OMB freezes all disbursements / USAID shutdown / GOP begs for exceptions for their states

lawtig02 said:
Looks like they're blaming the media for now.


Though White House aides publicly blamed the media for causing the confusion, arguing that none existed within the building, the administration had received a flood of calls from lawmakers and state officials with questions about its impact on their home states.
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They'll never admit a mistake, but that doesn't mean we don't know one when we see one.

Worthwhile to remind ourselves of the MO:
The three rules of PR as taught by Roy Cohn to Donald Trump —​
  1. Attack! Attack! Attack!
  2. Admit nothing and deny everything.
  3. No matter what happens you claim victory and never admit defeat. You have to be willing to do anything to anyone.
 
Icky Mettle said:
They can just say they did it to own the libs. That will at least appeal to their base.
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I don't see how that works if they rescind it a day later. I know the whole point of doing it was out of pure pettiness and cruelty, but to have to go back a day later and rescind it because of blowback seems like a lot of egg on Trump's face.
 
There is a reason to have temporary heads of agencies issue their most aggressive (and aggressively broad) mandates — prod, check what you can get away with, blame the temp guys of you need to, refine and start again.

It may have also have been something they had to rescind to get Vought’s nomination through the Senate. I have read speculation that they planned to issue this order after his nomination was approved but expedited to change the news cycle from the stock market impact of DeepSeek. Not sure if I buy that but could see this mess needing to be cleaned up before Vought’s hearing.
 
CarolinaFever said:
I don't see how that works if they rescind it a day later. I know the whole point of doing it was out of pure pettiness and cruelty, but to have to go back a day later and rescind it because of blowback seems like a lot of egg on Trump's face.
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yeah, there's really no logical way to even attempt to spin this as anything other than a complete clusterfuck colossal failure but as we know, magaland is allergic to logic.

blaming the media and/or claiming that everyone (the media, local officials, state officials, federal officials, literally everyone!) lied about what happened is basically their white flag.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
Before the split, you give Trump enough rope to do a lot of damage.

NC is enough of a swing state to flip once people see how bad things are getting.
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You have to get the North Carolina State Legislature to allow a statewide vote on it; instead of the Legislature making the decision.
 
These are the problems that arise when the president tries to make law by means of documents that have no legal force. None of this stuff -- the EOs, the memos, or anything of the like -- is law. It's publicity.
 
superrific said:
These are the problems that arise when the president tries to make law by means of documents that have no legal force. None of this stuff -- the EOs, the memos, or anything of the like -- is law. It's publicity.
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I wonder if they are trying to circumvent the stay (which was based on the OMB order)?
 


Trump claims he stopped a shipment of $50 million in condoms to Hamas AND that “they’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?”

Fact check: $50 million for condoms in Gaza? Five big reasons to be skeptical Trump’s story is true​



“
During her first official White House briefing as President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt announced that Trump had prevented a “preposterous waste of taxpayer money.” Trump’s team, she said, used the president’s pause on foreign aid to thwart a plan in which “there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”

Leavitt’s Tuesday comments made headlines around the world. And the president himself told an even more dramatic version of the story in a speech on Wednesday, saying that “we identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas.”

… The White House offered no evidence for the story: Leavitt provided no proof for her claim that there was ever a federal plan to spend $50 million on condoms in Gaza. And when CNN asked Leavitt and her colleagues for any evidence, another White House official instead pointed us to comments from the State Department — comments that, as we’ll discuss below, did not even repeat Leavitt’s claim of a planned $50 million Gaza condom expenditure, let alone prove the claim.

… In three previous years under Biden, USAID spent no money on condoms in the entire Middle East: A detailed federal report published last year said USAID did not provide or fund any condoms in the Middle East in the 2021, 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.

… Total worldwide USAID condom spending is far less than $50 million: In the 2023 fiscal year, USAID provided or funded a global total of about $7.1 million worth of male condoms and about $1.1 million worth of female condoms, overwhelmingly to countries in Africa, according to the federal report.

… The State Department would not repeat Leavitt’s claim: … Instead, Bruce was vague about how much condom spending was supposedly stopped. She wrote: “Example 1: Condoms. Prevented $102 million in unjustified funding to a contractor in Gaza, including money for contraception.” She did not specify how much of the $102 million in funding was intended for contraception, let alone for condoms in particular. …”
 


“I’m restating right now to correct any confusion that the media has purposefully and somehow for whatever reason created Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have not been affected by any action we’re taking in any way, shape or form. We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud …”
 
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