Deadly Tornado Rips Through Midwest Days After Trump Gutted Key Agency

A violent tornado outbreak over the weekend sent millions bracing in the Midwest and South and killed at least 40 people, just days after Donald Trump’s administration ordered another round of massive layoffs at the country’s severe weather tracking agency.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency announced last week that it would terminate 10 percent of its workforce, which will equate to roughly 1,000 of the agency’s 10,000 employees.

NOAA plays an essential role in weather forecasting and warning Americans about natural disasters, including avalanches, electrical events, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, and of course, tornadoes. Reporting from 122 local offices, NOAA officials provide guidance on how to avoid danger.

The agency had already been subject to an earlier round of workforce cuts at the beginning of the month. By the time the latest cuts are complete, one in four jobs at the agency will have been terminated.

Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist who is a conservative and NOAA chief scientist under Trump, warned against the cuts, calling NOAA’s work an “amazing undertaking.”

“You can’t count on TV meteorologists to fill this gap and you can’t count on private meteorology,” Maue told the Associated Press. “You can’t count on your weather app to call you up and alert you’’ to tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and floods in your area.

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said that the cuts proposed by the Trump administration posed a serious threat to the work of his agency.

“This is not government efficiency,” Spinrad told the AP. “It is the first steps toward eradication. There is no way to make these kinds of cuts without removing or strongly compromising mission capabilities.”

The powerful storm system was exiting the U.S. on Monday, leaving behind a trail of destruction and fatalities concentrated mostly in Missouri.

Trump posted a statement on social media Sunday saying that his administration was tracking the severe weather event.

“We are actively monitoring the severe tornadoes and storms that have impacted many States across the South and Midwest—36 innocent lives have been lost, and many more devastated,” he wrote.

“The National Guard have been deployed to Arkansas, and my Administration is ready to assist State and Local Officials, as they help their communities to try and recover from the damage. Please join Melania and me in praying for everyone impacted by these terrible storms!”

But before that, he was bragging about having won a golf award at his own club.

The Trump administration is working tirelessly to undo the accomplishments of President Joe Biden—including the ex-president’s pardons.

“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social within the first hour of Monday.

Trump has accused Biden of not physically signing several of his orders as the basis for undoing them. The allegation was originally hocked by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. On Friday, the New York Post reported that a former Biden staffer had corroborated the detail, though the conservative publication refused to publish the staffer’s name due to a “lack of concrete evidence and refutations by other colleagues.”

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump continued. “The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.”

“Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,” the president wrote. “The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!”

The Constitution offers the president the unique and irrefutable power to issue pardons. In one of his final acts in office, Biden issued a slew of controversial preemptive pardons in January for individuals who had not committed crimes but had investigated, criticized, or worked to prosecute Trump for criminal wrongdoing.

The Senate advanced the House GOP spending bill Friday with some help from across the aisle. Nine Democrats, plus an independent who caucuses with Democrats, joined Republicans in passing the continuing resolution, which will extend government funding until September 30. Those senators were Dick Durbin (Illinois), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Gary Peters (Michigan), Angus King (Maine), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York).

The upper chamber needed 60 votes to pass the measure, requiring the assistance of at least seven Democratic lawmakers to join the Republican effort. The looming alternative was a government shutdown that a coalition of Democrats believed could pressure Republicans to further negotiate down the bill. The shutdown would have begun as soon as Saturday morning, and would have reduced federal services, furloughed thousands of “nonessential” government workers, and potentially paused pay for thousands of “essential” federal employees until the budget was resolved.

Deep divides in the Democratic Party emerged Thursday and Friday as lawmakers debated whether to maintain adamant opposition against the House GOP’s continuing resolution. At a private lunch with the Democratic caucus, 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.

How the caucus would vote still wasn’t clear by Friday late afternoon, when Schumer again implored Democrats to vote in favor of the Trump-endorsed budget, arguing that a shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services even faster.

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.

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.”