What Trump Might See in Lee Zeldin
This is your TPM evening briefing.
Retribution Attack Dog?
President Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general on Thursday, just hours after reports began to surface suggesting he may have informed her before his national address on Iran Wednesday night that she was getting sacked. She will be replaced by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of Trump’s former personal lawyers, for now. Multiple outlets are reporting that he may nominate Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin as Bondi’s permanent replacement.
Trump has reportedly been upset with Bondi for multiple reasons months, including over how she has handled the release of the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But his main source of frustration was that she did not make enough progress in investigating and prosecuting his perceived political enemies, NBC News reported.
That’s the role of the Justice Department, in his view, after all.
Specifically, he was reportedly frustrated with how she handled the impending release of files related to a decade-old investigation into Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who has emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal critics in the House and who is running for governor of California. Per Semafor:
Trump was also frustrated with Bondi because he believes she may have alerted California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to an effort by the administration to release files from an investigation into his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, one of the sources told Semafor.
There are some reports that Bondi begged Trump to keep her job, but that Trump viewed the supposed offense as unforgivable. The two reportedly had a “tough” conversation on Wednesday evening and Trump confirmed reports of her dismissal in a Truth Social post Thursday, saying she was leaving the administration for an unspecified “private sector” job. Other reports indicate she may be given another job in the administration or Trump may appoint her as a judge. Regardless, he’s considering nominating his EPA administrator to take over.
CNN reports that Zeldin and Trump have “remained close” since Zeldin lost his bid for New York governor in 2022 to Democrat Kathy Hochul and left Congress. Zeldin was making regular appearance at Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s campaign for the White House in 2024, according to CNN.
But Trump’s interest in tapping the EPA head to replace Bondi may be rooted in more than comradery, if reports about the reason for Bondi’s firing are true — that she wasn’t taking enough successful strides in Trump’s political revenge death march.
Zeldin demonstrated early on in Trump’s second term that he was willing to use his post at the EPA to do Trump’s retribution work, whether it made sense or not. Let me unpack an episode from February of last year that TPM covered pretty closely. This was right around when the Trump administration first began dissolving the longstanding firewall between the Justice Department and the White House in a scandal that seems quaint by today’s standards.
Denise Cheung was a federal prosecutor in charge of the criminal division of the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office who offered her resignation to then-acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin after being pressured by Martin to open a grand jury investigation into a Zeldin-pushed conspiracy theory about Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency grants.
In her resignation letter, Cheung said there wasn’t enough evidence to open an investigation into Zeldin’s belief that the Biden administration’s EPA improperly distributed climate funding to non-profit organizations before the start of Trump’s presidency. When he took over the EPA, Zeldin immediately moved to rescind some $20 billion in grants that had already been allocated for climate projects by President Biden’s EPA. At the time, he said he had come across evidence in an “extremely disturbing video” that, he claimed, suggested the funds had been improperly dumped into bank accounts at the end of Biden’s term. In reality, the video shows an apparent former Biden-era EPA employee talking about distributing climate funding to “nonprofits, states, tribes” before Trump got back into office.
The video was made and produced by none other than Project Veritas, a known purveyor of disinfo and conspiracy theories. It was also the only supposed proof Zeldin used to justify his decision to freeze $20 billion in climate grants and to demand an investigation.
It seems those demands may have been dropped with Cheung’s resignation — or maybe later, with Martin’s ousting — but Zeldin has remained successful in keeping that $20 billion in climate funds frozen for more than a year while lawsuits against Zeldin’s decision to rescind the funds remain tied up in court.
Trump: Federal Gov’t Can’t Pay for Social Safety Net Because ‘We’re Fighting Wars’
Congressional Republicans are salivating over another potential opportunity to make cuts to social safety net programs in order to, they claim, fund Trump’s war in Iran — even though they don’t actually have to cut Medicaid to offset the costs of non-reoccuring spending, which Emine Yücel unpacks here. Trump seems to agree with them.
While delivering remarks to a private group gathered for an Easter luncheon at the White House Wednesday, Trump said that it is “not possible” for the federal government to provide funding for Medicaid, Medicare and other child care programs. He claimed that states should actually “take care” of that funding themselves and the federal government should keep its focus on military funds. Per NBC News:
He went on to say that he told Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought: “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too.”
No One’s Safe
Donald Trump has privately asked cabinet members in recent weeks whether he should replace his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, venting frustration that she shielded a former deputy who undercut his rationale for war with Iran, according to two people briefed on the discussions.
It’s not exactly a surprise that Trump is also losing patience with Gabbard, who, in my opinion, went out of her way to make it clear that she did not personally agree with many of Trump’s decisions regarding his war in Iran during recent testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
You can read about that here: Gabbard Distances Herself From Her Own Testimony About Iran
In Case You Missed It
Morning Memo: Trump: Bring Iran ‘Back to the Stone Ages Where They Belong’
New edition of The Franchise out this afternoon: Dems Immediately Sue to Block Trump’s Ominous New ‘Citizenship List’ Executive Order
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
The Supreme Court Decides Who Is Really American In Blockbuster Arguments
What We Are Reading
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‘What the hell did he just say?’ GOP Iran worries build after Trump speech.