Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
In the 12 hours since a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes was posted on President Trump’s Truth Social account, the White House’s story has swung wildly.
Around 9 a.m. ET Friday, from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
But by around noon yesterday, the post had been taken down, and suddenly an unnamed White House staffer was to blame.
In between, congressional Republicans from Tim Scott to Pete Ricketts to Mike Lawler to Katie Britt denounced the post and called on Trump to apologize. Scott called it the “most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” (begging the question of what the second most racist thing was).
“I do not feel the need to respond to every inflammatory statement made by the White House,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) tweeted. “However, the release of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”
This racist post — far from Trump’s first about the Obamas — garnered more opposition from Republicans than we’ve seen all term, perhaps excepting the vote to release the Epstein files (which they first punted as long as they could). Trump, proving himself vulnerable to political gravity, relented.
— Kate Riga
Trump Makes Good On Another Project 2025 Proposal With New OPM Rule
On Friday, President Donald Trump continued his openly hostile rampage against federal government workers and Democrats, pursuing yet another proposal outlined in Project 2025, the conservative policy manifesto Trump once claimed to know nothing about.
The Office of Personnel Management finalized a new rule that makes it easier to fire tens of thousands of federal civil servants by creating a new classification for workers tasked with drafting administrative policy in accordance with laws and regulations. The rule reclassifies an estimated 50,000 workers as at-will employees and eradicates protections outlined in the U.S. code designed to safeguard non-political appointees from this kind of retaliation.
Trump’s OPM claims this change is based on merit, not political affiliation, but its practical implications risk replacing evaluating candidate excellence with assessments of their devotion to the president.
“What this suggests to me is that demonstrating loyalty is as important or more important than merit,” Donald K. Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the AP after Trump issued a related executive order in January 2025.
The change deviates from reclassifying the civil service employees as political appointees, but has the same effect, making employees easier to dismiss and be replaced by perceived MAGA loyalists. It also makes whistleblowers more susceptible to retaliation by taking the responsibility of managing whistleblower claims from the independent agency charged with handling them and giving it to the worker’s agency’s internal counsel.
This obviously is expected to have a chilling effect as the whistleblower would very likely be sounding the alarm on their employing agency.
This isn’t the first time Trump’s tried to fill the federal government with his admirers, but it’s the most successful. An attempt late in his first term floundered, and Republicans blocked attempts to codify protections for these workers during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Since he’s retaken office, Trump’s administration has openly vetted government employees and candidates based on their political affiliation, affinity for Trump’s policies and social media posts, all dramatic departures from how non-political government jobs had historically been handled.
Like Trump’s indiscriminate firing of hundreds of thousands of government workers, government workers unions and a coalition of legal and interest groups are challenging this rule in court, the American Federation of Government Employees said in a release.
— Layla A. Jones
Obamacare Subsidies Negotiations ‘Effectively Over’
The bipartisan negotiations to revive the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies appear to not be going anywhere after months of negotiations between a group of senators.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), one of the main negotiators involved in the bipartisan discussions, said the talks to try to revive the ACA tax credits — which expired at the end of 2025 — are “effectively over,” according to NOTUS.
Though the effort seems dead, Senate Republicans and Democrats can’t seem to agree on why.
“The issue is Hyde, 100%,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with Dems, told reporters on Thursday. “The ACA already has Hyde language in it, and it’s really, it’s a shame that this anti-abortion thing has to screw up the ability of millions of Americans to have reasonable-priced health care.”
King is referring to the “Hyde Amendment” a provision that’s been around since the 1980s and is included in health care bills to prohibit federal funding for abortion care except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.
“It fell apart for one reason: the Hyde Amendment,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters. “We talked to our colleagues, and we said, ‘the Hyde Amendment was included in the ACA, and we’re willing to state that nothing we’re doing here contravenes that.’ They wanted more, and that was going to be a nonstarter.”
Meanwhile Republicans are claiming the abortion language wasn’t the reason why the talks fell apart.
Moreno pointed the finger at Democratic leadership, blaming them for opposing some of the reforms GOPers wanted to include in the text including the phasing out of the subsidies over three years and a $5 minimum payment.
— Emine Yücel
Secs of States and Governors Vow to Safeguard Election Admin After Trump Threat to ‘Nationalize Voting’
Secretaries of state and Democratic governors are publicly and forcefully rebuking President Trump’s threats this week to “nationalize” voting, which he cannot do as states’ right to administer elections are outlined in the Constitution. Nonetheless, all 24 Democratic governors and Democratic and Republican secretaries of state condemned his remarks and his ongoing attempts to exert more control over the nation’s election system.
In a podcast interview with MAGA conspiracy theorist and former deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino on Monday, Trump called on Republicans to somehow “nationalize voting” with a cryptic suggestion that Republicans could seize election mechanisms in 15 places. It is unclear what he is talking about, but he did later in the week suggest he may have meant seizing election administration, conveniently, in places like Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in a post on X, responded to Trump’s remarks affirming that “our elections are safe, secure, and transparent.”
“These baseless attacks rehashing the 2020 election are meant to sow distrust and suppress turnout. It’s yet another attempt by Donald Trump to undermine voters’ power at the ballot box,” she added.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, similarly denounced Trump’s call.
“The path forward is through national reform, not repetition of old arguments that don’t add up. I urge lawmakers to focus on strengthening state administration of elections rather than rehashing the same outdated claims or worse — moving to federalize a core function of state government,” he said in a statement this week.
And Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold called Trump’s remarks “not a good idea,” per Fox31.
“It’s also not a constitutional idea. It would be unconstitutional because under the Constitution, states oversee American elections. That’s how it worked since we’ve had a Constitution,” she added.
In a joint statement on Thursday, the nation’s 24 Democratic governors described Trump’s proposal as “undemocratic.”
“President Trump’s threats to remove the ability of states to run their own elections is an undemocratic attempt to silence the American people who are rejecting his costly and divisive agenda,” the statement reads. “While Trump whines about losing a free and fair election, he’s now openly talking about rigging one in the future. Democratic governors won’t let that happen.”
— Khaya Himmelman
Kate Riga
is a D.C. reporter for TPM and cohost of the Josh Marshall Podcast.
Layla A. Jones
is a reporter for TPM in Washington, D.C., with experience covering government and economic policy, race, culture, and history. She has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Billy Penn, WHYY, NPR, and the Philadelphia Tribune, and participated in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University. She attended Temple University for undergrad.
Emine Yücel
is a national political reporter for TPM. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Emine previously worked at PBS’ Washington Week and NewsHour Weekend and NPR’s Investigations Team. Emine double majored in African American studies and Neuroscience at Northwestern University, where she also competed on the varsity fencing team. She later received her master’s degree in Social Justice and Investigative Reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern.
Khaya Himmelman
is a reporter at TPM, based in New York. She previously covered politics and misinformation for The Messenger, Grid, and The Dispatch.
