WASHINGTON — Fallout from Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress continued though the week as the U.S. House censured a lawmaker who disrupted the address.
Fallout from the speech also included scrutiny of the president’s remarks, which uncovered notable falsehoods, and a MAGA revolt against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Rep. Al Green, a Democrat who represents a Houston-based district, was accused of “a breach of proper conduct” on Thursday in a censure resolution that was approved by the U.S. House Thursday on a vote of 224 to 198. Ten Democrats, mostly centrist lawmakers, voted with all Republicans to censure Green, who said in a social media post that he was being punished for “standing up to President Trump.”
A censured lawmaker typically is sent to the well in the front of the House to receive formal punishment. But more than a dozen House Democrats joined Green in the well singing “We Shall Overcome,” forcing Speaker Mike Johnson to put the House in recess.
In one of his many insults to Joe Biden in his address to the nation Tuesday night, Trump accused the former president of funding programs that make mice transgender.
“Eight million dollars for making mice transgender. This is real,” Trump said.
Well, factcheckers found that not to be quite true and that Trump may have been referring to health studies that involve “transgenic” mice — lab research mice that have been genetically altered to better model human disease response and perhaps find a cure for Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
Or maybe Trump was referring to a much, much smaller project involving mice that seeks to determine how long-term gender-affirming hormone therapy affects skeletal maturation and bone density.
But the misstatement that raised concerns among advocates to the nation’s seniors — and many Democrats — was Trump’s repeated insistence that millions of dead 100-year-olds were collecting Social Security payments.
In his speech, Trump praised the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the Elon Musk-led group that aims to root out fraud and waste in the federal government.
Trump then repeated claims that have been debunked — that DOGE unearthed millions of dead centenarians who were still somehow collecting benefits.
But the director of the Social Security Administration says that fewer than 90,000 people 99-years-old or older are receiving payments, and they are likely to all be alive.
The millions of centenarians Trump cited in his speech represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record, the director said, but they do not receive benefits.
Some Democrats fear that Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration may lead to changes at the agency that do not benefit recipients.
Also this week, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, was under attack on social media by the president’s supporters.
They decried her joining the majority in a 5-4 decision that left in place a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge last month that ordered the release of nearly $2 billion in U.S. Agency for International Development contracts that had been frozen. Chief Justice John Roberts also upheld the lower court’s ruling.
The president’s MAGA supporters said Coney Barrett was a traitor and criticized her conduct in a video of her greeting the president before his address to Congress this week. They said Coney Barrett seemed unhappy to see Trump.
Now you see it, now you don’t
The General Services Administration, which acts as the federal government’s landlord, put up a listing this week of 440 “non-core” federal properties across the country for potential disposal.
The list of properties the GSA wants to sell includes Social Security offices in Austin and Minneapolis, the Paul D. Wellstone Federal Building in Minneapolis, the Indian Health Service office in Bemidji and the federal courthouse in Fergus Falls.
But after the list of properties appeared on the GSA website on Tuesday, it was edited to remove all properties in Washington, D.C. Then it disappeared completely the next day, replaced with a message that said the non-core property list was “coming soon.”
In an emailed statement, the GSA said it was “taking swift, common-sense action to solve the nation’s toughest problems of reducing the federal deficit and increasing government efficiency” and “exploring innovative approaches — including public-private partnerships, ground leases and sales leasebacks” to support President Donald Trump’s DOGE initiatives.
“To be clear, just because an asset is on the list doesn’t mean it’s immediately for sale,” the GSA said. “However, we will consider compelling offers (in accordance with applicable laws and regulations) and do what’s best for the needs of the federal government and taxpayer.”
The GSA did not say why it had pulled the list from its website. But it said that its brief appearance there created “an overwhelming amount of interest.”
The GSA also said it anticipated “the list will be republished in the near future after we evaluate this initial input” and it will “continuously review and update the list of non-core assets.”
The list created a furor among lawmakers and officials at the agencies whose buildings were targeted.
Separately, the National Parks Conservation Association has put out a list of 34 national park facilities it says are targeted by the Trump administration for closures.
Those include the St. Paul headquarters of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area and a visitor’s center at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
In case you missed it:
- We reported on GOP plans to scale back a key federal subsidy for low-income people enrolled in health plans through MNsure, the state’s health exchange. A MNsure official says that could significantly boost premiums for people with subsidized insurance.
- Peter Callaghan wrote about the state budget forecast, reporting that Minnesota’s economists are expecting lower projected tax collections in the next two-year budget – projections that don’t factor in presumed federal cuts from the Trump administration.
- We also ran a piece by ProPublica on how Elon Musk’s unofficial agency, DOGE, has gained access to confidential Housing and Urban Development information on housing discrimination, medical details and domestic violence.
- Our Community Voices section included two commentaries on the now-infamous Oval Office kerfuffle between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. You can read them here and here.
Your questions and comments
A reader took issue with President Donald Trump’s efforts to extend a series of tax cuts — at a cost to the U.S. Treasury of more than $4.5 trillion — while planning to sharply cut federal spending and raise the debt limit by trillions of dollars.
“A lot of people are being hurt — having their lives ruined and killed by indifference,” the reader wrote. “Reasonable spending caution is fine, as long as those with the most are doing the most sacrificing. For me, borrowing money to provide tax cuts with borrowed money when successful corporations and billionaires are under taxed and cheat to steal more by tax fraud. We do not need to stimulate the economy … I don’t want my grandkids in hock for cash Musk is extracting from the government. I wish Democrats would oppose all tax cuts until total tax reform is done.”
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond.
Ana Radelat
Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.
The post D.C. Memo: A censured Democrat, transgender mice and dead centenarians — just another week in Trump’s Washington appeared first on MinnPost.
