DOGE

Trump: “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me”

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Heather Cox Richardson | Letters from an American

Heather Cox Richardson

March 2, 2025

On February 28, the same day that President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Martin Matishak of The Record, a cybersecurity news publication, broke the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stop all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.

Both the scope of the directive and its duration are unclear.

On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.

And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat. Last week, at a United Nations working group on cybersecurity, representatives from the European Union and the United Kingdom highlighted threats from Russia, while Liesyl Franz, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity, did not mention Russia, saying the U.S. was concerned about threats from China and Iran.

Kirchgaessner also noted that under Trump, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which monitors cyberthreats against critical infrastructure, has set new priorities. Although Russian threats, especially those against U.S. election systems, were a top priority for the agency in the past, a source told Kirchgaessner that analysts were told not to follow or report on Russian threats.

“Russia and China are ourbiggest adversaries,” the source told Kirchgaessner. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.” “People are saying Russia is winning,” the source said. “Putin is on the inside now.”

Another source noted that “There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.” “Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat, the person added. Under those circumstances, the source said, ceasing to follow and report Russian threats is “truly shocking.”

Trump’s outburst in the Oval Office on Friday confirmed that Putin has been his partner in politics since at least 2016. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia… Russia, Russia, Russia—you ever hear of that deal?—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it, and we didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom.”

Putin went through a hell of a lot with Trump? It was an odd statement from a U.S. president, whose loyalty is supposed to be dedicated to the Constitution and the American people.

Trump has made dismissing as a hoax what he calls “Russia, Russia, Russia” central to his political narrative. But Russian operatives did, in fact, work to elect him in 2016. A 2020 report from the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that Putin ordered hacks of Democratic computer networks, and at two crucial moments WikiLeaks, which the Senate committee concluded was allied with the Russians, dumped illegally obtained emails that were intended to hurt the candidacy of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump openly called for Russia to hack Clinton’s emails.

Russian operatives also flooded social media with disinformation, not necessarily explicitly endorsing Trump, but spreading lies about Clinton to depress Democratic turnout, or to rile up those on the right by falsely claiming that Democrats intended to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, for example. The goal of the propaganda was not simply to elect Trump. It was to pit the far ends of the political spectrum against the middle, tearing the nation apart.

Fake accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook drove wedges between Americans over issues of race, immigration, and gun rights. Craig Timberg and Tony Romm of the Washington Post reported in 2018 that Facebook officials told Congress that the Russian campaign reached 126 million people on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram.

That effort was not a one-shot deal: Russians worked to influence the 2020 presidential election, too. In 2021 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Putin “authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical division in the US.” But “[u]nlike in 2016,” the report said, “we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure.”

Moscow used “proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives—including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden—to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded.

In October 2024, Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, warned in an interview with CBS News that Russia was bombarding voters with propaganda to divide Americans before that year’s election, as well. Operatives were not just posting fake stories and replying to posts, but were also using AI to manufacture fake videos and laundering Russian talking points through social media influencers. Just a month before, news had broken that Russia was funding Tenet Media, a company that hired right-wing personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen, who repeated Russian talking points.

Now back in office, Trump and MAGA loyalists say that efforts to stop disinformation undermine their right to free speech. Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for the second Trump administration, denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election—calling it “a Clinton campaign dirty trick”—and called for ending government efforts to stop disinformation with “utmost urgency.” “The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth,” it said.

On February 20, Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes, and Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is firing or reassigning officials at the FBI and CISA who had worked on protecting elections. That includes those trying to stop foreign propaganda and disinformation and those combating cyberattacks and attempts to disrupt voting systems.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas broke the story that two members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” are now installed at CISA: Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old known as “Big Balls,” and Kyle Schutt, a 38-year-old software engineer. Kim Zetter of Wired reported that since 2018, CISA has “helped state and local election offices around the country assess vulnerabilities in their networks and help secure them.”

During the 2024 campaign, Trump said repeatedly that he would end the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the election, a newspaper reporter asked Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Putin, if Trump’s election would mean “positive changes from Russia’s point of view.” Patrushev answered: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”

Today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a reporter: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”

Trump Is Unpopular—and So Are the Do-Nothing Democrats

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The president is increasingly hated, but so is an opposition party that fails to oppose.

By Jeet Heer

Donald Trump won the presidency by a unusually narrow margin of victory, falling short of winning a majority of the popular vote and receiving only 1.5 percent more than rival Kamala Harris. But he’s been governing as if he enjoyed a massive mandate from a historic landslide. In the first five weeks of his presidency, Trump unleashed an onslaught of executive orders that, if they went unchallenged, would represent a counterrevolution on American government that would substantially undo Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Key to Trump’s efforts has been the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. DOGE is asserting a novel—and almost certainly unconstitutional—license to slash funding and programs already voted on by Congress and signed into law by previous presidents.

Beyond DOGE, Trump has rapidly shifted foreign policy by explicitly using American leverage over allies (notably NATO countries and Ukraine) as an instrument of extortion, most clearly by demanding that Ukraine hand over rights to half its mineral wealth to the United States. He’s also nominated an unusual cohort of extremists and misfits to high office, including Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Kash Patel as head of the FBI.

In theory, this type of shock-and-awe governance should produce a backlash in Congress, especially since Republicans have a hold on power as narrow as Trump’s electoral victory. Republicans currently enjoy only a three-seat advantage over Democrats in the House of Representatives (218 seats to 215) as well as a thin majority in the Senate (53 out of 100 seats). Yet Democrats have so far been unable to peel off enough Republicans to stall the president’s agenda. To date, almost all of Trump’s nominees have sailed through to confirmation (Matt Gaetz’s failed bid to become attorney general being the major exception). Nor have congressional Republicans, despite their prior support for Ukraine, been willing to speak out against Trump’s foreign policy.

GOP subservience to Trump, motivated by a mix of political expedience and also genuine fear, is not a new story. Vanity Fair reports, “According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about ‘credible death threats’ when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary.” The magazine also quoted a former Trump official who said, “They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff.”

Yet, even as Congress remains submissive, the public at large is quickly souring on Trump and his right-wing man Elon Musk.

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported:

President Donald Trump has opened his second term with a flurry of actions designed to radically disrupt and shrink the federal bureaucracy, but reviews from Americans are mixed to negative on many of his specific initiatives, and 57 percent say he has exceeded his authority since taking office, according to a Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

Overall, 43 percent of Americans say they support what the president has done during his first month in office, with 48 percent saying they oppose. Those who strongly oppose outnumber those who strongly support by 37 percent to 27 percent.

Further, many DOGE activities are unpopular. According to the Post:

About 6 in 10 oppose shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides humanitarian aid in low-income countries….

At a time when each day brings reports of firings at one agency after another, almost 6 in 10 Americans say they oppose laying off large numbers of federal government workers or making it easier to fire longtime government employees. Also, more than 2 in 3 oppose blocking federal health agencies from communicating with the public without approval from a Trump appointee.

Given these numbers, Democrats should be in good shape for regaining control of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Indeed, the same poll shows 54 percent of the public saying they would vote for congressional Democrats in order to hold Trump in check.

Yet Democrats have no reason to be complacent about this number, since other polls show that the party is historically unpopular, with the base deeply dissatisfied by the current leadership. A recent Quinnipiac Poll shows that congressional Democrats have just 21 percent approval, against 68 percent disapproval (for a net negative of 47 percent). This compares unfavorably with congressional Republicans (40 percent approval, 52 percent disapproval, net negative 12) and Trump himself (45 percent approval, 49 percent disapproval, net negative 4 percent). This poll matches other evidence of Democratic Party unpopularity, including a deep slump in funding from both big and small donors.

As Prem Thakker of Zeteo News notes, congressional Democrats’ current unpopularity stands in sharp contrast to a comparable moment in Trump’s first term—February 2017—when they had 59 percent approval and 31 percent disapproval (a net of plus 28 percent).

It might seem paradoxical that even as Trump sinks in popularity, weighed down by a widely disliked agenda, Democrats are even more disliked by the public. But the two facts are connected: Pushing a hard-right agenda allows Trump to maintain his support among Republicans even as Democrats and independents turn against him. By contrast, congressional Democrats, under the craven leadership of Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, are despised by their own party (for failing to fight Trump) as well as Republicans (for just being Democrats).

The difference between 2017 and 2024 is one of leadership among congressional Democrats. In 2017, congressional Democrats harnessed the popular anger at Trump (fueled by a grassroots resistance movement) and marked out a clear position of opposition. In 2024, congressional Democrats have been much more “timid,” as my Nation colleague David Zirin recently noted. Zirin offered a number of explanations for the pusillanimity of the Democratic leadership—including the reliance on wealthy tech donors, the fact that centrist Democrats share Musk’s cost-cutting agenda, and the stranglehold of Clintonian and Obamaite thinking leaving the party helpless to respond to current realities. One could add that Schumer in particular is clearly putting his hopes on the courts (which he calls “the first line of defense”) to stop Trump’s steamrolling of the government—a plan that, even if it had theoretical plausibility (and if you think the courts are going to save us, I might try to sell you some of Trump’s cryptocoins) will simply demobilize Democratic voters. At the end of the day, defeating Trump is a matter of politics, not the courts

Source: Trump Is Unpopular—and So Are the Do-Nothing Democrats | The Nation

Judge blocks Musk team access to Treasury Department records

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Nineteen state attorneys general sued the Trump administration after the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was given access.

A federal judge has blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans in Treasury Department records, according to court documents.

US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction on Saturday to prohibit access, ordering Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

The move comes after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump administration after Doge, a cost-cutting initiative led by Musk, was given access to the records.

They argued access for Musk, a “special government employee”, and Doge, which is not an official government department, violated federal law. There was no immediate comment from the White House, President Donald Trump or Musk. [ . . . ]

Continue at BBC News: Judge blocks Musk team access to Treasury Department records

Musk Rats got your digits

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By Robert Reich

Elon Musk


Musk’s rats continue to burrow into sensitive government payment systems.

According to the best source I’ve found on this (Nathan Tankus’s Crises Notes), Musk and his rats have now gained unrestricted access to your Social Security number, your confidential bank information, your confidential medical information, and much more.

Musk boasts that his team is “rapidly shutting down” Treasury remittances.

They’ve tunneled into the health payment systems at the Department of Health and Human Services. They’ve begun to burrow into the Labor Department (I have no idea whether they’ve penetrated the Bureau of Labor Statistics as yet) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’ve already penetrated the Veterans Affairs systems.

Yesterday, federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily barred the Treasury Department from handing data from its payments system to Musk and his rats, but it’s far from clear this will stop them.

Technically, Musk’s rats still retain “read and write” code access because Judge Kollar-Kotelly barred “read only” access. That means they can still stop or alter federal payments.

Note that even after another federal judge — George A. O’Toole Jr. — blocked Musk’s buyout offer for federal employees until a full hearing Monday afternoon, Musk has continued to urge federal workers to voluntarily leave their jobs or brace for layoffs.

TRUMP

According to yesterday’s Wired magazine, some of Musk’s rats who have gained access to sensitive federal data couldn’t pass background checks required for such access.

Yesterday, one of them, a 25-year-old coder named Marko Elez, abruptly resigned after apparently racist comments from a dormant social media account were unearthed.

Another, a 19-year-old high school graduate now combing through sensitive government information, also runs a business that controls dozens of web domains, including at least two that are registered in Russia. One offers an AI bot for servers targeting the Russian market.

Hello?

Musk and his rats have nothing whatever to do with rooting out “waste and fraud.” Their real purpose is to usurp Congress’s authority over spending, under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

If Trump can turn off a spigot on what Congress wants, he has more power to get something back from Congress for turning that spigot on — say, the authority to close down the Labor Department or the EPA or spend more on the border.

Sure, there’s some waste and fraud in government. That’s why every department had an inspector general to find and stop it — until Trump fired most of them. In addition, before Musk’s rats tunneled into the General Services Administration, accountants oversaw every department’s and agency’s spending.

In other words, the coup continues.

Zoom out and the picture is even worse. You want waste and fraud? Look at what some big corporations and very wealthy people are getting away with.

Tesla’s annual financial report, released Wednesday, shows that although the corporation earned $2.3 billion in the United States in 2024, it reported to the IRS that it owed precisely zero in federal income taxes.

Or consider billionaire Scott Bessent, Trump’s new Treasury secretary (who’s been allowing Musk’s rats into the federal payments system). Turns out Bessent paid no Medicare taxes on income he earned through his hedge fund (a practice the IRS has deemed illegal).

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