“Next Question”: Hakeem Jeffries Dodges Questions on Schumer’s Future

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave a nonanswer when asked whether Senator Chuck Schumer needed to be replaced as Senate minority leader.

Jeffries was speaking to the press Friday regarding the impending government funding deadline, which will come down to a vote in the Senate for the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans. A reporter point-blank asked the New York congressman, “Is it time for new leadership in the Senate?”

“Next question,” Jeffries said, refusing to answer.

When asked if he has lost confidence in Schumer, Jeffries again replied, “Next question.”

“You have dodged multiple times questions about whether you have confidence right now in Schumer, and … none of you are willing to say you have confidence in Chuck Schumer?” a reporter finally asked.

“You keep engaging in parlor games because you want to take the focus off of the American people,” Jeffries said, still refusing to answer the question.

The fact that Jeffries could have easily said “no” but tried to quickly move past the question is telling. Schumer’s decision to support the GOP’s continuing resolution angered many Democrats on Capitol Hill, especially since all but one House Democrat voted against the bill. Some Democrats, including centrists, have reportedly even urged Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a primary challenge to Schumer in 2028.

Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t addressed the question, but former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed the idea of Senate Democrats supporting the Republican bill in a statement on Friday, calling it “unacceptable.”

“I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill,” Pelosi said in her statement.

Pelosi, one mustn’t forget, was a major driving force behind Joe Biden stepping down as the Democratic nominee for president in the 2024 election, and her experience and words carry a lot of weight for Democrats in Congress. If Jeffries isn’t publicly supporting Schumer, and Pelosi is publicly criticizing his decision to support the GOP’s continuing resolution, that could mean that Schumer’s days leading Senate Democrats are numbered.

The Trump administration practically declared war on the nation’s judicial system Friday, asserting that the executive branch would aggressively fight court orders requiring them to rehire thousands of federal employees.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the system of checks and balances as “unconstitutional,” telling reporters that the administration would fight back by appealing the decisions with the “full weight” of the White House legal counsel.

“You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States,” Leavitt said. “That is absurd.”

Leavitt then said it was within the president’s authority to “fire or hire” judges, while highlighting that federal courts had placed more injunctions on the administration’s “agenda” in the last month than the Biden administration faced during a four-year term. Somehow, Leavitt interpreted that as a personal attack on the president and his policies rather than an indication that the administration’s strategies have been legally dubious.

“It’s very clear that there are judicial activists throughout our judicial branch who are trying to block this president’s executive authority. We are going to fight back,” Leavitt continued, underscoring the fact that Donald Trump has survived “nearly 200” legal challenges and has still ascended to the Oval Office.

But Leavitt’s argument that judicial pushback on Trump’s executive orders is somehow illegitimate ignores the fact that the three branches of government are designed to counterbalance one another. Judges are not supposed to bend to the will of a president’s agenda, but rather determine its legality based on legal precedent and the Constitution. Congress is also supposed to check the executive branch, but the Republican majorities in the House and Senate have effectively ceded that power to Trump, to curry favor with their constituents.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered several agencies to “immediately” reinstate all fired probationary employees on Thursday, slamming the mass firing of federal employees as an “unlawful” directive by the Office of Personnel Management.

Those agencies included the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as the departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Agriculture. The order would also restore numbers at the IRS, which falls under the helm of the Treasury Department and has been hit hard by job cuts in recent weeks.

In a hearing leading up to the decision, Alsup torched the Trump administration’s decision not to submit OPM director Chad Ezell for questioning as a “sham,” and called the White House’s effort to cast the firings as performance failures as “a gimmick.”

Alsup’s order was delivered as federal agencies were due to submit “reduction memos” to the White House that could affect as many as 250,000 additional probationary federal employees.

Another Columbia University pro-Palestine activist has been arrested by immigration officials, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday, as Trump issued an ultimatum to the university over its federal funding.

Officials arrested Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, for overstaying her student visa. According to DHS, she had overstayed her visa, which was terminated in 2022 for “lack of attendance.” Kordia was also arrested in April 2024 for her involvement in protests at Columbia.

In addition, the Trump administration revoked the student visa of Columbia doctoral student Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen, on March 5. Srinivasan decided to self-deport, the department said.

In a statement, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said, “It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. I am glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home App to self-deport.”

This comes as Trump on Thursday ordered Columbia to enact broad policy changes and place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership” for at least five years—or risk losing all federal funding.

All of this follows the administration’s decision last week to detain legal permanent resident and Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who organized pro-Palestine protests at Columbia, in an effort to deport the activist. At the time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

Trump also celebrated Khalil’s arrest and detention Monday, crowing on his Truth Social account and saying Khalil was the “first arrest of many to come.” Kordia’s arrest and Srinivasan’s visa revocation appear to be making good on Trump’s words. The administration appears to be making an example out of Columbia, which was home to one of the highest-profile protest encampments against Israel’s war in Gaza and in support of Palestinians.

Last week, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal grants to the university, a clear warning against any pro-Palestine activism at U.S. universities and in spite of Columbia’s crackdown on student activists. It appears that in Trump’s second term, the First Amendment to the Constitution is under threat at American colleges and universities, historically a home for activism.

Democrats are turning on Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi is leading the charge.

Schumer announced Thursday he would vote to pass Trump’s disastrous budget bill to avert a government shutdown, flipping on his own party just 24 hours after he signaled he would vote against the bill. Pelosi issued a statement the next day urging Senate Democrats not to follow his lead.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across American,” Pelosi said in a statement.

“Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable,” Pelosi continued, referencing Schumer’s betrayal. “I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill.”

The GOP bill would gut funding for health care, increase military spending, and fund mass deportation. It narrowly passed the Republican-led House, with just one Democrat voting to pass. Schumer argued that a government shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk a “carte blanche” to gut federal services. Pelosi disagreed.

“Democratic senators should listen to the women,” she said, referring to Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray, who have proposed a four-week funding extension to avert a shutdown and “negotiate a bi-partisan agreement.”

Pelosi is just the latest, but is arguably the most influential, Democrat to slam Schumer’s decision. The former House speaker infamously led the charge to oust Joe Biden as the Democratic leader leading up to last year’s election. She may be setting her sights on the House minority leader next.

“We must fight back for a better way, listen to the women, For the People,” she said.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is now coming for the post office.

The New York Times reports that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, appointed by Donald Trump in his first term and an advocate for privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, has made a deal with DOGE to assist in “identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”

DeJoy said in a letter Thursday that DOGE was “an effort aligned” with his own work in shrinking the USPS, noting that since the 2021 fiscal year, he had shrunk the postal service’s workforce by 30,000. DeJoy plans for a “further reduction of another 10,000 people in the next 30 days” as part of a one-time voluntary retirement program.

Musk also believes that the USPS should be privatized along with Amtrak, telling a tech conference last week that “we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.” Trump has in the past suggested privatization as well as merging the USPS with the Commerce Department, and recently moved to cement his control of the agency.

Privatization has been flatly rejected by Democrats and unions, who say that it would raise prices, hurt postal workers, and negatively impact rural communities, who are served by USPS thanks to the Constitution and federal law. Representative Gerald Connolly, the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, criticized the DOGE deal Thursday in a statement.

The deal would have “catastrophic consequences for all Americans—especially those in rural and hard-to-reach areas—who rely on the Postal Service every day,” the statement said.

The “only thing worse for the Postal Service,” Connolly said, would be if Musk took over USPS, allowing him “undermine it, privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.”

DOGE taking aim at the USPS is a worrying move, as private companies don’t serve many rural areas. Countless Americans depend on the postal service for medicine delivery, agricultural deliveries, and other business-critical services. Severe cutbacks would neglect the needs of Americans and create a less trustworthy service, ultimately setting the stage for privatization.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, refused to say he will oppose cuts to Medicaid.

At his Senate confirmation hearing Friday, Oz went on and on about the pitfalls of the American health care system and the “generational opportunity” before him to help “people stay healthy for longer.”

“That’s why President Trump wants to love and cherish Medicare and Medicaid,” Oz said, as the president continues to push for a spending bill that would gut health care funding.

Democrats weren’t buying it.

“What I want to know, yes or no, if you cherish Medicaid, do you oppose cuts to Medicaid?” Senator Ron Wyden asked Oz.

The celebrity talk show host avoided the question, rambling on about his Ivy League education and experience as a medical practitioner.

“That’s not the question, Doctor, the question is will you oppose cuts to this program you say you cherish?” Wyden pressed.

“I want to make sure that patients today and in the future have resources today and in the future have resources to protect them,” Oz bluffed. “The way you protect Medicaid is making sure that it’s viable at every level, which includes having enough practitioners to afford the services, paying them enough to do what you request of them and making sure—”

Wyden cut him off. “Let the records show, I asked a witness who says he cherishes this program ‘Will you agree to oppose cuts?’ and he would not answer a yes or no question.”

Throughout the hearing, Oz echoed the GOP’s blatant lies about fraudulent claims in Medicaid and the need to stop “unscrupulous people from stealing from vulnerable Americans, and extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund.” The program is the latest target of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts, despite President Donald Trump repeatedly promising he wouldn’t touch it.

It’s clear Oz will be no defender of the safety net program that serves over 72 million Americans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to cave to the Republican budget resolution has not been received well by his fellow Democrats.

Speaking with CNN on Friday, Senator Jeff Merkley said that Schumer’s sudden reversal made his own opposition to the bill even more of a “hell no.”

“You don’t stop a bully by handing over your lunch money, and you don’t stop a tyrant by giving them more power,” Jeff Merkley told the network. “That’s exactly what this House spending bill does.”

Merkley further argued that some of the rationale coming from Democratic leadership to side with the spending measure—which includes concern that Americans would blame the Democratic Party for a government shutdown—is unfounded.

“I think that’s absolutely wrong. Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, they control the Oval Office. They’d be voting against our measure to keep the government open,” Merkley said. “I think America would understand that this is a Republican shutdown, if there was a shutdown.”

Fears that a potential shutdown would give Donald Trump more power to slice and dice the government, however, are a little more legitimate, according to the Oregon lawmaker.

“Let’s turn back the clock to 2019, and what we saw with that 35-day shutdown. Well, it created a lot of leverage and power for the Democrats to take on Trump then,” Merkley said. “And I can tell you right now, if we stand up to him at this moment, it gives us a lot of leverage going forward from this point to get the objectives that we have.”

The liberal party practically imploded Thursday as it debated whether or not to maintain adamant opposition against the House GOP’s continuing resolution. At a private lunch with the Democratic caucus, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was heard screaming about the impacts of a government shutdown through the room’s “thick wood doors,” according to Fox News’s Aishah Hasnie.

Voting for the bill would effectively gut major social services, including Medicaid, a government service that provides health insurance to more than 72 million Americans.

The $880 billion cut to America’s entitlement programs is a trade-off for conservatives whom Trump has tasked to extend his 2017 tax plan, which will overwhelmingly benefit corporations and is projected to add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit.

In remarks made on the Senate floor Thursday night, Schumer argued that a government shutdown would have “consequences for America that are much, much worse” than the massive slash.

“A shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” Schumer said. “Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.

“In short: A shutdown would give Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE the keys to the city, state, and country.”

House Democrats voted nearly unanimously against the bill earlier this week. After Schumer’s remarks, top House Democrats issued a joint statement reiterating their opposition to the measure, pushing for a four-week spending bill and more time to negotiate the details of a continuing resolution.

Representative Nancy Pelosi similarly torched her peers in the upper chamber, urging Democratic senators Friday to “listen to the women,” referring to Appropriations leaders Representative Rosa DeLauro and Senator Patty Murray, who have argued for the four-week funding extension.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America,” Pelosi said. “Let’s be clear: Neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.”

Some Republicans are apparently trying to defend services such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—they’re just doing it in the worst way possible.

Investigative journalist Tara Palmeri wrote in her newsletter The Red Letter Thursday that one Republican operative close to the White House had been framing the issue in a way conservatives would understand.

“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” the operative said, according to Palmeri.

Republicans’—apparently sometimes racist—scrambling to defend popular programming comes after Elon Musk declared that Social Security would be on the chopping block, in an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow earlier this week. It seems that some of the more far-reaching cuts to Social Security pitched by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have since been scaled back.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita also hit back at Musk’s comments in an interview Friday with Politico’s Dasha Burns. “They’re not going to cut Social Security, they’re not going to cut Medicare, they’re just not. That’s just fearmongering,” he said.

“[Musk]’s not the president. He doesn’t get to make those decisions,” LaCivita added.

But some cuts are inevitable now.

Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers voted to pass a budgetary measure that would force the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees Medicaid, to reduce the deficit by at least $880 billion from 2025 to 2034. That resolution sparked widespread concerns that Republicans were simply seeking a way to slash the crucial program.

Those hoping to hear a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra Thursday night were treated to a different—but no less pleasurable—audio experience: hundreds of people booing Vice President JD Vance.

Vance’s arrival got a fiery reception at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which erupted into at least 30 seconds of jeers as Vance smiled and waved to the audience.

The vice president was accompanied by second lady Usha Vance, who was named to the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees last month, among a spate of new appointees that were part of Donald Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution.

Trump declared his intention to become the chairman of the Kennedy Center in February, before claiming that he had been “unanimously” picked to hold the position—though reportedly that wasn’t even true. He also claimed that the institution had booked drag shows “specifically targeting our youth.”

“We took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump said at the time. “I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be ‘woke.’”

Clearly, the actual attendees of the Kennedy Center have different feelings about Trump’s takeover—and let themselves be heard.

Luckily, the acoustics carried their dissent amazingly well.

Americans are unhappy with the president on just about every key issue, according to a poll published Thursday by Quinnipiac University.

Just 50 days into his second term, the majority of Americans—53 percent—disapprove of Donald Trump’s performance. That’s 11 points worse than Trump scored in a January 29 poll, when Quinnipiac found that 42 percent of the country disliked his performance.

Reacting to the survey, Fox News liberal host Jessica Tarlov noted that Trump is basically “underwater on everything.”

The country’s gripes with the MAGA leader include his decision to dismantle the Education Department, something that 60 percent of voters oppose, according to the Quinnipiac poll. Trump’s spontaneous trade war with Canada and Mexico has also not gone over well with the American public—58 percent of voters said they disapprove of Trump’s negotiations with Canada, while 56 percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump’s similar efforts in Mexico.

And Americans’ view of the economy—which Trump repeatedly turned to as his metric for success during his first term—has also sunk. More than three-quarters of the country believe that the economy is less than stellar, with 45 percent of polled voters describing it as “not so good,” while another 31 percent said that it was “poor.”

“In the Quinnipiac poll released today, 1 percent of voters describe the state of the America’s economy as excellent. That’s not a typo,” Democratic strategist Matt McDermott posted on X.

That’s a noticeable plummet from how voters felt in December, when a total of 64 percent of respondents told Quinnipiac that they believed the economy was either not so good or poor.

Immigration, which helped Trump win the White House, has also become a negative for Trump, with nearly half of voters (49 percent) disapproving of his job at the border.

Meanwhile, a minority of the country felt that Trump has successfully handled his foreign policy, with just 35 percent of respondents approving of the way that he treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House. That likely influenced Trump’s overall approval rating, which found that the Ukrainian leader is actually more popular among the American people than Trump himself (Trump’s approval rating came in at 42 percent while Zelenskiy’s was logged at 43 percent).

It’s not the only batch of unhappy polls for the president this week.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll out Thursday indicated that three in 10 Republicans believe the president has been “too erratic” in carrying out his economic agenda. Meanwhile, only Trump’s most ardent supporters opposed the language, with three in 10 Republicans telling the pollster that they “strongly disagreed” that Trump was too erratic.

And a CNN poll published Wednesday showed that one in five people who voted for Trump in 2024 disapproved of how the 78-year-old has implemented his tariff plan, as did 24 percent of Republican-leaning voters.

Another study by Center Forward, a nonpartisan nonprofit, found that some Trump voters felt the president was ignoring critical issues such as the economy.