Trump Fuels War Machine While Gutting Worker Protections and Science
On February 28, President Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran with massive joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, launching a war without congressional authorization. By July, the House passed a $1.15 trillion defense policy bill in a near-party-line vote after Democrats refused to back the measure amid the unauthorized conflict.
Republicans paired the Pentagon bill with a budget blueprint that lets them bypass Democrats and unlock other funds for the Iran war and Trump's election overhaul bill. Bloomberg reports the GOP approved a $95 billion budget plan largely aimed at funding Trump's Iran war despite rising fears the unpopular conflict and surging energy prices will endanger Republican midterm prospects.
The same legislation enshrines deeper Israeli–U.S. defense technology integration. Rep. Thomas Massie tried to strip the provision, calling it "lopsided" in Israel's favor; the House passed it anyway. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez labeled the measure an "existential threat" to democracy.
The war footing extends beyond the Middle East. The administration is reportedly considering military action in Mali to target Jama'at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimin, an al-Qaeda linked group. On Truth Social, Trump defended the Iran escalation by posting a comparison of American deaths across conflicts, listing the Iran military conflict at "4 months, 18 DEAD" — a framing MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle sharply criticized; Raw Story called the post "shocking."
While war funding moves on bypass mechanisms, domestic accountability is being dismantled. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has voted to end a 60-year-old requirement for employers to submit demographic data on their workforces, erasing a baseline tool for detecting discrimination. Simultaneously, the administration's science adviser Michael Kratsios proposed overhauling government research funding toward AI and away from universities — a shift Democrats said had weakened science.
The pattern is surgical: trillions for war and favored contractors, routed around legislative checks; data collection on workplace inequality terminated; public research capacity hollowed out in favor of private AI capital. The budget blueprint passed by the House explicitly enables this transfer. Massie's failed amendment against the Israeli tech integration clause underscores that even Republican dissent is steamrolled when the Pentagon-industrial complex demands alignment. Workers lose the statistical leverage to prove discrimination. Students and researchers lose public science infrastructure. Anti-war voices lose even the procedural speed bumps of congressional approval. The administration builds a war machine that funds itself, answers to no demographic accounting, and treats democratic oversight as an obstacle to be legislated away.