Opinion Today: A meaner, shabbier America

A guide for keeping up with the Trump presidency.

View in browser|nytimes.com March 1, 2025 Nathan Howard/Reuters By Ezekiel Kweku Opinion special projects editor Like last Saturday, Times Opinion is using today's newsletter to stay on top of President Trump's moves, putting a spotlight on areas that Americans can't afford to turn away from. What Mattered Most Last Month: A group of columnists and contributors has put together a scorecard rating some of Trump's policy moves in February, ranking them in consequence in two dimensions. It's a useful visual aid for taking stock. The Mercenary in Chief: Trump's narrowing of America was on display in a remarkable and explosive White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine. Zelensky was in Washington to sign a share of his country's mineral rights over to the United States, which the White House views as partial payment for protection rendered. It's an ethos visible elsewhere: President Trump floated the idea of replacing the EB-5 program — which gives green cards in exchange for investments that would putatively create American jobs — with a "gold card" that would give citizenship in exchange for $5 million. This brand of politics reduces the American interest from imperfectly practiced principles and ideals to pure power and avarice. On Friday night, as European leaders rallied around Zelensky, he gave an interview on Fox News in which he said he did not owe Trump an apology, but expressed gratitude to the American people and regret about the blowup in the Oval Office, calling it "not good for both sides." Trump had cut it short after assailing Zelensky for "not acting at all thankful." But, Trump added, "This is going to be great television." "Putin Is Ready to Carve Up the World. Trump Just Handed Him the Knife," by my colleague M. Gessen; "A Day of American Infamy," by my colleague Bret Stephens; "This Has Never Happened With an American President Before" by my colleague Thomas Friedman; "Three Years On, What's Next for Europe and Ukraine?" at Foreign Policy. A Poorer Public: The Trump administration fired about 6,700 I.R.S. employees last week. As argued in a remarkable essay from seven former I.R.S. commissioners, such a move doesn't make sense from a fiscal or small-government conservative perspective — it makes sense only as a transfer from ordinary Americans who pay their taxes to wealthy Americans who hire accountants and lawyers to avoid them. It reflects an impoverished view of the public good, manifest also in cuts this week at N.O.A.A. and planned cuts at the E.P.A., atop the many others over the first six weeks of Trump's second term. "Inside the Crackup at the N.I.H." by Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic; "Who Is Government?" at The Washington Post. A Coming Clash Over Medicaid: Congressional Republicans want to gut Medicaid and passed a budget resolution this week that would almost certainly require them to. This would be terrible politics as well as bad policy; as recently as this month, Trump has promised that Medicaid would not be cut. All eyes have been on the maneuverings of the White House, and for good reason, but there is a volatile conflict brewing with the legislative branch, which has so far mostly acceded to Trump's DOGE power grab. "Speed Up the Breakdown," by Quinn Slobodian at The New York Review of Books. The Purge at the Pentagon: After firing senior Pentagon officials last week, the president has moved to staff the top ranks of the military and federal law enforcement with loyalists whose most important qualification is their personal fealty to the White House. Storm Clouds Gathering: This week, for the first time in 10 years, measles claimed the life of an American — an unvaccinated child. The deadly and extremely contagious disease was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but declining vaccination rates have caused outbreaks to return with growing force in recent years. The health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said the Texas outbreak responsible for the child's death, as well as the hospitalization of 20 others, was "not unusual." It feels like a worrying sign of things to come. The stock market dipped, possibly on fears of the effects of Trump tariffs. One of the questions I had coming into Trump's second term was how a public who got rid of the last president in large part because of inflation would react to a president running on an inflationary agenda. We may be about to find out. What Else I'm Reading to Understand the Current Moment: "Whose Nationalism?" by John M. Owen IV at The Hedgehog Review; "We're Getting the Social Media Crisis Wrong," by Henry Farrell; "The Making of the Chinese Working Class," by Teemu Ruskola at The New Left Review. Editors' Picks Desiree Rios for The New York Times Zeynep Tufekci The Texas Measles Outbreak Is Even Scarier Than It Looks Kennedy may not be worried, but everyone else should be. By Zeynep Tufekci Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times The Editorial Board The MAGA War on Speech If only the powerful are free to speak their minds, it's not free speech. By The Editorial Board Guest Essay A Federal Judge Says: Knock Off the Threats It is not a partisan issue. Harassment comes from all parts of the political spectrum. By Michael Ponsor Illustration by The New York Times. Photograph by Getty Images. Guest Essay Republicans Want to Gut Medicaid. They Might Regret It. Maybe they should get a second opinion. 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