Trump Punts Again

A day after Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, he changed his mind and delayed the implementation of the tariffs for cars by a month. He did this because the automakers screamed. Since cars and parts go back and forth across the border multiple times during manufacture, the result of levying a tariff on every crossing would have made the cars so expensive that it would be the end of the U.S. auto industry. So, Trump relented, for the moment.

Autos are a big part of the $1.6 trillion in trade with Canada and Mexico. They amount to $345 billion, or 22% of the total. This doesn't mean the tariffs are gone, only that there is a month in which the automakers get a chance to convince Trump that this is a bad idea. They will argue that the tariffs will make European, Japanese, and South Korean cars much cheaper than American cars and will effectively kill off the American car industry. The argument may or may not work, though. Trump is generally not open to listening to facts.

It is not clear what it might take to get Trump to drop the tariffs on cars altogether. He often talks about fentanyl that comes over the border. It would be extremely hard to catch drug smugglers. About 290,000 trucks and 140,000 cars cross from Canada to the U.S. every day. Thoroughly inspecting them all, including under each of them, would be impossible. About 35,000 trucks and 43,000 cars enter from Mexico every day. Even inspecting all of these would be impossible. And even if that fentanyl pathway was shut down, smugglers would start using drones to make cross-border deliveries. And even if all drones were shot down and no fentanyl came across the border, the result would be that underground fentanyl factories would spring up in the U.S. as long as there was demand for the product. Though at least that would create a new domestic industry and provide work for American criminals rather than Canadian criminals or Mexican criminals, we suppose. A job is a job, after all. (V)

Supreme Court Rejects Impoundment of Foreign Aid

Yesterday, in a narrow, unsigned 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's claim that it didn't have to spend $2 billion on certain foreign aid as Congress directed. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four female justices in the majority. The Court did not direct the president to release the funds immediately. Instead it sent the case back to the district judge to give the order.

This result is good news for Trump. When Richard Nixon impounded funds Congress had appropriated, Congress did not take that well and passed a law, The Impoundment Control Act of 1974, that specifically requires the president to spend every cent Congress has appropriated for the purpose Congress has designated. This has been the law for over 50 years. Now four of the nine justices have voted to say that the president also doesn't have to follow this law. In the next case that comes up, it could be 5-4 the other way. If the justices had voted based on the law rather than on their feelings about Donald Trump, it would have been 9-0 against Trump.

The case made it to the Supreme Court at supersonic speed. On Feb. 13, 2025, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered some of the USAID money to flow as Congress had directed it. The administration refused to comply. Then the judge set a deadline for compliance. The administration ignored the deadline but rushed an appeal to the Supreme Court, which it has now lost 5-4. What will happen when the judge once again orders the administration to spend the money and it once again refuses? Could this be the first case in which the administration simply defies the Court openly and says: "What are you going to do about it?" We may soon see. (V)

U.S. Stops Sharing Intelligence with Ukraine

Consistent with his plan to end the war in Ukraine by having Russia win it, Donald Trump has now ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to stop giving information to Ukraine on targets the Ukrainian military can hit. This follows an earlier decision by Trump to stop supplying weapons Congress has mandated to go to Ukraine. He clearly does want to end the war—by letting Russia win. We have no inside information on how the Norwegian Nobel Committee decides who gets the Nobel Peace Prize, but our guess is helping a dictator conquer a peaceful democracy probably isn't the path to glory.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed the cutoff on Fox yesterday. He said the pauses might end after Volodymyr Zelenskyy had groveled in the dust and kissed Trump's high-heel shoes for a sufficiently long time, although he worded it slightly differently. The cutoff of intel is a complete reversal of Biden administration policy, in which the U.S. provided Ukraine with real-time information about where to send missiles and drones right now. Absent this information, Ukraine will have much less ability to hit Russia where it hurts.

European officials understand that they now have the responsibility of filling the gap, but they don't have nearly as much capability to obtain and transmit useful data in real time. Creating that ability won't be easy or fast. (V)

Republicans Squirm as Tariffs Start to Hit Their Constituents in the Wallet

For weeks, Republicans in Congress have been telling their constituents that Donald Trump's threatened tariffs were just a brilliant negotiating tactic and he wasn't going to do it. But now that he has actually shot the hostages, the reality is seeping in. Retaliatory tariffs are hitting agriculture first because Canada, Mexico, and China all know that Trump's base contains many farmers in red states and they will feel the sudden competition from cheaper imports from Brazil and other countries the most. Big Ag, which supports Trump, will also feel the hit. Canada, for example, has put tariffs on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, including poultry, beef, fish, and yogurt. So, the tariffs are now putting Republican politicians in a difficult place.

During Trump v.1.0, farmers lost $26 billion from retaliatory tariffs in 2018-19 when duties were slapped on soybeans, sorghum, and pork. Trump dealt with this problem by getting Congress to pony up $28 billion in free money for the farmers. With a smaller majority in the House now and plans for big tax cuts for the wealthy in the works, getting the votes of all the deficit hawks in the House for a new bailout might not be so easy.

Trump understands the problem and even has a solution. On his boutique social media site, he posted the message: "Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States." So he is telling farmers to sell more poultry, beef, fish, and yogurt to cash-strapped Americans. In an indirect way, it might work. If the domestic market is suddenly flooded with products that were previously sold abroad, prices may go down. That will make consumers happy, but if farmers end up selling as much product as last year, only at lower prices, they will not be happy. A chicken farmer who gets 10% less for his chickens is going to be very unhappy and might just mention this to his senators and representative. A consumer who sees that chicken is now 10% cheaper might buy more chicken and less pork, which will not make the hog farmers in Iowa happy.

These tariffs are going to put Sec. of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on the spot. She doesn't have any particular affinity with farmers. She is a lawyer who ran a conservative Texas think tank for 15 years then had several (nonagricultural) roles in Trump v1.0. Her big issue is criminal justice reform, not chicken exports. She does have connections with Big Ag though, and supports policies that would allow corporate factory farms to increase production to the detriment of the environment, climate, small farmers, and rural communities. But her friends in Big Ag won't be happy with the tariffs either and will demand that she do something about them.

Economists estimate that the retaliatory tariffs will cost the average household at least $1,600 per year, maybe more. If people switch their diets to cheaper products, the effect would still be at least $1,100. This will add almost 1% to inflation.

The effects will hit quickly as the U.S. imports a lot of fruit and veggies from Mexico in the winter and less in the summer. Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said this week that her company will have to raise prices since the top two sources for the products her company sells are China and Mexico.

A round of price increases directly after Trump has imposed tariffs will give Democrats excellent talking points. A Democratic representative can carry around a cucumber or a broccoli or a cauliflower and say vegetables like these and others are suddenly going to cost you more at the supermarket due to Trump's tariffs so the government can raise more revenue to offset the big tax cuts for billionaires. That is not quite as effective a case of produce-as-a-political-prop as the Liz Truss head of lettuce, but it's not bad. (V)

Republicans Want to Dodge Town Halls

We have noted before that members of Congress, especially Republicans, are getting peppered with hostile questions about Elon Musk firings, tariffs, and other things at town halls. It is becoming quite a problem for them. In some cases, they are getting angry with their constituents and leaving early to avoid the heat. The head of the NRCC sympathizes with them and has a solution: don't hold town halls. He recommends using virtual town halls instead, so staff members can vet people who want to ask questions in advance and only allow friendly questions to be broadcast.

Of course, many voters, especially those not attuned to virtual meetings, will perceive the representative as hiding and being afraid to talk to the voters. People don't like this. Democrats are immediately trying to make hay here. DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said: "So House Republicans' political strategy is 'see no families nor workers,' 'hear no protesters,' 'speak to no one' and hope everyone gets less angry at them when they rip away Americans' health care? Got it."

Some Democratic groups have said they will host empty town halls in the districts of members who refuse to hold real ones.

In the past, protests at town halls have been a harbinger of bad news to come. They may reflect the build up of grassroots anger that will express itself at the next election. (V)

Democrats Might Let the Government Shut Down Next Week

Unless something is done, the government will shut down next Friday, March 14, because that is when funding expires. For the first time in Trump v2.0, Democrats have some de facto power and are thinking about whether to use it. In theory, the Republicans can pass any budget they want using the budget reconciliation process. After all, they hold the trifecta. In practice, they are badly divided and it may be impossible to put together a budget that all 218 House Republicans can agree on. If any two of them defect, the budget bill tanks. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is all too aware of this and is hoping for some Democrats to provide the votes he needs to compensate for Republicans who don't like whatever bill he puts together.

The Democrats' power comes from their ability to simply all vote "no" and let the government shut down. Many (but not all) government services would then stop at midnight. History has shown that the voters don't like this and tend to blame the president, especially when his party has the trifecta and could pass the budget without any Democratic votes. Trump may try to blame Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for the shutdown, but the voters aren't that stupid. Democrats will helpfully point out: "You have the majority; you can pass any budget bill you want. Your job, not ours."

Johnson understands his predicament and is thinking about a CR (Continuing Resolution) that funds all government departments that survive Elon and the Muskrats at current levels. Freedom Caucus members will balk at that, so Johnson will have to come to the Democrats, hat in hand, asking for them to save his ass. The Democrats are now considering their options. Many of them are itching for a fight. They feel that just continuing business as usual will be tacit approval for Musk taking a chainsaw to the government. They want to force changes, like putting some handcuffs on Musk. If Republicans refuse, then they are willing to risk a shutdown and take their chances that they can say: "How come the president, who claims to be the greatest dealmaker in American history, is incapable of making a deal that satisfies all House Republicans? He is a fake dealmaker."

Johnson has said the legislative branch cannot tell the executive branch what to do, such as handcuffing Musk. On the other hand, many Democrats have replied that the executive branch cannot refuse to spend money as directed by Congress (impoundment). A quid pro quo the Democrats could insist on, and probably be backed up by the Supreme Court, is that the executive branch would have to spend every penny appropriated by Congress as Congress specified.

The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), has called a 1-year CR a "nonstarter." If she sticks to her guns, a shutdown is likely.

Recent polling has shown that voters, including most independents, don't like Musk or what he is doing. Making the shutdown about him could be a winning strategy, especially if it goes on for a long time. It would force Republicans to defend Musk and his DOGEys. If there is a shutdown, Republicans will call vote after vote to reopen shuttered agencies at current funding levels and Democrats will have to vote against this, which won't be popular. But they are likely to be joined by some Freedom Caucus members, so it will be bipartisan. It comes down to how much risk the Democrats are willing to accept and whether they think they can give Trump and the Republicans the blame.

Johnson has another enemy beside the Freedom Caucus and the Democrats: the calendar. Even when the top-line levels for each department are set, the filling in the details is a slow and painstaking process because that is where programs some legislators love go to die. Those legislators will undoubtedly argue that their favorites should live and someone else's programs should die instead. The sausage is not made in a day. It usually takes weeks, and there aren't weeks left. Of course, Congress can kick the can down the road by funding the government for 30 more days to allow time for the sausage to be made. Wouldn't be the first time. (V)

Social Security May Become a Mess

Social Security was created on Aug. 14, 1935, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the SS bill. Payments began in January 1937 with a lump-sum payment. Monthly payments began in Jan. 1940. The SSA has never missed a payment date since then. It might now.

The reason payments might not go out on time is that Elon Musk and his kid bros have gutted the SSA staff. Musk thinks getting the payments out on time is waste and fraud, but people who don't get their checks on time may think otherwise. About half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they have (almost) no savings. Not getting a check on time could mean not being able to pay the rent on time or buy food or medicine. This is especially true for seniors for whom Social Security is their main (or only) source of income.

Martin O'Malley, the former Commissioner of Social Security, believes that if all of Musk's cuts go through unabated, the system could collapse and payments could be interrupted, possibly within months. Musk fired three-quarters of the workers at Twitter, yet the system more-or-less continued. But Twitter was not based on 50-year-old COBOL code, which is a lot more fragile than the more modern Ruby and Scala that power eX-Twitter. People currently scheduled to get payments will probably continue to get them since that part of the system is automated. However, anyone signing up or changing their situation is likely to feel the full brunt of the staff cuts.

In addition to the problems caused by lack of staff, there has been a leadership upheaval. Acting Commissioner Michelle King resigned in a dispute over whether the DOGEys could access sensitive data on millions of Americans. Then Trump appointed Lee Dudek as the new acting commissioner. He agreed to let the DOGEys in the door, which led to blowback that resulted in his being placed on administrative leave. Donald Trump has nominated the CEO of Fiserv, Frank Bisignano, as the new commissioner, but the Senate has not taken up his confirmation. Fiserv is a company that allows small businesses to accept mobile payments. Its scale is a wee bit smaller than Social Security.

Needless to say, Social Security has long been the third rail of American politics and any politician who touches it dies. If there are major screw-ups in signing up for benefits, changing one's status or address or anything else requiring manual input, there will be hell to pay. If it is really bad, that could spell serious trouble for Musk, and indirectly for Donald Trump. (V)

Can Democrats Make History Repeat Itself?

Democrats are disillusioned. They just lost a presidential election they thought they could win to an incompetent clown—again. Republicans control the Senate and House. All is lost.

The year, incidentally, is 2005.

The 2004 Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush won by 2% but thought he won by 20% and began talking about getting rid of Social Security. He overreached. In the midterms, the Democrats flipped 31 House seats and captured the chamber. They also flipped six Senate seats and captured that chamber as well (with help from the two independents). The sky cleared. In Jan. 2009, the Democrats had the trifecta. Stuff changes.

Is there a lesson for the Democrats in there somewhere? Could be. How did the Democrats come back from nowhere? Their leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, drew up a plan and followed it with great discipline. In Jan. 2009, Bush slunk out of office as one of the least popular presidents in modern history—34% approval at the end, down from 90% after 9/11, and 51% at his second inauguration (about where Donald Trump is now).

So what was the Pelosi-Reid plan? They defined a clear set of Democratic priorities where they aligned with the voters and the Republicans didn't. Protecting Social Security was one of the key priorities. Ending tax giveaways to the rich and big corporations was another. They also focused on health care, which ultimately allowed Barack Obama to get the Affordable Care Act passed.

Pelosi and Reid observed that Bush campaigned on one set of issues but governed on a different set, just as Trump is doing now. Bush campaigned on culture-wars issues and managing the war in Iraq. But the first thing he did as president was barnstorm the country trying to drum up support for abolishing Social Security. It was a huge failure. Donald Trump campaigned on lowering the price of eggs and not allowing prisoners to get sex-change operations. He is governing by filling his cabinet with billionaires and letting another billionaire decimate the federal government. That was not his mandate, insofar as he had one, especially since he beat Kamala Harris by only 1.6 points. Perhaps he got a mandate to lower the price of groceries, but he doesn't seem to be interested in that.

In W's first term, the Democrats protested everything he did and took up every progressive cause with zeal. It was a mistake. In his second term, the leadership allowed Democrats to vote with Republicans on some issues as long as they stayed united on the crucial issues. This showed the voters that Democrats were willing to be bipartisan on some things, but also had core principles from which they would not budge. The leadership chose its fights carefully.

They could do the same thing now. Core principles could be that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid should not be touched in order to provide billionaires with bigger tax cuts. Republicans are almost certainly going to try to gut Medicaid in order to pass their tax cuts while also placating their own deficit hawks. Democrats need to say: "Not one dollar from Medicaid for tax cuts." Defending USAID is not a priority with the voters and it shouldn't be for Democrats. Images of Democrats protesting outside of USAID's offices are even counterproductive.

Another thing Pelosi and Reid did is recruit House candidates who fit their districts. Heath Shuler was pro gun and anti-abortion. He won in North Carolina. Gabby Giffords was an immigration hawk. She won in Arizona. Bob Casey was anti-abortion. He won in Pennsylvania. But all of them vowed to protect Social Security.

Democrats now have litmus tests. If a potential candidate thinks the threat of global warming might be overblown, Democrats disown him. But if that's what people in his district think, he is a good candidate as long as he wants to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In other words, the winning Pelosi-Reid strategy was to find candidates who completely supported the party's core principles but were granted the freedom to campaign on what their district wanted on everything else. There are a fair number of reddish districts Democrats could flip in 2026 with the right candidate, but a clone of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is not the right candidate in any of them. (V)

Sec. Linda McMahon Announces She Will Wind Down the Dept. of Education

Donald Trump's education philosophy can be summed up by: "Keep 'em dumb so they keep voting Republican." He has little regard for education, except maybe conservative charter schools or church-run schools. So for secretary of education, he picked wrestling magnate Linda McMahon. She ran the small business administration in Trump v1.0, but that was reasonably legitimate. When McMahon and her husband, Vincent McMahon, took over WWE, it was a small business and they transformed it into a medium business, so she does know something about small businesses. She doesn't know anything about education. But she doesn't have to. Her mission is to close up shop and turn education back to the states.

McMahon has three guiding principles for education:

1. Have parents be the primary decision makers in a child's education.
2. Keep diversity programming out of public education.
3. Establish higher education as career training.

All of these are highly problematic. First, at what level of granularity are we talking here? Is each school a separate unit? If the parents in some school decide they don't want the Civil War taught, do they get to vote on that? Can they secede if they don't get what they want? What if they don't want any history at all to be taught, or only their view of history? How would that work? Could any parent propose a curriculum in June for the school and then in August all the parents get to vote? Do parents with multiple children in the school get multiple votes? Do people with no children in the school get no votes, even though they might have a stake in the school, such as local employers have? There are probably hundreds of issues where parents disagree. Would votes be held on all of them? If a bare majority decides to leave evolution out of biology—even though that is the glue that holds all of biology together—does that happen? What if next year the bare majority vote goes the other way, does the school have to order new books that reflect the new majority? This would mean that in many communities, no two schools would be teaching the same material. It would be a disaster.

If groups of schools were lumped together into school districts and people voted for boards to run them, well, that is the current system. There are over 13,000 school districts in the U.S., some as a separate entity, some countywide, some citywide. Every eligible voter in the district may vote for board members (and sometimes for superintendent). Is McMahon proposing disenfranchising people with no children in the schools, even though they may have a stake in the outcome (again, e.g., local employers)?

As to the second principle, what does this mean, actually? Anything? Maybe all it means is that critical race theory won't be taught. That's easy since it is never taught in K-12 grades and rarely in college. It is graduate school material. Does it mean that only white teachers will be hired? Will things like the Civil Rights Movement be skipped over? Who knows?

The third principle is insidious. Many colleges think their goal is to teach students how to think and how to learn on their own. It sounds like that will be out. After all, people who can look at facts and evidence and draw conclusions are not what the Republicans want. They want people who uncritically repeat what they have been told. It sounds like McMahon wants to turn colleges into some kind of vocational training for white-collar workers. So students could learn to be accountants or doctors or engineers, but things like the humanities and liberal arts are definitely out. A major in art history? Are you kidding? (V)

O, Canada

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Have we mentioned that before? We forget. Donald Trump is operating on the spheres of influence model, in which the U.S. gets to run the Western Hemisphere, Russia gets to run Europe, and China gets to run Asia. So naturally he wants to annex Canada. He hasn't thought this out very well.

Let us first consider the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state. If it were one state, it would be geographically the biggest state by far—after all, it is now the second biggest country in the world by area. Texans wouldn't like being demoted to third place (after Canada and Alaska). They barely tolerate Alaska, but it is far away near the North Pole and, as far as they know, people live in igloos and eat raw walruses, so it doesn't count. Canada isn't like that.

The population of Canada is 40.1 million—more than the population of California at 39.4 million. It would be the biggest new state ever. When new states are added to the union, the allocation of the House of Representatives is increased to accommodate the new state. Since Canada has more people than California, it would probably get 52 or 53 House seats. Almost all politicians in Canada are way to the left of the Republicans and most are way to the left of the Democrats. Private health insurance? No thanks. Abortion bans? Not going to fly. Probably 40 or more of the new representatives would either be Democrats or would be a Canadian party that would caucus with the Democrats. The Republicans would never win the House again. They seem to have missed that. Of course, Canada would get only two senators, but both would almost certainly be Democrats.

What about presidential elections? There was a poll of Canadians in October 2024 asking whom they would vote for in the U.S. election if they could. The results were Harris 64%, Trump 21%, 15% uncertain. But wait, if Canada got 54 or 55 electoral votes and went with a winner-take-all system, Harris would have won the presidency in a landslide. In fact, if Canada became a state, Republicans could probably never win the presidency again. Or the House. So all the Republicans could hope for would be the Senate.

Now suppose the Canadians were smart and said: "OK, we'll join, but our provinces and territories each have their own characteristics, so each one wants to be its own state." Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories, so that would be 13 new states—meaning 26 new senators, probably nearly all of them Democrats or parties allied with the Democrats. Also, then the number of electoral votes would be 52 or 53 + 26 = 78 or 79 EVs, probably all of them going to the Democrats. The Democrats would then have the trifecta permanently and Canada would be such a powerful bloc that it could basically dictate terms to the rest of Congress. Also, on Jan. 20, 2029, President Trudeau would be inaugurated. This might not have been what Trump was thinking of.

But none of this is going to happen because Canadians are having none of it. They used to like Americans, but their love is slipping away on account of Trump and, especially, his tariffs. Recent polling shows that Canadians are very skeptical of Trump's tariffs, much more than Americans. Here are the respective numbers for the questions of whether the tariffs hurt the economy.

As you can see, Canadians are much more negative about all the effects of the tariffs than Americans for all the questions that were asked in both polls. The only number that was under 50% was that only 44% of Americans think they will hurt the U.S. economy. The other 56% was split between "help the economy" (31%) and "neutral" (9%), and "unsure" (16%). (V)

Lucy McBath Files to Run for Governor of Georgia

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) has filed her first papers to run for governor of Georgia. She has hinted at a run before, but now she is starting the process. If she runs and wins, she would be the first Black woman elected governor in any state. There have been numerous women elected as governor, and some Black men, but never a Black woman.

If McBath is the Democratic nominee, that could have a major effect on the Senate. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is up for reelection. He was on the ballot together with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in 2020. Warnock brought out large numbers of Black voters who also voted for Ossoff while they were there. This time he might have trouble getting Black voters to show up. However, if McBath is the Democratic nominee for governor, Black turnout could be high again, and that could help Ossoff enormously. Of course, McBath is far from winning the Democratic nomination. Other candidates are likely to jump in, possibly including Stacey Abrams, who is also Black. (V)

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