Thursday, February 27, 2025
Good morning, and welcome to RedState's "Morning Minute" — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.
TOP O' THE MORNIN'
Red-Hot at RedState
Swalwell shouldn't be engaging in the behavior he brags about, let alone loudly discussing it in public with people he just met.
Pentagon Orders Discharge of Transgenders
The new guidance clears the decks, so to speak, for the military to toss aside this modern-day version of Robert S. McNamara's Project 100,000 and get back to the business of training to win wars.
Democrat Ethics Loudmouth Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Finds Himself in Corruption Scandal of His Own
We’ll see where this goes, but for now it certainly seems like there’s smoke that is potentially going to lead to fire.
Trending Across Townhall Media
Group Alleges 2.5k+ Unlawful Deaths at the Hands of CCW Holders
If the American public wants to take the gun control narrative and embrace it, they need to know that they’re being fed warped statistics.
Has the Chief Justice Finally Seen Enough?
This snap intervention suggests, though, that Roberts is getting fed up with both the lawfare efforts and federal judges enabling it.
Data Republican Just Got Doxxed, and the Outpouring of Support Will Warm Your Heart
Don't worry, she isn't giving up. "I am not backing down and I look forward to serving the Administration," Jennica assured her followers.
WaPo's Top Political Reporter Details How Dems Are Totally Screwed Right Now
Trump has transformed the GOP into a working-class, multiracial party. Yes, the ‘woke’ Left has become so insane that even non-white working class voters are starting to flee the Democrats.
Scott Jennings Asks CNN Panel for Examples of Trump ‘Shredding’ Constitution and They Can’t Give Any
It seems so far that the Democrats' plan to counter President Donald Trump is to scream catchphrases.
WHAT'S ON TAP?
Today on Capitol Hill...
On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Jamieson Greer as U.S. Trade Representative. The Senate Judiciary Committee also conducted confirmation hearings for John Sauer as Solicitor General and Harmeet Dhillon and Aaron Reitz as Assistant Attorneys General.
On Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will meet to consider Lori Chavez-DeRemer's nomination for Labor Secretary. Additionally, several committees are meeting to consider the nominations for several deputy secretaries and other lower-level positions.
The full Senate will vote on a measure to overturn a costly Natural Gas Tax that was passed under the Biden administration as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. At 1:45 p.m. Eastern, they'll vote on cloture as to the nomination of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the White House on Wednesday as they attempt to hammer out and sync up the budget framework.
Hearings/meetings set for Thursday include:
- House Appropriations, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee —American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Hearing
- House Judiciary, Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee — "Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking and Online Exploitation”
- Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports Subcommittee — Hearings to examine cargo theft, focusing on the threat to consumers and the U.S. supply chain
- Senate Armed Services, Strategic Forces Subcommittee — To receive a closed briefing on global nuclear and missile threats
White House What's Up
President Trump held his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He'll start off Thursday with an intelligence briefing, followed by meetings and a press conference with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Vice President JD Vance attended the Wednesday Cabinet meeting as well. He also shared an interesting statistic regarding the number of questions his boss has taken from the press in his first month versus his predecessor.
Pretty amazing. We’ve gotten too accustomed to our president hiding from the press. https://t.co/sYautbNO8l
— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 27, 2025
Keeping Up With the Cabinet
Sec. State - Marco Rubio — Rubio announced that he is "providing foreign policy guidance to terminate all Biden-era oil and gas licenses that have shamefully bankrolled the illegitimate Maduro regime."
Sec. Treasury - Scott Bessent — Bessent, as noted above, met with House and Senate leadership on Wednesday to work with them on devising the framework for their budget measure and ensuring the 2017 tax cuts are made permanent.
Sec. Defense - Pete Hegseth — Hegseth sent a strong message to Mexican cartels about what the U.S. will do to defend the homeland — i.e., "whatever it takes."
Attorney General - Pam Bondi — Bondi announced late Wednesday evening that they would be releasing some of the information regarding Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday.
Sec. Interior - Doug Burgum — Burgum, along with several other Cabinet members, shared a message from the Rose Garden regarding their enthusiasm about making America better.
Sec. Agriculture - Brooke Rollins — Rollins offered a five-prong strategy to help lower the cost of eggs.
Sec. Commerce - Howard Lutnick — Lutnick sat down with Fox News' Bret Baier for a wide-ranging interview that included a touching story about how his son saved his life on 9/11.
Sec. Housing & Urban Development - Scott Turner — Turner delivered the prayer to open Trump's first Cabinet meeting.
Sec. Transportation - Sean Duffy — Duffy affirmed that the FAA is hiring more safety-critical positions, such as air traffic controllers and inspectors.
Sec. Energy - Chris Wright — Wright sat for an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper and addressed the goal of winning the AI race.
Sec. Homeland Security - Kristi Noem — Following the Cabinet meeting, Noem headed to Kentucky along with SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler to survey the damage caused by flooding earlier in the month.
Admin. Environmental Protection Agency - Lee Zeldin — Zeldin exposed more self-dealing by the Biden administration.
Dir. National Intelligence - Tulsi Gabbard — Gabbard announced that she is looking into the implications of the UK's demand that Apple share users' Cloud data.
U.S. Trade Rep. - Jamieson Greer — Greer was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday in a 56-43 vote.
Full Court Press...
After U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay out roughly $2 billion on various contracts by midnight on Wednesday in order to "enforce" the temporary restraining order he entered in the case, and after the Circuit Court of Appeals refused to hear the government's appeal, the government applied to the Supreme Court for a stay of the lower court judge's order. Late Wednesday night, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts entered an administrative stay, temporarily pausing enforcement of the lower court order. This is not a final ruling on the merits. It just temporarily freezes the district court's order. But it's somewhat significant for the Supreme Court to weigh in here. (And if you want to fully follow along with all the intricacies, I highly recommend following Margot Cleveland's timeline on X. She's doing a magnificent job of tracking all of these cases and the whacky twists and turns of them.)
By the way, New York Mayor Eric Adams' case remains pending. (The court has not yet ruled on the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the matter.) Adams has now filed a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Trump is set to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on Friday for the signing of the minerals deal.
We'll want to keep an eye on House and Senate leadership and see what sort of framework they come up with for the budget in the coming days.
MORNING MUSING
I believe I've remarked on this previously, but I want to take a moment to tip my hat to the current Trump administration for making full use of media — social and traditional — to continually get their message out to the American people. Rather than leaving Trump as the primary spokesman and leaving it up to legacy media to report on what he says and does accurately (ha!), this administration is wisely conducting a non-stop positive messaging assault via multiple telegenic and articulate surrogates. The entire Cabinet is regularly making the rounds and is highly visible on X, sharing tweets and videos of them actually doing things that make sense. This is a wise, effective strategy, in my view. It leaves the Democrats and their legacy media stenographers playing defense and looking rather silly in the process.
LIGHTER FARE
Friends come in all shapes and sizes...
Puppy making friends with a baby cow..🐕🐾🐄😊 pic.twitter.com/WQJlQvyIUn
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) February 26, 2025
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