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Trump's Executive Order on Cryptocurrency Is a Dangerous Grift
On his fourth day as president, Donald Trump has signed an Executive Order (EO) to promote cryptocurrencies in the country, possibly towards a national digital asset stockpile. In response, Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Trump’s cryptocurrency executive order (EO) will help super-inflate what’s already a dangerous speculative bubble in an artificial, unregulated asset that will, eventually, burst. The inevitable crash will badly injure millions of everyday Americans. Elevating crypto also threatens broader financial markets with systemic risk. If Trump knows this – and he might, since he once mocked crypto – he doesn’t care.
“This pro-crypto policy is not happening because crypto is a magic currency (it’s not a currency at all), or that it is somehow part of a human liberation project, or because it undermines state power or for any philosophical, pro-innovation, economic advancement or pro-consumer reason.
“No, Trump is pushing crypto because he’s in on the racket. Trump himself has in recent days minted tens of billions, at least on paper, by launching a new cryptocurrency. And the crypto industry’s massive spending in the last election backed Trump and helped deliver the Ohio Senate seat to Republicans.
“This executive order should properly be titled, ‘Digital Financial Grift.’”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Trump Admin Reportedly Implements Widespread Freeze on Foreign Aid—Except to Israel and Egypt
"Guess which country was exempted…?" wrote the investigative outlet Drop Site News.
Jan 24, 2025
The State Department on Friday reportedly issued guidance that it is freezing almost all U.S. foreign assistance—with exceptions for emergency food aid and foreign military financing for two U.S. allies, Israel and Egypt—according to a cable obtained by multiple outlets.
"Guess which country was exempted....?" wrote the investigative outlet Drop Site, in response to the cable, which independent journalist Ken Klippenstein shared on social media.
The aid carve out for Israel follows 15 months of nearly unqualified U.S. support for the Israeli government during its military campaign on the Gaza Strip, which began after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, and led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the local health officials. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect on Sunday, but Israel has since then attacked the city of Jenin in the West Bank.
Other traditional U.S. allies, like Ukraine and Taiwan, are not listed among the waivers to the pause. Trump has been a longtime critic of NATO, which Ukraine hopes to join, and has been critical of the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine as it battles an invasion by Russia.
On Monday, his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order calling for a 90-day pause on U.S. foreign development assistance in order to assess "programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy." But this latest memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to embassies worldwide, further fleshes out that directive.
The U.S. "shall not provide foreign assistance funded by or through the department and USAID without the secretary of state's authorization or the authorization of his designee," according to the cable, which was referring to the United States Agency for International Development.
Additionally, "no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance until such times as the secretary shall determine, following a review" and "for existing foreign assistance awards, contracting officers and grant officers shall immediately issue stop-work orders."
Politico, which also obtained Rubio's memo, reported that "it had not been clear from the president's [Monday] order if it would affect already appropriated funds or Ukraine aid. The new guidance means no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the U.S. government, according to three current and two former officials familiar with the new guidance."
"State just totally went nuclear on foreign assistance," one State Department official toldPolitico.
In fiscal year 2023, the most recent year with complete government reporting, the U.S. spent $68 billion in foreign aid obligations, on topics ranging from economic development, to health and the environment. Ukraine was the top recipient of foreign aid that year, with $17 billion obligated, and Israel came in second, with $3.3 billion.
According to The Associated Press, which also obtained the cable, the order was particularly disappointing to humanitarian officials who hoped that health clinics and other health programs worldwide would be spared from the funding freeze.
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Violating Cease-Fire Deal, Israel Won't Withdraw Troops From Lebanon Before Deadline
"A renewal of hostilities would be a devastating blow for civilians still struggling to rebuild their lives," said one humanitarian worker.
Jan 24, 2025
The Trump administration on Friday called for a "short, temporary cease-fire extension" between Israel and Lebanon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country's troops will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon as it agreed to in a 60-day truce that began in late November.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, Israel agreed to withdraw its military from southern Lebanon by January 26, and the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah was required to move its forces north of the Litani River and dismantle all military infrastructure in the south.
Netanyahu's office claimed Friday that "the cease-fire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state" and said its "gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States."
Israel asserted that the truce allowed for the withdrawal process to "continue beyond 60 days—a claim the Lebanese government and Hezbollah refuted—and claimed the Lebanese army had allowed Hezbollah to regroup since the cease-fire began.
Hezbollah called Israel's plan to maintain a military presence in southern Lebanon past the deadline a "blatant violation of the agreement."
As Hezbollah warned it would consider the cease-fire null and void if Israel does not withdraw by January 26, White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said an extension of the deadline is "urgently needed."
Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Israel's "unilteral extension... is clearly a violation of the November cease-fire," while Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek noted that Israel "has been violating the cease-fire the entire time with zero international condemnation."
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said that while the cease-fire has significantly reduced casualties in Lebanon following 14 months of fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah, at least 29 civilians have been killed since the truce began.
"While the cease-fire seems intact on paper, civilians in Lebanon continued to be killed and their homes blown up by the Israeli military," said Maureen Philippon, Lebanon country director for the NRC.
Prior to the cease-fire deal in November, the conflict killed at least 3,823 people and injured 15,859, as well as displacing tens of thousands of people in Israel and over 1 million in Lebanon. More than 100,000 people in Lebanon have still been unable to return to their homes.
"We have been displaced from our village for 16 months," a Lebanese citizen named Rakad, who fled the border town of Yarine, told the NRC. "We are all waiting for the 27th to go back, kiss the soil of our land, and breathe the air of our village."
Israel's likely delay in withdrawing troops comes as Lebanese residents have begun returning to their villages in the south, but the Lebanese military on Friday called on civilians not to return to the coastal town of Naquora, which Mayor Abbas Awada told Al Jazeera "has become a disaster zone of a town."
"The bare necessities of life are absent here," said the mayor.
The NRC warned that the "continued presence of Israeli troops in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon severely restricts the freedom of movement and leaves many in a prolonged state of displacement."
Philippon called on regional and international mediators to "ensure this truce evolves into a lasting cease-fire, with a firm commitment to protecting all civilians and civilian infrastructure."
"A renewal of hostilities would be a devastating blow for civilians still struggling to rebuild their lives," said Philippon. "Lebanese villagers are still being warned against returning to their homes and lands, while many others don't even know what happened to the house they left months ago. These people will need all the stability and support they can get to get back on their feet after. Israel must withdraw from these villages so that thousands can go back."
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As Trump Nominees Back SNAP and Medicaid Work Requirements, Report Shows Harms
"They do not reliably increase employment, but they do kick people off essential benefits like food assistance and healthcare," said an expert at the Economic Policy Institute.
Jan 24, 2025
After nominees for U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet this week endorsed work requirements for social safety net programs, an economic think tank released a Friday report detailing the policy's drawbacks.
"Work requirements for safety net programs are a punitive solution that solves no real problem," said Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist and report author Hilary Wething in a statement about her new publication.
"They do not reliably increase employment, but they do kick people off essential benefits like food assistance and healthcare," she stressed. "If policymakers are genuinely concerned about improving access to work, they should support policies like affordable child- and eldercare."
"The existing safety net is too stingy and tilts too hard toward making benefits difficult to access."
EPI's report explains that recently, congressional Republicans—who now have a majority in both chambers—"have embraced proposals to ratchet up work requirements as conditions for the receipt of some federal government benefits. These proposals are clearly trying to exploit a vague, but pervasive, sense that some recipients of public support are gaming the system to get benefits that they do not need, as they could be earning money in the labor market to support themselves instead."
"However, a careful assessment of the current state of public benefit programs demonstrates that almost none of the alleged benefits of ratcheting up work requirements are economically significant, but that the potential costs of doing this could be large and fall on the most economically vulnerable," the document states. "The most targeted programs for more stringent work requirements are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, popularly referred to as food stamps) and Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people."
"EPI has surveyed the research literature on work requirements and how they interact with these two programs in particular, and we find that the existing safety net is too stingy and tilts too hard toward making benefits difficult to access," the report continues. "Tightening eligibility by increasing work requirements for these programs will make this problem even worse with no tangible benefit in the form of higher levels of employment among low-income adults."
Wething found that work requirements generally target nonelderly adults without documented disabilities who don't have official dependents living in their homes, formally called "able-bodied adults without dependents" (ABAWDs).
"While ABAWDs might not have documented disabilities that result in benefit receipt or have dependent children living at home full-time, they often experience health challenges and must take on some caregiving duties, each of which could provide a genuine barrier to finding steady work," the report says. "We find that 21% reported having a disability that affects their ability to find and sustain work, suggesting that adults with genuine health barriers are being swept up in overly stringent work requirements."
Additionally, "13.8% of ABAWDs live with an adult over the age of 65 in their household, suggesting that many are potential caregivers in some form and likely have caregiving responsibilities beyond what is captured on paper," the document notes. "Despite ABAWDs having health challenges and caregiving responsibilities that make participation in the labor market difficult, our current social safety net does very little to support these adults."
The publication highlights that "low-income adults generally face steep labor market challenges, making it difficult to meet work requirements," including that "low-wage work is precarious, making work time hard to maintain."
The report also emphasizes that "by making the process of applying for crucial safety net programs more burdensome, work requirements effectively function like a cut to programs," and "the consequences of losing access to SNAP and Medicaid for low-income adults are severe, often resulting in food and health insecurity."
Despite the abundance of research about the downsides of work requirements, Brooke Rollins, Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture—which administers SNAP—expressed support for the policy during a Thursday Senate confirmation hearing, echoing what Russell Vought, the president's pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget, said about Medicaid on Wednesday.
Rather than pushing work requirements, the EPI report argues, decision-makers could advocate for "policies that would measurably improve employment in low-income households," including "macroeconomic policy to maintain full employment."
The publication also promotes policies that increase scheduling predictability, provide better help with caregiving responsibilities, assist formerly incarcerated people with finding and maintaining jobs, reduce unnecessary education mandates for employment, and improve transportation options. It further calls for reducing existing work requirements.
"It is entirely possible that reducing eligibility barriers to safety net programs—barriers like work requirements—may well be more effective in promoting work than raising those barriers would be," the report states. "A majority of adults who gained coverage through Medicaid expansion in Ohio and Michigan found that having healthcare made it easier to find and maintain work."
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