBS News. And The Washington Post has reported that the Pentagon is drawing up plans to potentially send thousands of National Guard members to the Midwest’s largest metro area as early as September — though those plans haven’t been publicly confirmed.

    Pritzker told CBS News that, if Mr. Trump sends the Guard to Chicago, voters “should understand that he has other aims, other than fighting crime.”

    The governor argued that the president’s gambit may be part of a plan to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections.”

    He also called the idea “an attack on the American people.”

    “Now, he may disagree with a state that didn’t vote for him. But, should he be sending troops in? No,” Pritzker said in an interview with CBS News in Chicago.

    White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson rejected Pritzker’s accusations and blasted the city’s violent crime rate.

    “It’s amazing the lengths this slob will go to in order to deflect from the terrible crime crisis that has been plaguing Chicago for years,” Jackson said in a statement to CBS News. “Chicago’s residents would be much safer if Pritzker actually did his job and addressed his crime problem instead of trying to be a Resistance Lib hero.”

    In a Truth Social post Saturday evening, Mr. Trump called Pritzker a “weak and pathetic Governor” who “just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME. He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!”

    On Friday, Pritzker, asked whether he was suggesting that the president is an authoritarian, pointed to Germany’s history. He noted that he built a Holocaust museum and knows “what the history was of a constitutional republic being overturned, after an election, in 53 days.” Pritzker added that he’s “very, very concerned.”

    “We could talk about lots of authoritarian regimes in the world, but that just happens to be the one that I know,” Pritzker said. “And I can tell you that- that the playbook is the same: It’s thwart the media, it’s create mayhem that requires military interdiction. These are things that happen throughout history, and Donald Trump is just following that playbook.”

    The Illinois governor said that he plans to “do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states,” referencing Mr. Trump. He added that it’s “very important for us all to stand up.”

    The Guard deployments in Los Angeles and D.C. have drawn stiff pushback from elected officials who argue local police are better able to handle crime, and warn the presence of federal agents and military personnel could inflame tensions.

    Future military deployments could also draw legal challenges. While Mr. Trump controls the D.C. National Guard outright, the governors of the 50 states typically control their own Guard forces except in certain circumstances.

    The Trump administration deployed thousands of California National Guard members to Los Angeles over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections in June, arguing they were necessary to protect federal immigration agents and facilities from tense protests in the city.

    The state of California sued the administration, calling the deployment illegal. An appeals court found that Mr. Trump likely did have the legal authority to call up the state’s National Guard, under a law that lets the president call Guard forces into federal service during a “rebellion” or if he isn’t able to “execute the laws of the United States.” A lower court is still reviewing whether military forces in Los Angeles were inappropriately used for law enforcement purposes.

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  • Trump administration official says some CHIPS Act companies won’t need to give up equity

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    Last week, the Trump administration said it might take a stake in Intel in exchange for the $10.86 billion in federal grants the company is receiving from the Chips and Science (CHIPS) Act. However, not all companies receiving funds under the same program will need to give up equity, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Companies like TSMC and Micron that increased their US investments won’t have any additional obligations, according to a government official familiar with the matter.

    Ealier, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick appeared to royally screw NVIDIA with comments about the company’s H20 AI chips, and may have also rubbed chip giant TSMC the wrong way. “The Biden administration literally was giving Intel [money] for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies, just giving them money for free,” he told CNBC on Tuesday. “Donald Trump turns that into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action.’”

    However, TSMC may have noticed the Intel equity kerfuffle and executives reportedly held preliminary discussions about handing back subsidies if the US government asks to become a shareholder, according to the WSJ‘s sources. TSMC was awarded $6.6 billion for its Arizona plant that started producing chips late last year for Apple and others. However, the company recently said it would invest another $100 billion over the next four years to build three more fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities and a major research and development center.

    Because of that extra investment, the Trump administration won’t ask for a piece of TSMC or Micron (which also expanded its US facilities in Idaho, New York and Virginia). “The Commerce Department is not looking to take equity from TSMC and Micron,” an unnamed official said.

    In any case, attempts by the US government to take equity in companies will likely face legal challenges due to language in the contracts. Companies are already required to share revenue with the US government if profits rise above a certain amount.

    In another development, the US government may divert up to $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding toward critical minerals projects in the US, Reuters reported. The move aims to reduce US dependence on China for key minerals extensively used in the electronics and defense industries. “The administration is creatively trying to find ways to fund the critical minerals sector,” Reuters’ source said, adding that those plans could change.

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    Steve Dent

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