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Senate Republicans want Elon Musk to stop talking about Social Security, and the Department of Government Efficiency to leave it alone. Musk’s statement that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme,” and his plans to cut up to 12 percent of the Social Security Administration’s workforce, are giving GOP lawmakers heartburn. They warn that Social Security reform is known as the “third rail” of politics for a reason: Any party that touches it is likely to get zapped come Election Day. And Republicans fear that reductions in staff and field offices will boomerang on them, predicting constituents will grow frustrated if...

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance argues that importing cheap foreign labor through mass immigration has led to declining productivity and economic stagnation in the West. Speaking at a summit of venture capitalists hosted by Andreesen Horowitz on Tuesday, the Vice President stated the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom are “addicted to cheap labor,” which has fueled over 40 years of economic policy failures.“I’d say that if you look in nearly every country, from Canada to the UK, that imported large amounts of cheap labor, you’ve seen productivity stagnate,” Vance told technology industry investors attending the summit. He continued:...

A controversial Koch-backed appointment is retracted, ostensibly over Middle East issues. But the battle is really about China. On Wednesday, a Donald Trump administration official waiting for his background check to be completed was removed from a top post in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence before he officially began. Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a foreign policy expert at the Charles Koch-backed Defense Priorities, was set to become the agency’s No. 3 official, deputy director for mission integration (DDMI). Among other duties, the DDMI is responsible for preparing the presidential daily briefing (PDB), the U.S....

“They plan to pass it with all Republicans here in the House, but after we leave town, the Democrats are going to vote for it in the Senate,” he said in a video post shortly before the House vote. Massie attacked the bill for continuing the spending levels of the Biden administration and for not implementing any cuts to waste found by the Department of Government Efficiency. “This is not Trump’s agenda. This is Biden’s spending agenda,” he said. “The Biden spending levels that he enjoyed for the last 15 months of his presidency will now be locked in until...

Republican strategist Karl Rove said President Trump’s claims that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has discovered “hundreds of billions” in government “fraud” will backfire when Democrats spotlight a lack of prosecutions of those involved. During an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” Rove echoed Democratic strategist James Carville’s sentiment that Democrats should “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight.” In his joint address to Congress last week, Trump criticized the “appalling waste” in government spending, while praising DOGE head and tech billionaire Elon Musk for discovering “hundreds of billions of dollars of...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that President Trump “looks and sounds like an ally” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments from Christie came during a panel discussion on ABC News’s “This Week,” in which the group talked about the heated Oval Office meeting with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Vice President Vance. “I think one of the strangest things of watching the meeting, Chris, is seeing how personal this was for President Trump. He clearly is upset with [Zelensky],” host George Stephanopoulos said. “It probably goes back to what started his first impeachment. And...

Representative Mike Quigley (R-IL) said Friday on CNN’s “News Central” that President Donald Trump should be thanking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky because he had been fighting for democracy. When asked about his reaction to the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky, Quigley said, “I just think people should appreciate the fact that we are fundamentally a different nation than we were just weeks ago. We are alone in the world, and we are less safe.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday and called on lawmakers not to give President Donald Trump their authority.Co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “Certainly there’s a lot of debate among Democrats right now as to who is that face, who is the leader for the party right now? Who’s going to play the role that Nancy Pelosi did during those first couple of years of Trump’s initial term in office? So now let’s take a look at more from Ryan Noble’s interview with Senator Murkowski, who warned her Republican colleagues not to cede their authority to President...

Senate Republicans on Monday criticized Elon Musk’s directive for federal government employees to lose their jobs if they did not send in a bullet-pointed summary of what they did last week at work, describing it as a rash decision that was not handled well. The email asking what they accomplished over the past week had set a deadline of Monday at midnight for responses. However, that was walked back by the Office of Personnel Management when it told departments and agencies that they could ignore that email. Nevertheless, some Senate GOP members took issue with Musk’s request as he continues...

What is taking so long to get the Trump tax cut cemented into law? Why are Republicans dithering? We have a president who is surfing on a wave of popularity and a voter mandate to make the tax cuts permanent. We have a Democratic party that is rolled up into a ball of confusion. We have an economy that needs a steroid injection. We have all the evidence needed to show that the tax cut was an unequivocal success. By the CBO’s own scoring, there has been virtually no revenue loss from the lower tax rates. With each passing day,...

A Maine Republican says that her state’s transgender athlete policy is so “extreme” that it will cost the state millions in federal funding. Maine Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby is blasting Democrat Governor Janet Mills for refusing to obey President Donald Trump’s Title IX rules banning transgender athletes in girl’s sports or risk a loss of federal education funding. Maine’s Principals’ Association maintains that its state rules take precedence over the new rules written by Donald Trump’s administration, and the state’s schools will continue to allow transgender athletes to compete in girl’s and women’s sports, Fox News reported.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) broke with President Trump over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday and advised against a public spat between the two leaders. “Are you disturbed at all by the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration about Zelensky?” ABC News’s Martha Raddatz asked Lawler on “This Week.” “I did not agree with the president’s rhetoric about … Zelensky. What I would say is this, it is not — it does not behoove either side to have this public back-and-forth,” Lawler responded.

The Senate rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that would have cut spending by $1.5 trillion as the chamber considered legislation to secure the border and fulfill other parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda. The Senate on Friday morning advanced its reconciliation bill which aims to advance Trump’s priorities to secure the southern border, unleash domestic energy production, among other priorities, while leaving Trump’s proposed tax plan for the next bill. The 47th president had endorsed passing one “big beautiful” bill to pass his legislative agenda. Republicans plan to use budgetary reconciliation, an arcane legislative procedure, to...

Establishment Republican senators believe President Donald Trump is saving taxpayer money “too fast” while “rashly” purging rogue and corrupt bureaucrats. The senators requested Trump slow down on fulfilling his campaign promises of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, as well as gutting the “deep state.” The administration is moving “too fast,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Axios about Trump’s campaign promises. Collins, an ally of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claimed the president is “making mistakes” and would be happy with “a more surgical approach” that does not “violate restrictions that are in current law.” “Before making cuts rashly, the administration should...

WASHINGTON (AP) — His group spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s health agencies. He’s delivering speeches urging the president to stand with longstanding foreign allies and lobbying members of Congress while aides write letters and opinion columns. This weekend, he posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Mike Pence is emerging as one of the last Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize the new...

The effort to undermine President Trump continues in the US Senate @SenTomCotton is working behind the scenes to stop Trump’s pick, Elbridge Colby, from getting confirmed at DOD Colby is one of the most important pieces to stop the Bush/Cheney cabal at DOD Why is Tom Cotton… Show more

This is an edited transcript of an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the conversation by following or subscribing to the show on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.A few years back, the online right became enamored of a new epithet for liberals: “NPC,” short for “nonplayer character.” The term was lifted from video games, where “NPC” refers to the computer-controlled characters that populate the game while you, the live player, make decisions. NPCs don’t have minds of their own. They’re automatons. They do as they’re...

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is speaking out against President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans, warning that starting trade wars with U.S. economic partners could force higher costs on American families and businesses. Trump’s “aggressive proposals leave big, lingering concerns for American industry and workers,” the senator from Kentucky wrote in an op-ed Wednesday in Louisville’s Courier-Journal. The op-ed is a rare example of a senior Republican in Congress who is willing to publicly criticize the president’s economic strategy. Trump, who has called tariff his “favorite word,” recently slapped broad import duties on Canada, Mexico and China, plus additional tariffs on...

The US government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been funnelling millions of dollars into student and professional media outlets across Europe mainly in Eastern and Central Europe, data from US government spending has shown. This long-term financial support has been framed as part of Washington’s “commitment to supporting democratic values and civil society in the [European] region” under the Assistance to Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia/Economic Support Fund (AEECA/ESF PD) programmes. The scale and scope of the funding have raised questions about the extent of US influence in shaping media narratives and civil society in...

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said there was a moral imperative for the U.S. government to deliver international food aid to starving people. He also said it was important to not undermine market opportunities for U.S. commodities in wake of Trump administration maneuvering to close the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Kansas Reflector screen capture of U.S. Senate video) TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said a freeze on federal funding and change at the U.S. Agency for International Development left $340 million in lifesaving food grown in the United States sitting at domestic ports awaiting...