Politics

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s cost-cutting measures at the Federal Emergency Management Agency slowed search and rescue efforts in Texas by 72 hours, possibly costing some of the at least 120 lives lost in the devastating natural disaster, CNN reported. According to CNN, Noem created a new policy that requires her to personally sign off on any costs greater than $100,000. The Urban Search and Rescue crews seeking to be deployed to the Texas Hill Country—where hundreds of people were swept away by the rapidly rising rivers after heavy rainstorms—met that criteria. But CNN reported that Noem didn’t approve the deployment of those search and rescue crews until Monday—three days after the floods swept through Texas. From CNN’s report: 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. DHS tried to deny that Noem’s incompetence hindered the search and rescue efforts. But their denial actually proved the CNN story. DHS said in a post on X, “President Trump approved a Major Disaster Declaration, hours after Governor Greg Abbott’s request. By Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers, providing support and shelter for hundreds of people. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is reforming FEMA to prioritize state-led, locally executed disaster response, as Texas has exemplified.” That means that CNN’s report was correct, that it took until Tuesday for FEMA to deploy the search and rescue teams. Noem appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, where she was asked about the CNN report. But instead of providing evidence that she swiftly approved the search and rescue teams, she only attacked CNN—classic deflection that did not actually deny the report. “CNN has a report accusing you of slowing the process in Texas,” one of the hosts asked Noem, to which she replied, “Well there you go. Fake news CNN is absolutely trash, what they are doing.” YouTube Video Noem, for her part, has implemented the cost-cutting measures in DHS that hamstrung the search and rescue efforts in Texas even as she spends hundreds of millions galavanting around the country and globe cosplaying for PR stunts and visiting the torture camps she’s gleefully sending immigrants to. A Wall Street Journal report from April said Noem spent $9 million on a television ad advising immigrants to self-deport. She also sported a $50,000 Rolex watch on a visit to the CECOT prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration illegally deported immigrants against court orders. Noem is also seeking a $50 million private jet to transport her to the stunts she’s carrying out. Turns out, Noem cares more about creating torture porn than she does about saving lives. 

A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | You won’t believe how badly Kristi Noem bungled Texas flood response

Sen. Thom Tillis may be heading for the exits, but he’s not leaving quietly. The retiring Republican from North Carolina—who stunned the political world in June, when he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection—suggested to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that he regrets casting the deciding vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization,” Tillis said, pointing to Hegseth inadvertently sharing military attack plans with a journalist and, more recently, pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine without informing the White House. “That’s just amateurish,” he added about the Ukraine pause. “That’s from somebody who doesn’t understand large organization dynamics.” YouTube Video It’s the first time Tillis has spoken at length with the national media since his retirement announcement, which came just one day after President Donald Trump threatened to back a primary challenger over Tillis’ opposition to the bill carrying Trump’s domestic agenda. Trump also threatened Tillis earlier this year. In January, Tillis reportedly worked behind the scenes to corroborate abuse allegations against Hegseth, and even urged Senate GOP leadership to pull the nomination. But after Trump floated backing a primary challenge, Tillis folded and voted “yes,” despite concerns about Hegseth’s alleged history of excessive drinking and alleged abuse of women. Now that reelection’s off the table, Tillis admits he might’ve voted differently if the confirmation came up today. “If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I’d certainly vote for him again,” he told CNN. “But now I have the information of him being a manager, and I don’t think his probationary period has been very positive.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears at House hearing on May 14. Tillis also voiced regret about another Cabinet pick he supported—Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—but Tillis said he relied on the judgment of fellow Republicans in both instances. For Hegseth, it was the Armed Services Committee. For Kennedy, it was Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has a medical degree and chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. “The main reason I supported Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see how it plays out,” he said.  Tillis also took a swipe at Trump’s new domestic policy law, which will slash Medicaid and food-assistance benefits to partially fund tax cuts and immigration enforcement. Only three Republican senators voted against it—Tillis among them. “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore?” Tillis said in a scathing floor speech as the bill was going through Congress. But even now Tillis avoids criticizing Trump directly, instead blaming the president’s inner circle. “What the president needs to do is start really looking at the outcome of some of these policy decisions and ask himself, is he really getting the best professional advice?” he told CNN, adding, “But as somebody who’s been in elected office for 20 years at the leadership level in the statehouse and doing all I can up here, I hope that [Trump] starts listening to more of us and fewer of those people who pretend like they’re the president when he’s out of the room.” YouTube Video Tillis may be free to speak his mind now. But for those living with the fallout of his votes—especially the one that put Hegseth in charge—it’s too little, too late.

The first rule of being an alpha male is to never outwardly say that you’re an alpha male. At least, that’s what President Donald Trump’s new pick for ambassador to Malaysia would tell you.  Nick Adams is a serially online MAGA supporter whose qualifications for Malaysian ambassador likely aren’t that far off from Trump’s ambassador to Greece nominee, Kimberly Guilfoyle. But if there’s one thing Adams definitely has in his armory of far-right expertise, it’s that he’s unashamed of his deep-seated misogyny.  In an off-putting rant, the Australian-born naturalized citizen wrote about his “ideal woman” who is “low maintenance” and “picks me up from Hooters when I’ve had a few too many domestics with the boys.” To make matters worse, Adams also dabbles in fan fiction in which he rants about hating having to wear protective eye gear against eclipses while calling women “good girls” who fetch him domestic beers. And, of course, they address him as an “alpha male” in these fantasies.  While the obvious art of trolling is written all over Adams’ social media, the question of how casual—or blatant—misogyny seems to be in the White House is ever present.  Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth passed through his Senate confirmation despite sexual abuse lawsuits and his own mother calling him a womanizer. And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly blamed his ex-wife for his infidelity with more than 30 women. And of course we can’t forget Guilfoyle herself, who was engaged to Donald Trump Jr. and at one point had the affection of the president. But when Trump Jr.’s new relationship caused chaos in MAGAland, Guilfoyle was conveniently given a job thousands of miles away.  The Trump administration is clearly for the boys, so surely “alpha male” Adams will fit right in.

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.