Republican leaders understand that the GOP has earned a reputation for championing the interests of the wealthy, but they occasionally make the case that the party has changed.

Around this time four years ago, for example, then-House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declared“The uniqueness of this party today is we’re the workers party.” Around the same time, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wrote online“The Republican Party is not the party of the country clubs, it’s the party of hardworking, blue-collar men and women.”

It’s difficult to say with confidence whether GOP leaders ever believed their own rhetoric when it came to workers’ interests, but Donald Trump continues to take steps that leave little doubt that the contemporary Republican Party is most certainly not “the workers party.” Bloomberg Law reported:

In case anyone needs a refresher, it was in early 2014 when Barack Obama raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. As we discussed at the timebecause government contracts can be lucrative, and so many private enterprises want federal work, the Democratic president, with a stroke of a pen, gave a raise to a whole lot of employees. The shift also sent a message to the private sector that to compete in the labor force, businesses should follow suit.

Republicans were less than pleased but faced a messaging challenge: Since most Americans support a higher minimum wage, the GOP didn’t want to be seen attacking the Democrat for doing something popular. As an alternative, Republicans pretended to be outraged that Obama advanced one of his goals by way of an executive order.

Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, for example, called Obama a “Socialistic dictator” and the “Kommandant-In-Chef.” (I assume he meant “chief.”) Then-House Speaker John Boehner suggested the minimum-wage hike for contractors was unconstitutional. Ted Cruz was so incensed that he wrote and on-ed condemning the “imperial presidency of Barack Obama.”

Undeterred, Biden built on the policy in 2021, raising the wage for federal contractors to $15, amid a series of related efforts to use White House power to encourage corporations that do business with the government to adopt pro-labor policies.

Trump has now used his power to undo all of these Biden-era steps.

The president’s move comes four months after he appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the “Press” and faced a question about the federal minimum wage. Host Kristen Welker reminded the Republican that the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 for more than 15 years and asked whether he was prepared to raise it.

“It’s a very low number,” Trump concededreferring to the status quo. “I will agree, it’s a very low number.”

As the exchange continued, however, Trump, who has spent years offering confusing and contradictory positions on the issue, declared that he believes having a federal minimum wage doesn’t “work.”

Evidently, he apparently believes raising the minimum wage for federal contractors doesn’t work, either.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The latest national NBC News poll asked American voters which country has their sympathies in the Russian/Ukrainian war, and the results weren’t close: Only 2% of Americans sided with Vladmir Putin’s regime, while 61% chose U.S. allies Kyiv. The same poll, however, asked about Donald Trump’s sympathies, and a 49% plurality said they believe the Republican president is sympathetic to Moscow.

Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey along with a GOP colleague, said, “I cannot recall a moment in history when American public opinion and voters’ views of a president, as to which country they are more aligned with, have been more in conflict with each other.”

There is no reason to see the poll as an outlier. The latest national survey from Quinnipiac University found that a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war and believe he hasn’t been tough enough on Putin. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that more than half of Americans agreed that the president is “too closely aligned” with Russia. Similarly, the latest CNN poll found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the Republican’s policies toward Russia and Ukraine, and 50% said his approach to the war is bad for the United States. (For more information on the polls’ methodologies and margins of error, click on any of the above links.)

With data like this, it’s tempting to think the American president, who’s been a little too eager of late to align his administration with Moscowmight consider a change in direction. He’s not. On the contrary, Trump continues to double and triple down on his unpopular approach.

During his unhinged remarks at the Justice Department late last week, for example, the president falsely suggested that Ukraine tried to “pick on” Russia. The next day, for reasons that weren’t altogether clear, Trump published a 150-word item to his social media platform, insisting that Putin was punctual for his meeting with “my Highly Respected Ambassador and Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff” — who is not actually an ambassador.

Around the same time, NBC News published this striking report:

During the presidential transition process, Trump announced that the retired general would oversee the administration’s policy toward the war, but the NBC News report, published late last week, said Moscow made it clear behind the scenes that it did not approve of Kellogg.

The next day, Trump announced that Kellogg would now have a new jobserving as his special envoy to Ukraine. It led reporter Laura Rozen to note that it “looks like Trump let Russia veto one of his negotiators.”

In case that weren’t quite enough, as this week got underway, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration has informed our longtime European allies that the United States is withdrawing from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine — a “multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine.”

The Trump administration “is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared two weeks ago. “This largely aligns with our vision.”

The latest polling suggests this is not what the American mainstream wants. The American president doesn’t seem to care.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Those who watch Donald Trump’s Q&As invariably pick up on one of his go-to tactics. A reporter will ask a good and fair question that the president doesn’t appear to like, and instead of responding with something substantive, he’ll respond, “Who are you with?”

At that point, the journalist will respond by identifying his/her news organization, leading Trump to immediately and reflexively reply, “No wonder,” as if he’s proven some unstated point about independent news organizations asking questions that bother him.

At that point, the Republican will either move on — as if his childish rejoinder has sufficiently ended the matter — or he’ll respond in a way that suggests he considers the line of inquiry illegitimate.

It’s happened many times, including last week at an Oval Office event in which a reporter from Voice of America received the “who are you with?” treatment.

The snide exchange was uncalled for, but it was in keeping with the president’s longstanding disdain for VOA. When Trump tapped Arizona’s Kari Lake to be the next director of the Voice of America, many assumed that the network would continue, though it would be overhauled to be more overtly partisan.

Those assumptions weren’t quite right. As The Washington Post reportedthe president late last week signed an executive order seeking to eliminate several additional federal agencies, including the one that oversees the Voice of America.

In that same online message, Abramowitz also wrote“[T]oday’s action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission. That mission is especially critical today, when America’s adversaries, like Iran, China, and Russia, are sinking billions of dollars into creating false narratives to discredit the United States.”

It’s a key detail: As the Post’s report added, VOA exists “to counter authoritarian propaganda for foreign audiences with independent news.” That, evidently, is no longer in line with the White House’s international goals.

Indeed, it’s worth emphasizing that while the gutting of the VOA generated headlines, it was not the only affected outlet: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also lost its financingand Radio and Televisión Martí, which democracy to Cuba’s Population,”https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article302141299.html” target=”_blank”>put its staff on administrative leave.

“These media outlets have been a beacon of truth, democracy, and hope for millions of people around the world,” the European Commission said in a statement to Politico. “In an age of unmoderated content and fake news, journalism and freedom of press are critical for democracy. … This decision risks benefiting our common adversaries.”

The Washington Post’s Max Boot added“There is a sickening symmetry to President Donald Trump’s actions: While undermining U.S. democracy at home, he is also trying end U.S. government support for democracy abroad. His victims range from a leading human rights organization to the U.S. government networks that beam factual information to victims of oppression around the world.”

What’s more, it’s worth emphasizing that the policy took effect quickly. This isn’t a situation in which the administration began a lengthy winddown process, assessing the policy implications over time. Rather, this is an instance in which Trump signed an order on Friday, and within two days, democracy-promoting networks were dark — for the first time in more than 80 years.

Steven Herman, a longtime Voice of America correspondent, published a “requiem” over the weekend, writing, “To ​effectively shutter the Voice of America is to dim a beacon that burned bright during some of the darkest hours since 1942.”

Whether Trump considers this a negative or a positive is not clear.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”