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Today's read: 13 minutes.
Continuing the dialogue.
Over the past week, our staff inbox has been flooded with feedback — lots of congratulations for Isaac’s family, lots of support for our staff’s coverage while he’s on break, and plenty of critical feedback for me, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, who is temporarily stepping into the lead editorial role while Isaac is away.
One issue in particular than any other: my interpretation that Elon Musk’s gesture was not an intentional Nazi salute. On yesterday’s Sunday Podcast, I sat down with Tangle’s Head of Partnerships and Social Magdalena Bokowa to really get into the details, respond to the feedback, and give my full perspective (among other discussion topics). If you’re interested, you can listen to the first half here (premium subscribers can find the full episode here).
Quick hits.
- The Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote after three Republican senators (Susan Collins (ME), Mitch McConnell (KY), and Lisa Murkowski (AK)) voted against his nomination. (The confirmation) Separately, the Senate confirmed Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security by a 59–34 vote. (The confirmation)
- After President Donald Trump threatened to impose a series of tariffs and sanctions on the country, Colombian President Gustavo Petro backed off his decision to turn away U.S. military planes carrying unauthorized immigrants who had been deported. (The latest)
- Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers taken hostage during the October 7 attack, and Israel released 200 imprisoned Palestinians in the second exchange of the current ceasefire agreement. (The exchange) Separately, the White House announced that the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel had been extended until February 18. (The announcement)
- South Korean prosecutors indicted President Yoon Suk Yeol on charges that he directed a rebellion when he imposed martial law in early December. Yoon becomes South Korea’s first sitting president to be indicted. (The indictment)
- President Trump visited California and North Carolina to survey damage from recent natural disasters. Prior to the trip, Trump announced an executive order to overhaul or eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (The order)
Today's topic.
The inspectors general firings. On Friday night, President Donald Trump reportedly fired at least 17 inspectors general (IGs) at several federal agencies. In response, several lawmakers expressed concern that the White House had violated federal rules requiring the president to provide Congress with at least 30 days' notice of intent before firing any inspector general, a Senate-confirmed position. The dismissed inspectors general had been overseeing the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture, as well as three federal agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration.
Background: An inspector general’s primary role is to conduct audits, investigations, and inspections of Cabinet-level departments and major agencies to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in government. IGs are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.
The White House cited “changing priorities” in its communications to the dismissed IGs. On Saturday, Trump defended the firings as a “very common thing to do,” though he declined to elaborate on his rationale. “I don’t know them,” Trump said. “But some people thought that some were unfair or some were not doing their job. It’s a very standard thing to do.” Many of the ousted watchdogs had reportedly been appointed by Trump in his first term.
During his first term, Trump fired five independent watchdogs, including one who had informed Congress about a whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s first impeachment. In 2022, Congress passed reforms to the IG system, requiring the president to formally explain any removals.
Hannibal Ware, an inspector general and chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, wrote a letter to the White House on Friday, stating, “We do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General.” At least one of the fired IGs reportedly plans to show up for work on Monday.
Many Democratic lawmakers — and some Republicans — immediately denounced the move. A group of top House Democrats signed a joint letter to Trump on Saturday, defending the federal watchdog system and criticizing the mass firings. “Firing inspectors general without due cause is antithetical to good government, undermines the proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and degrades the federal government’s ability to function effectively and efficiently,” they wrote.
Separately, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Trump may have broken the law in how he carried out the firings. “There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so," Grassley said. “I’d like further explanation from President Trump.” Other Republicans, however, defended the move. “Time and time again, the Supreme Court has said that Congress can't impose restrictions on the president's power to remove officers," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said. “[Trump] has a right to get in there who he wants.”
Today, we’ll share arguments on the firings from commentators on the left and right. Then, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman gives his take while Executive Editor Isaac Saul is on paternity leave.
What the left is saying.
- The left criticizes the move, arguing Trump blatantly violated the law.
- Some worry the firings will allow government waste and fraud to go unchecked.
- Others say Trump’s disregard for the law endangers the country.
In The Washington Post, Ruth Marcus wrote “Trump’s Friday night massacre is blatantly illegal.”
“The blatantly illegal action is troubling in itself — nonpartisan inspectors general play a critical role in assuring the lawful and efficient operations of government, in Democratic and Republican administrations alike. An administration supposedly focused on making government more efficient would be empowering inspectors general, not firing them en masse,” Marcus said. “But this episode is even more alarming than that. It offers a chilling foreshadowing of Trump unbound, heedless of the rule of law and unwilling to tolerate any potential impediment to his authority.”
“The firings don’t just pose a fundamental challenge to the inspectors general and the agencies they serve — they are a threat to the authority of Congress itself. What is the point of laws if lawmakers permit them to be so cavalierly ignored,” Marcus wrote. “Congress and the rest of us need to closely watch what comes next. Presumably, Trump didn’t remove the incumbent inspectors general just to let their deputies continue business as usual. ‘You can weaponize these jobs,’ one of the ousted inspectors general told me. ‘You can ignore bad things. You can go after the prior administration. You can try to filter or edit work that comes out. They’ve taken away one of the huge checks and balances.’”
In The New York Daily News, Lucy Lang said “protect the independent U.S. inspectors general.”
“If someone does something in the middle of a Friday night, without a public announcement and then — when asked about it by the press — refuses to provide any details, it probably isn’t something that they want people to pay a lot of attention to,” Land wrote. “IGs work to ensure government effectiveness and efficiency. They also serve as a bulwark against abuse and misconduct and, because of their independence, can act as reliable truth tellers in the face of controversy.”
“We know what the lack of independent oversight looks like in other countries. In 2016 President Abdel Farrah al-Sisi fired and imprisoned the head of Egypt’s Central Auditing Agency after publication of a report documenting widespread political corruption — though one cannot directly link this removal to current economic instability in the country,” Lang said. “Congress needs to stand behind the law and more. It needs to protect the independence of IGs to be effective truth tellers when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and protecting the federal system from fraud, waste and abuse.”
In JURIST News, Michael J. Kelly called the firings the beginning of “Trump’s assault on the rule of law.”
“Twice stymied in his first term from asserting unfettered control over the federal government (first, by his own political appointees and career civil servants who refused to bend to his will, second, switching from internal to external forces, by using a mob to foment the January 6, 2021, insurrection — which failed), President Donald Trump clearly has resolved not to be so stymied in his second term,” Kelly wrote. “What happens when presidents break the law in this way? Congress has very little recourse beyond holding hearings or impeachment — neither of which a Republican Congress would be willing to undertake.”
“While not much might happen to Trump for not following the law, either politically or legally, accepting and normalizing such behavior by our chief executive has enormous consequences for the nation. Previously, modern presidents paid prices for not following the law in a rule of law society,” Kelly said. “If what Trump learned to do by successfully ignoring or outrunning the law in the abbreviated version of his ‘wilderness years’ — the interregnum between his terms — is tolerated and allowed to take root in the Oval Office, America is in much bigger trouble than anyone realizes.”
What the right is saying.
- The right is mixed on the move, though many argue Trump was right to scrutinize the independent watchdog system.
- Some say Trump is showing an indifference to the rule of law in his first week in office.
- Others say some of the firings are puzzling and could set up an important legal fight.
In PJ Media, Matt Margolis called the firings “a big move against the deep state.”
“By definition, inspectors general are supposed to be independent federal watchdogs who are tasked with identifying and cleaning up waste and abuse in government. That’s what we expect them to do. However, as RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree notes, many of the inspectors general have a track record of whitewashing reports and engaging in partisan politics, where left-wing officials are often given a pass,” Margolis wrote. “And if you think about it, can anyone give me any examples of accountability during the Biden administration? Anyone?”
“In 2009, Obama fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin to protect a political ally. Walpin had been investigating Obama’s friend and donor, Kevin Johnson, who had misused federal AmeriCorps funds by funneling them into his personal nonprofit, using the money for political activities, and even paying hush money to underage girls who had accused him of sexual abuse,” Margolis said. “Reports suggest that Trump did not notify Congress of his decision to fire the inspectors general, as required by law. As a result, the terminations may need to undergo additional legal review and procedural steps before they are finalized… [but] it's clear that these deep staters needed replacing.”
In Reason, Eric Boehm suggested Trump “likely violated federal law.”
“Many of those fired were Trump appointees from his first term in office… It remains unclear whether the administration plans to fill the positions with newly appointed loyalists or to leave the posts vacant,” Boehm wrote. “The firings will likely trigger an immediate legal battle over the president's authority to send inspectors general packing. A law passed by Congress in 2008 requires the White House to provide 30 days' notice before removing or replacing an inspector general. An updated version of that law, passed in 2022, requires that a president provide Congress with ‘substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons’ for the removal.”
“This mass dismissal comes on the heels of Trump's move earlier this week to dismiss several members from a White House board that provides oversight on privacy and civil liberties issues, including the federal government's warrantless spying programs,” Boehm said. “So far, the second Trump administration seems less interested in draining the swamp than in pushing aside people who might sound the alarm about corruption, illegal actions, and other abuses of executive power.”
In RedState, the blogger streiff said the move “throws DC status quo into chaos.”
“The inspectors general are allegedly independent of the administration and are supposed to root out fraud, waste, abuse, and lawbreaking. The reality is much more checkered,” streiff wrote. “Without playing politics, you don't achieve the political profile necessary to get a presidential appointment. That political incentive means that an IG is a double-edged sword because their purported independence provides an incentive to curry favor with all parties.”
“What makes the list so curious is that Sean O'Donnell, the EPA IG appointed by Trump's first term, was fired while the DOJ IG, Michael Horowitz, who never lifted a finger to reel in Merrick Garland's massive abuses of power, was retained,” streiff said. “This move is curious. If it isn't simply an impulsive act, the Trump White House may be using this court case to audition arguments that can be used on another Congressional ‘permission’ case, like a challenge to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.”
My take.
Reminder: "My take" is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion from our editorial team. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.
- From Trump’s perspective, this move is likely a response to the challenges he faced from within the government during his first term.
- However, the firings are just as likely to undermine Trump’s stated agenda.
- Above all, the dismissals could enable more waste and corruption in the government.
I can easily come up with a banal justification for what President Trump is doing, and I think I can understand these moves from his perspective. However, I also find these actions very concerning, and am very leery of what could come next.
First, the justification. During his first term in office, Trump was — famously — plagued by powerful staffers actively resisting his agenda. In a then-anonymous 2018 op-ed in The New York Times, former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor described how he and others resisted President Trump internally, creating what he called a “two-track presidency” where the administration’s actions often contradicted the president’s statements. In order to really enact his agenda the second time around, Trump has good reason for dismantling the structures that could get in his way — reclassifying as many as 50,000 employees (or more) to Schedule F to allow him to remove them at will, and firing inspectors general who in the past have scrutinized his operations and whom he’s accused of holding partisan motivations. As an example, Trump issued an executive order in his first week blocking new federal rules and regulations in all agencies where Trump’s appointed agency chief is not yet on the job, and IGs could easily block that agenda from being implemented.
Once we start thinking about these decisions from Trump’s point of view — as cutting the red tape that strangled his first term — we can see a pretty justifiable course of action. Decisions like removing inspectors general and firing members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board make sense from that perspective. We can also see these decisions as an extension of Trump’s mandate: He ran on fundamentally reorganizing the federal government, and keeping existing roles and mechanisms for internal oversight could arguably be made redundant by a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But justifying these actions from Trump’s point of view is very different from justifying them to the American people. And I don’t think the president’s current strategy is justifiable, for three reasons: These moves are actually going to make the government less efficient, they’re a less effective use of his agenda, and he’s now inviting more corruption and more politicization into our government.
First, if Trump follows through on re-organizing the government by pursuing the same “all-out blitz” strategy he’s enacting with immigration policy — clearing out potentially obstinate and partisan federal employees with a bulldozer rather than with measured consideration — he’ll probably do more to create a hobbled and ineffective government than a smaller and more efficient one. Remember, Trump tried to redesignate federal employees to “at-will” employment at the end of his last term, and since then a University of Texas study has found that such a move was “likely to degrade government performance.”
Second, if this is a reorganization effort, it strikes me as a poor one. I don’t know that Trump will export oversight of these agencies to DOGE, but if that is his plan then I think it’s misguided. These IGs are important backstops of corruption; DOGE, meanwhile, can focus on finding fat to trim, starting with the departments that have the most government employees: the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, which employ about half of the federal workforce between the three of them. The Pentagon has long been plagued by bloat, and other Republican lawmakers have already introduced legislation to modernize software systems in the VA to make it more efficient. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been ramping up domestic surveillance programs for years — despite the federal government already having a Central Intelligence Agency, a Federal Bureau of Investigation, a National Security Agency, and a Secret Service that all have intelligence gathering as part of their purview. Why not start there?
Which brings me to my third point: corruption. Remember that Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that Trump fired members from? Its job is to look into government infringement on civil liberties, like illegal domestic surveillance, and it’s now inoperable. And remember that the DHS is growing its surveillance programs (and that the federal government already has a dark history of spying on U.S. citizens)? If you’re concerned about the potential for government overreach, I think what Trump did is just give you more reason to be concerned.
Yes, firing these inspectors general does appear illegal (and could well be overturned in court), but that illegality isn’t my biggest issue with it. My biggest problem is that these are the people whose job it is to investigate and report on impropriety in their agencies, and Trump just fired at least 17 of them, en masse, with no clear reason and no communicated plan to replace them. If/when he does give the Senate its legal notice, and he does remove these inspectors general, who’s going to stop these agencies from becoming ineffective, unrestrained, and filled with unscrupulous yes-men?
Last Wednesday, we scathed President Biden on his way out the door for adding another link to the chain of hyperpartisanship in government. Now, Trump’s taking steps that could easily add another link to that chain. Maybe the president only wants to cut bloat, quickly and decisively, and reorganize the way government oversight is done. But he’s paving the way for a politicized bureaucracy with fewer checks on corruption, and moves like illegally clearing out independent watchdogs of federal agencies put us on high alert for what comes next.
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Your questions, answered.
Q: There’s a lot of chatter about Meta users being forced to follow Trump and JD Vance’s social accounts and not being able to unfollow them — is this true?
— Tangle Instagram follower
Magdalena Bokowa (Head of Partnerships and Social): It seems like 80% of the issue comes from confusion over how Meta handles rebranding of old accounts, and 20% from genuine tech issues.
When a new administration takes office, they don’t open fresh accounts but take over the existing ones. In this case, President Trump assumed the POTUS handle, and Vice President Vance took over the VP handle on Facebook and Instagram (similar to how it works on X). For some people following Biden’s White House account, following Trump’s felt like it came out of nowhere, mainly for three reasons.
1) Posts from former President Biden and Vice President Harris were archived, making the accounts appear “wiped clean.” This felt disorienting to old users, as it looked like the history of the previous administration had just vanished.
2) Meta decided to slap a bright blue “new” emblem on the profile photos. This led Biden and Harris followers, who were suddenly seeing “new” accounts with none of the old posts to reference, to assume they were being forced into following Trump and Vance.
3) Scores of users have claimed that they can’t unfollow these new accounts. This issue is less clear cut — Meta has actually acknowledged this, saying in a statement that “it may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.” Passing the buck, Zuck? (sorry, couldn’t help it)
I don’t think it’s nefarious, though; what would Meta stand to gain? I’d err on this being a tech glitch rather than some diabolical plan that doesn’t even make sense (but send me your conspiracy theories if you want).
Honestly, I would be more concerned about last Monday’s report that Meta was hiding hashtags related to Democrats, or the New York Times reporting that posts related to abortion pill access were blurred or hidden, which makes it seem like Meta is throttling certain types of left-leaning content or making changes to how things are being shown in people's feeds. Our own Instagram post related to immigration last week (using immigration hashtags) was seemingly “throttled,” but it remains to be seen whether that was intentional or just the result of an algorithm update or glitch. Either way, it reaffirms that getting out of the algorithmic news cycles is critical.
Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.
Under the radar.
An artificial intelligence startup in China shocked the U.S. tech community with the release of its new model, raising concerns about the pace of China’s AI development. The startup, DeepSeek, recently unveiled its R1 model, which demonstrates advanced reasoning capabilities, particularly in coding and math problems. Furthermore, the startup claimed that it created and released its open-source project on $6 million in training costs, a fraction of what leading U.S. AI companies are spending on their models. The release comes amid escalating moves by the U.S. government to try to limit China’s AI capabilities, including new export controls on advanced AI chips announced during former President Biden’s last week in office. Axios has the story.
Numbers.
- 1978. The year the Inspector General Act was signed into law, establishing the first inspectors general (IG) positions within the United States government.
- 12. The number of departmental IGs initially established by the law.
- 74. The current number of statutory IG positions across the federal government.
- 16. The number of IGs fired by President Ronald Reagan when he took office in 1981 (Reagan would rehire five of them after Congress objected to the move).
- 5. The number of IGs President Donald Trump fired in a roughly six-week period in 2020.
- 46%. The percentage of U.S. adults who think the system of checks and balances in the United States is working well, according to an April 2024 AP-NORC poll.
- 40%. The percentage of Americans who think the country needs a strong president who should be allowed to rule without too much interference from courts and Congress, according to a March 2024 Reuters-Ipsos poll.
- 41%. The percentage of U.S. adults who think America has gotten so far off track that we need a leader who is willing to break some rules to set things right, according to a March 2024 NPR/PBS/Marist poll.
The extras.
- One year ago today we had just written about Israel-Hamas hostage negotiations.
- The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was the Schedule F executive order.
- Nothing to do with politics: Looking for a fun website? Try funwebsite.fun. It sounds fun.
- Yesterday’s survey: 3,905 readers responded to our survey on President Trump’s week-one executive orders with 50% strongly disapproving. “I strongly disapprove of pardoning anyone involved in Jan 6th or commuting the sentences of anyone involved in violence. I think pardoning a convicted drug dealer like Ulbricht as political payback to Libertarians is disgraceful and unnecessary. Others, I have less problems with,” one respondent said.
Have a nice day.
In 2017, Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi lived in a New York City homeless shelter with his family after fleeing the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. But his difficult circumstances did not stop him from learning new skills: He began playing chess, and at the age of eight he had already won the state K-3 division championship. Since then, Tani has won his age division at the North American Youth Championships, achieved the rank of National Master, and won the 2024 U.S. Cadet Championship. Although Tani recognizes there are a number of paths he can take in his life, he says, “For now, I want to just get grandmaster. I’ll figure out the rest when I get older.” Nice News has the story.
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