Trump to Ax Federal Funding for California as Revenge Tour Escalates

Donald Trump is directing agencies to see where they can slash federal funding to the state of California, in a move that could start as soon as Friday, according to CNN. 

While the Trump administration is eyeing wider cuts, two sources told the outlet that the government was specifically targeting grants to schools in the University of California and California State University systems over alleged antisemitism on campus, the same rationale used to withhold federal funds from Harvard University and Columbia University. 

A White House official told CNN Friday afternoon that no formal decision had been made with regard to funding. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to CNN’s report in a post on X, with a threat of his own.  

“Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump,” wrote Newsom, whose state generates the highest tax revenue of any state in the country. 

In March, the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in grants to Columbia, and in April said the government would withhold $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard. 

Trump’s crackdown at these universities has been part of a larger campaign to shutter pro-Palestinian speech on campuses. Last year at UCLA, a mob of celebrity-backed pro-Israel counter protesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment, calling for a “Second Nabka,” while police officers cowered in a nearby building. Meanwhile, Jewish students and a Jewish professor have filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming that the school allowed the pro-Palestinian protesters to prevent them from reaching certain parts of campus. 

This is the latest escalation in Trump’s ongoing efforts to kneecap the blue state. The Trump administration previously blocked California from accessing millions in FEMA grant money, which is particularly troubling as wildfire season begins in June. Late last month, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding to California over a transgender athlete’s planned participation in a track and field event, which the president claimed violated his February executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. 

Russian officials are gleefully offering Elon Musk asylum, a sarcastic gesture meant to sow further discord between the billionaire and President Trump as their alliance implodes.

“Elon @elonmusk, don’t be upset! You are respected in Russia. If you encounter insurmountable problems in the US, come to us and become one of us - a ‘Bars-Sarmat’ fighter. Here you will find reliable comrades and complete freedom of technical creativity,” wrote Dmitry Rogozin, who formerly rivaled Musk as the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. “We will, of course, resolve issues of citizenship and military ID. Please fill out the forms at this link. With respect to you.” Rogozin is now a senator in occupied Ukraine.

“We are ready to facilitate the conclusion of a peace deal between D and E for a reasonable fee and to accept Starlink shares as payment,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X. “Don’t fight, guys😱!”

Musk responded with a laughing emoji.

Others noted that Musks’s conflict with Trump mirrors the conflicts that President Putin has had with Russian businessmen, particularly Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group founder whose plane mysteriously exploded in mid-air in 2023 after he tried to usurp Putin. Musk has also been deeply anti-Ukraine sinceRussia’s invasion, another point that will further please the Kremlin.

Donald Trump pardoned the Proud Boys for invading the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Now they want compensation.

On Friday, a coalition of the far-right paramilitary group’s leaders filed to sue the federal government for $100 million—plus 6 percent in interest—claiming that, in light of their pardons, their arrest and various charges had actually violated their constitutional rights.

The group, composed of Enrique Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzola, refer to themselves in the filing as “J6 defendants.” In it, they cite the “egregious and systemic abuse” of the legal system to punish Trump’s allies as the basis for their damages.

“Through the use of evidence tampering, witness intimidation, violations of attorney-client privilege, and placing spies to report on trial strategy, the government got its fondest wish of imprisoning the J6 Defendants, the modern equivalent of placing one’s enemies’ heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo,” claimed their attorneys.

“Now that the Plaintiffs are vindicated, free, and able to once again exercise their rights as American citizens, they bring this action against their tormentors for violations of their Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment Rights,” the filing continued.

The filing leveraged Trump’s own language to further argue their case, citing the president’s January 20 executive order in which he referred to their prosecution as a “grave national injustice” as means to seek damages.

Grandiose efforts to boost Donald Trump’s ego are costing America a fortune.

Trump’s second term is still shy of the six-month mark, but already, millions have been spent to flatter him.

Just three stunts to fluff the president have already totaled upward of a billion dollars, reported Rolling Stone Friday. They include a Bastille Day–inspired military parade to celebrate Trump’s birthday, the repurposing of an ultraluxury jumbo jet from Qatar for Air Force One (which Trump is setting up so no one else can use it after he leaves the White House), and a TV ad campaign featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem zealously thanking the president (in the background, the Trump campaign’s top vendor is quietly cashing in on the DHS-funded ad spot).

And on Friday, Trump announced that the White House would be undergoing a massive renovation by way of adding a ballroom to the symbol of American democracy. (Trump has previously promised to pay for the $100 million expansion himself, but only time will tell if the convicted fraudster will actually follow through or take the funds from public coffers.)

But the glitz and glam is about more than simply placating the president, according to political scientists. Instead, the whole spectacle is attached to Trump’s authoritarian leanings.

“They have to do with a president who needs to be not only at the center of a media circus, but who needs to be told ritualistically over and over how great he is,” Anthony DiMaggio, author of Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here, told Rolling Stone. “What’s interesting to me about this, as a political scientist, is that it’s not just a personality-based thing or a defect. It’s a broader pattern that has to do with behaviors that are overlapping with authoritarian politics and ideology.”

But the itch doesn’t stop at gift receiving. Trump’s second-term quest to nix Washington’s so-called “deep state” and replace it with an army of MAGA yes-men has so far been successful. At Cabinet meetings and press briefings, officials from across the political landscape are quick to puff up the president. The problem became particularly evident in April, when Trump wheeled out his “Liberation Day” tariff plan using figures that nobody in his vicinity had dared to notify him were founded on bad math.

The result is a Trumpian loyalty more akin to a religion than a political ideology: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has pleaded with Congress to trust the president’s economic will. Cabinet meetings begin with a round-robin of gushing for Trump’s performance. The White House has spent money producing propaganda that does little more than thank Trump for his agenda.

Even congressional Republicans, who are supposed to be detached from Trump’s influence, have repeatedly kowtowed to the president’s will.

The sycophantic displays between Trump and his advisers give off “Dear Leader” vibes, similar to “what you would see with Kim Jong Un or [Vladimir] Putin,” Democracy Defenders Fund’s Virginia Canter told Rolling Stone, noting that the president treats his Cabinet members as his “personal staff.”

“They’re there to stroke his ego,” Canter said.