Bleeding Ears Would Be Worth It To Hear Lara Sing “I WILL Back Down!”

Much as it makes my mind hurt I can’t help but imagine Lara Trump sitting down with her guitar to belt out a variation on her rendition of the iconic Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down. However sometimes one can feel great pain, yet also experience fun and even smile at the same time. Weird, but so is everything else when it comes to the Trumps. ‘I WILL Back Down’, or perhaps ‘Trump WILL Back Down’ or something similar seems appropriate this afternoon. Feel free to come up with and share your own rewrites.

Anyway, so much for Trumpty the Mighty, the Magnificent, the Omnipotent Master and Ruler of the Universe to to issue a breathtakingly crazy, disruptive and evil edict to suspend all federal grants. When one says or thinks ‘federal grants’ they tend to think of smallish things like money for some local project or non-profit or some pilot project. 

However it’s way the hell bigger than that! Money to the NIH and CDC for example were affected. So was money for all manner of federal projects. Medicaid and Medicare too are administered by the various states which means they too were in panic mode.

Why would Trumpty do such a thing you ask? Simple. Just to be an a-hole if for nothing else. Making tens (even hundreds) of Americans fearful and even worse, damaging their lives just for the fun of it is pure Trump. Like a child destined to become a serial killer torturing and killing small animals for “fun.”

That’s what his Executive Order shutting down all federal disbursements was. The chaos it provoked and the damage it would do was FUN to him. Lives ruined or lost, even those of his MAGAs who depend on all that federal money whether they realize it or not were of no concern. 

GOP lawmakers were upset of course, probably running to Susan Collins for lessons on brow-furrowing and how to not sound completely lame/stupid/craven when making statements about being ‘deeply concerned.’ Of course few, not even handful as far as I can tell were willing to PUBLICLY say anything in dissent.

Perhaps they were just sitting curled up in a ball of COWARICE hoping a federal judge would do what they didn’t have the courage to do – step in. Yes, the injunction was temporary and a hearing was set for Monday but for the moment Trump’s EO wasn’t allowed to go into effect. It sort of did as all of a sudden the portals state and local agencies would go to in order to do their business with the federal government were shut down.

That alone caused plenty of chaos. I’m sure Trumpty’s bigly donors weren’t happy about the turmoil it would cause in already reeling financial markets. Also, while they hate to admit it RED states rely on a f**kton of federal money flowing their way. From Blue states of course.

I truly doubt there were many GOP legislators willing to call Trump and politely ask him to reconsider. I say politely because to a person they all wanted to scream WTF on earth possessed you to DO something like that? Keep in mind not only that CONGRESS appropriates money, but that once it’s done so the only job the Executive Branch has is to ensure it flows out where Congress said it should go.

Presidents don’t have the authority or power to simply decide THEY get to go in and change what Congress has done. This is so established in case and Constitutional law only an idiot would think it was possible for a President to do what Trump did. Of course Trumpty IS an idiot so…

How would you like to be the person who had to explain to him that if he hated losing all those election lawsuits back in 2020 he was going to REALLY hate what would come after Monday. The injunction would have been extended. He’d lose his appeal.

And even SCOTUS would say ‘Nope – that’s a bridge too far dude.’ Maybe Chief Justice Roberts grabbed Alito and Thomas by the ear and dragged them into his office for a speaker phone call to tell Trump when it got to them they’d say NO.

In any case what we now know this afternoon as reported by The Washington Post and others is that Trump HAS in fact backed down. His order has been rescinded. (for now at least):

In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 “is rescinded.” That order, issued Monday, instructed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.”

Yesterday there was an actual old-fashioned press briefing with actual Q & A which was news in and of itself. Of course on this subject Trump’s new Press Secretary played it as no big thing. That regular folks wouldn’t be the least bit affected. Really? Again citing the WaPo I’ll reiterate what I said earlier that it WAS a VERY big thing that would have sweeping impact and in fact did during the short time it was in effect:

The original White House order freezing federal grants, which became public on Monday, caused mass chaos and confusion across Washington, appearing to imperil government programs that fund schools, provide housing and ensure low-income Americans have access to health care. States reported issues accessing funds under Medicaid, and even as of Wednesday, public housing authorities reported being locked out of their funding portal. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that assistance for individuals would not be affected.

Perhaps someone showed Trump a pie-chart, or perhaps a “beautiful chocolate cake” and just how much of the federal money he had decided to freeze would negatively impact his MAGAs in all those red states by cutting away a big chunk to make the point. 

At some point he WILL ignore a SCOTUS ruling and that’s a crisis we’ll deal with when it comes. However right now he’s got Republicans on the Hill terrified but with such slim majorities he’s worried about 2026. I’ve written recently he no longer  has any use for his MAGAs but I think I was wrong to say so. They are already in a riled up state over Trump suddenly being all buddy-buddy with Elon and the ‘tech bros’ and their desire to replace what jobs they have with AI or foreign workers.