Trump Signs Laken Riley Act and Amps Up Mass Deportation Powers

Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, one of the most extreme anti-immigration bills in recent memory, into law Wednesday.

This is the first piece of legislation that Trump has signed in his second term—and it sets the tone for what’s to come. The law will allow law enforcement to detain and deport undocumented immigrants on the mere suspicion of committing a crime, with no conviction necessary. It does not include protections for children or DACA recipients. Twelve Democrats in the Senate and 46 Democrats in the House joined every Republican in Congress to pass the bill.

The new law will make it easier for Trump to pursue his goal of mass deportations, which have already begun in earnest around the country. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have set the heavy goal of 1,200 to 1,500 deportations a day, in the process, innocent people have been detained, such as Native members of the Navajo Nation and several Puerto Ricans, including a child and a U.S. military veteran.

The stepped-up immigration raids have already a negative effect on the food industry, but have also been met with opposition from many Americans. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan complained on Tuesday that people in Chicago are hampering detention efforts because “they’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE.”

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security was sued on Monday by multiple Quaker religious groups from across the country for lifting a restriction on immigration raids in places of worship. Trump and his right-wing allies are using every existing tool in their arsenal and passing new laws to boost their deportation efforts, but the process has been chaotic and negligent.

This story has been updated.

Mike Pence is pulling out receipts to lobby senators against confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary.

The former vice president posted a minute-long compilation of clips showing President Trump disparaging RFK Jr., mostly while they were each on the campaign trail last year.

“President Trump was right the first time.… Senators, Vote No on RFK. Jr.,” the video is captioned.

“RFK Jr is a Democrat plant, a radical left liberal,” one clip from May showed Trump saying. “He makes the ‘Green New Scammers’ look very conservative by comparison, and he’s anti-military and he’s anti-vet.… I’d even take Biden over Junior.”

The clip ends with inviting viewers to visit “RFKQuestions.com,” which redirects to a letter from conservative PAC Advancing American Freedom urging the Senate not to confirm RFK Jr. on the grounds that he is pro-abortion.

The video was posted on the eve of RFK Jr.’s first confirmation hearing Wednesday, during which the Trump nominee crumbled when questioned about his own past comments.

Donald Trump’s administration has made its calamitous freeze on federal grants and loans even worse.

In a brief memo Wednesday, the Office for Management and Budget announced that it would be withdrawing its order to pause funding for review.

“OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have any questions about implementing the President’s Executive Orders please contact your agency General Counsel,” the memo stated.

But then, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt just made things even messier.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” she wrote on X. “Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

The freeze was originally intended to go into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. But all day, state officials and lawmakers reported having issues accessing essential government services such as Medicaid and Head Start, despite subsequent assurances from OMB that these programs would not be affected by the freeze. These issues and widespread confusion led to a public outcry, as many feared that their health care access was in jeopardy.

Democratic leaders called it a “constitutional crisis,” as Trump’s administration was clearly preventing funds from being allocated as Congress had decided. To resecure funding, these organizations would have had to report to OMB on whether they promote ideas such as environmental justice, “gender ideology,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion. They would also have to say whether they provide services to undocumented immigrants.

Tuesday night, a district judge ordered a brief administrative stay on the freeze, delaying it from going into effect until February 3. This means that Leavitt’s claim the executive orders are “in full force and effect” is false.

“Thanks. This clarifies nothing,” Minnesota Senator Tina Smith tweeted in response, speaking for all of us.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine warned that “this battle is just beginning.”

“I don’t know that they know what they’re doing. I think all they know is they got a backlash they didn’t expect, and so we’re not assuming the rescission is to be taken as a resolution,” he told reporters. “So we’re going to be on the floor tonight raising hell about this.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James warned that “this is just more confusion and chaos. We will be in court this afternoon.”

James is part of a coalition of Democratic attorneys general who have sued the Trump administration over the funding freeze.

This first major fiasco by the Trump administration promises only more chaos to come.

This story has been updated.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have framed himself as a grassroots political candidate in the 2024 election, but Democrats during Wednesday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing to confirm the secretary of health and human services nominee weren’t buying it. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were quick to note that the self-admitted anti-vaxxer was making cash off of his extreme public health stances.

“I think the gist of what you’re trying to say today is that you’re really pro-vaccine, you want to ask questions—you have started a group called the Children’s Health Defense. You’re the originator of it,” Sanders said.

“Right now, as I understand it, on their website they are selling what’s called onesies—little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled ‘Unvaxxed, unafraid’. Next one, and it’s sold for 26 bucks apiece, by the way, next one is ‘No vax, no problem’.”

“Now, you’re coming before this committee and saying you’re pro-vaccine,” the independent Vermont politico continued. “And yet your organization is making money selling a child’s product to parents for 26 bucks which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines.

“Can you tell us now, now that you are pro-vaccine, that you’re going to have your organization take these products off the market?” Sanders pressed.

In a disclosure form filed for his nomination, Kennedy claimed that he had resigned as chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense in December. He made roughly $326,000 for just three months of work at the nonprofit in 2023, according to the group’s 990 form that year. The same disclosure form revealed that the outspoken vaccine critic made roughly $10 million over the last year related to speaking fees, dividends from his vaccine lawsuits, and leading Children’s Health Defense.

Still, Kennedy told Sanders that he had “no power” over the organization, which he left just last month.

“You founded that; you certainly have power,” Sanders continued, raising his voice. “Are you supportive of these onesies?”

“I am supportive of vaccines. I want good science,” Kennedy said, refusing to say whether or not he would advise the group to reconsider such merchandise.

Warren had a similarly heated exchange with Kennedy, torching the familially ousted “predator” for making a business out of collecting fees on vaccine- and medication-related lawsuits.

“There’s a lot of ways you can influence those future lawsuits and pending lawsuits while you are secretary of HHS,” Warren said, pointing out that Kennedy could publish his anti-vax theories on U.S. government letterhead to influence juries, change vaccine labels, request that the CDC remove jabs from the vaccine schedules, or change which claims are compensated in the vaccine injury compensation program.

“I’m asking you to commit right now, that you will not take a financial stake in every one of those lawsuits so that what you do as secretary will also benefit you financially down the line,” Warren said.

But Kennedy wouldn’t commit to the specificity of that promise.

“I will comply with all the ethical guidelines,” Kennedy said, before claiming that Warren was simply asking him not to sue more vaccine companies. “That’s exactly what you’re doing,” he said.

“No one should be fooled here,” Warren said, addressing the room. “As secretary of HHS, Robert Kennedy will have the power to undercut vaccines and vaccine manufacturing across our country.

“The bottom line is the same: Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made several disturbing comments during his first Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday suggesting that, as Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services, he’s hoping to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Representative James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, asked Kennedy if he had plans to improve Food and Drug Administration transparency in regard to the side effects associated with mifepristone, one of the drugs used to induce abortions, which he claimed were not being reported under the Biden administration. The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000.

“It’s against everything we believe in in this country, that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events. We need to know what adverse events are, we need to understand the safety of every drug: mifepristone and every other drug,” Kennedy said.

“And President Trump has made it clear to me that one of the things—he is not taking a position yet on mifepristone, a detailed position, but he’s made it clear to me that he wants me to look at safety issues, and I’ll ask NIH and FDA to do that.”

The FDA has previously found that after decades of use by millions of women, mifepristone has proven to be “extremely safe” and that “serious adverse events are exceedingly rare.” But, given Kennedy’s other statements opposing abortion, it seems that he is interested in severely limiting abortion access, and calling for the FDA to review mifepristone’s safety could be his way to do just that.

When answering another question from Lankford about how he planned to handle Title X, an HHS policy that provides funding for family planning services, Kennedy replied, “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion.

“President Trump has told me that he wants to end late-term abortions, and he wants to protect conscience exemptions, and he wants to end federal funding for abortions here or abroad,” Kennedy said. “I serve at the pleasure of the president, I’m gonna implement his policies.”

(Reproductive health experts have warned that the term “late-term abortion” is scientifically meaningless and is actually a tool anti-abortion activists use to fearmonger that people are committing infanticide.)

Kennedy’s stance represents a significant change-up from his past statements about abortion—and Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, brought receipts.

“In 2023, you came to New Hampshire and said, ‘I’m pro-choice, I don’t think the government has any business telling people what they can or cannot do to their body,’” Hassan said. “So, you said that, right?”

“Yes,” Kennedy replied.

“But you also said, ‘We need to trust the women to make that choice because I don’t trust government to make any choices.’ You said that too, right?”

“Yes,” Kennedy said.

“It is remarkable that you have such a long record of fighting for women’s reproductive freedom, and really great that my Republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice HHS secretary,” Hassan said.

“So Mr. Kennedy, I’m confused,” she continued. “You have clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When was it that you decided to sell out the values you’ve had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?”

Hassan wasn’t the only lawmaker to go after Kennedy over abortion. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, also got in on the action.

“A pregnant woman with a life-threatening bleeding from an incomplete miscarriage goes to the E.R., and her doctor also determines that she needs an emergency abortion. But she’s in a state where abortion is banned,” Cortez Mastro said. “You would agree also as an attorney that federal law protects her right to that emergency care, correct?”

“Um. I don’t know,” Kennedy sputtered. “I mean, the answer to that is I don’t know.”

“Well, let me ask you this, as an attorney, doesn’t federal law preempt state law?”

“The federal Constitution does. Not every federal law preempts state laws,” Kennedy replied.

Donald Trump’s Justice Department is moving to drop the charges against his two former Mar-a-Lago employees, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, in the classified documents case.

The DOJ filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss an appeal to revive the charges against the pair, thus ending the last traces of the federal criminal cases against the president. In July, Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the 42 felony charges against Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira, on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith had been illegitimately appointed. The Justice Department appealed the decision, asking that the charges against Nauta and De Oliveira remain.

The pair were accused of helping Trump move boxes of classified documents at his Florida estate so that federal investigators could not find them and of trying to delete security footage that showed them moving boxes. Trump also asked Nauta to lie on his behalf to the FBI and promised him a pardon if he faced any charges.

Earlier this month, Nauta and De Oliveira had also sought to block special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on the classified documents case from being released, but their appeal was denied. Cannon, who showed clear bias toward Trump during his classified documents case, did manage to block the release of a selected volume of Smith’s report to select members of Congress last week, leaving parts of the case still unknown to the public.

In November, following Trump’s election victory, Smith moved to have the federal charges against the president for trying to overturn the 2020 election dismissed without prejudice, meaning that they could be refiled after his term of office ends in 2029. For Nauta and De Oliveira, Wednesday’s action might be the end of the classified documents case. But for Trump, will it resurface four years from now?

The federal government’s most important hiring office is now overrun with Elon Musk’s underqualified stooges.

Wired reported on Tuesday that the highest positions at the Office of Personnel Management are now held by people close to Musk. And some of them have a woeful lack of experience.

Two people in OPM leadership are so young that Wired refused to name them. One is a 21-year-old who worked at Peter Thiel’s Palantir firm, and the other is a 2024 high school graduate whose résumé consists of a summer job at Musk’s Neuralink company, as well as previous experience as a camp counselor and bike mechanic. They were set to start college last fall.

There’s also OPM’s new chief of staff, Amanda Scales, who has worked for Musk’s AI-company xAI, the startup founded by Musk himself. Before that, she worked at other tech companies like venture firm Human Capital, defense technology company Anduril, and Uber. Her hire is seen as a key move in the further politicization of the federal hiring process.

Musk’s henchmen taking over OPM may explain much of the concerning news coming out of the agency in the last week. That includes a mass test email sent to every single federal employee, reports that OPM is funneling employee info to Musk himself, and most recently, an ultimatum to federal employees who don’t want to return to the office. That so-called “buyout” sounded eerily similar to an email Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2023.

The takeover comes as the world’s richest man begins his work with DOGE, hoping to continue Trump’s efforts in drastically culling the federal government.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was thoroughly and categorically torched by Democrats during his Senate Finance hearing on Wednesday.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet held Kennedy to the flame on his own language around disease and vaccines, which included claiming that Covid-19 was a “genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and White people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people” and that Lyme disease was constructed by the military.

“I didn’t say it was deliberately targeted, I just quoted an NIH-funded and NIH-published study–” Kennedy rattled out about Covid.

“Did you say that Lyme disease is highly likely a militarily engineered bioweapon?” Bennet said, changing the topic. “Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?”

“I probably did say that,” Kennedy responded.

“OK, I want all of our colleagues to hear it, Mr. Kennedy. I want them to hear it. You said yes,” Bennet pressed, raising his voice. “Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender?”

Kennedy denied having said that, to which Bennet replied, “I have the record.”

“Did you write in your book that ‘it’s undeniable that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS’?” Bennet continued.

“I don’t know,” Kennedy shrugged back, to which Bennet once again informed the committee chairman that he would hand over records of Kennedy’s past remarks on the topic.

“This matters,” Bennet said, again raising his voice. “Because unlike other jobs we’re confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death.

“It’s too important for the games that you’re playing, Mr. Kennedy.”

“What is so disturbing to me is that out of 330 million Americans, we’re being asked to put somebody in this job who has spent 50 years of his life not honoring the tradition that he talked about at the beginning of this conversation, but peddling in half-truths, peddling in false statements, peddling in theories that, you know, create doubt about whether or not things that we know are safe are unsafe,” Bennet said.

Kennedy is slated for two confirmation hearings this week in his quest to become Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services. He is appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning and will face further questioning from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension, or HELP, Committee on Thursday.

Kennedy’s history in public health is questionable at best. His stances, which include unscientific beliefs that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that a large number of vaccines should be stripped from the market, could have major impacts on the agency designed to protect America’s health, especially as bird flu outbreaks dot the country.

In December, Trump announced that Kennedy would spend his time at the top of HHS researching an already thoroughly debunked conspiracy that ties vaccine usage to autism rates.

And Kennedy’s vaccine conspiracies aren’t just easily refutable, anti-vax hogwash—they’ve caused legitimate, real-world harm. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on the Pacific islands of Samoa in 2019, Kennedy’s anti-vax nonprofit Children’s Health Defense spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines, sending the nation’s vaccination rate plummeting from the 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones. That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles—an illness that was declared eliminated by the U.S. in 2000 thanks to advancements in modern medicine (read: vaccines)—as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of five.

Further still, the 71-year-old’s private life has given pause to a number of lawmakers responsible for confirming him. Kennedy has publicly admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park, was accused of (and sort of apologized for) groping his children’s babysitter in the late 1990s, and last week was described by his cousin Caroline Kennedy as a “predator” who is “addicted to attention and power.”

To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out that Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s outlandish claim that the U.S. government was about to spend $50 million on condoms for Gazans was a lie.

During a White House press briefing Tuesday, Leavitt appeared defensive and struggled to answer questions about Donald Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans that caused widespread chaos. The freeze immediately affected essential government services such as Medicaid and Head Start. (A brief administrative stay has paused this until next Monday.)

Leavitt ended up offering an excuse for the sweeping order that didn’t make much sense at all.

“DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt claimed. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars.”

If that doesn’t sound true, it’s probably because it’s not, according to The Guardian.

A September report from USAID for the fiscal year 2023 (the most recent year for which there is available data) found that USAID spent $60.8 million on contraceptives and condoms, with only $7 million of that going toward condoms specifically.

None of those condoms went to Gaza, and in fact, USAID didn’t distribute condoms anywhere in the Middle East. Just one small shipment of oral and injectable contraceptives was sent to Jordan.

So it would be unlikely—no, impossible, for Leavitt’s outlandish claim to be true.

It seems that as one of Trump’s lead propagandists, Leavitt has already taken up one of his favorite tactics: making stuff up on the spot when backed into the corner. The problem is that people actually believe it. Especially when people such as Elon Musk and Jesse Watters boost the obvious lies.

Musk posted a video of Leavitt on X Tuesday, saying her baseless claim was the “tip of iceberg.” On Fox News that night, Watters claimed that Hamas was making “condom bombs.”

“Look it up! It’s a dual-use technology!” Watters cried.

After Donald Trump froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid last week, international projects on health, education, food, and all other humanitarian areas were placed in jeopardy. 

On Tuesday night, newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to undo some of the confusion by issuing a memo waiving the aid freeze for “livesaving humanitarian assistance.” The memo defines this assistance as “core lifesaving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance,” according to The Washington Post.

Programs still subject to the aid freeze include anything involving diversity programs, gender, abortion, family planning,  and “transgender surgeries, or other nonlife saving assistance,” the memo states. 

The memo says that “implementers of existing lifesaving humanitarian assistance programs should continue or resume work if they have stopped” but added that “this resumption is temporary in nature, and except by separate waiver or as required to carry out this waiver, no new contracts shall be entered into.”

But this language hasn’t cleared up any of the confusion, as organizations and agencies are now scrambling to figure out what exactly is considered “lifesaving” under the new memo. For example, one of the programs halted last week is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which funds clinics, hospitals, and other organizations around the world combating HIV and AIDS. It’s unclear if that work can now resume.

Plus, USAID, contractors, and nongovernmental aid organizations experiencing “stop-work” orders and a sudden halt in funds have already fired many employees. The memo also said that any assistance to migrants and refugees could only continue for livesaving activities “and for repatriation of third country nationals to their country of origin or safe-third-country.”

Neither Friday’s order nor Tuesday’s memo offered any way to request or seek a waiver from the aid freeze, except to contact the “Director of Foreign Assistance at the Department of State.” This position has yet to be filled by Rubio or the Trump administration. 

The decisions coming from the Trump administration since last week’s inauguration have resulted in chaos throughout the federal government and cruelty against the people who depend on it, whether they are federal workers, international aid recipients, or even struggling Americans on Medicaid. The administration is now facing a number of lawsuits and a public outcry. But will that change anything?