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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is adding another role to his current gig, for which he has no qualifications, as interim NASA chief—a position in which he is similarly unqualified. We are all being forced to see Duffy cosplay as an astronaut because President Donald Trump and Elon Musk got in a slap fight. One of the many pieces of fallout from that breakup was Trump’s pulling Jason Isaacman as his NASA nominee to spite Musk, who picked Isaacman. Just think: Duffy will bring the same gravitas and capability to NASA that he has brought to the crises at the Federal Aviation Administration—blaming President Joe Biden, moving Jesus out of the basement, muttering like a weirdo about how everything at the FAA went to hell because you can no longer say “cockpit.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks to the media at the White House on May 6. To be fair, Duffy was always going to be out of his depth. His ”Real World” experience has not exactly translated to actual real world experience. But—like so many others in the Trump administration—what he lacks in skill, he makes up for in pugnaciousness. Duffy is happiest when he goes to his safe space, Fox News, to raise the alarm about how the New York City Subway is now basically just ”The Warriors”. Hopefully he isn’t as afraid of spaceflight as he is the mere thought of public transit.  It isn’t clear if Duffy’s time playing boss means that he will oversee the imminent decimation of the agency, slated to shed more than 2,000 employees. Unlike Duffy, those people have decades of relevant and specialized experience, and the loss to NASA will be catastrophic.  For whatever reason, Trump has an utter disinterest in NASA at the moment. During the Trump-Musk bromance, it looked like the real goal was to let Musk privatize NASA and turn it into a money machine for SpaceX, but that dream is dead. Hence, treating running one of the most beloved, iconic, and scientifically complex agencies in the United States like driving for Uber to make a few bucks.  Related | Kash Patel loses ATF gig as Trump kills gun safety measures Take Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who got his high-level post because he was one of Trump’s criminal defense attorneys. After Trump ousted the librarian of Congress as part of his war on DEI, he put Blanche in that role, too. Sure, why not? There’s no doubt that Duffy is hoping his sojourn at NASA will not end in mysterious ignominy, as when FBI Director Kash Patel lost his night job running the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Some folks just have trouble holding down two jobs.  All of these guys are pikers compared to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Besides being in charge of U.S. foreign policy, he’s also the national security adviser, the acting archivist, and the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.  Then again, that may have changed even by the time you read this. But rest assured that Trump will continue throwing top government jobs around as patronage—or punishment.

The Trump administration’s attack on immigrants is a whole-of-government effort. There’s no lever he won’t pull, no cruelty too petty or vast. On Thursday, a few Cabinet departments debuted their newest move: redefining what “federal public benefit” means so that undocumented immigrants can no longer access a host of resources.  Buckle up—we have to get a bit wonky.  Broadly speaking, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for “federal public benefits” under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or PRWORA. The more programs the administration can stuff under that definition, the more things they can withhold from undocumented people.  Even prior to PRWORA, undocumented immigrants were largely excluded from direct assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Things get trickier outside of that context, which is why there are lengthy guides on this from immigration groups, as well as detailed congressional reports. The administration is working on sweeping all those distinctions, all that nuance, away so that it can get to the same bottom line it always does: taking things away in order to hurt people.  Healthy and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in January. On Thursday, the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor put out press releases that were substantially similar, gleefully boasting about how they’ve further managed to marginalize undocumented people. Each statement declares, either explicitly or in essence, that certain programs they administer are now federal public benefits and therefore can’t go to undocumented immigrants.  Why? Because they say so, basically.  Education’s statement declares the department is rescinding part of a 1997 “Dear Colleague” letter issued during the Clinton administration, which defined exceptions to PRWORA’s federal benefits definition. Is that letter linked in the press release? Heavens, no. Is it easy to find otherwise on a government site? Nope! Is there any legal analysis underpinning the administration’s assertion that the definition has been wrong since 1997, and they’re just setting things straight? Lol.  But here’s the big change, and it’s ugly: Previously, if a federal public benefit was administered at the community level, then it was not a direct benefit to someone who was able to access that community resource. For example, undocumented immigrants could enroll in Head Start or could get food from a food bank because they weren’t receiving the benefit directly. Not anymore. The new interpretation now seems to be that even an indirect, non-cash service cannot go to undocumented immigrants. So what does that look like? Per HHS, undocumented immigrants can no longer access Head Start, an early childhood education program for low-income families. They can’t go to many federally funded health clinics, they can’t get mental health services or substance abuse treatment funded by community block grants, and they can’t get family-planning services funded by Title X.  And if you thought it was an exaggeration to say that this new, stretched-beyond-recognition definition of “federal public benefit” would mean that an undocumented immigrant can’t get food from a food bank that receives federal funding, just peep Thursday’s Department of Agriculture notice in the Federal Register: Accordingly, the ultimate beneficiaries to whom federal funds flow from a contract or grant provided by FNS or appropriated funds of the United States are recipients of a “Federal public benefit.” For example, if a food bank receives a grant which is used to purchase food for distribution, the individual who receives the food assistance has received a “Federal public benefit.” Besides excluding undocumented immigrants from a host of resources, this creates an additional—and certainly intended—problem. Any organization that receives block grants or other federal funding will now have to begin aggressively policing those they serve, demanding citizenship verification.  HHS programs got the brunt of this today, which is no real surprise given how this administration hates poor people almost as much as they hate immigrants, so slashing benefits targeted at lower-income people will always get them hyped. Over at the Education Department, the new special redefinition means that undocumented immigrants can’t access adult education programs or career and technical education that receive federal funding. The administration has not been shy about using the tools of violence to push immigrants out of public life. But deploying soft power like this, by withholding resources, is just as dangerous—so of course they’re doing it.

PoliticusUSA is a strong independent media voice that relies on your support. Please consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now The Trump administration has shown zero curiosity about how the most deadly flood in a century was able to occur in the United States in the year 2025. The reason why the administration is not willing to do some digging and investigate is beginning to emerge, and it is all about DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. CNN reported: For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country. In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN. But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) reacted to the CNN report by calling out Noem’s deadly incompetence on Bluesky: Trump made Kristi Noem his DHS pick even though she had zero experience in any area of homeland security. Noem’s only qualification is that she has spent years as a devoted Trump cheerleader. PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Lives could have been potentially saved if Senate Republicans and the seven Senate Democrats who voted to confirm her (Kim, Kaine, Slotkin, Peters, Hassan, Shaheen, and Fetterman) had said no. Kaine and Kim have already publicly regretted their votes for Noem. Those Senators of both parties who voted for an unqualified DHS nominee deserve blame as well. Trump won’t get rid of anyone who is loyal to him. Sen. Wyden was right. It is dangerous to have Kristi Noem running DHS, and it may have gotten kids killed in Texas. Was Ron Wyden right about Kristi Noem? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

PoliticusUSA is independent news that you can trust. Please consider supporting our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now The 2026 midterm election is looking like it could be a year for Republicans all the way around. Their president’s approval rating is in the dumpster. The party’s signature legislation is historically unpopular, and a Senate race that was widely thought to be close in Georgia is looking very good in the early going for Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff. The Ossoff campaign announced some very impressive new fundraising numbers: Sen. Jon Ossoff’s re-election campaign is building momentum and today announced raising over $10 million in the second quarter of 2025 with $15.5 million in the bank. The strong Q2 fundraising haul proves that Sen. Ossoff’s re-election campaign is entirely powered by small-dollar donors, with over 387,100 individual donors contributing in 2025. The average contribution remained $32, with nearly 98% of second quarter unitemized contributions being $100 or less. Sen. Ossoff also continues to earn strong support across Georgia, having received donations from 156 out of 159 of the state’s counties. PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Sen. Ossoff’s massive momentum heading into next November is palpable, having set up an impressive, early, and strong organizing operation. In the past couple of months alone, thousands attended his first campaign rally of the cycle in Atlanta, over 1,700 people have signed up to volunteer for his campaign, and the Senator has had notable moments taking Donald Trump officials to task over harm to Georgia while garnering tens of millions of views and engagement. Even Republican pollsters currently show Sen. Ossoff with a lead in the very early stages of the campaign, and neutral polls suggest Ossoff begins with a lead that could be as much as ten points. When Gov. Brian Kemp decided not to challenge Ossoff, it took away the GOP’s best chance of flipping the seat. Georgia still being Georgia, the race should be viewed as one that will get close, but it is a contest that now leans toward Sen. Ossoff. The early momentum is clearly with the incumbent Democratic senator. If national conditions continue to deteriorate for the Republican Party, things will look good for Jon Ossoff to win reelection next November. What do you think of Sen. Jon Ossoff? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Dean Spears does not want to alarm you. The co-author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People argues that alarmist words such as crisis or urgent will just detract from the cold, hard numbers, which show that in roughly 60 years, the world population could plummet to a size not seen for centuries. Alarmism might also make people tune out, which means they won’t engage with the culturally fraught project of asking people—that is, women—to have more babies. Recently, in the United States and other Western countries, having or not having children is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re either in league with conservative pronatalists, or you’re making the ultimate personal sacrifice to reduce your carbon footprint. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Spears makes the case for more people. He discusses the population spike over human history and the coming decline, and how to gingerly move the population discussion beyond politics. The following is a transcript of the episode: Hanna Rosin: There are those that would have us believe that having babies—or not having babies—is a political act, something that transmits your allegiance to one cultural movement or another. On the right, J. D. Vance wants, quote, “more babies in the United States,” while Elon Musk does his part, personally, to answer the call. Charlie Kirk at Turning Point USA said this to an audience of young conservative women: Charlie Kirk: We have millions of young women that are miserable. You know, the most miserable and depressed people in America are career-driven, early-30-something women. It’s not my numbers. It’s the Pew Research numbers. They’re most likely to say that they’re upset, they’re depressed, they’re on antidepressants. Do you know who the happiest women in America are? Married women with lots of children, by far. [Applause] Rosin: On the political left and elsewhere, people agonize about whether to have children at all: for environmental reasons, or money reasons, or I just don’t want to spend my time that way reasons. Woman 1: Get ready with me while I tell you all the reasons why I don’t want to have kids. Woman 2: I want to spend my money on what I want to spend my money on. I don’t want another human life dictating what I’m going to do. Woman 3: I think you are absolutely crazy to have a baby if you’re living in America right now. Woman 4: Some of us aren’t having kids, because we can’t justify bringing them into this type of world. Woman 5: How are we going to have children if we can’t even afford ourselves? Rosin: But if you move the discussion outside politics and into just sheer demographics—how many humans, ideally, do we want on Earth?—a whole different conversation is beginning about a potential crisis coming that we are not paying attention to, at least by some people’s accounts. I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic. Around the world, and in wealthy countries in particular, the birth rate is dropping. Today, the birth rate in the U.S. is 1.6 babies per woman, significantly below the required replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman. We’re used to hearing conservatives talk about the need for “lots of children.” But today we are hearing from someone outside this political debate about why everyone—liberals in particular—should care about depopulation. Dean Spears: A lot of the traditionalists out there are saying, Low birth rates? Well, what we need is a return to rigid, unequal gender roles, and they want to roll things backwards and think that’ll fix the birth rate. But that’s the wrong response. Rosin: That is Dean Spears, an economist at UT Austin and co-author of a new book, After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. I talked to Dean about why we should care about depopulation. [Music] Rosin: I grew up in the shadow of the Paul Ehrlich book The Population Bomb. I was actually a high-school debater, and we were always making the argument, Oh, we’re headed towards a degree of overpopulation that’s going to explode the Earth. Like, that was so much in the consciousness. The idea that more people equals bad, it was just deeply ingrained, and it still kind of is for young people. So what’s incorrect about that argument? Spears: So I think the most important part of that is the environment. And there’s something importantly right there. We do have big environmental challenges, and people cause them. Human activity causes greenhouse-gas emissions and has other destructive consequences. And so it’s really natural to think that the way to protect the environment is to have fewer humans. And maybe we would be in a different position right now with the environment if the population trajectory had been different in decades and centuries past. But that’s not really the question we face right now. The question we face right now is: Given our urgent environmental problems, are fewer people the solution? And fewer people aren’t the solution now. And so here’s one way to think about it. Consider the story of particle air pollution in China. [Music] Spears: In 2013, China faced a smog crisis. Particulate air pollution from fires, coal plants, and vehicle exhaust darkened the sky. Newspapers around the world called it the airpocalypse.” The United States’ embassy in Beijing rated the air pollution a reading of 755 on a scale of zero to 500. This stuff is terrible for children’s health and survival, and older adult mortality too. So what happened next? In the decade that followed this airpocalypse, China grew by 50 million people. That’s an addition larger than the entire population of Canada or Argentina. And so if the story is right that population growth always makes environmental problems worse, we might wonder: How much worse did the air pollution in China get? But the answer is that over that same decade, particulate

The White House has seen its share of shady deals. Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law used his family ties to engineer an insider-trading scheme that tanked the gold market. Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior secretly leased land to oil barons, who paid a fortune for his troubles. To bankroll Richard Nixon’s reelection, corporate executives sneaked suitcases full of cash into the capital. But Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of graft—including, notably, Trump’s first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first—foreign regimes staying at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump’s hotel in Florida—seem quaint. Trump 2.0 is just getting started, yet it already represents the high-water mark of American kleptocracy. There are good reasons to think it will get much worse. Virtually every week, the Trump family seems to find a new way to profit from the presidency. The Trump Organization has brokered a growing catalog of real-estate projects with autocratic regimes, including a Trump tower in Saudi Arabia, a Trump hotel in Oman, and a Trump golf club in Vietnam. “We’re the hottest brand in the world right now,” Eric Trump recently proclaimed. In May, Qatar gave the White House a $400 million jet—a gift that looked a lot like a bribe but that Trump had no qualms accepting. [David Frum: The Trump presidency’s world-historical heist] And that’s just the foreign front. Domestically, Trump has used flimsy complaints to go after media organizations, resulting in settlements that resemble shakedowns. Last year, he accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with his Democratic presidential opponent, Kamala Harris. Legal experts saw the claim as weak. Rather than fighting it in court, however, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, which will subsidize Trump’s future presidential library and cover his legal fees. Following a similarly dubious lawsuit, ABC sent $15 million to Trump’s library fund and issued a “statement of regret.” Beyond the court, the president has peddled Trump perfumes, Trump sneakers, and Trump phones, shamelessly using the prestige of the presidency to boost his family’s income. And then there’s crypto: the $TRUMP meme coin, the pay-to-play dinners with investors, the paused prosecution of a crypto kingpin who had purchased $30 million in Trump-backed tokens. “The law is totally on my side,” Trump said after his election in 2016, when he was asked about mixing his financial affairs with his new office. “The president can’t have a conflict of interest.” That statement is now alarmingly close to the truth. Thanks to last year’s Supreme Court ruling, Trump has presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for any “official act.” He has appointed an attorney general, Pam Bondi, who appears willing to do his bidding no matter the cost to the Department of Justice. He has gutted independent bodies that went after white-collar criminal networks, task forces that investigated kleptocracy, public prosecutors that chased public corruption, and regulation that targeted transnational money laundering. The list goes on. Trump’s Treasury Department effectively terminated America’s new shell-company registry. His DOJ dissolved task forces that seized stolen assets. The administration froze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the bedrock of America’s antibribery regime. In sum, Trump has dismantled a network of agencies, laws, and norms that thwarted all kinds of kleptocracy, including the kind that enriches a sitting president. Foreign agents are watching as America’s anti-corruption regime crumbles. They see an extraordinary window of opportunity, and they know they’ll have to act quickly to take full advantage. Succoring Trump and his family has already proved one of the fastest ways to guarantee favorable policy. Are U.S. sanctions hurting your economy? Consider building a Trump resort. Want to stay in America’s good graces? Invest in Trump-backed crypto. All of this grafting is likely to accelerate. Consider the Qatari jet. The gift prompted plenty of hand-wringing in the United States, but also in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which saw their regional foe gain leverage over them by charming Trump. Don’t think of the jet as the culmination of the president’s greed; think of it as the new bar for bids to come. Any Middle Eastern dictator who wants to surpass Qatar in America’s estimation now knows his price. [Read: The MAGA-world rift over Trump’s Qatari jet] In India, oligarchs and other government allies are opening Trump properties in rapid succession, while Pakistan recently announced a new national crypto reserve, signing a “letter of intent” to work with a Trump-backed group. Serbia and Albania have both recently vied for Trump’s affections, each signing deals for luxury properties with his family. The incentive to out-bribe one’s competition could soon take hold in geopolitical rivalries around the world. Perhaps most worrisome is the tacit permission that Trump granted foreign powers to directly bankroll U.S. politicians. This was the precedent he set when he strong-armed prosecutors into dropping the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was accused of soliciting campaign funds from Turkey. “You win the race by raising money,” Adams said. “Everything else is fluff.” One could imagine the president saying the same. Foreign regimes are beginning to see just how far their money can go in Trump’s America. The highest bidder has never had so much to gain.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is law. Now what? Not quite six months into his new term, President Donald Trump has fulfilled many of his campaign promises. He has cut taxes, launched trade wars, frustrated longtime international allies, cracked down on border crossings, and slashed the federal government. He steamrolled the opposition, including members of his own party, to push through Congress a far-reaching and expensive piece of legislation that contains nearly his entire domestic agenda. Now the next phase of his presidency—as well as next year’s midterms—could be defined by his bet that the Republican bill, and other Trump policies, will usher in a booming economy. If that wager pays off, it would reinforce one of Trump’s strongest issues—but Democrats see an opening to hit the president for disproportionately helping the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The White House won’t push for another big legislative package between now and next November, five White House aides and outside advisers told us. Instead, Trump will turn to selling and defending what his party just passed, in addition to focusing on what he believes are his core political strengths: high-stakes trade deals and high-profile immigration clashes. Oh, and he wouldn’t mind winning a Nobel Peace Prize too. Trump and his team spent the four years after his first term drafting a sweeping plan to overwhelm Washington—and, in particular, the Democrats—with a flurry of action. In his first months back in office, he signed one executive order after another. Elon Musk’s DOGE haphazardly chopped its way through government agencies. Law firms, universities, and media companies acceded to the administration’s demands. Its lawyers kept pushing the bounds of executive power in the courts. The point was to punish and confuse. And, although the administration stumbled along the way, the strategy allowed Trump to seize perhaps more power than he’d ever had in Washington. [From the June 2025 issue: “I run the country and the world”] Then, the past three weeks yielded what White House aides believe are a pair of monumental triumphs: the air strikes that Trump authorized on Iran’s nuclear program, and the passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill in time for Trump to sign it on July 4. White House officials believe they are entering the second phase of Trump’s second term with momentum. At the same time, the West Wing recognizes that, more than any other issue, the economy will dictate the outcome of next year’s midterms. The Republican legislation instituted a set of tax cuts that Trump believes to be the formula for rapid economic expansion. But they will primarily benefit the wealthy, and the bill was financed by cuts to federal safety-net programs, while adding more than $3 trillion to the national debt. Democratic groups plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars arguing that the bill rewarded wealthy donors and failed to address inflation, whereas Republicans hope that it will lead to real wage increases and a surging stock market deep into next year. “It’s going to be: How is the economy doing in a year and three months from now?” a GOP House strategist told us. (This person, like others interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations and internal strategy.) “If the economy continues to improve, we are going to have a great message to sell to voters.” Trump and his Cabinet plan to barnstorm the country in support of the bill. “We also have to sell it, right? Just because it passed doesn’t mean it goes away,” a White House official told us. Ads slamming Republicans for the bill are now running in swing districts across the country. At the core of the emerging Democratic message is a simple argument about the issue that still ranks as the most important for voters: affordability. A private polling memo from the Democratic group Future Forward USA Action that we obtained advises Democrats that voters tend to pin the blame for high prices on “elites in leadership positions in government and business,” who have “no idea what life is like for regular people.” The group argues that Democrats should tie Trump’s tax bill to these concerns. “When asked to choose who has benefitted more because of Trump’s policies, the most chosen actors are: billionaires (chosen 72% of the time); wealthy Americans (70%) and corporate CEOs (67%),” the memo, dated June 5, explains. “These rank much higher than middle class Americans and working people, each chosen just 43% of the time.” Trump’s approval on the economy is now lower than at any time in his first term, having dropped about 20 percentage points since January. So, for the first time since the presidential election, Democrats feel that they can go on the offensive regarding what has been a weak issue for their party. “The combination of what Trump did in the megabill and what he did with the tariffs set up a reality for voters where they believe that Republicans are on the wrong side on everyday costs,” the Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told us. To this point in Trump’s term, unemployment and inflation have largely been steady, though consumer spending has started to slow. It will take time for the impact of the law to become apparent. This week, however, Trump added another combustible element to his economic agenda: He revived his trade war, threatening to increase tariffs on more than a dozen countries by August 1. Aides insisted to us that Trump, after blinking on imposing sweeping tariffs earlier this year, will not back down this time. (His belief in tariffs is one of his few consistent ideological positions, even though most economists oppose high tariffs.) [James Surowiecki: Trump’s only-okay economy] The advisers added that they hoped for a more systematic approach to trade negotiations in the months ahead—more senior-level talks, fewer Truth Social screeds—with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent leading the discussions. One aide acknowledged to us that, even so, “there will be some fights” with other countries. Aides