Monday, March 10, 2025
Good morning, and welcome to RedState's "Morning Minute" — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.
TOP O' THE MORNIN'
Red-Hot at RedState
You've Got to Be Kidding Me: DOGE Uncovers Hundreds of Millions in SBA Loans… to Children
While the liberals shriek about Elon Musk’s role in the government—at this point, you can imagine Dems chanting, “We want waste! We want waste!”—the abuse, scams and outright criminality he and his team are uncovering daily are the stuff of nightmares.
Pete Hegseth Drives the Stake Through Climate Change Driving Defense Policy
If climate change is real, it will be addressed at home and abroad by agencies not called the Department of Defense.
If it wasn't obvious enough that Loeffler was clearly hammering Cuban by capitalizing the words "strong" and "intelligent," Rollins happily jumped in to share the post and tag the Dallas Mavericks minority owner in the process.
Trending Across Townhall Media
Armed Citizen Intervenes and Takes Down Gunman at Auto Parts Store
He should be thanking his lucky stars that he's still breathing despite the series of bad decisions he made on Thursday night, and hopefully he'll have plenty of time to reflect on his choices behind bars.
Europe: Always Wrong, Never In Doubt
If you have a better solution--not a hope, but a strategy--please share it. Shoulda coulda woulda is not a strategy.
Elon Musk Hit the Mother Lode of the Deep State. Now He Believes He's an Assassination Target.
In a Fox Business interview, President Trump said Musk could be doing anything he wants. Doing DOGE makes him "a patriot."
Independent Reporter Nailed What's Wrong With the Dems After Trump's Address to Congress
So, yeah, GOP hiccups are coming, but the Democrats don’t have the political intelligence, messaging, or plan to outflank us.
Hegseth to CNN: 'The DoD Does Not Do Climate Change Crap'
Pete does get it. The weather isn't his job, but making sure the military is prepared to fight and win wars is. No matter how crappy the weather might be.
WHAT'S ON TAP?
Today on Capitol Hill...
It's Monday, of course, so things are relatively quiet on the Hill. The big focus this week will be on the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through September, rolled out by House Republicans over the weekend. The measure goes to the House Rules Committee meeting this afternoon, with a floor vote expected on Tuesday. Roughly zero Democrats are expected to support the measure, which leaves House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) needing to corral virtually every House Republican to vote in favor of it (and why Elise Stefanik's confirmation as U.N. Ambassador hasn't been brought up for a vote yet). Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has already said he's a hard "no" on the measure, but House Freedom Caucus members have signaled they're on board, and President Trump is advocating heartily for it. If it passes the House, they still have to get it through the Senate, which means getting it past the filibuster. Expect high drama on the Hill this week.
White House What's Up
President Donald Trump is set to host a roundtable discussion with his Technology CEO Council Monday afternoon, after which he'll sign more executive orders. At 5:00 p.m. Eastern, he'll participate in the ceremonial swearing-in of Sean Curran as the Director of the Secret Service — I expect, given all that's transpired since that fateful day in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July, this one might have some emotional moments.
Keeping Up With the Cabinet
Sec. State - Marco Rubio — Rubio's announcing some major USAID cuts.
Sec. Treasury - Scott Bessent — Bessent sat down with Larry Kudlow at the Economic Club of New York over the weekend to discuss "International relations, tariffs, responsible deregulation, and re-privatizing the American economy."
Sec. Defense - Pete Hegseth — Hegseth drove a stake through climate change as a driver of defense policy.
Attorney General - Pam Bondi — Bondi affirmed that the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism will "continue to review universities like Columbia and hold them accountable for allowing this vile behavior and rhetoric to continue."
Sec. Agriculture - Brooke Rollins — Rollins dunked on Mark Cuban on International Women's Day to highlight the strong, intelligent women of the Trump administration.
Sec. Commerce - Howard Lutnick — Lutnick set the record straight with Kristen Welker on Elon Musk and DOGE.
Sec. Health & Human Services - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Kennedy visited with Bondi in her office and was touched to discover his father's portrait on display there.
Sec. Housing & Urban Development - Scott Turner — Turner discussed homelessness with Fox 11's Elex Michaelson on "The Issue Is."
Sec. Transportation - Sean Duffy — Duffy affirmed that the DOT "no longer celebrates months, immutable racial differences, or the Green New Scam. We celebrate only one thing, safety, every single day."
Sec. Homeland Security - Kristi Noem — Noem has now named a new ICE chief — Todd Lyons.
Admin. Environmental Protection Agency - Lee Zeldin — Zeldin continues to dig into the sketchy expenditures of the Biden administration, including those involving Stacey Abrams.
Admin. Small Business Association - Kelly Loeffler — Loeffler announced a new policy "that will require SBA lenders to conduct citizenship verification for loan applications - to end the flow of taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens."
Dir. Federal Bureau of Investigations - Kash Patel — Patel marked the 18th anniversary of the abduction of retired FBI Special Agent Robert "Bob" Levinson from Kish Island in Iran in 2007.
U.S. Trade Rep. - Jamieson Greer — Greer's office announced a Tuesday hearing "regarding the Section 301 investigation on China's acts, policies, and practices related to targeting of the semiconductor industry for dominance."
Full Court Press...
No oral arguments in the Supreme Court this week, though yours truly recognizes she's fallen down on the job and neglected to put together the Skinny on SCOTUS summaries of those cases already decided by the court this term. Look for some catch-up editions of that series coming soon.
Good old Hunter Biden has purportedly run out of money to fund his pending civil suit against Garrett Ziegler (who founded the nonprofit organization Marco Polo) and is moving to voluntarily dismiss that suit.
The DOJ has filed a superseding indictment in its case against Sean ("Diddy") Combs, consisting of one count for Racketeering, one for Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud, or Coercion, and one for Transportation to Engage in Prostitution. That case is currently set for trial beginning May 5, 2025.
Believe it or not, there are cases against President Trump (in his individual capacity) that are still pending, including the New York federal court appeal involving the state court criminal trial against him. I won't burrow into the weeds on it, but there were jurisdictional issues raised in the state court case that still have to be sorted out. Trump's legal team (though Todd Blanche and Emil Bove have since withdrawn due to their serving in the administration) has requested oral argument on the case, which is currently pending before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
As noted above, the focus this week will be on the fate of the CR and a looming government shutdown if it doesn't pass the House and Senate.
Look for a Senate confirmation vote on Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary either Monday or Tuesday.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will be voting on the nominations of D. John Sauer, of Missouri, to be Solicitor General of the United States, and Harmeet Dhillon, of California, and Aaron Reitz, of Texas, both to be an Assistant Attorney General on Thursday.
Also, President Trump hinted last week that he expects a report of some sort this week regarding the assassination attempts against him — whether that will materialize and whether it (or portions of it) will be released to the public remains to be seen. There certainly still are a lot of questions.
MORNING MUSING
I know folks are still working on clearing the cobwebs prompted by our springing forward Saturday night — I'm actually faring okay on that front, as I managed to get over eight hours of sleep that night and a decent amount last night, but I do feel people's pain. And I'd be all for stopping the flopping back and forth (though my preference would be to make Daylight Saving Time permanent rather than Standard Time, as I appreciate the added light in the evenings.) President Trump has acknowledged the calls to end it but also notes it's essentially a 50-50 issue, so I don't know that we'll see him get behind a change there.
A counterbalance to that angst over the weekend was the endless stream of JD Vance memes — I can't explain why he's so dang memeable, but he is, God love him. This one I saw Sunday night evoked an added chuckle from me — there's a funny story there...
— Dumbass Photoshop (@DumbassPhotoshp) March 9, 2025
Not only do I know the McCloskeys (both from having practiced law in St. Louis for almost 30 years and due to the fact that Mark has a radio show on the station where I'm a host/guest host), but I know their house. You see, that's the house where my dad lived when he was in high school and college. (My grandparents owned it from 1945 to 1957.) So, there's your fun little bit of random trivia and odd degrees of separation to start off your Monday.
LIGHTER FARE
Mmmm...biscuits!
Hand-made biscuits..🐈🐾😅 pic.twitter.com/KmE2H7t785
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) March 10, 2025
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