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Saturday Q&A

Each week, there are fewer and fewer Trump questions. Not "none" as yet, but fewer.

Q: I'm impressed and happy to see how quickly Joe Biden got to work the same day he was sworn in. How does he compare in terms of what he's gotten done on Inauguration Day and the 1-2 weeks that followed. T.G., San Francisco, CA

A: To start, most presidents get off to a pretty fast start. First, because of the "new sheriff in town" symbolism. Franklin D. Roosevelt is a pretty famous example of this; he declared a "bank holiday" and took other measures designed to combat the Great Depression immediately after being sworn in. Second, because they may be taking over from a president who performed poorly, particularly during their lame duck period, leaving the nation in a perilous state. Abraham Lincoln is a pretty famous example of this; the first thing he dealt with after delivering his inaugural address was a message from the commander of a fort in South Carolina, who said that his supplies were almost out and surrender was imminent without resupply.

That said, Biden clearly decided that a high-profile fast start was particularly important for him, given the various crises that the nation currently faces, and as a counterpoint to the general torpor of the previous administration. And he further decided that the best way to accomplish that was through a tranche of executive orders. And so, he issued 22 of them in his first week. That leaves his predecessors, particularly the recent ones, in the dust. For comparison purposes:

Again, XOs are just one way to hit the ground running. And we don't exactly know how to compare 22 XOs to, say, concluding the Iranian hostage crisis (Reagan), or announcing that the First Lady would lead an effort to overhaul the nation's health care system (Clinton). Oh, and note that Biden hasn't yet put his pen down; his total number of XOs is now up to 42, which is about 4 per day.


Q: You posted a photo of Joe Biden's Oval Office. What surprised me is there is no computer on his desktop, which is a necessity in a modern office. My question is: Do presidents get a work computer assigned to them? Which operating system runs on it? L.M.S., Harbin, China

A: The Oval Office is not generally used for "serious" work. It's used for phone calls, meetings, and photo-ops. When the president wants to do serious work, he generally retires to a small study just off the Oval Office, or to the Treaty Room on the second floor (which is part of the official residence). Here are pictures of both taken while Barack Obama was president; you can see that there's a computer on his Treaty Room desk (there was also one in the study, but it doesn't show in the photo):

The room is fairly small, but brightly lit, and is clearly better set up for office work than the Oval Office, by virtue of being fairly private

The room is quite large, the desk is huge, and there is a picture of U.S. Grant hanging above the chair where Obama is sitting

The White House does not comment on its computer setup and, in fact, actively tries to hide information on that point (if you look closely, you'll see the monitor has been blurred in the second photo). This is obviously for security reasons; the more that the bad guys know, the easier it is to breach security. That said, we can tell you two things. First, if a president comes in and demands a particular OS ("I'm a Mac guy") then he will get what he wants, at least on his desk(s). Second, the Trump administration tended to be a little careless about details like this, and so there are photos floating around that show him and his staff using computers running Windows 10.


Q: You wrote, "Trump barely won election the first time and he lost pretty clearly the second time." Weren't the margins in GA, WI, and AZ in 2020 (roughly 44K votes) closer than those from PA, WI, and MI in 2016 (roughly 78K votes)? J.K., Short Hills, NJ

A: We were thinking more holistically there, in that the first time Donald Trump got crushed in the popular vote and eked out an EV win, while the second time he got crushed even worse in the popular vote and failed to eke out an EV win. In other words, "I lost the popular vote bigly, and I won the electoral vote thanks to razor-thin margins in three key states" is far less of a mandate than "I won the popular vote by a huge margin and also won the electoral vote comfortably." But yes, it is true that Joe Biden's three closest states were closer than Donald Trump's three closest states.


Q: In reading about the machinations inside the Trump White House to remove Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen and install Trump toady Jeffrey Clark, it was reported that the plan was for Clark to claim that he was investigating fraud allegations in the Georgia election and then pressure Georgia election officials to "toss out" the results. Not to downplay this nefarious plot, but I'm skeptical that it would work. We saw 60 lawsuits filed claiming the very same thing that went nowhere. After withstanding all the pressure brought to bear on them by Trump himself, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and countless other emissaries on Trump's behalf, short of a court order, why would Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) or state Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-GA) simply throw out the election results at the urging of the latest acting AG? And even if they were amenable to such a plot, how could they legally do such a thing? A.R., Los Angeles, CA

A: The last part of your question is easiest: There is no legal way to toss out votes "just 'cause," although they would presumably cook up a plausible excuse, like "there were irregularities with some of the voting machines, and we can no longer have confidence in the results."

That said, we are on board with you that these broad conspiracies, ones that would require grossly corrupt behavior from every link in a chain of elected officials, cannot plausibly work. If any one of the folks in the chain has some sense of civic duty, or fears prosecution, or is merely opposed to the goals of the conspiracy (e.g., re-electing Donald Trump), then the whole thing falls apart.

Throughout the election season, we consistently took the position that these post-election conspiracies could not work, most obviously in this piece written in response to the ridiculous Atlantic article about Republican-controlled state legislatures stepping in and awarding EVs directly to Trump. It was, and remains, our view that the only kind of chicanery that can work is pre-election chicanery, like voter suppression, Facebook propagandizing from the Russians, etc.


Q: So, the Supreme Court dismissed the suit about violating the emoluments clause because Donald Trump is no longer in power. This confuses me. I thought he was protected from prosecution while he was president, but now we learn he can't be prosecuted because he is not President. Can you explain?

Also, if Trump is not convicted of inciting insurrection in the Senate, can he be tried as the other insurrectionists are, with federal charges in federal court? N.D. in Duluth, MN

A: The prohibition against prosecuting a sitting president applies only to criminal prosecutions of him as a person (and is based on a Dept. of Justice memo from 1974, which is not exactly the strongest foundation for an inviolable legal principle). A sitting president can certainly be sued civilly while he's in office, and courts are also free to examine actions undertaken in his official capacity.

The emoluments cases were in the latter category, and so were not covered by the 1974 memo. And the Court concluded that there was no sanction available to be imposed, now that Trump is out of office. Did the Court drag its feet to help Trump and/or to avoid a controversial decision? Did they needlessly punt here for the same reasons? Only a handful of people, all who wear fancy black robes to work, know the answers to those questions, and they're not telling.

As to insurrection, or sedition, or whatever, the impeachment is not a criminal trial. And so, double jeopardy does not apply, and Trump can be put on trial just as much as QAnon Shaman can.


Q: I have seen much commentary on the progressives' desire to eliminate the filibuster, but there is something that I haven't seen discussed that I would love to understand better.

While it is true that the Democratic Party has control of the Senate currently (thanks to a 50-50 tie in the chamber and Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote as VP), it had been noted frequently that the Senate generally leans Republican due to there being many smaller-population rural red states while there are fewer large-population blue states.

Since the Republican advantage is unlikely to change anytime soon, wouldn't retaining the filibuster be in the Democrats' long term interest, since they are likely to be in the minority more often than not in the future? For example, wouldn't Obamacare have been overturned at some point in the last four years if the Democrats hadn't been able to filibuster it? T.W., Rockville, MD

A: You never know what the future holds, but we will point out a few things:

  1. The red states' Senate advantage has been overstated a bit. There are a number of large states that are represented by Republicans (Texas, for example) and a number of small states that are reliably blue (Delaware, Rhode Island, etc.). The GOP does have an advantage, but it's not huge.

  2. If the filibuster is soon to die anyhow, it is better to be the first party to take advantage.

  3. The general idea is to kill the filibuster, admit D.C. and Puerto Rico, and thus give the Democrats a much more favorable position going forward. The Democrats would be hoping for something like the period from 1933-83, when they controlled the Senate for 44 of 50 years.

But yes, the risk for the Democrats is that the Republicans regain the Senate and then shred everything the Blue Team has done in the last 30 years.


Q: I need a familial argument settled: What would it take to get Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia statehood? Does D.C. statehood require a constitutional amendment or not? D.B.S., Boynton Beach, FL

A: It would require three things, in this order: (1) the residents of those places would have to call a constitutional convention and that convention would have to write and approve a state constitution; (2) the residents would have to vote to request statehood, and (3) Congress would have to pass an enabling act conferring statehood.

Statehood does not require a constitutional amendment. That said, it is possible that D.C. statehood might lead to one. Not to enable them to become a state, but to deal with the 23rd Amendment, which currently entitles D.C. to three presidential electors. That would no longer make much sense if the District no longer has more than a small handful of residents.


Q: There is a lot of discussion about statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. Why isn't there any discussion about statehood for the other inhabited U.S. territories: Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands? A.B., Richmond, VA

A: Because they are considerably less populous. Between them, they have 375,590 people, which is about the size of...Aurora, CO (379,289 people). Even if you combined all four into one state (Gnmiasvi? Vinmigas? Asvinmig?), it would still be the smallest state by far, lagging #50 Wyoming (582,328 people), and far behind D.C. (712,816 people) or Puerto Rico (3,189,068 people).


Q: I have read that bills passed using the budget reconciliation process must be budget-neutral. However, the 2017 tax bill passed via reconciliation and created enormous deficits. Please explain. A.A., South Orange, NJ

A: This is a question about the Byrd Rule, which imposes certain limits on the use of reconciliation in order to keep it from being used to sneak extraneous things through the process. And so, it's actually more useful to say that the Byrd Rule requires that any bill adopted as part of the process be budget non-neutral. It either has to substantially increase revenues, or the deficit, or both. That is the basic test for deciding if something is actually budget related, or if it's extraneous.

That said, there are two provisions of the Byrd Rule (which should really be called the Byrd Rules) that are in the ballpark of "budget-neutral." The first is the requirement that nothing done as part of reconciliation can increase the deficit for more than 10 years. This is why many reconciliation bills, including the 2017 tax cut, have 10-year sunset clauses. The second is that reconciliation cannot be used to make changes to Social Security.


Q: Is there any legal option for the Democrats to get a ruling on the constitutionality of the Trump impeachment trial before the final Senate vote? G.H., Branchport, NY

A: No. The Supreme Court does not issue advisory rulings; it has to have a case before it in order to weigh in.


Q: What do you make of Rep. Liz Cheney's (R-WY) vote to impeach Donald Trump? She passed up a sure Senate seat for a shot at Speaker of the House, and she clearly thought the pro-impeachment vote would help her climb the final steps of the ladder. Yet, the backlash is considerable. Did she simply miscalculate that inciting an attack on the Capitol would herald the end of Trump's influence over the GOP, or were there some other strategic calculations altogether? I.H., Washington, DC

A: She was playing the long game. As a member of an "old-school" Republican family, and as someone who has no particular connection to Trump and his administration, she was never going to rise through the ranks traveling in the Trump lane. And so, she made her move into the anti-Trump lane, gambling that would be the place to be, sooner or later. She was certainly hoping sooner, but she is savvy enough to know that later was a distinct possibility. And you don't get to be Speaker (or president) without assuming some calculated risks. Time will tell if the voters of Wyoming punish Cheney by tossing her out of office, but she has two years to see if Trumpism crumbles, and to get right with her voters if it does not. And truth be told, Wyoming's history suggests that they aren't quite so fanatical about Trump as his big wins might suggest. Yes, he won the state by 43 points last year and 46 in 2016, but Mitt Romney won it by 41 in 2012, John McCain won it by 42 in 2008, and George W. Bush won it by 48 in 2004. That would be the same George W. Bush who ran with...Dick Cheney.


Q: Hypothetically, suppose an issue came before Congress that both qualified as a "matter of conscience" and elicited strong enough passions to elicit death threats against members voting the "wrong" way. In such a scenario, does either the House or the Senate have the option of using secret ballots? D.C., Waterville, ME

A: They could try it, but it probably wouldn't work.

The Senate sets its own rules, and so the majority can certainly adopt a rule that calls for secret ballots in an impeachment trial (or in any other voting situation). However, Article I of the Constitution says "the Yeas and Nays of Members of either house on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal." So, as long as 20 Trump-loving Republicans insist on the vote being made public, so as to communicate to the base who is "loyal" and who is a "traitor," then it will have to be made public. Even if that does not come to pass, the pro-Trump Republicans would undoubtedly go on Fox News or OAN or Newsmax and reveal their votes, making it easy to infer the votes of their silent colleagues.


Q: One of the motivations for impeaching Donald Trump is to prevent him from running in 2024. But who would enforce that? M.W., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

A: The states. Many of them have laws that say that someone ineligible to the presidency cannot appear on the presidential ballot, and most of them don't allow write-ins. Hard to vote for someone if their name is not available to be checked or written-in.


Q: With respect to the vote to table Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) motion—the media collectively reports this as indicating that 45 Republican senators would have declared Trump's upcoming impeachment trial as unconstitutional. But is this, in fact, an accurate reporting of the facts? One of the initial stories from The Washington Post on the matter indicated that some of those 45 senators (e.g., Sen. Rob Portman, OH) voted in the manner that they did merely because they "wanted to hear further debate on the constitutionality question but had not yet decided whether to convict Trump." So is it really a foregone conclusion that conviction is 'dead on arrival'? J.K., Sandy Spring, MD

A: Explaining the nuances of parliamentary tricks in a newspaper article, or a blog, is not easy. Yes, it is the case that Paul put forward a motion to immediately discuss/vote on the constitutionality of an impeachment trial. And it is also true that some of his colleagues, like Portman, may have voted for the motion without necessarily being decided about conviction. But there's no way that 17 Republicans are in that group. Those 45 senators took a vote that denigrated the legitimacy of the trial, and that they knew full well would be interpreted as an anti-conviction vote. There's simply no question that most (or more likely all) will refuse to vote for conviction when and if time comes.

Q: Shouldn't the 45 Trumpublican senators absent themselves from the upcoming trial? After all, do they really want to participate in a process that they themselves consider unconstitutional? And if they do participate aren't they essentially recognizing the trial as constitutional? Why don't the Democrats call them on that?

Also, could you have your world-famous in-house staff mathematicians confirm that if just 20 Trumpublicans absent themselves from the "unconstitutional" proceedings, 55 will be enough to convict? D.A., Brooklyn, NY

A: A foolish consistency, as they say, is the hobgoblin of little minds. It's also not the strong suit of politicians in general, or of the current group of Republicans in the Senate in particular. That said, if Trump is convicted (which remains a longshot) this is how it will happen. Some sizable number of Republican senators will announce that they are boycotting an "obviously illegal" proceeding, which would allow them to remain nominally pro-Trump, and yet also to get rid of him.

And by our math, it would require just 18 Republicans to absent themselves, since 67% of 82 is 54.94, which rounds up to 55. We might be wrong on that, however—since it's Friday night, the staff mathematicians are all drunk and passed out, so we can't check with them.


Q: There has been much talk about Josh Hawley (R-MO), but Ted Cruz (R-TX) took a similar position during the Capitol Riot, including how he voted. And yet, much of this was already known about Cruz in 2018, where he survived reelection against a strong candidate in a further-left state than the one in which Hawley will face reelection. Meanwhile, no one seems to be writing off Cruz. What difference am I missing? E.W., Silver Spring, MD

A: The primary difference is that Cruz raised his (reprehensible) objection before the insurrection, while Hawley raised his after. Neither was a good look, but pressing forward just hours after the Capitol was invaded was extra tacky.

We would also point out two other differences that might be germane:

  1. When it comes to being weaselly, Cruz is a savant. He basically seized control of this whole initiative from Hawley, and then when the potato got hot, he managed to hand it back.

  2. Texas may be bluer than Missouri, but when it comes to senators, the Lone Star State hasn't elected a Democrat since 1986 (Lloyd Bentsen), who departed in 1993 to become Bill Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury. Since the last time Texas had a Democrat in the Senate, Missouri has had two Democrats represent them in the upper chamber (Jean Carnahan was appointed in 2000 and Claire McCaskill was elected in 2006).

That said, Cruz is so hated, and his last election was so close, he just might be taken down in 2024 if he runs for reelection.


Q: This may be wishful thinking, but with redistricting coming up soon and with states like Ohio probably losing a seat and Georgia gaining one, what do you think the odds are of the respective legislatures and governors stepping in and making the districts of Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) less safe? It could be a win-win. With their districts not being so "Trump friendly," they may think twice about doing his bidding so much or they could get bumped off by a more moderate Democrat (at least temporarily, until a more sensible Republican can reclaim the district). As they say, "short-term pain for long-term gain." D.R., Carle Place, NY

A: It would be hard to make this work. Georgia and Ohio have no requirement that a representative reside in the district they represent, and after redistricting, every representative has to pick a "new" district to represent anyhow (even though it's usually one carved out of their old district). Anyhow, Jordan and Greene would surely just pick a red, Trumpy district if it came to that, even if they would have new (or mostly new) constituents.


Q: In your opinion, what are the chances that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Nutcase), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-W. Nutcase), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Gohmert (R-Dumbest M of C) will be expelled by their colleagues due to aiding an insurrection? K.D.G., Atlanta, GA

A: Very, very low. The members of Congress are wary of expelling anyone, for fear of setting unpleasant precedents. And so, they've only expelled two members in the last 160 years (Michael Myers in 1980 and Jim Traficant in 2002), both of them after they were convicted of a felony (or, in Traficant's case, 10 felonies).

If there is an expulsion, it will be just one person, so as to send a message about not crossing the line. And that person would surely be Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said some really awful things, and who is becoming a bigger and bigger millstone around the neck of the Republican Party.

Note also that all bets are off if proof turns up that members directly aided the insurrection—for example, by leading "reconnaissance" tours before Jan. 6. In that case, they would be guilty of a crime, and would then be in the Myers/Traficant category.


Q: How is it that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has repeatedly called for the extrajudicial murder of key elected officials, is: (1) not in jail (pending or post trial and sentencing), and (2) seated in Congress? It seems the escalation of political violence, intimidation, terrorism and insurrection will continue as long as it is tolerated and rewarded. Don't we have the legal means to punish this sort of thing and also to exclude such a person from "serving" in Congress? M.C., Portland, OR

A: It is very hard to imprison someone for making threats unless those threats are deemed to be serious, and are likely to be acted upon imminently. If Greene was prosecuted, she would claim that her demand that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) be hanged was hyperbole, was constitutionally protected political speech, and was not a serious and imminent threat upon the Speaker's person. And Greene would win that case.

As to office-holding, it is not possible to create additional requirements for office without amending the Constitution. And so, as long as someone meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements for the office they seek, they can be mentally ill, or a convicted felon, or a giant bigot, and that is not disqualifying. Heck, you can be a mentally ill bigoted convicted felon serving time in prison, and you can still run and be elected. It is up to the voters to reject someone like that or, failing that, for Congress to eject such a person. But, as we noted in the previous answer, the members are very reluctant to expel someone unless there is an actual conviction.


Q: You wrote: "More than 30,000 voters who had been registered as Republicans have changed their party registration since the Capitol riot."

Doesn't this mean that there will be a greater likelihood of Trumpy candidates winning Republican primaries since the Republicans who remain in the party are likely fine with how the current Republican party is behaving?

I could see this helping Democrats in close general elections, but voters in strong Republican areas will be sending more Marjorie Taylor Greenes to D.C. B.S.M., Chicago, IL

A: In the absence of actual election returns, that is exactly the assumption.


Q: American democracy endured because of the resoluteness of Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman and others in law enforcement who faced down the mob. Because of local and state election officials from both parties, like Brad Raffensperger and many others who followed the law and did their job despite tremendous pressure. Because of judges from both parties who threw out baseless lawsuits and the attorneys who fought those cases in court. Because of a military that adheres scrupulously to the constitution and civilian authority.

These are specific people that acted to preserve American democracy this year. Will historians mention these people? R.K., Atlanta, GA

A: It depends on what you mean. Will they be noted in books and dissertations about the events of Jan. 6? Yes, they will be. Will they be mentioned in classroom lectures 10 or 20 or 50 years from now? No way. As any history teacher knows, you can only toss so many names at students before they are completely lost. And so, regular folks who do extraordinary things only find their way into a history lecture if they serve as a very useful illustration of the larger story/argument. Charles Coughlin speaks to the anti-Semitic and anti-FDR backlash we saw during the Great Depression, Rosa Parks is a useful illustration of how the Civil Rights movement worked, and Mario Savio is a good case study for the philosophy of the anti-Vietnam War movement. So, those three sometimes get a mention in survey courses. Most of their contemporaries/colleagues do not.


Q: Would our early leaders have referred to the Capitol (had it existed) or the Constitution as "sacred," as so many politicians do now? P.R., Saco, ME

A: Maybe. They had a concept of "sacred" that went beyond religion, and encompassed anything that was good and righteous. Keep in mind that the final clause of the Declaration of Independence is: "...we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Further, they (particularly James Madison) had studied ancient republics, and knew that the Romans used religiosity to maintain the loyalty of the body politic. And we don't mean that the consuls (or the Caesars) used abortion, or gay marriage, or arguments over the meaning of Jupiter's words as some sort of political wedge issue. We mean that going to temple was seen as a civic responsibility that paid homage to the government, something akin to reciting the pledge of allegiance.

So even though the founders worked assiduously to maintain the separation of church and state, they might well have spoken of the sacredness of civil institutions. If they refrained, it would more likely be out of modesty. Tom Jefferson, for example, would have been a wee bit uncomfortable at the idea that he had written a "sacred" document in the Declaration.


Q: How do presidential historians determine a president's state of origin? Is it the state that they are born in or the state that they resided in when they were elected? In other words, is President Biden the second president from Pennsylvania or the first president from Delaware? S.W., Warminster, PA

A: It's something of a judgment call based on where they were born, but more importantly where they lived and prospered as an adult, and, most importantly, where they ran for office. If someone was elected to Congress from Illinois (like Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama), or was elected governor of California (like Ronald Reagan), then that is clearly their home state, even if they were born elsewhere (Kentucky, Hawaii, and Illinois, respectively, for these three men).

The only time it gets tricky, really, is with career generals. Those presidents generally lived many places as adults, and often achieved their greatest professional attainments outside the United States. And since they have no pre-presidential runs for office, that doesn't work as a tiebreaker.

Ultimately, the three non-politician generals to be elected president are all identified with the states where they spent their formative years—Kentucky for Zachary Taylor, Ohio for Ulysses S. Grant, and Kansas for Dwight D. Eisenhower. This despite the fact that they were living in, respectively, Louisiana, Illinois, and New York at the time of their election.


Q: Since (Z) doesn't seem to be a big fan of Steven Spielberg (and I get why), I'm just curious: What did he think of the movie "Lincoln"? I liked it, but maybe we're not on the same page... E.K., Brignoles, France

A: "Lincoln" is one of the few Spielberg films he likes, largely because of Daniel Day-Lewis' jaw-dropping performance. Further, the story has enough significance and emotional resonance on its own that Spielberg did not need to overplay it, the way he is prone to do. The same holds for "Schindler's List," except replace "Daniel Day-Lewis" with "Ralph Fiennes."

Beyond that, (Z) likes some of Spielberg's popcorn films, particularly the first and third Indiana Jones films, as well as "Duel." On the other hand, "Jaws" came out when (Z) was 2, and "Close Encounters" came out when he was 6, and so by the time he saw them, they felt very dated. However, he can see how they were a revelation for viewers during their original theatrical run. He was old enough (9-10) to theoretically appreciate "E.T.," but didn't. And his interest in history covers only the last few centuries, so millions-of-years-old dinosaurs are not his cup of tea.


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