THE DEI TRICKLE DOWN: “Booz Allen Hamilton, the mammoth Beltway federal contractor, has long been a supporter of LGBTQ+ causes. … So when Washington first won the right to host one of the world’s biggest gay festivals, it was only natural that Booz Allen signed on to underwrite the event known as WorldPride 2025,” Michael Schaffer writes in his latest Capital City column for POLITICO Magazine — “but that was before the election.” — “This week, with WorldPride projected to draw three million visitors in just a few months, Booz Allen abruptly withdrew as a sponsor — apparently worried that merely supporting a global gay festival would put it on the wrong side of its dominant customer: President Donald Trump’s federal government.” — “Whether it’s a dentists’ convention or a film festival, an event that draws millions to town is good for the local economy and therefore good for the businesses that call that city home. Until the election, this was all unremarkable stuff. In the breakneck early days of Trump II, though, that kind of logic doesn’t feel so secure,” and compounding the risk for companies is the fact that “there’s not a lot of certainty about just what is targeted by the 47th president’s war on DEI.” EYES EMOJI: As Republicans in both the House and Senate took baby steps this week toward enacting Trump’s domestic agenda — most notably a $4.5 trillion extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that the business community has been salivating over for for more than a year now — a key voice from an increasingly influential wing of the GOP is imploring lawmakers once again to proceed with another round of tax cuts at their own peril, and lampooning conservative groups lining up to put the squeeze on members. — “If Republicans spend the next year fighting over a tax bill that is a low priority outside the Beltway, they will stall the more promising elements of the Trump agenda and expose themselves as badly disconnected from the interests of the working class that put them in power,” Oren Cass, the chief economist for the JD Vance-aligned think tank American Compass, argued in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday. — Cass’ populist position — that Republicans shouldn’t fritter away their political capital on tax cuts, especially when there’s support for hiking taxes on corporations and the wealthy to reduce the deficit rather than slashing spending — isn’t new. But it’s more notable now that one of his ideological adherents now occupies the vice presidency, and with budget hawks already flexing considerable power over the reconciliation push. — In the process, Cass also excoriated anti-tax groups like the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity, which have pledged to drop tens of millions of dollars this year in support of what Cass views as “their mission to cut taxes continuously, regardless of what most voters prioritize or the federal budget can bear.” — Cass dug the knife in further, accusing conservative ideologues of “preach[ing] tax cuts with the same desperate zeal as climate activists demanding a near-total elimination of carbon emissions” or “open-borders advocates oppose any effort to restrict immigration.” — The groups that prompted Cass’ ire pushed back on his criticism this afternoon. “It’s laughable to think Americans don’t care about potentially facing the largest tax hike in history,” AFP vice president Akash Chougule told PI in a statement. “Allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire would mean the average family pays an extra $1,500 in taxes a year. That’s on top of the thousands of extra dollars families are already paying because of unsustainable government spending.” — Chougule continued: “Washington has a spending problem, not a taxing problem. When you’ve spent the past two years talking with millions of voters at the doors and on the phones, you know just how out of touch it is to say otherwise.” AFP also pointed PI to a blog post posted this week that defended criticisms of the tax law. — Club for Growth President David McIntosh echoed that stance, telling PI in a statement that the op-ed “ignores” the 2017 tax law’s “benefits to American workers and effectively argues for the largest tax increase ever – which will happen if Congress does not extend Trump’s middle-class tax cuts.” — “Former [Mitt] Romney staffer funded by progressives writes NYT op-ed opposing Trump tax cuts. News at 11,” ATR spokesperson John Kartch quipped, referring to Cass’ onetime boss, the former Utah senator who is now considered persona non grata in Trump's GOP. TRUMP CHANGE: Trump’s return to the White House is quite literally paying off. Trump family members and the Trump presidential library have already received roughly $80 million from companies, the Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Ballhaus, Dana Mattioli and Annie Linskey write. The figure includes a recently brokered $40 million Amazon deal to license first lady Melania Trump’s new documentary. — “Everything he does is either to be vengeful or to accumulate wealth, power and adulation,” Ty Cobb, a top White House lawyer during Trump’s first term, told WSJ. — “The first lady’s cut is more than 70% of the $40 million, according to people familiar with the matter. And they’re still looking for more: Melania’s agent has been trying to sell ‘sponsorships’ for the film — starting at $10 million — to prominent CEOs and billionaires who were at the inauguration, according to people familiar with the matter.” — “Much of the legal settlement money will go to a fund for the president’s library, a not-for-profit whose mission is to ‘preserve and steward’ Trump’s legacy. But Trump’s share of a $10 million settlement Elon Musk’s X agreed to this week is expected to go to him directly, according to people familiar with the matter.” — “The pace and volume of the family’s moneymaking efforts so far are unprecedented, surpassing even the activity of Trump’s first term, which drew condemnation from ethics watchdogs and congressional Democrats.” IT’S A NEW DAY: “The Trump administration could not have gotten off to a better start for people accused of violating foreign lobbying and bribery laws,” the Times’ Ken Vogel writes. “In the days after President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi issued directives limiting the enforcement of those laws, lawyers for people accused of such violations — including Trump allies — have scrambled to capitalize on the moment.”
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