![This is what it's like to be a meteorologist from Louisiana and cover Ida](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210830162155-weather-derek-van-dam-super-tease.jpg)
This is what it's like to be a meteorologist from Louisiana and cover Ida
CNN
Each time I see a storm rapidly intensify in the Gulf of Mexico, my stomach churns.
I'm Jennifer Gray and I've been a meteorologist for 18 years and it doesn't get any easier to watch.![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250216092711.jpg)
Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?
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In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.