National News

A wide range of former lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, as well as ex-White House officials who served in Donald Trump's first administration, have signed on to a open-letter criticizing him over his retribution campaign.

Coming on the heels of the president ordering his Department of Justice to investigate two former officials, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, who served under him during his first stint on the Oval Office, the letter alleges he has put the country on the path to "a dangerous escalation in the abuse of presidential power: weaponizing federal agencies to carry out personalized retribution against named individuals."

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Notable among the signatories in the letter that likened the president to a “royal despot,” is Ty Cobb who previously served as Trump's personal lawyer.

According to a report from the NY Times, "Mr. Trump’s executive orders also revoked the security clearances of people and institutions affiliated with Mr. Krebs and Mr. Taylor, and called for investigations into their government tenures. The letter, signed by more than 200 people, criticized those actions as part of a 'profoundly unconstitutional break' with precedent."

In the letter, which can be viewed here, they explained, "the President’s actions not only evoke some of the worst moments in our history; they go even further. For a president to personally and publicly direct the levers of the federal government against publicly named citizens for political reasons sets a new and perilous precedent in our republic."

You can read more from the NY Times here.

The mass firings of government workers by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has business leaders in the Beltway fearing a localized recession could be on the way.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, restaurants, hotels and other businesses are witnessing in real-time sales plunging as workers lose their jobs or dial back spending due to a possible job loss.

As the Journals' Paul Kiernan and Rachel Louise Ensign wrote, "Economists believe government layoffs and looming budget cuts will push the Washington, D.C., metro area into a recession, challenging its reputation for economic resilience."

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In an interview, Julie Coons, president of the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, painted a dark picture of the immediate future, explaining, "We see this as potentially catastrophic for the region," before adding, "This is our Detroit moment.”

The Journal report notes, "In Arlington’s Rosslyn neighborhood, bookings at the Residence Inn are 10% to 15% below target for the coming months, according to general manager Flavia Sampaio, who said local hotels rely heavily on business from government agencies. Across the Potomac River in D.C., Bluebird Sky Yoga co-owner Kristine Erickson has seen a slowdown in people seeking yearlong memberships," adding, "Sales at Cork Wine Bar & Market, a restaurant on a bustling stretch of 14th Street, fell about 15% to 20% in February compared with the same month last year, said co-owner Diane Gross. March sales were helped by a 'tariff sale' of bottles of wine but still ended down around 10%."

The report continued, "Oxford Economics projects gross domestic product in the Washington, D.C., metro area will fall 0.5% over the course of this year. This is the second-worst projected performance for any of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas after New Orleans, where tariffs are a significant risk, said Barbara Denham, lead economist for cities and regions."

You can read more here.

Vice President J.D. Vance was taken to task by the conservative National Review's Andrew McCarthy for his constant running to X to post disingenuous attacks on opponents of the Donald Trump administration's immigration policies.

In a column posted Saturday morning, the legal analyst claimed the VP, a Yale Law School graduate, knows fully well the administration is denying immigrants their right to due process, and that Vance is making his claims more as a performance for MAGA devotees.

Labeling Donald Trump's second-in-command as "infuriating," he added the VP is "too smart not to know that the nonsense he spouts is nonsense. Well-framed nonsense, to be sure."

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He then added, "Vice President Vance issued one of his claptrap-laden diatribes on social media Wednesday, slamming 'the media and the far left' who are 'weeping over the lack of due process' in the Trump administration’s illegal deportations of people it alleges — probably correctly in most instances — are members of criminal gangs."

Using that as a springboard, he noted that Trump's goal is to "illustrate that he has amassed uncheckable power," and for Vance that's "the point of the vice president’s post: Due process is for whiners, and if you’re 'weeping' over its sudden death, you’re the problem."

"Adopting the habit of Trump officials of making up their own facts as well as their own law, Vance argues that all the administration is doing is returning an illegal alien to his home country," he accused. "This is so mendacious it’s hard to decide where to begin — even accepting for argument’s sake Vance’s blithe claim that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 member, which, again, Trump officials chant as a mantra but no one has actually proved."

"He says we who want the law enforced don’t have a plan for deporting 20 million people — and that’s true, for there is no such four-year plan; there’s just 'do the best you can to materially reduce the illegal population, get on a trajectory for bigger reductions over time, and then manage illegal immigration like we manage other ordinary crime.'" he wrote before pointing out, "But to flip it around, Vice President Vance does not tell us what his plan is for rapidly deporting 20 million people. That’s because such a plan cannot include faithfully executing the law. And he knows it."

You can read more here.

CNN's Victor Blackwell roasted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as "inexperienced" amid a report that Hegseth lost four senior staffers in one day.