It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.
Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.
WHERE TRUMP’S CABINET STANDS
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
There is a storm of news.
Correspondents Laura Barrón López, Ali Rogin and I spent the weekend in non-stop reporting mode, fielding calls with dozens of sources and covering moves by the Trump administration and Elon Musk across government.
See our reporting on the unprecedented moves at USAID and by Musk. With more to come in the coming days.
At Here’s the Deal, we like to approach any torrent by taking a breath and looking around. Making sure something is not overlooked. And that we are not distracted by the overload.
So let’s take a look at something else that’s critical: where things stand with President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. These are the people who will implement his policies.
Let’s start with Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
These two are by far the most controversial remaining nominees.
On Tuesday, both made it through what may be their toughest hurdle: the committee vote. This was despite open concerns about both nominees — including from some Republicans — during their hearings.
Nonetheless:
The Senate Finance Committee voted to advance Kennedy, in a straight party-line vote of 14-13
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance Gabbard, 9-8
Both nominations now head to the Senate floor where they will likely be confirmed unless four Republicans oppose them. (There are no such Republicans currently.)
Kennedy’s key supporter: Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who decried Kennedy’s past false statements about vaccines. He and Kennedy had a long exchange where Kennedy said he is willing to say vaccines are safe, “if” presented the data. That did not reassure those who are concerned that Kennedy, overseeing national health programs including vaccination guidelines, would undermine treatments.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said in closing remarks at a confirmation hearing last week that he’s “struggling” with Kennedy's nomination. Watch the clip in the player above.
Days after the hearing, Cassidy said that the White House assured him of its commitment to protecting vaccines. And he voted yes.
Gabbard faced a wall of concern for not labeling Edward Snowden a “traitor.” But dismayed Republicans nonetheless voted yes in committee. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she agreed with Gabbard’s push for reform.
Where are we overall?
Trump has made nominations for all 22 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions. Per the Center for Presidential Transitions, that is a historic pace.
National security: 4. That includes the secretaries of defense, homeland security, state and the CIA director.
Energy and environment: 3. The secretaries of energy, interior and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency have been confirmed.
Others: 3. The secretaries of treasury, transportation and veterans affairs are also confirmed.
For perspective, this is the fastest we’ve seen in 16 years. At this point, Biden had just four nominees confirmed and Trump himself only had two confirmed this far into his first term.
What did these confirmations tell us?
A lot.
I have many Republican sources in the Senate who have deep problems with some of Trump’s nominees, in particular Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Kennedy and Gabbard. But they are not working to derail them.
This tells us the power of Trump’s first weeks into his second presidency. Republicans are feeling overriding pressure to vote with him. And moreover, because lawmakers generally do vote with their party’s president, after all, there is intense pressure for Republicans to either downplay their own concerns or to convince themselves that they are not worth raising.
At the same time, some nominees have drawn bipartisan moments of unity.
That tells us something too: Democrats have yet to form a strategy or find an effective method to respond to Trump’s whirlwind of orders and his push to test the Constitution.
Correction: In last week’s email, we said Caroline Kennedy was Robert F. Kennedy’s sister. She’s his cousin. Many thanks to the readers who flagged this error.
HOW ONE FAMILY IS RESPONDING TO TRUMP’S THREATS AGAINST TRANS HEALTH CARE
A new study found that gender-affirming medications are very rarely prescribed to adolescents. Watch the segment in the player above.
By Shrai Popat
White House Producer
Sam Lane
Producer
Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
Since coming out as trans, 14-year-old Leah and her parents have been grappling with what to do next.
Before President Donald Trump retook office, the family was already looking to leave Texas and go somewhere where their daily lives might be safer.
But now, with Trump’s executive orders, “we're kind of now in this weird floating place where we want to get out of here, but can we really go anywhere where we're going to be safe?” John, Leah’s father, told PBS News. The family’s names have been changed to protect their identities.
Trump has signed a series of executive orders that target the lives of transgender and nonbinary people — if they acknowledge their existence at all.
A shortlist of executive orders President Donald Trump has signed in his first weeks in office that target trans and nonbinary people.
Leah’s parents say they’ve been in a “state of shock” over Trump’s back-to-back orders. The family has considered moving to Colorado, but they’re in a holding pattern. While Texas law bars doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans minors, Leah has been receiving puberty blockers and hormones from a provider in New Mexico, where this treatment is legal. Every major medical association supports gender-affirming care.
A week ago, Trump issued an order aimed at curtailing federal money to support gender-affirming medical care for patients under 19 years old. There are reports of some hospitals across the country, such as ones in New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., pausing this care. (New York’s attorney general told hospitals they would be violating state law if they stop offering gender-affirming care.)
Leah’s parents have yet to reach her doctor since the order was signed.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging Trump’s order, saying the administration is violating the law by “withholding lawfully appropriated federal funds” for clinicians and hospitals who provide gender-affirming care.
“I really can't overstate how far-reaching it is for the federal government to threaten to pull all federal funding to health institutions if they provide gender-affirming medical care to trans people under 19,” ACLU attorney Chase Strangio said. “This order does not simply suggest that that federal funding can't be used for those purposes. It says that all federal funding will be revoked even if this care is provided with purely state, local and private funding streams.”
The lawsuit also said the order violates the rights of thousands of trans people under the age of 19 “by depriving them of necessary medical care solely on the basis of their sex and transgender status.”
Strangio, also co-director of the ACLU LGBTQ and HIV Project, said the Trump administration's rollback on trans rights was "exactly what they told us they were going to do."
"This is an escalation beyond anything that I've seen in my 42 years of life and my over 20 years of advocacy," he said. "People need to be responding with the appropriate level of urgency."
Correspondent Laura Barrón López has more on what the White House has said about Trump’s order and how it fits into a wider pattern of the administration targeting trans rights.
“Those words immediately stuck out and that really hurt us because, as parents, we're just doing what is best for her,” said Mary, Leah's mother. “And those words just sound like we are abusing our child.”
Leah has enough medication until June. There’s a follow-up appointment in New Mexico the same month, though they’re waiting to see what the provider says.
For Leah, her parents say she’s aware of what’s happening. They’re trying to stay in a calm place for her.
“We don't know where care will come from and we don't know where we can go at this point,” Mary said.
In the meantime, Leah has her bags packed and ready to go.
THIS WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
Watch the segment in the player above.
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
President Donald Trump issued a proclamation for Black History Month after weeks of attacks against efforts that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
Some federal agencies have responded to his executive order to end “radical DEI” by halting celebrations for Black History Month and other heritage months or specify that work hours could no longer be dedicated to DEI-related events. The new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants a task force created to make sure there are no DEI programs left in the Pentagon.
Though Trump mentions abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass and other Black Americans who are among the nation’s “most consequential leaders,” there’s no mention of slavery or the Civil Rights Movement.
Negro History Week, which later became Black History Month, has been celebrated for about a century. A scholar launched Negro History Week in 1926, coinciding with “Douglass Day” and President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
Our question: Who is known as the “Father of Black History”?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: One of the Challenger satellites was meant to observe which famous “cosmic snowball” as it orbited the sun?
The answer: Halley's comet. The Challenger would have launched a satellite that would have observed the “periodic” comet making its closest approach to the sun. The comet is expected to reappear in Earth’s skies in 2061.
Congratulations to our winners: Timothy Burke and Barbara Litzmann!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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