President Trump is cutting $500 checks to a million Americans overcharged under Biden, redirecting $52 million in foreign military aid from Europe and the Middle East to the Western Hemisphere, and daring federal judges to stop him from staffing his own Justice Department — and Washington's permanent class is sounding every alarm it has.
The Washington Examiner frames it as "transactional politics," as though delivering tangible benefits to constituents were a grubby deviation from norms. The founders would have called it the whole point of the enterprise. For decades, D.C. gatekeepers have funneled American tax dollars to foreign governments and institutional rackets while working Americans got lectures. Trump's final-month midterm sprint is forcing a question the establishment dreads: whose government is this, and whom does it serve?
The domestic moves are direct. The administration is sending approximately $500 checks to roughly 1 million people it says were overcharged for Affordable Care Act coverage under Joe Biden, according to the Washington Examiner. Trump has promoted billions in proposed investments in Alaska and Iowa — two states that could determine control of Congress. He also redirected $20 million in Department of Homeland Security funding toward government-paid television advertising.
Then there is the foreign aid fight. The Trump administration stripped $52 million in military aid from Slovakia, North Macedonia, Tunisia, and Iraq — funds approved in a 2022 supplemental bill tied to the Ukraine war — and redirected the money to Panama, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Europe Says reported that the State Department informed Congress of the move on September 30, disregarding a suspension demand from Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks.
Shaheen and Meeks wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that "the executive branch does not have unlimited authority to redirect these funds." The State Department's response: the reprogramming is "consistent with the National Security Strategy" and will go toward "combating narco-terrorism in our hemisphere" and ensuring "the security of the Panama Canal." The department did not respond to questions about whether the diversion violates statutory requirements.
Translation: the bipartisan Washington that approved money for Europe's border problems is furious that Trump spent it on America's instead.
The institutional resistance extends to the Justice Department. A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday overturned Trump's firing of Roger Rogoff, a U.S. attorney appointed by the district's 17 judges after Trump failed to fill the post with a Senate-confirmed nominee. Trump fired Rogoff less than an hour after his appointment. Judge Stanley Bastian ruled the termination unlawful and reinstated him, noting that federal law authorizes district judges to fill the vacancy "until the vacancy is filled" — not "until the president fires the person selected." The Justice Department said it will appeal, NBC News reported.
The Rogoff case is the latest skirmish in a broader fight. Trump has tried novel personnel maneuvers to keep unconfirmed prosecutors in place indefinitely, including simply re-titling interim attorneys when their appointments expire. Courts have pushed back each time.
Shaheen and Meeks insist Congress decides where American money goes. Judge Bastian insists the courts decide who enforces federal law. Trump insists the executive branch exists to execute his agenda. However the courts resolve these fights, the stakes for ordinary Americans are the same: will the government work for them, or for the institutions that have been running it without their consent for decades?
