Senator Sanders transcipt
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to travel in many parts of our country. And I have been able to talk to folks in Nebraska, in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. And what I am hearing from in all of these states and in fact all over the country is that our nation right now faces enormous crises, unprecedented crises in the modern history of our country.
And how right now at this moment we respond to these crises will not only impact our lives, it will impact the lives of our kids and future generations. And in terms of climate change, the well-being of the entire planet.
And Mr. President, what I have to tell you is that the American people are angry at what is happening here in Washington, DC and they are prepared to stand up and fight back. In my view and what I have heard from many, many people is that they will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control our government, where the wealthiest person on Earth, Mr. Musk, is running all over Washington, DC slashing the Social Security Administration so that our elderly people today are finding it extremely difficult to access the benefits that they paid into.
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But we have had difficult moments before. And I am confident, from the bottom of my heart, that if we stand together, and we do not allow some right-wing extremists to divide us up by the color of our skin, or our religion, or where we were born, or our sexual orientation…
If we stand together, we can save this country. We can defeat oligarchy. We can defeat the movement toward authoritarianism. And in fact, we can create an economy and a government that works for all—not just a few.
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Conversation: US swing toward autocracy doesn’t have to be permanent – but swinging back to democracy requires vigilance, stamina and elections
The United States is no longer a democracy.At least, that’s the verdict of one nonprofit, the Center for Systemic Peace, which measures regime qualities of countries worldwide based on the competitiveness and integrity of their elections, limits to executive authority and other factors.
“The USA is no longer considered a democracy and lies at the cusp of autocracy,” the group’s 2025 report read.
It calls Donald Trump’s second inauguration following a raft of criminal indictments and convictions, combined with the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2024 granting of sweeping presidential immunity, a “presidential coup.”
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However, as long as a country has a robust opposition and elections that offer real opportunities for alternative parties to win office, the regime shift is not necessarily permanent.BBC Mundo: “En EE.UU. hoy existe el mismo riesgo a la libertad de expresión que el que hubo durante la caza de brujas anticomunista de los años 50”
Daily: A Building Wave: Democrats Flip PA Senate Seat Where Trump Won By 15
Could it be another sign of a blue wave rising? Democrats won a state Senate seat in Pennsylvania by flipping a district that Trump won by 15 points in November.
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Fifteen points is a big number. It is an even larger number when taking into account that the current administration has been in office for about two months.Forget a honeymoon period with Trump. The growing impression from voters is that they want an annulment.
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Popular Information: How the Social Security Administration is dodging a federal court order
The Trump administration has installed a DOGE operative as the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Social Security Administration (SSA) in an apparent effort to evade a federal court order blocking DOGE affiliates from accessing databases containing the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 25, 2025
On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and screams. They rushed out to the street to see what the trouble was. A fire had broken out in a garment factory on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square, and the blaze ripped through the lint in the air. The only way out was down the elevator, which had been abandoned at the base of its shaft, or through an exit to the roof. But the factory owner had locked the roof exit that day because, he later testified, he was worried some of his workers might steal some of the blouses they were making.
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Frances Perkins, and all those who worked with her, transformed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire into the heart of our nation’s basic social safety net.“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
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Atlantic: Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal
The administration has downplayed the importance of the text messages inadvertently sent to The Atlantic’s editor in chief.
On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, were both asked about the Signal chat, to which Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently invited by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group,” Gabbard told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
[From The Atlantic article: text messages sent to Jeffrey Goldberg]
[The Atlantic screenshots posted on Twitter]Dan Pfeiffer: Trump’s Most Outrageous Scandal Yet Is Actually Going Viral
The early data shows that people are paying attention the group chat heard around the world
Jennifer Rubin: The Signal is Flashing Red
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It is noteworthy that no one on the Signal chat thought to question its use, and that President in Name Only (PINO) Donald Trump—who declared Hillary Clinton unfit for office for a far less severe infraction of email protocol—would seek to minimize such an indiscretion. (“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump insisted.) How many chances does he get? What about every other participant on the thread?Jay Kuo: They Ought To Be Fired
But Trump officials are trying to shift the blame and change the narrative.
TNR: Team Trump Comes Up With Yet Another Excuse on War Plans Group Chat
Why can’t the Trump team get its story straight on this group chat disaster?
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“So your staffer did not put his contact information.… How did it end up in your phone?” asked Fox’s Laura Ingraham, referring to Goldberg’s contact information and adviser Mike Waltz’s phone.
[Waltz] “Well that’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Waltz replied.
[Ingraham] “But that’s a pretty big problem—”
[Waltz] “That’s why we’ve got the best technical minds, right?”
[Ingraham] “That’s disturbing.”
[Waltz] “I mean, I’m sure everybody out there has had a contact where it was … said one person and then a different phone number [came up],” Waltz replied.
[Ingraham] “But you’ve never talked to him before, so how’s {Goldberg’s} number on your phone?” pressed Ingraham, asking the most obvious question in all this.Borowitz Report: Kim Jong Un Demands to be Included in all Future Hegseth Group Chats
Daily Beast: Members of Signal War Group Chat Are Being Sued Over Bombshell Leak
Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, and more were listed as defendants in the lawsuit filed Tuesday.
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It alleges that the defendants failed “to meet their obligations under the Federal Records Act” by using Signal to communicate and plan “active military operations from March 11, 2025 through March 15, 2025.”Furthermore, the watchdog group argues that “Signal is not an authorized system for preserving federal records and does not comply with recordkeeping requirements” as messages on the app can be deleted.
FPWellman: DOD has deployed Signal on government devices overriding their own policy
A high level information security source inside the Department of Defense has informed me that a month ago they were ordered by political appointees to ignore information security regulations and install Signal on government phones for senior leaders.
This story likely confirms that Signal is a primary means of communications for Trump Administration senior leaders in direct violation of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act, and numerous national security regulations. It appears that much of our national security communications are vulnerable to foreign intelligence agencies to access at the highest levels of our government.
BBC: Three sensitive messages from Yemen strike Signal chat unpacked and explained
- Timetable for the attack
- A ‘missile guy’ hit at girlfriend’s home
- CIA activities in Yemen
BBC Mundo: “El desprecio hacia Europa en el chat del gabinete de Defensa de Trump horroriza a la Unión Europea”
Politico: Gabbard says Signal comes ‘pre-installed’ on government devices
The app had been largely banned on government-issued devices in the past.
MTN: The White House Still Claims Pete Hegseth’s Messages Weren’t “War Plans.” They Were.
Boing Boing: Tulsi Gabbard’s memory disorder worsens: “I don’t recall which country I was in” (video)
Der Spiegel: Private Daten und Passwörter hochrangiger US-Sicherheitspolitiker stehen im Netz
Donald Trump’s top security advisors discussed a military strike via Signal chat. SPIEGEL research now reveals that the problem is even bigger. Cell phone numbers of some of the participants [Hegseth, Waltz and Gabbard] can be found online.
“Most of the publicly accessible numbers and email addresses are likely still being used by those affected,” the report said. “Some are linked to profiles on Instagram and LinkedIn, among others. Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track traffic data were created with them. WhatsApp profiles, and in some cases even Signal accounts, can be found for the respective phone numbers. The research therefore reveals another serious security vulnerability in Washington that was previously unknown.”
The report also said that as recently as Wednesday, privately used and publicly searchable phone numbers of Gabbard and Waltz were still available online. Those numbers are linked to the Signal accounts used in “Signalgate.”
Hostile intelligence agencies could use the information to hack communications sent through those devices by using spyware, The report warned.
NY Times: The fallout from the leaked signal chat explained
NY Times: The Trump Administration Can’t Even Admit the Real Problem With the Signal Chat
It’s not been explained how or why senior government officials are using Signal, a publicly available messaging application, when the U.S. government spends millions of dollars on encrypted classified networks and information security. One after another, senior officials have publicly avoided serious responsibility for what occurred.
NY Times: Trump Administration Deflects Blame for Leak at Every Turn
President Trump and other officials have given shifting, varied, implausible and sometimes conflicting explanations for how highly sensitive military information was shared in a group chat.
American Conservative: The Signal Group Chat Reveals Confusion about Yemen Strikes
The military campaign against the Houthis likely won’t deter the group—and may boost its popularity.
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Liz Dye: Bondi demands Crockett apologize for aggravated mean to Elon
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What does the attorney general of the United States do all day? What is her actual job?Prior attorneys general dealt with serious national security issues. They managed the Justice Department and its 115,000 employees. They took pains to convey to the public that the DOJ was an independent, apolitical agency, dispensing justice without fear or favor.
This one goes on Fox and yells about Tesla.
Specifically, Attorney General Pam Bondi is threatening Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett for participating in protests of Elon Musk’s efforts to burn down the federal government.
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Prior AGs might have characterized their job as protecting everyone, not just owners of a specific brand of car. But prior presidents didn’t turn the White House lawn into a car dealership, so YMMV.
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AP: Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship
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The move, which is likely to face swift challenges because states have broad authority to set their own election rules, is consistent with Trump’s long history of railing against election processes. He often claims elections are being rigged, even before the results are known, and has waged battles against certain voting methods since he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden and falsely blamed it on widespread fraud.Democracy Docket: Trump Anti-Voting Order Draws Furious Pushback
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“I genuinely believe that the Trump administration wants to cancel the 2026 elections so that he and his party can stay in power,” he said. “And we have to fight like hell against that by every means available.”
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Bulwark: Oops, DOGE Did It Again
Donald Trump ran a campaign on a commitment to “drill, baby, drill.” He promised to slash regulatory red-tape in order to ramp up American oil and gas production. And he’s stacked his administration with officials like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the former head of a Denver-based oilfield service company.But some in the oil industry have been unimpressed with the president’s actions so far. Even in parts of deep-red and oil-rich Oklahoma, there’s been disappointment.
That frustration is largely aimed at the slapdash approach of Trump’s and Elon Musk’s DOGE, and the uncertainty that their hurried attempt to shrink the federal government has injected into the oil industry.
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Bulwark: The Biggest Immigration Rally of 2025 is Coming. Will ICE Show Up?
TOP IMMIGRATION GROUPS ARE GEARING UP TO HOLD a major immigration march called Mega Marcha 2025, which would mark the most significant opposition to the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive deportation regime so far this year.
But they’re running into a problem. If they gather in serious numbers, there’s a distinct chance that ICE could show up.
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Bill McKibben: Affirmative Action Quotas–but for fracked gas
I think American history— which sadly includes slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration—means that we should be actively working to level the playing field between all Americans; as I said in my last book, I think there’s a strong argument for reparations. But you know who doesn’t think so? The government of the state of Texas, which in January put the official kibosh even on the watery set of practices doing business as “DEI.” The legislature has made it explicitly illegal to teach “the 1619 project” in the state’s schools. Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, has joined lawsuits against other states for supposedly engaging in affirmative action at their colleges; earlier this winter he was sticking his nose into Costco’s business, demanding that they end any consideration of diversity or equity or inclusion so that everyone could be “treated equally and with respect.”
So it might (or might not) surprise you to know that Texas Republicans are on the edge of instituting a quota system in the Lone Star state. Not to benefit minorities who have been discriminated against for generations, but to protect fossil fuels, which have been cosseted and subsidized from the jump. SB 388, already approved by the State Senate, would require utilities, electric coops, or generations installing a megawatt of solar, wind or battery power to also install a megawatt of “dispatchable” power, which the law defines to exclude batteries.
As the Texas energy analyst Doug Lewin explained last week,
it is the most heavy-handed, anti-market kind of legislation, requiring one megawatt of gas for every megawatt of wind, solar, and storage that gets built. Advocates of central planning are cheering that Texas may abandon its competitive market that has brought, as the Governor said in his State of the State Address, a 35% increase in power generation sources in the last four years.
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Daily Beast: Now Trump Is Talking About Handing Cash to Jan. 6 Rioters
MOB MONEY
The MAGA supporters—some of whom attacked police officers—went to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically,” Trump said.
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Daily Beast: Mike Johnson Suggests ‘Eliminating’ Entire District Courts to Help Trump
NUCLEAR OPTION
The House Speaker argued that “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Congress has the power to eliminate entire district courts on Tuesday, joining a chorus of Republicans growing increasingly frustrated with federal courts blocking the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to overhaul the government.
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CNN: Florida debates lifting some child labor laws to fill jobs vacated by undocumented immigrants
Florida has been working for years to crack down on employers that hire undocumented immigrants. But that presented a problem for businesses in the state that are desperate for workers to fill low-wage and often undesirable jobs.
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state legislature have a potential solution: children.
The state’s legislature on Tuesday advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws, allowing children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts. If the new law is passed, teenagers would be able to work overnight jobs on school days. They are currently prevented from working earlier than 6:30 am or later than 11 pm per state law.
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NBC: She helped veterans in crisis. DOGE cuts eliminated her job.
For years, a small office suite tucked into a nondescript strip mall has provided a lifeline for veterans with mental health issues. It’s one of hundreds of tiny centers across the United States designed to act as a refuge for veterans in crisis.
But last month, the office manager, a Marine veteran with a glowing performance review, was fired as part of sweeping cuts across the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The manager, Carla Nelson, was the person who greeted every veteran at the front door. She was the one whose voice they heard when they called in seeking help.
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USA Today: DOGE staffer, Edward Coristine, provided tech support to cybercrime ring, records show
The best-known member of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.
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Bulwark: The NIH Moves to Stop Studying Vaccine Skepticism
IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBT THAT THE Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are going after vaccines, a confidential internal document should put those questions to rest.A March 25 memo from the National Institutes of Health provides officials at the agency with instructions on how to terminate certain grants. An appendix in the document lists several types of studies that would be subject to termination, and includes “vaccine hesitancy” among the “examples for research activities that NIH no longer supports.”
“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment,” the document states, as a suggestion of language officials should use when terminating the grants. “NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life.”
The other studies subject to termination are those related to China, COVID-19, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), and transgender issues.
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CNBC: Tax revenue collected by the IRS set to plummet, report says
Officials said the prediction is directly linked to shifting taxpayer behavior and President Donald Trump’s cuts at the IRS, the Post said.
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Wired: Mike Waltz Left His Venmo Friends List Public
A WIRED review shows national security adviser Mike Waltz, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and other top officials left sensitive information exposed via Venmo—until WIRED asked about it.
A Venmo account under the name “Michael Waltz,” carrying a profile photo of the national security adviser and connected to accounts bearing the names of people closely associated with him, was left open to the public until Wednesday afternoon. A WIRED analysis shows that the account revealed the names of hundreds of Waltz’s personal and professional associates, including journalists, military officers, lobbyists, and others—information a foreign intelligence service or other actors could exploit for any number of ends, experts say.
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Crooks & Liars: Ron Johnson Endorses Good Old What’s His Name
Sen Ron Johnson can’t remember Brad Schimel’s name but sure remembers the nearly $20 million that President Elmo had dumped on the guy.
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Texas Tribune: Lubbock health official says federal funding cuts will hurt efforts to contain measles outbreak
In Lubbock, federal grants helped hire workers to help with measles testing, vaccination to combat the outbreak that has spread to 15 counties.
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Boing Boing: Without Musk, know-nothing Trump falls flat on his face in news conference (video)
Without Elon Musk at his side, Donald Trump fell flat on his face at a press briefing today.
In fact, the befuddled president proved to be the most clueless commander-in-chief in U.S. history, knowing absolutely nothing about his administration’s recent national security breach that took place over a group chat — nor had he heard anything about the four missing U.S. Army soldiers in Lithuania whose submerged vehicle was found today.
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Nate Silver: America probably can’t have abundance. But we deserve a better government.
Our system is good at boosting economic growth — but not so abundant in other ways. A new book says progressives should stop excusing lousy government.
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Bulwark: Some Weird Alliances Are Breaking Out Among Democrats
