Politics

The much-awaited Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky went off the rails Friday. What was expected to be the signing of a deal that granted the US privileged access to Ukrainian natural resources unraveled into a shouting match — as well as a masterclass in diplomatic self-immolation from the visiting Zelensky. At one point, Vice President J.D. Vance told a visibly cross Zelensky: “Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.

President Trump announced Tuesday that his administration is planning to unveil a program that lets foreigners acquire a path to citizenship for a one-time $5 million fee. Unlike the existing EB-5 visa program, which grants green cards to wealthy investors for about one-fifth of the cost, Trump’s “gold card” initiative aims to attract greater capital while using the revenue to help reduce national debt. “We’re going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said from the Oval Office during an Executive Order signing on price transparency in the hospital system.  “You have a green card. This is a gold card.

The Cabinet Room was packed. President Trump sat in the middle of the full oblong table. On his right was his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who was voted in unanimously by the Senate; on his left a newcomer to politics, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, whose appointment only passed the Senate thanks to the deciding vote of Vice President J.D. Vance. Vance was directly opposite the president — and crowded between the VP and the back wall were several journalists equipped with microphones and cameras, leering over Trump’s appointees.In his introductory remarks, Trump said he was reelected to cut taxes, handle the border and balance the budget. He reaffirmed that his mandate to accomplish these tasks came from the US electorate.

Why are Democrats mounting such a ferocious assault on Elon Musk? Why are mainstream media outlets so eager to go along? The simplest answers are the best. Musk is the most prominent member of the new administration aside from the president himself. He is Donald Trump’s point man for exposing malfeasance in federal bureaucracies, determining where the money is going and cutting the engorged payroll. The more Musk and Trump succeed, the worse for Democrats. They created those agencies; their supporters staff them; and those supporters funnel lots of public money to specially favored institutions and projects. When Musk attacks this partisan nexus, he is attacking a major source of Democratic power and influence. That is what’s really at stake here, beyond cutting the budget.

The federal government is not becoming Office Space — yet.The Elon Musk-led effort to require all federal government employees to report back with what exactly they do here was met with pushback from throughout the administration, including from several of President Trump’s new appointees.The Office of Personnel Management’s email, with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” mirrors how Musk has operated companies he owns, like Twitter/X, where he asked similar questions.OPM’s moves came after Trump issued an ultimatum on Truth Social for Musk to double-down on his aggressiveness with the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), which many thought might not be possible. For some, the measures are a bridge too far.

National Harbor, Maryland President Donald Trump capstoned a three-day CPAC pep rally with a message of… well, Trump. To be fair, that’s what virtually everybody else at the conference was speaking about too. The ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort was packed. In the build-up members of the Trump administration and world leaders had taken the stage, but make no mistake: the attendees were here to see the president himself. Trump entered to rapturous applause. After his signature move of standing before the podium for the entirety of “God Bless the USA,” he addressed the audience. “We fought through hell together, but in the end, we achieved the great liberation of America,” he said. “Kamala?” Trump asked himself, as if searching for a forgotten memory.

The Senate may be filled with octogenarians, but it defied the odds this week with a marathon “vote-a-rama” that lasted almost ten hours — just in time to set it up on a collision course with the Republican-led House across the Capitol.Despite the stated preference of President Donald Trump for “one big, beautiful bill” for reconciliation, the Senate pushed through a giant reconciliation bill, which will be smaller than whatever the House seems poised to pass. The Senate’s version tackles one of Trump’s top priorities, border security, while punting votes on other Trump measures, like extending his namesake 2017 tax cuts, to later.

National Harbor, Maryland Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at CPAC Thursday afternoon, where Argentinian president Javier Milei presented him with a chainsaw. “This is a chainsaw for bureaucracy!” Musk said, brandishing it before a whooping crowd. The Department of Government Efficiency chief took to the stage with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. Musk wore his MAGA hat — “dark gothic MAGA!” as he said — a black jacket and mirror shades, which he kept on for the duration of his appearance. The X CEO called for America to “legalize comedy” and agreed with Schmitt that legacy media companies receiving USAID money from the federal government were becoming “mouthpieces for the state.

Forget Trumpbucks and Bidenbucks: Americans could see Muskbucks (or DoGEbucks?) hitting their mailboxes if the world’s richest man has his way.This time, it wouldn’t be via payouts from X — it would be courtesy of the billions of dollars in savings that Musk claims have already come from the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DoGE) wide-ranging cuts. According to Musk, DoGE has already saved taxpayers $55 billion — and he would like to see payments sent back to taxpayers when his agency winds down ahead of America’s 250th birthday. The idea started — where else?

The current and former US secretaries of transportation are playing the blame game following a rise in aviation crashes since the beginning of the Trump administration. Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden's transportation secretary, peppered X with questions Monday, asking, “The flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?” Buttigieg's enquiries followed a string of plane crashes throughout the nation, beginning on January 29 when an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided above the Potomac River in Washington, DC, resulting in the death of sixty-seven people.

I am reliably informed that the flow of water in the Potomac River is approximately 11,500 cubic feet per second. At Little Falls, near Washington, DC, that works out to about 7 billion gallons per day. Is it enough? I ask because all the chatter we hear about “draining the swamp” is completely pointless. The swamp that is the Washington establishment cannot be effectively drained. There is no valve huge enough to handle the requisite discharge. The institutional sewers would be overwhelmed by the effluvium. No, the fetid, corrupt, woke and self-serving bureaucracy that is the seat of government can be disburdened of its accumulated muck only by more vigorous means. Repristination requires that it be aggressively flushed, not passively drained.