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Quick Takes from the Past 24-48 Hours

Quick Takes from the Past 24-48 Hours

The following is an installment of Trump-Vance team accomplishments (each article is linked for further info):

(NOTE: Relax! We the People may not have even thought of some of this stuff, but the Trump-Vance ‘A’ team is already on top of it.)

1. X User Accurately Explained How the Left was PLAYED by the New Right-Wing under Trump

The user, Political Math, explained the Trump administration “set a narrative trap” for the Left using the Left’s own outrage machine. He wrote the following Wednesday:

Recall, the Pentagon announced plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, named after the late gay rights leader, and is reviewing the names of a class of ships named after Black and Hispanic civil rights leaders and prominent women, officials say.

And the responses:

2. We Have the Treasury vs the Fed: With the Fed Keeping a Low Profile, Bessent Unleashed Record $10 Billion Bond Buyback

Recall, Treasury Secretary Steve Bessent appeared on Bloomberg TV mid-April to ease fears of a wholesale unwind of the U.S. bond market. In the interview, among other things, Bessent revealed he has breakfast with Powell every week, and also said if the Fed does nothing, he might take matters into his own hands, and since the Treasury has a “big toolkit” one of the things it could do is “up the Treasury buybacks” (to prop up Treasuries, in lieu of QE).

Six weeks later, with the Fed in hiding and unwilling to do anything to ease the plight of U.S. treasuries which continue to trade at dangerous levels—the 30Y is flirting with a 5% level—apparently this is what Bessent has done.

At 2pm on Tuesday afternoon, the Treasury announced the results of its latest Treasury buyback operation (which some had likened to a QE lite because it effectively monetizes Treasuries in the open market, similar to the Fed’s POMO operations, and similar to stock buybacks). While the operation itself was not remarkable—the Treasury had been holding these more or less weekly since April 2024—the size of it: at $10 billion, this was the largest Treasury buyback operation in history.

The question now:

[W]ith the political Federal Reserve—which had no qualms cutting rates two months before the election but refuses to do so now that core PCE has slumped to the lowest level since the covid crash—is Bessent stepping in to rein in the Treasury market, and is Yellen’s Activist Treasury Issuance strategy which dominated bond buying for much of 2023-2024, about to be replaced with Bessent’s Activist Treasury Buyback strategy until such time as the Fed finally does something?

3. The DOGE Cuts Are on the Way

Now that President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful“ reconciliation bill has passed the U.S. House and is being worked on in the Senate, the Office of Management and Budget sent a separate package to Capitol Hill to codify a number of spending cut recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency.

Today, we sent the first rescissions package to Capitol Hill. This package contains BILLIONS in wasteful foreign aid and federal funding for NPR and PBS.

Further:

Now, Congress must act. They have 45 days to codify these massive cuts to woke, wasteful, and weaponized spending via a simple majority vote.

A partial list of the cuts, courtesy of OMB:

$67,000 for testing insect powder nutrition on children in Madagascar.

$33,000 for ‘Being LGBTI in the Caribbean.’

$643,000 for LGBTQI+ programs in the Western Balkans.

$567,000 for LBGTQI+ programs in Uganda.

Scores of DEI and Global Green New Deal funding, including:

$5 million for the ‘Minority Serving Institute Fellowship Cooperative Agreement.’

$595,400 for training women in gender equity.

$500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda.

$6 million for ‘net zero cities’ in Mexico.

$2.1 million for climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, & East Africa.

$5 million for ‘green transportation and logistics’ in Eurasia.

$3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street.

$4 million for ‘legume systems research.’

Millions under the PEPFAR account for so-called LGBTQIA+ programs, condoms, & vasectomies:

$833,000 for ‘transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks’ in Nepal.

$5.1 million for ‘resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements.’

$3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.

$1 billion in contributions to wasteful, corrupt, and anti-American international organizations, including $135 million to the World Health Organization.

$1.1 billion for the left-wing Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which uses your taxpayer dollars to fund PBS and NPR.

4. Army Hit Recruiting Goal Four Months Early

The Army reached its target of 61,000 new recruits long before the Sept. 30 deadline.

The Army announced Tuesday:

[The] goal this year is more than 10% higher than the 55,000 recruitment target for the prior fiscal year.

Further:

This achievement represents a significant turning point for the Army and indicates a renewed sense of patriotism and purpose among America’s youth.

And:

Daily average contracts have exceeded last year’s levels by as much as 56% during the same period.

Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll said Tuesday:

I’m incredibly proud of our U.S. Army recruiters and drill sergeants. Their colossal efforts and dedication to duty helped the U.S. Army accomplish our FY25 annual recruiting goal a full four months ahead of schedule.

Further:

I want to thank the commander in chief, President Trump, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth for their decisive leadership and support in equipping, training and supporting these future Soldiers as they face a world of global uncertainty and complex threats.

And:

Putting Soldiers first is having a tangible impact and shows that young people across our country want to be part of the most lethal land fighting force the world has ever seen.

5. In Major Shift, FBI Spent over 1 million Manpower Hours Catching Illegal Aliens Since Trump Took Office

FBI agents participated in joint operations with federal and local police partners to help arrest more than 10,000 illegal aliens since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. And there is no intention of letting up.

The FBI’s hands-on role—and the attendant manpower investment—is one of the quieter aspects of President Trump’s signature border security initiative.

Officials said:

Most of the targets have been aliens believed to be engaged in criminal behavior like gangs, drug and human trafficking, and child exploitation.

From Erica Knight, an adviser to Patel:

[The Bureau is] targeting the violent cartels and criminal networks that are exploiting it. This is the direction Americans have been demanding, and the Bureau is delivering on the promise to put safety and sovereignty first.

Documents indicate Patel has shifted a significant percentage of FBI agents and other support personnel like analysts into at least part-time immigration enforcement work: about 5,448 alone as of the last week of May.

That included 555 FBI employees in Los Angeles, 195 in Philadelphia, 333 in Houston, 213 in San Antonio and 142 in Baltimore, the records show.

An example of the success:

On May 29, according to the operations report sent to Patel, FBI agents in Jacksonville and Tallahassee assisted a Homeland Security investigation that targeted a Florida carpentry service. The raid ended with 74 arrests in what the FBI reported was a human smuggling operation.

The FBI after-action report stated: A company owner was operating a smuggling and labor scheme of Mexican citizens, smuggling the individuals into the country and forcing them to work at rates below minimum wage for his construction company.

The FBI resource commitment is welcomed in states long overrun with the related scourges of the border crisis, like fentanyl.