Trump's 'God squad' holds increasing sway at White House

Agence France-Presse
February 7, 2025

US President Donald Trump (C) bows his head during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, on February 6, 2025. (AFP)

by Danny KEMP

Donald Trump said at his inauguration that he had been "saved by God." Now he appears to be returning the favor with an increasingly conservative, religious focus in his second term as US president.

The three-times-married billionaire signed an executive order on Friday to open a "Faith Office" at the White House, led by the televangelist Paula White, Trump's so-called spiritual advisor.

A day earlier Trump had unveiled a task force under new Attorney General Pam Bondi to root out what he called the "persecution" of Christians in the United States.

ALSO READ: 'Hero': Latest school shooter celebrated as followers float copycat plans


The Republican has also appointed several cabinet members with links to Christian nationalists, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

All of this comes despite the fact that Trump has long had an ambiguous relationship with religion.

Unlike his predecessor Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, Trump rarely appears in Church. He was confirmed into the Presbyterian church but said he was "non-denominational."


Then there are the sexual scandals -- and a criminal conviction in a porn star hush money case -- and the selling of $60 Trump-branded Bibles on the campaign trail.

Yet evangelical Christians continued to back him in the 2024 election, just as they did in 2016.

- 'Changed something' -


During his first term Trump certainly dabbled with religion.He posed with a Bible outside a church near the White House after security forces cleared out "Black Lives Matter" protesters, and had prayer meetings in the Oval Office with evangelicals.

But now Trump claimed to have had what amounts to a religious awakening.


The 78-year-old said that he had become more religious since he narrowly escaped death when a gunman's bullet hit him in the ear at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last year.

"It changed something in me," Trump told a prayer breakfast at the US Capitol on Thursday.

"I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it."


Not that this stopped Trump lashing out at the bishop who gave the sermon at his inauguration service, Mariann Budde, after she called on him to show "mercy" to immigrants and LGBTQ people.

But the people Trump has chosen to surround himself in the White House are also telling.

A number have ties to the New Apostolic Reformation church -- a Christian nationalist movement that calls for the levers of government and society to come under Christian control.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has been linked to the movement, as has Paula White, who will head up his new Faith Office.

White hit the headlines in 2020 when she led a marathon -- and widely mocked -- prayer session to call for Trump to win the US election against Joe Biden.

Vance converted to Catholicism in his 30s and appeared at a town hall hosted by a leading figure in the New Apostolic Reformation Church.

- 'Bring religion back' -


Former Fox contributor and military veteran Hegseth, meanwhile, belongs to a church affiliated to the right-wing Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a Christian nationalist group.The movement wants to reestablish Biblical law, with some of its adherents calling for the repeal of women's right to vote, US media reported.

While Trump has not expressed support for such views, he has increasingly adopted positions that have delighted America's religious right.


He repeatedly boasted that the Supreme Court justices he picked in his first term helped lead to the 2022 overturning of the nationwide right to abortion.

Since his inauguration he has sent a video message to a huge anti-abortion march attended by far-right groups and signed a series of executive orders tackling liberal causes, from diversity to transgender rights and abortion.

His prayer breakfast speech at the US Capitol this week was unusually explicit in its call for an increased role for religion.


"We have to bring religion back," said Trump. "Let's bring God back into our lives."

KA$H PATEL RT STOOGE

‘Kremlin Christmas’: Rachel Maddow flags 'red line' as top Trump nominee faces Senate vote

Erik De La Garza

RAW STORY
February 7, 2025 


(Screenshot via MSNBC)

It’s Christmas at the Kremlin this week.

That’s according to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow who took to her show Friday night to call attention to new reports that emerged linking Kash Patel to a Russian filmmaker with ties to the Kremlin.

“I recognize there's a lot going on,” Maddow said during her show’s opening monologue. “Every day feels like, you know, trying to put 10 pounds of news into a five pound bags.”

But, Maddow said the latest development involving President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the country’s premier law enforcement agency raises “a different kind of red line.”

She called upon senators on Capitol Hill to reject Patel’s nomination during next week’s vote – and for viewers to pay attention.

“You know what? I just want to say this again,” Maddow reiterated Friday. “The nominee for FBI director taking $25,000 for a pro-Kremlin, anti-FBI smear campaign – a film made by a guy who has made propaganda for the Kremlin that’s kind of been his whole job in life – it seems like the kind of story that should maybe break through. And I know it's been kind of, you know, Kremlin Christmas this week.”

The MSNBC host went on to spotlight other news reports this week, including one in The New York Times that claimed an executive order from Trump may have resulted in the outing of multiple agents at the Central Intelligence Agency.

She also sounded the alarm on CIA officials being included in the so-called government buyout program being pushed by Trump and Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Can you imagine how excited our foreign adversaries are at the idea of a wholesale purge of all the experienced people in the U.S.? Intelligence and counterintelligence? That said, I’m not sure how they narrow down what to be happiest about.”

She added: “It has been Kremlin Christmas for going on three weeks now thus far in the new Trump term.”

Maddow concluded by saying senators will have the chance to decide next week “if they want to put someone in charge of the FBI who literally took $25,000 to participate in a propaganda film attacking the FBI made by somebody who makes propaganda for the Kremlin. This one, I don't know, seems like kind of a different kind of red line.”

Watch the clip below or at this link:

'Golden Age': Trump says he's MAGAfying DC's popular Kennedy Center

WHEN I HEAR THE WORD KULTURE, I REACH FOR MY GUN

HERMANN GOERING

Daniel Hampton
February 7, 2025 

RAW STORY

The Kennedy Center in Washington DC. 

(Photo credit: Matthew Hodgkins / Shutterstock)

President Donald Trump is MAGAfying the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

In a post to his Truth Social app, Trump continued his blitz on the nation's capital by aiming at overhauling the Kennedy Center, a memorial to President John F. Kennedy that puts on more than 2,000 performing arts shows and events each year.

"At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture."

Trump added that his team will soon announce a new board — "with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!"

ALSO READ: Elon Musk's DOGE boys think this is a video game as Trump plots his 2nd coup

"Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"

The center is the official residence of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera.

The center's website immediately saw a deluge of internet traffic following Trump's announcement.

"We are experiencing high traffic. You are currently in a temporary waiting room to enter the Kennedy Center website," a message greeted website visitors Friday afternoon.

WHITE POWER!

Outrage as Trump grants refugee status to group behind South African apartheid

Matthew Chapman
February 7, 2025
RAW STORY

President Donald Trump has largely hobbled the U.S. refugee resettlement program since retaking office last month — but he gave one group of people special consideration for resettlement.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order condemning South Africa's new land expropriation law, which was designed to address the ongoing harms wrought on the country by the racist apartheid regime. The law, noted The Associated Press, "allows the government to take land in specific instances where it is not being used, or where it would be in the public interest if it is redistributed."

Trump, however, attacked the program in his order.

“As long as South Africa continues to support bad actors on the world stage and allows violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country,” and taking another broadside at South Africa for its role in the International Criminal Court investigation of Israel. The order went on to say Trump would establish an expedited refugee resettlement policy for white Afrikaners, the group that ruled over South Africa during apartheid.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a close adviser and benefactor to the president, notably immigrated to the U.S. from South Africa and is outspoken against the land policy. But Trump's mention of "violent attacks" on white farmers also echoes years of him, and others on the American right including Tucker Carlson, pushing white nationalist conspiracy theories that there is a plot to ethnically cleanse white people from that country.

Commenters on social media were quick to condemn Trump's move.

"#DonaldTrump announces that white Afrikaners, the architects and chief beneficiaries of South Africa’s racist apartheid policies 1948-1994 will be given urgent access to refugee resettlement problems in the United States," wrote Hugh Riminton, national affairs editor for Australian network 10 News First.

"White Afrikaners getting to jump in line while Venezuelans are getting their TPS status revoked… Hard to think of a clearer picture!" wrote Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee email and text deputy director George Clark.


"When Donald Trump ceases all refugee resettlement, but makes an explicit exemption for white supremacists, it’s time the press call him what he is: an avowed racist," wrote Democratic strategist Matt McDermott.

'Cataclysmic': Experts say 'drastic change' by Trump's NIH will have 'devastating effect'

Daniel Hampton

RAW STORY
February 7, 2025 

Bethesda, MD, USA 11/21/2020: Vaccine Research Center of National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH a world leader in vaccine development including COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo credit: grandbrothers / Shutterstock)

A "drastic change" announced Friday by the primary federal agency responsible for biomedical and public health research shocked internet critics, with some calling it "cataclysmic."

The National Institutes of Health provides substantial federal funding for research grants, including payments for indirect costs covering facilities and administration expenses. The agency typically uses a negotiated indirect cost rate, but can deviate from it under certain conditions.

But on Friday, the agency said it will now issue a standard indirect rate of 15% for all grants, replacing the individually negotiated rates. The change affects both new and existing grants to institutions of higher education.

"Although cognizant that grant recipients, particularly 'new or inexperienced organizations,' use grant funds to cover indirect costs like overhead ... NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life," the agency said in its announcement.

"The United States should have the best medical research in the world. It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead," the agency later added.

The controversial change has already sparked debate within the research community, with some seeing it as a threat to the sustainability of academic research in the United States.

Some have speculated the cap on indirect costs is part of a larger strategy to slash the agency's overall budget, while others say the indirect costs are vital for supporting the infrastructure of research institutions, covering expenses for personnel, facilities, regulatory staff, grant administrators, and basic utilities.

The change drew immediate concern from onlookers on social media.


Harlan Krumholz, professor of investigative medicine and public healthat Yale University and director at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, flagged the change on X.

"NIH just made a drastic change to indirect cost rates, reducing the rate to 15%, a significant cut from the 60%+ some institutions charge. This will have a devastating effect on the nation’s medical research infrastructure," he wrote.


Lauren Nicholas, health economist at the University of Colorado, replied to Krumholz, "Or universities will charge for more services and crowd out our direct costs, also super bad."


"It’s hard to wrap my arms around just how cataclysmic this is," reacted Charles Ornstein, a managing editor at Pro Publica and former president at the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Dr. Martha Gulati called the change. "So disappointing and disturbing."

OVER ONE MILLION AMERICANS DIED FROM COVID BECAUSE OF TRUMP

The Trump Administration and the COVID‐19 crisis: Exploring the warning‐response problems and missed opportunities of a public health emergency - PMC

A new Pew Research Center analysis of official reports of COVID-19-related deaths across the country, based on mortality data collected by The New York Times, shows how the dynamics of the pandemic have shifted over the past two years.

Comparing U.S. COVID deaths by county and 2020 presidential voting preference | Pew Research Center

'Not just trolling': Security analyst warns Trump no longer joking about taking Canada

Matthew Chapman
February 7, 2025 

RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump talks with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Plenary Session at the NATO summit in Watford, Britain, December 4, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo


President Donald Trump has moved on from joking about acquiring Canada as a U.S. state to thinking it's a good idea, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Beth Sanner told CNN's Jake Tapper on Friday.

Trump has repeatedly made this suggestion as a solution to the trade war he started with Canada, imposing massive tariffs on their goods before agreeing at the last minute to a one-month delay while Canada moves forward with a pre-existing plan to secure its border with the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau caused a stir north of the border this week when he was caught on hot mic expressing his concern that Trump's interest in acquiring his country was "a real thing."

"Is Trudeau right here? Should Canadians be worried?" asked Tapper.

"I actually think that Trudeau was right," said Sanner. "I have four reasons for why President Trump makes these kinds of statements ... First is negotiating leverage. Second is because, actually, there are unfair trade practices in different countries, and, you know, 260 percent tariff on milk from Canada, it doesn't feel very fair, right? The third is because he actually needs to offset this huge and growing budget deficit, that's what Peter Navarro talks about. And the fourth one is trolling."

"So I think we are all, in the beginning, thinking about this like this is just kind of the trolling, he's having a little fun, right?" Sanner continued. "But one of the things about President Trump is, when he repeats things over and over and over again, it becomes more real. And I think that in this case, it's not just about negotiating, it's not just about trolling. And I think that absolutely there will be more to come and more pressure. How serious this is is a different matter. But does he actually think it should be true? I think he does. I think he's convincing himself."

"So it sounds like, would you say that you view his comments about turning Gaza into the new Middle East riviera and the U.S. taking control of that in a similar vein, like, it's not necessarily — he's not necessarily going to send troops to Canada or to Gaza," said Tapper.

"Right. But he's serious," said Sanner. "He's at the point, I believe, where there's some seriousness behind it, that it's not just he can think like, 'hey, that would be kind of a good idea.' Now, you know, [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries should start saying it, because it would definitely boost the Democrats if Canada came in ... it's not actually a good idea for Trump."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

   

UBI & WFH NOW!

Chicago’s guaranteed income project shows promising results

YES! Magazine
February 7, 2025 

"Basic Income for All" sign. (Photo credit: AndriiKoval / Shutterstock)

A guaranteed income pilot project called the Chicago Future Fund (CFF) has just released its latest report. The project, run by Equity and Transformation (EAT) Chicago, is based in the city’s west side, where high unemployment and high rates of police activity, arrests, and incarceration have challenged local residents. CFF’s guaranteed income project provided $500 a month from March 2023 to February 2024 to 100 formerly incarcerated individuals.

Rachel Pyon, research director at EAT Chicago, who leads the CFF pilot programs, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about CFF’s promising results for employment, housing, stress relief, and more.

Watch the clip below.

In Seattle, advocacy groups pitch ‘social housing’ as a climate solution

Joseph Winters, 

Grist
February 7, 2025

Terraced family homes in newly developed housing estate. The real estate market in the suburbs. New single family houses in a new development area. Residential homes with modern facade. (Grand Warszawski / Shutterstock)

"This story was originally published by Grist. 

In 2023, Seattle voters authorized the city to create a new organization to develop “social housing,” a type of publicly-owned affordable housing that accommodates low- and middle-income renters. Now, as residents prepare to vote on another ballot initiative on whether and how to fund the developer, local advocacy organizations are pitching social housing as a climate solution.

“If we’re thinking long-term, this is a transformative solution,” said Akiksha Chatterji, campaigns director for the local nonprofit 350 Seattle.

Chatterji’s group, which advocates for climate and social justice as part of an equitable transition away from fossil fuels, has made social housing a core part of its advocacy platform since the proposal’s early days. It has recently rallied supporters around the ballot initiative to fund it through a new tax on wealthy corporations, which voters will consider on Tuesday. Sunrise Seattle, a branch of the national youth climate organization Sunrise Movement, has also endorsed the social housing initiative.

Seattle already has a few public housing developers, as well as programs that require new developments to include a minimum number of affordable units, provide assistance to first-time homebuyers below a certain income, and grant tax exemptions in exchange for the creation of low-rent apartments. But the city still faces a housing crunch, with the broader region expected to fall 140,000 units short of the 640,000 new homes needed to meet projected demand by 2044.

The broad goal of social housing is to equitably alleviate that housing crunch by creating apartments and townhouses that aren’t subject to market speculation. Under the new developer’s model, units would be publicly owned and would remain affordable indefinitely. Other forms of affordable housing developed by nonprofits are often built with expiring federal tax credits and revert to market rates after a period of 15 to 30 years.

If climate activists get their way on Tuesday, the Seattle Social Housing Developer — the organization that voters established in 2023 — will serve people across a wide income range: from those making 60 percent of the area median income to those making 120 percent of it. (The Seattle area’s median household income is about $106,000, so the social housing would be available to those making around $64,000 to $127,000 a year.) House Our Neighbors, the advocacy group that spearheaded the campaign to create the social housing developer, says this will create “cross-class communities” and also make it easier to fund building construction and maintenance.

Similar social housing experiments have proven successful in a handful of other places — most famously, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Vienna, Austria.


There are two broad reasons why Seattle advocates are describing their social housing model as climate-friendly. The more straightforward one is that the Seattle Social Housing Developer is required to build all new construction in line with “passive house” standards for energy efficiency. These standards involve high-quality insulation, air-tight seals, and other strategies to keep heat, cold, and moisture from entering (or exiting) buildings.

Michael Eliason, founder and principal of the architecture firm Larch Lab, said these requirements can save a significant amount of energy on heating and cooling — which means fewer emissions from burning fossil fuels. This is the case even though Seattle has fairly strict energy codes for all newly constructed buildings. Some of the city’s recently built passive house buildings use 30 to 35 percent less energy than affordable housing built to standard code requirements.

Passive house construction is also better adapted to climate disasters like wildfire, thanks to powerful air filtration systems that help keep embers outside. In one Los Angeles neighborhood that was recently razed by the Palisades Fire, the only house that remained standing was one built to passive house standards. And for those living downwind of wildfires, airtight ventilation keeps smoke from entering buildings, meaning less exposure to hazardous particulate matter.


The other climate argument for social housing is less obvious, and applies to many forms of affordable housing. Adding more housing to desirable urban areas allows more people to live near workplaces, schools, grocery stores, and other amenities, reducing car dependency and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with it. According to one estimate, doubling urban density — the amount of people and development in a given square mile — could reduce travel-related CO2 emissions by 35 percent, and household energy-related emissions by about half. (This is largely because apartment buildings are typically more energy efficient than single-family homes.)

Some of Seattle’s existing public housing developers, like Community Roots Housing, are already working to equitably increase density, and in some cases are exceeding the city’s baseline energy code requirements. Mason Cavell, Community Roots’ director of real estate development, said it wasn’t clear what “additional tools or benefits” the Seattle Social Housing Developer would have at its disposal to “surpass what the existing industry is able to do” on these fronts.

Proponents say that the answer depends on how the developer gets funded. On Seattle’s upcoming ballot, voters will be asked whether the Seattle Social Housing Developer should be funded at all. A second question asks voters to opt between two potential sources of funding.


Proposition 1A would create a new excess compensation payroll tax that social and environmental justice advocates are backing. The tax would apply to companies that pay their executives more than $1 million a year, and supporters of the plan expect it to generate more than $50 million annually to create 2,000 new units over 10 years.

Having that revenue stream, said Julie Howe, a housing researcher at the University of Washington, would allow the Seattle Social Housing Developer to take on projects that aren’t as attractive to other affordable housing developers. More money could mean housing in smaller niches closer to existing transit infrastructure, instead of cheaper sites that are more remote.

Proposition 1B would leverage funding from an existing tax on large companies, which is already shared by the city’s other affordable housing programs.


Al Levine, former deputy executive director of the Seattle Housing Authority, prefers 1B because it reflects an approach to housing that has had more time to prove its financial viability. He also questioned whether the pros of passive house construction outweigh the cons. “Obviously a passive house is a better building in the long run,” he said, but he thinks it could raise the cost of building by 10 to 30 percent. “In making it work, what are the tradeoffs?” he added. “If you spend more up front, you have to recoup that in rent.”

House Our Neighbors, 350 Seattle, and other advocacy groups oppose the 1B funding mechanism because it would lower the income cap on social housing residents to just 80 percent of median area, fundamentally changing the program and making less funding available. It “essentially forces social housing back into the same low-income system that the affordable developers are operating in,” Howe said. “It doesn’t give us the ability to be nimble and flexible.”

Chatterji said the climate justice vision of social housing is bigger than just emissions reductions from lower energy use and easier access to transit. A new tax on big businesses would boost equity, she said, by making healthy and eco-friendly building features available to everyday people.


“You see a lot of rich people making their houses super fireproof, or all of these amenities only being available to people who can afford it,” she said. “Passive house and social housing challenges that by saying, ‘No, these are all public goods, and they should be available to the public in perpetuity.’”

Plus, she added, high-quality construction enabled by the revenue from mixed-income tenants and the 1A tax could mean longer-lasting housing that won’t need to be frequently renovated or replaced.

Tiffani McCoy, House Our Neighbors’ co-executive director, said social housing should be paired with other urban policies like increased transit and zoning reform to unlock further emissions reductions and make Seattle more equitable. Washington state recently banned single-family zoning statewide, though some of Seattle’s richest neighborhoods are exempted from the prohibition.

Seattle’s social housing advocates say that the decisions their city makes now could influence other urban areas contending with problems around housing, affordability, and climate resilience. In New York City, which faces a particularly dire housing crunch, recent zoning reforms are expected to enable the creation of 82,000 more homes over the next 15 years. California has also passed reforms allowing homeowners to divide their property into two lots, creating opportunities for new housing. Yet the country still has an affordable housing gap of about 7.3 million units, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

McCoy said that funding affordable housing with a progressive revenue source, as proposed by Proposition 1A, could insulate cities from the vagaries of the federal government. As President Donald Trump attempts to slash spending on climate mitigation and social programs, she said it’s “even more prudent and incumbent for people at the local level to act now … to make sure that we’re still providing social services, environmental protections, and environmental programs.”

Editor’s note: The author of this article was an intern at 350 Seattle in 2021. He was not involved in the organization’s housing campaigns.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/cities/seattle-social-housing-climate-solution-ballot-initiative-proposition-1a/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

TRUMP'S REVANCHISM

Alaska lawmakers push back on Trump's mountain name change

Agence France-Presse
February 7, 2025 

Alaskan state senators voted unanimously to call on Donald Trump to reverse course on his plan to rename a mountain known locally as Denali. (AFP)

Donald Trump's order to change the name of the highest mountain in the United States faced pushback Friday from members of his own party.

Alaska's Republican-dominated senate voted overwhelmingly against his plan to ditch the Indigenous name Denali for the huge peak, which Trump has rechristened Mount McKinley.

The president has unleashed a flood of executive orders in his first few days in the White House as he attempts to remake the US government.

Orders have included mass pardons for pro-Trump rioters, a federal hiring freeze and an attempt to overturn the constitutionally mandated practice of granting birthright citizenship.

But his order to rename the 20,300-foot (6,200-meter) Denali drew the ire of Alaska's state legislators.

A resolution passed unanimously by the Alaska state senate on Friday urged Trump to rethink his plan.

"The name Denali is deeply ingrained in the state's culture and identity," the motion said.

"Residents of the state believe that the names of the geographic features in the state should be determined by state residents and representatives."

The motion, which earlier cleared the lower chamber by a sizable majority, notes that state lawmakers called for the mountain to be known by its Indigenous name as far back as 1975.

Four decades later, then-president Barack Obama officially recognized that push and dropped the moniker Mount McKinley, which had been the peak's official name since 1917.

(A PERIOD OF WWI JINGOISM & NATIONALISM)

It was coined in honor of Republican president William McKinley who served in the Oval Office from 1897 until his assassination in 1901.

TRUMP LOVES HIM FOR HIS TARIFF OBSESSION LIKE TRUMP'S

The resolution by the state legislature appeared unlikely to change Trump's mind, but was notable as a rare display of disobedience from members of his largely quiescent Republican Party.

FAST MOVING FASCISM 

Musk's ally given power to halt tax refunds and Social Security checks: report

Travis Gettys
February 7, 2025

RAW STORY

One of billionaire Elon Musk's allies has been installed as the head of the Treasury Department bureau that manages the nation's most powerful payment system after the tech mogul pushed out a career civil servant who previously held the role, according to sources.

Silicon Valley executive Tom Krause will become the financial assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, two sources with knowledge of the matter told the Washington Post, and replace 35-year veteran David Lebryk, who resigned after telling Krause his demand to stop payments on foreign aid was illegal and refused to comply.

The Musk ally now has control over the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which disburses more than $5 trillion in annual payments for Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds and thousands of other programs and agencies – all of which Musk demanded on social media should be unilaterally halted as illegal.

Another Trump ally, 25-year-old Marko Elez, left the bureau Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported on his racist social media posts, although Musk and vice president J.D. Vance have both publicly expressed support for bringing him back.

"I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life," the vice president tweeted. "We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back."

Elez had access to the bureau's trove of highly sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers and birthdays linked to individual taxpayers, and Krause remains under a court order not to share any of that data with anyone outside the department amidst legal challenges to the DOGE team's role there.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has defended members of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency working at the department, saying Krause and Elez had “read-only” access to the payments system and were not permitted to make any changes to the complicated computer system used to manage the payments, although sources have told reporters they had some "write" or "insert" privileges.

Trump officials have thus far sought to downplay the DOGE staffers’ work at the Treasury Department. One has insisted that Krause and Elez only had “read-only” access to the payments system — a measure also mandated by a federal court order.

“When you say the DOGE team, these are Treasury employees, two Treasury employees, one of whom I personally interviewed in his final round,” Bessent told Bloomberg.

'Disgrace': Critics outraged by apparent confession at Trump's latest press conference

Matthew Chapman
February 7, 2025 3:58PM ET
RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump mimics a weightlifter while he speaks at a dinner he hosts for Republican Senators at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., February 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Donald Trump was finally confronted at a joint press conference with the Japanese prime minister on Friday about tech billionaire Elon Musk's rapid infiltration of government IT systems — in particular access to the system that handles almost all payments for the Treasury Department and gives Musk and his engineering team theoretical access to huge troves of Americans' Social Security Numbers and private financial information.

When a reporter asked Trump whether Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) task force really needed that kind of access to Americans' sensitive data, the president replied, "Well, it doesn't, but they get it easily. I mean, we don't have very good security in this country and they get it very easily."

Commenters on social media were shocked by Trump's words — with many pointing out that this was essentially a confession that Musk's scheme isn't on strictly legal footing.

"JFC," wrote social media influencer Art Candee.

"Oh, very reassuring…" wrote Republicans Against Trump.

"Trashing our security and the fbi on the national stage is a gift to enemies and a disgrace," wrote author and TV personality Lea Black. "The press should call him out."


"Cc: Every attorney in the country filing suit against DOGE," wrote Center for International Policy adviser and former Senate staffer Dylan Williams.

"'They get it very easily' because Trump gave them unfettered access 'at his insistence,' wrote technology attorney and New York University professor Michael Kasdan. "I hope this is used in Court against them all."

Watch the original exchange below or at the link here.