LANSING — In case you missed it, NBC News did a full review of the beginning of Trump’s presidency, and much like cheap fake tans, it wasn’t a flattering picture. Like a bull in a China shop, Trump’s been wrecking havoc on everything he’s touched: the economy, Social Security, veterans’ services, and more. With his chaotic on-again off-again tariffs, Trump has thrown countless Michiganders into disarray as people struggle to plan for the future.
As Trump lets billionaire Elon Musk take a hatchet to the federal government, Musk’s cuts to Social Security are endangering thousands of Michigan families’ livelihoods. Already, Trump and the Republicans’ economy is raising costs for Michiganders, and it’s only going to get worse if he has his way. Thankfully, Michigan Democrats have been pushing back at every turn to try and protect Michiganders from the chaos of Trump’s reign.
Read more about Trump’s 84 disastrous days as president:
NBC News: Chaos, confusion and reversals: The story of Trump’s second term so far
- The president is in a hurry. Executive orders, tariffs, mass firings — all are happening at a speed that has made it hard for the nation to keep up. And tough for Trump to carry out.
- The chaotic start of his presidency has been characterized by a rash of reversals and retreats as he hastens to execute his agenda…
- Investors and everyday Americans alike seem anxious about what’s to come. A closely watched consumer confidence report from the University of Michigan found that sentiment this month had fallen 11% from March and 34% from a year before.
- The share of consumers who believe that unemployment will rise over the next year is at its highest level since 2009, during the global financial crisis.
- Another measure that tracks expectations of how markets will fluctuate over the coming month — dubbed the “fear” or “panic” index — reached its highest point last week since the Covid-19 pandemic…
- Under billionaire mogul Elon Musk, the administration has moved swiftly to shrink the government, firing thousands of probationary employees and others deemed expendable. The effort has upended the lives of government workers who’ve abruptly found themselves out of jobs — or rehired later, in some cases…
- “Move fast and break things,” U.S. District Judge James Bredar said at a hearing in Maryland about the government’s attempts to fire workers across the country. “Move fast, fine. Break things? If that involves breaking the law, then that becomes problematic…”
- At the Social Security Administration, the agency that provides benefits to nearly 70 million people each month, more than 28% of customers got busy signals when they phoned in March — up from 1.5% from the month before. Only 39% managed to reach agents by phone last month, compared with 71% last May.
- “Our worst enemies could not design a better way to harm our government than what is going on right now,” said Max Stier, founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that aims to make government more effective…
- “This time,” Davis continued, Trump imposed “enormous tariffs” and left “no time to negotiate and no process for U.S. firms to argue that they would be hurt more by U.S. tariffs than China or other trading partners.”
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