The Trump Effect
From Riyadh to New York City.
The “Trump Effect Shows No Slowdown,” the White House announced in a press release this morning, citing Nissan saying that the company could move production from Mexico to the U.S., the termination of a slew of federal contracts, and a stark decline in migrant encounters on the border, among other developments.
Trump certainly has a way of barreling through the news cycle and disrupting everything in his wake. Here are three other places the Trump Effect is being felt this morning…
In the federal workforce: The Trump administration directed agencies on Thursday to fire their probationary employees — a category that includes hundreds of thousands of people who have been working in the government for less than two years, as well as longtime federal workers who have recently changed jobs.
The firing spree has impacted a wide array of agencies: more than 1,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs were cut loose, as were several thousand at the Department of Health and Human Services and hundreds at the Federal Aviation Administration. According to the Washington Post, the firings were carried out in a “confusing, slow-motion” manner that “left staff worried about the future of various projects, including those to improve maternal health, discover new cancer treatments and provide help for 9/11 responders.”
In some cases, the employees’ responsibilities were so important that the administration is now scrambling to re-hire them: the National Nuclear Security Administration is currently attempting to bring back the nuclear safety workers it let go, but is struggling to get in contact with them.
The employees were told that they were fired for poor job performance, despite many of them boasting positive performance reviews. Probationary employees have fewer civil service protections, which makes them easier to fire, although federal unions still say they plan to take legal action. Some employees are reportedly referring to the terminations as the “Valentine’s Day massacre.”
More changes are continuing to come. Per NBC News, Trump officials plan to fire hundreds of high-level Department of Homeland Security employees as part of a plan to “rid the country’s third-largest agency of people deemed to be misaligned with the administration’s goals.” Biden-era U.S. attorneys are also being terminated, although an email snafu sparked some significant confusion first.
Finally, last night, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration — a career official who had been at the agency for more than 30 years — resigned after refusing to provide access to sensitive records to staffers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In Europe: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and other top officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this morning for the first high-level U.S.-Russia talks since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Rubio signaled to the Associated Press that the two sides agreed to pursue three goals: “to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks, and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.”
European leaders — not to mention Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — were thrown into a state of alarm as it appeared that the U.S. was launching negotiations to end the Ukraine war without offering them seats at the table. “It’s appeasement,” the top foreign policy official for the European Union declared on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, where a speech from Vice President JD Vance left America’s European allies reeling.
According to Fox News, the U.S. and Russia discussed a three-stage peace plan, potentially including a requirement that Ukraine hold new elections — a provision that Zelensky is sure to balk at. “Any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine have no result,” Zelensky said on Monday. “We cannot recognize any agreements about us without us.”
In New York City: In the months since New York City Mayor Eric Adams was charged with wire fraud and bribery, America’s largest city had settled into a something of a status quo. The initial post-indictment calls for Adams to be removed from office had died down; his opponents seemed to be biding their time until the Democratic mayoral primary in June.
Until Trump got involved. Last week, the Trump administration moved to dismiss the charges against Adams, sparking a crisis at the Justice Department as seven prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned in protest. In a blistering resignation letter, acting U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon alleged that Adams’ attorneys had approached the DOJ with “what amounted to a quid pro quo,” promising that the mayor would assist the Trump administration with immigration enforcement in exchange for dismissing his indictment.
The fallout from the controversy continues to spread in the Big Apple, with the alleged Adams-Trump agreement leading four of Adams’ deputy mayors to resign on Monday. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), who has the power to remove the New York City mayor under the state constitution, is also facing renewed calls to oust Adams; she is set to meet with city leaders today to discuss the possibility.
More news to know
ABC: Trump stokes alarm about view of presidential power with apparent Napoleon reference
Politico: Who’s in charge of DOGE? Not Elon Musk, White House says
CNN: American arrested in Moscow on drug smuggling charges is freed ahead of Russia-US talks
WaPo: Mexico threatens to sue Google over ‘Gulf of America’ name change
The day ahead
All times Eastern.
President Trump will sign executive orders at 4 p.m. at Mar-a-Lago.
The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. and recognize Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) to read Washington’s Farewell Address, an annual Senate tradition dating back to 1862. At around 5:30 p.m., the chamber will hold a procedural vote to advance Kash Patel’s nomination to be FBI Director, followed by a vote to confirm Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.
The House is out for the week.
The Supreme Court has no oral arguments scheduled this week.
What concerns me primarily about Mr Trump, Musk, plus the rest of the cronies ( and you know who they are) is the lack of character. Policies can be overturned, folks rehired but when you have a leader without any regard for the truth, has a history of cheating, not only with his marriages, but in business and yet folks have drank the kool-aid, gulping it down , we are in serious trouble. I listened to grown women comparing him to God, the blood on his ear to Jesus’ blood, and a myriad of additional psychotic utterances. In regard to Musk, Ketamine has serious side effects and he is displaying them. I cannot speak about Vance without developing a tick.
I am beginning to believe we are more uneducated than I thought; one example, who pays the tariffs, seller or buyer, who has the last word; the president or the courts? It’s a mess
So suddenly we have hundreds (thousands?) of jobless Americans. Have we simply increased the number of people on unemployment? On government assistance? Have they lost health insurance? It appears as though we've moved them from government pay for working to government assistance for NOT working!! Or just thrown them out on the streets. What a mess.