A Whole Lot of Americans Still Like What Trump Is Doing; the Kennedy Center’s New ‘Leader’ Is a Local–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Feb. 10, 2025

Indy Digest: Feb. 10, 2025

It’s now been three weeks since the second Trump presidency began. (No, it hasn’t been three months. It just feels like it.)

In recent days, in conversations and on social media, some folks have expressed beliefs to me that all of the chaos—the tariffs, funding freezes, firings, pettiness, racism, etc.—is starting to turn public opinion against the president.

Well … CBS News polled Americans from Feb. 5-7, and this is what they found:

Specifically: 53 percent of those polled approved of President Trump’s job so far. Some 69 percent of respondents called him “tough,” while 58 percent called him effective.

While polls should not be taken as gospel—Kamala Harris didn’t win Iowa, for example, and didn’t even come close—there’s no reason to think this poll is inaccurate.

That CBS News poll showed that 59 percent of respondents approve of a program to deport immigrants illegally in the country. Some 64 percent approve of sending troops to the border, and 48 percent even favor the use of large immigrant detention centers.

Will the tide eventually turn against Trump? Perhaps. But for now, those of us who see what Trump is doing as abhorrent need to face facts: Just as a plurality of voters went to the polls and picked Trump, half of the country is looking at what he’s done so far—and thinks it’s a-OK.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Donald Trump is taking over the Kennedy Center—and he’s put a Coachella Valley local in charge. CNN reports: “President Donald Trump said Monday he is naming Ric Grenell, a longtime confidant already serving in multiple administration positions, to lead the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on a temporary basis after declaring himself the institution’s chairman late last week. ‘I am pleased to announce that Ric Grenell will serve as the Interim Executive Director of The Kennedy Center. Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA—ONLY THE BEST,’ Trump wrote. ‘RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!’ Trump on Friday said he was dismissing the Kennedy Center’s board and installing himself as its chairman. On Monday, a roster of previous board members had been scrubbed from the center’s website.” Good god.

• Wired Magazine—which has been doing some of the best national reporting on the problems with the Trump administration’s recent actions—published an article on Friday with this headline and sub-headline: “A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat.’ An internal email reviewed by WIRED calls DOGE staff’s access to federal payments systems ‘the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.’” Wow. A snippet: “Although Treasury and White House officials have repeatedly denied it, WIRED has reported that DOGE technologists had the ability to not only read the code of sensitive payment systems but also rewrite it. Marko Elez, one of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are associated with DOGE, was granted read and write privileges on two of the most sensitive systems in the U.S. government: the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the BFS, an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024. ‘There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to,’ the ‘Recommendations’ portion of the email continues. ‘We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even “read only,” likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.’”

• Related: An expert writing for The Conversation, according to the headline, says “Elon Musk’s hostile takeover could end government as we know it.” She explains: “Viewing Musk’s moves as a power grab becomes clearer when examining his corporate empire. He controls multiple companies that have federal contracts and are subject to government regulations. SpaceX and Tesla, as well as tunneling firm The Boring Company, the brain science company Neuralink, and artificial intelligence firm xAI all operate in markets where government oversight can make or break fortunes. In his new role, Musk can oversee—and potentially dismantle—the government agencies that have traditionally constrained his businesses. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has repeatedly investigated Tesla’s Autopilot system; the Securities and Exchange Commission has penalized Musk for market-moving tweets; environmental regulations have constrained SpaceX. Through DOGE, all these oversight mechanisms could be weakened or eliminated under the guise of efficiency.“

• Here’s yet another alarming headline, this one from The New York Times: “CDC Posts, Then Deletes, Data on Bird Flu Spread Between Cats and People.” The lede: “Cats that became infected with bird flu might have spread the virus to humans in the same household and vice versa, according to data that briefly appeared online in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but then abruptly vanished. The data appear to have been mistakenly posted but includes crucial information about the risks of bird flu to people and pets. In one household, an infected cat might have spread the virus to another cat and to a human adolescent, according to a copy of the data table obtained by The New York Times. The cat died four days after symptoms began. In a second household, an infected dairy farmworker appears to have been the first to show symptoms, and a cat then became ill two days later and died on the third day. The table was the lone mention of bird flu in a scientific report published on Wednesday that was otherwise devoted to air quality and the Los Angeles County wildfires. … The table appeared briefly at around 1 p.m., when the paper was first posted, but it is unclear how or why the error might have occurred.”

• From the “serious threat to press freedoms” file comes this news, via Reuters: “Casino mogul Steve Wynn has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal that, if granted, could give the justices a chance to revisit libel protections for journalists enshrined in a landmark 1964 ruling that has been questioned by two conservative justices and President Donald Trump. The court established a stringent limit on defamation claims by public figures more than 60 years ago in its New York Times v. Sullivan decision involving the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and the press. Wynn … is appealing a decision by Nevada’s top court to dismiss his defamation suit against the Associated Press and one of its journalists. The court found Wynn failed to show a disputed 2018 news report containing allegations of sexual assault had been published with ‘actual malice.’ The Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan and subsequent decisions set a standard that in order to win a libel suit, a public figure must demonstrate the offending statement was made with ‘actual malice,’ meaning with knowledge it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was false.”

• The Los Angeles Times reports that in 2021, a real estate investment firm started buying up land within Joshua Tree National Park. The story itself is unfortunately available only to subscribers, but some details are shared in today’s Essential California newsletter, which is not paywalled: “Those records show that several individuals linked to the land buys have ties to the hotel and hospitality industry, leading some to speculate that there are plans to build lodgings in the area. Unlike other highly visited national parks, Joshua Tree has only campgrounds within its borders. ‘But the prospect of any development in the area has raised fears of environmental degradation and water table depletion in one of the most ecologically sensitive corners of the park,’ my colleagues wrote in their Times subscriber exclusive story. ‘At an elevation of roughly 4,600 feet, the Whispering Pines area is considered a climate refuge where certain plants and animals may be able to survive even as the surrounding environs become too hot and dry.’ Residents and environmentalists worry that potential luxury hotels or homes would siphon off water from local wildlife and that more humans on the land would only increase the risk of fires sparking in the hot, dry environment.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … canned tuna! The Independent (U.K.) reports: “On Friday, Tri-Union Seafoods announced a voluntary recall of select canned tuna products sold under the Genova, Van Camp’s, H-E-B, and Trader Joe’s brands. These products were distributed nationwide at retailers such as Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Costco, Kroger, and Publix. According to the press release, Tri-Union Seafoods initiated the recall after its supplier discovered a manufacturing defect in the tuna cans’ ‘easy open’ lids. The defect could ‘compromise the integrity of the product seal (especially over time), causing it to leak, or worse, be contaminated with clostridium botulinum,’ a bacteria that causes foodborne botulism and can be fatal.”

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