Trump Has Some Potentially Deadly Cuts Planned for Weather Research

Next on the White House’s chopping block: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Trump administration is planning to close “all weather and climate labs and eviscerate its budget along with several other NOAA offices,” CNN reported Friday. In internal documents obtained by the network, the administration claimed that the agency’s myriad weather-related programs “are misaligned with the … expressed will of the American people.”

A source familiar with the plan told CNN that Republicans’ draft budget had been distributed to NOAA as a preemptive framework for how to slash its current operating budget. It would include eliminating the agency’s research office and ending funding for regional climate data programs, climate research, and sea grant programs.

The budget proposal would also “severely defund” other portions of NOAA, including the National Ocean Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, and would offload some of its responsibilities to the Interior Department.

The draft would cut the agency’s overall budget by more than 27 percent and funding for its research office by as much as 75 percent, according to CNN.

The hard and fast wake-up call for the research agency suggests that the cuts could be implemented before the end of the year.

Losing NOAA and its federally funded research would have obvious impacts for the average American. It would effectively privatize weather forecasts, forcing U.S. citizens to pay for weather subscriptions to replace what currently feels commonplace, including national weather alert systems for emergencies such as flash flooding, tornadoes, extreme heat, and earthquakes.

The loss of NOAA would also have a cataclysmic effect on the American agricultural system, which relies on free and accurate weather reports, climate research, and analysis in order to plan its seasons.

Trump first dropped in September—as Hurricane Helene swept through the American South—that he was interested in dismantling the weather monitoring agency.

Nixing NOAA was the brainchild of Project 2025. On page 664, the Christian Nationalist manifesto pitched that the agency “should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”

Five more major law firms have succumbed to President Donald Trump’s punitive threats as he continues his blatantly illegal intimidation of legal professionals. 

Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling US LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and Latham & Watkins LLP will provide pro bono services of at least $500 million, Trump boasted in a Truth Social post Friday afternoon. In a separate post, Trump revealed another $100 million deal with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. 

The firms will provide services to causes “President Trump and the Law Firms both support and agree to work on, including in the following areas: Assisting Veterans and other Public Servants, including, among others, members of the Military, Gold Star families, Law Enforcement, and First Responders; ensuring fairness in our Justice System; and combatting Antisemitism,” Trump wrote, adding that the firms will not engage in “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion practices either.  

“The Law Firms will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full political spectrum, including Conservative ideals,” the post continues. In other words, the law firms will aid the Trump administration’s volatile attack on free speech, civil liberties, and the Constitution—for free. 

“Concurrent with these agreements, the EEOC has withdrawn the March 17, 2025 letters to the Law Firms, and will not pursue any claims related to those issues,” Trump noted, referring to his intimidation of the firms.

The announcements come as part of Trump’s widespread attack on law firms, punishing them for filing lawsuits he disagrees with or hiring attorneys he doesn’t like. He’s issued executive orders penalizing some of the country’s top law firms, many of which have bent to the president’s will—including Wilkie Farr & Gallagher, the law firm of former second gentleman Doug Emhoff. 

The total amount of free services pledged by law firms has now reached more than $900 million, a concerning statistic not only for other law firms but for the rule of law itself.

The Department of Justice offered a flimsy excuse Friday for why it couldn’t comply with an order to present plans to return the Maryland father wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The Supreme Court upheld an order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis Thursday night directing the DOJ to deliver plans to the court by 9:30 a.m Friday morning “to facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Lawyers for the DOJ asked to have the hearing delayed to provide time to “evaluate” the Supreme Court’s order. When the clock elapsed on the government’s deadline, lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued that the DOJ had no excuse for being unprepared because it already had been under order to deliver their plans before Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay on the order on Monday. Xinis granted the government’s request for an extension, which then elapsed again.

Finally, in a brief two-page filing Friday, lawyers for the government claimed that the court had set an “impractical” deadline and that they had been provided “insufficient” time to draw up plans.

The lawyers claimed that they didn’t fully understand Xinis’s order (“The Court has not yet clarified what it means to ‘facilitate’ or ‘effectuate’ the return,”) and that their perfect compliance with Roberts’s stay had prevented them from doing their homework.

The Supreme Court had instructed Xinis to clarify “the intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’” and warned that it “may exceed the District Court’s authority.” But the high court ruled that Xinis had “properly” ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

In its insistence not to share its plan going forward, the government completely ignored Xinis’s request to share “what it can concerning the steps it has taken” prior to the order, according to Kyle Cheney, Politico’s senior legal correspondent.

“Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality,” the government’s lawyers wrote in its filing, arguing that the order had come in too late in the evening Thursday.

“Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,” the DOJ added.

The Trump administration is desperate to convince Americans that Donald Trump’s trade war won’t affect their wallets.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer took to Fox News Friday, attempting to claim that the tariff plan had not destabilized the U.S. economy—but even on his favorite network, Trump’s policies faced heat.

“They say tariffs are gonna cost the American household $4,800,” prompted co-host Brian Kilmeade. “What do you say to those households?”

“First of all, I would say, with respect to those projections, a lot of those are Wall Street analysts who have a lot to lose themselves,” Greer said.

Except those numbers didn’t come from Wall Street analysts. Instead, the prediction came from a new report by the Yale Budget Lab, which assessed that Trump’s tariffs would raise the cost of goods by 2.9 percent, “the equivalent of a loss of purchasing power of $4,700 per household on average in 2024 dollars.”

And Greer’s point that it’d be men on Wall Street rejecting Trump’s roller-coaster ride of a market agenda rings especially hollow in light of the fact that the market has already seen its fair share of winners and losers. Some of the biggest winners, however, appear to be Trump’s billionaire buddies—notably his right-hand man Elon Musk, who has seen massive gains amid the up-and-down chaos.

Meanwhile, Trump’s weeklong global tariff volley and its ensuing volatility affected some 62 percent of Americans who participate in the market in some way or another, either by way of holding individual stocks or investing their money in retirement plans such as 401(k)s, IRAS, or pensions.

“I think the economic fundamentals of our country are still very, very good, and while there may be an adjustment, I think we’re going to be on a good path and I don’t think we’re going to see that level of increase in household expenses,” Greer added.

The administration’s slapdash approach to global trade was on full display Wednesday, when Greer was caught completely out of the loop while testifying before the ​​House Ways and Means Committee. His lack of prior knowledge made it abundantly clear that communication has eroded so thoroughly through Trump’s Cabinet that even the U.S. trade representative had not been apprised of the president’s decision to temporarily reverse course on his tariff agenda.

It turns out that Donald Trump’s erratic tariff policy is not popular with manufacturing workers.

A new Washington Post poll of over 500 workers showed that 52 percent oppose the trade measures, believing that they are bad for their livelihoods and the country. In addition, 57 percent of them said that tariffs would hurt their jobs and careers, while 59 percent said that tariffs would hurt the companies they work for.

When broken down on partisan lines, less than half of Donald Trump voters (44 percent) said they believed tariffs would help them, while 87 percent of Harris voters said they would hurt them. A slight majority of the poll’s respondents said they favored or leaned toward the Republican Party, making the results more striking.

Trump has alternately raised and lowered tariffs, confusing markets and businesses. At the moment, there are 145 percent tariffs on China, 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods not covered by the USMCA trade agreement, and 10 percent on most other countries. The moves have already led to layoffs in certain American industries, such as automobiles, and a looming recession would lead to even more job losses.

But Trump doesn’t seem to have any kind of plan with his tariffs and is making it up as he goes along. Without any clarity as to where things are going, not only will industries and markets continue to slide, but Trump may start to lose support from manufacturing workers, many of whom were part of the reason for his election victory in 2024.

Trump has already created thousands of disgruntled, laid-off federal workers. If Democrats capitalize on the vast numbers of Americans worried about their jobs, the result would be big losses for the GOP in 2026, and possibly even 2028.

Donald Trump’s administration has been begging for a call from Chinese President Xi Jinping—despite Trump’s claims that his reciprocal tariff policy sent nations scrambling to cut deals with him. But instead of fostering negotiations, it seems their desperation only made things worse. 

Beijing announced Friday that it was raising tariffs on U.S. goods from 84 percent to 125 percent, following confirmation from the White House the day before that it was placing tariffs of 145 percent on Chinese goods. 

Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, the Trump administration had attempted to talk Chinese officials out of levying more retaliatory tariffs, and advised them to have their president give Trump a call, according to CNN. 

Instead of entreating Xi to a meeting, U.S. officials awoke Friday to even more tariffs, and no request to begin negotiations. 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer confirmed Friday morning that the U.S. had not yet begun talks with Chinese officials to walk back the tariffs.

The White House has claimed to have started negotiations with officials from 75 countries—though it has refused to divulge which ones—in response to Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy. China has been a notable holdout, and was therefore made exempt from Trump’s 90-day pause on new rates going into effect. 

The Trump administration has been saying pretty much the same thing to China for roughly two months, insisting that Beijing must make the first move, but with no luck. Trump claimed Wednesday that “China wants to make a deal. They just don’t know how quite to go about it,” noting that the Chinese were a “proud” people.  

China’s Finance Ministry released a statement Friday saying that it wouldn’t fall for Trump’s blatant bullying. 

“Even if the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy,” the ministry said in the statement, which CNBC translated.

“With tariff rates at the current level, there is no longer a market for U.S. goods imported into China,” the statement said, adding that “if the U.S. government continues to increase tariffs on China, Beijing will ignore.”

Donald Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland is very real, and it apparently involves convincing the country to hand itself over to U.S. control.

The White House National Security Council has met “several times” to make Trump’s desires for the arctic island a reality, reported The New York Times, which spoke to a U.S. official who said the council had sent “specific instructions to multiple arms of the government.” But those instructions apparently never specified the use of military force.

Instead, the effort is driven by a massive P.R. campaign consisting of spending federal dollars on advertising and social media campaigns with hopes of persuading Greenland’s 57,000 residents to basically annex themselves for America.

The prospect of that happening, however, is laughable. Greenland, which is a  semiautonomous territory of Denmark, has not taken kindly to Trump and his associates’ sudden interest in acquiring their land. After months of heavy pressure from the Trump family, including an embarrassing stunt in which Donald Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food, and an effort in the U.S. Congress to rename the territory “Red, White, and Blueland,” Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences in March to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Demokraatit Party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Sky News the night his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, making him prime minister. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

Other Greenland officials have been more blunt. In January, the chair of Greenland’s parliamentary Foreign and Security Policy Committee Pipaluk Lynge warned the U.S. not to “invade” the nation, which is largely composed of Indigenous tribes, in light of America’s historical treatment of Alaska’s Indigenous population.

A late January poll by pollster Verian found that 85 percent of Greenland’s residents do not want to become part of the United States. Just 6 percent were in favor of the switch, while 8 percent were undecided, according to The Guardian.

That disinterest became more apparent in late March, when second lady Usha Vance’s trip around Greenland was gutted and canceled after American representatives were spotted walking around Nuuk, the island’s capital, failing to find residents who would be interested in a visit from the vice president’s wife.

But none of that has thwarted Trump’s interest.

“We need [Greenland] for international security,” Trump said during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last month. “That whole area is becoming very important, for a lot of reasons. The routes are very direct to Asia, to Russia, and you have ships all over the place. We have to have protection. 

“So, we’re going to have to make a deal on that, and Denmark is not able to do that, and you know, Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t think it is, actually,” the apparent anti-colonialist activist added.

In an address to Congress last month, Trump clarified his intention: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

A Republican lawmaker has a new wildly racist explanation for the deadly measles outbreak.

During a CNN town hall Thursday, Representative Ryan Mackenzie presented his own theory about the more than 600 confirmed cases of measles.

“Many of these instances that are coming into our country are from illegal immigrants who have crossed the border with no checks, no actual health records, and they are bringing these diseases into our country. There is a reason why measles have started to spread in our country after decades of being almost eradicated,” the Pennsylvania Republican said.

Last month, Dr. Jennifer Shuford, who oversees the Texas Department of State Health Services, told lawmakers that she had no data pinpointing the origin of the outbreak. But, she warned, its rapid spread was caused by lower immunization rates and a “decreased interest or decrease in trust in vaccines.”

Mackenzie’s claim that the measles outbreak was caused by undocumented immigrants holds absolutely no water, but is par for the course for MAGA Republicans intent on blaming the country’s ills on a vulnerable population. Mackenzie spent much of his stage time praising Donald Trump and defending the president’s sweeping tariff policy.

Mackenzie was promptly lambasted for his baseless and racist attempt to blame undocumented immigrants.

“Nope, sorry, Rep. Mackenzie. People in the U.S. - not getting vaccinated - is why it’s spreading,” the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats wrote Friday on X.

Courtney Rice, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote on X that Mackenzie’s comments were “despicable and, frankly, racist AF.”

“Every House Republican needs to denounce this dangerous rhetoric immediately,” she added.

As Americans navigate Donald Trump’s deranged war on global trade, consumers have never trusted him less.

Consumer sentiment has plunged for the fourth month in a row, according to new data released Friday by the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, a key indicator of national economic conditions.

“Consumers report multiple warning signs that raise the risk of recession: expectations for business conditions, personal finances, incomes, inflation, and labor markets all continued to deteriorate this month,” the University of Michigan said in a statement.

Sentiment among consumers is down 11 percent from March, and the decline was “pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation,” wrote survey director Joanne Hsu. Sentiment is also down 30 percent from December, before Donald Trump took office and tanked the hopes of millions of consumers desperate for affordable groceries and sustainable livelihoods.

Since taking office, Trump has spurred economic mayhem in the United States and abroad with his relentless flip-flopping on tariffs and perverse trade policy. On his so-called “Liberation Day,” Trump used national emergency powers to enact tariffs ranging from 10 to 60 percent on more than 90 nations, including an 84 percent tariff. A week later, he announced a 90-day reduction on most of the tariffs while ramping up those on China, leading to some of the most volatile fluctuations financial markets have seen in decades—not exactly the best way to gain consumer trust.

The index also showed that inflation expectations grew from 5 percent last month to 6.7 percent, the highest recorded reading since 1981. Unemployment expectations among consumers also rose to more than double what they were last year.

The numbers were recorded and released before Trump announced the 90-day freeze on reciprocal tariffs, which may have inspired some relief among consumers. Regardless, Americans across all demographics are losing faith in the administration that promised them economic refuge.

Donald Trump’s former attorney turned interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey is threatening to prosecute the state’s governor.

Alina Habba, following reports that Governor Phil Murphy has directed state police not to work with federal immigration officers, told Fox News Thursday that she has directed her office to open an investigation into Murphy, as well as New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, saying that she wanted it “to be a warning for everybody.”

“That will no longer stand,” Habba said, of Murphy and Platkin’s actions.

“[Attorney General] Pam Bondi has made it clear, and so has our president, that we are to take all violent criminals and criminals out of this country and completely enforce federal law, and anybody who does get in that way … will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard, and those investigations will start immediately,” Habba told Sean Hannity.

It’s a direct challenge to the leader of a heavily Democratic state by the Trump administration. New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive, issued in 2018, limits how much assistance law enforcement officers can provide to federal immigration authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Murphy has thumbed his nose at the Trump administration over immigration, at one point in February alluding to harboring an undocumented immigrant in his home and daring ICE to come after them, resulting in a backlash from right-wing media. Murphy later clarified and said that actually wasn’t the case, but that likely put him on MAGA’s radar, with Trump’s border czar saying, “We’ll look into it.”

A president taking legal action against a sitting governor is unprecedented, and threatens to cause a constitutional and legal crisis. The question is how the federal court system will handle charges against Murphy if the situation gets that far.