Trump round-up: Abortion, DOGE, Ukraine, and political violence

Four more storylines to keep your eyes on

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With the Trump administration still moving fast across a range of policy areas, I’m going to stick with a format of bite-sized insights for this post. So keep reading for the latest on DOGE, Ukraine, abortion, political violence, and more.

DOGE

One of the mysteries of the new Trump administration is what the hell Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is actually going to do. An early executive order established it in the White House, meaning that DOGE’s main achievement so far has been to slightly increase the size of the government that it is supposed to be cutting. But we’ve also got some early indications about the scope of its mission.

This week, Musk forced out his co-DOGEr Vivek Ramaswamy, who has gone to run for governor of Ohio. Musk’s main beef with Ramaswamy was apparently that Vivek wanted to focus on cutting regulations while Musk wants to focus on reducing the size of the government through slashing jobs and programs. Looked at objectively, Ramaswamy’s vision makes a lot more sense - it’s easier to slash regulations through executive order than it is to persuade Congress to reduce funding for agencies. Despite the myth of a bloated federal government, there also just isn’t that much fat to trim - the size of the federal workforce has barely grown in 30 years.

But Musk’s victory makes sense if you take a more cynical view of DOGE - that it’s actually a way for Elon Musk to get his tendrils into every aspect of the federal government and seek profitable opportunities and data. Now that it’s an official part of the government, Musk has access to vast reams of information.

Given Musk’s huge business interests in China and closeness to the Chinese government, U.S. intelligence agencies ought to be terrified about what he might reveal to them if he thinks it suits his interests. The conflict of interest is off the charts. Ramaswamy himself has in fact warned about this in the past, which may be another reason why he was so keen to get out of Dodge.

And guess who else decided to leave? DOGE’s top lawyer. I wonder why.

Abortion

Looking back over the first week of the Trump administration, there’s one big puzzle: Why no big action on abortion?

At the very least, most Republican administrations move early to impose the Mexico City policy (also known as the global gag rule), which bars any foreign organization which receives U.S. government funding from educating people about abortion. The policy, along with a domestic variant called the domestic gag rule, has a crippling effect on family planning and prevents vulnerable people from understanding all of their options. People in the know would have expected it to be one of Trump’s first moves - but he’s yet to bring it back.

And that’s without even mentioning the more maximalist goals of the anti-abortion movement, including restricting the mailing of medications which are used to induce abortions. These medications are now used in over 60% of U.S. abortions, and conservatives dearly want to see their sale and/or distribution regulated out of existence. These groups are starting to get antsy that Trump is yet to make any moves and are beginning to apply public pressure.

Despite Trump being the single person most responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this reticence tells you something about the complicated politics of abortion in the Trump era.

On the one hand, Trump likes to take credit for sending abortion back to the states. But on the other, he’s not particularly keen on being seen as responsible for doing much more. He knows that abortion bans are unpopular, and he distanced himself from some of the more extreme ideas of the anti-abortion movement - such as a federal ban - during the election.

On the other hand, the anti-abortion movement is going to increase its pressure on Trump if it doesn’t get what it wants. And there will be a huge incentive for anyone who wants to be his successor - I’m looking at you, J.D. Vance - to emerge as the darling of anti-abortion conservatives. That means Trump could eventually come under fire on this issue from inside his own administration.

Ukraine

Another area in which Trump is somewhat defying expectations is Ukraine. This week he issued a threat against Vladimir Putin, threatening him with economic annihilation if he didn’t come to the negotiating table. The problem with this threat is that the United States has few tools left with which to economically pressure Russia. U.S.-Russian trade has collapsed, making sanctions of little use. Trump could try to restrict Russian access to foreign currency and increase oil production, each of which would hurt the Russian economy. But these things take time, and whether they can have a big impact before the military situation reaches a crisis point is unclear.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is failing to make much of a splash.