President Donald Trump’s shift on the Department of Government Efficiency began with a warning from an unlikely source.
Jesse Watters, a co-host of the Fox News hit show The Five, is usually a slick deliverer of MAGA talking points. But on February 19, Watters told a surprisingly emotional story about a friend working at the Pentagon who was poised to lose his job as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce.
Today, the war in Ukraine ended, at least in a sense.
Bloody fighting between depleted militaries will continue to barely move the frozen front lines. Russian missile and drone raids will still pummel Ukrainian cities and terrorize their citizens. Gutsy, covert Ukrainian strikes will hit deep behind the Russian border.
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to put America first, just proposed the wildest and most improbable intervention by the United States in overseas affairs since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than 20 years ago.
At a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump promised that the U.S. would become the occupier of Gaza.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it,” Trump said.
He did not receive a single vote. He did not get confirmed. He does not receive a government paycheck.
The world’s richest man has declared war on the federal government and, in a matter of days, has moved to slash its size and reach, while gaining access to some of its most sensitive secrets. He has shaped the public discourse by wielding the powerful social-media site he controls and has threatened to use his fortune to bankroll electoral challenges to anyone who opposes him.
“We’re so back,” one reporter whispered to another.
All of the chairs in the White House briefing room were filled, and reporters and photographers were crammed into every available nook and cranny. I was standing in the back, squeezed in between a window and a none-too-pleased Secret Service agent.
When Donald Trump completes his once-unthinkable return to the White House, he’ll face a world far more violent and unsettled than when he unwillingly gave up power four years ago.
And his very presence behind the Resolute desk feels destined to destabilize it further.
Trump has offered mysterious plans to bring quick ends to the wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.