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Following the news this week that under President Donald Trump, the federal deficit exploded to $779 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, the president said Wednesday that he would demand a five percent budget cut from each of his cabinet secretaries.
"The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
--Thom Hartmann, radio hostStressing that the administration would "continue with the tax cuts, because we have other tax cuts planned," Trump suggested the deficit was the result of spending on various programs at the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and other government agencies.
"It's not as tough as you think, and frankly there's a lot of fat in there," Trump told reporters.
The president's comments echoed those of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who explicitly blamed the rising deficit on social safety net spending on Tuesday.
The pro-Social Security group Social Security Works took Trump's remarks as a direct attack on the program as well as Medicare and Medicaid.
\u201cTranslation: Gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security\u201d— Social Security Works (@Social Security Works) 1539791640
As radio host Thom Hartmann warned Wednesday, "The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
The newest threat to safety net programs comes less than a year after the Republican Party pushed thru their $1.5 trillion tax plan, which offered an average $33,000 tax break to each of the wealthiest Americans and just $40 to the poorest, according to analysis by the Tax Policy Center.
Social Security Works President Nancy Altman seized on the GOP's attacks on programs that millions of people rely on as a call to arms for voters who care about protecting healthcare and incomes for the most vulnerable Americans.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing," Altman wrote at Common Dreams on Wednesday. "Right-wingers have opposed Social Security and Medicare ever since they were first created. But because these programs enjoy overwhelming support from the American people, including voters of all political affiliations, they do not normally talk about their plans for benefit cuts three weeks before an election. If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
In a video posted on Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delved into the history of Social Security, which despite strong support from Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, has come under attack by a GOP increasingly beholden to corporate interests in recent decades.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing...If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
--Nancy Altman, Social Security WorksEisenhower defended the program in a letter in 1954, predicting the assault President George W. Bush would wage on Social Security as well as Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and McConnell.
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history," Eisenhower wrote. "There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
During his 2016 campaign, the video notes, Trump promised voters he would not cut Social Security benefits.
But, the narrator says, "his party, with his backing, has spent the last two years doing everything they can to reach onto our pockets, steal our money, and give it to their pay masters on Wall Street. The problem is that that tiny, reactionary splinter group now controls the entire Republican Party."
\u201cDid you know we once had a Republican president who expanded Social Security? Maybe today's Republicans should listen to what he had to say about the program, instead of trying to destroy it.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1539795770
On Monday Sanders, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, also released a report on just four major Republican policies and actions which have caused the federal deficit to explode, and outlined programs that the GOP's spending could have strengthened if not for ballooning military spending and tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
"Instead of spending nearly $1 trillion on the military and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, the federal government could have paid for any of the following proposals--multiple times over for some--in Fiscal Year 2018 and still balanced the budget," Sanders wrote.
If Americans vote with the intention of protecting the social safety net, the report suggests, they could help usher in a government that would be more likely to "Provide high-quality early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten" (estimated cost: $140 billion) and "Eliminate child poverty by simply boosting the income of all families with children (and children who do not live with their families) over the poverty line" (estimated cost: $69 billion)--mere fractions of what Republicans have happily spent in recent years on the Pentagon and tax cuts.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Following the news this week that under President Donald Trump, the federal deficit exploded to $779 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, the president said Wednesday that he would demand a five percent budget cut from each of his cabinet secretaries.
"The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
--Thom Hartmann, radio hostStressing that the administration would "continue with the tax cuts, because we have other tax cuts planned," Trump suggested the deficit was the result of spending on various programs at the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and other government agencies.
"It's not as tough as you think, and frankly there's a lot of fat in there," Trump told reporters.
The president's comments echoed those of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who explicitly blamed the rising deficit on social safety net spending on Tuesday.
The pro-Social Security group Social Security Works took Trump's remarks as a direct attack on the program as well as Medicare and Medicaid.
\u201cTranslation: Gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security\u201d— Social Security Works (@Social Security Works) 1539791640
As radio host Thom Hartmann warned Wednesday, "The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
The newest threat to safety net programs comes less than a year after the Republican Party pushed thru their $1.5 trillion tax plan, which offered an average $33,000 tax break to each of the wealthiest Americans and just $40 to the poorest, according to analysis by the Tax Policy Center.
Social Security Works President Nancy Altman seized on the GOP's attacks on programs that millions of people rely on as a call to arms for voters who care about protecting healthcare and incomes for the most vulnerable Americans.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing," Altman wrote at Common Dreams on Wednesday. "Right-wingers have opposed Social Security and Medicare ever since they were first created. But because these programs enjoy overwhelming support from the American people, including voters of all political affiliations, they do not normally talk about their plans for benefit cuts three weeks before an election. If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
In a video posted on Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delved into the history of Social Security, which despite strong support from Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, has come under attack by a GOP increasingly beholden to corporate interests in recent decades.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing...If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
--Nancy Altman, Social Security WorksEisenhower defended the program in a letter in 1954, predicting the assault President George W. Bush would wage on Social Security as well as Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and McConnell.
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history," Eisenhower wrote. "There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
During his 2016 campaign, the video notes, Trump promised voters he would not cut Social Security benefits.
But, the narrator says, "his party, with his backing, has spent the last two years doing everything they can to reach onto our pockets, steal our money, and give it to their pay masters on Wall Street. The problem is that that tiny, reactionary splinter group now controls the entire Republican Party."
\u201cDid you know we once had a Republican president who expanded Social Security? Maybe today's Republicans should listen to what he had to say about the program, instead of trying to destroy it.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1539795770
On Monday Sanders, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, also released a report on just four major Republican policies and actions which have caused the federal deficit to explode, and outlined programs that the GOP's spending could have strengthened if not for ballooning military spending and tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
"Instead of spending nearly $1 trillion on the military and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, the federal government could have paid for any of the following proposals--multiple times over for some--in Fiscal Year 2018 and still balanced the budget," Sanders wrote.
If Americans vote with the intention of protecting the social safety net, the report suggests, they could help usher in a government that would be more likely to "Provide high-quality early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten" (estimated cost: $140 billion) and "Eliminate child poverty by simply boosting the income of all families with children (and children who do not live with their families) over the poverty line" (estimated cost: $69 billion)--mere fractions of what Republicans have happily spent in recent years on the Pentagon and tax cuts.
Following the news this week that under President Donald Trump, the federal deficit exploded to $779 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, the president said Wednesday that he would demand a five percent budget cut from each of his cabinet secretaries.
"The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
--Thom Hartmann, radio hostStressing that the administration would "continue with the tax cuts, because we have other tax cuts planned," Trump suggested the deficit was the result of spending on various programs at the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and other government agencies.
"It's not as tough as you think, and frankly there's a lot of fat in there," Trump told reporters.
The president's comments echoed those of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who explicitly blamed the rising deficit on social safety net spending on Tuesday.
The pro-Social Security group Social Security Works took Trump's remarks as a direct attack on the program as well as Medicare and Medicaid.
\u201cTranslation: Gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security\u201d— Social Security Works (@Social Security Works) 1539791640
As radio host Thom Hartmann warned Wednesday, "The billionaire fascists are coming for your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they're openly bragging about it."
The newest threat to safety net programs comes less than a year after the Republican Party pushed thru their $1.5 trillion tax plan, which offered an average $33,000 tax break to each of the wealthiest Americans and just $40 to the poorest, according to analysis by the Tax Policy Center.
Social Security Works President Nancy Altman seized on the GOP's attacks on programs that millions of people rely on as a call to arms for voters who care about protecting healthcare and incomes for the most vulnerable Americans.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing," Altman wrote at Common Dreams on Wednesday. "Right-wingers have opposed Social Security and Medicare ever since they were first created. But because these programs enjoy overwhelming support from the American people, including voters of all political affiliations, they do not normally talk about their plans for benefit cuts three weeks before an election. If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
In a video posted on Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delved into the history of Social Security, which despite strong support from Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, has come under attack by a GOP increasingly beholden to corporate interests in recent decades.
"The shocking part of McConnell's statement, and those made by other powerful Republicans, is not the content, but the timing...If this is how they are talking now, imagine how emboldened they will be if they ride out the blue wave and keep control of Congress!"
--Nancy Altman, Social Security WorksEisenhower defended the program in a letter in 1954, predicting the assault President George W. Bush would wage on Social Security as well as Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and McConnell.
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history," Eisenhower wrote. "There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
During his 2016 campaign, the video notes, Trump promised voters he would not cut Social Security benefits.
But, the narrator says, "his party, with his backing, has spent the last two years doing everything they can to reach onto our pockets, steal our money, and give it to their pay masters on Wall Street. The problem is that that tiny, reactionary splinter group now controls the entire Republican Party."
\u201cDid you know we once had a Republican president who expanded Social Security? Maybe today's Republicans should listen to what he had to say about the program, instead of trying to destroy it.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1539795770
On Monday Sanders, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, also released a report on just four major Republican policies and actions which have caused the federal deficit to explode, and outlined programs that the GOP's spending could have strengthened if not for ballooning military spending and tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
"Instead of spending nearly $1 trillion on the military and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, the federal government could have paid for any of the following proposals--multiple times over for some--in Fiscal Year 2018 and still balanced the budget," Sanders wrote.
If Americans vote with the intention of protecting the social safety net, the report suggests, they could help usher in a government that would be more likely to "Provide high-quality early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten" (estimated cost: $140 billion) and "Eliminate child poverty by simply boosting the income of all families with children (and children who do not live with their families) over the poverty line" (estimated cost: $69 billion)--mere fractions of what Republicans have happily spent in recent years on the Pentagon and tax cuts.
The president signaled an end to birthright citizenship and a prompt start to deportation raids as migrants at the southern border were barred from entering the U.S.
President Donald Trump had barely finished his inauguration speech Monday when his anti-immigration agenda's human impact became clear, with families at the U.S.-Mexico border learning their existing appointments with Customs and Border Protection had been cancelled after waiting months to speak with officials about applying for asylum.
Arelis R. Hernández of The Washington Post was among the journalists who shared the stories of devastated migrants on Monday, posting a video of one person who had been determined to enter the U.S. through a port of entry.
"Existing appointments are no longer valid," read a message on the CBP One app that was launched by the Biden administration, following Trump's inauguration speech in which he detailed several anti-immigration executive orders that he planned to sign immediately.
The app was rendered inoperable after Trump pledged to declare a "national emergency at the southern border" and said that "all illegal entry will immediately be halted," with administration officials beginning "the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came"—a reference to Trump's mass deportation plan that was a signature theme of his election campaign.
Ahead of Trump's inauguration, Pope Francis was among the faith leaders who condemned his anti-immigration agenda, saying he was praying that under the second Trump administration, Americans "will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination, or exclusion."
If Trump moves forward with his mass deportation plan, said the pope, "this will be a disgrace."
"That's not how things are resolved," said Pope Francis.
Trump's "border czar," Thomas Homan, who previously served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), attempted to backtrack on Saturday regarding details of an administration plan to launch immigration raids across Chicago just after Inauguration Day.
"ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one," Homan told the Post. "This is nationwide thing. We're not sweeping neighborhoods. We have a targeted enforcement plan."
But other incoming Trump officials, including Homan, have previously said that any of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are in the United States could be targeted as the administration begins enforcement immediately.
Homan said in December that—contrary to the hope expressed by Pope Francis ahead of the inaugural speech—the administration is planning to "set up a phone line for members of the public to alert immigration authorities to undocumented people in their communities."
Chris Thomas, an attorney with the law firm Holland & Hart, who has represented people and businesses swept up in immigration raids, told Forbes that the Trump administration is likely to target workplaces without providing any notice to business owners as a way of generating publicity.
"When the government encourages [informing authorities about undocumented people], we've seen people turning in ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, business competitors, and neighbors they don't like," Thomas told Forbes.
Trump said Monday that he plans to promptly end birthright citizenship via executive order, reinterpreting the 14th Amendment and excluding from its protections U.S.-born babies whose parents were born outside the country. Legal scholars have signaled such a move would be challenged in court.
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant rights group America's Voice, noted that Trump's "radical plan for mass deportations is not what the American people want, especially when they learn the details and see it unfold," citing polls from CNN and Fox News.
"Scores of business leaders in key industries are fearful that mass deportation will gut entire sectors of our economy and public schools are taking the dramatic step of preparing their classrooms and parking lots for raids by federal agents," said Cárdenas. "Much like we saw during his family separation policy, we expect backlash from Americans upon witnessing the harms of Trump's second-term immigration agenda, including on the American economy and our core values."
Ronnate Asirwatham, director of government relations for NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, said Trump's speech indicated that "in the coming days we will see an onslaught of executive orders, proclamations, and legislation that will attempt to criminalize our neighbors, family members, and friends."
"We will not let our community be divided in this way," said Asirwatham. "From doctors to grocery store workers, if our neighbors are ripped from our communities, we will be grieving their loss, absence, gifts, and contributions to our community and country. We refuse to stay silent as the state unnecessarily targets people, all the while pursuing policies that benefit only the ultrawealthy."
Joan F. Neal, interm executive director of NETWORK, said the group will "shed light on these heinous policies and hold our government accountable, with a vision of an inclusive, pluralistic democracy that welcomes those fleeing persecution, keeps families together, and supports an economy for all so that we can build a more just future."
"We will not remain silent," said Neal, "while our neighbors are harmed by cruel and vicious treatment."
"The victory of freeing Leonard Peltier is a symbol of our collective strength—and our resistance will never stop," vowed one Indigenous organizer.
Just minutes before leaving office, Joe Biden on Monday commuted the life prison sentence of Leonard Peltier, the elderly American Indian Movement activist who supporters say was framed for the murder of two federal agents during a 1975 reservation shootout.
"It's finally over, I'm going home," Peltier, who is 80 years old, said in a statement released by the Indigenous-led activist group NDN Collective. "I want to show the world I'm a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me."
While not the full pardon for which he and his defenders have long fought, the outgoing Democratic president's commutation will allow Peltier—who has been imprisoned for nearly a half-century—to "spend his remaining days in home confinement," according to Biden's statement, which was no longer posted on the White House website after Republican President Donald Trump took office Monday afternoon.
🚨BREAKING🚨 Leonard Peltier Granted Executive Clemency After 50 years of unjust incarceration and the tireless efforts of intergenerational grassroots organizing and advocacy, our elder and relative Leonard Peltier has been granted executive clemency.
[image or embed]
— NDN Collective ( @ndncollective.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 9:02 AM
"Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace laureates, former law enforcement officials (including the former U.S. attorney whose office oversaw Mr. Peltier's prosecution and appeal), dozens of lawmakers, and human rights organizations strongly support granting Mr. Peltier clemency, citing his advanced age, illnesses, his close ties to and leadership in the Native American community, and the substantial length of time he has already spent in prison," Biden explained.
Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary in U.S. history, said in a statement: "I am beyond words about the commutation of Leonard Peltier. His release from prison signifies a measure of justice that has long evaded so many Native Americans for so many decades. I am grateful that Leonard can now go home to his family. I applaud President Biden for this action and understanding what this means to Indian Country."
Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who last month led 34 U.S. lawmakers in a letter urging clemency for Peltier, said in a statement that "for too long, Mr. Peltier has been denied both justice and the pursuit of a full, healthy life at the hands of the U.S. government, but today, he is finally able to go home."
"President Biden's decision is not just the right, merciful, and decent one—it is a testament to Mr. Peltier's resilience and the unwavering support of the countless global leaders, Indigenous voices, civil rights and legal experts, and so many others who have advocated so tirelessly for his release," Grijalva added. "While there is still much work to be done to fix the system that allowed this wrong and so many others against Indian Country, especially as we face the coming years, let us today celebrate Mr. Peltier's return home."
NDN Collective founder and CEO Nick Tilsen said Monday that "Leonard Peltier's freedom today is the result of 50 years of intergenerational resistance, organizing, and advocacy."
"Leonard Peltier's liberation is our liberation—we will honor him by bringing him back to his homelands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by loved ones, healing, and reconnecting with his land and culture," Tilsen continued.
"Let Leonard's freedom be a reminder that the entire so-called United States is built on the stolen lands of Indigenous people—and that Indigenous people have successfully resisted every attempt to oppress, silence, and colonize us," Tilsen added. "The victory of freeing Leonard Peltier is a symbol of our collective strength—and our resistance will never stop."
Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O'Brien said that "President Biden was right to commute the life sentence of Indigenous elder and activist Leonard Peltier given the serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial."
While Peltier admits to having participated in the June 26, 1975 gunfight at the Oglala Sioux Reservation at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, he denies killing Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams.
As HuffPost senior political reporter Jennifer Bendery recapped Monday:
There was never evidence that Peltier committed a crime, and the U.S. government never did figure out who shot those agents. But federal officials needed someone to take the fall. The FBI had just lost two agents, and Peltier's co-defendants were all acquitted based on self-defense. So, Peltier became their guy.
His trial was rife with misconduct. The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into lying. Federal prosecutors hid evidence that exonerated Peltier. A juror acknowledged on the second day of the trial that she had "prejudice against Indians," but she was kept on anyway.
The government's case fell apart after these revelations, so it simply revised its charges against Peltier to "aiding and abetting" whoever did kill the agents—based entirely on the fact that he was one of dozens of people present when the shootout took place. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Joe Stuntz Killsright was also killed at Pine Ridge when a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs agent sniper shot him in the head after Coler and Williams were killed. Stuntz' death has never been investigated.
Some Indigenous activists welcomed Peltier's commutation while also remembering Annie Mae Pictou Aquash, an Mi'kmaq activist who was kidnapped and murdered at Pine Ridge in December 1975 by her fellow AIM members. Some of Aquash's defenders believe her killing to be an assassination ordered by AIM leaders who feared she was an FBI informant.
Before leaving office, Biden issued a flurry of eleventh-hour preemptive pardons meant to protect numerous relatives and government officials whom Trump and his allies have threatened with politically motivated legal action.
However, the outgoing president dashed the hopes of figures including Steven Donziger, Charles Littlejohn, and descendants of Ethel Rosenberg, who were
seeking last-minute pardons or commutations.
"Today marks the beginning of an administration dominated by billionaires and corporate interests."
Donald Trump was sworn in Monday as the 47th president of the United States with some of the richest people on the planet standing close behind him on the inaugural platform—a symbol of what observers described as the nation's slide toward oligarchy.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were granted "prime seats" at the event, positioned in front of many lawmakers and Trump Cabinet nominees. Amazon, Google, and Meta each donated $1 million to the president's inaugural fund, and Musk—the world's richest man—spent over $250 million backing the billionaire president's bid for a second White House term.
Tim Cook, Apple's billionaire CEO and a donor to the inauguration, was also in attendance at Monday's event, which was financed by Wall Street banks, tech giants, the pharmaceutical lobby, fossil fuel companies, crypto firms, and other corporate interests.
"Donald Trump's inauguration today is a coronation of our country's descent into oligarchy: billionaires and corporations spending hundreds of millions of dollars lining the pockets of another billionaire—now president—to usher in a presidency governed for and by the wealthy elite," Justice Democrats, a group that works to elect progressives to Congress, wrote in an email to supporters after Trump was sworn in.
"They're buying influence," the group continued. "And they can expect a massive return on their investment. Crypto is already seeing one with Trump promising an executive order handout to the Wall Street-backed Big Tech corporations on Day 1. Banks and developers are already winning out as Trump and Republicans put conditions on aid to desperate Americans who have lost their homes and need immediate disaster relief in California. This administration will be a boon for the already wealthy few and will be crushing to everyday people struggling to get by."
Nabil Ahmed, economic and racial justice director at Oxfam America, described a photo of Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, and Musk standing together on the inaugural platform as "a defining photo for the new Gilded Age."
Trump's inauguration, Ahmed added, "makes clearer than ever the triumph of oligarchy—one that isn't incidental but intrinsic to the politics and policies that we're seeing set out."
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk cheers as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after being sworn in on January 20, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump's second administration, which could be staffed by at least 13 billionaires, is expected to bring a fresh push for large-scale deregulation and another round of tax cuts for the rich and large corporations—a giveaway that's expected to be funded in part by cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other key programs.
"Today marks the beginning of an administration dominated by billionaires and corporate interests," Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) executive director David Kass said in a statement. "Unsurprisingly, a billionaire president and his top adviser—the wealthiest person on earth—will prioritize passing $5 trillion in new tax cuts benefiting themselves and their wealthy allies, all at the expense of everyday Americans."
"Let's be clear: The next four years will be a tremendous challenge," said Kass. "We are committed to fighting back against a second Trump Tax Scam because the first one helped to double billionaire wealth and exploded the deficit. ATF and its coalition members will stand on the front lines pushing back against these deeply harmful measures and fighting for a tax code and economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few."
Trump's return to the White House comes days after former President Joe Biden, in his farewell address to the nation, belatedly warned of the threat posed by "an oligarchy... of extreme wealth, power, and influence."
According to an Oxfam report released Monday, the world's billionaires saw their wealth surge by $2 trillion last year as progress against global poverty remained stagnant. The United States has more billionaires than any other country, and its campaign finance laws allow the ultra-wealthy to pump unlimited sums into elections.
"With the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the installation of his team of billionaires, we must prepare for an administration that's set to pour fuel on already extraordinary inequality," Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said Monday. "Our country and the world today are extremely unequal; for too long, big corporations and an ultra-wealthy few have rigged the system in their own favor, at the expense of ordinary families."
"The Trump-Musk inequality agenda is not the only threat we are facing around the world, as leaders seek to divide us and conflict and climate change increase the number, severity, and duration of humanitarian crises," Maxman added. "But together, we can and must continue our fight against inequality here in the United States and globally."