Politics
Watch: Rep. Pressley sounds alarm on Black women’s unemployment
The lawmaker called on the Federal Reserve on Thursday to address disproportionately higher unemployment rates among Black women.
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Rep. Pressley calls on the Fed, Powell to address Black women’s unemployment
Unemployment among Black women has increased 1.3% between February and July. Pressley said this represents a “canary in the coal mine” for the U.S. economy.
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Trump questions UN effectiveness in General Assembly address
“I’m really good at this stuff,” Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell.”
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Watch: Who gets to ask questions at the White House?
The Trump administration admits vloggers and social media influencers into the White House press pool while excluding the Associated Press.
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Jewish communities dispute whether antisemitism runs through Trump administration
Trump declared he would be “the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.” Now Jews disagree if Trump is fulfilling his promise or perpetuating antisemitism himself.
read moreWatch: Layoffs at EPA may impact federal funding for communities
WASHINGTON – The federal government laid off more than 60 thousand workers in the first two months of 2025, while another 75,000 employees accepted a buyout and voluntarily resigned.
Among those laid off was James Clark, an Environmental Protection Agency employee who lost his job while on his honeymoon. “It’s just very sad to see someone like Elon Musk take a chainsaw on live TV and say what we do doesn’t matter,” said Clark.
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Watch: Rep. Delia Ramirez pushes back against Trump immigration policies
WASHINGTON– As Illinois and the Midwest’s first Latina congresswoman, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said she feels a responsibility to uplift immigrant communities like those she came from. This has meant protesting President Donald Trump and his administration’s attack on immigrants.
In early March, Ramirez organized a rally to voice support for Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson’s sanctuary policies, which have been a target of the Trump administration’s immigration raids. In the House, she also reintroduced the Dream and Promise Act to create a pathway for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, like her husband, to gain citizenship. These actions are part of her efforts to push back against the president’s immigration policies.
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Trump’s cuts at the FAA could underscore the risks of shrinking government
WASHINGTON – After recent layoffs of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration and a string of aviation incidents, passengers and experts expressed concerns that U.S. airlines’ excellent safety record could be at risk.
About 400 probationary workers were removed from the FAA beginning on February 14, just weeks after the DCA midair collision on January 29 that left 67 dead. On February 17, at least 18 people were injured when a Delta Airlines flight from Minneapolis crash-landed upside down on a runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
The layoffs are part of an extensive effort spearheaded by the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, to consolidate the federal government. Some experts cautioned that given the high profile of aviation safety, cuts at the FAA could demonstrate the perils of shrinking government.
While no air traffic controllers were laid off, aviation safety experts warned that cuts could further strain the agency, which has long suffered from staffing shortages.
So far, some 400 of about 45,000 FAA employees have been laid off, according to a post on X by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Of them, 132 belong to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), a union representing about 11,000 FAA employees, according to Dave Spero, the organization’s president.
Aeronautical safety specialists, maintenance mechanics, and employees in aviation safety assistance roles were among those who were terminated, according to Spero. Although no air traffic controllers were laid off, Spero emphasized that these roles are critical positions within the FAA.
The impact of recent layoffs
Experts said these layoffs will only worsen pre-existing staffing problems.
“I don’t want to sound hyperbolic, but the system is operating under a lot of dynamic stresses. As it is, with the normal staffing problems, with the normal retirement challenges and things like that that are going on, this is going to make it so much worse,” said Philip Mann, a former FAA certified technician and aviation safety expert.
Following the DCA midair collision, Americans’ confidence in air travel dipped slightly, with 64% of U.S. adults saying plane travel is very or somewhat safe, down from 71% last year, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll. Public faith in the federal government’s ability to maintain air safety also dropped slightly.
Still, experts stressed that the National Airspace System and commercial flight in the U.S. is still the safest way to travel.
However, Mann commented that many of those laid off worked to maintain air traffic controllers’ systems, which could cause system outages similar to weather delays that travelers are used to. Since air traffic will only be able to manage a lighter load of aircrafts, an increase in flight delays is a very possible consequence of the layoffs.
“There won’t be more crashes,” he said. “There will be fewer airplanes flying.”
A former air traffic controller echoed Mann’s outlook on the layoffs.
“To an extent, it could slow things down, but at the same time, it’s not an immediate safety risk,” said the former air traffic controller, who recently resigned and asked to remain anonymous while searching for other work.
The former air traffic controller said they see a benefit in smaller government.
“I’m a fan of downsizing government,” they said. “I do think that there’s a lot of bloat in certain areas, but I guess my balanced opinion is that it stinks that the people that are getting harmed by it are people that just show up to their job every day.”
Congress examines the future of FAA infrastructure
Spero appeared as a witness at a House Subcommittee on Aviation hearing aimed at addressing a need for the modernization of the U.S. air traffic control system.
Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas-22) opened the hearing by emphasizing the importance of upgrading technology and improving hiring at the FAA.
“This moment in time represents a unique opportunity for the members of this subcommittee and all aviation stakeholders to coalesce around a common goal: meaningful air traffic control modernization that will benefit the flying public and all users of the National Airspace System,” Nehls said.
Spero emphasized a need for adequate staffing and better management of aging equipment systems within the agency. In an interview following the congressional hearing, Spero reiterated his union members’ critical role in the agency and the dangers of gambling with future safety by terminating employees.
“Without us, you can’t even go into a terminal radar approach control and turn on the light. We provide all of the power and electronics to make that stuff happen,” he said.
What Americans need to know
Despite recent air accidents, experts emphasized that air travel still remained safe.
“I think everyone has heightened awareness because of the Washington, D.C., midair collision accident, but I do not see some nefarious trend or anything,” said Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation safety consultant and former Chief Accident Investigator at the FAA.
However, other experts are concerned about the recent accidents.
“I think the media tends to try to sensationalize things and make a problem, but a problem doesn’t exist without foundation,” said Rich Martindell, an aviation safety consultant and a retired Air Force aircraft accident investigator.
With safety and operations under scrutiny, many aviation experts cautioned against more layoffs.
“It’s too early to tell what these FAA layoffs will do to safety, but I do hope that they stop. The FAA has perennially been understaffed and at this point in time. With the public having such attention on aviation safety, it’s not a good look for the administration to target the FAA for any of these workforce reductions,” Guzzetti said.
Mann underscored that people’s lives are at risk.
“I will argue that there is no such thing as a job in the Department of Transportation, which includes the FAA, that does not somehow impact either safety directly, or it impacts the people who do impact safety directly.”
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Smithsonian at center of debate about politicization of museums
WASHINGTON – The jazzy sounds of a trumpet rang through the East Building of the National Gallery of Art on a recent Sunday as a small crowd of all ages gathered in front of the musicians and people as high as the third floor leaned over the railings, hoping to catch a glimpse.
The museum’s newest exhibit, titled “Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist,” which showcases the work of a Black female artist who sought to put justice at the center of her work, was opening with a boogie.
One of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums along the National Mall, the National Gallery of Art, is a popular tourist destination. But its future – and that of certain exhibits in museums across Washington – is in danger because of Trump administration executive orders and federal funding cuts.
A partisan spending bill, signed by President Donald Trump last week, allows him to seize control over the Smithsonian Institution and implement automatic spending cuts if the institution’s proposed spending plan for the 2025 fiscal year is deemed too expensive and contributing to the U.S. deficit.
According to a 2023 financial report, the Smithsonian received 53% of its revenue from federal government appropriations, totaling more than $1 billion. Most of the institution’s expenses – 51% – go towards employee salaries and benefits.
The Smithsonian Institution’s budget includes spending for its 21 museums, research centers, and libraries as well as the National Zoo, most of which are free of charge.
According to the new law, Trump could pull funding from the Smithsonian or attempt to change museum exhibits, overhauling arts and information institutions in a way unique to his administration.
When asked how they would be impacted by a funding cut, a spokesperson for the Smithsonian did not comment.
In January, it closed its diversity, equity and inclusion office following a Trump executive order calling for government agencies to “terminate” their “radical” and “wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion offices to focus on “making America great.”
“Our Institution is fully committed to excellence in our workforce, free from discrimination and harassment. We have closed our Office of Diversity but [are] retaining our efforts at visitor accessibility as it serves a critical function,” said a spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution.
Despite the closure of their diversity equity and inclusion office, an Office of Equal Employment and Supplier Diversity remains and the museums have carried on with little change to their exhibits which celebrate diversity.
PEN America is a nonprofit organization aimed at protecting free speech in the U.S. In a report researched before Trump was reelected, authors Jonathan Friedman, Daniel Shank Cruz, Hanna Khosravi and Julie Trébault sought to understand how leadership at art museums approached censorship and self-censorship.
The report’s goal was to “uphold museums as spaces for open dialogue” while also managing the risks facing them.
“The future of the art museum field will stand to benefit from redoubling their commitment to such free expression values, particularly as they may be threatened by shifting political winds and new pressures to censor from numerous directions, in unprecedented ways,” the authors said.
The report said that “41.3% of museum leaders expressed strong concern about ‘Republican officials’ [censoring], while 3.3% expressed strong concern about ‘Democratic officials.’”
In the past, threats to the Smithsonian have come from Republicans who have sought to remove gender, sex and certain depictions of race from museums, libraries, and schools. Despite this, museums often see themselves as apolitical.
According to a 2021 survey paid for by the American Alliance of Museums, Americans trust museums as a source of information more than they trust the federal government or media outlets including radio and television.
Many of the survey respondents attributed museums’ neutrality to their trust in them.
The politicization of museums, however, has changed this. In 2020, President Trump criticized the Smithsonian in a speech at the White House History Conference.
He accused the institution of spreading Critical Race Theory, an academic concept that holds racial bias as an inherent part of Western society’s legal and social frameworks.
“Teaching this horrible doctrine [critical race theory] to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words,” Trump said. The Smithsonian did not respond directly to these comments.
Some Americans have taken to social media to say that the Smithsonian and other museums should get “DOGE’d” and called it a “scam.”
The host of “The Great Awokening,” a conservative Christian podcast aimed at deconstructing “wokeness,” Josh Daws, said that the Smithsonian plays an important role in how Americans understand U.S. history but criticized how that history is presented.
“A leftist agenda has no place in the institution charged with curating our national story,” he said in a post on X that got more than 120,000 views.
“This is how we turn a political victory into a cultural one,” Daws said. “It’s time we started celebrating America again.”
Calls for the Smithsonian Institution to be at least partially defunded are not new.
In an editorial published in the New York Post in 2023, Mike Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, called for the defunding of, and the eventual closure of, specific Smithsonian museums citing their “anti-American bias.”
“[The Museum of the American Latino’s] aim is to teach the young and future generations to see themselves as victims of America, so they can destroy it from within,” he said. “It’s time for Congress to permanently defund the Latino Museum and put an end to efforts to use woke museums to further divide this country.”
Taylor Stoermer, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, is worried about what will happen if museums like the Museum of African American History and Culture go away. He called what is happening under the Trump administration in regards to its policies against diversity a “pseudohistory tsunami” saying that it leaves important history and information out.
“If [the] history [a person studies] doesn’t put white men, cisgender white men of European descent in the spotlight…then [they] are on the hit list,” Stoermer said in a post on Instagram. “What are we left with?” he asked.
The Trump administration has restructured organizations like the Kennedy Center, an organization for performing arts and home of the National Symphony Orchestra. Trump has named himself chairman, replacing past leadership, and is vowing to “fix” the Kennedy Center.
Nearly two months into the new administration, Smithsonian museums remained largely unchanged. In March, the Museum of African American History and Culture is celebrating The Activist as a part of this year’s theme of the “Year of the Black Woman.”
The Black Revolutionary Artist exhibit at the National Gallery of Art is scheduled to remain open until July 6.
A penny for your thoughts: what’s next for the one-cent coin?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump proposed removing the penny from U.S. circulation in February.
The one cent coin costs the U.S. Mint about 3.7 cents to make. Will discontinuing the coin contribute to higher costs and inflation or save the government millions of dollars?
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Artists wary of Trump’s unprecedented takeover of the Kennedy Center
WASHINGTON — Heather Dune Macadam still remembers one thought that bubbled inside her as she stepped onto the stage decades ago at the Kennedy Center for a dance competition: “Wow, I made it.”
Then, just last month, when she heard about President Donald Trump’s appointment as chairman of the Kennedy Center and the replacement of its board, she thought back to a parallel experience she had during the Reagan administration.
It was May 1981 when the then-21-year-old dancer had her first professional dance gig at the Kennedy Center. That same night, the Reagan administration cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, as she recalled. The day after their competition, without the pay they had expected to receive, the Wayne State dance team put their pennies together to buy enough gas to get back to Detroit.
Macadam said the funding cut wasn’t only a hit to their pocketbooks and felt like a betrayal of hope and the arts. In the years since, Macadam became a dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company and later a Holocaust biographer and documentary filmmaker of “999: The Forgotten Girls.”
Now Macadam, like many other performing artists and creative people, viewed President Donald Trump’s appointment as chairman of the Kennedy Center and the replacement of its board with trepidation about the consequences for artistic freedom.
“I think his move to the Kennedy Center is just a shot across our bows,” Macadam said. “It’s a threat, and it’s letting us know where he’s headed.”
Macadam said getting artistic funding is already extraordinarily difficult in the United States compared to other countries, and she worried the changes at the Kennedy Center were moves to limit the very people capable of thinking outside the box.
“I fear for my country,” Macadam said. “I fear for my country’s moral and ethical conscience, which I think the arts hold us accountable to. And without that moral compass, where will we go?”
The recent upheaval at the Kennedy Center started with a Feb. 7 Truth Social post from Trump, in which he announced the immediate termination of multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees who “do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” To some artists, it marked a startlingly authoritarian approach to the arts that started when he abolished the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities hours after his second inauguration.
Several hours after his initial announcement, Trump posted what clearly was an AI-generated image of himself conducting a performance. He had his back to the musicians he was supposedly conducting. Concert lights illuminated his unusually stubby fingers while his hands were awkwardly poised. The caption? “Welcome to the new Kennedy Center!”
One entrance hall of the Kennedy Center displays flags from all 50 states and Washington D.C. (Valerie Chu/MNS)
The Kennedy Center was established under the Eisenhower administration by the National Cultural Center Act in 1958 and later renamed in another law to serve as a “living memorial” to President John F. Kennedy.
A Kennedy Center statement captured by archive on Feb. 8 but no longer available said the center was “aware of the post made recently by POTUS (Trump) on social media” but had received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to their board of trustees.
“There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board,” the statement said.
Neither the Kennedy Center nor White House responded to multiple requests for comment.
In less than a week, multiple Biden appointees were purged from the Kennedy Center. The new board then elected Trump as its chairman. No previous president had ever assumed that role. Ric Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and Trump’s former acting national intelligence director, was made interim executive director of the Kennedy Center. Deborah F. Rutter, who served as president of the Kennedy Center since 2014, had planned to step down at the end of 2025, but departed abruptly in early February.
“Core to our American experience is also artistic expression,” Rutter wrote in a statement released upon her departure. “Artists showcase the range of life’s emotions – the loftiest heights of joy and the depths of grievous despair. They hold a mirror up to the world – reflecting who we are and echoing our stories. The work of artists doesn’t always make us feel comfortable, but it sheds light on the truth.”
Changes to the Kennedy Center’s programming have already started. On March 6, “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and lead producer Jeffrey Seller told the New York Times that the musical about the birth of American democracy would not be performed next year at the Kennedy Center. It was originally supposed to be part of the center’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In a statement posted on X, Seller said the Kennedy Center’s neutrality has been destroyed and been replaced by a new spirit of partisanship, forcing it to betray its mission to foster the free expression of art in the United States.
“The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural center represents,” Seller wrote in the statement. “Given these recent actions, our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center.”
On Feb. 18, the Kennedy Center canceled a pride concert planned for May 21 that would have featured the Gay Men’s Choir. And on Feb. 14, actress, comedian and television producer Issa Rae canceled her sold-out show, “An Evening With Issa Rae.”
Marshall Coid, a musician who has performed at the Kennedy Center multiple times, said that the Kennedy Center should not be turned into a sanitized place that caters to “undeveloped and narrow-minded tastes.” He raised concerns that the new board would villainize art forms such as drag performance, whose elements and history extend far beyond what most people initially picture drag to be.
“The Kennedy Center, to me, represents the nation,” Coid said. “And that’s everyone’s art. There’s room for it all.”
Coid studied violin at Juilliard and has performed at the Kennedy Center as a countertenor and violinist, including as a soloist in Tom O’Horgan staging of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Celebration. He has also performed as an onstage violin soloist with Jinkx Monsoon while she played Matron “Mama” Morton in CHICAGO on Broadway, and acted in several roles himself that included cross-dressing.
Coid said he was worried the Kennedy Center’s new leadership would interfere with programming, including by banning drag. In Trump’s Truth Social post, he said: “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
Coid described drag performance as a theatrical tradition with centuries of history. Drag was prevalent in early medieval church dramas, Shakespeare plays, contemporary opera and various forms of art at the highest level. To Coid, drag is just one type of performing art that is “something totally beyond the comprehension of most of these people that are condemning it.”
Coid described the Trump administration’s move to control the Kennedy Center as something that left him and other performers he knows “heartsick, appalled and horrified.”
“We may not have so consciously been carrying around a sense of what it meant to us, but when it’s taken away, we realize,” Coid said. “I think we took it for granted and never thought that it was vulnerable. And now it has been clearly demonstrated to be vulnerable, and as far as I’m concerned, under attack and being grotesquely diminished by this intrusion, by people that have no business having anything to do with it and should be nowhere near it.”
Singer, songwriter and performer Gwen Levey said stories would go untold. She predicted that social justice, which the Kennedy Center showcased previously, would no longer be promoted, and the variety of music would be reduced. She pointed to the diverse board of people appointed by previous presidents who resigned in the wake of Trump’s takeover, such as “Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes, soprano Renée Fleming and singer-songwriter Ben Folds.
“The diversity is basically being sucked out of the Kennedy Center,” Levey said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if, like most things with this administration, it becomes very whitewashed.”
Levey predicted that in the future, government censorship of the arts would increase. After her song that protested abortion bans, “Barefoot & Pregnant,” went viral in 2023, Levey said Meta censored the song and her content by shadowbanning her, a word for describing when a social media company limits who can see a creator’s content, often without the creator’s knowledge, causing their engagement to abruptly drop. Now, Levey thinks that since many social media platforms are “in Trump’s pocket,” those platforms may follow the Kennedy Center in censoring the arts.
Trump’s decision to replace Biden-appointed board members and install himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center was not his first clash with the performing arts center. In August 2017, white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Va., where a bystander and two law enforcement officers were killed. In response, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.” In protest, three of five recipients of the annual Kennedy Center Honors said they would refuse to attend its White House reception. Trump canceled the reception and did not attend the Kennedy Center Honors annual awards ceremony all four years of his first term.
Still, despite its uncertain future, in the weeks after Trump named himself chairman, music continued to fill the Kennedy Center’s halls like normal.
Attendees wait to be admitted to a concert at the Kennedy Center featuring Cody Fry, LANY and Sleeping At Last. (Valerie Chu/MNS)
At a concert featuring Cody Fry, LANY and Sleeping At Last, the artists made jokes, the audience whooped and clapped, and some even sang together during one song.
“Sometimes, I look out into the world and it feels like optimism is like this radical act of bravery,” singer-songwriter Cody Fry said when introducing his last song. “And I want to focus my mind on the things that are good because I truly believe that the good outnumbers the bad.”
Levey, who grew up in Alexandria, Va., performed at the Kennedy Center in a choir and as an actress in 2012 and 2013 as part of the National Capital Area Cappies program, which showcases high school artists in the Washington metro area. She said that some musicians like Trump and his recent actions. In Nashville, where she is currently based, Levey said many singers and fans of the mainstream country music genre are “very much MAGA” and more progressive artists need to speak out to enact change.
Still, Levey said art helps push culture forward, and that’s why she is hopeful more artists will use art to protest and to uplift marginalized communities.
“People are waking up,” Levey said. “The people I’ve been meeting through the Rise Above Justice Movement and through my music have been giving me so much hope. Because it’s people from all walks of life, all different backgrounds, that want to preserve democracy.”
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Strategic bitcoin reserve signals Trump administration’s increased loyalty to cryptocurrency industry
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump made a promise to the cryptocurrency entrepreneurs that they have not forgotten: a pledge to be the first “crypto president.”
Last week, Trump took his latest in a string of actions to align himself with the digital asset industry by establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve in an executive order.
“I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet,” Trump said at the White House cryptocurrency summit. “We’re taking historic action to deliver on that promise.”
A strategic bitcoin reserve would consist of bitcoin that the federal government seized, according to the executive order. Under the order, the U.S. government would not purchase any more cryptocurrency. To further expand the reserve, the Trump administration authorized the Department of Treasury and Commerce to find other ways to acquire additional bitcoin where no tax dollars would be spent, instead of direct market purchases.
The reserve’s creation signaled a shift in U.S. policy toward bitcoin. Previously, the Treasury sold seized bitcoin rather than holding onto it. By choosing to keep the digital asset, the U.S. government increased its current stake in cryptocurrency and cemented the administration’s allegiance to the industry.
While Trump’s bitcoin policy was in line with what the industry previously advocated for, not all pro-cryptocurrency lawmakers were overjoyed about the reserve.
Early last week, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Majority Leader Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) launched a bipartisan Congressional Crypto Caucus, intending to boost U.S. leadership in cryptocurrency innovation. But despite Torres’ pro-cryptocurrency stance, he said he was “skeptical” about the federal government creating a cryptocurrency reserve.
“I do see blockchain as an emerging technology that has the potential to transform our society for good, but there are two visions of blockchain,” Torres said to Medill News Service. “There’s blockchain as a computer, and then there’s blockchain as a casino. I’m skeptical about blockchain as a casino, and I feel like Donald Trump is promoting speculation that’s going to do more harm than good.”
However, Congressional advocates for the reserve saw it as serving a significant economic purpose and predicted that it would serve as a hedge against inflation.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), a former blockchain entrepreneur, expressed he was not concerned about bitcoin’s volatility, and instead, worried about the dollar’s devaluation with inflation.
“I’m concerned about the dollar’s volatility,” Moreno told Medill News Service. “A dollar is worth a lot less today than it was five years ago, and bitcoin is worth a lot more today than it was five years ago.”
The claim that bitcoin can act as a hedge against inflation faced scrutiny, however. The cryptocurrency’s value is based solely on speculation, making it a volatile asset.
Other supporters of the government holding onto bitcoin argued the reserve could help reduce the national debt. However, the order specified that the U.S. will not sell the bitcoin within the reserve.
George Selgin, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, said any future attempt by the U.S. government to sell the bitcoin would face strong opposition from the industry. This is because a mass cryptocurrency sell off by the government would tank bitcoin’s value.
Selgin voiced concerns about a strategic reserve’s fate because of the U.S. government’s reluctance to sell in the future. He said the reserve may end like the U.S. gold reserve, which Selgin argued did not serve any economic purpose since former President Richard Nixon effectively eliminated the gold standard.
“The bitcoin people are also comparing the reserve to the gold reserve, but they’re trying to make a positive comparison,” Selgin said. “There’s a more valuable negative comparison because the gold reserve no longer serves any economic purpose either.”
Hearing derailed as Republican chairman misgenders transgender colleague
WASHINGTON – An otherwise uneventful House committee hearing Tuesday afternoon quickly turned into a partisan showdown as lawmakers clashed over the proper way to address a transgender member of the committee.
The hearing before the Europe subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee was supposed to be a discussion of arms control, international security and U.S. assistance to Europe, but what came out of the hearing instead was a striking display of partisan polarization over the politics surrounding transgender people.
As he recognized Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) for her chance to question witnesses, Chairman Keith Self (R-Texas) misgendered her, addressing her as “Mr. McBride.”
McBride, who was elected to the House last November, became the first openly transgender member of Congress.
Offering something between a smile and a grimace, she pointedly thanked “Madam Chair” for the introduction, and turned toward the witnesses to begin her questioning.
But Rep. William Keating (D-Mass.), the subcommittee’s ranking member interrupted.
“Mr. Chairman, would you repeat what you just said when you introduced a duly elected representative from the United States of America?” Keating said.
Self obliged and again misgendered McBride.
“Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Keating shot back. “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I’ve come to know you a little bit but this is not decent.”
Self attempted to resume the hearing, but Keating refused to allow the hearing to continue until Self addressed McBride correctly.
With neither representative willing to back down, Self banged his gavel and declared the hearing adjourned, abruptly ending the hearing only about halfway through.
The showdown was a flashpoint in ongoing political dispute between the two parties over how to treat transgender people.
During President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress last week, he touted his administration’s slew of executive orders that target transgender individuals, including one to limit gender-affirming care and another barring transgender women from participating in women’s sports or serving in the military.
“I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” he said in the address.
Lawmakers took to X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly after Tuesday’s hearing to publish statements on the debacle.
On his official account, Self wrote “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and reposted statements from Republican House colleagues, including one in which Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) referred to McBride by her “deadname,” the name she used before her transition.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) came to Self’s defense, misgendering McBride in an X post.
“He’s a man. Hearing adjourned,” she wrote. Last year, Mace introduced a resolution to amend the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives to bar transgender people from using House bathrooms not aligned with their sex assigned at birth; the policy was adopted by Speaker Mike Johnson.
McBride herself largely declined to jump into the fray.
“No matter how I’m treated by some colleagues, nothing diminishes my awe and gratitude at getting to represent Delaware in Congress,” McBride wrote on X.
Trump remains firm on tariff policy as stocks fall to their lowest in months
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration continued to push its pro-tariff economic agenda during a press briefing Tuesday, even as the President’s trade war on foreign nations spurred a heightened risk of a U.S. recession.
“The numbers that we see today, the numbers we saw yesterday, the numbers we will see tomorrow are a snapshot of a moment in time,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said when asked to assuage fears of an impending recession.
The U.S. stock market saw one of its worst days in years on Monday. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones all plummeted close to their lowest levels since mid-September. Economists and other experts say the likely causes of this downward trend were Trump’s inconsistent tariff policies. Trump has threatened nations with looming tariffs and delayed other levies after implementing them for mere days. These erratic changes sent shock waves and confusion throughout the global economy.
Two days after Trump dodged a question about his policies triggering a recession, Leavitt answered reporters’ questions about a possible recession by twice stating the president “wants the American people to have so much money in their pockets they don’t know what to do with it.”
Leavitt echoed Trump’s explanation that the instability was part of a “period of transition” in reaction to “big” changes in economic policy.
A recession could threaten job security for millions of Americans and slow down production and consumption in an economy that reached record highs less than a month ago, according to experts.
Trump was scheduled to meet with the Business Roundtable Tuesday night to discuss his economic agenda.
One of Trump’s cabinet members, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, was more definitive in ruling out a recession. “There’s going to be no recession in America,” he said in an interview with NBC Sunday.
After a historic plummet on Monday, stocks seemed to stabilize early Tuesday but dropped again after Trump announced over Truth Social he would increase tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel to 50% on Wednesday morning. The newest hike in tariffs was a response to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s statement that he would impose a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to New York, Minnesota and Michigan. Ford also threatened that he would shut off electricity to the U.S. if Trump imposed new tariffs on Canadian goods.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump wrote in his post. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Leavitt told reporters that Trump had not yet spoken with newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “There is continued correspondence between the President’s team, particularly Secretary Lutnick and the Canadians as well,” Leavitt said.
Though Trump said his general 25% tariff policy on Mexico and Canada would be delayed until April 2, some tariffs on Canada have already taken effect. China, however, was not given a similar grace period. Trump doubled the levy on Chinese imports to 20% March 4. India and European nations could be next, according to Trump.
Despite the stock market’s volatility, Leavitt defended Trump’s economic course.
“There’s great indication to be optimistic about where the economy stands,” Leavitt said. “What [Trump] envisions is reciprocity, fair trade practices where American workers are put first and are no longer ripped off by foreign countries all over this world.
Mayors Stand Firm on Sanctuary Policies Despite Threats
WASHINGTON – Despite the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding, four Democratic mayors defended their cities’ sanctuary policies before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston all said their policies foster trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement.
“When there is trust between a city’s residents and the police, undocumented immigrants come forward to report crimes,” Johnson said. “Scapegoating entire communities is not only misleading, but it’s unjust and it is beneath us.”
Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance prohibits city officials from asking about an individual’s immigration status and cooperating with federal immigration enforcement actions, except in cases involving serious criminal offenses. New York City and Denver have similar laws. Sanctuary policies often also provide housing, food and help applying for legal status.
Wednesday’s hearing showcased the clash between these measures and President Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities.
House Republicans spent the hearing criticizing the mayors’ sanctuary provisions, including those who were bused in from the border over the past few years.
“Today, mayors Wu, Johnson, Johnston and Adams will be publicly accountable for their failure to follow the law and protect the American people,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said.
But the mayors countered Republican accusations that their sanctuary laws give safe harbor to criminals. Johnson and Wu cited their cities’ decreasing violent crime rates, and said their immigration policies play a role in that decline. In 2024, Boston saw record-low numbers in homicide rates.
“Last year, Boston saw the fewest homicides on record in the last 70 years,” said Wu, a daughter of immigrants and a new mom who brought her one-month-old to the hearing. “The laws on our books promote the kind of community trust that keep all of us safe.”
“As mayor, I have to protect the health and safety of everyone in our city. As a man of faith, I have a moral obligation to care for those in need,” Johnston said.
The term “sanctuary city” has no uniform definition, but generally refers to limiting local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute said.
Experts say sanctuary policies do not increase crime.
“A mountain of empirical research shows that restrictions on ICE cooperation do not raise crime rates,” said David Bier of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank.
President Trump renewed efforts to penalize sanctuary cities that he started during his first term. The Department of Transportation threatened to withhold federal funding. Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed increased enforcement by federal law enforcement officers.
“As a result of the Mayor’s decision to side with public safety threats over law-abiding citizens, DOJ will have no choice but to increase efforts in the city of Boston. Criminals will be prosecuted, illegal aliens will be arrested, and justice will be served,” Bondi posted Tuesday on the social media site X.
At the hearing, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) accused Johnson of representing migrants instead of Chicago residents.
“Who elected you? The people that came illegally, whether they were sent to you or not, or the people that reside in Chicago?”
In Chicago, city clerk Cata Truss advocated for more restrictions and accountability for migrants.
“I think that it’s okay for people to want to have a better life. I just think that it should be done legally,” she said in an interview. “We should help, but not at the expense and on the backs of people who are already suffering.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who represents the North side of Chicago in Congress, said that migrants fleeing violence have no legal pathways to safety.
“If you are starving, if you are escaping violence, dying, raped on the other side of the border, the only option, so that you can find some safety, is coming here through between ports-of-entry because [Congress] won’t create legal pathways,” she told Medill News Service.
One Democratic mayor seemed more open to Trump’s policies. Adams previously indicated a willingness to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement agencies in New York. Last month, he met with President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, to discuss addressing violent migrant gangs in New York City. The next day, the Department of Justice dropped charges against Adams.
On Wednesday, Adams warned that the financial burden of sheltering and providing services to large numbers of migrants would have lasting effects on New York.
“There will be long-term impacts for New Yorkers due to the amount spent on taking in large numbers of migrants,” he said.
Some experts warned that the cost of accepting migrants outweighed the benefits.
“The harm that is created by allowing criminal aliens to be released back into the community far outweighs any political gains,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports limiting immigration. “The human cost of these policies is just too high.”
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Rep. Tiffany discusses priorities this term
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) has been focused on confirming President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees for the first months of this Congressional term. Now he’s focusing on his priorities, both nationally and for his northern Wisconsin constituents. Jeremy Fredricks sat down with the Congressman in his office on Capitol Hill.
Watch the video report here:
President Trump to address Congress
President Donald Trump will give an annual address to Congress on Tuesday night. Trump is expected to talk about his priorities for the administration: immigration, foreign policy and the economy. Jeremy Fredricks has more from the White House.
Watch the video report here:
Medill Today | Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2025