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ELON MUSK DEPARTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AFTER TURBULENT CHAPTER

CapitalTimesNews / 15 hours

2 min read

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has announced his departure from his role as a top adviser to President Donald Trump, marking the end of a tumultuous chapter in Washington. Musk’s role, which focused on reducing and overhauling the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was always intended to be temporary. In a post on X, Musk thanked President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending, saying, “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.” A White House official confirmed Musk’s departure. Musk’s exit comes after he expressed frustration with the Trump administration’s legislative agenda, particularly the “big beautiful bill,” which includes tax cuts and enhanced immigration enforcement. Musk described the bill as a “massive spending bill” that increases the federal deficit and undermines the work of DOGE. “I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful,” Musk said. “But I don’t know if it could be both.” Trump defended his agenda, citing the delicate politics involved in negotiating the legislation. “I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” he said. “We’re going to see what happens. It’s got a way to go.” Some Republican lawmakers share Musk’s concerns about the bill. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson sympathized with Musk’s frustration, saying he was “pretty confident” there was enough opposition to slow down the process until the president and leadership get serious about reducing spending. During his time in the administration, Musk struggled to achieve his goals, dramatically reducing his target for cutting spending from $2 trillion to $150 billion. He also clashed with other top officials and faced fierce political blowback. Musk’s departure is seen as a potential boost to Republicans who want bigger spending cuts. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee reposted a Fox News story about Musk’s interview, saying there was “still time to fix” the bill. “The Senate version will be more aggressive,” Lee said. “It can, it must, and it will be. Or it won’t pass.” The Congressional Budget Office estimates the tax provisions in the bill would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps, and other services would reduce spending by slightly more than $1 trillion. House Republican leaders claim increased economic growth would allow the bill to be deficit-neutral or deficit-reducing, but outside watchdogs are skeptical.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO DISMANTLE USAID, LEAVING THOUSANDS JOBLESS

CapitalTimesNews / 3 months

2 min read

In a shocking move, the Trump administration has taken a significant step towards dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), leaving thousands of employees without jobs. As of Monday, all but a fraction of USAID staffers worldwide were told they were on leave, while at least 1,600 U.S.-based staffers were notified of their termination. This drastic measure is part of President Donald Trump’s broader campaign to slash the size of the federal government, with cost-cutting ally Elon Musk by his side. The goal, according to Trump and Musk, is to gut the six-decade-old aid and development agency. The move comes after U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected a lawsuit from employees seeking to block the government’s plan. On Friday, Judge Nichols allowed the administration to proceed with its plan to pull thousands of USAID staffers off the job in the United States and around the world. This development is the latest in a series of actions taken by the Trump administration to dismantle USAID. Within hours of Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, he issued an executive order suspending new foreign assistance programs for 90 days. The implications of this move are far-reaching, and it remains to be seen how the dismantling of USAID will impact global aid and development efforts.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PUTS $400 MILLION ARMORED TESLA VEHICLE PURCHASE ON HOLD

Nicolas Adekeye / 4 months

2 min read

The Trump administration has put on hold a planned purchase of $400 million worth of armored Tesla vehicles, according to a State Department document. The purchase, initially slated for September 2025, was part of the federal government’s procurement plan for the fiscal year. However, the State Department announced on Thursday that it no longer plans to fulfill the contract. The document, which was edited to remove the word “Tesla” after reports of the planned purchase surfaced, now refers to the contract as $400 million worth of “armored electric vehicles.” Tesla’s Cybertruck, with its militaristic design and stainless steel exterior, was seen as a potential option for the government’s armored vehicle needs. Responding to a segment by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about the $400 million contract, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and a top White House official, wrote on X: “Hey @Maddow, why the lie?” Musk has been leading the Department of Government Efficiency, a unit focused on shrinking the federal workforce and ferreting out corruption. The State Department stated that the contract originated in the Biden administration as an effort to explore interest from private companies in producing armored electric vehicles. Tesla was the only company to express interest at the time. However, the solicitation process is now on hold, according to a State Department spokesperson. Musk’s involvement in the government has raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, given his leadership of six companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, which have multibillion-dollar contracts with the federal government. Ethics experts have warned that Musk’s deputies’ access to nearly two dozen federal agencies could create conflicts of interest. The State Department document also reveals that some Tesla competitors, including BMW, are set to receive smaller contracts for armored vehicles. BMW is expected to supply about $40 million worth of SUVs to the federal government.

I RAN U.S.A.I.D. KILLING IT IS A WIN FOR AUTOCRATS EVERYWHERE

CapitalTimesNews / 4 months
0
7 min read

By Samantha Power Ms. Power was the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development in the Biden administration. We are witnessing one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in U.S. history. Less than three weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, he, Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have halted the U.S. Agency for International Development’s aid programs around the world. In so doing, they have imperiled millions of lives, thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars of investment in American small businesses and farms while severely undermining our national security and global influence — all while authoritarians and extremists celebrate their luck. I am shocked by the gleeful assault perpetrated by our own government against U.S.A.I.D.’s programs and the public servants who work on them. But after running the agency for four years, I am not surprised that the attacks are being cheered by Moscow and Beijing. They understand what those seeking to dismantle the agency are desperate to hide from the American people: U.S.A.I.D. has become America’s superpower in a world defined by threats that cross borders and amid growing strategic competition. The assistance provided by U.S.A.I.D. comes in many forms, and with a budget of less than 1 percent of the U.S. government’s overall annual spending, it, alone, is no panacea for the world’s major challenges. Like all government agencies, it could be more efficient, and making it so was an effort I spearheaded during my tenure. Yet for much of the world population, the investments and work of U.S.A.I.D. make up the primary (and often only) contact with the United States. Some investments save lives almost immediately — like the medicines dispensed to 500,000 children with H.I.V., or the nutrient-rich food manufactured in states like Rhode Island and Georgia that pulls starving children from the brink of death. Out of the $38 billion that U.S.A.I.D. spent in fiscal year 2023, nearly $20 billion was for health programs (such as those that combat malaria, tuberculosis, H.I.V./AIDS and infectious disease outbreaks) and humanitarian assistance to respond to emergencies and help stabilize war-torn regions. Other U.S.A.I.D. investments are less visible but pay dividends in the longer term, such as giving girls a chance to get an education and enter the work force, or growing local economies. Many of the agency’s most significant investments — like helping communities rebuild after ISIS has been defeated or improving poor countries’ ability to suppress deadly infectious disease outbreaks — are immensely important for national security. And yet U.S.A.I.D. is no longer monitoring bird flu in 49 countries as it was three weeks ago; it has stopped working with at-risk youth in Central America to prevent gang violence that spurs migration; it is not cleaning up fields poisoned by Agent Orange in Vietnam; it is not eradicating polio; it is not collaborating with communities in countries like Syria, Morocco and Kazakhstan to reduce vulnerability to radicalization. The costs of dismantling these programs — and thus perpetrating these harms — will be felt for generations to come. Of course, the agency I have just described bears no resemblance to the “radical left” and “criminal” phantom that Mr. Trump is slaying. In addition to extensive oversight from Congress, U.S.A.I.D. meticulously documented all of its programs and expenditures online. It is perhaps not a coincidence that one of the first acts of the men intent on killing the agency was to have the U.S.A.I.D. website go dark. In fact, U.S.A.I.D. has generated vast stores of political capital in the more than 100 countries where it works, making it more likely that when the United States makes hard requests of their leaders — for example, to send peacekeepers to a war zone, to help a U.S. company enter a new market, or to extradite a criminal to the United States — they say yes. That partly explains why the attacks on U.S.A.I.D.’s work from within the U.S. government are being welcomed by autocrats. During my tenure as U.S.A.I.D. administrator, we saw a significant uptick in attacks by China and Russia on the agency. Last April, the Chinese government issued an over 20-page attack on U.S.A.I.D.’s work, offering up a litany of false claims about how the United States had “acted recklessly, committed numerous misdeeds and committed numerous crimes.” In the last six months of the Biden administration, we documented more than 80 foreign propaganda campaigns targeting U.S.A.I.D.’s work in local languages in every region of the world. After U.S.A.I.D. expanded its partnerships in the Pacific Islands in 2023, Chinese and Russian state-backed media spread disinformation before the 2024 general election in the Solomon Islands. The false claims suggested that U.S.A.I.D. planned to incite riots and orchestrate an electoral coup. Russian intelligence used a new media outlet called African Initiative to smear U.S. health programs in Africa, including those that have helped turn the tide against diseases like H.I.V. and malaria, claiming the programs were covertly carrying out biological testing. U.S.A.I.D. has enjoyed tremendous bipartisan support in the six decades since it was created by President John F. Kennedy, and later authorized by Congress. During the previous Trump administration, efforts to significantly reduce its budget were rebuffed by Republicans who, as now, controlled the House and the Senate. Many of us in the Biden administration believed that senior national security officials on Mr. Trump’s team who saw how bold China had become in expanding its global investments and influence — and who learned the hard lesson from the pandemic that threats that cross borders can cause colossal harm — would recognize that U.S.A.I.D. had become the ground game in U.S. foreign policy. In the briefings and materials we provided to the incoming team, we also shared how U.S.A.I.D. had expanded its activities recently in areas that are particularly threatening to China and Russia — increasing efforts to expose corruption, supporting countries as they try to renegotiate usurious debt they have incurred to China, and developing frameworks to diversify U.S. supply chains

USAID PROJECTS UNDER FIRE: WASTEFUL SPENDING EXPOSED

Nicolas Adekeye / 4 months

2 min read

A recent White House release has shed light on several questionable projects funded by USAID, sparking outrage over the agency’s handling of taxpayer dollars. The list of projects includes allocations for various initiatives worldwide, such as $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists about avoiding “binary-gendered language” and $20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq. Other notable expenditures include $4.5 million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan, $1.5 million for art promoting inclusion of people with disabilities, and $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala. Additionally, $6 million was allocated to transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles, and $2.1 million to help the BBC value diversity in Libyan society. However, some of the most alarming allocations involve funding terror groups. For instance, $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals went to an al Qaeda-linked terror group. Furthermore, $25 million was granted to Deloitte to promote green transportation in Georgia, and $5 million to EcoHealth Alliance, an NGO funding bat virus research at the Wuhan lab. Critics argue that these expenditures demonstrate a lack of accountability within USAID. For decades, the agency’s bureaucrats seemed to operate with impunity, but the current administration claims to be putting an end to the waste, fraud, and abuse. As one statement puts it, “For decades, USAID bureaucrats believed they were accountable to no one — but that era is over. President Trump is stopping the waste, fraud, and abuse.”

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FACES BACKLASH OVER USAID SHUTDOWN

Nicolas Adekeye / 4 months

2 min read

The Trump administration’s move to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has sparked a strong rebuke from Democrats, who have vowed to take the matter to court. The agency, which provides crucial aid overseas to fund education and fight starvation and disease, was instructed to close its Washington headquarters on Monday, with staffers barred from entering the building. The sudden move came after billionaire Elon Musk announced that President Donald Trump had agreed to shut down the agency. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been instrumental in the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline government operations. However, Democrats have slammed the move as illegal and vowed to fight it in court. The shutdown of USAID has already resulted in thousands of employees being laid off and programs being shut down. The agency’s closure has also raised concerns about the impact on global aid efforts. The move has been seen as a testament to Musk’s extraordinary power in the Trump administration. As the controversy continues to unfold, lawmakers have been blocked from entering the USAID headquarters, with officers stationed at the lobby. The agency’s closure has sparked widespread outrage, with many criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the situation.

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ELON MUSK DEPARTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AFTER TURBULENT CHAPTER

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO DISMANTLE USAID, LEAVING THOUSANDS JOBLESS

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I RAN U.S.A.I.D. KILLING IT IS A WIN FOR AUTOCRATS EVERYWHERE

USAID PROJECTS UNDER FIRE: WASTEFUL SPENDING EXPOSED

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