This post isn’t quite a post in the way I normally do them, more jotting down some of my brainstorming over the weekend.

Universities are a core pillar of civil society. Law firms are not. Observers have been waiting to see what would come of an amicus-brief-organizing campaign in support of Perkins Coie, the Seattle-based firm which was the first to be targeted by the Trump administration. Perkins Coie is also, significantly, the law firm for much of the institutional Democratic Party. It finally came out, and the brief was signed by more than 500 firms across the country. But it was not signed by any of the nation’s Top 20 firms, measured by revenue. I don’t know enough about the internal finances of the nation’s top-grossing firms. But I suspect they’re mostly like Paul, Weiss, which is to say they’re largely M&A firms, at least in terms of where they make their money — M&A and the management of other corporate transactions I don’t know acronyms for. It’s basically impossible to be in that business if you’re at war with the state that regulates mergers and acquisitions.

Just after Paul, Weiss cut their deal with President Trump, I spoke to a number of people either at the firm or proximate to it. One thing they helped me understand is that for firms like that, with a big M&A practice centered on partners with books of business ranging well into the tens of millions of dollars, it’s not just the clients who disappear in a flash. The money-making partners can too. So these vast, hugely money-making entities are actually quite fragile in their own way. The equivalent of a bank run dynamic and poof, they’re gone. But law firms come and law firms go. It is what it is.

I get asked a lot about what ordinary people should do to have an impact in this moment. I’ve said a number of times that studies I’ve seen show that it was the work of Indivisible groups of mostly normie Democrats around the country that had the biggest impact countering Trumpism the first time around. That said, this isn’t meant to be prescriptive. Let a hundred flowers bloom. Different people will want to get active in different ways. I say this simply to make clear you don’t need a kick-ass theory or the perfect group. The biggest thing is just getting organized with other like-minded people.

UPDATE: As of 5 p.m. Friday, only half the tickets remain.

As TPM’s 25th year rolls on, we’re rolling out to Chicago. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to celebrate this milestone while also taking a sober look at the political landscape in which we find ourselves.

On May 14th, we’ll be nearly four months into Trump II. A lot has happened so far, to put it mildly. Josh & Kate will discuss some of the most consequential and important developments to date.

Tickets are on sale now for our live show in Chicago. You can get them here. If you are member, you should have already received an email with your discount code.

After the show there will be a brief audience Q&A, followed by a cocktail hour where some other TPM staffers will be around to chat. All attendees receive one complimentary cocktail.

Capacity is limited so please get your tickets as soon as possible if interested.

Everyone in the country at the moment, albeit from different vantage points, seems to have the same question: What the actual fuck is going on?

Is the plan to have permanent tariffs? Are these meant as the basis of some kind of negotiation? Are we going to have blanket tariffs as the basis of a system of corruption in which favored industries and companies gain exemptions in exchange for fealty and cash? (So, countries as universities and law firms?) Is the idea just to replace income taxes with tariff income and fundamentally shift taxes to the middle and working classes?

At a basic level, the entire MAGA movement, and Donald Trump from whom all of it stems, simply doesn’t grasp the nature of American power or its limitations. In their view, the United States is the natural and inherent dominating power in the world. We’re the most powerful and the strongest. And starting from that view, they look out onto the world and think if we are in charge, why don’t we act like we’re in charge?

Earlier this week I noted the fact that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had been oddly immune thus far to the DOGE axe, not just compared to other HHS divisions and agencies but across almost the entire federal government. This seemed in large part because of the role Brad Smith, a key DOGEr who worked at CMS during Trump’s first term, and because of nominal DOGE chief Amy Gleason who worked in high level roles at Smith’s companies. I noted that relative immunity because there were signs that might soon change. It has now changed.

On March 31st, CMS COO Amy Brandt sent out instructions for major cuts that had to take place across CMS. As she explained, HHS had been assigned a total amount of savings from canceled contracts. And of that total amount CMS was responsible for just over $2.7 billion. That amounted to 35% of CMS’s average total spend on contracts from the years FY2023 and 2024. So in technical terms, a shit-ton of money and a huge percentage of the overall budget.

On Monday I did a series of posts about what SSI disability recipients and their parent-guardians were seeing on their Social Security portals. Peoples’ portals had the new language: “This beneficiary is currently not receiving payments.” As I noted, those people’s payments did eventually show up and on Tuesday, as of mid-afternoon, the portal issue was resolved as well. On Tuesday, I can now report, an internal SSA email was sent out notifying employees about the problem and that it had been resolved, in other words, more or less at the same time as TPM’s follow-up report. The problem, as the email put it, was that “customers received a message starting they are not receiving any Social Security payments after attempting to log into their mySSA account.” Interestingly, it goes on to say that the problem “began Monday, 03/31/2025, after a migration of services.”

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the special elections, Cory Booker’s 25-hour filibuster and the downfall of Elise Stefanik.

I’ve said this in a few contexts, including in the podcast, but I wanted to reiterate it here. It seems like the Schumer/continuing resolution debacle is turning into a kind of inverse pyrrhic victory, a terrible and self-inflicted defeat which might have more positive effects than winning would have had. I’ve said a few times that I’m pretty certain Chuck Schumer didn’t think when he allowed the CR to pass that he’d still be arguing to keep his job on every talk show that would have him 10 days later. The nature of that debacle, the recognition that it was a debacle, turned into a crystalizing moment. The biggest effect of that debacle was everyone realizing that not having any strategy is not in fact a strategy. Schumer’s decision was the breaking point. But an even bigger issue was how and why Democrats allowed it to come to that decision moment without laying any of the groundwork that might have made something like success even possible. The lack of a strategy is not a strategy. That may seem elementary. But we’ve all had times in our lives in which lived experience is necessary to absorb lessons that seem obvious and unmissable once they’ve been absorbed. There’s no question in my mind that Cory Booker’s 25 hour speech only happens because of that debacle. And Gallego’s and Schiff’s holds only happen because of some mix of Booker and the larger Schumer-driven realization. The unfolding tariff catastrophe figures into this of course, as do elections in Wisconsin and Florida, as do Republicans continuing to hide in undisclosed locations when visiting their districts. But the continuing resolution was an inflection point.

If you’re running for Congress or considering running for Congress or know someone who is doing either, this message is for you. Presidents have no power over tariffs. Full stop. It’s not like war powers or pardons. Trump can only do this because Congress gave Presidents this power, as I explained in the a post yesterday. Congress can take it back at any moment. Given the minuscule Republican hold in the House, that means that every GOP representative is literally and personally responsible for these tariffs and their consequences. Every single one. High prices? Rep. X is responsible. He or she could end this but they’re not. A 401k that might flatline before you do? Thank Rep. X. They could end this but they’re supporting it. It’s crystal clear and has the benefit of being true.

The 2026 midterm is already underway. It really is.

That’s the whole message. It’s malpractice for anyone challenging a Republican member of Congress not to be on this today.

DOGE has made landfall at the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are demanding roughly $175 million out of an annual grant budget of just over $200 million and fire about 80% of state. In internal conversations the new bosses apparently speak of “select opportunities” soon to be offered to favored organizations. That sounds to me like we might be looking at new grants to Breitbart and such but perhaps I’m just being alarmist. The DOGE commissar assigned to NEH is Justin Fox.