This is a small data point I’ve been following but one with potentially vast implications. Since mid-February I’ve noticed a consistent pattern based on speaking to many sources across the federal government. In contrast to almost every other part of government, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has emerged relatively unscathed. Obviously, this is not at all a bad thing. CMS oversees Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health care provision services.

This is in great contrast to the situation at the Social Security Administration which has been submitted to a full DOGE onslaught. SSA has been the focus of a propaganda wave from Elon Musk himself, major cuts and a host of disruptions. Wired reported on Friday that DOGE plans to rewrite SSA’s computer system from scratch over a period of a few months. It’s difficult to describe how crazy a plan this is. Such an effort is one that under any realistic timeline would take years not months.

I reported last night that a significant number of SSI recipients had Social Security portals which showed they were no longer beneficiaries. Their payments were also at least slightly late. As of this morning it appears that most or all of those beneficiaries have now received their payments. (I haven’t heard from everyone yet but everyone I’ve heard from has received them.) So as of now this appears to be a records error in the SSA portals rather than a disruption of payments.

As noted last night, in the instances in question, the beneficiaries’ SSA portal now includes the text:  “This beneficiary is currently not receiving payments” under “Benefits & Payments.” Those portals now also include no records of historical payments. It’s as though the person had never been an SSI recipient. I will provide more updates when I have more information.

Editor’s note: As of the morning of April 1st, most and likely all recipients discussed in this post have received their payments. So the issue appears to be an SSA portal reporting issue — as described below — rather than a disruption in payments.

I want to tread carefully here. But this seems potentially serious. I am in contact with two families in which the parents have an adult child with severe disabilities who receives SSI payments for their support. In each case, at some time today, their online Social Security portal switched to showing that the adult child was “not receiving benefits.” The full language is “This beneficiary is currently not receiving payments” under “Benefits & Payments.” In one case, the recipient’s payment is later than usual but might still come tomorrow. In the other case, the recipient lives at a facility which receives the payments directly. So that family doesn’t know yet whether there’s been a disruption in payments.

From TPM Reader JF …

Good post on the indefensible media coverage of the Third Term shiny object being offered up by the President (see also, invading Greenland, etc.)

There is an additional point worth emphasizing.  The reason Donald Trump is talking about this third term ridiculousness is very plain.  Second-term American presidents are lame ducks.  That’s just how it is.  And if they are unpopular lame ducks, after awhile their allies may start to look past them toward the future.  Trump is undoubtedly terrified of this—of becoming irrelevant before his term even ends, particularly once the race to succeed him heats up.  The way for him to keep the specter of lame-duckishness at bay is to tease the idea that just maybe, who knows, he just sorta might run for a third term. That’s the play, and the media is being played.

A quick update on the story about computer science Professor Xiaofeng Wang and Indiana University. A local NPR affiliate published what purports to be the letter IU Provost Rahul Shrivastav wrote to Wang firing him last Friday.

The relevant portion of the letter goes as follows …

I am writing to advise you that Indiana University has decided to terminate your employment effective immediately. Its my understanding you have informed the chair of your department that you have accepted a faculty appointment with a university in Singapore and will start your role there this summer. Please note that you will not be eligible for rehire with Indiana University.

Amid the chaos and cacophony of Donald Trump’s second term, we’re sucked into this new mini-debate over a potential Trump third term. NBC News got the ball rolling with a headline that read: “Trump won’t rule out seeking third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so.” They were roundly criticized for that framing and other news organizations did better by putting the matter more squarely in their headline. For instance, there was The Washington Post, whose headline ran “Trump suggests ‘methods’ exist for bid for unconstitutional third term.”

That’s better, certainly. But there’s only one proper response to all these comments: “No, you’re not.”

Full stop. That’s the whole response.

At roughly 6 p.m. ET this evening the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sent out a notice to employees on a commission intranet/internal hub that “the NRC has terminated the NRC’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).” The notice has yet to appear in an agency-wide email. The message cites the President’s March 27th, 2025 Executive Order purporting to cancel union contracts across a broad swath of the federal workforce. As you’d expect, it’s all heading to the courts.

Today is the last day of our Annual March TPM Membership Drive. It’s also the last day of our 25% discount. We’ve already hit our 2,500 new member goal. But we’re so close we’re making a push to get to 3,000. We’re currently 67 new members short of that number. Thank you to everyone who helped us to get to 2,500. And if you haven’t become a member yet but would like to support our team and our work just click right here.

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I wanted to provide a quick update on the case of Professor Xiaofeng Wang at Indiana University. For overview details, see the posts below. The latest is the IU chapter of a faculty organization (the American Association of University Professors) has sent a letter to the university challenging Professor Wang’s termination. You can see that letter here. The letter itself is the best evidence we as yet have that Wang was in fact fired by the university. The university itself has not confirmed that or publicly commented at all. And at least no one who is talking appears to be in contact with Wang. So we don’t have any confirmation from him or anyone speaking on his behalf.

Yesterday I told you about a situation at Indiana University tied to a Professor of Computer Science and cryptography named Xiaofeng Wang. According to very sketchy public reports, the FBI and DHS police searched two homes owned by Wang and a Library Systems analyst named Nianli Ma, who I assume is his spouse. Colleagues at other universities noted that Wang’s bio pages had been removed from the University website and no one seemed to know where he was. It was unclear whether he had been arrested or perhaps detained in an immigration action.

I can now report some new and as yet unreported details, which largely go to the timeline of events.