Letters from an American - January 28, 2025

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

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January 28, 2025. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, a plan for a second Trump term prepared by a number of right-wing institutions led by the Heritage Foundation. The plan called for dismantling the nonpartisan civil service and replacing it with officers loyal to an extraordinarily strong executive. It called for that strong executive to take control of the Department of Justice and the military, and then, once firmly in power, to impose Christian nationalism on the country. The members of the Heritage Foundation who wrote Project 2025 are closely aligned with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán's Danube Institute and their plan looks

much like his erosion of democracy to create a dictatorship that enforces white male Christian patriarchy. On Monday, Jamel Bowie of the New York Times reflected on the influence of Hungary on the American right wing, posting, "'It has always been wild to me "'that the model these guys have for the United States "'is a country that would rival Mississippi "'for poorest state if it became part of this country.'"

Once people heard about Project 2025, they came out strongly against it. Trump then maintained he knew nothing about the plan, although many of the people involved in it had been part of his first administration. On January 24th, Nick Popley noted in Time magazine that a number of people who wrote Project 2025 have been tapped to serve in Trump's second administration, and that nearly two-thirds of the executive orders Trump has signed either mirror or partly mirror the plans in that nearly 900-page document. The real shame is that on the campaign trail, Trump did not level with Americans, Sky Perryman of the legal organization Democracy Forward told Popley. He didn't seek to try to convince Americans that this was his agenda. He acted as

if he didn't have anything to do with Project 2025 when we know and have seen that he's really seeking to accelerate that agenda. On Monday, January 27th, the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, issued to agency heads guidance for how to implement what was, in Trump's first term, known as Schedule F, a plan to replace the nonpartisan civil servant system established in 1883 with people loyal to Trump. As soon as he took office, former President Joe Biden rescinded Schedule F, but it has come back in Trump's second term as Schedule Policy slash Career. The plan strips tens of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections.

Don Kettle of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy told Eric Wagner of Government Executive that the new rules say the responsibility of people in the executive branch is to do what the president says as he decides it should be done and anyone who doesn't is subject to firing. It's a flat out assertion of presidential authority under Article 2 of the Constitution that I've never seen put quite so broadly." Today, the Trump administration sent an email blast titled, Fork in the Road, to federal workers offering to let them resign and keep their pay until September, a transparent attempt

to clear places for loyalists. Judd Legum of Popular Information noted this sure looked like Elon Musk was spiking the ball as this was the same subject line he sent to Twitter employees when he bought the company. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo looked at the buyout proposal and noted that zero legal authority exists to do this. Last night, legal commentator Joyce White Vance detailed the Trump administration's attacks on the independence of the Department of Justice. On Monday, Trump's acting Attorney

General fired more than a dozen lawyers who worked on the criminal prosecutions of now President Trump after reassigning many more. In a statement, an official for the department said that the acting Attorney General does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the president's agenda. In a masterpiece of gaslighting, the statement added, this action is consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government. Vance points out that an administration can't fire career federal prosecutors based on their perceived political loyalties. She continues, the real witch hunt is here, and it's a warning to all other federal employees to mind their loyalty if they want to keep their jobs. That's the point. Trump knows he can't lawfully fire these people in this manner. He wants to make the point that he's willing to do it in hopes others will stay in line.

Trump appears to be trying to gain control over the military and turn it into a political instrument. In his inaugural address, he said he would free the U.S. military to focus on their sole mission, defeating America's enemies. But in fact, the stated mission of the U.S. military is to deter war and ensure our nation's security. Those two statements are not the same thing. As Michael T. Clare wrote today in The Nation, the focus of Trump's pick for defense secretary,

former Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth, is not to ensure the nation's security, but to fight the Marxists in government, the media, and civil society who, he claims, have instilled woke-ism in the U.S. military, that is, a commitment to racial and gender diversity. When Republican senators balked at confirming Hegseth, Trump's allies forced him through by a vote of 50-50 with Vice President J.D. Vance, reported that Hegseth has stripped retired former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair, General Mark Milley, of his security detail, revoked his security clearance, and ordered an inspector general to investigate his behavior. Trump appointed Milley but came to despise him because he stood against Trump's unconstitutional orders.

While strafing the independent civil service, the Justice Department, and the military, the administration is also working to strengthen the hand of the president. Over the weekend, Trump openly broke a law passed by Congress in 2022 to limit his ability to fire inspectors general and when met with shrugs by Republican enablers the administration moved to bigger power grabs. It is ignoring a 1974 law that says the president must disperse monies appropriated by Congress. Past after President Richard Nixon tried to override the power of Congress by impounding the money it appropriated for things lawmakers thought would benefit their

constituents. Federal money, after all, belongs to the American people. The authors of Project 2025 insist that the 1974 Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional, and that the president can decide simply to stop funding the things Congress deems important, thus reducing Congress from the lawmaking body the Constitution established to a sort of advisory body. When Trump tried this in 2019, impounding money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine's fight against Russian incursions in order to force Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to smear Trump's political rival, Joe Biden,

the House of Representatives impeached him. Although Republican senators agreed Trump was guilty, they acquitted him, fearing that convicting him would hurt their party in the 2020 elections. On Friday, the Trump administration froze all foreign aid appropriated by Congress. We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don't we? Trump said on Monday. But the truth is that American soft power has been

crucial in maintaining U.S. global influence since World War II. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, called it dumb and murderous, adding, tons of kids are just going to die needlessly as U.S.-funded food supplies for famine-stricken Sudan stop. The terrorists will benefit as U.S. money for prisons holding ISIS members dries up. The point of all this is to destroy U.S. power in the world," Murphy wrote. That primarily helps China, who is increasing its aid programs as we disappear. China, the place where all of Trump's billionaires make their products and want deals to open markets. Think there's a connection? International aid groups that depend on US funding

appeared shocked. The recent stop work cable from the State Department suspends programs that support America's global leadership and creates dangerous vacuums that China and our adversaries will quickly fill, said Interaction, the largest alliance of international aid organizations. This halt interrupts critical life-saving work, including clean water to infants, basic education for kids, ending the trafficking of girls, and providing medications to children and others suffering from disease.

It stops assistance in countries critical to U.S. interests, including Taiwan, Syria, and Pakistan. And it halts decades of life-saving work through PEPFAR, the president's emergency plan for AIDS relief, a global health program started by President George W. Bush that helps babies to be born HIV free. International aid organizations hoped the decision would be reversed. But on Monday night, the Trump administration accused the leadership of USAID, the US Agency for International Development, of trying to get around

its order to freeze all foreign aid. And it placed dozens of career officials on administrative leave. Still, after an outcry, newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio today announced a temporary waiver for certain life-saving humanitarian assistance, although what that means is unclear. On Monday, Trump's White House Budget Office went even further in strengthening Trump. It ordered a pause on all federal government grants and loans, requiring

them all to guarantee that they ban diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and stop spending for clean energy initiatives. According to Jeff Stein, Jacob Bogage, and Emily Davies of the Washington Post, the memo sent to government agencies said programs affected are, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, non-governmental associations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal. Georgetown University Law Center Professor Josh Chaffetz wrote, There is simply no plausible argument that the president has the constitutional authority to refuse to spend appropriated funds because he doesn't like how the money is being spent.

And it's hard to think of anything more destructive to our constitutional order than a claim that a president can either spend funds that have not been appropriated or refuse to spend funds that have. Today, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York, told reporters, last night President Trump plunged the country into chaos. The Trump administration announced a halt to virtually all federal funds across the country. In an instant, Donald Trump has shut off billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars that directly

support states, cities, towns, schools, hospitals, small businesses, and most of all, American families. This is a dagger at the heart of the average American family in red states, in blue states, in cities, in suburbs, in rural areas. Funds for things like disaster assistance, local law enforcement, rural hospitals, aid to the elderly, food for people in need, all are on the chopping block. Congress approved these investments and they are not optional, Schumer said. They are the law. While it is unclear what this freeze covers, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post says there is general

agreement that it includes discretionary spending, including the Head Start Early Childhood Development Program and WIC, the Nutrition Program for Mothers and Infants. Representative Yasemin Ansari, a Democrat of Arizona, wrote that Trump's order is illegal and dictatorial and Americans will die as a result. Senator Angus King, an independent of Maine, called Trump's impoundment of all federal grants and loans blatantly unconstitutional. This is a profound constitutional issue," he continued. What happened last night is the most direct assault on the authority of Congress in the history of the United States. This evening, a federal judge issued a stay to stop the Trump administration's freeze on the disbursement of federal monies. Judge Lauren L. Alakan of the U.S. District Court

for the District of Columbia has paused the measure until Monday evening while she hears arguments concerning it. Today, CNN host Jim Acosta, a Trump critic, announced on air he was leaving the channel after its management tried to move him to a middle-of-the-night slot.

People often ask me if the highlight of my career at CNN was at the White House covering Donald Trump, Acosta said. Actually, no. That moment came when I covered President Barack Obama's trip to Cuba in 2016 and had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island's political prisoners. As the son of a Cuban refugee, I took home this lesson. It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. I've always believed it is the job of the press to hold power to account.

I've always tried to do that here at CNN, and I plan on doing that in the future. One final message. Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth and to hope. Even if you have to get out your phone, record that message. I will not give into the lies. I will not give into the fear. Post it on your social media. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.