Trump’s Chaotic Behavior Is Causing an Even Bigger Mess in Congress

A lack of communication between Donald Trump’s White House and Republicans in Congress is confusing the MAGA agenda, and making some lawmakers downright angry, NOTUS reported Friday.

Trump’s whirlwind reentry into the executive branch has seen the president pen dozens of executive orders. In just three weeks, Trump has frozen tens of billions in congressionally appropriated funds to the Pentagon, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, FEMA, and thousands of other accounts.

His administration has started gutting entire agencies, from USAID to the Environmental Protection Agency. He has inserted the language of fetal personhood into executive memos, elevating the anti-abortion rhetoric to the national stage. He issued a wildly unpopular blanket pardon for some 1,500 rioters who stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

But many of Trump’s changes have come without warning or discussion for vulnerable Republicans, who’ve been left holding the bag as thousands of their constituents call in with pressing questions regarding the seismic changes. And lawmakers have no answers.

More than half a dozen Republican members and their staffers expressed frustration to NOTUS that Trump’s erratic decisions were breaking down voter relationships with Capitol Hill. One member noted that, despite a “never-ending stream of press releases” from the White House, the Oval Office had failed to release documents or memos legitimately “laying out the facts.”

Another GOP member told NOTUS that the budget freeze had constituents “shitting Twinkies,” while lawmakers were left with zero clarity on what to tell them.

“Hard to defend controversial executive orders when there’s no heads-up nor rationale,” a third GOP politician said.

And Trump’s candid rhetoric has also set Congress aflame: The president’s spontaneous decision to say the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip left Republicans scrambling to respond.

“They need to get their shit together,” one aide, speaking of the White House, told NOTUS.

Donald Trump’s executive order this week banning transgender women from women’s sports has already found its first victim: the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The NCAA updated its rules Thursday to only allow people assigned female at birth to participate in women’s sports after Trump signed an executive order that directs the Education Department to withdraw federal funding from schools that allow transgender women and girls to compete on grounds of violating Title IX (a federal law that bans gender discrimination in college sports). The order flips the groundbreaking civil rights law around to discriminate against the fewer than 15 trans athletes who exist among the NCAA’s 530,000 student-athletes.

“In a few moments I’ll sign a historic executive order to ban men from competing in women’s sports, it’s about time,” Trump said during his order signing Wednesday. “Under the Trump administration we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes and we will not allow men to beat up, injure, and cheat our women and our girls. From now on women’s sports will be only for women.”

The Education Department will now begin investigating schools like the University of Pennsylvania, San José State University, and a Massachusetts high school athletic association over allegations that they have transgender students on their teams.

“4 executive orders now against trans people. He’s banned us from sports, the military, schools, and healthcare. Representatives are calling us slurs in Congress,” trans comedian Stacy Cay wrote on X. “So are y’all done yet? How much further do y’all plan to take this? And at what point will other people care?”

“The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement. “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”

This is the same Charlie Baker who said last year in front of Congress that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes active in the NCAA. This is a vicious attack on an already unrepresented, powerless minority group. Expect more of the same in the very near future.

For some reason, President Trump has tasked JD Vance with handling the future of TikTok.

Along with national security adviser Michael Waltz, the vice president has been given the job of handling the social media platform’s possible sale to an American entity, Punchbowl News reports. Vance and Waltz will be overseeing the national security aspects of such a transaction.

Shortly after taking office, Trump said he would put a 90-day pause on forcing TikTok to be sold or banned, ignoring a law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order ordering the Treasury and Commerce Department to create a “sovereign wealth fund” for the United States, and suggested the fund could be used to acquire TikTok.

Vance will have to navigate concerns from national security hawks in potentially brokering a TikTok sale, as many lawmakers in both parties have attacked the app’s connections to China. But the real reasons behind Congress’s vote to require a sale in April may not have been security concerns or threats to Americans’ personal information.

According to now-former Senator Mitt Romney, the bill passed with bipartisan support because of widespread pro-Palestinian advocacy on TikTok.

“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard,” Romney said last spring.

Now Vance will be in charge of a sale initially pushed by the right but enabled by Democrats, which they later came to regret. Billionaires Frank McCourt and his business partner Kevin O’Leary (of Shark Tank fame) have expressed interest in buying the platform, and McCourt has even met with Senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, regarding such a purchase, according to Punchbowl.

Meanwhile, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has not publicly pursued selling the platform.

A key Democrat on the Federal Elections Commission has hit back after President Donald Trump made a pathetic attempt to illegally remove her.

Ellen Weintraub, an opponent of corporate dark money who has served as a commissioner on the FEC panel for 20 years, on Thursday posted a letter that she had received, signed by the president himself. His message was brief.

“You are hereby removed as a member of the Federal Election Commission, effectively immediately. Thank you for your service on the Commission,” the letter said.

Weintraub wasn’t going to be so easily dismissed.

“Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of @FEC,” Weintraub wrote on X. “There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners—this isn’t it. I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon.”

A commissioner can only be removed after the president nominates a replacement, and that person is then confirmed by the Senate. Weintraub, whose six-year term as a commissioner technically expired in 2007 but who has remained on the commission, took the rotating position as FEC chair in January.

The FEC has received dozens of complaints accusing Trump of violating campaign finance law, but none of them has been pursued because of the panel’s bipartisan deadlock. Weintraub, who has made public statements about these complaints, told The New York Times she’s “not really surprised that I am on their radar.”

Weintraub is one of three Democrats on the panel of six commissioners, a structure that often leads to a deadlock as a bipartisan vote is necessary for the watchdog agency to do anything. But Weintraub helped to engineer a new system to make the deadlock work for the Democrats, instead of against them. In her scheme, the FEC fails over and over again to vote, appearing as dysfunctional as possible, thereby compelling the federal courts to act by enforcing federal election law in its stead.

Even the people closest to Donald Trump are suffering under Elon Musk’s sudden takeover of the executive branch, and they’re turning to an unexpected savior to intervene: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Vitali, Wired’s Jake Lahut revealed Friday that a slew of longtime Trump loyalists have turned to the so-called “ice maiden” to liberate the administration from Musk’s influence.

“You spoke to half a dozen Trump loyalists, Republican aides, and advisers inside and around the administration,” Vitali started. “I think many of them, even though they say they’re shocked to be saying this, the rift almost seemed inevitable. But how much of a rift actually is it? And what is the sense behind the scenes?”

“I still don’t have a clear sense of the factions at play here, but it’s happening,” Lahut said. “I wouldn’t call it a full-blown freak-out quite yet, but the folks I talked to have all been loyal to Trump and have been on the [Trump] train since before January 6, and it takes quite a lot to rattle or surprise these people.

“And these are folk who, you know, normally would be inclined to spin this in some sort of way,” Lahut continued. “Instead, they don’t know who to turn to. A lot of them want Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, to intervene in some form.”

Wiles, whose job it is to iron out the creases in Trump’s chaotic Cabinet and streamline his mission, has already butted heads with Musk. Last month, she refused the billionaire a coveted permanent office in the White House. That move came weeks after Wiles told Axios that anyone who wants to be a “star” would have no place on her team.

“I don’t welcome people who want to work solo or be a star,” Wiles told Axios by email in early January. “My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama. These are counterproductive to the mission.”

The Justice Department is suing the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois for not caving to the Trump administration’s performative, fear-inducing immigration raids.

The DOJ wants to stop the city from enforcing its sanctuary city laws that they say “interfere with and discriminate against” Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown—yet another installment of the beef between the president and the city, which goes back to a canceled 2016 campaign rally.

Last month, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said that immigrants would be protected, “whether you’re undocumented, whether you are seeking asylum, or whether you’re seeking a good-paying job.

“We’re going to fight and stand up for working people. That’s what Chicago is known for,” he continued. “We’re going to continue to do that regardless of who’s in the White House.”

Last week, “border czar” Tom Homan complained that Chicagoans were too knowledgeable for ICE to carry out effective raids.

“Sanctuary citizens are making it very difficult to arrest the criminals. For instance, Chicago, very well-educated. They’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE,” Homan said. “I’ve seen many pamphlets from many NGOs: ‘Here’s how you escape ICE from arresting you’; ‘Here’s what you need to do.’ They call it ‘Know your rights.’ I call it ‘How to escape arrest.’”

On Saturday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker let Trump know he was “not afraid” of any retaliation he may receive from the president for his actions.

“We’re not gonna have our police here locally coordinating with federal officials to have them taken away.… It’s a reckless set of policies that [Trump is] engaging in,” Pritzker said on MSNBC’s The Weekend.

In a statement responding to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Pritzker’s office, Alex Gough, said, “Instead of working with us to support law enforcement, the Trump Administration is making it more difficult to protect the public, just like they did when Trump pardoned the convicted January 6 violent criminals.”

Johnson said in his own statement that the “safety and security of Chicago residents remains the priority for the Johnson Administration. Chicago will continue to protect the working people of our city and defend against attacks on our longstanding values.”

Justice Department lawyers refused Thursday to ensure that a list of FBI agents who had worked on January 6 cases wouldn’t have their names revealed as retribution for investigating and arresting a violent cohort of Donald Trump’s supporters, according to a new report from NOTUS.

On Monday, FBI employees were forced to respond to a questionnaire probing their involvement in the nearly 2,400 cases that stemmed from the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

While the agents involved hadn’t committed any partisanship or wrongdoing by simply doing their jobs, it’s not clear that Trump, who pardoned 1,500 rioters upon returning to office, will see it that way.

Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, who was appointed wholly by accident, has emerged as a staunch defender of agents involved in the January 6 investigations and refused to turn over the list of names. Instead, he presented only their employee ID numbers.

FBI special agents have already filed two lawsuits to protect the identities of those on the list. In D.C. District Court Thursday, lawyers representing the FBI employees argued that the information could potentially be weaponized by Trump, Elon Musk, or the Department of Government Efficiency.

But lawyers for the Justice Department wouldn’t give a straight answer when asked by District Court Judge Jia M. Cobb whether the names would be kept confidential, noting that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for FBI agents to have their names made public in court papers.

“We need to consult with our superiors,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Simon, according to NOTUS. Later, in an email, prosecutors said simply that they currently had no “intention” to publish the names and would notify the federal judge if they changed their minds.

Pamela M. Keith, the attorney representing nine anonymous FBI employees, said that the department’s unwillingness to promise that the names wouldn’t be released was something that “stood out” to her, NOTUS reported.

A federal judge has suspended President Donald Trump’s mass federal employee buyout scheme until at least Monday, when arguments on the program will be heard at a court hearing.

“I make no assessment at this stage of the merits of the claims,” Judge George O’Toole Jr. said at the hearing in Boston on Thursday, NBC News reported. The Trump administration offered federal workers the choice of a return to full-time in-office work or to quit with a buyout and severance pay through September 30. An email sent at the time stated that there “will NOT be an extension of this program.”

The buyout plan, also known as the “Fork in the Road” initiative due to its similarity to Elon Musk’s offer to Twitter employees in 2022, has been sending shock waves throughout the federal government. Trump has been very clear that it is a direct attempt to overhaul the federal bureaucracy in his image. Over 60,000 employees, or about 3 percent of federal workers, have accepted the offer.

“We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Earlier on Thursday, a federal judge partially halted Musk’s DOGE henchmen from accessing government databases, making the Boston ruling the second setback of the day for the Trump administration. But the future of this “Fork in the Road” effort remains to be seen, as it has also been challenged by multiple federal employee unions.

A U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday partially blocked Elon Musk and his DOGE groupies from further accessing government databases.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved a temporary restraining order that prevents two DOGE-affiliated employees from accessing anything other than read-only records from the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s systems.

The restricted employees are Tom Krause and Marko Elez, who will be permitted access on an “as needed” basis, according to the filing. Prior to joining Musk’s federal team, Krause served as a chief executive of a Silicon Valley software company, while Elez is a 25-year-old engineer with experience at two of Musk’s companies: X and SpaceX.

“The Defendants will not provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” the order reads.

The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, alleging that the newly minted Trump appointee had provided Musk and his team “full access” to Americans’ personal and financial information.

The order barred “any person who is an employee (but not a Special Government Employee) of the Department of the Treasury and who has a need for the record or system of records in the performance of their duties.”

The agreement will stay in place until February 24, when both parties are expected to return to court for a long-term preliminary injunction, according to ABC News.

Senator Ron Wyden is calling out Donald Trump and Elon Musk for carrying out a “coup” in their slash-and-burn takeover of federal agencies.

During an appearance on The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Wyden, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, gave a grim answer to host Nilay Patel’s intrepid question of “What the fuck is going on?”

“That is the question of the hour,” Wyden replied. “And it is almost impossible to divine an answer because it moves from minute to minute. Donald Trump essentially governs by whim.”

“I’m very troubled by the type of policies that they are pursuing that when you add them up, looks and feels like a coup,” Wyden said, noting that Democrats had been trying to stop Trump and Musk where they could.

“If I were to embrace it in a sentence apropos of ‘what the hell is going on here,’ is that Trump and Musk are ignoring the checks and balances of our republic, and for all practical purposes I’d call that a coup.”

After pillaging USAID over the weekend and illegally shuttering the agency, Musk then gained access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, which could affect programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments, all of which fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. In a letter to Wyden Tuesday, the Treasury Department insisted that Musk’s team at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is merely performing an audit of the system, and not, as some sources have suggested, rewriting code. Wyden told The New Republic that the letter “reeks of a cover-up.”

“It doesn’t pass the smell test,” Wyden said to TNR.

Wyden has been sounding the alarm on the Trump-Musk takeover in other ways. In a statement Tuesday urging his colleagues to vote against the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Wyden said that what the U.S. is witnessing is nothing short of “an authoritarian takeover of our federal government by Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

“They’ve set their sights on a full purge of anyone in government that doesn’t bend the knee and follow their orders,” he said in the statement, saying that their actions had “dubious legal and constitutional authority, and flies in the face of Congressional authority.”

Decoder’s full interview with Wyden will be published Monday.