During his 2024 campaign, now-President Donald Trump insisted that he had no desire to cut Social Security or Medicare. But according to ex-Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley — who served as commissioner for the Social Security Administration (SSA) under former President Joe Biden — mass SSA layoffs being carried out by the Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will make it much harder for the agency to function. O'Malley fears that an "interruption of benefits" will occur.

Trump officials, in response to criticism from O'Malley and others, claim that SSA downsizing is designed to protect Social Security and make the program run more efficiently — not endanger it.

In an article published on August 5, however, Salon's Heather Digby Parton warns that when it comes to "privatizing Social Security," some Trump allies are saying the quiet part out loud — including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

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"One provision of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' was called 'Trump Accounts,' which are new retirement savings accounts for babies that supposedly will be opened with a $1000 contribution from the federal government," Parton explains. "At an event hosted by Breitbart News, Bessent suggested the accounts would be so popular that people will demand the government replace Social Security with it. 'In a way, it is a backdoor for privatizing Social Security,' he said."

Parton continues, "The White House quickly walked back his comments, saying that they have no intention of privatizing Social Security, yadda, yadda yadda. As Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said about Bessent's little truth bomb, 'Between Bessent's comments and the harm DOGE has already done to the agency, it's clear Trump was lying all along about protecting Social Security.' Donald Trump, lying? This should come as no surprise."

Privatizing Social Security, Parton notes, is an idea some Republicans were proposing long before Trump's 2016 campaign.

"After his reelection in 2004," Parton recalls, "President George W. Bush declared he would spend his political capital on it. After debuting his plan in the 2005 State of the Union address, he barnstormed the country in support of it — and the idea flamed out like a SpaceX rocket. Apparently, it’s time to try again."

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The Salon journalist continues, "Yes, Republicans staged a full-blown tantrum back in 2023 when President Joe Biden suggested in his State of the Union address that they wanted to cut the program. But nobody believed their denials. ... Promise or no promise, it's clear the GOP has not changed its goal one bit — and the fight to protect Social Security and the social safety net should remain the essential mission of the Democratic Party."

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Heather Digby Parton's full article for Salon is available at this link.

During his lengthy 2025 State of the Union address on Tuesday night, March 4, President Donald Trump praised the work that SpaceX/Tesla/X.com CEO Elon Musk is doing with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump applauded the mass layoffs of federal government employees as a huge savings for taxpayers, but Democratic lawmakers in attendance weren't applauding: many of them were scowling and held up signs attacking the president's economic policies.

After the speech, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) gave a Democratic Party rebuttal. And Slotkin — in contrast to the theatrical, widely mocked approach that Sen. Katie Britt (R-Alabama) used during her rebuttal to then-President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in 2024 — maintained a matter-of-fact tone but laid out, item by item, her criticisms of Trump's handling of the economy and the federal government.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on Wednesday morning, March 5 — the morning after Trump's speech — journalist/author Jill Lawrence warns that the Trump Administration/DOGE cuts aren't cutting pork and fat out of federal agencies, but are undermining a variety of important government functions. And she argues that federal courts, in the end, are unlikely to prevent the damage from occurring.

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The U.S. Department of Education, Lawrence laments, "could be gone before you know it."

"In fact, half the government could be gone, and the half that's left could be unrecognizable, before most people know it and anyone can do anything about it," Lawerence observes. "It's all happening at whiplash speed, with little to no transparency. Even court challenges are no match for Trump's ideological army and Elon Musk's digital SWAT team."

Lawrence points out that Judge Amy Berman Jackson recently "summed up the threat" at a hearing on the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The Barack Obama appointee warned that the CFPB could be "choked out of its very existence before I get to rule on the merits." And Lawrence fears that a variety of agencies — from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Social Security Administration — will suffer major damage.

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Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley, Lawrence notes, told The Bulwark, in early March, that he predicts the Social Security Administration will "collapse" in the next one to three months — which will bring about a major "interruption of benefits."

"In other words, Trump and Musk could outrun the rule of law, rendering it irrelevant," Lawrence explains. "You'd think the past decade would have snapped us out of the fantasy that our institutions — or, even more fantastical, the U.S. electorate — will rescue us. We're living through the ultimate test right now, and the signs are not hopeful."

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Jill Lawrence's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat, did his best to make “good trouble” during President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress since taking office in January.

Brandishing his cane, the Lone Star septuagenarian rose from his seat in the U.S. House chamber and challenged Trump’s claim that he has a sweeping mandate to enact the tidal wave of changes his Republican administration has unleashed within the federal government.

Green stood alone, with his Democratic colleagues content to sit silent and hold quaint church fan signs with words that called the president a liar and criticized billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk.

“If [Democrats] are going to use a 77-year-old heckling congressman as the face of their resistance, then bring it on,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told Fox News after Trump’s speech. “But we’re not going to tolerate that on the House floor, and I don’t think the American people are going to tolerate that either.”

For the time being, let’s set aside Johnson’s apparent amnesia when it comes to far more outlandish outbursts from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and other GOP lawmakers during former President Joe Biden’s speeches to Congress. Their antics occurred despite pleas from Johnson for decorum.

Otherwise, the speaker’s assessment of Democrats is spot on. Before, during and since Trump’s address, they have been hard pressed to present a united front or take advantage of the mayhem that has ensued since Trump, Musk & Associates set upon their mass purging of government jobs, on-again/off-again tariffs and a 180-degree turn on U.S. global diplomacy.

The chaos has even led some diehard Republicans to question the administration’s direction, notably U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. Otherwise a Trump dieheard, he’s consistently issued warnings against any alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the senator has called “a gangster” and “an evil man” who “makes Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mother Theresa.”

Yet even with the current situation begging for a voice of reason, Democrats have fumbled to present a coherent message. And for a party that’s desperately trying to make headway after losing last year’s presidential election and its slim U.S. Senate majority, that’s not a recipe for success.

Rachel Janfaza has paid attention to the Democrats’ decline for a while now. She’s a journalist who follows Gen Z political trends and young voters (I recommend her Substack), a group that will be critical in next year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential election when Trump (presumably) won’t seek another term.

Before Trump’s speech to Congress, Janfaza took note of Democrats’ cringeworthy use of social media. First, nearly two dozen Senate Democrats posted almost identical Instagram reels with the caption “Sh-t That Ain’t True” ahead of Trump’s address. Next, they latched on to a months-old “Choose Your Fighter” Tik Tok trend.

Watch those links, especially if you’re part of Gen X, a boomer or even a millennial. Tell me they don’t give you that same feeling I get when my teen daughter says: “Dad, stop dancing!”

The awkwardness – and lack of impact – certainly made an impression with Janfaza in the most recent of her newsletter, The Up and Up.

“The futile social media plays come as every hour, if not minute, young Americans are getting real-time alerts about how Trump (and yes, Musk) are dismantling core government systems – rolling back federal employment protections, gutting funding, and targeting programs that could directly impact their futures (including internship and educational programs),” she wrote.

Democrats are also failing to fill the void here in Louisiana, where Republican state leaders and lawmakers have adroitly held the spotlight on matters such as criminal justice and reproductive health. Progressives can’t gather enough support to steer the party where they think it needs to head, and moderates desperately long to regain the middle ground they lost long ago to the GOP.

There’s one lesson for Democrats to learn from Rep. Al Green’s quixotic moment on the House floor, and it comes straight from the soul music mainstay with whom the congressman shares a name: “Let’s Stay Together.”

If they can’t at least do that, they should get used to another greatest hit from Green: “Tired of Being Alone.”

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

A freshman Republican Senator is promoting an unusual interpretation of the Senate's role in the constitutionally mandated "advice and consent" responsibility.

U.S. Senator Katie Britt, elected in 2022, is the first woman Alabama voters have sent to the U.S. Senate. She gained national attention, and bipartisan criticism, after delivering the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address. During her speech, Britt criticized President Biden’s immigration policies and referred to an incident involving human trafficking, suggesting in her remarks a woman had been sexually trafficked because of Biden's policies. However, as NBC News reported, the incident occurred two decades earlier, in Mexico, not in the United States.

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At the time, even Republicans were outraged and mystified by her speech. One GOP strategist told The Daily Beast it was "one of our biggest disasters ever." A Trump advisor told Rolling Stone, “What the hell am I watching right now?” as The Guardian reported.

This weekend, Britt spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper about President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees. Senate Republicans are beginning hearings this week, CBS News reports.

Senator Britt, an attorney, told Tapper that Trump's "great nominees" will be on Capitol Hill, where they will "have the opportunity not only to make their case" to the members of various committees, "but they'll have their opportunity to make their case to the American people of why they are best, where they are best suited to move President Trump's agenda forward."

In contrast, Senator Angus King (I-ME) recently outlined his view of the Senate’s role in evaluating cabinet nominees. In an op-ed last week, he wrote that a president's "advisors, and especially Cabinet Members, must be qualified for the sake of the people they represent."

"My position on Cabinet nominees has always boiled down to two priorities: the candidate needs to be experienced and capable, and not have a stance that is hostile to the department or bureau they would be leading," Senator King added. "The framers of our Constitution set up a Senate confirmation process as a check on the executive branch to make sure that all parts of government are working by the people and for the people."

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Senator Britt appeared to suggest alignment with Trump's goals should be a key qualification, telling Tapper that she and the Senate will see if they "are best suited to move President Trump's agenda forward."

Tapper continued to press her.

"Why would you think somebody who's willing to lie about the election results in Pennsylvania is going to restore integrity in the Justice Department the way that you are calling for?" Tapper asked.

After a brief pause, Britt replied: "Look, Jake, I've had very direct conversations with each and every one of these nominees that I've had the opportunity to sit down with. I take my duty as a United States senator seriously, Article Two, Section Two, mandates that I do."

"We have an obligation both to the American people and to the president, to ask these tough questions. I asked that question very directly. And with each and every nominee, the answers that I have been given with them, has satisfied me that they're gonna move forward in that direction."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Jake Tapper to Katie Britt: "Why would you think somebody who's willing to lie about the election results in Pennsylvania is going to restore integrity in the Justice Department the way that you are calling for?" pic.twitter.com/aTCa5fg8Cq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 12, 2025

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The State of the Union Address is more than a month away but President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden just made clear that full access to reproductive rights will be center stage as they announced their first guest: Kate Cox.

Cox is the Texas woman who needed a life-saving abortion and tried to obtain one in her home state legally. Her battle with Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who threatened to prosecute any medical professional who assisted her in obtaining an abortion despite a Texas court ordering she be allowed to have one, made national headlines. Later, the Texas Supreme Court overruled the lower court, blocking her from obtaining an abortion in state.

The Bidens spoke with Kate Cox over the weekend, the White House announced, to extend the invitation.

“They thanked her for her courage in sharing her story and speaking out about the impact of the extreme abortion ban in Texas,” White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre said Wednesday, NBC News reports. “The first lady invited Kate to join her as a guest at the State of the Union and Kate accepted, so those are ways that you’re going to hear the president lift up those very personal stories.”

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Cox and her husband Justin have two little children and were excited when they learned last summer a third was on the way.

“We have the two children that we absolutely adore, and yeah, the thought of having a third one added to the family was incredible,” Justin Cox told CBS News earlier this month.

“But a series of tests revealed the baby they were expecting, a girl, had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems,” CBS News added. “According to a 2016 study, nine out of 10 infants won’t survive more than a year. And for Kate and Justin’s baby, the prognosis was even more grim.”

Kate said they were told the “best-case scenario” was that their baby would live for maybe a week, but she too was at risk of dying from the pregnancy.

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“I didn’t want to watch her suffer. That would be very hard. She would have had to be placed directly on to hospice. There’s no treatment that can be done,” Kate Cox explained. “We know a lot of the trisomy 18 babies don’t survive birth, so I could lose her at any point in the pregnancy. There’s risk of infection, risk of uterine rupture. And we want more children as well, so what does that mean for future pregnancies?”

“I was shocked,” she added, “that the state of Texas wanted me to continue a pregnancy where I would have to wait until a baby dies in my belly, or dies at birth, or lives for days, and put my own health at risk, and a future pregnancy at risk.”

President Biden once again delivered remarks in support of abortion and reproductive rights on Tuesday, demanding Congress codify Roe v. Wade.

Watch below or at this link.

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