Democrat Politics

Sunday’s focus of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” was the (big) business of our immigration detention systems. The terror unleashed by President Donald Trump and his Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparatus has made an already problematic immigration system even worse, as people who are dependent on our broken immigration laws find themselves dragged into detention.

Oliver breaks down the main reason why the unjust system has continued to thrive: the big business of private prisons, which houses more than 90% of ICE’s undocumented detentions. Private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic have watched their stocks soar since Trump won the election.

“I’ve worked at CoreCivic for 32 years,” CEO Damon Hininger boasts in one clip. “And this is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career with the company.”

“Look, as a general rule, if something happens that causes a private prison company to get really excited, that thing was bad,” Oliver remarks. “If you ever come home and your spouse tells you, honey, I did something today and the Geo Group is super excited about it, you are in for a relationship-altering conversation.”

ICE’s website points out that detention is supposed to be “non-punitive,” a claim Oliver jokes is like saying, “that the ocean is not wet or that the ‘Wicked’ movie wasn’t 30 minutes too long. It is a bold assertion, sharply undercut by empirical evidence.”

The GEO Group is fighting in court to avoid paying minimum wage to the detainees being forced to work under threat of solitary confinement or the withholding of food. Oliver plays audio of an exchange between a GEO Group lawyer and the judge, where the judge characterized the private prison’s argument about detainees as the same as slavery.

“When a judge is likening your client’s practices to slavery, that’s generally a pretty bad sign for your case,” Oliver says. “There really shouldn’t even be a verdict at that point. A trapdoor should just open up beneath you while they pull the next case in.”

And who is being considered for detention is also problematic. At one of her first White House briefings, press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave a grotesquely wrong-headed statement that has subsequently been parroted by ICE Barbie herself, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: any undocumented person is a criminal. “I know the last administration didn’t see it that way, so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that’s exactly what they are,” Leavitt  said.

“Simply being undocumented is a civil violation, not a criminal one,” Oliver points out of Leavitt. “That is an important distinction that her boss should frankly understand, given that he has committed both.”

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A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

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To no one’s surprise, House Republicans can’t seem to get their priorities in line. 

While some far-right Republicans are directing their attention to further punishing Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas—who was ejected from the chamber after dissenting during President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress—the GOP caucus should really turn its attention toward preventing a federal government shutdown.

But leave it to the House Freedom Caucus to be too bogged down with scheming ways to show their fealty to Trump to work on averting a shutdown, which could furlough thousands of federal workers.

Both chambers of Congress only have until midnight Friday to pass a funding bill, and House Republicans only released their 99-page measure to avert a shutdown this past Saturday. The bill, which would fund federal agencies through Sept. 30, would increase defense spending and cut non-defense discretionary spending.

House Speaker Mike Johnson will bring the bill to the floor for a vote this week, likely on Tuesday, but we don’t know whether it will pass. Trump is publicly pressuring Republicans into voting for it, but Democrats will likely oppose it. 

At least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has already said he’d oppose the bill. And given the Republican’s razor-thin majority in the chamber, Johnson can’t afford to lose another GOP vote. Given this, one might think that Republicans would be working to whip up votes for the bill, but some of the more hardline caucus members have other priorities.

Rep. Al Green, Democrat of Texas, dissents during President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025.

According to Punchbowl News, Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a member of the far-right House Freedom Conference, authored a bogus resolution calling Green’s actions “a breach of decorum” and suggesting that he “be removed from his committee assignments.”

Removal from committee assignments is usually a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst. In 2021, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has a reputation for sharing baseless conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism, was stripped of her committee assignments after the discovery of her past statements endorsing the execution of Democrats, among other heinous things. 

Later that year, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who made appearances at white nationalist events, also lost his assignments after he shared a violent animated video depicting him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

In comparison, this form of punishment is often used as petty retribution against Democrats. For example, Rep. Eric Swalwell and then-Rep. Adam Schiff, both of California, were booted from the House Intelligence Committee in 2023 as punishment for voting to eject Greene and Gosar from their committees and for their roles in the impeachment of Trump.

Green’s worst offense is waving his cane in the air and declaring that Trump had “no mandate” to cut Medicaid, which he and other Republicans are pursuing to help pay for tax cuts for the rich. 

That’s not much different—or worse—than what happened in 2022 when Greene and fellow Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado relentlessly heckled former President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address. 

While Republicans certainly have a reputation for pettiness, there’s a sense that this new measure against Green won’t go anywhere. Johnson, for his part, reportedly thinks “that this measure should go away.”

That’s probably because he’s more focused on appeasing Trump and avoiding a shutdown. It’d be a bad look for Johnson, Trump, and the GOP at large if the government shut down less than two months into his second term.

The resolution against Green hasn’t formally been filed, but Republicans already feel like they won since they successfully censured him last week with the help of some traitorous Democrats.

In any sense, the move to further punish Green and pass a bill through the chamber at breakneck speed shows how far Republicans will go to ensure that Dear Leader gets what he wants. 

But if anything, these moves don’t signify the GOP’s fealty to Trump so much as how truly terrified they are of him.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and multibillionaire Elon Musk are making public displays of support for each other after an embarrassing report documented a contentious argument between the two men.

Musk was involved in an online dispute with Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski after Sikorski implied that Musk, who owns the Starlink satellite communications company, was threatening to cut off service to Ukraine. Sikorski said his nation, which pays roughly $50 million per year for Ukraine’s access to the network, might be forced to find another supplier.

That’s when Rubio interjected: “Just making things up. No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink.”

In another bid to bolster Musk, Rubio thanked the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency in a post announcing that 83% of the contracts for the U.S. Agency for International Development would be canceled. Despite—or because of—its vital role in providing help to struggling populations around the world, USAID has been one of the primary targets of DOGE’s attacks on federal agencies.

In response to Rubio’s post, Musk posted on X, “Good working with you.”

Their public support for each other is not happening in a vacuum. On Friday, The New York Times published a report revealing that Rubio and Musk had been involved in a shouting match with each other during a White House meeting with Trump.

According to the Times, Musk accused Rubio of not firing anyone working at the State Department. Rubio reportedly complained that Musk was lying, and Musk retorted that Rubio was merely “good on TV.”

The story was widely circulated, opening up both Trump underlings to mocking and ridicule. The fracas broke out of the world of politics and was lampooned in the cold open of this past weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live.”

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“You need to start acting like mature adults,” comedian James Austin Johnson said, portraying Trump and attempting to negotiate a truce between the two.

The administration has been trying to spin the bad report.

“ELON AND MARCO HAVE A GREAT RELATIONSHIP. ANY STATEMENT OTHER THAN THAT IS FAKE NEWS!!!” Trump wrote the day the Times story was published.

The White House later disclosed that Trump hosted Rubio and Musk at Mar-a-Lago for dinner on Saturday night, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on Fox News to reassure viewers that everything was fine between the two.

But while the Musk-Rubio rift was being exposed, the real-world impact of their partnership is devastating. The decision to kill USAID is leading to unnecessary death as innocent children are deprived of medicine, and concerns are rising that a lack of USAID support could lead to a newly virulent strain of tuberculosis.

Regardless of what the true story is about the on-and-off Trump/Musk/Rubio bromance, their actions are hurting many—and many more to come.

House Republicans on Saturday released a plan to fund the government that, if passed, would make massive cuts to social safety net programs, infrastructure projects, and even veterans’ health care programs.

Democrats tried to work for months with Republicans to come up with a bill to fund the government. However, the House Republican bill left Democrats out and is a partisan plan that increases funding for President Donald Trump’s deportation plans while largely axing funding for infrastructure projects, a fund to help veterans exposed to toxic chemicals, and disaster-mitigation efforts, among other things.

For example, Politico reported that the legislation did not renew $40 million in funding for over 70 programs to benefit children and families, including $5 million for homeless shelters in Alaska.

From the Politico report:

Also forgone are $890 million in grants for health care facilities and equipment. Again, the fiscal 2024 funding had been distributed on a bipartisan basis: GOP Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Roger Wicker of Mississippi were among those who requested funding for clinics and hospitals in their states.
 
Bipartisan emergency preparedness and disaster mitigation projects funded through $293 million of earmarked FEMA dollars are also not renewed, as well as $116 million in Small Business Administration funding and $107 million in workforce development projects. Clean water projects, law enforcement grants and tribal assistance are also targeted in the bill.

House Democrats say the funding bill does not include $22.8 billion for the Toxic Exposures Fund, which provides assistance to help veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances during their service. They also said it cuts rent subsidies by more than $700 million, which Democrats said would allow landlords to “evict more than 32,000 households including veterans, survivors of domestic violence, seniors, and families with disabilities.”

Also missing is $20 million in funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which, according to the Department of Agriculture, “helps supplement the diets of people with low income by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost.” Cuts to that program come as Trump’s tariffs are expected to raise the cost of food even higher.

And the funding bill would also lead to $1 billion in cuts to the District of Columbia, which city officials told The Washington Post could lead to cuts to the police force, teaching staff, and more.

House Democrats appear united in opposition to the funding bill.

“House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter on Friday. “We cannot back a measure that rips away life-sustaining healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of the Republican scheme to pay for massive tax cuts for their wealthy donors like Elon Musk. Medicaid is our redline.”

Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a news release that the Republican funding bill also does not rein in Trump co-President Elon Musk from making unilateral cuts to the government that has caused chaos across the country.

Elon Musk

“This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” DeLauro said. “Veterans will suffer with higher housing costs, poorer quality of health care at the VA, and no advance funding for treatment from exposure to toxic chemicals. It makes the cost of living worse for so many hardworking people. It raises rents for many low-income families. With reduced staff and closure of Social Security offices, seniors will struggle. This bill also cuts Army Corps of Engineers construction projects by more than 40%, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX program gets special treatment across the government.”

Democrat Patty Murray of Washington, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, echoed DeLauro’s sentiments.

“Instead of working with Democrats to invest in working families and communities all across America, Speaker Johnson has rolled out a slush fund continuing resolution that would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending—and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike,” Murray said in a news release.

House Republicans plan to vote on the legislation on Thursday—one day before the government is set to shut down. 

Republicans apparently hope that if they pass the bill and leave town, it will cause voters to blame Democrats if the Senate doesn’t pass the legislation. In the Senate, the bill needs 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, meaning that even though Republicans control the chamber, Democrats are needed for passage.

However, that is a gamble.

That would require House Republicans to keep nearly their entire conference together in voting for the funding bill since they have a razor-thin majority in the chamber. Republicans currently have a 218-214 majority. That means if every member of Congress is present for the vote, Republicans could lose just two votes. (A tie results in the failure of the bill.)

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky

In December, the last time the House voted for a funding bill, 34 Republicans voted against it—a number that is more than enough to tank the new legislation.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky appears to be a firm no. And Politico reported that three other GOP lawmakers—Reps. Tony Gonzales, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Cory Mills—are on the fence.

Trump told Republicans to vote for the spending bill, which could get the House GOP onboard as they often blindly do whatever he wants.

“The House and Senate have put together, under the circumstances, a very good funding Bill (‘CR’)! All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order.”

T-minus four days until shutdown.
 

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President Donald Trump has refused to rule out that his economic policies could trigger a recession and pushed for a “period of transition” that global markets have already responded to negatively.

In an interview that aired on Sunday, with Fox Business conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo, Trump was asked if he expected a recession.

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big, we’re bringing wealth back to America,” Trump said.

Trump’s statement is false. He has repeatedly throughout his political career predicted economic calamity, usually in the context of attacks against his Democratic rivals like former President Joe Biden and Sec. Hillary Clinton.

In a related flip-flop, after campaigning throughout 2024 highlighting the cost of eggs and blaming the Biden administration for the increase, on Saturday Trump promoted a column by conservative activist Charlie Kirk telling the public to “shut up about egg prices.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

Trump’s interview was aired on Thursday, so the president’s stance was clear, but on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was at odds with his boss on the topic of a recession, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the public should “absolutely not” prepare for a recession.

“Donald Trump is a winner. He’s going to win for the American people, that’s just the way it’s going to be. There’s going to be no recession in America,” Lutnick proclaimed.

The clash between Trump’s and Lutnick’s rhetoric was symptomatic of the chaotic approach the administration has had on economic issues, particularly tariffs—and it is having a disastrous real world effect.

The stock market had its worst week in six months (the S&P 500 lost 3.1% of its value, while the Nasdaq was down 3.45%) after the administration kicked off tariffs against Canada and Mexico. Those nations then responded with tariffs of their own. After the markets tanked, the Trump administration pulled back on some of the tariffs, delaying them, just days after asserting that the action would cause other nations to give in.

In another bad sign, China’s tariffs on multiple U.S. agricultural goods went into effect on Monday, putting economic stress on American farmers.

Trump’s allies at Fox Business and the network have struggled to sell the harmful policy to its audience, even arguing last week that tariffs were associated with the economic boom of the “Roaring ’20s.” Fox didn’t mention that the era of those tariffs was immediately followed by the Great Depression.

As economic stability comes into question (it was a nonissue for most during the Biden administration and the passage of economic stimulus following the COVID-19 pandemic), Trump is also fostering instability in the federal government with the actions of his billionaire financier Elon Musk.

Just over a month into his second term instability and a looming recession have become the norm under Trump.

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Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, runs like six companies. It’s a funny thing, given that even before his DOGE hatchet job to the government, he spent all day on X spouting off. But he did find time to make disastrous decisions like greenlighting the Cybertruck and getting rid of all steering wheel stalks in his cars—all problems for Tesla even before he outed himself as a Nazi. 

Since its Dec. 17, 2024 high of almost $480, the stock is down around 45%, down to $263 as of Friday’s close. Given how much of Musk’s net worth is tied to Tesla, that has shaved $121 billion from his high of $464 billion. Unfortunately, he has plenty of money left over to continue his supervillain quest to destroy the world. 

But he sure is trying his darndest to kill his other companies. 

Over the weekend, following the lead of the Trump administration, he threatened Ukraine with pulling its access to Starlink—the SpaceX internet service powered by a constellation of satellites, that has given Ukraine the ability to closely coordinate combat activities in the country’s front lines. 

“I literally challenged Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,” he tweeted. Nice Starlink you have there. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it. 

This infuriated Europeans like Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who tweeted, “Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year. The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”

Classy as ever, Musk responded, “Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was just as much of an asshole, tweeting, “No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink. And say thank you because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”

Again, Poland pays for Starlink. The only “thank you” should be from Starlink, for having a $50 million account with the Poles. 

To be very clear, Starlink isn’t charity for Ukraine. Every terminal is paid for because it’s a business transaction. But just like Europeans are ditching American arms manufacturers now that the U.S. is an unreliable partner, it has also spurred them to legitimately find an alternative to Starlink. While the EU’s IRIS2 system isn’t scheduled to be operational until 2030, Musk’s shenanigans are already spurring talk about speeding up that timetable. Europe no longer faces a single foe from the east. The United States is now actively belligerent to its west. 

Musk is right that nothing matches Starlink’s current capabilities, but he’s just done everything possible to destroy his international business. 

Italian President Sergio Mattarella 

Italy was about to ink a deal to spend $1.6 billion for its own Starlink network. After threatening Ukraine with the loss of the service, that deal is now seemingly dead. A desperate Musk is now begging Italian President Sergio Mattarella for a meeting to salvage the deal. How do we know he’s desperate? Look what he tweeted: 

“It would be an honor to speak with President Mattarella.”

Quite the far cry from “be quiet, small man.” Musk may not care about a $50 million Polish contract, but oh, now he would be so “honored” to meet with the Italians given a $1.6 billion deal has been pulled. 

Believe it or not, this isn’t the biggest Starlink deal SpaceX has lost due to Musk’s antics. 

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is head of América Móvil, a massive mobile network provider in Latin America. In late January, a large right-wing X account tweeted that Slim “is known to have significant ties to the drug cartels in Mexico. You don’t become a billionaire in Mexico without being part of the network that is controlled and protected.” Musk approvingly retweeted it.

Five minutes later, Slim cancelled a Starlink contract worth $7.5 billion, and an hour later, announced a new $22 billion investment in both European and Chinese providers to build a Starlink-like replacement. 

The board of directors at Musk’s companies are filled with his family members, friends, and cronies. But at what point do they see the damage he’s doing to the companies and decide enough is enough. 

Will $9 billion in lost contracts for SpaceX spur some kind of reaction from its board? Given that Tesla losing hundreds of billions of market cap hasn’t moved Tesla’s board to act, no one should hold their breath. 

But his antics are taking a toll on his own net worth, and while he’ll always have plenty of money for his evil deeds, the more his companies suffer, the greater the chance he might, at some point, suffer some consequences.

Donate now to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

The Army Corps of Engineers colonel, who was ordered by President Donald Trump in January to release water from California’s reservoirs, knew that it would be ineffective in putting out the state’s devastating wildfires. But Trump did it anyway.

According to a memo obtained by The Washington Post, Colonel Chad W. Caldwell knew that the water released from California’s Lake Kaweah and Lake Success reservoirs would not reach the intended areas in time to prevent significant damage.

At the time, Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California called the highly criticized move “clearly nothing but a poor publicity stunt.”

“And it was a dangerous one,” he said, citing the risk of flooding. 

This is just one example of how much Trump weighs down U.S. taxpayers and resources. 

In February, while speaking to a group of Saudi billionaires, Trump lamented how work-from-home policies made people wasteful and lazy. 

“They’re not working. They’re playing tennis, they’re playing golf, or they have other jobs. But they’re not working or they’re certainly not working hard. You could never build a company or a country with that,” he said.

At the same time, Trump spent more time golfing during his first month in office than he had during his first term, during which he set records financed by taxpayers.

In February, the Department of Homeland Security launched a $200 million ad campaign featuring Secretary Kristi Noem threatening immigrants with deportation. There was just one stipulation for the expensive ad: Trump needed to be thanked in it. 

According to Rolling Stone, shortly after the DHS announced its $200 million anti-migrant propaganda blitz, Noem said during a CPAC dinner that Trump was behind the entire operation.

“I want you to do [ads] for the border, and I want you to do those everywhere, not just in the United States, but I want them around the world. I want you to tell people not to come to this country if they’re going to come here illegally. I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads. But I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border,” Trump supposedly told Noem.

And she did.

One of the campaign’s ads, which was released at the end of February, features Noem thanking Trump “for securing our border for deporting criminal, illegal immigrants and for putting America first.” 

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Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency seems to have missed that $200 million of waste. It must have been too busy cutting essential and popular government programs and agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Social Security.

In fact, DOGE has left many of the federal government’s biggest spenders—like Homeland Security—largely untouched. 

It’s almost as if Musk isn’t really getting rid of waste and fraud as much as he’s just reallocating taxpayer money into the pockets of billionaires like himself.

Trump calls himself a king. But we know we are not a nation of kings—and we never will be. Get your Daily Kos T-shirt or hat to spread the message and wear it with pride: No Kings.

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Related story: Is Trump falling out with Musk?

Survey Says is a weekly column rounding up three of the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about. You’ll also find data-based updates on past Daily Kos reporting, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics.

The “unsure” Republican voters

Tucked away in the new Civiqs poll for Daily Kos is an intriguing detail: Republicans are especially uncertain about how to respond to some aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency. 

For instance, just 1% of Republican registered voters say they’re “unsure” about the job Trump is doing as president, 2% are “unsure” about eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, and 4% are “unsure” about ending the Department of Education. In other words, a very small amount even on some major moves.

However, 14% are hesitant about amending the Constitution to permit Trump to run for a third term in office. That is much higher than the share of overall voters who are unsure (7%) as well as the shares of unsure Democrats (1%) and independents (6%).

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A larger percentage of Republicans (17%) don’t know if the president should have the power to overrule Congress and “refuse to spend money” it has already allocated, while 16% are unsure whether the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine matters for U.S. security. 

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On one hand, voters might not have strong opinions on more detailed policy. However, if that were the case, we shouldn’t see such a large divide between Democratic voters and Republican ones. So it’s striking that Republicans, more so than Democrats and independents, seem to lack opinions on these topics. This suggests some GOP respondents—the vast majority of which are Trump supporters—are conflicted about their support for some of the president’s priorities. 

President Donald Trump

Drew Linzer, the director of Civiqs, said it’s not that some Republican voters are unsure about these questions; they’re unsure about how to respond to them. 

Regarding the question regarding changing the Constitution to allow Trump to run again, he told Daily Kos, “What’s going on with survey respondents is they know this isn’t right or something they agree with, but they also support Trump, so they’re conflicted.”

On certain issues where public opinion is not yet solidified, a signal from Trump or another GOP elite could influence public sentiment—just look at how GOP attitudes have evolved regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrectionists. 

“In 2021, Republican voters were right there saying, ‘Arrest these people,’ but after years of elite messaging from Trump saying that these individuals were unfairly persecuted, Republicans began to agree and changed their minds,” Linzer said.

Big change, for better and mostly worse

Even in this era of partisan division, Americans can agree on at least one thing: Trump is significantly changing how the federal government operates.

That said, a slightly larger share of Americans in a new CBS News/YouGov poll believe these changes are for the worse (40%) than for the better (35%). 

Americans want Trump to give high priority to improving the economy (82%) and inflation (80%), according to the survey. (After all, grocery prices are expected to get worse this year.) Yet the Trump administration is not really addressing those priorities. Instead, it remains fixated on issues that fewer adults want it to focus on, such as the federal workforce (43%).

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Indeed, a plurality of Americans (42%) believe the president is giving little to no priority to one of their biggest priorities: fixing inflation. Last month, Trump acknowledged that inflation is back, but instead of taking responsibility, he has deflected blame for rising prices, blaming former President Joe Biden.

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But evading responsibility is a trademark Trump move. After all, his plans to impose tariffs on several of America’s largest trading partners will only exacerbate prices. And his hard-line immigration stance, which could lead to the deportation of millions, is also likely to further raise costs. 

It seems many Americans haven’t made the connection, though. Fifty-nine percent approve of Trump’s approach to deporting undocumented immigrants, and 64% believe Trump is helping to reduce migrant crossings, despite that his arrest rate as of mid-February was falling short of Biden’s—a statistic that drives the president “nuts,” according to NBC News.

Three children play where the border wall separating Mexico and the United States meets the Pacific Ocean on Feb. 21, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico

That said, Americans clearly perceive that Trump’s policies are contributing to rising grocery bills, according to the CBS News/YouGov poll. Fifty-two percent of Americans believe Trump’s policies are causing prices to increase, while just 14% believe his policies are lowering prices. (Remember: Trump vowed to lower food costs on Day 1 and has yet to fulfill that promise.) 

Americans are also split on the Trump administration slashing the federal workforce (51% approve, 49% disapprove). But that high amount of disapproval may help explain the angry town halls that congressional Republicans are facing, especially since Americans expressed concerns that these cuts will affect their local areas (64%) or reduce services for people like them (51%). 

Leave it to Trump to so thoroughly disrupt the country in less than 50 days.

Republicans want tariffs that will raise prices. Yes, really

A series of new polls contain data that seems too absurd to be true: Despite knowing the harm tariffs will cause, Republican voters still want them. 

Take this survey from The Economist/YouGov, which shows that 68% of Republicans support a 25% tariff on Mexico, while 57% support the same level of tariff against Canada (both of which Trump has embarrassingly walked back for now). Meanwhile, 78% of Republicans want a 10% tariff on goods from China. 

Voters overall are less supportive of these measures, opposing each 25% tariff on net. That’s likely because, as mentioned earlier, tariffs are expected to jack up prices. But the thing is, the surveys show Republicans know that and are still supportive of the tariffs, likely because it’s been such a prominent aspect of the president’s agenda.

Shipping containers are seen at the Atlantic Hub container terminal in Halifax on Feb. 3, 2025, one day ahead of imposed tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump against Canada.

That same Economist/YouGov poll shows that 39% of Republicans concede that “mostly companies and people in the U.S.” would bear the brunt of tariffs, while 56% of GOP voters say tariffs would increase the cost of goods and services. 

A new Navigator Research survey finds the same result: Despite a bare majority of Republicans (51%) knowing tariffs would drive up their costs, only 23% have an unfavorable view of them. 

And a Civiqs poll for Daily Kos found something similar in December: 63% of Republican voters supported tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico, but those numbers appeared to have since trickled down a bit now that voters understand the impact of these policies. 

Morning Consult clocked the decreased appetite for tariffs too, even among Republicans. According to a poll released on Tuesday, 65% of Republican voters backed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico (just 21% of GOP voters oppose this tariff). And while that’s high support, it’s also down 3 percentage points from where Republican voters were in January, according to another poll from the firm.

Even if Republicans don’t want to vote in their own financial interest, they’re likely taking signals from Trump—who recently walked back tariffs on Canada and Mexico (again) for one month after the markets tanked in response to him enacting them.

Any updates?

Congress still has significant work to do in diversifying its leadership, but according to the Pew Research Center, the current Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse in history so far. Notably, it includes the first openly transgender member and more Generation Z representatives than ever before.

Trump doesn’t seem to know whether he wants tariffs or doesn’t, and given the whiplash, it’s no surprise that Americans feel he’s moving too quickly. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll finds that most Americans (56%) believe the president is hurrying to implement changes without fully considering the consequences. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ top deputies aren’t the only ones wanting to distance themselves from him—voters feel the same way. A new survey from Quinnipiac University reveals that only 20% of voters registered in New York City approve of his performance as mayor, while 67% disapprove. Although he’s still running for reelection, the poll finds that more of the city’s registered Democrats (31%) prefer embattled former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the position, compared with just 11% preferring Adams.

Vibe check

With food prices rising, it’s no surprise that registered voters’ thoughts on the economy are sour. Civiqs finds that 40% rate the economy as “fairly bad” and 25% as “very bad.” Twenty-four percent say it’s “fairly good, but just 4% say “very good.” And it remains to be seen how long those sentiments will last.

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Civiqs Results

Andrew Mangan contributed research.

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