Politico reports that Trump plans to go after the tax-exempt status of non-profit organizations he doesn’t like or send in DOGE to destroy them. Should we refer to him as King Donald? He also intends to wipe out the career civil service, replacing civil servants with appointees who are committed to his agenda, not to the U.S. government.
His second term is not about making America “great again” but about vengeance, retribution, and cruelty, as well as complete power over the federal government. Trump is now intent on punishing anyone who ever criticized him or stood in his way. It doesn’t matter to him that federal law prohibits the President from influencing IRS decisions. When has a law ever stopped him? Emoluments clause? Forget about it. Due process? No way. A nonpartisan civil service? No way.
LATEST: President DONALD TRUMP announced this afternoon that he plans to invoke “Schedule F,” which would reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers. The change would make it easier for Trump to fire career government employees he believes are not in line with his agenda. The move comes three months after a Day One executive order which reinstalled Schedule F from his first term.
“If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job,” Trump said in his post. “This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be ‘run like a business.’”
NONPROFITS FEEL THE HEAT: The Trump administration is mounting a sweeping offensive on America’s nonprofit sector, deploying a blend of funding cuts, the elimination of tax benefits, bureaucratic paralysis and even installing a small DOGE team to target organizations that challenge the president’s agenda.
The tactics include indirect measures, like hollowing out entire grant-making agencies like AmeriCorps and USAID, and making federal personnel or contract cuts at other agencies so deep that groups can no longer access grants or loans. But there are also more direct efforts, like visits from DOGE or the USDA halting $500 million in deliveries to food banks.
DOGE staffers have attempted to install their own operatives inside major nonprofits like NeighborWorks, a community development group, and the Vera Institute, which advocates for lower incarceration rates.
It’s a campaign that’s hitting a sector that’s already struggling. “You’re cutting or eliminating government funding at the same time when donations are going down, at the same time that costs are going up for the nonprofits and the demand for their services is going up,” said RICK COHEN, chief communications officer at the National Council of Nonprofits.
In just over two months, at least 10,000 nonprofit workers have lost their jobs, according to an estimate from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. And groups providing essential services including housing, education and domestic violence support — and who are already scrambling in an uncertain economic environment — could now face an even steeper funding drought.
“Non profits have been running wild off of the drunken unchecked spending of the federal government and that stopped on Jan 20. We are no longer going to support organizations that stand in stark contrast to the mission of the president of the United States,” White House spokesperson HARRISON FIELDS said in a statement.
The Trump White House is considering a budget proposal that would completely eliminate funding for Head Start, a federal program providing early childhood education administered by 1,700 nonprofit and for-profit organizations, the Associated Press reported. It’s unclear if Congress, as it did during Trump’s first term, will keep funding for groups that Trump’s proposed budgets stripped.
Meanwhile, other groups such as NeighborWorks and the Vera Institute are being pressured from the inside. DOGE staffers met with senior leadership at NeighborWorks on Tuesday and requested that a DOGE operative be embedded in the organization’s staff, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting granted anonymity to avoid retribution.
“NeighborWorks America is a congressionally chartered nonprofit corporation,” not a government agency, said NeighborWorks spokesperson DOUGLAS ROBINSON, emphasizing that the group is aligned with the administration’s housing goals.
NeighborWorks, which provides grants and training to 250 community development groups, is usually governed by a five-person board composed of senior leaders from five different federal agencies.
“There’s concern they’re going to load the board up, get rid of officers, and install someone else to implode the organization,” one of the people said. “Slashing that organization during a housing crisis really goes against the president’s platform of creating additional homes and the ticket to the American dream.”
At the same time, Trump is escalating rhetoric against nonprofits that don’t receive federal dollars but have challenged his administration, including good governance groups.
Asked this week about whether he’d consider revoking tax-exempt status from groups beyond Harvard, Trump singled out Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit ethics watchdog group. “They’re supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump.”
“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” said CREW spokesperson JORDAN LIBOWITZ.
Meanwhile, White House officials are finalizing a set of executive orders that would revoke the tax-exempt status of environmental nonprofits, particularly those opposing oil, gas and coal development, Bloomberg reported. The move could be unveiled as early as Earth Day on Tuesday, symbolically reinforcing the administration’s fossil-fuel priorities.
Meanwhile the AP reported that DOGE contacted the Vera Institute of Justice, which tries to reduce incarceration rates, and said that DOGE planned to embed a team at Vera and all other nonprofits that receive federal funding. Vera told them they had already lost their federal funding so DOGE staffers were not welcome.
Vera, which has an annual budget of around $45 million that mostly comes from private funders, advocates for reducing the number of people imprisoned in the U.S. They consult with law enforcement and public agencies to design alternative programs to respond to mental health crises or traffic violations, and also support access to lawyers for all immigrants facing deportation.
Nonprofits told the AP that the Trump administration was eroding civil society by its efforts to undermine their work.
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