PODCAST: Making sense of the federal "freeze" (with Phil Rocco)
The Trump administration released one of the most "chaos-inducing two-page memo's" we've seen, rescinded it a day later, and it's all very discombobulating. Phil Rocco helps us make sense of it all.
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo essentially freezing payments from the federal government. The memo was rescinded, but perhaps it's a sign of what's to come from the Trump administration.
Regular Recombobulation Area contributor and Marquette University professor Phil Rocco, who has written and researched extensively on the relationship between different levels of government, joins the podcast to help make sense of what happened and what might be next.
Let's recombobulate.
Listen to the podcast here on Civic Media, or see it embedded below.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he became the Political Editor of Civic Media. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 18 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer and at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social.