Trump: welfare cuts and more military spending. The tycoon's irony about tech tycoons
The president announces the appointment of Marco Rubio to national security after the exit of Waltz, torpedoed after the Signal scandal
3' min read
3' min read
One hundred days after his return to the White House, Donald Trump perseveres in his project of institutional and cultural transformation of the United States. He announces welfare cuts to increase military spending, cancels funding to the country's major television stations, denounces judges for wanting to obstruct him in the fight against immigration, announces he wants to remove the tax exemption from Harvard University, and mocks Big Tech tycoons.
$163 billion cuts in public services and increased military spending
The budget proposal for 2026, presented yesterday, 1 May, includes a 22.6 per cent cut in non-defence spending. There will be $163 billion less for environmental programmes, health, public construction, renewable energy, education and international cooperation. In contrast, defence spending will grow. Trump will ask Congress for an increase in military spending. According to Bloomberg, funding for national security would increase to USD 1,010 billion, a 13% increase from USD 892.3 billion a year earlier.
Attack on public media and revocation of tax exemption at Harvard
On the same day, Trump signed an executive order to block funding to the two major, congressionally funded public television networks, NPR and Pbs.
Indeed, the US president claims that the media coverage of the two broadcasters is an expression of the radical left. On his social media site, Truth, Trump recently attacked the public television networks, writing all in capital letters: "REPUBLICANS MUST REMOVE THE FUNDING AND COMPLETELY DISASSociATE FROM NPR AND PBS, THE 'MONSTERS' OF THE RADICAL LEFT THAT HAVE SO HURT OUR COUNTRY!"
A few hours ago, however, he announced, again in a post on his social, that he was "about to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status" because "this is what they deserve". The announcement follows a long period of tension between the US president and the prestigious university. The Trump administration had frozen more than $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard after the university refused to accede to a request to limit student activism, particularly related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the review of diversity programmes.
