A trash truck with compressed gas cylinders caught fire in Sawtelle on Feb. 26, 2025. (KTLA)

Just this past week, we've seen executive actions that amount, more than any other week, to a direct assault on the Constitution and rule of law. While the 47 Watch site provides daily and weekly reporting in text format, many folks absorb information better through audio and video formats. So the weekly summaries which break down the most consequential moves from the White House in hopefully digestible chunks are now also a podcast.

You can find the podcast over at libsyn. This is the direct RSS feed for the podcast: http://feeds.libsyn.com/573345/rss.

If you are a glutton for punishment, you can also watch a video version of the podcast on YouTube (PeerTube coming shortly).

Trump's Executive Onslaught: Silos, Firings, and Legal Intimidation

The past week has brought an astonishing flurry of executive actions from President Trump, each potentially more concerning than the last. Before diving into our main topic of the three most consequential executive orders, let's review what else happened in this dizzying week of presidential actions.

The Week in Trump

Columbia University has officially surrendered to Trump's demands to regain $400 million in federal funding by agreeing to ban masks, empower campus police, and place their Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under oversight of a new senior provost who will review curriculum and faculty hiring. That's right – a university is now letting the federal government dictate its curriculum through a new political officer.

Meanwhile, cross-border trips from Canada to the United States have declined significantly, with nearly 500,000 fewer travelers in February compared to last year. Apparently, Trump's rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state and his growing trade war has convinced Canadians they'd rather stay home than visit a country that's treating them like an unwanted houseguest who also happens to be their largest trading partner.

The FBI has reduced staffing in its domestic terrorism office and discontinued tracking tools for such investigations. Yes, the FBI is scaling back work on domestic terrorism at a time when it remains one of our greatest threats – that's like firefighters deciding to focus less on fires and more on helping cats out of trees.

Taking a look at general government operations, we see that Federal workers say DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency – is making government... inefficient. Who could have possibly predicted that putting a tech billionaire with zero government experience in charge of "efficiency" would lead to requiring weekly activity reports, restricting equipment purchases, and dedicating precious work hours to scrubbing documents of DEI-related terms?

Speaking of DOGE, Trump's interim Social Security chief has threatened to shut down the agency's IT systems – potentially halting payments to 71 million Americans – if Elon Musk cannot access non-anonymized personal data of Social Security recipients. This is despite a judge's restraining order barring such access due to privacy law violations. So essentially they're saying, "Give us your private data or we'll cut off your benefits," which is less like government service and more like governmental extortion.

The Social Security Administration also announced new rules requiring in-person identity verification for new applicants and existing recipients who want to change their direct deposit information. This goes into effect next week, and comes as the agency plans to close dozens of offices throughout the country and lay off thousands of workers. They're essentially telling people they have to show up in person while at the same time removing all the places they can show up to.

The U.S. Postal Service has confirmed plans to lay off more than 10,000 employees as part of a cost-cutting measure in collaboration with DOGE. This despite the serivce generating $78 billion annually. It turns out the Department of Government Efficiency primarily achieves this "efficiency" by making sure there are fewer government employees – which is like making your car more "efficient" by removing the engine.

The Executive Order Trifecta

Now let's focus on three specific executive orders that represent the most significant bureaucratic restructuring in decades. Like the world's worst ice cream sundae, these three scoops of executive overreach come topped with sprinkles of authoritarianism and a cherry of constitutional crisis.

Information Silos: Data Sharing or Privacy Nightmare?

Last Friday, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos". This order directs agency heads to grant "full and prompt access of unclassified Agency records, data, and systems to Federal officials" to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. It also mandates "unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding".

On its face, this sounds reasonable. Who doesn't want to stop waste and fraud? But the devil, as always, is wearing Prada in the details. This executive order effectively eliminates longstanding privacy protections by demanding immediate, unfettered access to vast amounts of citizen data.

The administration justifies this by citing an estimated $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023. But what they're not telling you is that improved data sharing without appropriate safeguards creates enormous potential for abuse.

The executive order mandates that agencies take "all necessary steps" within just 30 days to implement these changes. Thirty days to completely reshape how government data is handled, with virtually no public input or congressional oversight. That's less time than it takes most people to read the terms and conditions they just agreed to.

Legal experts have pointed out that giving DOGE unfettered access to personally identifiable information potentially violates multiple federal privacy laws. That's why a judge issued a restraining order barring DOGE from accessing Social Security beneficiaries' personal data – an order that Trump's acting SSA commissioner openly threatened to defy.

What's particularly concerning is that the vague language could allow politically motivated data mining. Want to identify federal employees who might not be sufficiently loyal? Just sift through their records! Want to target specific groups for deportation? Just cross-reference databases!

Schedule F 2.0: Making Federal Workers Great Again (By Firing Them)

The second executive order, "Strengthening the Suitability and Fitness of the Federal Workforce," resurrects and expands Trump's previous "Schedule F" classification, now rebranded as "Schedule Policy/Career". We'll just call it Schedule F*****d.

This policy aims to reclassify potentially hundreds of thousands of career civil servants as "at-will" employees who can be fired without cause. The order strips job protections from federal workers by designating them as holding "confidential or policy-determining" positions – a classification traditionally reserved for political appointees.

To understand why this matters, let's step back. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883, America has maintained a professional, nonpartisan civil service protected from political interference. This system ensures that our government functions based on expertise and continuity rather than partisan loyalty. When you apply for a passport or Social Security benefits, you're dealing with career professionals, not political operatives who change with each election.

Schedule F*****d effectively demolishes this system. It expands the definition of "policy-related positions" to include anyone who indirectly supervises employees. It also allows the OPM — Office of Personnel Management — director to add any other positions they deem "appropriate". This means virtually any federal employee could be reclassified and fired at any time.

Trump and Musk are approaching the federal workforce with all the subtlety of a bulldozer at a china shop. They've already fired inspectors general, laid off thousands of employees, and created what observers describe as a "culture of fear" across agencies. It's like watching someone play Jenga with the foundation of government – yanking out blocks and seeing how long before the whole thing collapses.

Experts from UC Law San Francisco have called these orders "extraordinary" in breadth and potentially a "crisis" for the rule of law. The Project on Government Oversight warns that this reclassification will "make it far less likely that anyone would speak out against abuse of power, waste, fraud, illegal orders, and other wrongdoing". Essentially, we're creating a government where loyalty to the president trumps loyalty to the Constitution or the American people.

This approach has already manifested in concrete actions. The Social Security Administration announced plans to cut approximately 7,000 jobs while simultaneously imposing requirements for beneficiaries to verify their identity in person – all while closing 47 offices across 18 states. That number of offices is likely not a coincidence.

Legal System: Lawyers Beware

The third executive order, "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court," directs the Attorney General to prioritize seeking sanctions against attorneys and law firms that engage in what they call "frivolous, unreasonable, or vexatious litigation against the United States".

Again, this sounds reasonable on the surface. Who wants frivolous lawsuits? But the memorandum goes much further, instructing the Attorney General to:

The key problem here is defining what constitutes "frivolous" litigation. The Trump administration has consistently labeled lawsuits challenging its policies as frivolous regardless of their legal merit. When Trump called for Congress to impeach a federal judge for ruling against his deportation policy, he demonstrated exactly how he views legal challenges to his authority.

This executive order effectively creates a mechanism to intimidate and punish lawyers who represent clients opposing the administration.

Legal experts have noted that the order's vague language could chill legitimate advocacy and constitutional challenges. Attorneys may think twice before representing clients against the government if doing so could result in losing their security clearance or federal contracts. That's not protecting the legal system; it's weaponizing it.

The Constitutional Stress Test

Together, these three executive orders represent an unprecedented expansion of presidential power and a fundamental challenge to our constitutional system of checks and balances.

The first order centralizes vast amounts of data in the hands of politically appointed officials, raising serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.

The second order dismantles the professional civil service, replacing expertise and continuity with political loyalty as the primary qualification for government employment.

The third order intimidates the legal profession, potentially deterring attorneys from representing clients challenging government actions.

As one legal expert put it, "While some may legitimately applaud the policy goals that underlie some of these actions, I hope we can all agree these policy goals should be pursued lawfully, lest we end up living in the type of system envisioned by the president, where he is the only law".

With Congress largely aligned with the president and showing little appetite for oversight, federal judges have emerged as the primary check on these executive actions. But when the administration openly defies court orders without consequences, even that check appears increasingly fragile.

The real problem is that constitutional breakdowns don't happen all at once. They occur gradually, with each breach of norms making the next one easier. Like the famous frog in slowly boiling water, we risk not noticing the danger until it's too late.

What Happens Next

So where do we go from here? Legal challenges to these executive orders are already underway. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has sued over Schedule F****d, and multiple states have filed lawsuits challenging various aspects of the administration's actions.

But litigation takes time, and these orders are being implemented now. Federal employees are being fired, data is being shared, and attorneys are being put on notice. The immediate effects are already being felt across the government.

The ultimate check in our system remains with the people themselves. Public pressure, civic engagement, and informed voting are essential counterweights to executive overreach. As difficult as it may be amid the constant deluge of news, paying attention matters now more than ever.

As one defender of the civil service recently reminded us, "Public servants are now the front line against government abuses". We should remember that many of these anonymous bureaucrats, so often maligned as faceless "deep state" operatives, are actually the people standing between constitutional governance and something much more concerning.

When an assistant U.S. attorney resigned rather than drop corruption charges against a Trump ally, he wrote in his resignation letter: "I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me". That kind of principled stance may prove our best defense against the dismantling of democratic institutions.

In the meantime, we'll continue to monitor these developments and provide updates as the situation evolves. Because sometimes understanding what's happening, as uncomfortable as it may be, is the first step toward doing something about it.

Additional resources used for this week's report: