A mid-level probationary worker with the U.S. Department of Agriculture read the letter in disbelief. It was from the USDA's human resources department explaining he no longer had a job. The letter said the decision had been made "based on your performance." But it didn't make sense to him. “There’s no way to tie me to a specific performance issue because I’m six weeks on the job," says the employee, who works out of Phoenix and, like others interviewed for this report, spoke with TIME on the condition of anonymity. He says no one had mentioned any issues with his work before receiving the letter. The USDA employee was among thousands of federal workers across the country hit with layoffs that began on Thursday with little prior notice, targeting probationary workers—those who have been employed by the federal government for less than one or two years and are easier to fire. The Trump Administration has ordered most agencies to let go of nearly all probationary employees who haven’t yet gained civil service protection. The layoffs have shaken both federal employees and the unions that represent them, prompting widespread condemnation and setting the stage for future legal battles. Many in the federal workforce see the aggressive nature of the cuts as proof that the Trump Administration isn’t just trying to cut costs, but dismantle the federal workforce and reduce its capacity to serve the public. “I feel like right now the administration is kind of demonizing federal workers,” says a senior IRS agent from New York who was hired in July and “fully expects” to receive a termination notice in the coming days. The firings are part of a broader push spearheaded by the Trump Administration and the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative run by billionaire Elon Musk to streamline government operations. Musk has gone so far as to suggest that entire agencies should be “deleted,” likening them to “weeds” in need of eradication. Legal experts and union representatives argue many of DOGE’s actions are not legal. The letter for the USDA employee, viewed by TIME, cited guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, claiming that probationary employees have “the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual.” Soon after Trump’s inauguration, the leadership at OPM was replaced with Musk allies. Elsewhere, thousands of workers were laid off in group calls or via pre-recorded messages, with their government access revoked immediately. Others were told they would be formally fired by emails. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides crucial services and benefits to military veterans, laid off more than 1,000 employees on Thursday alone, with VA Secretary Doug Collins claiming that the move would save the department $98 million per year. The vast majority of probationary employees, including those in the VA’s health care system, were exempted from the layoffs. The abrupt and seemingly callous manner of conducting layoffs has left many workers stunned. One HR manager at the Veterans Health Administration, who has worked for the department for more than two decades, said that he had never witnessed anything like this in all his years of service. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” he says. At a staff meeting on Friday, he says leadership told them they were finding out about the terminations at the same time as the rest of the agency’s staff, and that the decisions were being made by a small group in the Office of Personnel Management backed by DOGE. “We're paralyzed because we don't know what's happening tomorrow,” he adds. The HR manager noted that he voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections and “will never make that mistake again.” “If the GOP wants to win someone like me back, they would need to start making changes right now,” he says. “I have not voted for a Democrat in two decades. I will vote Democrat in the midterms and the next presidential race for sure.” Other federal employees who mentioned voting for Trump in the past say they are reconsidering their support for the Republican administration. The layoffs come soon after a federal judge in Massachusetts allowed the Trump Administration to proceed with an offer for federal employees to leave their jobs with the promise of continuing to be paid through September. That offer expired on Wednesday, Trump officials said. The White House said that 77,000 workers, or around 3% of the civilian workforce, agreed to the buyout. Jourdain Solis, a 27-year-old fuel compliance officer at the Internal Revenue Service in Fresno, Calif., accepted the buyout earlier this month, feeling it offered more security than staying in a job that didn’t seem like a priority under the new Administration. “I couldn’t guarantee that my program would stick around,” he said. “Taking this offer would have been much better than being laid off and only qualifying for unemployment.” Solis also acknowledges feeling undervalued by the government with the ongoing rhetoric about job cuts and waste. “Our value as public servants gets questioned all the time,” he says. “So I just really didn't want to work for a country that doesn't respect public servants as much as they should.” But many federal workers declined to take the resignation offer, in part because they were worried about its validity. The buyouts are technically not funded, as Congress hasn’t appropriated funding beyond March 14. “There are too many questions and concerns,” one worker at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told TIME. “It’s a joke,” says the probationary IRS agent. “There's all kinds of issues with the funding. Nobody trusted it.” Solis admits he still has some questions about the legality of it all but says he’s prepared to take legal action if the government doesn’t follow through with the offer. The ramifications of the staff reductions go far beyond the individual workers, potentially shifting the government’s relationship with the rest of its workforce. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents many of those dismissed, has vowed to challenge the firings in court, calling them a violation of workers’ rights. "These firings are not about poor performance," said Everett Kelley, the union’s president. “There is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.” As the cuts continue, agencies are bracing for more uncertainty, and federal workers remain on edge. “I can feel it in my interactions with people,” said the former USDA employee. “People are nervous because they don't know what's going on with their jobs. And even the senior leadership at most of the agencies doesn’t know what's going on.” Some of these workers say they had hoped the changes under the new administration would be gradual. The speed and abrupt nature of it all has left many feeling blindsided. Federal workers typically have the option to appeal layoffs or suspensions to the Merit Systems Protection Board, a process that involves an initial review by administrative judges before a final decision is made by the board itself. However, many workers fear that these legal avenues may not be enough to protect their rights in the face of an administration determined to impose sweeping changes. For many, the recent firings are a stark reminder of how quickly the administration is willing to reshape the government, even if it might undermine its effectiveness. Asked about DOGE’s operations, the VA employee said: “They obviously are out of their depth and are struggling desperately to make whatever it is that they are trying to do work,” he adds. “I don't think they will succeed.” Adds the probationary senior IRS agent who expects to soon be out of a job: “It's funny because we have very smart businessmen running this whole thing, and the last thing you do in business is cut your revenue stream,” he says. “The IRS is the revenue stream, especially the auditors. It wouldn’t make any sense to cut us.”

To mark Valentine’s Day, the White House posted a meme across its X, Instagram, and Facebook social media accounts. The post included a new take on the popular “roses are red, violets are blue” refrain. But in lieu of a traditional love poem, the White House instead came up with a rhyme that targeted illegal immigration. “Roses are red, violets are blue, come here illegally, and we’ll deport you,” the text of the Valentine’s Day message read. Against a pink backdrop, the poem was accompanied by the faces of President Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan. The caption read “Happy Valentines Day,” with a red heart emoji. Voto Latino, an organization that works to engage Latino communities in the voting process, called the post “offensive and divisive.” “This post was deliberately crafted to provoke and sow division, but the struggles of immigrant families are not a joke,” the organization said. “Using a lighthearted holiday to demean and target communities is not only irresponsible—it is beneath the dignity of the presidency.” Elsewhere, the Hispanic Federation spoke out against the post, saying that more people need to “step up” and say they will not tolerate this kind of commentary. Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of Hispanic Federation, said: “Let me be clear, this action from the White House is not a lighthearted joke.” Miranda went on to reference when a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally last year, highlighting that “this is already a pattern that is beneath the Office of the President of the United States.” The White House’s Valentine’s Day post comes as Trump begins to implement his immigration enforcement efforts and policies, which include targeting sanctuary cities, the intent to progress with mass deportations, efforts to redefine birthright citizenship, and the declaration of a national emergency at the Southern border of the U.S. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also embarked upon raids to ramp up deportation efforts.

Donald Trump set off a firestorm of criticism over the weekend with a tweet. It might seem like nothing new, but critics say the President’s recent post is more than offensive—they say it’s dictatorial. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social as well as on Elon Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. The White House account on X also shared the message alongside Trump’s official presidential photograph. — The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 15, 2025 A version of the phrase is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general who crowned himself emperor in 1804 and was known for his authoritarian rule—and whom Trump has quoted before. The quotation was also posted last year by El Salvador’s populist authoritarian President Nayib Bukele, whom Trump and Musk have expressed admiration for. Trump’s latest Napoleonic invocation has rankled Democrats and liberal commentators. Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) responded to Trump on X: “Spoken like a true dictator.” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie described it as “the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president” on social media platform Bluesky. Some anti-Trump conservatives have also voiced their unease. Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director during Trump’s first term before becoming a vocal intraparty critic, reposted Trump’s statement, adding: “Wants to be a dictator. If you don’t see it it means you don’t want to.” Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared to implicitly rebuke Trump’s post by resharing an essay he’d written in 2010, titled “The Presidency and the Constitution,” in which he wrote: “A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him. The president solemnly swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does not solemnly swear to ignore, overlook, supplement, or reinterpret it.” Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer at the National Review who wrote in November about writing in Pence for the 2024 election, posted on X about Trump’s declaration: “This is some un-American monarchical nonsense. The president is above *some* laws, because there are things legally only he may do. But his entire office remains a creature of law.” Bill Kristol, former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and a prominent Trump critic, posted on Bluesky, “We’re getting into real Führerprinzip territory here”—referencing the Nazi Germany principle that Führer Adolf Hitler’s word was above the law. Billy Binion, a reporter for libertarian magazine Reason, posted on X: “I know many conservatives still care about the Constitution. But it is genuinely depressing that the leader of the Republican Party is someone who is openly OK with violating the rule of law as long as it serves his political ends. That’s…bad. I miss real conservatism.” Former RNC Chair Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff during his first term, dismissed the criticisms of Trump’s post, excusing the provocative statement as mere trolling and “catnip for the media.” “It’s entertainment for Trump. It’s a distraction,” Priebus said on ABC News’ This Week on Sunday. “This is what the President does.” Some of Trump’s supporters, however, have welcomed the Napoleonic declaration. “Thank you, President Trump. We love you,” controversial right-wing activist Laura Loomer responded to Trump’s post on X. Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, reposted Trump’s message on X, appending 14 U.S. flag emojis. And right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec also shared Trump’s message, adding “America will be saved” and “What must be done will be done.” It’s not the first time Trump or his allies have suggested that the rule of law should not get in the way of his agenda. As the Trump Administration already faces dozens of lawsuits, Vice President J.D. Vance posted on X on Feb. 9 that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” And Musk has called for the impeachment of judges “who are undermining the will of the people.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also previously accused the media of “fearmongering” about a “constitutional crisis,” saying during a news briefing on Feb. 12: “The real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.” The Constitution, however, established the three separate branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) specifically to act as a system of checks and balances—with the courts, in particular, empowered to rule on the constitutionality of laws and presidential actions. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, Musk posted “True” in response to El Salvador’s Bukele asserting—in reference to the dismissal of judges opposed to his administration in 2021, which critics called a “coup” at the time—“‘Checks and balances’ don’t truly exist unless the judicial branch can also be checked and balanced.” As for the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last year, it stipulated that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their “constitutional authority” and presumptive immunity for other official acts, but that: “The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.”

President Donald Trump is a disrupter-in-chief. His political rise is inextricably linked to his willingness to break with American norms. Yet his decision to abruptly freeze nearly $72 billion in U.S. foreign aid has still managed to send shockwaves at home and abroad—because of just how much it would undermine American interests and global stability. The decision marks a dangerous retreat from America’s defense of freedom around the world. USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy and the National Endowment for Democracy was a product of Ronald Reagan’s vision to foster global democracy. Together, they have defended countless in the face of abhorrent human rights abuses, and served as a bulwark against corruption and authoritarian creep. USAID, with its partners in civil society, have been first defenders of U.S. interests for over 60 years. It provides as much as 40% of global aid and the sudden funding freeze creates a power vacuum that enemies—including China, Russia, and Iran—will step in to fill. As Kennedy once said: “[U.S. aid cuts] would be disastrous and, in the long run, more expensive. Our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled.” Read More: Inside the Chaos, Confusion, and Heartbreak of Trump’s Foreign-Aid Freeze In mere days, the funding freeze has achieved what the Presidents of Russia and Belarus have desired for several decades: taking an axe to the remnants of independent media in the former Soviet countries. Meduza, which provided independent coverage on topics censored by the Putin regime, now faces an uncertain future. Tellingly, Moscow praised Trump’s move. In Ukraine, USAID backed the Anti-Corruption Action Center—which exposes oligarchic corruption. In Southeast Asia, the program supports the Freedom Collaborative, which works to rescue victims of human trafficking from cyber scam compounds that defraud millions of dollars from U.S. citizens each year. China Labor Watch, supported by NED, combats the forced labor of Chinese workers by carrying out investigations, supporting victims of trafficking, and advancing the enforcement of laws. Gutting the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—a George W. Bush initiative—also endangers millions of lives across Africa. These initiatives and countless others are now in peril. President Jimmy Carter once declared that “every American embassy should be looked upon as a haven for those who suffer from human rights abuse.” Indeed, the U.S. Government gave literal shelter to Cardinal József Mindszenty, who opposed the communist dictatorship in Hungary, between 1956 to 1971. As a Hungarian-American, I deeply honor the legacy of the 1956 revolution, which lasted 12 days before Soviet troops crushed it. Supporting democracy is personal to me. My family and friends back home have spent over a decade living with the consequences of democratic backsliding. Me and my organization, Action for Democracy, have even been targeted by the pro-Putin premiership of Viktor Orbán. I thought I had found a safe haven in America—where the defense of democracy is a national value that binds us all. We must carry the torch forward. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants uniquely qualified to support global democracy. By activating our diaspora communities and channeling their energy, knowledge, and resources, we can persist even when the federal government wavers. Cities, states, private citizens, and civil society groups must now step up and step in. We should all choose and adopt a cause we support abroad, in addition to those who already donate at home. The rest of the world has a duty, too. Democracies must mobilize their own resources on a new scale. The European Endowment for Democracy should be strengthened and its mission made global. The U.K. has a unique chance to leverage its Britain Reconnected strategy. Canada should double down on its Pro-Dem Fund and its leading role in the Media Freedom Coalition. South Africa should revitalize the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund to further its vision of a democratic, conflict-free continent. Brazil should leverage its position as the largest democracy in South America to fill in the gap left by the U.S.’s retreat. Brazil and South Africa, as democratic members of BRICS, should exploit their weight in the organization to counteract the potentially corrosive efforts of authoritarian members. We have no time to waste. The need for humanitarian aid is a moral and strategic imperative to keep America free and safe—and the hope for a more democratic world alive.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. The myopia is blinding. As President Donald Trump blasts through a Washington that is clearly struggling to keep pace with his disruptive moves on everything from names on maps to the fate of backwater parts of the bureaucracy to the new, confusing U.S. strategy on the future of Ukraine, keeping the establishment perpetually off balance may well be the prevailing vibe over the next four years. What almost everyone is missing: This country has roughly one month until the government runs out of money, and things like paychecks to troops, food-inspection programs, disaster-relief payments, and aid to low-income families could all be caught up in a chaotic game of chicken. Republicans could keep the lights on all on their own, but probably won’t. “They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters last week, setting up a blame-game preamble. Jeffries is factually correct. Even still, Republicans may end up needing a bailout from Democratic lawmakers before March 14. That gives Democrats their first real leverage in Trump’s second term, but it’s entirely unclear if they will use it or to what end. While a unified plan has yet to emerge, wisps of fight-ready ambitions are starting to move from the fringes to the mainstream, albeit more slowly than most rank-and-file Democrats would like. That’s not to say Republicans have their own house in order. Even though House Republicans pushed through a budget outline on Thursday after 12 hours of debate, there’s no guarantee that it proves sufficiently lean for budget hardliners on the Right. Meanwhile, the Senate has plenty of ideas for its own spending plan, including possibly splitting Trump’s agenda into two discrete pieces. That is setting up an intra-party collision that is all too familiar from the first Trump term. It’s not a stretch to say that Democrats could end up being needed to pass a bill they abhor to avoid a catastrophic collapse entirely not of their making—but within their power to avert. Lost to no one is the man sitting in the Oval Office already holds the record for the longest government shutdown in history, the 35-day shutdown in 2018 into 2019 over Trump’s demands for $5.7 billion in border fencing. (He eventually wrestled $1.375 billion for it, while the total cost of the shutdown to the whole U.S. economy hit $11 billion, according to the non-partisan congressional scorekeepers.) Like so much of his first term, the shutdown let Trump create a problem and then take credit for ending it. He saw that as a win. As odds of shutdown grow, here are the realities facing Washington that are coloring the negotiations, and the possible offramps from the status quo. Trump is setting up a constitutional crisis All the signs are here. The White House says it is charging forward despite federal judges telling officials to, at a minimum, pump the brakes. Whether it actually upends the United States’ system of checks and balances in the coming weeks will shape the budget negotiations. If Trump and Elon Musk continue to treat the spending laws already passed by Congress as mere suggestions, there won’t be much faith that the next spending bills will bind Trump’s team to actually following the orders from Capitol Hill. Trump has already nixed most of the workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development, scorched the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is set to dismantle the Education Department—all created and funded by Congress. On Thursday, Trump’s H.R. arm told as many as 200,000 feds with less than two years in their jobs that their careers as civil servants were over. The move, if it survives any legal challenges, will gut the federal government of its next generation of career professionals. Federal judges say so much of what Trump is creating is afield from what’s allowed, but there’s a limit on what they can do. And the White House knows it. Being held in contempt is about the worst of it, after all. Meanwhile, Trump cannot stop jabbering about serving a potential third term, a blatant violation of the Constitution’s cap on terms Presidents can serve these days. For Democrats in particular, this all makes it harder for them to consider helping Trump’s party look responsible enough to keep the government functioning at the most basic level. Republicans in Congress remain terrified of Trump Yet with few exceptions, the top leaders in the GOP are deferring to the White House on these big moves, even as it is increasingly clear to them that Musk’s woodchipper is advancing Trump’s agenda in ways they imagined only they could do. Even though there have been plenty of grumblings—some more stage-whispered than others—about the executive branch’s seemingly vamped approach to foreign policy, domestic spending, and personnel, Trump has mostly gotten his way. “We need to come to terms” with Trump’s tariff strategy, said the top Republican on a Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, Rep. Adrian Smith of farm-export-heavy Nebraska. Smith understands tariffs are a part of Trump’s approach to negotiations—but nevertheless is glad agreements with Canada, Mexico, and Colombia were reached before the threatened tariffs went into place. Translation: whatever Trump wants is what the GOP supports. Similarly, there were plenty of folks unamused with the nominations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth. Yet Trump got his way on all of them, and Hegseth is already telling Ukraine that its aspirations to join NATO are not going to happen and that its borders are never returning to pre-invasion places despite plenty—if uneven—of support for Kyiv from Congress. When Trump has needed to, the threat of primaries has cowed the skeptics back into line. (Just ask Sen. Thom Tillis what motivated his brazen capitulation on Hegseth. Or Sen. Susan Collins’ baffling blink on the whole lot of them.) That compliance has only fueled Trump’s indifference to courts or the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. While there are spots of concern for Republicans—many on Capitol Hill recognize Trump’s efforts on the economy have fallen short of his campaign rhetoric and his pledges to take over Gaza and expel millions of Palestinians have been unhelpful—they also see a party leader who, at the moment, has little reason to check himself. By and large, voters seem to have positive reactions to his early moves, according to a CBS News poll released this week. While 85% of Democrats and 51% of indies disapprove of Trump, they’re still not enough to tank his overall 53% job approval rating. A separate YouGov poll finds both Trump’s net approval and net favorability numbers are higher than at any point during his first term. While the post-Inauguration surge has faded, he’s still above water and raging at anyone who dares defy him. Put simply: as long as the President is not dragging down other Republicans, they’re fine tethering themselves to him. A shutdown, though, is a tough sell to voters who sent Trump back to Washington to shake things up, not send it spiraling. Democrats don’t have a plan But they have frustrations. For the last three weeks, Democrats up and down the seniority list have been stuck playing an especially frustrating game of Whac-a-Mole: smack the outrage of the hour and then race to hit the next one, never quite leveling the field. Prosecutors are being booted, FBI agents are being purged, criminal cases are being dropped, watchdogs are being shown the doors, commissions and boards are being gutted, and whole agencies are being mothballed. The gush of news has been impossible to keep arms around, and Democrats’ messaging machine has been lurching and lunging without a clear direction. “I’m getting more and more furious,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told The New York Times. But fury is not a strategy. Some Democrats are calling for cooperation on parts of Trump’s agenda that make sense for their constituents. (Rust Belt lawmakers are particularly open to Trump’s protectionist posture on trade.) Others are of the mind to extract maximum concessions if they’re going to have to help maintain a functioning government. (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been at the vanguard of this wing.) Yet others are realistic: any action here will anger some corner of the Democratic coalition that, at the moment, is far from unified or confident that their team in Washington knows what’s next. But they have to do something. The congressional phone system, which typically handles about 40 calls per minute to the 540 offices is now fielding more than 1,500 each minute. That public response, along with not-so-subtle threats from groups on the Left, is forcing Democrats to think again about their path forward, and see if there’s any outcome where they don't end up taking blame for it. Still, this spending plan is going to be done under the cover of a procedural trick that both parties have used in the past to get things across the finish line with a bare majority, meaning Senate Republicans don’t need a single Democratic vote to get this done. But that assumes House Republicans remain unified, a risky bet at best in a party beset by factionalism, which leaves Democrats with a choice between keeping the government’s doors open or letting them slam shut, and allowing at least some conservative outlets and influencers to pin the outcome on them at least as much as the party in control. (Keep in mind, about 80% of federal workers go to jobs beyond the Beltway, so this becomes a local story in almost every corner of the country.) Then there’s this grim reality: House Speaker Mike Johnson might not be able to keep his job if he repeatedly has to rely on Democratic goodwill. Democrats have said they might help only in exchange for some of their own priorities, and concessions to Democrats traditionally have been career poison for Johnson’s predecessors. “Given the Republican majority’s attempts to completely gut the federal government, any concession necessary for the Democratic Party to assist them in passing a (continuing resolution) must be incredibly substantial,” Ocasio-Cortez said, setting up another power play that tempts the GOP leadership into a short-term trap. The reality hasn’t yet registered with voters If you haven’t heard about this looming shutdown, expect to hear a lot in the next few weeks from lawmakers, especially if you live in a Democratic enclave. That’s because, in a rare show of coordination, House Democrats plan to use the current recess to tell constituents back home about the ticking threat buried in the rubble of Trump’s march through Washington. But for most voters, this is all too familiar. A brinksmanship game is now almost passe in Washington, and most of the time both parties find an off-ramp at the eleventh hour that leaves everyone a little sour. Unless they don’t. Voters’ minds are fleeting and blame has a quick half-life in Washington. Trump’s record showdown tanked his poll numbers, but it took less than a month of restored government for him to climb out of the pre-standoff rut. (The government reopened on Jan. 25, 2019, and Trump’s polling on Feb. 22 had him stronger than before he presided over darkened federal machinery.) This time around, the government faces another make-or-break funding deadline on March 14, and both parties at the Capitol say they are way, way apart on how to fix it. The churn coming out of the White House madlibs machine of headlines is tough to mute, but the responsible caucus in both parties is quietly trying to navigate in the background lest things blow apart. For once, a kick-the-can-down-the-road band-aid seems responsible given how unpredictable the rest of Washington is behaving. Because, to be clear, the proposals on the table cover spending only through Oct. 1, and there remain serious disagreements between House and Senate Republicans about just how big of a bite to take right now. Yet without Trump’s blessing, that fight-another-day cohort is working without any real guarantees the White House or even their party leadership will endorse it. Publicly, neither side has said a Plan B is worth considering. Real lives are impacted by the chaos. It could get much worse. Almost $40 million in U.S.-grown humanitarian food aid is sitting in Houston, at risk of rotting or spoiling. A similar scene is playing out in warehouses, ships, and ports across the world, all adding up to roughly half-a-billion-dollars in such goods going to waste because of Trump abruptly ending U.S.A.I.D. programs, and moving to sack most of its 10,000 employees. And that’s just one example of how real lives at home and abroad are becoming collateral damage of Trump’s hasty moves. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers stand to be canned in short order. Criminal cases are being dismissed against prospective Trump allies and brought against his perceived enemies. Immigration crises are only just starting to be understood. Student civil rights and loans alike are on the chopping block. And countless wonks have been shown the door in an effort to rid Trump’s government of expertise. All of this very real harm comes while the federal government’s lights are still on. The ongoing spending spat is heading toward a violent collision unless both parties’ leaders figure out how to get to a mutually disappointing outcome. On their own, Republicans probably cannot get the package out of the House. That means Johnson is probably going to need to rely on a handful of votes from Jeffries to keep Democrats’ priorities like HeadStart, food stamps, troop funding, and rent assistance humming along. Democrats have proven willing to help in the past, deciding a line-in-the-sand moment that would pause government is never worth chasing. Just witness last year, when 185 House Democrats and 47 Senate Democrats backed a funding bill that banned Pride flags flying over embassies. Joe Biden signed it rather than see his last year in office include a first lapse in government functionality heading into a presidential campaign. Republicans are betting that same sober approach—suck it up on imperfect bills in service of keeping the doors open at federal offices—would prevail again. But unlike the Democrats’ help during the Biden era, there’s no telling if Trump even wants to maintain any of the tools of government. Given his ongoing assault on the government he leads, and serious questions about whether Trump would even heed the spending plan they send him and he signs, the state of play in Washington over the next month has rarely looked this muddled. It’s why anyone who relies on government for anything should have March 14 circled in Sharpie, like the one Trump might ultimately use to sign legislation to avoid the lights going dark.

Hamida organized rural women's health clinics and a network of midwives. Mohammad guarded detainees for the U.S. Army. Hekmatullah's brother worked on U.S. government projects. Suhrab's father was a high-level judge who presided over sensitive cases. Kheyal trained fieldworkers for an international aid organization. All of them fled Afghanistan with their families for Pakistan, sometime after the messy withdrawal of the U.S. military in 2021. They worked their way through the lengthy process of legally entering the United States as refugees. Several of them had plane tickets to America. Now they are stuck. One of the first things President Donald Trump did when he arrived in office was to suspend the Refugee Admissions Program for 90 days. This effectively meant all work stopped on processing the paperwork of people fleeing to the U.S. because of persecution. One refugee agency told TIME that more than 500 flights for more than 1,000 already vetted refugees from the region were canceled. Shortly after the Executive Order was signed, the government of Pakistan, which says it houses some 1.5 million refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan (some of whom arrived during the Soviet occupation ), announced that Afghan residents who could not find a country to take them had to leave Rawalpindi and Islamabad—the cities where most of them live because they have access to the internet and government and aid offices—by March 31. After that time they will be repatriated. According to according to Shawn VanDiver, founder of #AfghanEvac,a coalition of veterans and other groups working in the region, 15,000 or so Pakistan-based Afghan refugees were approved as ready to travel. They are now at a terrifying impasse. They cannot push forward, nor can they pull back. Their cases will not progress until at least April 25, and possibly never. They will be even more unwelcome in Pakistan beyond March 31 and nothing but poverty and jeopardy await them in Afghanistan, where recent returnees are viewed with deep suspicion or worse. One refugee says he was warned of "unknown armed men" killing returnees. "The only armed men in Afghanistan are Taliban," he adds. TIME talked to several people who were stranded by the pause, and agreed to use only one of their or their relatives' names to prevent reprisals by the Afghan authorities or discovery by the Pakistani authorities. Hamida was due to fly to Doha and then Pennsylvania on Feb. 3, with her husband and young child. On Jan. 25, she got an email from her contact at the International Organization for Migration informing her that she would not be traveling. She had left Afghanistan on the pleading of her father-in-law, who said he had been told by the local authorities that her prior work with maternal-health NGOs would mean her presence at their compound could endanger the whole family. She is terrified of returning. Once they figure out who she is, she says, "I'm 100% sure I won't be alive more than a week there." She currently lives in a one-room home. The 30-month visa process, during which her claim to refugee status was vetted and approved, has depleted their savings. To avoid being picked up by Pakistani police, they lock the door of their one-room apartment and stay hidden for most of the day. Her husband no longer goes to the laboring jobs he used to do. Their child rarely goes outside. They shop for groceries at night. Now the former project manager with a staff of 60 supports her family doing at-home tailoring work. "We will try to survive here if we can," she says. "I don't know what we will do, but I'm sure we will not go to Afghanistan." In many ways Hekmatullah's brother is luckier than Hamida. Hekmatullah arrived in the U.S. a year ago on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), which is given to those who served alongside the U.S. Army. (This program is also currently not operating.) He can support his brother financially. But in other ways he's in the same boat. Hekmatullah was told to expect his brother to arrive in Missouri on Feb. 5, but on Jan. 25 he got an email from his local refugee resettlement agency saying the trip had been canceled. His brother, who worked for several American NGOs during the conflict is now on the move, staying at different rentals and friends' homes every few nights to avoid being caught and sent back to Afghanistan. "The Pakistan government is searching for the Afghan refugees everywhere in Pakistan to arrest them and deport them to their country," says Hekmatullah. "But in Afghanistan, you're not getting deported. They will arrest you." (The Pakistani embassy did not answer questions sent via email.) Kheyal's family completed the paperwork and their travel documents were requested in December. He, his wife, and children were expecting their flight details any day. "Until 20 January, we were really hopeful every day," he says. They are surviving on savings from his previous job, which he quit partly because he was expecting to move to the U.S. Recently the Pakistani government started requiring monthly rather than six-month extensions on visas. Each one, with what might euphemistically be called "handling fees," costs $200. The police visit his apartment building frequently. It is 3 a.m. where he is when he speaks to TIME, but Kheyal says nobody in his house is sleeping. "Once we heard that the process is suspended, then we cannot sleep, we cannot eat," he says. "My children are depressed. They have access to social media. They hear everything. I cannot hide anything from them." He's hoping to wait out the pause in Pakistan. Suhrab's family cannot wait. His father was a judge who had to hide in relatives' homes when the Taliban took power, as people he sentenced came to take revenge. The judge and his family arrived in Pakistan in January 2022. Their resettlement was being handled by Welcome Corps, a Biden-era program in which a group of U.S. citizens—in this case, a church in East Tennessee—can sponsor a refugee. That program is suspended. From the safety of the west, Suhrab sometimes works double shifts to support them. His brother, who has also left the region, sends money too. The family and the church group in Tennessee are looking for another country to take them, although very few nations give visas to Afghan passport holders. "I'm super scared," says Suhrab, sitting in his car during a lunch break at work. "What if they catch them and they force them to get out from Pakistan? I don't know what will happen to them." The church group is also taken aback. "It does surprise me that our American government is doing that, especially against refugees," says Melva McGinnis, who coordinated the Welcome Corps program at the church, which has previously sponsored another Afghan family. "The previous government—it was like anyone and their brother can come in, legal or illegal. It isn't fair that people that are trying to come to the States the legal way shouldn't be allowed to come. I think they should." President Trump's move was not unexpected, however. He massively reduced the number of refugees allowed into the country last time he was in office, even before the arrival of COVID-19-related restrictions. Generally surveys show a wide swath of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum support America accepting refugees, and even higher numbers support accepting refugees from Afghanistan who were allied to the American cause. Under President Biden, the number of refugees admitted per year went from a historic low of 11,400 in 2021 to a 30-year high of more than 100,000 in 2024—although the total number during his term is dwarfed by how many refugees were admitted by both President Carter (375,000) and President Reagan (660,000 over two terms). More surprising perhaps is the abandonment of Afghan military personnel who fought alongside the U.S. forces. Mohammad helped guard detainees at a U.S. air base. He has gone through the process of applying to come to America twice. After waiting 18 months for his SIV, he also applied for a refugee visa, but the processing was not finished before the three-month pause began. He, his wife, two brothers, and sister-in-law are living in a shack in a slum. "My situation is no good," he says. "We have no money for food or medicine." He and his family eat once a day, with help from sympathetic locals. VanDiver, of #AfghanEvac, says his bipartisan group is reaching out to Republicans in Congress to see if a carve-out can be made for already-approved refugees stranded in Pakistan or Afghanistan, which he estimates at about 65,000 people, including 50,000 still in Afghanistan. "We have a broad cross section of America that's represented in our ecosystem," he says. "Ninety percent of the American public supports this effort. It is not something that is unpopular." Eric Lebo, a former Navy Reservist, served with Mohammed at the air base. "We couldn't do our job if it wasn't for him and his soldiers," says Lebo, now a truck driver in California. "There's all kinds of refugee and immigration stuff going on," he adds. "But I mean, people like Mohammed are soldiers who served alongside the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Their lives are in danger." Mohammed's brother and parents still live in Afghanistan. Recently, he says—and texts a gruesome photo—his brother was shot in the face. Mohammed thinks the assailants mistook his brother for him.

The State Department was planning to buy $400 million worth of “Armored Tesla” later this year, according to its 2025 procurement forecast, a document outlining projections of anticipated contracts, which was published in December. But after reports emerged on Wednesday of the potential for conflict of interest given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s prominent role in the Trump Administration, the document was updated, removing mention of Tesla and changing the line item to “Armored Electric Vehicles” instead. As of late Wednesday, both versions of the 2025 procurement forecast remained available on different State Department webpages. The earlier version that mentions Tesla also lists the planned procurement under NAICS Code 311999, an industry code for miscellaneous food manufacturing, while the newer version, which says it was modified at 9:12 p.m., Feb. 12, lists the revised “Armored Electric Vehicles” procurement under NAICS Code 561613 for “Armored Car Services.” No other changes were made in the document, which contains 319 other line items. The State Department website says it issues annual procurement forecasts pursuant to the Business Opportunity Development Reform Act of 1988, which “requires agencies to compile and make available projections of contracting opportunities small and small disadvantaged firms may be able to perform.” It is meant to give “small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, HUBZone small businesses, and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses” opportunities to compete for direct contracts with the government or subcontracting opportunities. In response to questions about the change and whether Tesla remains the intended awardee for a contract that is anticipated, according to the procurement forecast, to be awarded on Sept. 30, a State Department official tells TIME that no government contract has been awarded to Tesla or any other vehicle manufacturer to produce armored electric vehicles for the Department, but the previous administration did ask the Department to explore interest from private companies to produce armored electric vehicles. The Department then did a public Request for Information, the official said, for an armored electric vehicle to solicit interest and received interest from only one company at that time. As a next step in that process, an official solicitation would be sent out to vehicle manufacturers to bid, the official said, but the solicitation is on hold and there are no current plans to issue it. Musk, who leads the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that has begun to wield influence across a number of agencies’ budgets and who also owns and runs multiple companies that have significant interests in federal regulations and government contracts, including Tesla and SpaceX, responded to questions about potential for conflicts of interest on Tuesday during an appearance at the White House, insisting that DOGE is transparent about its actions. “Transparency is what builds trust,” he said, citing DOGE’s account on X. “You can see: Am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not? … I fully expect to be scrutinized.” Trump suggested there would be some oversight of Musk: “If we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest,” he said Tuesday in the Oval Office beside Musk, “we would not let him do that segment or look in that area.” However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously suggested that the President is OK with Musk self-policing, saying: “If Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.” Drop Site first reported on Tesla appearing in the State Department’s 2025 procurement forecast, while Bloomberg first reported on the updated forecast.

There’s nothing like the drama of a deadline. But when President Donald Trump told Hamas it had until Saturday afternoon to release all of the Israeli hostages or “all hell is going to break loose,” he escalated the stakes of a fragile truce: Either Hamas can accelerate the terms of the ceasefire agreement—freeing dozens of captives now rather than in stages—or Israel can resume pummeling the Gaza Strip in a conflict that has already claimed more than 47,000 lives. For Trump, it’s a tactic he outlined in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal: Always be willing to walk away. “The strategy is simple,” says a senior White House official. “Hamas made commitments. They're playing games, and the President was very clear that the burden is on them to keep this thing on track. If they don't, then there's repercussions.” Sources close to Trump say that he’s making a calculation: He thinks he can force Hamas into making more concessions by leveling a full-bore threat. If it works, his aides say, the President will be able to claim an early win in his second-term stewardship of U.S. foreign policy. If it doesn’t, critics counter, it could lead to more death and destruction in the already devastated coastal enclave. “We have a Mexican standoff here that could easily end badly,” says Aaron David Miller, a veteran diplomat. Already, Trump’s threat seems to have moved Hamas. On Thursday, the terrorist group said it would return to releasing Israeli hostages “according to the specified timetable.” It’s not clear whether that will satisfy Trump, who has said he wants an end to the drawn out process. Israel has also not yet responded to Hamas’ offer. So far, Hamas has freed 16 of the 33 Israeli hostages slated to be released in the first phase of the deal struck in January. Israel, for its part, has released more than 600 Palestinian prisoners. Roughly 60 more hostages—some of whom are believed to be dead—are scheduled to be released later this spring. But Hamas threatened to blow up the whole arrangement when it announced on Monday that it was indefinitely suspending the release of any more hostages, alleging “Israeli violations” of the pact. The declaration from Hamas, which is slated to release three more hostages this week under the deal, came nearly a week after Trump shocked the world by saying the U.S. planned to take over Gaza and permanently displace two million Palestinians so he could transform it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Shortly after the Hamas communiqué, Trump issued his ultimatum and reiterated his desire to rebuild the territory into an oceanfront tourist destination. “They either have them out by Saturday at 12 p.m. or all bets are off,” he said in the Oval Office, sitting next to a visibly uncomfortable King Abdullah II of Jordan. “We will have Gaza. It’s a war-torn area. We’re going to take it.” Echoing Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued his own warning Tuesday, saying that “intense fighting” would resume in Gaza if the hostages are not returned by Saturday. Yet he notably did not say Hamas had to free every one of the captives. To that end, some analysts suspect the two sides may reach a compromise before the weekend. Miller, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that Hamas has little incentive to accede to Trump’s maximalist demand. “Hamas has one card left, and that's the hostages,” Miller says. “They'll hold as many of them as long as they possibly can. It's their only leverage.” For that reason, the Islamist group may see an off-ramp in releasing nine of the living hostages slated to be released in Phase 1, he adds, rather than the three due on Saturday. “If Hamas releases the nine, bingo, it's a win for everybody,” says Miller. For Trump’s national security team, the images of the three Israelis let free on Saturday only intensified the push to get the rest back quicker; the three male hostages who returned to their homes were emaciated and showed myriad signs of having survived 490 days of torture. “I think the condition that the last three were in exacerbated this,” says a Trump official. The prospect of renewed hostilities in the wake of Trump’s pronouncement has left Netanyahu’s circle with the impression they will be given carte blanche in how they attack Gaza. That would mark a sea change from the pressure exerted by the Biden Administration to scale back Israel’s incursion and limit humanitarian costs. “The big difference today is we don’t have the Americans limiting us. We have a total green light from the American administration,” says an Israeli official. “If we go back to fighting in Gaza, you are going to see very, very tough pictures coming out of there.” Trump’s ultimatum comes as he seeks to radically remake the map of the Middle East: He said last week he wouldn’t deploy American troops to oust Hamas from Gaza, but that the U.S. would enter the coastal strip after Israel completes its military operation to begin a lengthy process of reconstructing the beleaguered strip. He said America would gain an “ownership position” of the land. And he clarified this week that Palestinians would not have the right to return to their homes, predicting Jordan and Egypt would accept most of them. Few Middle East experts see Trump’s proposal as feasible. Arab states recoil at the notion of forcibly displacing Gazans and fear the destabilizing potential of absorbing Palestinian refugees. International humanitarian groups have said it would amount to ethnic cleansing. But for some in Israel, the outlandish idea is picking up steam. “Trump’s plan is so left field, so out of the usual discourse, that even the opposition here is saying okay,” says an Israeli lawmaker outside the Netanyahu coalition. “If Trump wants to try something, let’s try it.” A sign of momentum, they say, was King Abdullah II agreeing to accept two thousand sick Palestinian children after Trump threatened to cut off aid to Jordan and Egypt. “We are already starting to see cracks,” says the Israeli official, who also points to Trump, as President-elect, threatening Hamas similarly before it agreed to the January ceasefire. Others are less optimistic. They see it as Jordan’s way of placating Trump while accepting only a tiny fraction of the millions of civilians trapped in Gaza. At the same time, Egypt’s President, Fattah al-Sisi, postponed a planned visit to the White House out of concern for the optics of appearing alongside Trump as he’s pushing an idea that is anathema to the Egyptian population. But the real test for what unfolds next may be on Saturday—whether Hamas tries to stave off another armed confrontation or risk the fallout. “This weekend is a very simple inflection point for them,” says the White House official. “They can get back on track with the commitments they've made, or face a whole new round of consequences.”

You don't often hear politicians concede their mistakes, but that's the pill I'll swallow today, February 13, as a witness before the same foreign affairs congressional panel under which I was previously a subcommittee chair from 2017-2019. I first came to Congress more than a decade ago to shock the system—a mandate to find and eliminate every possible cent of government excess that failed to deliver value to the economic and national security of the United States. At the very top of my list was foreign aid, which I considered a reckless extravagance that blew precious American tax dollars on vanity projects. I was wrong. It was only after my first foreign congressional delegation trips to Africa and Latin America that I understood that foreign assistance, when structured and deployed correctly, is a uniquely powerful soft diplomacy tool to strengthen the nation's economy and national security. In fact, America’s interests are undermined when aid is poorly contrived and not rigorously evaluated. Through my oversight of international assistance on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as the Co-Chair of the Aid Effectiveness Caucus, I eventually came to understand that thoughtfully designed and carefully supervised foreign aid advances U.S. interests by projecting American leadership in a sometimes fractured world, broadening and deepening political alliances and bilateral trade, and countering the influence of our adversaries and other malign actors who mean to do us harm. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that all future international assistance must make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. Most Americans would agree with that commonsense instinct. But as the Trump administration undertakes its foreign aid assessment under its wing, only two questions really matter: Does a program align with U.S. economic, national security, and foreign policy priorities? And can it demonstrate efficient values for American tax dollars? In cases where either answer is no, it’s important to identify more effective stewardship that makes America stronger and safer.

For a long time, Misty Castaneda had terrible credit. Even though she had health insurance, the hair stylist from Colorado owed a hospital around $20,000 for a $200,000 open-heart surgery in 2010 that had been necessary to keep her alive, she says. Castaneda’s credit was so bad that she stayed in a bad relationship for more than a decade, she says, because she knew that without her husband’s credit score, she wouldn’t be able to rent an apartment, buy a car, or take out a credit card. So when she recently heard that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had finalized a rule that would keep medical debt off personal credit reports, she knew she had to advocate on behalf of it. “It would just open the doors for so many people like me,” says Castaneda, now 47 and divorced. Although the rule keeping medical debt off credit reports was finalized on Jan. 7, it may be on the chopping block as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) turns its sights to the CFPB. It’s not clear what powers the bureau will retain after Musk and his allies in the Trump Administration are through with it. Trump has fired the CFPB’s director. Its acting replacement, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, ordered all employees to stop work earlier this week, effectively suspending much of the bureau’s bread-and-butter activities. In an email, employees were told to not approve or issue rules or guidance and that they should suspend the effective date of rules that had not yet become effective, which includes the medical debt rule. Employees were also told to cease any pending investigations and not issue any public communications of any type. Vought said on X on Feb. 8 that he would be notifying the Federal Reserve that the CFPB would not be taking its next funding draw “because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties.” “The CFPB was established to take the side of ordinary people when Wall Street banks and big corporations rip you off, when they tank your credit report, when they push you into foreclosure,” says Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit that works on behalf of low-income consumers. “Getting rid of the CFPB will just let Wall Street banks and corporate predators run amok.” The White House and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment. What the CFPB does The CFPB, which was created in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis, has three key assignments: it supervises banks and financial institutions, writes rules that protect consumers, and enforces the law. But there are other functions it performs that no other agency can or would do if it were eliminated, consumer advocates say. The CFPB employs bank supervisors around the U.S., who go into financial institutions periodically to check books and prevent problems from occurring. It enforces 18 consumer financial laws that Congress transferred to the agency when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which established the bureau. It runs a complaint database, to which consumers can submit reports of problems with certain companies. The agency has received nearly 7 million complaints from consumers since Dec. 2024. The CFP also prosecutes companies that it says fail to protect consumers. In December, it filed a lawsuit against the operator of Zelle and three of the nation’s largest banks for allegedly failing to safeguard consumers from fraud. In January, it sued the credit reporting agency Experian for allegedly failing to investigate consumer disputes. Perhaps most importantly, the CFPB writes rules to help consumers. It recently finalized a rule that would cap overdraft fees from banks, which the bureau said would add up to $5 billion in overdraft fee savings for consumers. In January it finalized the rule that would remove medical debt from people’s credit reports, which it said would remove $49 billion in medical bills from about 15 million Americans’ credit reports. These rules are the product of months or sometimes years of on-the-record discussion, to which anybody can submit comments and try to sway regulators. It’s possible the Trump Administration will try to move the responsibilities of the CFPB to another agency in its efforts to cut government spending. In a November post on X, Musk wrote, “delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.” But the CFPB was created precisely because the old system didn’t work, says Julie Margetta Morgan, the associate director of research, monitoring, and regulations at the CFPB in the Biden Administration. “Many of the responsibilities that CFPB had,” she adds, “came from the fact that these other agencies were not adequately protecting consumers.” How DOGE could neutralize the CFPB Some of the consumers who might be first affected by the Trump Administration’s moves to limit the CFPB’s power are those like Castaneda, who have medical debts ruining their credit scores, or those who say that banks have charged them too much on overdraft fees. That’s because the rules recently finalized by the CFPB are facing lawsuits from trade associations that the agency, under new leadership, may not defend against, says Rust. Instead of fighting the suits, the CFPB has instead asked for a pause in the proceedings and has reportedly instructed its lawyers not to make appearances in the matters. The effective date of the final rule on medical debt has now been postponed from March 7 to June 15. But the CFPB could drop its defense of the case before then. On Feb. 12, a group of nonprofit organizations filed a motion to intervene in the medical debt case so that they could continue to defend the rule. Even some consumers who support DOGE’s cost-cutting attempts are skeptical that the medical debt rule should go. Gloria Austin, a 67-year-old Chicago resident, says her credit score was hit by medical bills from when she contracted shingles—twice—in 2020, when she did not have health insurance. Austin supports efforts to cut back government spending, and says she believes there is a huge amount of fraud and waste that should be eliminated. She’s struggling under the burden of inflation and hopes that cost-cutting in government could lessen her expenses and taxes. But she also says the CFPB’s rule on medical debt would help consumers like her who are saddled with bills they can’t avoid. “It was either keep the lights on and buy groceries or pay my medical bills,” she says. Creditors have continued to hound Austin, she says. When she had to buy a car, the only loan she could get had an interest rate near 30%. “No medical debt should appear on a credit report,” she says. “People are struggling enough already.” In general, consumer advocates say they expect the new Administration to take a much less aggressive approach to holding companies accountable. It could try to drop lawsuits against companies like Experian, or stop looking for new enforcement efforts to bring. “I don’t have a lot of optimism that the CFPB is going to continue to prosecute enforcement actions,” says Saunders, of the NCLC. Already, visitors to the CFPB’s website, consumerfinance.gov, are greeted with a new error message: “404: Page not found.” An email from TIME to the CFPB’s press office was not returned. Not the first attack on the CFPB The CFPB has been under fire before. It was first envisioned by now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren, then a professor at Harvard, and created after President Obama proposed a financial agency to focus on consumer protection in the wake of banks’ role in the financial crisis. Many Republicans opposed the creation of the bureau, insisting it had burdensome regulations that would hamper consumers’ ability to access credit. When the CFPB opened its doors in 2011, it did not have a director because the U.S. Senate would not confirm President Obama’s appointee. (President Obama used a recess appointment to install Richard Cordray as the agency’s chief.) Some Republicans have been trying to get rid of the agency ever since. In 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill to abolish the CFPB. One of the biggest challenges to the agency came in a series of lawsuits opposing its statutory authority and funding structure that ultimately reached the Supreme Court. The CFPB emerged from the challenges intact, with one exception. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the CFPB’s director could be fired for cause. That allowed Trump to get rid of former director Rohit Chopra on Feb. 1. In 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the CFPB’s funding structure, saying it could draw money from the earnings of the Federal Reserve. But Vought appears disinclined to do so. “This spigot, long contributing to the CFPB’s unaccountability,” he wrote on X, “is now being turned off.”