Republicans Rouse Themselves to Denounce Trump Posting the Obamas as Apes

Hello, it’s the weekend. It’s The Weekender ☕️

In the 12 hours since a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys was posted on President Trump’s Truth Social account, the White House story has shifted wildly.

Around 9 a.m. EST, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “This is from an Internet video portraying President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop this fake outrage and report today on something that actually matters to the American public.”

But by midday yesterday, the post had been deleted, and suddenly an anonymous White House staffer was to blame.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans, from Tim Scott and Pete Ricketts to Mike Lawler and Katie Britt, have denounced the post and called on Trump to apologize. Scott called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen in the White House” (which begs the question of what the second most racist thing was).

“I don’t feel the need to respond to every inflammatory statement made by the White House,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) tweeted. “However, the publication of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heartbreaking and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”

This racist message – far from Trump’s first about the Obamas – sparked more opposition from Republicans than we saw throughout the entire term, perhaps with the exception of the vote to release the Epstein files (which they initially released for as long as they could). Trump, showing himself vulnerable to political gravity, relented.

-Kate Riga

Trump Implements Another 2025 Project Proposal With New OPM Rule

President Donald Trump continued his openly hostile rampage against federal officials and Democrats on Friday, pursuing another proposal outlined in Project 2025, the conservative policy manifesto that Trump once claimed to know nothing about.

The Office of Personnel Management has finalized a new rule that makes it easier to lay off tens of thousands of federal workers by creating a new classification for workers responsible for writing administrative policy in accordance with laws and regulations. The rule reclassifies about 50,000 workers as at-will employees and removes protections outlined in U.S. code intended to protect non-political appointees from this type of retaliation.

Trump’s OPM says this change is based on merit, not political affiliation, but its practical implications risk replacing assessments of candidates’ excellence with assessments of their dedication to the president.

“What this suggests to me is that showing loyalty is as important or more important than merit,” Donald K. Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the AP after Trump issued a related executive order in January 2025.

The change departs from reclassifying public employees as political appointees but has the same effect, making it easier to fire employees and replace them with perceived MAGA loyalists. It also makes whistleblowers more susceptible to retaliation by taking responsibility for handling whistleblower complaints from the independent agency charged with handling them and placing it with the worker’s agency’s internal counsel.

This should obviously have a deterrent effect, as the whistleblower would most likely sound the alarm at their employing agency.

This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to pack the federal government with his admirers, but it’s the most successful. An attempt late in his first term failed, and Republicans blocked attempts to codify protections for these workers during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Since taking office again, the Trump administration has openly vetted government employees and applicants based on their political affiliation, affinity for Trump policies, and social media posts, all dramatic changes from how nonpolitical government jobs had historically been handled.

Much like Trump’s indiscriminate firing of hundreds of thousands of public workers, public employee unions and a coalition of legal and interest groups are challenging the rule in court, the American Federation of Government Employees said in a statement.

-Layla A. Jones

Obamacare subsidy negotiations ‘effectively over’

Bipartisan negotiations to revive expired Affordable Care Act subsidies appear to be getting nowhere after months of negotiations among a group of senators.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), one of the lead negotiators involved in the bipartisan discussions, said talks to try to revive the ACA tax credits — which expired at the end of 2025 — are “effectively over,” according to NOTUS.

Although the effort appears dead, Senate Republicans and Democrats can’t seem to agree on why.

“The problem is Hyde, 100 percent,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who is talking with Democrats, told reporters Thursday. “The ACA already contains Hyde language, and it’s a shame that this anti-abortion story has to spoil the ability of millions of Americans to receive reasonably priced health care.”

King is referring to the “Hyde Amendment,” a provision in effect since the 1980s and included in health care bills to prohibit federal funding of abortion care except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.

“It collapsed for one reason: the Hyde Amendment,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters. “We talked to our colleagues and we said, ‘The Hyde Amendment was included in the ACA, and we are prepared to declare that nothing we do here contravenes that.’ They wanted more, and it was going to fail.

Meanwhile, Republicans say the abortion language is not the reason the negotiations failed.

Moreno pointed the finger at Democratic leaders, blaming them for opposing some of the reforms GOPers wanted included in the bill, including phasing out subsidies over three years and a $5 minimum payment.

-Emine Yucel

Secretaries of State, Governors Pledge to Protect Election Administration After Trump’s Threat to ‘Nationalize the Vote’

Democratic secretaries of state and governors publicly and forcefully rebuked President Trump’s threats this week to “nationalize” voting, something he cannot do since states’ rights to administer elections are enshrined in the Constitution. Nonetheless, all 24 Democratic governors and Democratic and Republican secretaries of state condemned his comments and his current attempts to exert more control over the nation’s electoral system.

In a podcast interview with MAGA conspiracy theorist and former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino on Monday, Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize the vote” in some way, cryptically suggesting that Republicans could take over election mechanics in 15 locations. It’s unclear exactly what he’s talking about, but he hinted later in the week that he may want to take over election administration, conveniently, in places like Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in an article on X, responded to Trump’s remarks by saying “our elections are safe, secure and transparent.”

“These baseless attacks on the 2020 election are intended to sow distrust and suppress participation. This is yet another attempt by Donald Trump to undermine the power of voters at the ballot box,” she added.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, also denounced Trump’s call.

“The path forward is through national reform, not repeating old arguments that no longer hold water. I urge lawmakers to focus on strengthening the nation’s elections administration rather than rehashing the same outdated assertions or, worse yet, federalizing a critical function of state government,” he said in a statement this week.

And Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold called Trump’s remarks “not a good idea,” according to Fox31.

“It’s also not a constitutional idea. It would be unconstitutional because under the Constitution, states oversee American elections. That’s how it’s worked since we had a Constitution,” she added.

In a joint statement released Thursday, the nation’s 24 Democratic governors called Trump’s proposal “undemocratic.”

“President Trump’s threats to remove states’ ability to conduct their own elections are an undemocratic attempt to silence the American people who reject his costly and divisive agenda,” the statement read. “While Trump complains about losing a free and fair election, he is now talking openly about rigging it in the future. Democratic governors will not allow that to happen.”

—Khaya Himmelman