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10:15 AM ET, January 29, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
NBC News:
Trump administration will offer all 2 million federal workers a buyout to resign  —  An email is set to go out to federal workers beginning Tuesday.  —  President Donald Trump's administration is set to offer every single federal worker the chance to take a “deferred resignation” …
RELATED:
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Elon Musk Lackeys Have Taken Over the Office of Personnel Management  —  Sources tell WIRED that the OPM's top layers of management now include individuals linked to xAI, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Palantir.  One expert found the takeover reminiscent of Stalin.
Axios:
Scoop: Trump offering buyouts to all federal workers, source says … We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office.  That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.
Don Moynihan / Can We Still Govern?:
Compelling Mass Civil Servant Resignations Will Create Chaos  —  Elon Musk's role at Twitter represents a Rorschach test for how people think he will fare in restructuring government.  For fans, he was able to cut the majority of the employees, and the site continued to run more or less as before.
Discussion: Townhall, ABC News and ClearanceJobs
Associated Press:
Trump offering federal workers buyouts with about 8 months' pay in effort to shrink government  —  The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it is offering buyouts to all federal employees who opt to leave their jobs by next week — an unprecedented move to shrink the U.S. government at breakneck speed.
Washington Post:
White House incentivizes federal workers to resign
Matthew Yglesias / Slow Boring:
Throw Biden under the bus  —  Sleepy Joe landed us in this mess with bad, selfish decisions  —  When Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of Kamala Harris, the overwhelming majority of Democrats praised him for the decision and painted an overall flattering portrait of Biden's presidency and his career.
RELATED:
Punchbowl News:
The best commute to Washington belongs to Jim Justice  —  Most days before the Senate starts its day, a privately-owned Cessna Citation V jet lands at Washington Reagan National Airport.  —  And most evenings, after the chamber is done with its business, the same jet takes off for Greenbrier Valley Airport in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Punchbowl News:   1/29/25 ☀️ AM:  —  Dems were in the dumps - until Trump helped them out
Shane Goldmacher / New York Times:   Powerless, Democrats Debate Just How Deep in the Wilderness They Are
Luke Broadwater / New York Times:
Trump's ‘Flood the Zone’ Strategy Leaves Opponents Gasping in Outrage
Discussion: Rolling Stone and Raw Story
Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
“Trump is trying to collapse our economy”: War on “woke” revealed as a war on all Americans  —  Christian nationalists behind the spending shutdown aim to punish everyone, not just imaginary Marxists  —  Initially, the most striking detail in the White House Office of Management and Budget memo …
RELATED:
Zack Beauchamp / Vox:
Trump is already acting like a king  —  Late on Monday night, the Trump administration sent out a stunning memo suspending all federal grants.  Chaos followed, with everything from veteran's charities facing financial ruin to reports of Medicaid portals shutting down across the country.
Popular Information:
New Trump memo claims authority to ignore Congress  —  On Monday, the Trump administration issued an extraordinary memo ordering federal agencies to indefinitely freeze the “disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.”  The freeze was scheduled to take effect at 5 PM on Tuesday …
The White House:
Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation  —  By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:  —  Section 1.  Policy and Purpose.  Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming …
RELATED:
New York Times:
Trump's Order on Transgender Troops Will Likely Ban Their Service, Again  —  In an executive order issued Monday night, the president said transgender service members “cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary” for the military.  —  Hours after President Trump signed …
Fox News:
Pentagon pulling Gen. Milley's security detail and clearance ‘immediately,’ may face demotion in retirement  —  EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is “immediately pulling” retired Gen. Mark Milley's personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News.
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Pete Hegseth takes action against Trump foe Mark Milley
Discussion: The Guardian
Anna Kutz / The Hill:
Lara Trump: Caroline Kennedy's comments on RFK Jr. ‘disgusting’  — Caroline Kennedy lambastes RFK Jr. in letter to senators  — She calls cousin a ‘predator’ who lacks relevant experience  — Lara Trump: Comments are ‘part of that political game’  —  Lara Trump responded …
Shawn McCreesh / New York Times:
White House Press Secretary Makes Steely and Unflinching Debut  —  Karoline Leavitt used her first briefing in the role to warn veteran reporters that they were increasingly irrelevant.  —  So much for respecting your elders.  —  Karoline Leavitt, the new White House press secretary …
RELATED:
David Corn / Mother Jones:
SCOOP: RFK Jr. Secretly Recorded Second Wife During Divorce and Acknowledged Being “Polygamous”  —  One recording might have violated state law.  It was part of a messy saga that ended with her suicide.  —  In the early 2010s, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went through a contentious divorce with his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy.
Brianne Pfannenstiel / Des Moines Register:
Iowa Democrats flip Senate seat in special election to cut into Republican majority  —  Iowa Democrats have flipped a state Senate seat vacated earlier this year by Chris Cournoyer, who resigned to become the state's new lieutenant governor.  —  Democrat Mike Zimmer has defeated Republican Kate Whittington …
Financial Times:
OpenAI says it has evidence China's DeepSeek used its model to train competitor  —  White House AI tsar David Sacks raises possibility of alleged intellectual property theft  —  OpenAI says it has found evidence that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek used the US company's proprietary models …
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
White House says Medicaid portal ‘will be back online shortly’ after Trump funding freeze blamed … Medicaid reimbursement portals were down Tuesday in every U.S. state on the heels of a funding freeze ordered by the Trump administration of federal grants and loans, Sen. Ron Wyden said.
RELATED:
Joan Westenberg / The Index:
Trump's PEPFAR Shutdown is White Supremacy in Action  —  The message is clear - these lives are expendable to an administration steeped in white supremacist ideology.  —  On Monday morning, a healthcare worker posted a final notice on the door of a small clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa …
Discussion: NPR
RELATED:
Politico:
‘It was leaked to us:’ Army in chaos over Trump orders  —  Confusion around the new administration's spending freezes and executive orders has caused disarray inside the Pentagon.  —  The Army rushed to satisfy President Donald Trump's executive orders this week, sparking so much confusion …
Politico:
How Trump's orbit used blunt force to squeeze Hegseth through  —  The aggressive posture, inspired by Trump, meant going after not only Democrats, the media and Hegseth's accusers — but also their own party.  —  Pete Hegseth seemed well on his way to becoming Trump's next Defense secretary …
STAT:
STAT+: Private emails show RFK Jr. making false claims about Covid-19 shots, linking vaccines to autism  —  On the eve of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearings, his physician niece has shared a trove of private emails in the hopes of derailing his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Discussion: New York Post
CNN:
Trump DOJ appointee in DC lashes out after flurry of ‘personally insulting’ leaks in his first week  —  The acting top federal prosecutor in Washington under President Donald Trump is furious about recent leaks to the press and also specifically directed staff to scrutinize a former official's work …
Discussion: Mediaite
Rachel Ulatowski / The Mary Sue:
'Biden's Book Ban Hoax': Department of Education claims book bans are a ‘hoax’ and dismisses all complaints  —  The fear that book bans would worsen under Donald Trump's presidency has become a reality.  The Department of Education announced it is dismissing book ban complaints as a hoax …
David R. Lurie / Public Notice:
Trump's chaos governance failed once.  He's trying it again.  —  He's breaking eggs while ignoring their price. … ✈️ ⛈️ 🚁  —  Pundits spent the past week expressing wonderment at how Donald Trump has lumbered back into the White House with a massive show of dominance and power.
Discussion: WisPolitics
Ashley Parker / The Atlantic:
You're So Vain, You Probably Think Kash Patel Hates You  —  How “see you in the gulag” became a D.C. power flex  —  These days in Washington, D.C., among a class of Extremely Beltway types—the name droppers, the strivers, the media gossips—Donald Trump's threats to exact revenge on his enemies …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Neetu Arnold / City Journal:
Federal Funding Shouldn't Be Going to Woke University Programs
Jonathan Cohn / HuffPost:
Trump Administration Scales Back Order To Stop Foreign Assistance
Evan McMorris-Santoro / NOTUS:
Trump's White House Is Flooding the Zone With Legal Tests
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
RFK Jr., Trump's Pick for Health Secretary, Faces First Senate Confirmation Hearing
New York Times:
Which Federal Programs Are Under Scrutiny? The Budget Office Named 2,600 of Them.
 Earlier Items: 
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
FCC chair says landlords can force bulk internet service on residents
Julia Ainsley / NBC News:
Trump administration may pull money from TSA, Coast Guard to help ICE afford costly deportations
Alan Feuer / New York Times:
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Is Sought for Charges of Soliciting Minor
Discussion: Tampa Bay Times and The Guardian
Daniel Barnes / NBC News:
D.C. federal judge temporarily blocks Trump plan to pause federal aid spending
Paul Krugman / The Contrarian:
Departing the New York Times
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Axios:
Sources: G/O Media sold business news brand Quartz and commerce site The Inventory to software firm Redbrick, the fourth Quartz ownership change in seven years

Fareed Sahloul / Bloomberg:
Sources: connected TV ad platform MNTN, which filed for a US IPO in late February, is among companies pausing listings as Trump's trade war upends the economy

Katie Campione / Deadline:
WGA members “overwhelmingly” ratify a new three-year deal with CBS News that includes AI protections and is modeled after a recent ABC News contract
 
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