The Trump White House is increasing our risk of premature death while helping its wealthy allies get richer quicker.
This newsletter was originally published on Watchdog Weekly. Read and subscribe here.
The Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar will now be published on a biweekly basis. We’re making this switch so we can provide more in-depth explanations of the material consequences—real and potential—of the Trump administration’s corrupt policymaking, with an even greater emphasis on tangible harms to working people.
This issue covers weeks thirty-two and thirty-three of the Trump administration. President Donald Trump’s ongoing effort to normalize military presence in everyday life is a chilling development; the already-unpopular president seems to be laying the groundwork for imposing a brutal dictatorship if and when he loses legitimacy. Such a crisis could arrive soon considering how much damage the Trump administration is doing every day: ripping away healthcare and food benefits; allowing DOGE minions to put our Social Security numbers on an unsecured cloud; setting the stage for AI to deny care to Medicare recipients; letting RFK, Jr. destroy decades of medical progress; dismantling disaster preparedness and response infrastructure amid hurricanes and wildfires. And doing all of that while cozying up to Silicon Valley billionaires, profiting from crypto shenanigans, and otherwise turning a blind eye to worsening inequality and climate breakdown.
Read our first thirty-one issues here, and follow us on Bluesky and X for more updates on this work.
CMS Greenlights Use of “AI Death Panels” to Deny Care to Medicare Recipients
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to begin a pilot program in six states next year in which the federal government would hire private insurance companies to use artificial intelligence to determine whether traditional Medicare beneficiaries should be covered for certain medical procedures.
As The New York Times reported on August 28, “Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities.”
“The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims,” the newspaper noted. “Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”
One observer warned on social media that “Republicans are implementing AI death panels designed to stop seniors from accessing the medical care they need.”
A senior told the Times that she fears the program, touted by CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, is “the back door into privatizing traditional Medicare.”
Check out this RDP tracker to see additional ways the Trump administration is using AI.
Trump Welcomes Silicon Valley Oligarchs to White House amid Push to Deregulate AI
On Thursday, Trump hosted two dozen Big Tech executives at the White House, including Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Also on the guest list were Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
The event came two days after a federal judge hit Google with a measly punishment that will effectively enable the corporation to maintain its illegal search monopoly. That’s not the only example of tech giants getting off easy lately. Last month, Public Citizen published a report showing that of the 165 federal enforcement actions the second Trump administration halted or dropped in its first six months, 47 of the beneficiaries came from Big Tech. Collectively, the sector spent $1.2 billion on political influence during and after the 2024 election. That includes $863 million in political spending, of which two-thirds ($610 million) went to Republicans; $222 million in payments to Trump’s businesses; $76 million on lobbying; and $25 million donated to Trump’s inauguration fund.
For Silicon Valley oligarchs, that investment appears to be paying off already; such spending could pay off even more if they successfully neuter attempts to rein in AI. Although the Senate removed a Big Tech and White House-backed provision to preempt state-level regulation of AI from the GOP megabill that Trump signed into law, curbing state AI legislation remains a priority for the industry, which is launching pro-AI super PACs to support candidates who oppose regulating the burgeoning technology and the concomitant buildout of fossil fuel-powered data centers. Of course, a hands-off approach would be a disaster for the vast majority who would be saddled with carcinogenic and planet-heating pollution and higher electricity bills, among other ills.
“President Trump is rolling out the red carpet for Big Tech execs who are trying to block any law that may stop their AI from encouraging teens to commit suicide, creating nude images of child celebrities, and flirting with minors,” Demand Progress Policy Director Emily Peterson-Cassin said in a statement. “Honoring these self-serving, predatory executives… is an obscene metaphor for who really runs this country.”
“The White House is supposed to be the people’s house, not a happy hour venue for billionaires who want to prey on the people,” said Peterson-Cassin. “If the administration’s top officials really cared about the people, they would stop these Big Tech execs from unleashing dangerously underdeveloped AI on us, stop Big Tech’s corporate crime spree, and appeal the egregious Google monopoly ruling.”
Check out this RDP tracker for more information about the Trump administration’s cuts to enforcement capacity at agencies responsible for cracking down on corporate lawbreaking.
Wannabe King Trump Is Building a Police State While Taking Away Healthcare and Food Aid
Trump’s ongoing militarization of Washington, D.C. is an affront to democracy replete with widespread violations of civil liberties. Deploying nearly 2,300 National Guard soldiers (from D.C. and seven Republican-controlled states) to the nation’s capital has nothing to do with combating crime, which is lower than it has been in decades (street-level crime, that is; white-collar crime, including White House lawlessness, is off the charts). It’s an authoritarian power grab that also accomplishes Trump’s xenophobic goal of scaring immigrant households into keeping kids home from school.
In addition, Trump’s military occupation of D.C. is a gross misuse of federal resources. The price tag is estimated to exceed $1 million per day. Trump has made clear that one of the objectives of his open-ended deployment of National Guard troops, which began on August 11 and is expected to be extended through at least December, is to crack down on homeless people. Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project noted that it would be far cheaper, and far more humane, to house them; the occupation costs over four times more than it would cost to operate public housing for the city’s entire unhoused population. In all but two states, Homestead found, the daily expense of Trump’s D.C. takeover exceeds how much it would cost to operate public housing for all unhoused people in the state.
Trump’s “trial run” in D.C., which he has vowed to expand to other cities, imperils our fundamental political rights. A follow-up executive order issued on August 25 calls for the establishment of “an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join federal law enforcement entities” in support of Trump’s D.C. crackdown—an invitation, in the words of one expert, for “random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers.” The order also instructs War Secretary Pete Hegseth to ensure that state National Guard forces are “resourced, trained, organized, and available to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate.” In addition, the order instructs Hegseth to “ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.”
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to invade Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland, and New York City—four Democratic-led jurisdictions with Black mayors and sizable Black populations—leaving little doubt about who he has in mind when he maligns U.S. cities as dystopian hellscapes. Trump on Tuesday reiterated his plans to send National Guard troops to Baltimore and Chicago, calling each a “hellhole.” This came the same day a federal judge ruled that Trump’s June deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles violated federal law. Then on Wednesday, Trump floated the idea of deploying National Guard troops to New Orleans, another city led by a Black Democrat, though the first on the president’s list to be in a Republican-controlled state.
Trump’s domestic offensive underscores the staggering opportunity costs of U.S. militarism more broadly. Instead of housing, healthcare, education, clean energy, and more, we get endless wars that have killed and displaced millions of people abroad while exacerbating environmental destruction, and we get the violent criminalization of poverty and dissent at home.
On top of moving to create a full-fledged police state, Trump has pushed to intensify partisan map-rigging, and his administration just hired a right-wing election denier to serve as deputy assistant secretary on election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans. This multifaceted effort to preempt democratic accountability and cement autocratic rule reveals the extent to which Trump fears that he and other Republicans could, in a free and fair election, be punished at the ballot box for their ruinous policies. For instance, millions of Americans are poised to soon lose access to healthcare and nutrition assistance because the GOP megabill that Trump signed into law imposed Medicaid and food stamp cuts to offset tax breaks for the super-wealthy.
And there’s much more for people to be furious about…
DOGE Agents Put Our Social Security Data on an Insecure Cloud Server
Thanks to a whistleblower complaint filed on August 26 by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of then-Social Security Administration (SSA) chief data officer Charles Borges, we learned that members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wrecking crew have put the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked.
Back in June, a team of DOGE vandals, including 19-year-old Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, made “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment” that “apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data,” according to Borges’ complaint. This happened soon after the Supreme Court granted DOGE agents access to the agency’s data.
If hackers are able to access the vulnerable cloud server, it could result in widespread identity theft and interrupted access to lifesaving food and healthcare benefits. Even before Big Balls came to Washington, identity theft cost Americans $43 billion in 2023, according to AARP. Between the efforts of Trump and the rise of crypto Trump is promoting, there’s every reason to foresee an increase that is attributable to the Trump-Vance-Musk-Thiel regime.
“Elon Musk and his DOGE minions stole the American people’s private Social Security data,” Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson told Common Dreams. “This was no accident. They come from Silicon Valley, where tech bros are furiously competing to see whose AI can gobble up the most data. Musk’s nearly $300 million in contributions to Trump’s campaign, along with buying Twitter and making it a de facto Trump campaign apparatus, were an investment—and now all of us are paying the price.”
Three days after filing his report, Borges resigned. In an email to colleagues obtained by journalist Marissa Kabas, Borges wrote that he was “involuntarily” leaving his position because “exclusion, isolation, internal strife, and a culture of fear” had created “intolerable” working conditions.
CDC Turmoil Sheds Light on RFK Jr.’s Deadly War on Vaccines, Public Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently descended into chaos, drawing much-needed attention to the life-threatening damage being done by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., one of many completely unqualified Trump appointees.
As my colleague Julian explained on Thursday, the White House on August 27 ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to implement RFK Jr.’s dangerous vaccine policy changes. Multiple senior CDC officials immediately resigned in protest, many of them attributing their departures to the Trump administration’s anti-scientific attacks on vaccines and public health. That night, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) became the first lawmaker to demand that Kennedy be fired. The following day, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) echoed Murray’s call.
On August 28, Trump named Jim O’Neill, a disciple of far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, interim CDC director. “A tech investor with no medical or public health background and extremist libertarian views, Jim O’Neill was unfit for the number two position at HHS and manifestly unqualified to lead the CDC,” Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said in a statement. “Unlike Susan Monarez, O’Neill is likely to rubber stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy’s handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity.”
In a New York Times opinion piece published on August 30, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrote that Kennedy “is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future” and “must resign.” Sanders cited Kennedy’s moves to limit access to Covid vaccines and warned that if Kennedy alters the childhood immunization schedule, “diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm.” Sanders also noted that Kennedy’s defunding of mRNA research is leaving us less prepared for the next pandemic.
On Monday, nine former CDC leaders penned a Times op-ed of their own, and on Wednesday, more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees published a letter demanding Kennedy’s resignation. Following RFK Jr.’s contentious Senate hearing on Thursday, Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk pointed out that Kennedy “has ensured his family can continue profiting off his efforts to undermine HPV vaccines—consistent with many in the Trump administration’s swampy schemes to get rich off their office.” Carrk added that “the growing chorus of advocacy groups, lawmakers, and HHS staff are absolutely right: the sooner the Secretary is removed from his position, the more lives will be saved.”
As Julian wrote, “RFK Jr.’s name and face should be attached to each and every victim of his policies.”
Check out this RDP tracker for more information about the Trump administration’s anti-vaccine actions.
Trump Family Rakes in $5 Billion Through Crypto Corruption
My colleagues Jeff and Timi weren’t joking when they wrote last week in The American Prospect that Trump leads “by far the most corrupt administration in American history.”
On Monday, the Trump family fortune ballooned by $5 billion as soon as WLFI, the Trumps’ new cryptocurrency, made its public trading debut. The coin—owned by World Liberty Financial, a company founded by Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump—is likely now the family’s “most valuable asset,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Forbes reported that Donald Trump’s “heirs are now making more money in months” from crypto than he did “from decades in real estate.” Notably, the crypto and mortgage markets are becoming more closely intertwined than ever before…
The Crypto-fication of the Mortgage Market Will Not End Well
As our friends at The American Prospect reported last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently ordered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop proposals for counting cryptocurrency as an asset during the homebuying application process. Soon, hopeful homebuyers may be able to “put up their volatile crypto holdings as collateral without needing to convert those assets to cash.”
What could go wrong?! In a mid-August letter urging FHFA Director Bill Pulte to abandon his plan, Consumer Federation of America and National Consumer Law Center warned that “many of the loans that triggered the Great Recession were made without a reasonable expectation that borrowers could meet their mortgage obligations; similarly, a system built on crypto-related assets threatens to grow the market based on what may turn out to be a house of cards.” In other words, incorporating inherently unstable digital coins into the mortgage underwriting process could unleash a wave of predatory lending and harmful foreclosures.
And the damage may not stop there. “The more that crypto gets integrated with mainstream financial products, the more that the risks of that market aren’t just quarantined to people who choose to invest in crypto,” Better Markets policy director Amanda Fischer told the Prospect. “They can become everybody’s problem.” For example, the outlet noted, “perceived financial turmoil could be enough to trigger mass withdrawals from stablecoin issuers, which would do much to create a disaster that mirrors the collapse of FTX and the ensuing bank run at Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023.” At that point, the whole financial system could be in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, who stands to benefit from this scheme? If allowing digital assets in underwriting increases the short-term value of crypto, then some super-rich crypto investors, including the Trump family, Pulte, and others in the White House orbit, could profit. As the Prospect observed, “the Trump family’s financial success is at least partially dependent on crypto’s future.”
Separately, Pulte announced Tuesday that the federal government is interested in selling around 5 percent of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As my colleague Jacob explained in March, not long after Pulte’s confirmation hearing, the privatization of those two government-sponsored enterprises might be good for billionaires, but it would spell trouble for ordinary households.
I would be remiss not to mention Pulte’s involvement in Trump’s attack on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and other political opponents. In his capacity as FHFA director, Pulte has referred numerous adversaries of Trump to the Justice Department for alleged mortgage fraud. “If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,” Pulte said last month. But as ProPublica reported on Thursday, at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members—Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin—are doing just that with no repercussions.
What’s remarkable is how Pulte has been going about identifying alleged cases of fraud committed by Trump’s perceived enemies because it reveals a “potentially vast conflict of interest,” as Slate put it. According to the outlet, which cited research compiled by Accountable.US, Pulte has retained “his financial entanglements with the controversial data broker Palantir Technologies, while employing the company’s software in his mortgage-fraud crusade.” Not only did Pulte fail to cut ties with Palantir despite pledging to divest from interests that pose possible conflicts of interest, but he has “explicitly promoted his use of Palantir’s artificial intelligence in compiling his allegations against Cook,” Slate noted.
Trump’s Assault on the Federal Disaster Workforce Is Going to Get People Killed
Last week, Trump’s war on the country’s disaster readiness and response capacity reached absurd and cruel new heights.
On August 25, more than 180 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers warned in an open letter that the Trump administration’s attacks on the agency are putting us at risk of a Katrina-scale disaster. The next day, dozens of those FEMA whistleblowers were placed on administrative leave. A complaint filed on Tuesday by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of the punished employees argues that the Department of Homeland Security’s actions “blatantly violate the federal laws protecting whistleblowers” and calls for an investigation and reinstatement.
As I noted last week, this episode exemplifies how the Trump administration is putting millions of Americans in mortal danger this hurricane season and beyond. For more, see our new report, Trump’s Homicidal Hurricane Policy.
On August 27, Border Patrol agents arrested two firefighters as they were actively battling a blaze, underscoring the Trump administration’s disregard for both immigrants and communities dealing with extreme weather.
Check out this RDP tracker for a fuller picture of the Trump administration’s relentless assault on disaster preparedness and response.
Other Notable Happenings
- The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would scrap a Biden-era plan to require airlines to compensate passengers in cash following carrier-caused flight disruptions. Not exactly surprising given Duffy’s history as a lobbyist for the airline industry, but still a major blow for consumers.
- Last week, Trump fired Robert Primus, a Democratic member of the Surface Transportation Board, an independent federal regulatory agency. In 2023, Primus was the lone board member to vote against the merger of the Canada Pacific-Kansas City Southern railway companies. The board is currently considering a proposed merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
- Ahead of Labor Day, Trump issued an executive order that seeks to prevent collective bargaining at additional federal agencies, ostensibly for “national security” reasons. The order came amid ongoing litigation over Trump’s March attempt to eliminate collective bargaining agreements for hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Trump’s myriad attacks on the union rights of civil servants have affected an estimated 1 million employees, roughly 7 percent of all unionized workers in the United States. “He is worse than Reagan when it comes to his approach to unions,” Julie Su, acting labor secretary under Biden, told The Guardian. “We saw what Reagan did in the 1980s. That began a long decline in unionization. This president wants to make America non-union again. He’s certainly trying to make the government non-union again.”
- The Trump administration has driven out about a quarter of permanent employees at the already understaffed National Park Service. As a result, more than 90 parks have reported major problems, including lost revenue, canceled educational programs, deferred trail and campground maintenance, and reduced emergency response services.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to this week:
Democrats Must Oppose the AI Industry
CDC in Chaos: Director Fired, Top Leaders Resign in Protest
Who is Behind the Growing Abundance Movement?
New Report: Abundance Convention 2025 Shares Sponsors with Swedish Neo-Nazis
Democrats Have a Gerontocracy Problem. The Crypto Industry Is Using That to Its Advantage.
For more on our work tracking the Trump-Musk administration, please visit TheRevolvingDoorProject.org/DogeWatch.
If you’ve got any tips on DOGE personnel or updates to any of our DogeWatch trackers, please reach out to us at revolvingdoorproject@protonmail.com.
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Photo: President Donald Trump delivers remarks to law enforcement and members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, August 21, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)