Democrat slams tariffs announcement: ‘Trump is driving the US economy straight into a wall’
Joan E Greve
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee, excoriated Donald Trump over his announcement that he would move forward with his planned tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada.
“Trump is driving the U.S. economy straight into a wall and expecting American families to serve as human crash test dummies,” Wyden said in a statement.
“Slapping tariffs on everything Americans buy from Canada, Mexico, and China will mean higher prices on groceries, gas and cars, with fewer jobs and lower pay when our closest trading partners respond to Trump’s trade war by buying fewer American products.”
Wyden described Trump’s expected tariffs as a betrayal of the voters who carried him to the White House, predicting that the policy would have a chilling effect on all US alliances.
“Anyone who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy has a right to feel betrayed by his economic sabotage,” Wyden said. “And it is hard to see why any foreign leader would make a deal with someone who changes his mind daily and can’t stick to agreements from month to month.”
Key events
Maya Yang
Attending the anti-war protest in solidarity with Barnard and Columbia students is Raymond Lotta, a spokesperson for Revolutionary Books in Harlem.
“We are here specifically today because we are standing in solidarity with the students here at Barona and Columbia who are being punished severely for standing in support of the Palestinian people and calling out this university for being complicit in war crimes, and now two students have been expelled…they must be reinstated. This is a just and a righteous demand,” Lotta said.
He added: “And we are here to stand in solidarity and also to help people to understand that we’re now fighting in a new situation with Trump MAGA fascism in power and their agenda is horrific. I mean, across the board, you know, terrorizing and rounding up immigrants, attempting to erase LGBTQ people. This is fascism and, you know, they are attempting to use the military to suppress protest in dissent, and the struggle here is a struggle that has inspired students across the country.”
The protesters have issued a list of four demands to Barnard president Laura Rosenbury.
The demands stated are: “Immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions…Amnesty for all student students disciplined for pro-Palestine, action or thought…a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage, and president Laura Rosenbery and abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current past and future disciplinary proceedings.”
“Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will rest,” the students chant.
“Barnard College go to hell,” others yell before going into, “1, we are the students! 2, we won’t stop fighting! 3, we want divestment now now now!”
NYPD have set up more barricades outside Barnard as a verbal altercation between the student protestors and counter protestors broke out with both sides yelling at each other.
Elon Musk again criticized Verizon as the Federal Aviation Administration reportedly considers canceling a $2.4bn contract with the telecommunications company. On deck to supplant Verizon: The tech mogul’s own satellite internet company, Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX.
In a post on his X social media platform, Musk said the “Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly”.
Musk made the comment in a repost of a tweet linking to the Washington Post’s report that the FAA was “close to canceling” Verizon’s contract in favor of Starlink, setting up a major conflict-of-interest test for the administration as Musk leads its cost-cutting effort. Staff with Musk’s Doge have already infiltrated the aviation agency, according to multiple reports.
“The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk,” Musk said on X. “The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. The situation is extremely dire.”
On X, Musk said a “total overhaul” of the air traffic control system was needed, an assessment many at the agency would agree with. Handing the contract to Starlink, however, would compound existing conflicts of interest involving SpaceX and the FAA.
Protest erupts at Barnard University in New York
Maya Yang
The Guardian’s Maya Yang is at New York’s Barnard University, where students wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestine are gathered outside on the campus, chanting a series of anti-war slogans amid a heavy New York police department (NYPD) presence.
“Free, free Palestine!” the students chant as well as some hold up handwritten signs that read: “No more Zionist occupation”‘and “Amnesty now.”
Around 100 or so students appear gathered outside the gated campus of Barnard, where only students and faculty with ID cards are allowed in.
Around eight student counter-protestors have gathered across from the Barnard and Columbia students protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza.
One student, with a shirt that says “Fuck Hamas, I stand with Israel” started playing Israeli music with others waving an Israeli and an IDF flag. Another student wore a white hoodie with the words: “Columbia University students supporting Israel.”
Since Hamas’s 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 survivors hostage, Israeli forces have waged a deadly war on Gaza, killing over 48,000 Palestinians while forcibly displacing nearly 2 million survivors amid severe shortages in food, fuel and medical supplies due to Israeli aid restrictions.
Democrats have tapped Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to deliver the party’s response to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress next week.
BIG: I’m announcing @SenatorSlotkin will deliver our Democratic response to Trump’s Joint Address.
Nothing short of a rising star in our party—she’s dedicated her life to our country.
She will layout the fight to tackle the deep challenges we face and chart a path forward. pic.twitter.com/wcvy1lkQjP
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 27, 2025
Slotkin’s victory in battleground Michigan, which Trump won, was one of the few bright spots for Democrats on election night 2024.
Trump and UK’s Starmer meet at the White House
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is at the White House on a major mission to try to persuade Trump to provide security guarantee for European peacekeepers in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.
Our UK live blog will cover every twist and turn of the meeting. Follow along here.
Jeffries also accused House Republicans of “lying to the American people” when they claim that their budget plan won’t result in steep cuts to Medicaid.
Republicans are facing a growing backlash after they advanced a fiscal blueprint that would almost certainly require major reductions to social safety net programs to offset the cost of Trump’s signature tax breaks.
The Republican budget authorizes up to $880bn in cuts to Medicaid by directing the Energy and Commerce Committee to find those spending cuts,” Jeffries told reporters on Capitol Hill, referring to the committee that handles Medicaid health care spending. “Everybody knows, who has had any connection to the Congressional Budget, that if you are directing the Energy and Commerce Committee to find up to $880bn, if not more, in spending cuts, that means Medicaid. That will hurt children, hurt families, hurt everyday Americans with disabilities and hurt seniors. I can’t say it any other way. Republicans are lying. Prove me wrong.”
In an earlier interview on CNN, Johnson accused Democrats of exaggerating the scale of the cuts that would be needed and insisted that Americans would “like the final product”.
If Doge is committed to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, it should begin by scrutinizing Musk’s own federal contracts, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference on Thursday.
“Elon Musk has about $8m in federal contracts per day. Per day. The average Social Security recipient in this country receives $65 per day,” Jeffries said. “Elon Musk and House Republicans are interested in identifying waste, fraud and abuse, start with his contracts if this was really a serious effort.”
He questioned why Musk’s Doge needed access to sensitive personal and financial information to conduct their work and vowed that Democrats would continue to try to block the tech mogul’s efforts.
Democrat slams tariffs announcement: ‘Trump is driving the US economy straight into a wall’
Joan E Greve
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee, excoriated Donald Trump over his announcement that he would move forward with his planned tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada.
“Trump is driving the U.S. economy straight into a wall and expecting American families to serve as human crash test dummies,” Wyden said in a statement.
“Slapping tariffs on everything Americans buy from Canada, Mexico, and China will mean higher prices on groceries, gas and cars, with fewer jobs and lower pay when our closest trading partners respond to Trump’s trade war by buying fewer American products.”
Wyden described Trump’s expected tariffs as a betrayal of the voters who carried him to the White House, predicting that the policy would have a chilling effect on all US alliances.
“Anyone who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy has a right to feel betrayed by his economic sabotage,” Wyden said. “And it is hard to see why any foreign leader would make a deal with someone who changes his mind daily and can’t stick to agreements from month to month.”
A judge denied a request by CIA employees to block the Trump administration from firing them as part of a government-wide purge of work related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs, NBC News reports.
The workers sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency from eliminating their roles or placing them on leave without pay.
According to Gary Grumbach of NBC News, Judge Anthony J Trenga of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, called it a “difficult situation”.
The Judge said if fairness and morals were the standard of which he had to rule, it might be a different decision, but the law dictates otherwise.
“They had the misfortune of being last assigned to a DEI program,” Judge Trenga said, calling it a “difficult situation.”
— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) February 27, 2025
Some of the plaintiffs addressed the CIA’s attorneys as they left the courtroom, he reported.
Ten “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” plaintiffs were in court today, along with family members. As we were walking out of courtroom, several of them told the CIA’s attorneys they should be ashamed of themselves. “That was sick,” one man said. “You are really disgusting,” another said.
— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) February 27, 2025
Former Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer inched closer to becoming the US labor secretary this morning, when the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) committee sent her nomination to the floor for a full vote.
The panel voted 13-9 to recommend Chavez-DeRemer’s confirmation by the full Senate. Three Democrats approved of her nomination, while one Republican voted against it.
Chavez-DeRemer is viewed as relatively pro-labor compared to her past Republican predecessors, a reflection of Trump’s support from union members in the 2024 presidential election. Yet some Democrats have vowed to oppose all of Trump’s remaining cabinet nominees as a way to protest his administration’s efforts to dramatically downsize the US government. During her confirmation hearing, she was grilled by anti-union Republicans and Democrats over her views on labor organizing and worker rights.
The US labor department is one of the agencies being targeted by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team at Doge for access to federal data systems, according to lawsuits.
Democrats slam USAid cuts: ‘jeopardizes millions of lives and creates a power vacuum’
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations committee have slammed the Trump administration over a decision to eliminate as much as 90% of USAid’s foreign aid contracts and $60bn in overall US assistance around the world.
“It is clear that the Trump Administration’s foreign assistance ‘review’ was not a serious effort or attempt at reform but rather a pretext to dismantle decades of U.S. investment that makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous,” the Democrats said in a joint statement, that included ranking member, New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen.
The Democrats accused secretary of state, Marco Rubio, of failing to conduct a “program-by-program review of the more than 9,000 awards” or to consider the national security implications of slashing these efforts. They called for Rubio to come before the committee and defend the decision.
“Ending programs first and asking questions later only jeopardizes millions of lives and creates a power vacuum for our adversaries like China and Russia to fill,” they said, noting that the cuts would not only be felt abroad but also by Americans at home.
“The impact will be felt by American farmers who will no longer get top dollar for their crops to feed the hungry, churches who will no longer have the support of the US government in their missions, American families who fall sick when diseases like Zika, Ebola and Malaria once again reach our shores and US biotech companies who will no longer sell their drugs to treat the vulnerable overseas.”
Donald Trump said the ice hockey legend and a longtime friend, Wayne Gretzky, does not want to see his native Canada become America’s 51st state. The president also claimed that the former athlete hasn’t publicly shared his disapproval of Trump’s proposal to merge the two North American neighbors because “he wants to make me happy.”
“Wayne Gretzky is a fantastic guy! They call him, ‘The Great One,’ and he is. He could run for any political office in Canada, and win,” Trump wrote in his TruthSocial account. “Wayne is my friend, and he wants to make me happy, and is therefore somewhat ‘low key’ about Canada remaining a separate Country, rather than becoming a cherished and beautiful 51st State, paying much Lower Taxes, a Free and Powerful Military, NO TARIFFS, and having a Booming Economy.”
Gretzky has faced a backlash in Canada over his perceived disloyalty toward his home country. The Hall of Famer, who has publicly supported Trump, was publicly mum on the president’s tariffs threat against Canada and his desire to make the country a part of the US.
In the post, Trump declared Gretzky a “free agent” and that he didn’t “want anyone in Canada to say anything bad about” about his friend.
“He supports Canada the way it is, as he should, even though it’s not nearly as good as it could be as part of the Greatest and Most Powerful Country in the World, the Good Ole’ U.S.A.!”
The Senate will convene this morning; and this afternoon, the chamber will hold a key procedural vote on the nomination of Linda McMahon to be the next secretary of education.
Given Republicans’ 53-47 advantage in the Senate, McMahon, founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment, is likely to be confirmed, even as she has voiced agreement with Donald Trump’s suggestion to shutter the department of education.
“President Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs,” McMahon wrote in a letter responding to two Democratic senators’ questions. “I wholeheartedly support and agree with this mission.”
Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat of New Jersey, framed McMahon’s response as a clear warning of how she would undermine the department’s mission and harm American families.
“Linda McMahon has made clear her top responsibility is complete and total loyalty to President Trump, including her openness to dissolve the very department she would be confirmed to run,” Kim wrote.
“As the administration’s illegal funding freeze threatens already scarce resources for schools and critical programs, her blind loyalty is dangerous. Instead of treating education as a public good that is a foundation for our society, the Trump administration is trying to demonize it and change it in ways that will leave many children vulnerable. We cannot let them.”
