Trump-Musk regime is now getting pushback from Americans

In frigid temperature on Monday, the Presidents' Day, thousands of protestors came out in cities across the US to denounce President Donald Trump shouting “No kings on Presidents Day”. Organizers of protests, which were focused on state capitals and major cities including Washington, D.C.; Orlando, Florida; and Seattle, said they were targeting “anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies”, AP reported. Many demonstrations were slated for cities where temperatures were well below freezing as a polar vortex worked its way across the country. Two weeks ago, demonstrators had gathered in cities across the US to protest the Trump administration’s early actions, decrying everything from the president’s immigration crackdown to his rollback of transgender rights and a proposal to forcibly transfer Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

The protests on Monday were a result of a movement that has organized online under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.


However, such protests by Trump's opponents pale in comparison to the resistance Trump faced from them right after he was first inaugurated as US president in January 2017 when hundreds of thousands of protesters had descended on Washington.

Though opponents' resistance to Trump this time has gone flaccid, the dissatisfaction is simmering among many Americans, including his MAGA followers, over Trump's rapid-fire executive orders and operations of tech billionaire Elon Musk's cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Discontent in MAGA base and GOP
Republicans on Capitol Hill are divided over Musk being the public face of Trump’s aggressive bid to shrink the government, The Hill has reported. Several Republican senators worry that Musk cutting federal jobs, which happen to employ many people in their home states, will not look good when inflation remains a major problem.

One GOP senator told The Hill Musk’s buyout effort offering more than seven months of severance was “poorly executed,” and his latest attempt to slim federal agencies by pushing a reduction in force has failed to consider how it might impact federal agencies. “I think they’re just looking to reduce numbers — it’s not efficiency, it’s not output. It’s, ‘We just need bodies gone.’ And I don’t know that’s the metric that you use,” the senator said.

“There’s a lot of concern among my constituents. The concern is, ‘Who is this guy?’ He’s a billionaire, which puts him in a certain category. ‘How does he have the authority if he’s not elected by anybody to do what he’s doing?’” another senator told The Hill, who said there are “a lot” of federal workers in their home state.

The senator said there’s a lot of “confusion” about the buyout offer for federal workers because it was offered and then withdrawn, a judge put a hold on it, the judicial order was later lifted and it applies to some parts of government but not others. Yet another senator was worried by a report that Musk’s team had gained access to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which serves 9 million enrolled veterans across more than 1,200 facilities around the country.

The GOP lawmakers who had voiced support for DOGE are now in an awkward position since cost-cutting and layoffs are hitting their constituents. Politico has reported that a growing number of GOP lawmakers are trying to intervene with the Trump administration and are weighing legislation to circumvent the changes. But with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Management and Budget moving at a rapid clip and flouting federal law to carve up the government, the lawmakers face monumental challenges in getting the White House to spare their constituents from the ax.

An about-face highlights DOGE's recklessness
The Trump administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that DOGE’s blind cost cutting will put communities at risk.

Three US officials who spoke to AP said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late last Thursday, with some losing access to email before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they were locked out. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, which saw about 30% of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance. The firings prompted one NNSA senior staffer to post a warning and call to action.

By late Friday night, the agency’s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the firings for all but 28 of those hundreds of fired staff members.

Steve Bannon strikes again
Steve Bannon, an architect of Trump’s presidential election victory in 2016 and his chief strategist during his first term, and other far-right figures had blasted the H-1B program last month, creating a rift among MAGA base on worker visas when a large section of MAGA had lashed out against skilled legal immigrants accusing them of snatching away jobs from Americans. Trump's MAGA supporters had clashed on social media with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over immigration policy.

Bannon has come put as a leading critic of Musk among the MAGA base. He said last month that he has now made it a personal thing to take Musk down. Calling Musk a "truly evil guy", Bannon said he will have Musk "run out of here by Inauguration Day". “He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon said. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”

Bannon, one of the most prominent figures in the MAGA base which have begun to voice dissent, has now issued a serious warning to Republicans who may reduce Medicaid, the healthcare system that insures 72 million low income and disabled people. He cautioned that members of Trump's fan base would be impacted if Republicans cut Medicaid as many MAGA supporters rely on the program. Bannon has joined US hospitals in rebellion over Medicaid cuts. “Medicaid, you gotta be careful,” he said on his Thursday podcast. “Because a lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid, I’m telling you. If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong.”

Bannon and several Republican senators are warning that Medicaid cuts will only alienate voters that elected Trump.

(With inputs from agencies)