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During the 1st #cabinet meeting of his 2nd term, #Trump emphasized the import of the govt-slashing effort run by #ElonMusk, & both men doubled down on #Musk’s directive that #FederalWorkers reply to an email listing their week’s achievements. Several #FederalAgencies told employees to ignore the email, & eventually the #OPM said the directive “voluntary.” Trump also touted his #GoldCard idea that sells #wealthy foreigners #citizenship & claimed his 1st month was a total success.
During questioning after #Trump’s #cabinet meeting, #Health Secy #RFKJr, a #vaccine critic, said the government was closely watching the #measles outbreak across #Texas. He said measles outbreaks occur every year.
[not at this scale & rate in the US, not before the outbreak of the #ConspiracyTheory #propaganda from idiots like Kennedy]
#FactCheck #TrumpLies #AntiVaxxers #PublicHealth #medicine #science #disease #GetVaccinated #vaccines #USpol #Trump #HHS #idiocracy #TrumpCabinetMeeting 
#TrumpCabinetMeeting notes
#Trump announced that President Volodymyr #Zelensky of #Ukraine will visit on Friday to seal a deal granting the #UnitedStates rights to Ukraine’s #mineral resources.
Trump repeated #disinformation about how much the #US & #Europe have contributed to Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion since 202/, claiming inaccurately that the US has invested 3X as much as Europe. Per the Kiel Inst, Europe has allocated $138B to the war effort, the US has given $119B.
#Trump said “I think we’ll be very close to balancing budgets,” but that appears unlikely to say the least. None of the plans advanced so far offer a credible plan to balance the federal #budget, which has a deficit of nearly $2T a year. Instead, Trump is pushing for large tax cuts for #corporations & the #wealthy that will make it harder to balance the budget.
Trump asked #ElonMusk to stand up first to talk about what he’s doing w/ #DOGE. By all accounts, #Musk dominated the #TrumpCabinetMeeting.
Peter Baker noted, not a lot of people show up at cabinet meetings wearing a baseball cap.
Trump praised Musk’s email telling every federal employee to provide a list of 5 things they accomplished last week. He said the cabinet is very supportive of it.
“If they aren’t, I’d want them to speak up,” Trump said of cabinet secretaries.
#sycophants #USpol #law
#Musk said the federal #deficit challenges America’s stability, which many on both sides of the aisle would agree with. But the cuts he has been making in taking his “chain saw” approach to #FederalAgencies would still be a drop in the bucket. The vast majority of federal spending goes to #SocialSecurity, #Medicare, #Medicaid & the #military, which Trump has *vowed* to protect—though he backed the House budget that cuts Medicaid among other programs including #Veterans services.
#Musk predicted that “America will go bankrupt” without his #DOGE team’s effort to cut spending across the federal government. #idiot
Musk acknowledged that the govt reduction effort has made *some* mistakes [basically everything they’ve done has been riddled w/errors & seriously questionable judgments], noting they accidentally paused efforts at #USAID to prevent #Ebola. He said they *quickly* [nope] corrected that once they were alerted to the mistake [court ordered]
#Musk says the goal is to achieve a $1 trillion #deficit reduction by 2026. During the 2024 campaign, Musk said “I think we can do at least $2 trillion,” so he has already abandoned half of his promise from the campaign. 
“Is anybody unhappy with Elon?” #Trump asked. “If you are, we’ll throw him out of here.” Nervous laughter rippled through the room as #cabinet members started to clap.
“President Trump has put together the best cabinet ever,” Musk says.
#Musk offered a totally new explanation for his Saturday night email to #FederalWorkers requiring they provide five points summarizing their work over the past week. He now says it was not meant as a performance review. “It was a pulse check review,” searching for *phantom employees*, he said.
[I call bullshit]
Musk also said he asked #Trump before sending the email blast & was told by Trump that it was OK to send.
After some #FederalAgencies told their employees not to respond because of national security concerns, Musk now says employees could simply say they’re working on #classified matters.
#Musk refused to share how many federal jobs they are seeking to eliminate, saying he wants to keep people who are doing *good work* in *essential* roles. [presumably by his & Trump’s metrics]
#Trump said that #LeeZeldin, the new #EPA administrator, plans to cut up to 65% of his employees 
.
While #Trump says he will balance the #budget & pay down the #debt, it’s worth remembering that he promised during the 2016 campaign that he could eliminate the entire national debt accumulated over more than two centuries during 8 years in office. Instead, during his first term, he ADDED $8.4 trillion in new borrowing over 10 years.
#Trump asked #HowardLutnick, #commerce secy, to talk about Trump’s new plan to issue #GoldCard #visas to folks willing to pay $5M. He said it stems from an existing #EB5 program, which allowed #wealthy foreign investors to pay up to pay from $500k to >$1M to put themselves on a pathway to #citizenship. Lutnick is correct that program was subject to scrutiny over the years, including cases of #fraud involving people w/possible ties to #China & #Iran #intelligence.
[see posted video yesterday]
#Trump once again makes clear that he picks senior officials in part because of their nicknames. During his first term, he constantly noted that James Mattis, his defense secretary, was called “Mad Dog” — a nickname that #Mattis actually detested. Today, Trump gushed that his choice to become the next chairman of the #JointChiefs of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, is called “Razin Caine.”
“As soon as I heard his name, I said I like that guy,” Trump said.
#Trump talked about the botched U.S. withdrawal from #Afghanistan under President #Biden & suggests that any generals involved in it should be fired. He does not mention that TRUMP WAS THE ONE WHO NEGOTIATED THE WITHDRAWAL agreement w/ the #Taliban that Biden then carried out.
#Trump says he would have kept the #Bagram base rather than give it back to #Afghanistan, but the agreement that Trump sealed did not call for keeping Bagram. In fact, the Trump-#Taliban deal committed the #UnitedStates & its allies to “withdraw all their forces from remaining bases.”
#Defense Sec #PeteHegseth, said he was auditing the #Defense Dept’s #military leadership involved in the withdrawal. Trump then said he thought those leaders would “largely” be out.
#Trump again said he wants #Canada to be the 51st state, asserting that Canada depended on the #UnitedStates. “If they had to pay their way, they couldn’t exist.”
Trump may want Canada, but Canadians do not want to be part of the US. Just 15% of Canadians support becoming part of US, while 77% oppose it, according to a YouGov survey. Even among members of Canada’s Conservative Party, just 23% favor the idea, while 73% do not.
“The #EuropeanUnion was formed in order to screw the United States,” #Trump said idiotically. He said he wants to hit the bloc with a 25% #tariff over car imports & other things.
Trump said he does believe President Vladimir #Putin of #Russia will need to make concessions in the negotiations over ending the war in #Ukraine.
#Trump parroted #Putin’s line about the origin of the #war, saying that the prospect of #NATO membership for #Ukraine is “probably the reason the whole thing started.”
Putin wrote a lengthy treatise in July 2021 making clear that he did not think Ukraine was a nation & was supposed to be part of Russia.
Trump acknowledged that a peace agreement will be tough. During the campaign, he boasted it would be easy, so much so that he vowed to end it in 24 hrs, or before his inauguration.
@Nonilex Has Trump brought the price of eggs down?
Resistance Starts NOW @Nonilex Trump’s the expert in going bankrupt!
@Nonilex And by "him" he meant "the person who is unhappy" and by "out of here" he meant "out a window, like they do in Russia."
@Nonilex@masto.ai So he's openly selling US citizenship now.
was wondering when that was going to come up 
@Nonilex
Getting the fuck out of Ukraine better be the only concession
@Nonilex his utter lack of knowledge of history and geopolitical context is beyond embarrassing.
@Nonilex Where does he get his idiotic ideas from? Putin, Miller or both and Musk!
@Nonilex most Canadians say “f$ck you”! Loudly!
We don’t want to be part of the US and we are fighting back using economic force.
@Nonilex@masto.ai Nor that it was a Republican administration that failed to accept the Taliban's offer of complete surrender in the first place, back in December ... 2001 if I recall correctly.
@Nonilex
To be fair to Trump, it takes exceptional talent to pick the absolute worst candidate for each individual cabinet position. He has a gift in assembling the worst of Americans to oversee the disaster.
@Nonilex Never has, never will. He had to sell it that way to his brain dead base because it would have probably cost him the election. Also -- he never takes resposibility for anything until he goes through his routine of breaking it, blaming others, taking credit for fixing it.
@Nonilex@masto.ai 
. . . . . o O ( "Raisin Caine" )
Let us all be clear Trumpo does not make political appointments: he is casting for his reality television show, "In the WH".
@Nonilex I would ask him "So, do you like raisins?"
@Nonilex The stupidity really hurts. The criminality and incompetence are awful, too, but, somehow the stupidity is like acid.
Which could explain the appointment of 'big balls'!
Shallow is as shallow does.
@Nonilex playing the (almost? literal?) devil's advocate here, I think this suggests Trump picked Caine because he knew him personally (clip is from 2019)
https://youtu.be/eoVrMwvNuSo?si=pcfhRJIMb5tzp_O_
@Nonilex Musk cuts jobs like the ignorant DIY guy knocks down walls in his house for a more open feeling. No consideration for what holds the roof up.
@Nonilex so much of his nonsense is backed by "he told me it's ok".
It should all be met with a quizzical look. If the boss os too lazy to show up or say it, then it isn't true
@gnu2 he says that there are millions of jobs for people who don't show up. Health check is going to be his term for verifying a person exists. Anyone who didn't reply was going to be assumed as a non real employee and remover from the role.
The guy is a complete tool. He has a fake position, yet people keep doing g what he wants
Putting the responsibility for a high-profile failure on a malignant narcissist wying ti be a king?
Sounds imprudent.
@Nonilex If that is true, he has no idea how network authentication systems work.
@Nonilex
So today it's mutual.masturbation.
Tomorrow it will be get off my porch
@Nonilex Cabinet sings The Turtles:
“So happy to‑ge‑theeeer!”
@Nonilex Jesus wept, this is dystopian
@Nonilex yeah, the Ebola program got reinstated but teams tracking less sexy diseases are probably out of luck.
@Nonilex he's trying to ensure it, they plan to buy it up for pennies on the dollar.
Fucking evil billionaires. May they all rot in hell.
@Nonilex We all know Trump’s vows are worth as much as used toilet paper.
#Musk wasted 276.4 years of government work with just his #5Bullets email.
And how much more is the #Doge debacle going to cost #US taxpayers with regards to all the #lawsuits against Elon’s illegal behavior? Not just in terms of monetary settlements, but in terms of the work hours for all the federal lawyers, clerks, etc…
#ElonMusk and #Trump are going to cost US taxpayers far more than they might possibly “save” by randomly firing workers.
@Nonilex not to mention the cost of fixing all the fundamental services infrastructure of the nation that will be set ablaze by indiscriminate slashing.
@Nonilex He and musk are destroying government services and agencies not just to finance huge tax cuts, but also to create chaos and division so that they declare martial law and complete the coup! And of course musk is enriching himself along the way by blatantly canceling existing tech deals and redirecting them to his own companies. It's all going down right before our eyes..