You may have never heard of the National Nuclear Security Administration, but its work is crucial to your safety—and to that of every other human being on the planet. If Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) hasn’t yet come across the NNSA, it surely will before too long. What happens after that could be alarming.
Darren Beattie may not be a household name, but you are almost certainly familiar with his long-standing ideas and preoccupations. Beattie, a speechwriter whom Trump fired in 2018 and appointed to a top State Department job this week, is a fixture in far-right conspiracist circles.
In the isolation of a Washington, D.C., office building, with a small team of acolytes, Elon Musk is dismantling the civil service and fulfilling an old dream. Deep within the folds of the Western brain resides a yearning for a savior: a master engineer who imposes reason and efficiency on the messiness of modern life, who can deploy his acumen to usher in a golden age of abundance and harmony. This is a fantasy of submission, where the genius takes charge.
Mark Zuckerberg and other execs might follow Elon Musk out the door.
Round one of Donald Trump’s trade war has come to an inglorious end. The United States has suspended its threats against Canada and Mexico in return for border-enforcement measures that Canada and Mexico either were doing anyway or had done before without making much difference in the flow of drugs. What can Americans and others learn from this costly episode—other than not to repeat it? The following:
American tariffs hurt Americans.
We speak with Karla Gilbride, the former general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who was fired by President Trump in late January along with two commissioners at the federal agency that enforces civil rights law in the workplace.
The Trump administration claims an order to withhold funds from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth is “already having its intended effect” as hospitals announce a halt to gender-affirming care for trans patients. The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and others filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of transgender youth who say the order is depriving them of medical care “solely on the basis of their sex and transgender status.
As President Trump continues to sign new executive orders attacking transgender people and their rights, we hear voices of protest from New York, where hundreds of people rallied Monday outside NYU Langone Hospital in Manhattan to demand it continue providing gender-affirming care for trans patients, after news that some patients had been dropped by the hospital.
President Donald Trump met at the White House Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Trump again suggested ethnically cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian population. Trump has already mused about moving Gaza’s population to Jordan and Egypt, which those countries have flatly rejected, but on Tuesday he went even further and said the United States should “own” Gaza and develop it into a seaside tourist destination.
There’s not a lot of evidence that the resignation offer will be honored.
Vending machines are a harbinger of what’s to come.
America has officially lost the plot on corporate DEI.
As a doctor, Cassidy is troubled by RFK Jr. As a politician, he has reason to support him anyway.
Kennedy’s approval by the committee is far from certain.
The letter was meant to lend credibility to Kennedy’s nomination.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Supporters of climate, infrastructure, mortgage, tech, health, veterans’ and other projects expressed alarm as tens of thousands of programs appeared possibly at risk.
Joe Biden’s top economic adviser opens up on harrowing moments from her time in the White House, and what makes her nervous about the Trump agenda.
Miran has called for a sweeping overhaul of the Fed to ensure greater political control over the central bank, including giving the president the power to fire board members at will.
As Elon Musk set out to upend the federal bureaucracy on behalf of Donald Trump, he reached out to Trump’s team with an unusual request: U.S. law generally prohibits noncitizens from working for the federal government, but Musk was hoping to make an exception for Baris Akis, a Turkish-born venture capitalist with a green card who had become a close ally.
The answer, delivered privately by Trump’s advisers, was an unequivocal no, two people familiar with the decision told us.
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to put America first, just proposed the wildest and most improbable intervention by the United States in overseas affairs since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than 20 years ago.
At a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump promised that the U.S. would become the occupier of Gaza.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it,” Trump said.
It took the Trump administration—and, really, Elon Musk—all of 10 days to dismantle USAID, the world’s single largest humanitarian donor. On January 24, a memo from the State Department ordered virtually every foreign-assistance program funded by the United States government to halt work for 90 days. Four days later, the State Department said that lifesaving humanitarian assistance should continue, and that special waivers could be granted to select programs.
Some presidents spend their first few weeks in office trying to make good on their central campaign promise; Donald Trump has instead done everything he can to avoid having to follow through on his. A controversial campaign pledge to enact big, universal tariffs that would transform the global-trade system and usher in American prosperity has been whittled down to a set of hollow threats designed to extract mostly symbolic concessions from America’s neighbors.
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The gutting of government statistics is a recipe for chaos.
It’s the latest lawsuit pushing back on the Trump administration’s shakeup of the federal government.
