Week 9 saw President Trump attacking our country’s last line of defense against dictatorship as he ignored a court ruling and demanded the judge’s impeachment in his latest abuse of executive power and assault on America’s rule of law.
So far, more than a dozen judges have found that Trump’s many actions and directives are illegal. His effort to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways,” including the fact that USAID was created by Congress, a judge ruled. A judge found his attempt to ban transgender people from the military violated their equal protection rights under the Fifth Amendment. Another judge declared his firings of probationary employees at several federal agencies illegal.
With little resistance, the Trump administration officials like Vice President JD Vance have openly challenged judicial authority, declaring themselves above the law.
Week 9 also saw dictators around the world rejoicing Trump’s dismantling of Voice of America, which has long reported on civil rights violations and combatted authoritarian regimes’ disinformation. This is a self-inflicted blow to national security.
Indeed, a global democracy watchdog warns that the U.S., which is considered the world’s oldest modern democracy, could lose its democracy status by 2026.
“It seems clear that the actions the Trump administration is taking domestically amount to an ongoing attempt steering towards democratic breakdown,” the report’s authors explained in the opening section of their report.
“If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year's] data. If it continues like this, democracy [there] will not last another six months,” said Staffan Lindberg, head of the Varieties of Democracy project, run out of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.
Here’s a quick recap of Trump’s attacks in his 9th week in office and how these actions hurt federal workers and the American people they serve.
March 21: Trump announced the Small Business Administration (SBA) is going to handle student loans instead of the Education Department, which he plans to dismantle. On the same day, SBA announced it is cutting 43% of its workforce, or 2,700 jobs. This will affect businesses and homeowners across the country as SBA provides loan guarantees for small businesses as well as disaster recovery loans for businesses, homeowners, and renters.
March 21: Trump, who views violence against Elon Musk’s Tesla as domestic terrorism, threatened to send American citizens who are attacking Tesla to El Salvadorian prisons. He also claimed boycotting Tesla is illegal.
March 20: Trump issued an executive order to start the process of dismantling the Department of Education in a blatant attack on student’s access to education and civil rights protections. The public disagrees with the president’s action. In a recent Wall Street Journal poll, more than 60% of voters said they are opposed to eliminating the department.
March 20: In another attack on our country’s veterans, Trump prohibited employees processing veterans’ benefits claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs from consulting with their attorneys about the claims to make sure they are following the law. This will slow down the process and delay benefits to veterans.
March 20: Trump’s order to cut staff handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests prompted Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia to rebuke the agency, request detailed info on staffing, and how it plans to comply with the law. FOIA ensures that the public has a right to access federal agency information and the administration is obligated to follow the law.
March 20: A French scientist who was coming to a conference in Houston was denied entry to the U.S. and expelled after customs officers searched his phone and found message exchanges with friends criticizing Trump’s science policies. European tourists also have been detained at U.S. borders for weeks before being allowed to fly home, sparking fear of traveling to the U.S. The incidents prompted the University of California, Los Angeles to caution their foreign-born students and staff not to leave the country for spring break as rules may change and affect their return.
March 19: A judge ordered Trump’s Bureau of Prisons to return two transgender women inmates back to federal women’s prisons after they had been transferred to men’s facilities as a result of Trump’s executive order attacking transgender people.
March 18: A judge ruled that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s shutting down of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) violated the Constitution. The judge’s preliminary injunction prohibited DOGE from making further cuts to the agency’s staff and contracts and from shutting down buildings, IT systems, and websites. He also ordered DOGE to reinstate access to email, payments, security measures, and other electronic systems for current USAID employees and contractors.
March 18: A judge blocked Trump from banning transgender troops from serving in the military, ruling that his executive action violates their constitutional rights.
March 18: More veterans are likely to lose their jobs as Trump’s Department of Defense announced plans to cut 50,000-60,000 civilian jobs. Veterans make up a quarter of the civilian workforce. These arbitrary cuts, along with the ongoing hiring freeze, mean that service members may have to fill these vacant positions, raising concern about our country’s military readiness.
March 18: Americans are not happy with Trump as his approval rating continues to sink.
March 18: A judge told the Trump administration that they have to return fired probationary employees to their old jobs and not place them on administrative leave.
March 18: In a rare rebuke to Trump, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the president’s call for impeaching a judge who ruled against his recent deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
March 17: As part of its DEI diversity purge, Trump’s Pentagon removed from its websites thousands of pages that have photos and stories celebrating contributions of women and minority service members, including the Navajo code talkers and Iwo Jima flag-raiser. Two days later, it restored some of the Native American pages after tribes condemned the action.
March 16: Trump put 1,300 Voice of America employees on leave and fired its 500 contractors as part of his plan to shut down the agency, paving the way for adversaries to have greater influence. AFGE filed a lawsuit against the administration March 21. Voice of America is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is one of the seven agencies Trump targeted for abolishing in his March 14 executive order. Other agencies are the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Museum and Library Services, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and Minority Business Development Agency.
