He Is Who We Thought He Is

Readers who have been following the NFL for the last two decades (or more) are probably familiar with the rather legendary meltdown of then-Arizona-Cardinals-coach Dennis Green in 2006, after a loss to the Chicago Bears. Although the Cardinals weren't very good, Green felt he had developed an excellent game plan for the matchup. And yet, the Bears won 24-23, after a big comeback. Speaking to reporters, a very disappointed Green barked: "But they are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!"

We could not help but think of this as we reviewed the litany of (largely unpleasant) news stories yesterday. Yesterday marked the one-week anniversary of the commencement of Trump v2.0, and he's spent most of his time reminding everyone of what kind of president he is, and plans to be. That is, a president who is interested substantially in praise and adulation, and also in score-settling, but not in governance. A rundown of the most egregious illustrations of this:

• Victory Lap: When a new presidential administration commences, the fellow in the White House can go slow and steady, crossing the t's and dotting the i's, if what they want is for their initiatives to have staying power (and, in particular, to survive the inevitable legal challenges). Alternatively, they can come out of the gate like a bat out of hell. This is a short-term play, aimed at garnering flattering headlines, fawning coverage on Fox, and lots of positive mentions on eX-Twitter, Gab, and Parler. It's not a great choice for a president who wants to make sure their XOs and other policies stand up.
  
  Trump, of course, favors Option #2. And just to make sure everyone knows where he stands, the White House released a memo yesterday that was chock-full of Trumpy braggadocio. Under the subject line "WEEK ONE: The Wins Keep Piling Up," the memo declares:

  President Donald J. Trump's first full week back in office was the most significant in modern history, punctuated by strong, swift action to correct course after four years of disaster.
  
  In just one week, President Trump took more than 300 executive actions, secured more than a trillion dollars in U.S. investment, oversaw a significant drop in illegal border crossings, deported criminal illegal alien rapists, gang members, and suspected terrorists, and restored common sense to the government.
  
  In just one week, President Trump has done more to usher in the Golden Age of America than most presidents do over their full term. As the New York Post put it, President Trump "is already hitting the ground running as his first 100 days in office are off to a historic start"—and the best is yet to come.

  Move over Franklin D. Roosevelt. After just one week, your first 100 days have apparently been relegated to second place.
  
  
• DoJ "Housecleaning": Early yesterday, the White House advised the dozen or so lawyers who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith that their services will no longer be required, and that they are all out of a job.
  
  These firings serve no just or useful purpose. First of all, these attorneys were just doing their jobs. If you work for the DoJ, and the DoJ tells you to investigate [X], then you investigate [X]. There is no risk to Trump of these folks continuing their Trump investigative work, since the Trump investigations are over, and most certainly are not going to be re-launched while he is in office. And there is no chance that firing a bunch of attorneys on January 27, 2025, is going to stop the next Democratic administration from investigating Trump, if there are things to investigate. So, the only thing that was achieved by kicking a bunch of government employees to the curb yesterday was to satisfy Trump's thirst for vengeance, while also upending the lives and careers of these newly unemployed folks.
  
  
• Trans Soldiers: Yesterday, the White House confirmed something that everyone knew was coming: Sometime soon, probably today, Trump will issue an executive order in which he grants the fondest wish of newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, banning trans soldiers from serving in the United States armed forces.
  
  This has been studied carefully, often by people who are not at all trans-friendly. And the conclusion has invariably been that trans soldiers do absolutely no harm to the armed forces, and do nothing to undermine "readiness and lethality," although the Trump XO will certainly claim otherwise. At the same time, trans Americans are a useful source of new recruits. Some very promising folks who are trans are interested in getting away from hostile environments, and perhaps with getting financial support for hormone treatments and/or transitioning. So, it's a win-win for both the armed forces and the recruits.
  
  If you want a more in-depth treatment, the right-leaning site The Bulwark had an essay yesterday headlined "We All Lose in Trump's War Against Trans Americans." The evidence is clear that with his various anti-trans maneuvers, Trump is not achieving the things he says he's achieving, and that he's actually doing harm. Going back to the armed forces example, if the President is successful at expelling trans folks, he will deprive the military of roughly 15,000 experienced soldiers. That makes America less safe, not more so. The only thing he'll actually be achieving here is to communicate to the base that he's "doing something" about those durned queers.
  
  
• Let 'em Die, Part I: As long as we are on the subject of Trump trying to Make America White (and Straight) Again, yesterday the FDA scrubbed all material from its website related to ensuring that clinical trials are conducted on people of different ethnic and economic backgrounds.
  
  Undoubtedly, the person who made this choice was: (1) endeavoring to execute the administration's anti-DEI agenda, and (2) to be blunt, a fu**ing idiot. The requirement that clinical trials have a diverse sample of participants has nothing to do with DEI, and everything to do with the fact that medicines often work differently with members of different populations. To take a historical example, one standard treatment for malaria in the mid-20th century was primaquine. However, it did not work well with patients who were Black, or who were of Mediterranean heritage (for example, people of Greek, Arab, or Sephardic Jewish descent). It turns out—and it took until the 1960s to nail this down—the problem was due to those groups generally having a Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.
  
  To give a more modern example, reader J.G. in San Diego, CA, who also merits a mention in the item below about the 1/6 convicts, is a physician who is involved in several clinical trials. And the hospital where J.G. works has a partnership with an institution in New Zealand, as that is the only way to get the necessary number of Pacific Islander participants, so as to make the results of the trial valid.
  
  So, yet again, we have a policy choice that is achieving nothing useful, except to convince the MAGA crowd that Trump is fighting "wokeness." Meanwhile, it throws a giant wrench into government-funded medical research, while also sending the message that if you're not white, who really cares if medicines work for you?
  
  
• Let 'em Die, Part II: Trump has also frozen the distribution of a bunch of federal funds earmarked for foreign aid and/or for various research and other products. This is ostensibly to give time for a 90-day review of government spending. It also looks an awful lot like illegal impoundment to us, but nobody seems to be talking about that, so maybe we are wrong.
  
  In any case, one of the things that is now "on hold" is all PEPFAR funding. Every single bit of it. That means that there are quite literally boxes of AIDS-fighting medicines, sitting in clinics in Africa, and those medicines cannot be administered. Needless to say, this is a real problem, because the course of treatment is not designed around the possibility of an unexpected 90-day pause.
  
  Yet again, this policy decision serves no useful purpose. The entire PEPFAR program costs $7.5 billion a year, which is a tiny drop in the giant bucket that is the federal budget. Needless to say, 90 days of that is considerably less than $7.5 billion—something more like $1.75 billion, which is an even tinier drop. Further, remember that a bunch of the medicine is already there. It's already been paid for.
  
  Unfortunately for the people who need the medicine, they live in sh**hole countries, and they benefit from a program created by George W. Bush, who failed to give his full-throated support to Trump (and who has passively made clear that he finds Trump to be distasteful). Halting, or killing, PEPFAR allows the White House to stick it to brown-skinned foreigners, and also to poke Bush 43 in the eye. What's not to like?
  
  
• Him? Really?: When the Trump administration began conducting anti-immigrant raids this weekend, the officers were accompanied by lots of cameras. The cameras serve no governance-related purpose, of course. As David Axelrod observed over the weekend, Barack Obama deported more people than Donald Trump has, and Obama "didn't bring camera and film crews with him to mark the occasion."
  
  No, it could not be clearer that the deportations are primarily theater for the benefit of the anti-immigrant base. And if there was any question about that, well, the federal officials who conducted the first raids in Chicago this week were accompanied by, of all people, Dr. Phil McGraw. The reality TV star, whose qualifications in his actual field are less-than-stellar (he's a psychologist, and one who no longer bothers to keep up with the field, or to renew his license), has no background in law enforcement or in immigration policy. And yet, there he was, interrogating alleged undocumented immigrants for the benefit of the cameras.
  
  Dr. Phil is a right-winger, and a fellow who knows a few things about creating entertaining TV. That's why he was there; it makes for better footage for Fox and Newsmax, and the footage is the point. Presumably, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty will be joining a raid in the near future.

The damn thing is, this list isn't even exhaustive. There were plenty of other Trump maneuvers yesterday that spoke to his motivations being things other than good governance. For example, freezing the Justice Department's civil rights division, in anticipation of dismantling it. Or canceling the security clearances of 50 long-serving national intelligence employees because those employees have been deemed not sufficiently loyal. Or firing all three Democratic appointees on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

We received a question, not too long ago, that essentially boiled down to: "Do you think you will struggle to fairly evaluate Trump's policies because you don't agree with them?" As with much talk of bias, we think this kind of misses the point. Most bias emerges from dynamics that have little or nothing to do with ideology or politics.

In the case of Trump, a much greater barrier, at least for us, is that such a huge percentage of what he does is self-serving, mean-spirited, and without any purpose that serves the general good, we could very well miss something that is more positive than it appears. That said, we think that our assessments of all the maneuvers above are on target, and that we are on firm ground in believing that none of this has anything to do with good governance. (Z)

Colombia Backs Down

Not long after we went live yesterday, Colombian president Gustavo Petro backed down, and allowed the Trump administration to dump 200 or so undocumented immigrants in Colombia. So total was Petro's capitulation that he reportedly even offered the use of his private plane to help with the relocations.

So, Trump won the battle (just as he did with Guatemala, and with Mexico). That said—and do keep in mind that diplomatic maneuvering is not a strong suit for us, so take our assessment with a grain of salt or two—we think there's a pretty clear message here. Something along the lines of: Colombia/Guatemala/Mexico will tolerate some number of relocations, but there's an upper limit, and that upper limit is far closer to 200 than it is to "millions." Put another way, the intransigence from Petro and from Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum was something of a shot across the bow, making clear that those nations will not simply yield to whatever plans Trump comes up with.

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), who we presume knows this area better than we do, is in agreement. He sat for an interview on Monday and opined that, one of these days, Trump is going to use tariffs as a cudgel, and some nation is going to call his bluff.

There is also another dynamic at play here. If Trump plays hardball a little too hard, particularly with non-European nations, well, China is waiting with open arms. Actually, this has already come up, sort of. Thanks to the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and other Western nations slapped Russia with a bunch of tariffs and other economic sanctions. Russia, of course, responded by recalibrating and shifting most of its trade to China and India. Over the weekend, Trump threatened tariffs on Russia if the Ukraine War is not brought to an end. Vladimir Putin shrugged, since Russia does virtually no trade with the U.S. anymore, anyhow.

There's one other little bit of information worth noting. Under the radar, the White House has been working on an agreement with El Salvador to accept some sizable number of relocations, even if the people are not Salvadoran. Undoubtedly, the government of that nation is being promised some sort of goodies in exchange for their cooperation.

If the administration is working on such arrangements, it seems to us to be pretty clear evidence that the White House knows it won't be able to force some nations to accept relocated people. Of course, El Salvador only has a population of 6 million people, so there's an upper limit to how much can be done with that particular "safety valve." (Z)

Ron DeSantis, Whipping Boy

We have never been persuaded that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) could plausibly rehabilitate himself in MAGA world. Sure, he's willing to grovel any place and any time, with white boots or without. And Donald Trump certainly loves it when past opponents come crawling back on their knees. However, DeSantis committed the greatest sin of all, namely a direct challenge to the throne. That got Satan cast out of heaven, and it was sure to get his first cousin cast out of the Trump GOP.

There was much evidence in the past month that the Governor and the President are most certainly not simpatico again. Trump dangled the secretaryship of defense, when he had no intention of actually making the nomination. DeSantis could have used the open Senate seat to try to curry favor, and chose not to do so. Trading patronage is one of the most common and effective ways to cement political alliances, and Trump and DeSantis clearly are not doing so.

DeSantis' problem is that, in this conflict, he's bringing a knife to a gunfight. Trump not only holds the much more prominent and powerful political office, he also commands the loyalty of the base, while DeSantis does not. Trump also has a much broader media and social media network willing to amplify his point of view; Fox and "The Joe Rogan Experience" are rather more influential than Florida Daily. Yet another problem, from the Governor's perspective, is that Trump has much use for a high-profile scapegoat, to serve as a warning to any other officeholder who might dare to rebel. The Romans crucified Spartacus; Trump will crucify DeSantis.

Florida Republicans—the ones in the state legislature—have pretty clearly taken the lay of the land, and decided which side to take in this power struggle (Hint: Trump's side). One thing DeSantis and Trump share is a complete and total willingness to punish those who are disloyal. The Governor's favorite trick is to withhold pork from districts represented by his enemies. However, he's only going to be in office for a couple more years, and a couple more budget cycles, and the S.S. Trump would seem to offer a better ride, these days.

Consequently, DeSantis suffered quite the humiliation at the hands of his legislative colleagues. In his ongoing effort to apply gubernatorial lips to the presidential rear end, DeSantis called a special session of the Florida legislature, with an eye toward adopting anti-immigration legislation that the Governor wrote, and that is ostensibly meant to "help" enact Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.

This did not please the legislators, who don't like to be called into session for the benefit of political stunts. Remember, they're not full-timers, and when a special session is called, they have jobs and businesses and families that they have to leave behind with little to no warning. In addition, the legislators are not fools. They know what it looks like when DeSantis is trying to set things up in order to take a giant slice of the credit for Trump's efforts. They also know that Trump does not like people stealing his glory.

And so, the Republicans in the Florida legislature did several things once they were gaveled into special session on Monday. First, they rejected DeSantis' proposal. Then they gaveled out of session. Then, they decided to call their own special session, which was quickly gaveled in. Thereafter, they put forward their own anti-immigration legislation. In case there is any doubt about the message being sent by the Florida legislature, the name of the bill is the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy Act. That is to say, it's the TRUMP Act.

The legislators haven't yet passed the TRUMP Act, but they are expected to do so. What they HAVE done is override DeSantis' veto of $57 million in funding for legislative support services. Undoubtedly, the legislators wanted that money back in the budget. But the override also sends a clear message: If you veto the TRUMP Act, get ready for us to embarrass you by overriding you again.

DeSantis is trying to spin this as a victory, asserting that the TRUMP Act contains several of his ideas. Nominally true, but only because there are only so many ways to strike out at immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 also contains some of DeSantis' ideas, too. Nope, despite his claims to the contrary, he just got poked in the eye, bigly, and everyone who follows Republican politics knows it.

More broadly, we remain absolutely convinced that DeSantis has no political future. An anti-Trump Republican like Liz Cheney, or a lukewarm-on-Trump Republican like Chris Sununu might plausibly mount a presidential run if somehow the GOP moves quickly into the post-MAGA era. It's not likely, at least not in the next decade, but it's not impossible. But DeSantis' brand is MAGA v2.0. There is absolutely no way to make that work if the God-Emperor of MAGA hates you. (Z)

The January 6 Convicts Are Not Nice People. Who Knew?

Last Friday, we had an item about the long-term political risks of the 1/6 pardons. In that item, we wrote:

There is also one last problem. Some of the really awful people Trump pardoned are not going to go gentle into that good night. They are still hell-raisers who yearn for some form of violent revolution. And whenever they commit their next illegal or morally dubious acts, it will bring the pardon story back to life for a few news cycles. On the day Rhodes got out of prison, he visited the Capitol complex, said many incendiary things, and met with some far-right members of Congress. Tarrio, for his part, has already decreed that he wants "retribution" against those who put him in prison. These two men have every intention of "finishing" what they started.

Yesterday, a grand total of 3 days after we wrote that, reader J.G. in San Diego, CA wrote in to advise us that we were on the mark.

That is not to say that Rhodes and/or Tarrio have made a move. They are cautious and calculating, and not likely to go off half-cocked just a week after getting out of the can. We are certain you will hear from them again, and not in a good way, but not this soon. No, the news yesterday involved a much lower-profile 1/6 insurrectionist, a fellow named Matthew Huttle. He breached the Capitol on that day, spent about 10 minutes inside the building, and was eventually arrested and convicted for his crimes. His sentence was 6 months in prison, followed by 12 months of supervised release. Huttle served all of his prison time, but his supervised release time was scheduled to run through July of this year.

The pardon conferred by Trump brought the supervised release time to a premature end. That turns out to have been... unwise. Armed with a pardon, and very possibly the sense that Trumpers can get away with anything, Huttle quickly acquired a gun. That was doable since, of course, he's no longer a convicted felon. And then, on Sunday, he was pulled over by the Indiana police. Huttle resisted arrest and, reportedly, made a motion that could have been interpreted as going for his gun. So, the police opened fire, and Huttle was killed.

And that's not the only story along these lines. Also in the news is an insurrectionist named Andrew Taake. On 1/6, he assaulted police with bear spray and a metal whip. Not your usual arsenal for this sort of thing, but there it is. Taake was convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers with a dangerous weapon, and was sentenced to 74 months in prison. The pardon conferred by Trump, in this case, shaved roughly 68 months off of that.

So, what's the problem here? Well, the federal government was the first in line to incarcerate Taake, but they weren't alone. Texas' Harris County (where Houston is located) was also after him, because he has been charged with soliciting sex from a minor. Once Taake was pardoned, Harris asked that he be transferred, so as to face the music in Texas. Instead, the Trump administration let the pardonee go, and now he's at large, and considered a fugitive from justice. One can only imagine what crimes he might possibly commit before he is recaptured.

Obviously, neither of these men returned to their insurrectionist ways. Nonetheless, they both are guilty of potential crimes since being released, and they both have skirmishes with the police on their résumés. These are not the poster children for redemption and a second chance. And note that the pardons aren't even a week old. How many other recipients of Trump's beneficence will engage in additional unlawful behavior? We bet the answer is not zero. We also bet that Republicans will not respond the way they did to, say, Willie Horton, or to the fellow who killed Laken Riley (these are very safe bets).

There is a potential messaging opportunity here for Democrats, and the Party clearly senses that. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has introduced a resolution condemning the 1/6 pardons, and all 47 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus have signed on as co-sponsors. This maneuver is relatively unsubstantive, since it's effectively a glorified press release, and since it's never going to pass the Senate, anyhow. Still, things like this are among the tools the blue team has to keep the pardons in the headlines, and to hold Republicans' feet to the fire. (Z)

Voters Don't Like Plutocracy

As long as we are on the subject of Democratic messaging, we had an item yesterday discussing what aspects of the Trump administration the voters like or don't like (at least, according to the polls). The upshot was that the anti-immigrant stuff has majority support, at least for now, while most of the rest of the Trump agenda is getting a mixed response or a negative one.

Yesterday, AP-NORC released a new poll that builds on the item from yesterday, and that suggests another potential line of attack for the Democratic Party. In short, Americans don't like a government run by billionaires. Not one bit.

The numbers are pretty stark. According to the poll, 60% of voters overall, 78% of Democrats, 61% of independents, and even 35% of Republicans do not think Donald Trump should be taking his cues from the billionaire class. Only 12% of voters overall, 8% of Democrats, 7% of independents and 20% of Republicans think that this approach to governance is a good idea. The remainder of respondents don't have an opinion. Nonetheless, the numbers say that if you take the average voter, it is five times more likely that they are anti-plutocracy than that they are pro-plutocracy.

In 1948, during what was perceived as a longshot reelection campaign, Harry S. Truman made "the do-nothing Congress" the central element of his pitch. And, obviously, it worked. That's not quite the same thing as running against the moneyed classes, but it's not far off. Either way, it's a version of David and Goliath, where the Democrats represent the little guy and the underdog, and the Republicans represent the entrenched, well-to-do power structure. If the Democratic Party of 2025 can come up with a pithy way to frame the Trump administration as servant to the rich and powerful, that could be very effective. "Plutocracy" is probably a bit too SAT-vocab-ish, but something more plebeian could land.

Obviously, Trump is likely to give (inadvertent) support to this line of attack with his policy choices, like a big tax cut for the wealthy. That said, he is himself a billionaire (on paper, at least), and he won the election, so billionaires are not personae non gratae, per se. We interpret this polling result as saying, in so many words, "We don't like how much power Elon Musk has."

So, if the "president of the billionaires" bit starts to do real damage to Trump and the Republicans, then there's a way to potentially help fix that, namely cutting Musk loose. It's another reason to think that this relationship just cannot last, long-term. That said, if Trump hangs on to Musk too long, the damage might be done, even if they eventually part ways. (Z)

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