What Happened today - 19 May 2025
What Happened Today – 19 May 2025
Policy Moves and Power Plays
Immigration Crackdown
Who’s Running the Show
Who’s Pushing Back
Social Media Circus and Out-of-Pocket Moments
Who’s Making Headlines for the Wrong Reasons
Approval Ratings and Market Moves
What crazy things did Trump and friends say this weekend?
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Policy Moves and Power Plays
Trump’s big domestic policy “megabill” just cleared a major hurdle in the House Budget Committee after a weekend of arm-twisting. Fiscally conservative Republicans tried to block it, complaining it doesn’t cut enough from health and environmental programs and doesn’t do enough to address the ballooning national debt. Eventually, they switched to “present” votes, letting the bill advance without actually supporting it. Speaker Mike Johnson is hustling to get it to the House floor before Memorial Day, but the whole thing is still a mess of backroom deals and last-minute changes. The bill itself is classic Trump: more tax cuts, especially for tips and overtime pay, plus boosts for military and immigration enforcement, with deep cuts to Medicaid, education, and clean energy. The numbers don’t add up-$3.8 trillion in costs over a decade, with cuts that don’t come close to covering it. The hardliners are still grumbling, so expect more fireworks as this moves forward.
On the executive action front, Trump signed the “Take it Down Act” today, making it a crime to post or threaten to post nonconsensual explicit images or deepfakes online. This is one of the very few bipartisan wins for him this term, and Melania Trump got a rare shoutout for pushing it through. Still, it’s only the sixth bill he’s signed since taking office again, which is a record low for any president at this point since the 1950s.
Trump’s also been busy with executive orders: he’s pushing for “most-favored-nation” pricing for prescription drugs, more regulatory relief for domestic drug production, and new tariffs on imports. There’s a big crackdown on “sanctuary” cities, with threats to cut off all federal funds to any state or city that doesn’t play ball on immigration enforcement. He’s also ramping up law enforcement powers, promising more money for cops, longer sentences, and bigger prisons, while threatening to prosecute local officials who get in the way.
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Immigration Crackdown
If you thought Trump’s first term was tough on immigrants, his second term is going even harder. ICE is under orders to deport a million people a year-more than triple the record from his first term. They’ve set daily arrest quotas, expanded expedited removals nationwide, and are now picking up people at schools, hospitals, courthouses, and even churches. There are more “collateral” arrests, meaning family members and bystanders are getting swept up, and there have been multiple cases of U.S. citizens being mistakenly detained or deported.
ICE has made about 88,000 arrests already this year, and nine detainees have died in custody since January. Overcrowding and poor conditions in detention centers are drawing fire from lawmakers and advocates, who are calling it a human rights crisis. There was a major ICE operation in Nashville this month-almost 200 people arrested, less than half with any criminal record, and many shipped out of state with little transparency.
The administration’s “mistakes” keep piling up. Just last week, ICE admitted in court that they deported a Guatemalan man based on faulty information from their own tracking software. There are similar stories of people being wrongly labeled as gang members and deported to dangerous countries, sometimes in direct violation of court orders. The Supreme Court just stepped in to block another round of mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, saying Trump’s team wasn’t giving people a real chance to contest their “gang member” status.
And today, the Supreme Court gave Trump the green light to revoke Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Venezuelans, opening the door to mass deportations of people who had been shielded from removal due to the crisis in their home country.
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Who’s Running the Show
Trump’s Cabinet and inner circle are a mix of loyalists, hard-right ideologues, and a few wild cards. Marco Rubio is Secretary of State, Pete Hegseth is running Defense, and Matt Gaetz is up for Attorney General. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are heading a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” with Musk getting access to sensitive government payment systems-sparking a ton of outrage and legal challenges. Tom Homan, a former ICE boss, is now the “border czar,” overseeing the mass deportation machine. Lee Zeldin is running the EPA, focused on rolling back climate regulations.
A bunch of the architects of the Project 2025 playbook-basically a blueprint for gutting the federal government-are now in top administration roles, especially at the Office of Management and Budget. The goal is to slash agencies, cut federal funding, and push power out of Washington, all in the name of “efficiency.”
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Who’s Pushing Back
Inside the GOP, there’s grumbling from the fiscal hawks and some old-school conservatives, but most are falling in line or at least not openly rebelling. A handful of House Republicans tried to block the megabill, but in the end, they caved. Democrats are united in opposition, and the legal community is up in arms over Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and threatening federal workers. Judges have blocked several of his more extreme moves-like trying to end birthright citizenship and freezing almost all federal grant funding-but the administration keeps pushing the envelope.
Advocacy groups, unions, and state attorneys general are fighting Trump’s policies in court, especially on immigration, data privacy, and the dismantling of USAID and other agencies. But with the Supreme Court now giving Trump more leeway, the resistance is facing an uphill battle.
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Social Media Circus and Out-of-Pocket Moments
The White House social media team has gone full meme mode, ditching the usual formality for AI-generated images, viral jokes, and sometimes just plain weird or offensive content. There was a “Star Wars” post with Trump as a lightsaber-wielding hero, a deportation-themed Valentine’s Day poem, and a doctored image of Trump as the pope-posted right after the actual pope died, which drew outrage from Catholic leaders. They even posted a meme about “100 men vs. one gorilla” to hype up deportation numbers. Critics say it’s unprofessional and trivializes serious issues, but the administration insists it’s all about reaching people where they are.
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, keeps it combative in briefings. When asked about ICE arrests, she declared that anyone in the country illegally is a criminal, period, and dismissed concerns about due process or mistaken detentions. She’s also gone after the press for “lies” and “misinformation,” promising to call out any reporting the White House doesn’t like. When pressed about stripping security details from ex-officials like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo-despite real threats against them-she doubled down, saying taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for their protection.
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Who’s Making Headlines for the Wrong Reasons
- ICE leadership is under fire for deaths in custody, botched deportations, and a pattern of due process violations.
- The administration is being sued left and right for overreach, especially on executive orders targeting law firms, federal workers, and humanitarian aid.
- The social media team is catching heat for tasteless posts and meme warfare from official accounts.
- Former FBI Director James Comey is being investigated by the Secret Service for an Instagram post that Trump officials claim was a coded threat-though the evidence is flimsy at best.
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Approval Ratings and Market Moves
Trump’s approval rating is holding steady at 47%, with disapproval now at 48%-the first time his negatives have edged out his positives since returning to office. He’s still got his base, but independents and key demographics like women and Hispanic voters are turning away. His handling of immigration gets the highest marks (51% approval), but tariffs and trade policy are dragging him down (just 42% approval). The market has been volatile, with a recent rally after a U.S.-China tariff truce, but Moody’s just downgraded the U.S. credit rating due to rising debt and interest payments, so expect more turbulence ahead.
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What crazy things did Trump and friends say this weekend?
Trump went after big business again, threatening to slap a 100% tariff on Mattel after the company said it would need to raise toy prices because of his tariffs. He said from the Oval Office, “We’ll impose 100 tariff on toys, he won’t sell a single toy in the United States, which is their largest market. I wouldn’t want him as an executive for too long.” Not only is the threat wild, but the logic is off-Mattel’s CEO already pointed out that making toys in the U.S. isn’t realistic, and Trump’s own tariffs are what’s driving up prices, not “greedflation.” Trump also took a shot at Walmart on social media, ranting about their profits and blaming them for price hikes, even though Walmart’s business model is literally based on undercutting prices.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, held another “new media” briefing packed with pro-Trump influencers tossing her softball questions. One influencer actually thanked her for “English-speaking Uber drivers” in Florida, crediting Trump’s deportation policies for making her rideshare experience more pleasant. Another asked about “men masquerading as women in girls’ sports,” and Leavitt replied, “The president is unafraid, and he is inspired by competition,” which is just a word salad non-answer. When pressed about the long-promised release of Jeffrey Epstein files, Leavitt dodged again, saying she’d “check in” with the DOJ for a timeline, but offered nothing concrete.
The administration is still fuming over James Comey’s Instagram post with seashells spelling out “86 47.” Kristi Noem, now Secretary of Homeland Security, called it an assassination threat and said the Secret Service was investigating. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, went on Fox News and said Comey should be imprisoned for the post, even though “86” is old slang for “get rid of” and “47” refers to Trump as the 47th president. Comey deleted the post after the uproar and said he hadn’t thought about the numbers’ meaning.
Trump’s historical takes continue to be a mess. He recently said, “in 3, reasons unknown mankind, they instituted income tax that citizens rather than nations, would start funding our government.” It’s a jumbled, factually confused statement about the history of the income tax, and nobody can really make sense of it.
It’s obvious his inner circle is packed with loyalists and hardliners, and the administration is moving fast to reshape the government, the courts, and the immigration system. There’s pushback from the courts, the opposition, and even some Republicans, but for now, Trump’s got the momentum, and the circus shows no sign of leaving town.
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**These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.**