Raw Story

A former top staffer to vice president Mike Pence trashed Congress for ceding their authority to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Marc Short, a former Trump White House staffer who then led Pence's team, told CNN he didn't mind the tech billionaire slashing government spending by targeting entire agencies for closure and offering buyouts to millions of government workers, but he preferred that lawmakers were the ones making those cuts and not an unelected outside adviser.

"I actually don't have as much concern about that," Short said. "I think the reality is that most Americans view Elon Musk as a successful businessman, and basically streamlining government is a good thing. Again, I think it's good for him to make recommendations of where we should be cutting, but ultimately Congress has the power of the purse, and Congress is the one that needs to zero out these programs."

"I think in many cases the Trump administration is showcasing why they're misallocating of dollars, and I think that builds a case for it."

Short warned GOP lawmakers that a Democratic president might propose similar unilateral changes to the government in the future if they did not reclaim their authority.

"But again, if you take the next step and say that you can unilaterally do this, then you've got to live with the consequences," Short said. "When a Democratic president unilaterally gets rid of Republican programs or conservative programs that we like, like border patrol ...

"I mean, I think that in many cases, conservatives and Republicans have gone along with abandoning the rule of law and order, and I think that that is a concern, and so certainly we should be respecting the decisions of judges. I think, frankly, as President Trump said yesterday, you know, we can always appeal, but I don't think that means you can unilaterally decide which cases or decisions you accept or reject."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration retaliated against The Associated Press because the news agency declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America despite President Donald Trump's executive order on the body of water.

During Wednesday's White House briefing, CNN's Kaitlan Collins noted that officials refused to allow the AP's reporter to cover an event on Tuesday.

"Which White House official made the decision to bar the AP reporter from the Oval Office and the diplomatic reception room last night?" Collins asked.

"It is a privilege to cover this White House," Leavitt insisted. "And nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the President of the United States questions. That's an invitation that is given."

"But isn't it retaliatory in nature is the argument?" Collins pressed. "Because the reason that the AP was barred, which they said was because they're not using the phrase Gulf of America, they're using Gulf of Mexico in line with their standards."

"And so the question here is, is this setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use?" she added. "And how does that align with the First Amendment commitment that you were just talking about?"

Leavitt responded by accusing the AP of pushing "lies" by using the phrase Gulf of Mexico.

"It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America," she insisted. "And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, but that is what it is."

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"And Apple has recognized that. Google has recognized that," she added. "And it's very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world."

The AP has said that it declined to use the name Gulf of America because it was a global news agency.

"[T]he AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences," the outlet explained in its style guidance.

Watch the video below from Newsmax.

Donald Trump's lawyer Alina Habba was on the White House lawn Tuesday claiming that the "separation of powers" means the president has the "ultimate authority."

However, the opposite is true, as children in civics classes are taught. The Founding Fathers sought to create a government with no supreme head like the king in England.

So, as the United States court system explained in a video, the framers crafted checks and balances.

Habba's blunder led to mass mockery among legal and political experts.

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Reporter Jake Lahut posted, "The founders could not have envisoned Alina Habba."

"We're in the stupidest timeline," complained Max Flugrath, of Fair Fight Action.

Legal analyst Bradley Moss shared a face-palm emoji on Bluesky before saying, "I really don’t think ANY of these folks understand our system of government."

"What's the difference between a rock and Alina Habba? A rock can be useful," quipped artist Candee Corliss.

Michael A. Cohen, an MSNBC columnist and not Trump's former lawyer, pointed out, "Fun fact: She went to law school."

"Alina, dear, go back to law school. Or, at least read Marbury v. Madison. Also, stop talking because every time you do, you make a fool of yourself," posted legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.

President Donald Trump's dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is almost certainly illegal under the separation of powers — but, wrote former Labor Secretary Robert Reich in a lengthy post to Facebook, even beyond that, the timing of the move raises suspicions.

The bureau is the only federal agency solely tasked with policing financial misconduct against banks and other monetary institutions against small-time consumers.

And there might be a reason Trump doesn't want that kind of oversight, wrote Reich.

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"Thousands of investors in Trump’s crypto scheme lost $2 billion in just weeks while the Trump Organization racked up $100 million in trading fees," wrote Reich. "Just so happens that the CFPB, which Trump is trying to kill, recently announced new regulations for the crypto industry."

Right around the time of Trump's inauguration, a series of Trump-themed crypto coins became available, which were snatched up by supporters and generated large amounts of value. After the hype faded, many of those same supporters raged that they were taken for a ride.

Reich is not the only one to suspect ulterior motives in the crippling of CFPB.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the brainchild behind the agency in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, suggested this week that tech billionaire Elon Musk, who publicly celebrated as his unelected software engineer allies summarily shut down the bureau, doesn't want the agency around to police his plans to add a financial transactions feature to his X platform, formerly Twitter.

House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) lashed out at House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) as the negotiations for President Donald Trump's agenda continue, accusing Arrington and other deficit hawks of being disloyal to the president.

The two lawmakers are in charge of committees that are key to financial issues in Congress.

According to Politico, House Republicans "had tentatively settled on a plan last week to instruct the Ways and Means Committee to not increase deficits by more than $4.7 trillion to accommodate the cuts" — but a newly revised plan circulated at the start of this week "was expected to contain an even lower number to appease deficit hawks, including Arrington. That would leave barely any wiggle room for Smith to extend the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year — much less Trump's plan to end taxes on tips, overtime pay and other things."

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Smith is losing his patience over the matter, lashing out at Arrington on record with Politico.

“Let me just say that a 10-year extension of President Trump’s expiring provisions is over $4.7 trillion, according to [the Congressional Budget Office]. Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy.”

This flap is far from the only roadblock to getting Trump's tax, border, and energy policies passed. A fundamental disagreement remains between the House and the Senate, where House lawmakers, along with Trump, want to pass everything together in a single reconciliation package to craft a grand bargain with the deficit hawks, and Senate lawmakers prefer splitting off the tax legislation into a second bill to increase the likelihood of its passage.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has for weeks been in talks with members of the House Freedom Caucus to try to sell them on the two-bill strategy. But this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) put his foot down and insisted on moving forward with one bill.

WASHINGTON — Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth cracked up talking about President Donald Trump's pardon of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who was convicted of 18 corruption charges, including an effort to sell Barack Obama's senate seat after he was elected in 2008.

Raw Story discussed the matter with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) when Duckworth overheard the conversation and began laughing.

"Yeah, I've seen interviews. It sounds to me like it was also a politically motivated prosecution," Johnson said after talking about New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who had corruption charges dropped against him.

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"A convicted felon pardoning another convicted felon?" Duckworth asked. "That's all I gotta say."

"It's not good for anybody. It's not good for the country," she continued.

Duckworth added that she doesn't think anything could be done about it, but they could "ask the Supreme Court."

"Ask Susan Collins. She put some of those on the Supreme Court," she said.

Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but Trump commuted his sentence in February 2020, and he served just eight years.