OnPolitics Today: Trump to federal workers: No raise for you

Posted by Anonymous on August 31, 2018

FROM WASHINGTON AND BEYOND

Thursday, August 30

President Donald Trump gestures during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Wednesday

Trump cites 'serious' economic conditions but praises markets

Also on Thursday: Trump ramps up attempts to discredit social media and threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organization.

If you're a federal worker who avoids the news yet for some reason subscribes to this newsletter, we've got a bummer of an update: You're not getting a raise.

President Donald Trump told Congress Thursday that "serious economic conditions" would force him to freeze pay for civilian workers next year, scrapping a 2.1 percent raise that would have gone into effect. The last such cut took place in 2011, when President Barack Obama enacted a three-year freeze.

Obama's freeze came as America shook off a recession. But that's not the case here, as Trump made clear on Twitter just before the announcement: "The news from the Financial Markets is even better than anticipated. More good news is coming!"

This is OnPolitics Today. Good news is coming.

Social media president wants people to distrust social media

Trump suggested in a Bloomberg News interview published Thursday that Google, Facebook and Amazon might amount to an "anti-trust situation," another push from the president this week to discredit internet giants that he claims treat conservatives "unfairly." As Trump expands efforts to discredit news outlets whose coverage he doesn't like to the internet giants who promote them, the Fake-ification of All Things has begun: "fake social" and "fake search" are new terms volleyed about by conservatives who want to, as their hashtag says, "#StopTheBias."

Trump threatens to upend global trade rules

Pull out of the World Trade organization? Maybe, Trump said Thursday: "If they don't shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO ." That line, told also to Bloomberg News, is Trump's most explicit threat yet to the WTO, the body that sets standards for international trade agreements and resolves related disputes. Trump wants the organization to toughen up on China for stealing U.S. intellectual property and dumping steel. But nothing's happened yet: Trump's frustrated, spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, but it's "not accurate that the U.S. is leaving the WTO."

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