Dem
47
GOP
53
The courts have given Donald Trump another black eye. On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, ruled that Kari Lake is not the head of USAGM, the organization that runs the Voice of America, because she was not confirmed by the Senate. Consequently all the actions she has taken as fake leader are invalid and must be reversed. This includes firing most of the staff. All of her handiwork has to be undone now.
Lake got the position via a complicated series of maneuvers intended to skirt the requirement for Senate confirmation, probably because Trump sensed (or was told) the votes weren't there. If he picked competent people for positions, he could get them confirmed easily, but then they wouldn't do his bidding, especially when he wanted something illegal (or legal, but against the mission of the organization in question). The judge saw right through this chicanery and clearly stated that Senate confirmation was necessary for the position and Lake never got it.
This ruling is based on the Vacancies Reform Act, which describes how federal vacancies are to be filled. That law is based on the assumption that the president and the Senate always act in good faith and are trying to do what is best for the country. It gives the president some leeway in filling vacancies, but not as much as Trump wants. If the Democrats get the trifecta in 2028, maybe they need to revise this law and other laws to require that if a vacancy occurs, the highest remaining Senate-confirmed person in the department or agency below the vacancy automatically takes over, with the president not involved other than submitting a nomination to the Senate for confirmation. With a Democratic president, Senate Republicans might be willing to rein in this power.
Because he wants to destroy the government, sometimes Trump does things that are so much against his own interest that it is truly amazing. He could easily have told Lake to keep the VoA running full blast and fill all the air time with his speeches, reading his bleats from social media out loud, and otherwise telling the world how great he is, in 200+ languages. Maybe Elon Musk could get his AI bot to automatically translate the bleats into all the required languages. From Trump's point of view, that would seem to be a better deal than turning the radio off. But those were apparently not her marching orders. (V)