Just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, when the Trump administration’s federal aid freeze was scheduled to begin, a D.C. judge issued a ruling pausing it for a week, setting the stage for a high-profile legal fight. It’s not the only conflict playing out over the freeze.
A battle between political and career staffers is underway at the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). When the Trump administration unveiled a 90-day foreign aid freeze in an attempt to determine what funding is “consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave career staffers an opportunity to submit waivers for funding they believed aligned with that agenda.
“Those staffers went on to submit some 200 waivers for programs that would have cost taxpayers $1.2 billion this week alone,” the Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo reports, “including some that pertained to ‘environmental justice’ and ‘LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development.’ The Rubio-led State Department rejected all of them, sources familiar with the process told the Washington Free Beacon.”
Rubio did provide parameters for grant waivers he’d approve: ones that consisted of “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as essential supplies and reasonable administrative costs to deliver such assistance,” according to an internal memo we reviewed. One career staffer responded to that memo by requesting $1.6 million for staffers in Ecuador—not to provide aid, but to conduct “oversight” into ongoing grants in the country. Another requested $230,000 to support a fellowship program whose members include a political science professor who researches “Latinx politics.”
“The situation reflects the severe disconnect between career and political staffers at the State Department” and USAID, writes Kredo. “It also previews the implications of a high-profile legal fight surrounding the Trump administration’s plans to freeze federal grants.”
Pour one out for Jim Acosta. The “obnoxious TV journalist best known for fighting a young female staffer who tried to take away his microphone at the White House,” our Andrew Stiles writes, has officially “quit his job at CNN after refusing to accept a humiliating demotion to the graveyard shift from midnight to 2 a.m. He’s really leaving.”
Acosta delivered an emotional farewell address during his show on Tuesday: “Don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth, and to hope,” he said. Inspiring stuff. Privately, he delivered a resignation letter to CNN CEO Mark Thompson. Stiles obtained that letter. Here’s a preview:
“All experience hath shown that a journalist is more disposed to suffer, while midnight time slots and other evils are sufferable, than to purify himself by abandoning the exorbitant salary to which he is accustomed,” writes Acosta. “But when these familiar bonds conspire to reduce him under absolute Despotism, to castrate him under the guise of reorganization, gagged and flailing, to condemn him and his loyal audience to the indignity of Pacific Time, where the trauma and mental anguish of the January 6 insurrection are more lightly suffered on account of the distance, if these bonds endeavor to appease the Adolf Hitler of our century, and to wrench the pen of Justice from our noble journalist’s calloused fist, it is his right, it is his duty, to throw off such Employment, and to take his considerable talents elsewhere.”
No one really cares what he does next, but Acosta invited his followers to join him on Substack Live anyway, saying he’d “talk about the day’s news.” We’re on the edge of our seats.
Scott Bessent won confirmation to become Treasury secretary in a bipartisan vote. In doing so, he became the nation’s highest-ranking gay official, supplanting Pete Buttigieg. Within minutes of Mayor Pete’s confirmation, LGBT groups lauded its historic nature. They’ve said nothing about Bessent more than 24 hours after his vote. It’s hard to figure out why 🤔.
“GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, and the National LGBTQ Task Force have yet to weigh in on Bessent, who was confirmed 68-29,” writes our Chuck Ross. “The 62-year-old financier became the highest-ranking openly gay official to be confirmed by the Senate. As head of the Treasury, Bessent is now fifth in the line of presidential succession, surpassing liberal darling Pete Buttigieg, who was 14th in the line of succession as Biden’s transportation secretary.
“Compared with Bessent, Buttigieg was swiftly lauded by LGBT groups after his Senate confirmation on Feb. 2, 2021. Within minutes of his Senate vote, GLAAD stated that Buttigieg was ‘making history and moving our country forward.’ The Human Rights Campaign said Buttigieg’s ‘historic’ confirmation ‘broke through barriers.’ The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute called it a ‘groundbreaking confirmation.'”
Away from the Beacon:
- The Senate rejected a bill to sanction the ICC thanks in part to no votes from Arizona’s Ruben Gallego and Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, both of whom backed the exact same bill as House members last year.
- Donald Trump formally invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, and Bibi is set to become the first foreign leader to visit the White House in Trump’s second term.
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
