If you want to understand the inner workings of TPM, there’s really no better person to seek out than Nicole. In addition to overseeing and authoring Where Things Stand and The Weekender, Nicole works as an editor with all of our reporters. Nicole first came to TPM as an editorial intern back in 2014 and then returned in 2017. So, suffice to say, she has seen a lot. Did you know she once worked at the Daily Caller and I thought she might be some kind of plant infiltrating TPM? We discuss that (she wasn’t, obviously.) How has TPM evolved to cover Trump II? We talk about that. What’s the philosophy behind The Weekender and Where Things Stand? She explains. Do you watch Rings of Power? We do, and we talk about it. So check it out, it’s a good one!

This is a Facebook post by Missouri state Rep. David Tyson Smith (D-Columbia). The Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) he refers to is one of the members of Congress who got rocked late last month in one of those townhalls where people were angry about DOGE.

Just found out that a new memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), dated March 5th, 2025, directs all acquisitions executives through the military to stop including language which requires contractors to agree that they will not use segregated facilities as a condition of being a DOD contractor.

You see in the feature well we have Josh Kovensky’s piece on the U.S. African Development Foundation’s efforts to resist takeover by DOGE and a purported new presidential appointee Pete Marocco. After we published this afternoon, Marocco and DOGE showed up with U.S. Marshals and forced their way into the Foundation’s offices, changed the locks and took over. The issue here is the U.S. Marshals. The U.S. Marshals are part of the Justice Department. But their primary function is to protect the federal judiciary and execute its orders. They also have statutory authority to enforce certain laws. They are not a police force working for the White House and they certainly aren’t a police force for DOGE. As far as I know there’s no court order here. So under what authority did any of this happen? Under what authority were the Marshals there and under what authority did they employ force to facilitate this takeover?

The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods is (or was) an advisory committee housed within the USDA (but also working with HHS) which provides outside expert advice to advance food safety across the U.S. and across different levels of government. It was ordered disbanded this afternoon.

Earlier this afternoon I told you how the GSA staffers who run the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix were abruptly fired with no warning or notification to anyone who works in the building. A bit later this afternoon I was able to speak to Debra Lucas, the District Court Executive and Clerk of the Court. To explain that job title Lucas is the senior judicial branch official at the courthouse in terms of the administration of the function of the courthouse. What Lucas told me basically squared with what sources had already told and which I shared with you in that earlier post.

They got no advance warning that this was going to happen. And they still haven’t gotten any explanation of what’s happening. “We’re still waiting for guidance,” Lucas told me. When I asked, guidance from whom? she said the GSA.

In Phoenix, the federal courthouse is named after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: it’s the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse. The General Services Administration (GSA) is the agency charged with running the building. The GSA is currently controlled by DOGE and they’re the ones currently breaking leases on federal offices around the country and trying to sell off, at least as of earlier this week, hundreds of federal buildings including the Departments of Justice, Labor and Health and Human Services.

The Phoenix courthouse houses the judicial branch mostly. But the GSA is still in charge of running the building. So court staff were surprised earlier this week when they found out that all the GSA employees who run the building had been fired. None of the judicial offices, I’m told, had been notified. They only realized what was happening when they noticed some members of the building staff crying.

This article from the Post is just one jaw-dropper after another. Musk met yesterday with Republican senators and then the House GOP caucus. Notionally it’s about communication. The folks on the Hill are getting a bit unhappy there’s a “lack of communication” about DOGE plans to shut down departments and unilaterally rewrite the federal budget. The Republicans want more details about what Musk’s doing, which — setting aside the infinite absurdities of this moment — would seem reasonable enough. They’re Congress after all. They’re literally in charge of this stuff. Read this graf …

Musk told a group of Republican senators in a closed-door lunch that he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns, senators said. Some senators were given Musk’s phone number during Wednesday’s meeting, and the entrepreneur said he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get problematic cuts reversed quickly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.

There’s a budget, appropriated money that defines what the government does and provides the money to do it. But Musk, absent any visibility even for much of the executive branch, is simply changing everything. But wait … he’s going to set up a system where Republican members of Congress can call and ask to “get problematic cuts reversed quick.”

What the fuck?

I may do a longer, maybe several longer versions of this post. But I think it’s important to state categorically and clearly: DOGE and Donald Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the United States. Just that. That seems like a big statement. But it’s accurate. I communicate every day with people at NIH and its various centers. I’m not basing this on their personal responses to a harrowing and disorienting situation, though that is very important in itself. I am reacting to the broader picture built up by the facts emerging from these individual conversations, combined with other reporting and actions throughout the federal government. Reporting is inevitably focused on canceled grants, dismissed researchers, bans on certain forms of communication, on and off-again bans on travel, grant review processes halted.

The White House is, at least according to Bloomberg, well on its way to creating a sovereign wealth fund, despite having no authority to create one and no legal source of money to fund it. But now they’ve hired a guy to run it, Michael Grimes. And small world, he’s Elon’s banker.