President Donald Trump appointed a fraud detection expert to lead the Social Security Administration (SSA) after its acting commissioner reportedly resigned following a dispute over access to sensitive documents, according to The Washington Post.

Leland Dudek, who manages SSA’s anti-fraud office, will serve as acting commissioner while the Senate vets Frank Bisignano, Trump’s nominee for permanent commissioner. Dudek replaces Michelle King, a 30-year SSA veteran who quit after refusing to provide sensitive records to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, according to the outlet.

“@POTUS has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the @SocialSecurity Administration, and we expect him to he swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, wrote on X. “In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.”

.@POTUS has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the @SocialSecurity Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting… https://t.co/j0JGrmY55p

— Harrison Fields (@HFields47) February 18, 2025

The appointment comes after Musk highlighted potential fraud in federal entitlement programs, claiming it “exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you’ve ever heard by FAR.” Musk specifically pointed to millions of Social Security numbers belonging to impossibly elderly people — some apparently over 200 years old.

“Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem,” Musk wrote Monday. “Obviously. Some of these people would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second.”

Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal shit, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello???

Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem.

Obviously.

Some of these people would have been alive… https://t.co/L17rSBR1Tb pic.twitter.com/6hBqAJ5TbF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

About 44,000 of the 18.9 million Social Security number holders over age 100 still collect benefits, while an estimated 86,000 people above that age are thought to be alive, according to an SSA Office of Inspector General report.

The selection of Dudek reportedly upset more senior SSA officials who felt passed over by the move. The agency has long struggled with budget and staffing issues, which former SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley believes will worsen with DOGE’s involvement and leadership changes.

“At this rate, they will break it. And they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley, who served under former President Joe Biden, told the outlet. “It’s a shame the chilling effect it has to disregard 120 executive service people. To pick an acting commissioner that is not in the senior executive service sends a message that professional people should leave that beleaguered public agency.”

King’s departure follows similar incidents across federal agencies, most recently a dispute over DOGE’s access to taxpayer information at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). A federal judge is expected to rule on DOGE’s access to IRS and other data Tuesday afternoon.

Story by Thomas English of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Former FBI Official Says MAGA Supporters Should Question If They’re Americans

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt set the “record straight” Monday evening on Fox News to say that President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk to “identify fraud” within the Social Security Department.

Democrats have pushed back against Musk and his DOGE team’s involvement with the Trump administration since the announcement of upending the U.S. Agency for International Development. However, a new wave of criticism targeted Musk after he posted a picture on X Sunday evening showing a chart in the Social Security database, ranging from ages zero to 369 years old.

“I’ve been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington D.C. swamp who are trying to fear monger the American people into believing that this administration is going after their hard earned tax dollars and their hard earned Social Security checks,” Leavitt said to host Sean Hannity. “So I want to set the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the DOGE team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration.”

“They haven’t dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. So their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things,” Leavitt added.

In July 2023, the Social Security Administration’s [SSA’s] Office of the Inspector General released an audit saying that “approximately 18.9 million numberholders” were found to have been born in 1920 or earlier, “but had no death information on their Numident record.”

Leavitt went on to describe DOGE’s and Musk’s main goal regarding the SSA’s potential waste, saying that the “legacy fake news” was attempting to “fear” people into believing the Trump administration had other motives.

“Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them. Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money,” Leavitt said. “Number three, to protect the integrity of this system for hard working Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives. So, rest assured to all of the people watching your show tonight, if you paid into the system, honestly, you will continue to receive your Social Security tax checks.”

“Do not buy into the lies from the legacy fake news media who are trying to fear you and scare you into believing otherwise. This is what we’ve seen them do about President Trump for years with every promise that he has made. He’s going in there to protect your hard earned money. That is the ultimate goal,” Leavitt said.

The Social Security Agency’s 2023 report followed a 2015 report that advocated for the agency to address discrepancies within the database, as the 2015 audit found 6.5 million people with Social Security numbers but no death information.

However, the July 2023 audit says, “We believe it likely SSA did not receive or record most of the 18.9 million individuals’ death information primarily because the individuals died decades ago — before the use of electronic death reporting. Resolving these discrepancies will improve the accuracy and completeness of the DMF.”

DMF is the Social Security Death Master File. That file contains a list of deceased individuals who had Social Security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the SSA.

Story by Hailey Gomez of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

It Turns Out the USAID Worker Who Told ‘Heartbreaking’ Story to 60 Minutes is Samantha Powers Speechwriter

Former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi claimed on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that those who voted for President Donald Trump should question whether they are American anymore.

The MSNBC legal analyst unleashed a broadside of attacks against President Trump, purportedly based on the premise that Donald Trump’s invocation of the phrase that “he who saves his country does not violate any laws” is akin to imagining himself as the Emperor Napoleon.

The Guardian waxed apoplectic about the relatively innocuous statement, which is akin to Barack Obama saying he has a “pen and a phone” and can do things without Congress.

Critics rounded on Donald Trump on Sunday for likening himself to Napoleon in a “dictatorial” social media post echoing the French emperor’s assertion that “he who saves his country does not violate any laws”.

The post came at the end of another tumultuous week early in Trump’s second presidency, during which acolytes questioned the legitimacy of judges making a succession of rulings to stall his administration’s aggressive seizure or dismantling of federal institutions and budgets.

His defiance of some of those orders, including one ordering a restoration of funding to bodies such as the National Institutes of Health, has led to several of the president’s opponents declaring a constitutional crisis.

The courts separate democracy from autocracy. Will Trump defy them?

“He is the most lawless president in US history,” Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, wrote on Wednesday in the Guardian.

“This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power ‘legitimately’, not the president.”

Trump laid out his position in the tweet posted on Saturday afternoon, after a round of golf at his Florida resort. The quote, as internet sleuths soon discovered, is a version of a phrase attributed to Napoleon “Celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi,” translated as: “who saves his country violates no law”.

Figliuzzi took it a step further and compared Trump to a mass murderer and a white supremacist.

“This Reince Priebus clip that you played, Nothing to see here, don’t worry, remain calm, he occasionally likes to take a grenade out and throw it on the floor to see what happens. I’ll tell you what happens when you play with a live grenade and toss it on the floor eventually it explodes. The only question for us is whether it’s going to explode back on Trump or explode and hurt the rest of us. My money is on both, by the way, people are going to get hurt and eventually it will blow back on Trump.”

He continued, “With regard to this statement…when he says, ‘Don’t worry that someone who saves his country cannot violate a law.’ It’s been attributed by some historians who aren’t certain to Napoleon, but I’ll tell you where. it’s definitely been used far more recently. That’s with a white supremacist, far right extremist named Anders Breivik in Norway, who killed 77 people in Norway.”

Figliuzzi added, “Now our president is quoting that white supremacist, Neo-Nazi murderer. If you voted for that, you you really need to question whether you’re American anymore. But that’s who’s using that kind of statement. Listen, does Trump sit and read Norwegian history? Hell no. Someone is handing him this story, this quote. We need to figure out who keeps spoon feeding him the white supremacy, white terrorist philosophy.”

This is in regards to a president who is merely attempting to reform the U.S. government, enforce immigration law, and make peace deals.

So much for measured and intelligent political discourse at MSNBC.

It Turns Out the USAID Worker Who Told ‘Heartbreaking’ Story to 60 Minutes is Samantha Powers Speechwriter

Influential Democratic donors are reportedly pausing donations to left-wing activist groups, citing the Democratic Party’s failure thus far to articulate a new vision of electoral success after its bruising losses in November.

Democratic Party-affiliated advocacy groups are reportedly struggling for cash as left-wing organizers gear up to combat President Donald Trump’s agenda by protesting the president’s actions to cull the federal workforce and freeze government spending that does not align with American interests, according to a report by The New York Times published Friday. Despite deep-pocketed donors bankrolling resistance groups during the first Trump administration, many left-wing billionaires appear to be pulling back on giving due to party leaders appearing to learn few lessons from their November defeat.

Democratic donors’ reportedly turning off the spigot to left-wing groups follows a glaring example of party-affiliated groups spending donors’ money liberally while yielding few results. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign and its allies spent roughly $1.5 billion to take on Trump, but still lost every swing state and the so-called popular vote. Harris’ campaign allegedly ended with roughly $20 million in debt, a Politico reporter claimed in November after speaking with sources.

“No one is giving until they see a plan for how we are going to better navigate this unprecedented situation and stop acting like this is a normal administration,” Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a political consultant who works with Silicon Valley donors, told the Times.

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor who funded E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump, has also indicated he may take a step back from funding an array of resistance 2.0 groups.

A spokesperson for Hoffman told the Times that the billionaire “thinks that the Democratic Party strategy needs to reform, and when it does, he’s happy to hear new ideas and new pitches.”

One Hoffman advisor notably moved to Canada after the election and told the Times that he’s given up on investing in left-wing activism in the United States.

Left-wing activist and Democratic Party-affiliated groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), End Citizens United and Center for American Progress, have all cut staff in recent months as donors slow their pace of funding, according to the Times.

One Democratic-Party affiliated group, Run for Something, which works to elect down ballot Democratic candidates, laid off more than a third of its personnel after the presidential election, the Times reported. 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) also fired hundreds of employees post-election defeat as party groups grappled with the tens of millions of dollars in debt the Harris campaign incurred.

Democratic Party donors’ reported frustration comes as many worry that the party has learned few lessons after losing the popular vote for the first time since 2004 last November.

The newly-elected DNC chairman Ken Martin raised eyebrows in January when he said “anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong” just days before being elected party chairman.

“Clearly we have a brand and a perception problem,” Martin told the Times in an interview seeking to clarify his remarks. “While we [the Democratic Party] don’t need a wholesale abandonment of the issues, we do need to focus on the things that people desperately care about and we haven’t, because we’ve allowed ourselves to message to smaller and smaller parts of our coalition.”

Americans believe that abortion, LGBT rights and climate change are the most important issues to the Democratic Party, according to a New York Times-Ipsos poll released on Jan. 2 that surveyed 2,128 Americans.

Conversely, the most important issues to Americans are the economy, health care and immigration, according to the January poll.

“The [DNC] learned nothing from the last election,” major Democratic Florida donor John Morgan, who founded the personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, told the Times.

Despite electing Martin to lead the DNC, Democrats appear to still lack a clear leader or united strategy to lead the party to success during the upcoming 2026 midterms. Former White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden and MSNBC host Jen Psaki likened Democrats to being “in the wilderness” following Harris’ defeat and the GOP retaking control of the Senate.

The Democratic Party also reached a low approval rating of just 31% according to a January favorability rating recorded by Quinnipiac.

Despite this, many Democratic Party leaders are not backing away from messaging that voters appeared to reject in November.

Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, labeled Trump a fascist and said the party should be focused on defending the U.S. democracy against the president’s allegedly authoritarian executive actions in a recent interview with Politico.

“At some point, Democratic leaders need to break with decorum and be honest with themselves: Something is deeply wrong, and pretending otherwise won’t stop voters from noticing,” left-wing political strategist Waleed Shahid, told the Times. 

The DNC did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Story by Adam Pack of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

It Turns Out the USAID Worker Who Told ‘Heartbreaking’ Story to 60 Minutes is Samantha Powers Speechwriter

A former speechwriter for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday to bemoan federal workers facing financial challenges after losing their government positions.

Kristina Drye, who served under USAID Administrator Samantha Power during the Biden administration, expressed dismay by the economic realities awaiting former agency employees outside of the federal payroll. Her appearance comes after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effectively dismantled USAID in early February after a review of agency programs revealed billions in spending on left-wing, especially pro-LGBT, social initiatives abroad.

“People are really scared,” Drye said. “Twelve days ago, people know where their next paycheck was coming from. They knew how they were going to pay for their kids’ daycare, their medical bills. And then, all gone overnight.”

Drye started her position as a USAID “speechwriter and communications analyst” in October 2022, according to her LinkedIn profile. She separately appeared in a CBS News interview outside of the agency’s headquarters on Feb. 3, where she lamented the loss of employees who had “given their lives” to “this work.”

“Absolutely heartbreaking. People who have given decades of their work — this kind of, this work. I mean they’ve given their lives,” she said. “DOGE was in the building. We took down our pride flags. I took out any books I felt would be incriminating. No one was talking.”

President Donald Trump plans to fire all but 294 USAID employees, reducing the agency’s worldwide force by over 9,000, according to Reuters. The dramatic downsizing follows DOGE’s reviews that identified multiple initiatives funding sex-change operations and tech censorship programs abroad during former President Joe Biden’s term — programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized as diplomatic liabilities. Former USAID Administrator Power previously stated her desire to “work LGBT rights into the DNA of our foreign policy.”

“And they had to leave the building,” Drye continued on “60 Minutes” Sunday. “And these are folks who had decades and decades of public service serving USAID across multiple administrations … And they were never able to walk back in the building again.”

During Drye’s Biden-era tenure, U.S. workers faced record-high inflation, high interest rates, soaring housing costs and plateauing job growth for native-born Americans, while foreign-born job numbers soared to record figures.

Drye did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Story by Thomas English of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Elon Musk’s DOGE Wins Major Court Battle

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has secured a major legal victory.

In a late-night ruling, Judge John Bates denied an attempt by unions and nonprofit groups to block DOGE’s oversight of the Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The senior D.C. circuit judge ensured that DOGE can have continued access to sensitive government records.

“For the reasons explained above, on the record as it currently stands and with limited briefing on the issue, the case law defining agencies indicates that plaintiffs have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency,” Bates wrote. “If that is so, [DOGE] may detail its employees to other agencies consistent with the Economy Act.”

The judge’s ruling emphasized that DOGE, though created through an executive order, fits the legal definition of an agency and therefore has authority to assign personnel within the federal government.

Musk, who has been vocal about judicial interference in government oversight, celebrated the ruling.

Earlier he had taken to X to vent about any judicial interference in the executive branch’s operations.

“There needs to be an immediate wave of judicial impeachments, not just one,” Musk said earlier.

The decision ensures DOGE can continue to target wasteful government spending and enhance transparency, a key initiative of the Trump administration. For now.

But the legal fight is far from over, as Democratic Attorneys General have launched new lawsuits aimed at curbing DOGE’s reach.

One lawsuit has landed in the hands of Judge Tanya Chutkan, a known critic of Trump. Critics argue that this is a coordinated effort to obstruct Musk’s ability to conduct financial audits across federal agencies.

Meanwhile, legal analysts are urging the Department of Justice to impose injunction bonds on lawsuits aimed at blocking executive actions.

Dan Huff, a former White House official, argued on X that the DOJ should use Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c) to require suing parties to post a financial bond before obtaining an injunction.

@DOGE, a single district judge has issued a ruling blocking the executive branch from access to Treasury data. There’s a simple fix: DOJ should demand injunction bonds. This will be a repeat problem for the Trump administration, just like it was in the first term, unless something is done to rein in frivolous injunctions. Activist judges could single-handedly gum up the entire Trump/DOGE agenda.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), judges can issue injunctions “ONLY IF” the suing party posts a bond to cover potential damages if they’re wrong. But guess what? This rule is hardly used! When I was in the White House, in Trump’s first term, I suggested this, but DOJ didn’t make it happen. Imagine if we had applied this to the travel ban—activists would think twice before blocking policies with potentially billions at stake.

The government has expert economists who can easily price out the cost of policies like birthright citizenship or wasteful spending. Price injunction bonds fairly, and frivolous lawsuits become a financial risk, not a free pass. Without injunction bonds, the American people bear all the costs of activists and judges blocking the agenda they voted for. Why should activists and judges get to overrule the American people with no penalty if they’re wrong? Our system wasn’t meant to work this way.

For national injunctions, we’re talking bonds in the hundreds of millions or even billions. It will become prohibitive unless the activists have a slam-dunk case. If a judge tries to lowball the bond amount, it’s a quick and easy reversal given the unambiguous language in the federal rules. The best part? This doesn’t block activists from court; it just stops them from using preliminary injunctions to pause government action based on arguments that might not hold up in an appellate court.

If enforced, this legal device would discourage activist judges from blocking lawful reforms without non-profit groups having financial backing in case the judge holds them accountable for damages to the public.

The Resistance’s Never-Ending Lawfare Campaign is Blowing Up In Its Face

Judges placing temporary holds on Trump’s actions may ultimately help him achieve his bigger goals.

A flood of lawsuits against early Trump administration moves, which have led judges to temporarily block Trump’s spending freeze and force health agencies to reinstate pages removed from their websites, have only created opportunities to leave a lasting mark on how the executive branch operates, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Ironically, in rushing to trip up Trump, these judges may empower him when all is said and done,” GianCarlo​​​​ Canaparo, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, explaining the judges have in some cases “gotten the law and their own power terribly wrong.”

“Not only do I expect they will ultimately be reversed on appeal, but by overreaching they have given Trump exactly the vehicles he wants to overrule some of those old Supreme Court precedents,” Canaparo continued. “And, of course, they’ve teed up a challenge to nationwide injunctions, which the Supreme Court seems ready to abolish.”

Elon Musk’s DOGE Wins Major Court Battle

Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have accused judges of wrongfully blocking actions that fall within the president’s power.

A federal judge in Maryland blocked Trump from restricting hospitals that offer child sex-change procedures from receiving federal funds on Thursday. Another federal judge in Washington, D.C. also blocked Trump from terminating foreign aid contracts and grants issued prior to his inauguration.

A federal appeals court rejected the administration’s request on Tuesday to lift an order blocking its funding freeze. The judge who issued the temporary restraining order clarified Wednesday that his order did not prevent the administration from ending funding based on “actual authority in the applicable statutory, regulatory, or grant terms,” permitting them to move forward with pulling funding from the housing of migrants in New York.

A federal judge lifted a temporary freeze on Trump’s buyout offer for federal workers on Wednesday.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is also defending challenges related to several other executive orders, including those targeting gender ideology and ending birthright citizenship.

The executive order on birthright citizenship, which four federal judges have already blocked, will likely end up at the Supreme Court. But the most lasting change Trump’s actions could make at the high court might be surrounding the role of executive power.

“President Trump is acting fully within his Article II powers with these executive orders,” Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, told the DCNF. “Activist judges are attempting to steal his executive power over nothing more than political differences. This is unacceptable, and these activist judges are creating a constitutional crisis. If it comes to the Supreme Court to put an end to this, then so be it.”

Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen noted in The New Yorker that lawyers likely predicted Trump’s early actions would be challenged and ultimately land at the Supreme Court. “This makes Trump’s legal strategy intelligible,” she wrote.

“[W]hat is playing out through a veneer of chaos is a deliberate and organized tactical program to undertake actions that provoke a raft of lawsuits, some of which could become good vehicles for establishing a constitutional vision in which the President has sole authority over the entire executive branch,” she wrote.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris notified the Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin on Wednesday that the Trump DOJ would seek the reversal of a nearly 100-year-old Supreme Court precedent preventing presidents from removing agency officials without cause.

“To the extent that Humphrey’s Executor requires otherwise, the Department intends to urge the Supreme Court to overrule that decision, which prevents the President from adequately supervising principal officers in the Executive Branch who execute the laws on the President’s behalf, and which has already been severely eroded by recent Supreme Court decisions,” Harris wrote.

A judge ordered Hampton Dellinger, leader of the Office of Special Counsel, to be reinstated Wednesday after Trump announced he was fired.

“The Constitution vests the executive power in the president, and all of it must be accountable to the voters through him. That said, the president should also work with allies in Congress to get Congress to take back the legislative power that it has delegated to the executive. The president should not be our chief lawmaker, but he is our chief executive,” Canaparo told the DCNF. “That’s a very important distinction that the Founders appreciated but we have forgotten.”

Story by Katelynn Richardson of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Terminates Over 400 Homeland Security Employees

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has warned that if the Trump administration moves forward with its plan to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, her government will expand its lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers—potentially accusing them of complicity in organized crime.

“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our US lawsuit,” Sheinbaum stated, as reported by The Guardian.

Sheinbaum hinted that Mexico’s legal strategy could argue that American gun companies are indirectly aiding these so-called terrorist groups by allowing firearms to flow south.

“The lawyers are looking at it, but they could be accomplices,” she added.

The Mexican Government’s lawsuit claimed U.S. gun companies were trafficking firearms into the country:

Plaintiff Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the “Government”), a sovereign nation, brings this action to put an end to the massive damage that the Defendants cause by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico. Almost all guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico — 70% to 90% of them — were trafficked from the U.S. The Defendants include the six U.S.-based manufacturers whose guns are most often recovered in Mexico — Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock, and Ruger. Another manufacturer defendant is Barrett, whose .50 caliber sniper rifle is a weapon of war prized by the drug cartels. The remaining defendant — Interstate Arms — is a Boston-area wholesaler through which all but one of the defendant manufacturers sell their guns for re-sale to gun dealers throughout the U.S.

Mexico has long pushed for tighter U.S. gun control, arguing that lax American regulations fuel cartel violence. The country filed a $10 billion lawsuit against six U.S. gun manufacturers and a wholesaler in 2021, claiming their firearms were being trafficked into Mexico and used in violent crimes. The case was largely dismissed by a U.S. judge in 2024, but aspects of the lawsuit remain active, particularly against Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms.

This legal escalation comes as tensions between Mexico and the U.S. continue to mount over the cross-border drug trade, particularly the fentanyl crisis. The Trump administration, citing the massive flow of synthetic opioids into the U.S., has signaled its intent to designate major cartels—such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel—as terrorist organizations. The move could open the door for more aggressive U.S. military and intelligence operations against cartel networks operating within Mexico.

While Sheinbaum’s government seeks to hold U.S. gunmakers accountable, Mexico itself faces serious scrutiny for failing to curb the trafficking of fentanyl into the United States.

A Reuters investigation detailed how Mexican cartels, in collaboration with Chinese chemical suppliers, are running a vast fentanyl production network, with smugglers using corruption, bribery, and logistical loopholes to move precursor chemicals into cartel-controlled drug labs.

According to Reuters, brokers in Mexico coordinate with Chinese suppliers to import fentanyl precursors, disguise shipments, and bribe officials to move chemicals through major ports like Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas. The cartels’ chemical operations have proven difficult to dismantle, as corrupt Mexican officials often turn a blind eye or actively assist in the smuggling process.

The Sheinbaum administration’s push to sue American gunmakers over cartel violence contrasts sharply with Mexico’s failure to stop fentanyl production and trafficking, which has led to over 400,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. over the past decade.

There are some analysts who believe that Mexico is carrying out a Chinese proxy war against the United States using fentanyl as a weapon.

Reuters reported on the China-Mexico fentanyl connection:

China is the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl, while Chinese money launderers have become key players in the international drug trade, U.S. authorities say. The Biden administration has been negotiating with Beijing for the past year to crack down on both. Diplomacy has yielded promising but modest results so far. That has frustrated some U.S. security officials and China hawks who say the U.S. must ratchet up the pressure to get Beijing’s leadership to act.

Despite its strict gun laws, Mexico remains plagued by violence, with over 480,000 drug-related killings since 2006. The argument that American guns fuel cartel warfare ignores Mexico’s deep-rooted issues of corruption, cartel influence, and weak law enforcement.

At the same time, U.S. officials argue that Mexico is effectively allowing a war to be waged against American citizens through unchecked fentanyl trafficking—a crisis that has devastated families across the United States.

Sheinbaum has already rejected accusations from the Trump administration that her government is allied with cartels, calling them “slander” and shifting the blame back to the U.S..

“If there is such an alliance anywhere, it is in the US gun shops that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups,” she said on social media platform X.

However, the U.S. could apply the same logic in reverse—arguing that by failing to crack down on cartel production of fentanyl and its precursors, Mexico is complicit in the trafficking of a deadly poison into American communities.

As tensions rise, both nations face the challenge of balancing accountability—but if Mexico wants to pursue lawsuits against U.S. gunmakers, it must also answer for its role in fueling America’s opioid epidemic.

President Trump’s tariff threat against its southern neighbor has reignited discussions in Mexico about reducing reliance on the U.S. for trade—currently, about 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the U.S.. Mexico’s recent agreement with the European Union to update their trade deal is seen as a step toward diversification, though experts warn that non-tariff trade barriers, such as EU agricultural regulations, pose challenges.

Looking ahead, Mexico is preparing for a review of the USMCA next year. Ricardo Aranda, a former Mexican trade negotiator, noted that with Trump’s trade representative still unconfirmed, it’s difficult to predict what changes the U.S. might seek.

If Mexico wants to ramp up threats against the United States to attempt to shield drug cartels from foreign accountability, the Trump administration may not have a choice but to resort to economic coercion as a resort short of military intervention.

U.S. Intel Agencies Dismantle DEI Initiatives Following Trump’s Executive Order

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday that it cut 405 employees from various components.

The Trump administration has focused on cutting government waste through groups like the Department of Government Efficiency and offered payouts to government employees. The majority of the cuts came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which saw more than 200 employees let go.

BREAKING: @KristiNoem has fired over 400 employees from the Department of Homeland Security.

*AMERICA INTENSIFIES.* pic.twitter.com/VtVCugy6ar

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) February 15, 2025

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency followed with more than 130 departures, while the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had fewer than 50 cuts. Science & Technology let go of 10 employees.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer,” a DHS spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

According to the DHS, the cuts are expected to result in an estimated $50 million in savings for American taxpayers, adding an “incalculable valuable toward accountability and cutting red tape.”

“DHS component leads identified non-mission critical personnel in probationary status. We are actively identifying other wasteful positions and offices that do not do not fulfill DHS’ mission,” the DHS spokesperson added.

The cuts from DHS come after U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. dissolved his temporary freeze on the Trump administration’s plan to offer federal employees deferred compensation through Sept. 30, provided they submit their resignation notices by Feb. 6. Additionally, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) offered payouts to its entire workforce, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities. These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission,” a CIA spokesperson told the DCNF.

Story by Hailey Gomez of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

U.S. Intel Agencies Dismantle DEI Initiatives Following Trump’s Executive Order