Raw Story

Republicans in Congress are aiming to gut federal safety net programs in order to pass costly policies, like a 10-year extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. But they may have an unlikely obstacle in the form of President Donald Trump.

Politico's Rachel Bade recently reported that Trump may not have the stomach to ram through trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts, despite the eagerness of many GOP lawmakers. In order to reach their austerity goals, some Republicans have even targeted earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare for potential cuts in the future.

Earlier this week, Trump was forced to walk back his plans to freeze spending on federal grants and loans, which caused a panic across the country for millions of Americans. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted multiple times that the funding freeze would not impact direct federal assistance programs like Social Security payments and food stamp benefits.

READ MORE: Republicans float plan to slash benefits for working class to pay for Trump tax cuts

"He does not like taking benefits away — that is not his platform," one unnamed senior GOP lawmaker told Politico.

Bade wrote that Republicans are divided about whether to blow their political capital forcing through unpopular austerity measures, with some expecting the House of Representatives will inevitably flip back to Democratic control after the 2026 midterms given Republicans' razor-thin majority. But other Republicans are more cautious, hoping to build on gains they made in traditionally blue states like California, New Jersey and New York. And one unnamed GOP aide to Politico that Trump is particularly opposed to the idea of Democrats retaking a chamber of Congress.

“It’s not so much preservation of Republicans, it’s preservation of Donald Trump,” the aide said. “He doesn’t want a Democratic House because he saw what happened to him for two years — investigations... impeachments.”

But Trump's point of view runs counter even to some of his own Cabinet appointees. One key example is Russ Vought, who has been tapped to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). One anonymous Republican appropriations aide told Politico that the controversial OMB memo announcing the federal funding freeze (which was eventually rescinded) had "Russ’s name written all f—ing over it." The aide added that there was a "disparity between what Trump wants to do and what Russ wants to do."

READ MORE: 'Allow some of this to be privatized': GOP gov admits goal of DOGE is to gut Social Security

Click here to read Bade's full article in Politico.

President Donald Trump is moving to fire FBI officials who were involved in criminal investigations of him, reported the Associated Press on Friday.

While it is not immediately clear how many agents will be affected by the move, "officials acting at the direction of the administration were working to identify individual agents who could be terminated, said the people who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations," said the report.

According to NBC News, one official who has already been notified of impending termination is David Sundberg, head of the Washington FBI Field Office. Sundberg was put in charge by former FBI Director Christopher Wray, himself a Trump appointee from the previous term.

The Washington Field Office was involved closely in working with special counsel Jack Smith on the criminal investigation of Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

This comes after Trump moved to fire career prosecutors in the Justice Department who were likewise involved with those cases — a highly unusual move, as normally the only officials who are changed out with new administrations are U.S. attorneys, not the career prosecutors underneath them.

It also comes as Trump pushes MAGA loyalist Kash Patel to serve as the new FBI director, in spite of his extensive enemies lists and his threats to criminally target journalists.

A lead Treasury official suddenly quit after Elon Musk sent "engineers" into the agency to figure out ways to halt funds for various projects, the New York Times reported Friday.

The Times reported that David Lebryk, a career civil servant who ensures billions in payments are being made, has left amid the Trump administration's purge of federal employees.

It came days after "Elon Musk deployed engineers to the agency to find a way to shut off funds to various projects," the Times reported.

ALSO READ: Americans are doubling down on the thing that hurts them the most

Lebryk led the team of people who cut checks to Social Security recipients, government employees, contractors and other

Musk claims he'll cut $2 trillion from government spending in the next year.

See the full report here.

As President Donald Trump attempted to vilify diversity initiatives in the wake of the worst U.S. air disaster in decades, progressives warned that the true threat to aviation safety going forward is Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's shared goal of gutting the federal workforce and eliminating regulatory efforts that have helped make flying the nation's least dangerous form of transportation.

"We need to learn more about what happened and how to prevent this type of catastrophe in the future," Joel Payne, chief communications officer at MoveOn Civil Action, said in a statement Thursday. "But one thing is for sure—our air safety and disaster response relies on the same type of federal funding and resources that Donald Trump and his right-wing billionaire backers like Elon Musk have been moving to cut."

Echoing others, Payne noted since Trump's second term began less than two weeks ago, he implemented a hiring freeze that appears to include air traffic controllers and dismantled the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. Payne also pointed to Musk's role in leaving the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) without a permanent leader following the collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter that killed 64 people.

"There are real consequences for the American people from the chaos and mismanagement that we have already seen since Trump took office," said Payne. "As we work to learn the lessons of this tragedy, we need Trump, his allies, and his administration to end their assault on the public services that are essential to keeping us safe."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) similarly argued that "what actually hurts aviation safety" is "purging the federal workforce of career public servants and experts who have spent their entire lives working to keep the American people safe."

"It's too early in the process for the crash to be definitively pinned on the policies of Trump and Musk. But if we want more airline disasters, Trump and Musk are on just the right collision course."

The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release a preliminary report on the deadly collision within 30 days as investigators work to determine the immediate causes of the catastrophic incident.

As Common Dreamsreported, the FAA indicated Thursday that air traffic control staffing was "not normal" at the time of the collision. Air traffic control understaffing is a nationwide problem that analysts said could be exacerbated by the new administration's far-reaching attacks on federal workers and funding.

"The government is a complex and delicate system. Letting Elon Musk thrash around inside it like some silage-drunk bull in a red-cape factory will cause untold damage," The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper wrote Thursday. "The details are still being investigated. It's too early in the process for the crash to be definitively pinned on the policies of Trump and Musk. But if we want more airline disasters, Trump and Musk are on just the right collision course."

President Donald Trump's official meme coin isn't just rubbing some cryptocurrency executives the wrong way -- it's also annoying some of his run-of-the-mill MAGA supporters.

The Guardian has flagged some comments posted on a pro-Trump subreddit recently that show disillusionment with Trump's decision to launch his own digital currency, which surged in value shortly after being released only to see its price plunge in the following weeks.

Many MAGA fans on the subreddit believed that Trump's meme coin was a quick cash-grab at the expense of his fans, many of whom may have plugged significant chunks of cash into it early on, only to see its value quickly evaporate.

Among other things, posters on the forum described the coin as "degrad[ing] to the office of the Presidency,” “a lame money grab,” “a bad idea with a million ways to go wrong and derail his second term,” “shady,” and “kinda gross."

ALSO READ: Senator: RFK Jr. lied about vaccines like Brett Kavanaugh lied about Roe v. Wade

Another poster argued that Trump's meme coin "looks bad and is bad," while yet another declared that "this crypto is the most blatant Ponzi scheme in history and we are the marks."

These criticisms haven't stopped Trump and his business partners from further getting into the cryptocurrency business, writes The Guardian.

"On Tuesday, the Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, announced the launch of a financial technology brand called 'Truth.Fi,' through which the company plans to invest up to $250m in crypto-currencies and 'crypto securities,' and other investment accounts," the publication writes.

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday and failed to clean up past comments opposing vaccines.

One Democratic Senator is drawing a stark comparison between Kennedy and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

In the case of Kennedy, the environmental lawyer may have spent decades claiming vaccines cause autism, but when speaking before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, he was forced to answer questions from actual medical experts.

ALSO READ: RFK Jr. botched his financial reports — omitting $500,000 in anti-vax and law income

“I do believe that autism comes from vaccines,” Kennedy told Fox News in 2023.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, hammered Kennedy for refusing to believe scientific studies and evidence that don't confirm his beliefs.

“Will you reassure mothers unequivocally and without qualification that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism?” Cassidy asked.

“If the data is there, I will absolutely do that,” RFK Jr. responded.

"I think he was cleaver in answering questions," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story at the Capitol. "But shame on us if we let these people show up to these hearings and lie to us."

"It's stunning," Murphy continued, "he spent his entire career dedicated to undermining vaccines and he can come in these hearings and say, 'Don't pay attention to my entire career. Don't pay any attention to everything I believe, just listen to what I'm telling you right now.' Shame on us if we wave him through, but that's what they did to Kavanaugh..."

The reference was a back-handed comment to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted to confirm Kavanaugh despite her pro-choice pledge.

"There has also been considerable focus on the future of abortion rights based on the concern that Judge Kavanaugh would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. Protecting this right is important to me," Collins said in a statement in 2018. "To my knowledge, Judge Kavanaugh is the first Supreme Court nominee to express the view that precedent is not merely a practice and tradition, but rooted in Article III of our Constitution itself. He believes that precedent 'is not just a judicial policy … it is constitutionally dictated to pay attention and pay heed to rules of precedent.' In other words, precedent isn’t a goal or an aspiration; it is a constitutional tenet that has to be followed except in the most extraordinary circumstances."

Kavanaugh then voted to eliminate the landmark Roe ruling, which removed reproductive rights from U.S. women.