Will Kbach (10:34)
First, from Isaac Saul Tangle's executive editor, Trump's Disorganization I have so much more to say about the first few weeks of Trump's presidency and I will put together a post when I'm back from paternity leave. But this is one notable take I figure I'll get off my chest now. Maybe this doesn't qualify as under the radar, but I think a lot of people are missing the forest for the trees. By framing Trump's first few weeks as calculated and well planned, Trump is undeniably flooding the zone. But I'm not sure yet how different this is than Trump 1.0 or Trump's first term. His current administration is still beset by widespread leaking, disorganization, some missteps and signs of chaos. He's also breaking or testing the boundaries of many laws, which is not a sound recipe for long term or sustainable change. Signs of disorganization like the OMB funding freeze fiasco, the tariffs that Trump backed off of after spending days getting Republicans to rally around them, or the IRS inadvertently removing words like inequity of holding taxpayer money and quote, inclusion of a taxpayer ID on a form from important financial directives are everywhere. Even more targeted approaches like the dismantling of USAID seem to go through fits and spurts. First the organization was going to be shut down, then it was just getting a new director. Now 10,000 employees are being told to pack their bags without a plan or much of an organization to get them home. And the attempt to shut the organization down without Congress might end up being plainly illegal, another sign that Trump's strategy won't be effective. Congressional Republicans are struggling to get anything done. So far it's unclear what important legislation they're going to prioritize or how they're going to advance it. And Trump's rapid fire approach seems to be overwhelming even his own party. A lot is happening and maybe my being on paternity leave. Again, this is Isaac, not Will, and getting to take in the news at a slower pace is informing my perspective. But I think there is a lot of miscommunication, disorganization and orders bound to get caught up in legal trouble once the courts catch up. And I think that's epitomized by something that Ezra Klein said when he spoke to a longtime government employee who opposed Trump, who said the scary thing would be if Trump were moving in slow, calculated ways, but actually he's doing what he did the first time around, blitzing, making mistakes and seeing what sticks. I think that view that Trump is creating an illusion of well laid plans is actually closer to the reality I'm seeing. It's still early, but it'll be interesting to keep watching. The next story is written by Ari Weitzman, Tangle's managing editor, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State Trump made a great decision by selecting Marco Rubio to run the State Department. Rubio has always been a strong communicator and a willing partner for bipartisan legislation in the Senate, and he brings a kind of steady maturity befitting the position. In fact, one of the biggest knocks against Rubio as a politician that he's somewhat politically inert and hasn't resonated with the GOP on their most animated issues is a strength in a secretary of state. I also consider the fact that he's willing to work with a president who famously employed personal attacks against him in the 2016 Republican primary to be a sign of grace and diplomacy, more characteristics that should serve him well as secretary of State. His Senate confirmation failed to make news, but for all the right reasons, quote, his performance was flawless. Senator Jim Risch, a Republican from Idaho, said, I believe Senator Rubio has a thorough understanding of the United States role on an international scale, has served with honor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is a good choice to lead the State Department, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said. In a period of immense polarization, Rubio was confirmed in a unanimous 99. 0 Senate vote. Of course, the consensus of politicians doesn't necessarily mean that Rubio is a slam dunk pick. A better indication is how he performed in his first test in office. Over the weekend, President Trump cast doubt on the future of US Aid, leading to conflicting messages from Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency and Rubio at the State Department. Rubio's comments were appropriately assertive to match the White House's tone, but also much more reasoned and sober than what we got from Musk. I strongly suggest watching Rubio field questions on USAID at an impromptu press gaggle while touring an airplane repair facility in El Salvador to get a read on why he's gained the respect and appreciation of so many of his colleagues. The next section is written by Magdalena Bokova, head of partnerships at tangle women in Trump's cabinet. On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as US attorney general in a 5446 vote. Bondi, who previously served as Florida's attorney general from 2011 to 2019, was the first woman to hold that role in the state. During her confirmation hearing, Bondi avoided taking firm positions on key issues, including whether she would enforce the TikTok ban, whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election and whether she would investigate special counsel Jack Smith, who led probes into Trump during his time out of office. Trump has publicly called for Smith to be prosecuted so this is a pretty big question for Bondi as she starts her tenure as attorney general. But despite the significance of her appointment and following the controversy surrounding Matt Gaetz's withdrawal, Gaetz was the attorney general pick before Bondi. Bondi's confirmation received little media attention, and this, to me, reflects a broader trend. Many of Trump's female cabinet appointees have flown under the radar. Even for someone who follows the news quite closely, it would be difficult to name what positions people like Gail Slater, Harmeet K. Dillon or Brooke Rollins were nominated for. Can you? While major headlines have focused elsewhere, Trump has actually doubled female representation in his main cabinet relative to his first term, with women now holding about one third of cabinet positions. Also, Susie Wiles made history as the first female White House chief of staff, yet her appointment was largely overlooked by the mainstream media. Given the flurry of changes over the past two weeks, it's understandable why, but it's still worth following and paying attention to. The next response is written by me, Will Kbach, an editor at Tangle Stargate, deepseek and the AI arms race Trump's January 23rd executive order on artificial intelligence is mostly a statement of intent that the U.S. should work to solidify its position as a global AI leader and develop AI systems that are, quote, free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas. But this declaration, combined with the recently announced Stargate project, offers a glimpse of where we could be headed on what I believe will be one of the defining stories of the coming years. For background, Stargate is a joint venture announced by Trump between ChatGPT developer OpenAI investment firm SoftBank and software company Oracle that intends to invest billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure in the U.S. the companies have said they would collectively commit $500 billion to the project in the next four years, though Elon Musk has notably cast doubt on that figure. Regardless of the exact investment number, Stargate is fundamentally an AI hardware effort. It will primarily involve the construction of new data centers and physical campuses to train advanced AI models, which typically require a significant amount of energy storage and computing power. Until recently, conventional wisdom among AI leaders held that developing the most advanced AI models think ChatGPT or Anthropics Claude, requires expensive hardware and lots of it, specifically advanced computer chips like those made by Nvidia. That assumption is the impetus for Stargate and recent decisions by US Technology leaders to boost their capital expenditures on AI hardware in the coming years. It's also why the Biden administration moved to impose export controls on computer chips if countries like China aren't able to purchase enough of these chips to develop their own advanced models, they'll be at a perpetual disadvantage. Or so the thinking goes. All of those assumptions were subverted last week by Deepseek, a China based AI startup. Without getting into the weeds of the announcement, Deepsea claimed to have created an AI model that rivals anything produced by American companies at a fraction of the cost they claim $6 million and computing power. Their specific claims are dubious and seem to be getting weaker by the day, especially that $6 million figure. But what isn't in doubt is that Deepseek's product is impressive, particularly with math and coding problems. Now that could be a big problem for the US and initiatives like Stargate. For one, if Deepseek were to build this model with relatively few AI chips, it suggests that export controls won't hinder China's AI progress. Second, the company open sourced its model so anyone can access its code and learn how it developed its system. That means smaller startups with minimal funding could begin developing AI products that rival the billion dollar models. This is free market principles at their finest, but worrisome given the potential military applications for China. Third, if Deepseek's claims are verified, it's very bad news for anyone who may have just committed $500 billion on a faulty assumption about AI. It's plausible that Deepseak has used creativity and ingenuity to solve a problem that US Companies have been throwing gobs of money at to solve with brute force. That's a concern that could explain why Nvidia lost A jaw dropping $592 billion in market capitalization after Deepseek's announcement. Of course we should be very skeptical that Deepseek is telling the whole truth about how it built its system. And of course, this single announcement doesn't render efforts like Stargate immediately irrelevant. In fact, even if Deepseek is fully legit, AI hardware is still going to be important going forward. More chips and infrastructure inherently enable companies to run more tests simultaneously and support a range of enterprise and consumer functions. For the White House and its partners in the private sector, these developments are frankly a wake up call. And I'll be watching to see how President Trump steers the government's strategy. I expect more export controls are on the menu, but but the real test will be whether Trump can keep his eye on the ball and not get bogged down in concerns about woke AI. The next response is written by John Law Tangle's executive producer, the US Sovereign Wealth Fund. On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order tasking US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick to deliver a plan within 90 days for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund. For context, a sovereign wealth fund is like an investment account for a country. The fund is managed by the government with the aims of generating wealth and providing for the common good, and it can be used for healthcare infrastructure and the betterment of future generations. Trump has also floated the idea of using the funds to purchase TikTok. This may sound like a fresh idea to some in the US but it's actually hardly novel. There are actually over 100 countries with sovereign wealth funds, including China, Saudi Arabia, and Norway, which manages the largest in the world, where national governments command funds worth trillions of dollars. Even within the U.S. over 20 states have sovereign wealth funds, Alaska's being the largest, and it holds over $80 billion in assets. It's also not really a partisan idea. Senior officials in the Biden administration were also working on similar plans for a fund before the end of their term. So if other small and major nations have successful funds, and on both sides of the aisle, there's at least a bit of consensus that it could be worth exploring. Why haven't we done it yet? Well, the biggest issue comes down to the biggest difference. While other countries with these funds have budget surpluses, the US runs huge budget deficits, not to mention $35 trillion in debt. Not exactly a drop in the bucket. As Dominic Pinot wrote in National Review, the US Is running enormous budget deficits, forecast to get even bigger as things currently stand. And it would have to borrow even more money to start a sovereign wealth fund. So how would we get the money for such a fund? Well, according to Bloomberg, Trump Advisors have previously discussed plans to use the U.S. international Development Finance Corporation to partner with major institutional players to leverage US Economic powers. End quote. Also, perhaps a clue to his funding strategy lies in a famous Trump drill baby drill. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and especially Norway, with its $1.7 trillion behemoth fund, have built their funds with revenue from oil, natural gas, and mineral sales. Trump wants to expand oil and gas production, but may not have the support he's looking for from industry leaders. So whether he could actually do this remains an open question. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk has also been involved in these conversations. Which brings us to another critical concern. As Heather Long puts it in the Washington Post, a sovereign wealth fund would be a way for a president to have access to money without having to deal with Congress. But as such, it would quickly become a dangerous slush fund. With many government oversight departments on the chopping block and a special government employee in musk with a murky job description and increasingly alarming access, there are enough red flags to give pause and consider the possibilities and dangers to such a plan. Still, if President Trump can manage to create and fund this sovereign wealth fund, it could lead to investments in technology, infrastructure, medical research, or simply function as a piggy bank that eventually gives back to taxpayers. And since both the Biden and Trump administrations have considered this plan, it's more than fair to give credit to President Trump for expeditiously pursuing it. But despite having the world's largest economy but also the world's largest debt, I'm skeptical that our government, and this administration in particular, can take this task on responsibly. The next response is written by Audrey Moorhead and Associate Editor Restructuring the Department of Education Anecdotally, this is an issue that's very important to me. I went through the public school system and I rely on federal loans for college. Beyond that, I grew up with many family members involved in public education. My mother taught for 20 years before becoming a public school librarian. My grandmother taught elementary school for most of her life. My father and uncle are both school superintendents with decades of experience in administration. As such, I've spent my whole life experiencing and learning about the problems facing public education from many sides. So it may come as a surprise that I and a lot of my family think getting rid of the Department of Education is a good move. While the aims of the department are noble and I personally place a high value on the importance of education, its results leave a lot to be desired. In the end, it's a good idea to streamline the federal government by restructuring departments, including the Education Department. First and foremost, I'm partial to the traditional conservative argument about constitutionality. A federal Department of education is not outlining the Constitution as a duty of the executive branch. While the legislature did create and empower the department, I'm not convinced by arguments that the education While the legislature did create and empower the department, I'm not really convinced by arguments that education should fall under the federal government's jurisdiction in our current system. As far as the department's impact on public education goes, recent results aren't great. American students performances in reading and math increased after the department's formation during the Carter administration, but have now hit new lows in recent years, especially after the pandemic. Furthermore, the two seminal pieces of educational policy in the 21st century no child Left behind and its successor, Every Student Succeeds, have negatively affected public education by imposing ineffective top down accountability measures. Tying federal funding to statewide test performance creates undue pressure on teachers to teach the test rather than teach to learn, and there's no evidence that state testing has actually reduced achievement gaps among high and low income students as it was intended to do. Additionally, the other important work of the Education Department its student loan programs have also fallen under scrutiny, and for good reason. I personally experienced the disastrous FAFSA 2023-2024 rollout where many students were left in educational limbo unable to receive aid and therefore unable to enroll in college. Of course, federal loan programs are vital for many middle class and low income students hoping to attend college, but the Education Department has not proven that it can fulfill this role well enough to justify its bloat. All in all, I'm not convinced that a federal Department of Education is necessary or even helpful. If Trump moves to abolish the Education Department by restructuring what I consider its most important work, providing federal student aid into other departments while gutting its more harmful over regulatory provisions, then I count that as a win for students, parents and educators everywhere. The next response is written by Russell Nystrom, our social media and marketing strategist. Releasing the JFK Files Waiting for a president to fully release the JFK files has been a bit like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy not to pull the football away, only to be disappointed every time. For context, in 1992, Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection act, which was signed into law by President George H.W. bush. Among other requirements, the act mandated full disclosure of documents by October 26, 2017, unless the President deemed doing so would pose significant risk to national security, intelligence operations or foreign relations. After pledging in 2017 to release every document, Trump reneged on his promise just a year later, though he did release tens of thousands of pertinent documents during his first term, just not all of the ones he said he would. President Biden also released thousands of relevant documents, but thousands more remain sealed or contain significant redactions. Just a few days into his second term, President Trump signed an executive order mandating the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence, DNI to present a plan to the president for the full and complete release of these records within 15 days or February 7, 2025. Additionally, both officials are to present a plan to release records relating to the 1968 assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And as a side note, Trump's nominee for DNI, Tulsi Gabbard has not been confirmed by the Senate at this time, so aspects of the order may be pushed back. The order does not set a date by which the documents must be released. Experts say not to expect a smoking gun that proves beyond doubt whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a lone gunman or if there was a larger conspiracy when he killed President Kennedy. Instead, the final documents likely contain personal data of officers or informants still living, embarrassing information of intelligence agencies, knowledge of Oswald, and a smattering of details that may provide a more robust picture of the situation. In fact, we already know that some of the most infamous materials will not be released. Hours of interviews with Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady and then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, as well as private letters between Jackie Kennedy and President Johnson. These are all under deeds of gift from the Kennedy family that bar their public release for decades to come. So will the documents ultimately be released? Only time will tell, of course, but I am hopeful that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. An outspoken supporter of releasing the documents related to his uncle and father likely being in the administration, will compel Trump to follow through on his promise. This time, if Trump actually releases the government's documents, it will be a win for government transparency and for all of us Charlie Browns out there.
