Trump’s Tariffs Wars Are About to Cost a Very Important Republican

Republicans’ new Senate majority leader, John Thune, is being forced to choose between his fearless MAGA leader and the constituents who chose him to represent their interests. 

Trump on Thursday confirmed his plans to levy aggressive 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, after complaining about “the people that have poured into our country,” “the drugs, fentanyl and everything else,” and “the massive subsidies we are giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits.”

While Trump and his base cheer on the strongman isolationism, Thune’s constituents in his home state of South Dakota could potentially suffer. The state’s entire economy is reliant on agriculture—it exports soybeans, corn, and beef primarily, according to a Politico analysis. And it just so happens that China and Mexico are the biggest export markets for U.S. agriculture. 

Tariffs against these countries would cripple South Dakota’s economy, as they did in 2018 when Trump enacted the very same tariffs during his trade war. Senators in similar precarious situations are looking to Thune to talk the president down.  

“Obviously the president is somebody who sees great value in the use of tariffs as a tool and we’ll have, I’m sure, lots of conversations,” Thune told Politico, striking a diplomatic chord. “People up here have different views about how and when to use them but I see value when they are used in a targeted way.”

Meanwhile, Thune has been pushing the president’s Cabinet picks through, even after Trump overruled Thune’s plan to split the GOP tax bill in two, signaling that he won’t be open to the Senate majority leader’s hesitations. We’ll see if Thune finds the guts to speak up.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to senators late Thursday that there was at least one incident in which he settled a case over inappropriate behavior.

The revelation came by way of a series of follow-up questions Democrats sent to the Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee. Senators wanted to know if Kennedy had ever reached a legal settlement over accusations of misconduct.

Two questions in the list, obtained by Mother Jones, read as follows:

“Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?”

“Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?”

Kennedy answered yes to each one but offered no follow-up details.

Mother Jones reached out to Kennedy to elaborate on the answer, querying if the 71-year-old’s settlements had to do with previously reported allegations, such as claims that he allegedly groped his children’s babysitter, Eliza Cooney, in the late 1990s.

A spokesperson for Kennedy, Katie Miller, sent a brief reply to the publication: “As a matter of policy, we don’t respond to Mother Jones.”

Kennedy had denied Cooney’s accusation when asked about it during his Senate confirmation hearing. And when Senator Patty Murray asked if there were other instances where Kennedy made “sexual advances toward an individual without their consent,” he said, “No.”

Kennedy, a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist, was tapped by Donald Trump to run the country’s health policy.

His private life has given pause to a number of lawmakers responsible for confirming him. Kennedy has publicly admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park, believed the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democrat John Kerry, peddled conspiracies that the CIA killed his uncle, chainsawed off the head of a dead whale (per his daughter Kick Kennedy), and last week was described by his cousin Caroline Kennedy as a “predator” who is “addicted to attention and power.”

“I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,” the former ambassador to Australia and Japan wrote in a letter to lawmakers obtained by The Washington Post.

“His basement, his garage, his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks,” she continued. “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

And Kennedy’s history in public health is questionable, at best. His stances, which include unscientific beliefs that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that a large number of vaccines should be stripped from the market, could have major impacts on the agency designed to protect America’s health, especially as bird flu outbreaks begin to dot the country.

On Wednesday, a career official at the U.S. Agency for International Development was placed on administrative leave after he undid an order from Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” to immediately fire several career employees at the agency.

Nicholas Gottlieb, the USAID’s director of employee and labor relations, sent an email Thursday reversing the terminations of dozens of senior USAID staff, calling the firings “illegal” and a violation of “due process.”

“You may receive another email within the day reinstating your leave status. However, that notice will not come from me,” Gottlieb wrote. “I wish you all the best—you do not deserve this.”

Gottlieb later emailed the rest of USAID’s staff to notify them that he was being placed on leave, telling them that “it is and has always been my office’s commitment to the workforce that we ensure all employees receive their due process in any of our actions.

“I will not be a party to a violation of that commitment,” Gottlieb wrote.

The Trump administration on Monday fired more than 50 senior USAID officials after accusing the agency of attempting to “circumvent” the president’s executive order freezing all foreign aid. Gottleib then intervened, and has been sidelined for his efforts.

Trump and Musk, through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” have attempted to overhaul and slash the federal workforce, with poor results. What happened to Gottlieb is an example of the consequences for opposing the tech mogul and fascism enthusiast, as well as the president’s ill-thought-out executive orders. And just like the president’s firing of several agency inspectors general last week, it’s probably illegal. Will there be any consequences?

Less than 24 hours after Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, tried to convince Democrats he doesn’t have an “enemies list,” six senior FBI leaders were ordered to retire or resign if they don’t want to be fired by Monday, CNN reported.

Some of the officials, who oversee everything from cybersecurity to criminal investigations, were demoted during Patel’s Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, where he failed to clearly answer a number of questions about his plans to go after Trump’s enemies in the bureau.

The Trump loyalist has previously said he would shut down the FBI’s Hoover Building and “replace it with a mausoleum of the Deep State,” sparking concern that Patel would use his power to weaponize the country’s national security organization.

In recent weeks, the FBI Agents Association urged Patel not to punish agents investigating Trump and the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Fear in the bureau escalated this week after Trump fired a number of career Justice Department lawyers who worked on his criminal cases, just the latest move in his gutting of the federal workforce.

On Thursday, Patel feigned ignorance of, but showed no regret about, his plans to go after the president’s adversaries.

“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI,” Patel said at the hearing, as several officials promoted by former FBI Director Christopher Wray were told to resign the same day.

Patel hopes to join alcoholic Pete Hegseth, fossil fuel ally Lee Zeldin, and former WWE executive Linda McMahon in Trump’s Cabinet.

President Donald Trump is warning a coalition of countries to find “another sucker nation” if they opt to move away from the U.S. dollar.

The major countries in BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—continue to use the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and for international trade, ensuring America’s financial dominance on the world stage. But on Thursday night, despite the nation reeling from a tragic plane crash in Washington, Trump took to social media to threaten that arrangement, promising that the 10-country coalition (which includes some of America’s biggest trading partners) would face “100 percent tariffs” if it created a new BRICS currency to replace the dollar.

“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar, while we stand by and watch, is OVER,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.

“They can go find another sucker Nation,” he continued. “There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, or anywhere else, and any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America!”

In a statement to Newsweek, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation highlighted that it held the largest economy in Africa, while three other member states—China, India, and Brazil—are among the top 10 countries in the world by population, area, and gross domestic product. The department also emphasized that the major BRICS nations are members of the G20, alongside the United States, and continue to invest billions of U.S. dollars in international projects.

“BRICS leaders have called for a reformed international financial system to facilitate trade in local currencies,” the department said. “However, BRICS is not discussing the creation of a common BRICS currency.

“Instead, South Africa supports the increased use of national currencies in international trade and financial transactions to mitigate the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, rather than focusing on de-dollarisation.

“The strengthening of correspondent banking networks and the development of infrastructure for settlements in national currencies could further this aim,” they continued. “Enhancing BRICS payment systems to accommodate trading in local currencies does not imply de-dollarisation.”

Tusli Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence may be in serious jeopardy.

Multiple Senate Republicans have cooled on Gabbard, dashing hopes that she’d receive the same warm treatment the GOP gave Trump’s now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a slightly more controversial pick. Though there are many national security concerns about Gabbard becoming the nation’s top intel chief, most of the conservative qualms about Gabbard appear to be due to her refusal to label NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” in her confirmation hearing Thursday.

“Do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?” asked Democratic Senator Michael Bennet. “He broke the law,” Gabbard replied, refusing to answer the question.

“I think it would befit you and be helpful to the way you are perceived by members of the intelligence community, if you would at least acknowledge that the greatest whistleblower in American history, so-called, harmed national security by breaking the laws of the land around our intel authority,” Republican Todd Young told Gabbard. He was “visibly frustrated” by Gabbard’s refusal to fully denounce Snowden.

Other Republicans echoed these sentiments.

“With Ms. Gabbard, I have said that it was like having a sheet of music that was missing notes.… There are many notes still missing and a number of sour notes and awkward silences that simply don’t ring true as a political philosophy on critical national security issues,” said Senator John Curtis after Gabbard’s confirmation hearing. “I leave today’s hearing with more questions than answers.”

A top-ranking official in the U.S. Department of the Treasury is resigning after a fight with Elon Musk over a sensitive payment system.

The Washington Post reports that David Lebryk, who has worked in the department for decades and is its longest-serving career official, will depart soon, after conflicting with Musk’s deputies over access to the government’s payment system used to distribute trillions of dollars every year. Until Scott Bessent’s confirmation as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk served as acting head of the department.

Musk’s people at his “Department of Government Efficiency” have sought access to the system since the election, the Post reports, and their requests continued after Donald Trump’s inauguration. However, the Treasury’s payment systems have usually only been accessed by a small number of career officials.

The Bureau of Fiscal Service operates the systems, controlling $6 trillion of money disbursement around the country. Tens, and possibly hundreds, of millions of people rely on the systems, which distribute Social Security and Medicare benefits, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, grants, and tax refunds, as well as thousands of other things.

Lebryk joined the department in 1989 as an intern, and has worked for three decades under 11 different treasury secretaries. His departure at this time doesn’t bode well, especially since he served in the previous Trump administration and was praised by Trump’s current deputy treasury secretary, Michael Faulkender, in 2023.

“I could not, to this day, tell you his politics,” said Faulkender, who worked with Lebryk in sending out stimulus payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, an effort Lebryk led. “He always seemed to be relaxed and under control.”

It appears that Musk, while upending the lives of federal workers, is now causing chaos with the U.S. government’s money flow. If federal officials who have served for decades under different presidents, including Trump, see a need to quit, that’s not a good sign for the country.

The Trump administration’s changes to its email settings has federal employees getting endlessly spammed with vulgar content.

When Trump took office, he changed the email system so that every single federal worker could be contacted with one email. People are taking advantage of that. According to online reports, all 13,000 employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, were flooded with spam emails on Thursday.

“I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks. From a Scientology confirmation email to an Important Weather Alert that the next 4 years has a 99% chance of shit showers,” one federal worker wrote on the r/fednews subreddit. “I guess this is what happens when you plug in an unsecured server.”

“Aren’t you tired of working for a complete cunt?” one of the NOAA emails read. “TRUMP TRIED TO SUCK MY COCK,” said another. The email with the subject “Important Weather Alert” read, “The next 4 years has a 99% chance of shit showers. Our president is a retard and his VP is a f—. We’re cooked. Please reply.”

Not everyone is using this basic lack of security oversight for crassness.

“I just sent this email to all 13,000 federal employees of the NOAA lol,” said journalist Ken Klippenstein, sharing an email asking federal workers to subscribe to his newsletter. “The Trump administration’s changes to their communications system made it so literally anyone can blast messages out to the entire agency.”

Trump has yet to comment on the spam emails.

President Donald Trump made his declaration that the tragic midair crash over Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people late Wednesday was the fault of President Joe Biden’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies before he was even briefed by the chief agency responsible for investigating the tragedy.

Hours after his initial comments, Trump was in the Oval Office Thursday signing another executive order, this time on aviation safety, linking DEI initiatives to the deadly accident.

The order called for a total review of “all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols” made during the Biden administration, while also alleging the former president “egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.

“This review shall include a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden administration,” the order read.

But when pressed by reporters during the signing as to whether he legitimately believed that race or gender played into the tragedy, Trump simultaneously refused to disown the prejudiced statement and failed to express confidence in his administration’s own theory.

“It may have, I don’t know,” Trump said. “Incompetence might have played a role, we’ll let you know that.

“You’re talking about extremely complex things, and if they don’t have a great brain—a great power of the brain, they’re not going to be very good at what they do, and bad things will happen,” he added.

A preliminary safety report on the crash by the Federal Aviation Administration found that staffing at the airport’s air traffic control tower was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” relying on one individual instead of two to handle helicopter traffic as well as incoming and departing planes the night of the crash.

That would imply that the fault of the crash was a systemic issue, rather than the intellectual deficit of one individual as Trump suggested.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not have the opportunity to brief Trump until midafternoon. By then, Trump had already blamed DEI for the crash. He signed the executive order shortly after the briefing, despite the fact that the NTSB had warned it wasn’t yet able to determine what had caused the crash.

“Our investigating team will be on scene as long as it takes in order to obtain all the perishable evidence and all the fact finding that is needed to come to a conclusion of probable cause,” NTSB Board Member Todd Inman told reporters Thursday afternoon. “Since we’re just beginning our investigation, we don’t have a great deal of information to share right now.

“Our goal is to have a preliminary report within 30 days,” Inman added.

A U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane collided above Reagan National Airport just outside of Washington. The plane, a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by a subsidiary of American Airlines, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members at the time of the crash, according to airline CEO Robert Isom.

Critics have pointed to an executive order–initiated federal hiring freeze as a potential tension point for the Federal Aviation Administration, at a time when the vast majority of the country’s air traffic control sites are significantly understaffed.

It is currently not clear whether the freeze directly affected the FAA. The order provided allowances for roles described as “public safety professionals.”

Donald Trump just will not take Wednesday night’s deadly aviation collision seriously.

While signing yet another batch of executive orders on Thursday, the president was asked whether he planned to visit the site of the deadly midair crash between a military helicopter and an American Airlines flight, which killed all 67 people on board the two aircraft.

“I have a plan to visit, not the site, because why don’t you tell me, what’s the site? The water?” Trump said. “You want me to go swimming?”

Trump followed up his flippant response by saying he planned to meet with some of the family members of those who had died in the crash.

The bodies of at least 28 people had been recovered from the Potomac River by Thursday evening, as recovery operations continued, according to the Associated Press.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump had suggested that the Biden administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices were to blame for the crash, specifically pointing to the Federal Aviation Administration’s practice of hiring people with “targeted disabilities.” The FAA published a report contradicting this outlandish and unserious claim, saying that staffing in the air traffic control tower was “not normal” on Wednesday night when the crash occurred.

It’s also worth noting that Trump went on television to speak about the crash hours before he had actually briefed on the incident. Meanwhile, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said Thursday it is too early to tell what exactly caused the crash.