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Politico
26 minutes ago
- Politico
Trump needles Powell at Fed campus
Presented by Chevron Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben President DONALD TRUMP toured the Federal Reserve campus today alongside the man he nominated as Fed chair in 2017 and now calls a 'numbskull.' Trump and Fed Chair JEROME POWELL, wearing matching white hard hats, inspected the $2.5 billion renovation that Trump has suggested is an example of Powell's mismanagement, and offered a few comments for the cameras. 'I'd love for him to lower interest rates,' Trump said as he patted Powell on the back. Powell stood, looking awkward, in silence. It was the latest escalation of a monthslong pressure campaign against the United States' independent central bank as Trump pummels Powell for refusing to lower interest rates. Trump, who claims the higher interest rates are costing American taxpayers $1 trillion a year in additional borrowing costs, has repeatedly called for Powell to step down and even drafted a letter to fire him. 'We would be helped if interest rates would come down, but we're going to see how the board rules on that soon,' Trump said. 'I'd love to see them come down a lot, but we have a country that's thriving.' Powell has said he expects to lower rates sometime later this year, but has held off as he and his fellow officials watch whether Trump's tariffs lead to significantly higher inflation. Trump's intensifying focus on Powell comes as the White House deals with the fallout surrounding JEFFREY EPSTEIN, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in prison six years ago, and an all-out revolt from some of Trump's biggest supporters on Capitol Hill. As that storyline has swirled, the president and his top aides have admonished the media and their own supporters for indulging in the scandal instead of paying attention to what they view as more important stories, including the nation's thriving economy, trade deals and the president's meetings with foreign leaders. Enter Renovationgate. The Fed is renovating its Washington headquarters for the first time since it was built nearly a century ago, a project approved in 2017 during Trump's first term. But its cost has ballooned to $2.5 billion — and the White House is seeking to cast it as yet another example of rampant 'waste, fraud and abuse' perpetrated by the elites. To get ahead of the president's highly unusual visit this afternoon, the Fed offered its own tour to reporters this morning to help explain the costs. Fed staff cited new security features and the historic nature of the building among the reasons for the price tag — what a top Trump adviser called the most expensive project in the history of the capital. During the tour, the officials repeatedly sought to dispel White House talking points and blame the cost overrun on tariffs, preservation regulations and building codes. MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@ Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe! MORNING MONEY: CAPITAL RISK — POLITICO's flagship financial newsletter has a new Friday edition built for the economic era we're living in: one shaped by political volatility, disruption and a wave of policy decisions with sector-wide consequences. Each week, Morning Money: Capital Risk brings sharp reporting and analysis on how political risk is moving markets and how investors are adapting. Want to know how health care regulation, tariffs, or court rulings could ripple through the economy? Start here. POTUS PUZZLER Which president called HULK HOGAN a 'famous enforcer of American justice?' (Answer at bottom.) Agenda Setting PACK YOUR THINGS: Agriculture Secretary BROOKE ROLLINS announced today a massive reorganization plan at the department, which would transfer most of the Washington-area staff to five cities across the country and close nearly all of its USDA offices in the capital region, our JORDAN WOLMAN, MARCIA BROWN and GRACE YARROW report. In a video message to employees, Rollins said USDA will move employees to Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Raleigh, North Carolina. There will be no large-scale reductions in force, given that more than 15,000 employees took the administration's deferred resignation offer. BAD NEWS FOR HERITAGE: The Pentagon has suspended participation in all think tank and research events until further notice, according to an email sent to staff today and obtained by our JACK DETSCH. It comes a week after the Defense Department pulled out of the Aspen Security Forum citing 'the evil of globalism,' indicating the event is not in line with the administration's priorities. The Pentagon is also reviewing the agency's participation in other top security conferences. It specifically banned attendance at the Halifax International Security Forum, which takes place in Nova Scotia each winter and the Pentagon chief typically attends. The public affairs, general counsel and policy teams will review all requests for participation at events and will ask for officials' remarks and talking points in advance. Pentagon spokesperson SEAN PARNELL said in a statement that the measures were taken 'to ensure the Department of Defense is not lending its name and credibility to organizations, forums, and events that run counter to the values of this administration.' 'DO WHAT Y'ALL NEED TO DO': Top EPA appointees acted swiftly and provided virtually no reason for firing members of two science advisory committees, POLITICO's E&E News' SEAN REILLY reports. 'All good—Do what y'all need to do,' then-Assistant Deputy Administrator TRAVIS VOYLES wrote in a January email roughly an hour before the agency began informing dozens of members of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Science Advisory Board that they were being fired. 'It is done,' Voyles added later that day, minutes after getting confirmation that the notifications were complete. WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT COME BACK! PLEASE? Roughly a quarter of the 3,500 Food and Drug Administration employees who received reduction-in-force notices earlier this year have been reinstated, our DAVID LIM reports. FDA Commissioner MARTY MAKARY told our DASHA BURNS in an interview that he doesn't expect more layoffs at the FDA, which had approximately 20,000 full-time employees in fiscal 2025. Makary added that he's confident about the agency's ability to conduct food inspections and investigations and to ensure 'the trains are running on time.' ONE MORE ASK … The Department of the Interior is asking some of its employees who are leaving their jobs at the request of the Trump administration to help the department respond to wildfires before they depart, POLITICO's E&E News' HEATHER RICHARDS reports. In a memo sent out earlier this month, acting Assistant Secretary TYLER HASSEN — who joined the administration as a DOGE employee — asked departing Interior staff with a firefighting certification to help the agency respond to wildland fires through the rest of the year. NOT FEELING IT: EPA is moving ahead with its plan to lay off hundreds of staffers within the agency's environmental justice programs, POLITICO's E&E News' ELLIE BORST and Reilly report. Following a court-ordered pause that left employees in limbo for six weeks, 'we intend to move forward with the previously announced RIF,' said EPA spokesperson MOLLY VASELIOU. EPA put 168 environmental justice staffers on leave in early February. In April, EPA notified 271 employees that they were subject to a RIF because their jobs had been tied to environmental justice or 'diversity, equity and inclusion.' Musk Radar STILL FRIENDS? The president today denied that he would cut the 'large scale' subsidies tech billionaire and former DOGE chief ELON MUSK receives from the government despite an ongoing rift between the two men, our NICOLE MARKUS reports. 'I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before,' he wrote on Truth Social. 'The better they do, the better the USA does, and that's good for all of us.' On Wednesday, press secretary KAROLINE LEAVITT said she doesn't 'think' Trump supports federal agencies contracting with Musk's xAI, but that she would speak to the president about it. Knives Out 'CENSORSHIP' AT THE SMITHSONIAN: AMY SHERALD, who painted former first lady MICHELLE OBAMA's official portrait, pulled out of an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery after she said she was told the museum was considering asking her to remove a painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty, NYT's ROBIN POGREBIN reports. The exhibition, slated for September, would have been the museum's first by a contemporary Black artist. 'I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities,' Sherald said in a statement. A Smithsonian spokesperson in a statement indicated the museum didn't intend to remove Sherald's painting and said they were 'disappointed Smithsonian audiences will not have an opportunity to experience' the exhibit. A White House official said the 'removal of this exhibit is a principled and necessary step' toward the Trump administration's goal of wiping 'improper ideology' from the Smithsonian. What We're Reading Gazans Are Dying of Starvation (NYT's Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Isabel Kershner and Abu Bakr Bashir) No One Was Supposed To Leave Alive (The Atlantic's Gisela Salim-Peyer) Trump anoints a new power elite on K Street (POLITICO's Caitlin Oprysko) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER In 1992, former President GEORGE H.W. BUSH labeled the late, larger-than-life wrestler as the enforcer for national justice.
New York Post
27 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump makes academia face the damning truth about foreign students
Are American graduate schools still American? That's what President Donald Trump is asking as he takes action against Harvard University and its large international-student population. His effort to restrict Harvard's foreign-student visas seeks to address a growing problem in higher education: Many of our most renowned graduate schools are overwhelmingly non-American. Advertisement On Wednesday, Columbia University capitulated on the issue — agreeing in its deal with Trump to 'take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment.' The Ivy also promised to probe 'international student-applicants [on] their reasons for wishing to study in the United States' — in other words, to keep out the sneaky saboteurs coming here to wreak havoc. Significantly, Columbia's decision signals to other top-tier schools, Harvard in particular, that it's not worth fighting the administration over international-graduate-student enrollment. Advertisement And that is welcome news indeed. We support international educational exchange, as most Americans do. The problem is disproportionality: A huge influx of foreign students has changed the character of traditionally American institutions, leaving American students increasingly crowded out — and even making them targets of prejudice and discrimination. The numbers speak for themselves. Advertisement During the 2023-2024 academic year, the United States hosted 1.1 million international students, a sharp 7% increase from the year prior. Nearly half of them, 500,000-plus, were graduate students. International grad-school enrollments grew by 10.2% between 2021 and 2022, as American enrollments dropped by 4.7%. Some fields, mostly STEM-related, have seen a 100% international-student enrollment boom since the COVID-19 pandemic. Advertisement President Donald Trump listens during a briefing with the media, Friday, June 27, 2025, at the White House in Washington. AP At Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, for example, the percentage of international students rose from 56% in 2023 to 59% in 2024. At Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and others, international students make up 48% or more of the graduate-student body. At MIT, it's 42%. As the foreign graduate population soared, so too did antisemitism and anti-Americanism on college campuses. Coincidence? We don't think so. One analysis found that once the international-student population surpasses 13% at a university, campus protests double. Advertisement Any reasonable observer of the post-Oct. 7 campus troubles must notice the heavy involvement of foreign graduate students like Mahmoud Khalil, who reportedly helped organize a campaign of intimidation at Columbia. Rather than trying to address the problem, schools like Harvard are fighting federal subpoenas seeking foreign students' disciplinary records — while simultaneously claiming the government has no proof their foreign students are a problem. Only intense pressure from Trump forced Columbia to confront the truth. But the problem is not just campus culture — there's strong evidence that international enrollment is shutting American students, particularly minorities, out of opportunities. Advertisement Harvard's Kennedy School saw a 50% drop in 'black or African American' enrollment in 2023 compared to 2021, while international enrollment rose. In addition, multiple scholarship opportunities at publicly funded colleges are open only to illegal-immigrant students, excluding those who are American-born. Demonstrators join the group Crimson Courage, who gathered to support Harvard University during a hearing before a federal judge at the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., July 21, 2025. REUTERS Our Equal Protection Project has filed legal challenges to such programs at five schools (so far — there are many more), prompting the US Department of Education to open investigations into our cases. Advertisement And there's a hidden long-term cost to these disproportionate numbers of foreign students in America's graduate programs: brain drain. Most of the international students who gain higher-level degrees in American programs take their education and skills back to their home countries — talent and training lost to us domestically, because those spots could and should have been filled by Americans. Only about 30% of all international graduate students eventually seek green cards and legal permanent US residency. Advertisement And there's some evidence that those who do join the US workforce after graduation undercut their job-seeking American classmates — because employers can sponsor them for H-1B visas and hire them on the cheap. Most international students come here for good reasons, but their disproportionate representation has undeniably created negative consequences. Trump's effort to force schools to address the problem is a step in the right direction — and the Columbia deal shows academia that ignoring it is no longer an option. We love international students. But we also love the American character of our American universities — and don't want to see that lost. William A. Jacobson is a clinical professor of law at Cornell University and founder of the Equal Protection Project and where Kemberlee Kaye is operations and editorial director.
Axios
27 minutes ago
- Axios
Artist pulls show from National Portrait Gallery over censorship concerns
The artist behind Michelle Obama 's popular 2018 portrait is pulling her show from the National Portrait Gallery over what she alleged were censorship threats, per multiple outlets. Why it matters: Artist Amy Sherald alleged the Smithsonian-owned art museum, which confirmed the show's removal, considered excluding one work in Sherald's show that depicts the Statue of Liberty as a transgender woman. The big picture: The complete show, "American Sublime," was slated to debut in September and would have been the museum's first show by a Black contemporary artist. The piece in question was "Trans Forming Liberty." "While we understand Amy's decision to withdraw her show from the National Portrait Gallery, we are disappointed that Smithsonian audiences will not have an opportunity to experience American Sublime," the Smithsonian said on Thursday in a statement to Axios. Zoom in: Sherald, who didn't immediately respond to Axios' request for comment, told The New York Times the museum feared backlash from President Trump. She said she had been "informed that internal concerns had been raised" at the Portrait Gallery regarding the painting. "These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition," she said. "I entered into this collaboration in good faith, believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life," Sherald wrote in a letter to Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III on Wednesday, per the Times. A Smithsonian spokesperson told Axios the museum never wanted to remove Sherald's painting, but include an additional video to "contextualize the piece." "The Smithsonian strives to foster a greater and shared understanding," the spokesperson said. "By presenting and contextualizing art, the Smithsonian aims to inspire, challenge and impact audiences in meaningful and thoughtful ways. Unfortunately, we could not come to an agreement with the artist." Sherald said, per the Times:"The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility and I was opposed to that being a part of the 'American Sublime' narrative." Context: The Trump administration has threatened to pull funding from a wide range of institutions — from hospitals to Harvard — if they acknowledge, let alone protect, LGBTQ+ people or people of color.
