Summary

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared himself acting administrator of USAID as the State Department took control of the humanitarian agency.

The move follows Elon Musk’s claim that Trump approved shutting down USAID. Employees were told to stay home, and its headquarters was stripped of logos and access to internal systems.

Critics argue Trump lacks the authority to dissolve USAID, while Democratic congressional staffers vow to fight the takeover.

Meanwhile, senior USAID officials have been fired or placed on leave, and its website and social media accounts have gone dark.

  • TheFogan@programming.devEnglish
    10·
    4 days ago

    Remember, a lot of the time we say “Well the President can’t do this” or “The President can’t do that”, we are relying on long-standing norms, expectations, and traditions. Not actual law. Trump is challenging all of that. He’s not relying on those long-standing norms. He’s challenging them. Instead of saying “I can’t”, he’s saying “Why can’t i? And what are you going to do about it if I do?”, and finding out that nobody really has an answer for that.

    We will call this new style of politics “air bud politics”. Where we find out that basically if we didn’t say the president can’t do something, it’s assumed he implicitly can.