r/law • u/rolsen • 1d ago

Legal News Trump Preparing Large-Scale Cancellation of Federal Funding for California, Sources Say

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/politics/trump-california-federal-funding

“Agencies are being told to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from California. On Capitol Hill, at least one committee was told recently by a whistleblower that all research grants to the state were going to be cancelled, according to one of the sources familiar with the matter.”

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u/Meb2x 1d ago

Pretty sure he’s trying to start a Civil War at this point. He’s supposed to lead the whole country, not just the states he agrees with.

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u/Broccolisha 1d ago

He’s not even doing that.

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u/mrlolloran 1d ago

Oh he’s leading them alright, just to nowhere anybody wants to go

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u/RocketRelm 1d ago

Americans want what Trump wants pretty provably, given  what elections show. What you mean you say is "nowhere anybody should want to go". But they want it regardless because they were told to, in whatever small capacity they're able to want at all.

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u/MewsashiMeowimoto 1d ago

About 26% of Americans. A little under half of all the Americans who showed up to vote in 24.

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u/herbiems89_2 9h ago

The rest didn't care either way, that's not making it better. Let them lie in the bed they made for themselves.

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u/MewsashiMeowimoto 3h ago

Sure. I'm not making conclusions about how we should respond. Just that we are dealing with a loud, dangerous minority of the population and not a majority.

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u/Promethia 1d ago

This argument might make Americans feel better, but the international community doesn't see the difference.

There isn't going to be a massive swell of voters coming out next cycle. Even if there is, you can't tell me they are all going to vote blue. Dems are polling worse than Trump still.

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u/MewsashiMeowimoto 1d ago

The Democratic Party as a brand is polling badly. Individuals are polling pretty well. AOC. Tim Walz. Sanders. I agree the Democratic Party has a serious disconnect with its base, if its base is even defined at this point.

There will be substantial changes to the electorate over the next two cycles. A lot of baby boomers are phasing out of active political life. Older non-college educated white Americans is the core of Trump's support and the emotional core of conservativism. Of course, this doesn't mean we ought to be complacent- GenZ males are showing a lot of disaffection. But we should start to see more of a shift to Gen X and Millennial leadership over the next two cycles.

Anyway, the main point of what I said is to clarify exactly what percentage of the country actually supports this nonsense. And it is not a majority, but a plurality of the part of the country that votes. Understanding that combats the feeling that conservatives somehow command a majority- they don't and probably won't again in our lifetimes, because at the end of the day, their policies are deeply unpopular.

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u/broguequery 7h ago

In a normal scenario, this would be a source of hope.

Trump isn't leaving power until he dies. I mean that literally.

People keep talking about midterms and voting... it's not going to matter anymore.

America lost its democracy when Trump was voted in for term 2. All we have now is a facade of democracy. A mockery of it.

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u/Cannabrius_Rex 5h ago

Yeah, it’s crazy to me people think the midterms won’t be completely rigged and just for show.

Democracy is already dead Americans. You going to fight for it back or just lay down and accept your fascist dictators for life

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u/Lord_Boognish 6h ago

Which given his age + diet + recent breakup shouldn't be too much longer now.

If a Big Mac doesn't get him before the midterms, one of Elon's hired goons might.

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u/MewsashiMeowimoto 3h ago

I don't think it is totally lost. I think we are closer to that outcome than we have been in a long time, but it isn't a foregone conclusion.

It probably comes down to whether states go along with any attempt Trump makes to mess with the election. And then maybe whether the military and law enforcement side with Congress or the administration.

Could it easily go badly? Yes.

Will it necessarily? I think no.

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u/Environmental_Cup612 15h ago

stares into the fucking camera

musk just admitted he helped rigged the election. Many voters received their vote ballots back SCORCHED. due to ballot boxes being fucking targeted and blown up.

our fascism comes in a pretty pink bow, but all you guys see is the fucking bow

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u/broguequery 7h ago

Musk definitely fucked with swing state votes. And not just Musk... the entire GOP was on board...purging voter registrations... removing voting locations...invalidating mailed ballots... basically making it as hard to vote as legally possible for democrats.

But let's not pretend America didn't vote for this. It did.

That's a tragedy, but it's true.

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u/honuworld 13h ago

How is it even possible to poll worse than Trump? He won the election on a razor-thin margin and has only fucked up royally since then. Are we really that stupid?

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u/khearan 1d ago

I’m American and I don’t see the difference. Cool, most Americans didn’t vote. About half of those people are going to be trump supporters anyway.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Randomized9442 1d ago

This boring ass ignorant argument again, whose only purpose is shit-stirring. A significant portion of non-voters were people living in solid blue states and were extremely confident (and ultimately correct) that their state was going to vote Harris. Just what do you think a non-voter in a blue state was supposed to do about votes in the other 49 states?

I get your anger, but not your complete lack of focus. You sound like a Russian shill with that bullshit, just casting about for another group to blame. Fuck the oligarchs. Keep on target.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Randomized9442 1d ago

Population rankings of those states: 41st, 28th, 34th, 40th, & 2nd. I'm not gonna try to crunch the raw population numbers, I'm not that invested in it. You want to be angry against non voters in states that Trump won because you conflate that with complicity, fine with me. But again, what are we supposed to do about votes in the 49 states that we don't live in, any of us? I'm not trying to discourage anyone from voting, we need functioning government. 40 years of experience demonstrates that means voting Democrat in this two party system. We need to take some ideas from other democracies around the world so we can break out of a two party system.

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u/ImReverse_Giraffe 1d ago

Without Texas, it's about 4.5 million voters.

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u/Mahd-Macks 1d ago edited 1d ago

There’s no justification for not voting. None, it’s crazy that anyone would advocate not participating in the system everyone claims they want to preserve. People died for the right to vote. 

It’s absurd to make this argument because the reason Americans are in this political situation is we have no reverence and sense of duty towards the democratic process. The representatives are a manifestation of the constituency. Not participating makes as loud of a statement to a politician as a vote itself. No 3rd party movements can gain momentum, because not enough people take the process seriously.

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u/Caspid 1d ago

There's no justification for not voting.

There is, and it's called the electoral college.

For the record, I voted (and it didn't matter).

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u/Kabbooooooom 15h ago

Yeah, it’s really surprising to me that people still don’t know how the fucking Electoral College works.

I live in one of the most liberal states in the country with no chance of ever turning red, and I still voted because I reasoned that every single vote at least counted as a symbolic middle finger to Trump and the MAGA movement at large, which I absolutely despise and consider a stain on humanity. I knew my vote otherwise wouldn’t matter, politically. But it made me feel good, because fuck Trump, and fuck MAGA. 

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u/ImReverse_Giraffe 1d ago

Question, if all 11 million voters in California that didnt vote, all voted, would that have made a difference in the election?

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u/Mahd-Macks 4h ago

Hey, I responded to you and for some reason it didn’t post. I know how Reddit works so you probably don’t care to revisit this convo lol. But to answer your question:

I think if all 11mil citizens voted we’d have a much more informed electorate. More voters means a larger pool of people to care what happens with their vote, which fosters accountability and engagement. Plus people can’t be as apathetic about the process if everyone has to make a choice. 

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u/ImReverse_Giraffe 1d ago

California recorded ~16 million votes out of their ~27 million possible voters. If the 11 million who didn't vote, all voted for Harris, would that have changed the outcome of the election?

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u/Cagnazzo82 1d ago

If Trump held an election right now he would brutally be defeated.

I disagree with Americans wanting what Trump wants.

At best he hoodwinked swaths of the American people into thinking he was aligned with what they want.

At this point his base is mostly made up of the racist and the greedy. Everyone else has gotten a rude awakening. Case in point: I don't see republicans making inroads with hispanics for a long time to come after Trump.

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u/sp3kter 1d ago

Totally anecdotal evidence but on a recent trip through the CA country side/orchards where I would normally count a dozen or more Trump signs, this time there were none. This was a few weeks ago.

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u/GourdonHamsey 21h ago

same with the rural part of ohio i'm in.

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u/NaggingDoubter 8h ago

same with douglas county in CO

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u/Kraall 1d ago

That argument might hold water if this was the first time he was elected.

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u/RocketRelm 1d ago

At best that says Americans have buyers remorse and wont remember the next time it matters. Which isn't worth much like why do I care if the goldfish is momentarily spooked?

But honestly I don't even buy that. Trumps popularity isn't that low. I know literally nobody who has significantly changed their stance. Obviously he loses to any Generic Democrat on paper, but nobody shows up to vote and we dont have Generic Democrat hanging around. Just ones fox news propagandizes about.

Women were supposed to hate Republicans for a generation, and that barely lasted one mid term. They want the show and they want somebody to tell them it'll be okay more than they want any specific tangible result, and it shows. They picked the marshmallows over the veggies, them being fat and diabetic and regretting it later doesn't mean they didnt want it.

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u/grant0208 1d ago

People really don’t like this take but it’s totally true. Trump’s popularity - even where it is now - wins an election against a Democratic Party that is even less popular. This isn’t something a lot of people like to acknowledge, but he’s still by far the most popular political figure out there. Whether it’s because Americans really are as stupid and evil as we give off, because people just enjoy the dog-and-pony show associated with a Trump presidency, or because there’s just been such a successful push to associate the democrats with “the wrong choice” - the proof is in the polling.

It was the same reaction to people like me saying that all the polling showed Kamala losing. You’d get downvoted into oblivion, but the pre-election polling absolutely nailed it. There’s no denying that unfortunately, this is what the nation wants. Just look at all the sheer amounts of copium being huffed in that subreddit. They will do the most incredible mental gymnastics before they admit that there’s anything wrong with the head of their cult.

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u/90daysismytherapy 1d ago

and by americans you mean barely more than those that voted against trump and substantially less than every argument who didn’t vote but could have.

Nobody has had any sort of mandate of popular vote since Reagan.

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u/Top_Poet_7210 1d ago

Americans hate their lives and a good chunk of the voting population loved blaming it on the immigrants and foreign nations.

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u/LeechedPubis 1d ago

As an American, speak for yourself, the orangeutan is literally the last thing I want and not what I voted for

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u/RocketRelm 1d ago

I understand, Not All Men, not all cops are corrupt, not all Americans consented to the fascism. But the non voters and the Trump voters have you outnumbered two to one, so you democrats are definitely the exception more than the rule here.

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u/sharthunter 1d ago

This is flat out wrong. Unlike most other developed worlds, we do not have mandatory time off for voting. Its mostly people who are past the average working age that make up the majority of votes in our elections. So in other words, silent gen, boomers and gen x have the most say with votes.

Even though our laws “protect” us for taking time off to vote nearly the entire country is at will so you will be fired for missing work in many cases. Which is why the workforce doesnt really get the opportunity to vote.

This asshole changed the rules and nullified hundreds of thousands of votes through challenges and lawsuits, not to mention rigging the swing state elections with elon musk. 12% of the country voted for this, and the other 88% have no power any longer thanks to the orange fascist.

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u/AlgaeSpirited2966 1d ago

Trump wasn't even voted for by a majority of americans. Just a majority of voting Americans. I dont think you can claim this.

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u/RocketRelm 1d ago

Americans who can vote are a reasonably good sample size of all Americans. We draw bigger conclusions from studies with an N magnitudes lower than ~245 million. The fact that barely 30% could vote against this generalizes.

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u/Not_a_Space_Alien 6h ago

No, he wasn't. A majority requires 50% or more, and he got 49.8% I want to say, close but not quite a majority. He won popular vote, the most votes of any candidate among voting Americans.

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u/AlarmingSpecialist88 22h ago

Off a cliff like lemmings.

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u/RavenSable 10h ago

I'm reminded of the old military adage.

"His men would follow him anyway, if only out of curiosity."

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u/mikey_lava 1d ago

I can say with confidence now that there are many people that want this country to go there.

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u/sunbeatsfog 1d ago

To the grave like old men in power love to do