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Trump Admin Moving Fast, Breaking Things as Shutdown Continues

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The Trump administration is moving fast and breaking things as they capitalize on the opportunities presented by the government shutdown, compliant courts, ethically flexible corporations, and generous foreign governments.

Let’s start with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought who featured so prominently in yesterday’s Coffee Break.

Vought immediately seized on the shut down to close multiple infrastructure projects in New York and yesterday he told GOP congresspeople that mass layoffs of federal employees will be coming “in a day or two” and that “funding for food assistance for the Women, Infants and Children food assistance program would run out in the next week or two.”

The shutdown is just a news hook for Vought to draw attention to what he’s already been doing (with an early assist from Elon Musk & DOGE), per The New York Times:

Before the government shutdown began Wednesday, many agencies published contingency plans — routine frameworks that are typically updated before a shutdown. These documents included details about which programs will be suspended and how many employees will be furloughed until the shutdown is over.

They reveal, to some extent, how much President Trump has slashed the federal work force through firings, layoffs and incentivized resignation programs, because they also include a recent report of how many employees work at each agency.

The Times piece also has cuts by subagency, where available.

The Courts have been a key part of Team Trump in his second administration, enough so that Republican National Lawyers Association President took to Real Clear Politics to celebrate that “Trump Is Most Successful President in the Courts in Generations.”

President Trump is on a winning streak the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations.

In fact, while the legacy media idolize rogue judges who throw up roadblocks to President Trump’s agenda at every turn and amplify perceived losses, what they don’t want you to realize is that when the dust settles, Trump wins most of the time on the ultimate decision.
…
The 2024-25 term built on important wins achieved during Trump’s first administration, where he was able to successfully fill the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court with originalist and textualist jurists, who adhere to the rule of law and the Constitution rather than a rigid ideology that pre-determines cases based on outcomes and parties.

Trump’s remaking of the judiciary during his first administration continued to rack up wins even during the Biden administration, when the Supreme Court returned abortion regulation to the states (Dobbs 2022), ended the practice of basing college admissions on racial preferences (Students for Fair Admissions 2023), and overturned decades of unaccountable, bureaucratic rulemaking (Loper Bright 2024).

…the White House “has won 18 times at the Supreme Court since Trump took office and is on a 15-case winning run.” Furthermore, “the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on an emergency basis 28 times. … It has lost only two.”
…
The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals – just below the Supreme Court – are also consistently delivering victories for Trump, constitutional conservatives who supported him, and the rule of law.

The Fourth Circuit, now a court usually delivering progressive, policy-driven decisions, just weighed into the discussion over federal firings with a 2-1 victory for Trump, ruling that Democrat-led states could not pursue lawsuits challenging the dismissal of nearly 25,000 probationary federal employees.

Trump was able to reshape the Ninth Circuit – once widely referred to as the “Ninth Circus” because it was so reliably left-wing – during his first term, such that when California Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to reclaim control of the state’s National Guard during violent protests in L.A., District Judge Charles Breyer, who tried to hand his governor a victory, was overturned in embarrassing fashion.

But not every judge is rolling Trump’s way. U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee ripped Trump’s “effort to deport pro-Palestinian academics” in a “scathing 161 page opinion” that is generating lots of love in the MSM.

Although, the ruling is so far all talk and no teeth, according to Politico:

(Young) did not immediately order changes to administration policies, but said he will hold further proceedings on how to rein in the practices he found to violate First Amendment free-speech rights.
…
“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech,” Young wrote, describing the courts as the most crucial bulwark to this threat.

“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected,” Young added. “Is he correct?”

Young has repeatedly tangled with the administration over policies he has described as discriminatory, one of a handful of old-guard Reagan-era judges to sound off about Trump’s approach to governing.

In August, two members of the Supreme Court — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — rebuked Young for blocking the Trump administration’s decisions to cut off medical research grants it deemed related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The two Trump appointees said recent rulings on other grant-related cases on the high court’s emergency docket made clear Young’s ruling was impermissible.

I covered the Supreme Court’s difficulty in communicating their desires to lower courts previously.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Gallup is finding the Supreme Court’s approval rating near all-time lows.

Another case that has the shitlibs in high dudgeon, is the indictment of key RussiaGate prankster former FBI head James Comey. Just look at the outrage:

I can’t resist lightening the mood by sharing Comey’s entire Instagram statement, although some might find it more sickening than amusing (though it’s not quite the banger his previous video claiming to be a Taylor Swift fan was):

Here’s a partial transcript via ABC News:

James Comey: My heart is broken for the Department of Justice. I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I am innocent, so let’s have a trial, and keep the faith.

My family and I have known for years that there are costs for standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees and you shouldn’t either.

Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant and she is right (Comey is referring to a statement his daughter, Maurene Comey, made in a farewell email to her colleagues after being fired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York this summer).

“But I am not afraid, and I hope you are not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does.”

I must admit I’m enjoying the media coverage of the Trump appointee who’s handling the case, (this is some classic Trump admin dipshittery):

The New Yorker’s Ruth Marcus tells this part of the story just fine:

Thursday’s indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey bore a single, telling signature: that of Lindsey Halligan, installed by President Donald Trump just three days earlier to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan is an insurance lawyer turned Trump attorney and White House aide; in March, Trump appointed her to remove “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian. She has scant experience in federal courts and none as a prosecutor. Her predecessor in the position, a seasoned prosecutor nominated by Trump, was forced out last Friday, according to numerous news reports, after balking at demands to concoct cases against Comey, in addition to New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and others.

But overall, I have to agree with Aaron Mate that the Comey indictment is in good company with the RussiaGate prosecutions that Comey and the MSM were so worked up about during Trump 1.0. Note that Mate agrees “Trump is exploiting the justice system for revenge against a political foe,” he just puts it in context:

By the derelict standards of the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion probe that Comey presided over and promoted long after leaving his position, his 2025 prosecution is perfectly legitimate.
…
By January 2017, when Trump took office, FBI agents knew that they had nothing to go on (in the Russiagate investigation), and even discussed shutting down. But under Comey’s watch, the opposite occurred. Rather than abandon their baseless collusion hunt, the FBI expended considerable energy to make it look legitimate.
Comey directed agents to snare Trump National Security Advisor Mike Flynn in what amounted to a perjury trap, a move he later bragged about while hawking the first of two Russiagate-profiteering books. Getting Flynn to speak with two FBI agents was “something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration,” a self-amused Comey recalled.
It worked: Flynn was accused of falsely telling the FBI that he had not discussed the issue of sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
…
It was all a lie. The declassified transcript of the intercepted Flynn-Kislyak showed that the two barely discussed the issue of sanctions beyond a few inconsequential words.
…
Comey has now been indicted on the same perjury charge that he nabbed Flynn on. While both cases can be described as politically motivated and substantively flawed, Comey’s at least has some approximation to a factual predicate.
…
Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, used his supposed credibility to keep the ruse alive. Hawking his memoir, A Higher Loyalty, to a Russiagate-crazed media upon its release in April 2018, Comey went out of his way to prop up the most farcical Trump-Russia conspiracy theory in circulation.
“I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Comey told ABC News. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.” …Comey, wrote The New York Times‘ Michelle Goldberg, “has started a long overdue national conversation about whether the pee tape is real.”
…
Trump has repurposed his political foes’ playbook for his own purposes. For all of the legitimate indignation at his abuses, a considerable portion of blame belongs to those, including the newly indicted Jim Comey, who handed him the tools.

Trump is also celebrating yet another victory against Ivy League universities:

The defining battle in his crusade against higher education will soon be over, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, announcing, seemingly offhand, that a deal with Harvard University had been reached.

“All you have to do is paper it, right, Linda?” the president said as he turned to his education secretary, Linda McMahon. “Yes, sir,” she replied. Once the agreement is finalized, the president said, “then their sins are forgiven.”

The announcement came during an unrelated event at the White House on Tuesday concerning advancements in the treatment of pediatric cancer. Details are still forthcoming. Pressed for more information, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston would only say that “President Trump is reshaping higher education. Stay tuned for further announcements!” But Trump seems to have achieved exactly what he wanted: a splashy settlement.

The Trump administration launched a multi-pronged assault on Cambridge earlier this year, freezing more than $2.4 billion in federal research grants in response to allegations that the school, which predates the nation, continued to promote so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and discriminated against Jewish students and faculty. During an August cabinet meeting, Trump told McMahon, “We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard. Don’t negotiate, Linda. They’ve been very bad.”

The transgressions of that university now seem to be forgiven. Trump previewed a deal whereby Harvard pays a $500 million fine and operates “a series of trade schools” to train students in subjects like artificial intelligence and automotive engineering. He called it “a big investment in trade schools done by very smart people.”

Team Trump players are also scoring big off Israel’s 8 front war, such as cast-off 2020 Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, per The Hill:

President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has registered as a foreign agent for Israel, hired to create digital campaigns combating antisemitism in a contract worth $6 million.

Parscale filed paperwork with the Foreign Agents Registration Act saying he began work for the Israeli government on Sept. 18. He registered a company called Clocktower X LLC and is primarily corresponding with Israel’s minister of Foreign Affairs and Eran Shayovich, listed as chief of staff at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to his LinkedIn.

Parscale’s contract was first reported by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank that advocates for restraint in foreign policy.

According to Parscale’s contract, his company is hired to create content where at least 80 percent “is tailored to Gen Z audiences across platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts, and other relevant digital and broadcast outlets.”

It’s a good thing Israel came through for Brad, according to Wikipedia he’d been reduced to “real estate flipping, restarting his political consulting firm, forming a data analysis startup” and working for a losing GOP primary campaign in Ohio.

Responsible Statecraft has more details on what Parscale’s company will be up to and introduces a bank shot that explains how Don Jr. will be wetting his beak on the deal:

Clock Tower will create new websites to influence how AI GPT models such as ChatGPT, which are trained on vast amounts of data from every corner of the internet, frame topics and respond to them — all on behalf of Israel.

As part of this work, the firm will also use search engine optimization software MarketBrew AI, a predictive AI platform that helps clients adapt to algorithms and promote their work on search engines like Google and Bing, to “improve the visibility and ranking of relevant narratives.”

Clock Tower will integrate its pro-Israel messaging into Salem Media Network properties, a conservative Christian media group that boasts a vast radio network and produces high-profile shows such as the Hugh Hewitt Show, the Larry Elder Show, and the Right View with Lara Trump. In April, the conservative media network announced Donald Trump Jr. and Lara Trump as significant stakeholders in the company. Salem Media Network did not respond to a question clarifying whether it would be compensated by Clock Tower for promoting messages on behalf of Israel, or how these messages would be integrated.

I have no idea how Clock Tower will “integrate its pro-Israel messaging into Salem Media Network properties.” Perhaps they’ll insert ads into Salem’s podcasts and radio broadcasts?

Speaking of Trump 1.0 left-behinds, former favorite-son-in-law Jared Kushner is, as I’ve posted before, cleaning up in Gaza, but now it’s been revealed that he was at the center of the $55 billion deal that took EA Games private with Saudi and UAE money, via Yahoo Finance:

Jared Kushner brokered the initial connection between the Redwood, California-based video game maker and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and for months acted as a central figure in the talks, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. When the deal’s momentum slowed around mid-year, Kushner pushed to keep it going, some of the people said.
…
Kushner’s matchmaking role in the plan to take EA private adds another strand to the dense tangle of business relationships between wealthy Gulf states and the president’s family. Just this week, as news of the EA deal rippled across Wall Street, the Trump Organization was inking a separate agreement to expand with another development in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, underscoring the extent of the family’s connections to the oil-rich nation.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with Silver Lake Management and Kushner’s Affinity Partners, agreed to pay $210 per share in cash for EA, valuing the video-game company at about $55 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is providing a $20 billion loan to support the deal.

The Saudis will be the largest contributor to the $36 billion in equity backing the deal, acquiring a controlling stake in EA, while Affinity will have the smallest share, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kushner, 44, already had a financial tether to PIF. After acting as a senior adviser to Trump in his first term, working on foreign policy negotiations in the Middle East, he founded Affinity Partners in 2021. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund contributed about $2 billion.

Affinity, which now has $5.4 billion in assets, including from Abu Dhabi-based asset manager Lunate and the Qatar Investment Authority, hasn’t previously been part of such a high-profile deal. Some of its other bets have been on companies including EGYM, a Munich-based health technology company, and in Greenwich, Connecticut-based QXO Inc.

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not enjoy being asked about it:

The Daily Beast wallowed in Leavitt’s crapulence:

“I think it’s frankly despicable that you’re trying to suggest that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who is widely respected around the world and has great trust and relationships with these critical partners in these countries to strike a twenty point comprehensive detailed peace plan that no other administration would ever be able to achieve,” Leavitt declared.

“Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the president of the United States, to secure world peace, and that is a very noble thing,” she insisted.

“Virtually everyone in the world is supportive of this plan that Jared Kushner offered his time to help put together alongside our special envoy Witkoff, the vice president, the president of the United States, Secretary Rubio and the president’s entire national security team,” she continued.

Leavitt didn’t have the quick instincts to turn the conversation to a topic more favorable to team Trump, the tariff deal with Pfizer.

Pfizer Inc. secured a reprieve from President Donald Trump’s long-threatened tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry Tuesday by agreeing to slash some of its drug prices by up to 85% and selling directly to the American public, a move other major drugmakers are expected to follow.

Pfizer said it will ensure Americans receive comparable prices to those offered in other countries and will launch new medicines at parity, addressing a key Trump complaint that Americans unfairly shoulder the highest medical costs in the world. In exchange, the company gained a three-year grace period from widely anticipated pharmaceutical tariffs that the administration has been promulgating.

It’s the latest example of the transactional nature of winning tariff exemptions from Trump, who has unilaterally wielded trade policy to exert power over multiple industries. As recently as last week, he threatened 100% tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry.

Similar deals could be forthcoming. Eli Lilly & Co. said it’s in active discussions with the administration to further expand patient access, as the announcement Tuesday underscores the urgency of making medicines more affordable.

It will be interesting to see if Trump can leaven his budget-slashing and civil war mongering with enough populist moves like this to pull off GOP wins in the mid-term elections.

But then again, that’s what gerrymandering is for. We’re in a post-constitutional order, remember.

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15 comments

  1. DJG, Reality Czar

    Low how the mighty have fallen, except that the Supreme Court of the United States has always been a property-protecting mess:

    From those joyous Republicans above: ‘…the White House “has won 18 times at the Supreme Court since Trump took office and is on a 15-case winning run.” Furthermore, “the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on an emergency basis 28 times. … It has lost only two.”’

    So the same Court that tried to dismantle the first New Deal is at it again. The same Court that brought about the Civil War with its decision in Dred Scott, as enunciated by Chief “Justice” Taney:

    “[Blacks] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it.”

    Now everyone in the US of A gets to be black, which is the basis of so much unspoken U.S. fear.

    For years, liberals wanted the Court to legislate for them. For years, the right has wanted the president to legislate for them. Meanwhile, the Congress, the first-mentioned branch of government, is an old people’s home, filled with dullards shirking their responsibilities.

    Reply ↓
    2. Carolinian

      Your comment could apply to the law in general which often serves the powerful (those that can afford lawyers) rather than the notional blind justice intended to maintain social consensus. Back in that Gilded Age so desired by neolib Repubs tycoons would simply buy court decisions directly.

      So only the public, not the courts, can save us. And the puzzler re the above “moving fast” is who among the public are in favor of anything Trump is doing. If the Repubs really want a new feudalism then they are likely to stir up a civil war indeed–from the right. We are already seeing this in all the questions about Kirk’s death and Epstein. The lefties need to stop deamonizing the “bitter clingers” and figure out who their true enemies are.

      Reply ↓
      1. Beachwalker

        Your make an excellent point about money and justice and all. I think the only way to really address the current situation where money buys justice (sarc) is to rearrange the system so that no party to a suit or criminal action can be out spent by the opposition. For example, if I sue you and pay my attorney $1 million to pursue justice for me, then comparable funds would have to be made available to your attorney. Think how happy all the attorneys would be once they realized that they were free to focus on truth and justice instead of wallowing all the time at the trough of fees.

        Reply ↓
        1. TimH

          With your scheme, all that happens is that fees go up because the forced matching allows it.

          The cost isn’t the only issue. Need to stop civil cases being dragged out for years for one, and prosecutorial misconduct costing DAs personal jail time.

          Reply ↓
        2. Jokerstein

          Charles Rembar makes a very strong case for having attorney’s fees be a public expense in his wonderful book “The Law of the Land : The Evolution of Our Legal System”,

          Reply ↓
    3. Grumpy Engineer

      “For years, liberals wanted the Court to legislate for them. For years, the right has wanted the president to legislate for them. Meanwhile, the Congress, the first-mentioned branch of government, is an old people’s home, filled with dullards shirking their responsibilities.”

      Wow. That’s an excellent description of our current political woes. For many years, I’ve been fed up with both the courts and our presidents for claiming authority they never had and making up new rules (or ignoring existing ones). You summarize it very nicely.

      Reply ↓
  2. Chris Smith

    I have no tears for Comey. He and others like Letitia James stretched the laws to the limit while crowing about how no one was above the law when they were in power. Now they reap what they sow.

    Reply ↓
    1. lyman alpha blob

      Indeed. You could argue that Comey’s Russigate “investigation” wasn’t technically a criminal act, and you might win that argument for various reasons. But Comey also directed at least two people to leak information to the press on his behalf, something the liberals forget when they try to claim this is all a big nothingburger based on trumped up charges. https://www.racket.news/p/on-nbc-and-james-comeys-indictment That is a no-no!

      Reply ↓
    2. Lefty Godot

      No tears is right. I’m waiting for Brennan and Clapper to get indicted as well. On the other hand, I waited for Trump to “lock her up” yet Hillary still is mugging for the cameras, so maybe Comey is a one-shot. The whole approach of the Democrats during Trump’s first and Biden’s only term guaranteed there would be blowback for them once the Republicans got back in the White House. And, as far as the judges issue goes, the interpretation of the Constitution and laws has always had a political slant based on which party appointed the majority of judges, especially on the Supreme Court. But you can count on right-wing sites like Automatic Earth or ZH to rail about “activist judges” when the verdicts are not going their way, as if all the verdicts that do go their way are not also coming from activist judges.

      Reply ↓
    3. JMH

      Has no one heard of Karma? Has no one heard “What goes around, comes around?” Does no one remember the high school football game that your team lost 75-0, but not too many years later your team was the powerhouse and paid it back 76-0 or something like that. As Lambert often said, “The stupid. It burns.” But we are talking about politicians who to all appearances live in never, never land or a landscape-mindscape of their own devising, this crew sealed in the DC Bubble and Echo Chamber, both blind and deaf sees only what it wishes to see. Where did the come from?

      Reply ↓
    4. Dwight

      Trump may be retaliating against Comey, but whether intended or not, the indictment further shows how ridiculous Russiagate was, because it reminds us that Comey helped in a big way to get Trump elected in 2016, far exceeding the effect (if any) of Facebook posts.

      https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/lordy-trump-nailing-comey-over-leaks-that-actually-helped-him-defeat-hillary-is-peak-irony/

      I’ve always thought Trump was in on or at least acquiesced in Russiagate, which was propaganda to get liberals to support war with Russia by associating Russia with the hated Trump. Ukrainians must die to save our democracy! Meanwhile, Trump escalated the war, while engaging in silly games in Ukraine with Guiliani that led to the weak impeachment, further showing the absurdity of Russiagate.

      The weak indictment with a weak prosecutor means Comey will walk away, making this more political theater.

      Reply ↓
  3. Jason Boxman

    Remember during Trump 1.0 when Schumer cut a deal to approve Trump’s judges so they could all just go home for a holiday?

    Yeah.

    That’s our Democrats!

    Reply ↓
    1. Buzz Meeks

      Chuckie should be registered as a AIPAC foreign agent. He has had a plan for a long time to destroy this country from within, remember when he said Jonathan Pollard had suffered enough?
      I was furious for days after he cut the deal to fast track the Trump list of federal judges. I remember him lying the R judgeships would be offset by the Supremes. Not all that much case law goes in front of the Supremes so he signed a blank check for Trump and here we are. May God damn Schumer.

      Reply ↓

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