Is DOGE a 'Constitutional Crisis'?
Plus: USAID and Education Department cuts, tariff deal reached, and more...
Into the wood chipper: For the last 60 years, the U.S. Agency for International Development has doled out humanitarian assistance to the rest of the world. Its budget is roughly $50 billion.
Over the weekend, it all appeared to come to a close: the Department of Government Efficiency head honcho Elon Musk was reportedly ordered by President Donald Trump to shutter it. "U.S.A.I.D. employees were told overnight not to report to work on Monday….But not all employees were able to read the [emailed note], as many had already been locked out of their accounts," per The New York Times. "Hundreds of contractors, who make up the bulk of the staff in field offices, lost access to their official emails and systems over the weekend, according to five people with knowledge of the changes." Musk has apparently already fired half of the agency's global health arm, tweeting out "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper."
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Employees started protesting outside of the agency's headquarters after news of their termination became public. Some Democratic members of Congress joined in. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that he's now the acting administrator of the agency and that some of the existing programs would continue under the State Department, but that the agency itself had to be shuttered because of workers' "rank insubordination."
"They don't consider that they work for the U.S.," Rubio told Fox. "They just think they're a global entity and that their master is the globe and not the United States, and that's not what the statute says, and that's not sustainable."
Their union—because of course they have a union—responded: "The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) strongly objects to the administration's decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This will undermine U.S. national security, may subvert Congressional authority, and demonstrates a lack of respect for the dedication of the development professionals who serve America's interests abroad."
Some have criticized Musk and Trump's move by noting that USAID's funds make up less than 1 percent of the federal budget. Others have called this a "constitutional crisis," saying that this must be done by Congress, not by executive decree—something the union gestured at when they mentioned that DOGE's move "may subvert Congressional authority."
It is absolutely a constitutional crisis. The president has zero legal authority to "shut down," defund, or otherwise cripple a $50 billion agency.
Audit it, identify unnecessary expenditures, draft reform or rescission proposals, and then go to Congress to PASS A LAW. https://t.co/cRvHigoW66
— Brian Riedl ???? ???????? (@Brian_Riedl) February 3, 2025
"Any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress," Senate Democrats wrote in a letter to Rubio.
DOE might be DONE: "President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within," reports The Washington Post in what will surely be welcome news for libertarians. This executive order at least reportedly acknowledges that only an act of Congress can actually abolish the department but attempts to make headway on the goal by getting the department to winnow its size down.
"At least some DOGE staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, the people said, including a financial aid dataset that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program," notes the Post.
This whole saga, with both the USAID and the Department of Education, feels very Trumpian: He is directionally correct that the massive, overgrown federal bureaucracy needs to be cut down in a major way, but his lack of attention to the details and the specific mechanisms by which this must happen is leading to possible privacy violations and, more worrisome, possible overstepping of his constitutional authority as executive.
That said, there's also the open question of what an executive should do when faced with a ballooning national debt, far too many federal outlays, and a Congress that would most likely be hesitant to take the drastic action required to get our nation's fiscal health under control.
From the department of government waste: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that USAID was wasting taxpayers' money, spending $1.5 million to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplaces in Serbia; $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. (Full comments here.) I looked into some of these: The Serbian DEI thing appears to be true as does the Peru grant (though possibly administered via the State Department, not via USAID). I could not find information about a Colombian "transgender opera."
Never mind the tariffs: I reported yesterday that Trump would be slapping big fat tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico, and China. Both Canada and Mexico struck 11th-hour deals that delay the imposition of such tariffs (or possibly mitigate them altogether?) and placate Trump by improving border security measures. Meanwhile, the 10 percent tariffs on Chinese imports have gone into effect—on top of the already-existing ones—and Beijing has already "struck back with tariffs on U.S. coal, gas and other goods, restrictions on exports of some minerals and an antimonopoly investigation into Google," reports The New York Times.
Amusingly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn't have to do something different, per se, to win Trump's favor; he merely had to remind him of the already-announced initiative decided on by the Canadian government in December to devote some $900 million to heightened border security and to appoint a "fentanyl czar." Sometimes you must simply say the same thing in a slightly different way to stave off a massively destructive trade war. Diplomacy!
Scenes from New York: Follow up from yesterday: "The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has warned New York hospitals that complying with the White House's executive order that seeks to end gender-affirming medical care for transgender young people could well violate state law," reports The New York Times. "The warning, in a letter the attorney general's office sent Monday morning to health care providers and other organizations, puts hospitals at the center of a conflict between the federal government and state authorities." As I wrote yesterday, a New York City hospital system canceled two scheduled procedures to implant devices in 12-year-olds that would dispense puberty blockers. James apparently believes this to be a denial of care possibly in violation of state antidiscrimination laws.
"Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws," states James in her letter.
QUICK HITS
- The formerly tech-appreciating publication Wired has decided to publish a big huge investigation into the young dude staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency, seemingly mad at them for not having experience in government and also for being weird young prodigies. One of the engineers working for Musk happens to be Luke Farritor, a literal boy genius. He's a Latin scholar/computer science geek who previously garnered media coverage for his work deciphering a 2,000-year-old scroll via an AI program he designed.
- "The US began deporting the first batch of undocumented Indian migrants since President Donald Trump returned to office threatening trade action against countries who didn't comply with his immigration policies," reports Bloomberg. "An aircraft with around 200 people residing illegally in the US will land on Wednesday in Amritsar in India's northern state of Punjab, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the details aren't public."
- The era of buyouts:
In an email to staff shared with me, the LA Times says it's offering voluntary buyouts to all staff who have been there for more than two years. pic.twitter.com/3KzjbtgCVL
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) February 4, 2025
- More:
About 20,000 federal workers have accepted the "buyout" offer put forward by the Trump administration last week, a senior administration official tells Axios. https://t.co/YwisqwfmCZ
— Axios (@axios) February 4, 2025
