President Trump's eighth week in office has been decidedly calmer in terms of media scandals. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway did spur ridicule on Monday by justifying Trump's wiretapping accusations against the Obama administration with: "There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways. And microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera." However, the majority of the headlines this past week came as a response to continuing staff upheavals and the dangers present in the Trump administration's proposed legislation and policy changes. The United States also hit its debt limit this week, at $19.9 trillion.
On Friday, forty-six US attorneys who served under the Obama administration were formally asked to submit their resignations. In itself, a new administration replacing the US attorneys of a previous administration is not abnormal. However the attorneys were given very little notice that the change was taking place. The most eminent of these attorneys is Preet Bharara, who two days prior to being instructed to resign had been asked to investigate whether the President was in violation of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution. Bharara is a vocal anti-corruption advocate, and had previously been assured that his job would be secure.
Trump has also moved to rescind an Obama administration Bureau of Land Management law enacted to protect the purity of groundwater. In doing so, the White House aims to loosen the regulations surrounding hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as "fracking." In a similar vein, Scott Pruitt (the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency) has put a stop on laws originally put in place to protect workers and their communities from chemical-related accidents. The EPA issued the relevant regulations after a 2013 Texas fertilizer storage plant explosion killed 15 people and left hundreds more injured. The move by Pruitt is at the behest of the chemical industry.
The Congressional Budget Office released an estimate this week stating that under House Republicas' proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act, 14 million people would lose their healthcare coverage by the coming year, and a total of 24 million would lose their coverage by 2026. The White House has disagreed with this estimate. In addition, the White House released a budget proposal this week that has proposed steep cuts to most federal agencies, with the notable exceptions of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Homeland Security. Those agencies facing defunding are those that address science, health, the arts, foreign aid, and city programs. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting faces being defunded in its entirety. The White House's plan has faced criticism for proposing the defunding of food programs such as Meals on Wheels (a food delivery service for the elderly) and free lunch programs in public schools. The proposed cut to Meals on Wheels funding in particular has startled Trump's elderly support base, many of whom rely on the service for sustenance. Whether the budget cuts will be passed remains to be seen.
