Abuse of Power, Part I: Trump Invades Washington, D.C.

We had a hard time figuring out the wording of that headline. On one hand, we don't want to soft-pedal the many and varied abuses of power in which Donald Trump is indulging. On the other hand, we don't want to engage in New York Post-style exaggeration for the purpose of dramatic effect. We decided that sending troops to D.C. without any real justification is close enough to qualify as an "invasion."

Several times last week, Trump promised that he was going to announce a decision on his plans for the national capital on Monday morning. Reality TV star that he is, there is absolutely no way he would have teased this only to declare "I've decided that everything's copacetic, and that I do not need to take any action." And so, it comes as no surprise whatsoever that Trump has decided there is "an emergency" in D.C., and so has exercised authority under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to take control of the Capitol police, and also to deploy National Guard troops. His justification is that the District "[H]as been overtaken by criminals and drugged out maniacs and homeless people." The press conference was rambling and disorganized, and eventually devolved into a laundry list of Trump talking points. For example, you wouldn't think that trans girls playing high school sports would have anything to do with crime in Washington, DC, and yet Trump got it in there.

As we have written before, crime is not, in fact, out of control in the capital. In fact, there has been a consistent downward trend over the last 15 years (excepting 2023), with the result that crime is at a 30-year low right now. Trump is targeting Washington because it's an excellent whipping boy for his purposes:

• It's the seat of government, and Trump's base hates the government.
  
  
• It's very Democratic, and Trump's base hates Democrats.
  
  
• It's very Black, and (much of) Trump's base hates Black people. In fact, it's one of only half a dozen cities in America to have a population that is greater than 500,000 while also being more than 40% Black (the others are Milwaukee, Baltimore, Memphis, Detroit and Philadelphia).
  
  
• The recent murders of Israeli embassy employees Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, and the assault on Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, serve to affirm the (incorrect) perception that D.C. is crime-ridden, thanks to the magic of confirmation bias.
  
  
• Due to the District's unusual status, Trump has more power to impose himself, with less pushback, than is true of any other city.

Incidentally, this is a case where Trump is not only misrepresenting the truth, but it's 100% clear he knows it. During his press conference, he said that "murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever." That spike, the exception to the overall trend, was almost certainly caused by the pandemic. And it's the kind of "evidence" that comes from looking carefully at the actual data, and then spinning that data as aggressively as is possible. If he was completely making things up, he would not have specifically singled out that one year.

Note that, during his press conference, Trump declared that part of the reason he made this decision is that he insists that D.C. police must be treated with respect. He somehow forgot to mention that he just pardoned hundreds of people who beat those very same police. Further, a number of people have noticed that, back in 2021, and then again in 2024, Trump claimed that it was then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who decided not to use the National Guard during the 1/6 insurrection, and that the decision was out of his hands. That's a very different take on presidential power than the one he expressed yesterday.

In the end, this may be another case where Trump is painting himself into a corner. According to the law, the "emergency" can only last 30 days. It is not probable that there will be a high-profile incident during that time, since D.C. was already pretty calm, and since most people are clever enough to keep their noses clean while there are federalized cops AND national guard walking around. Maybe the administration will ignore the time limit. Maybe, once yesterday's press conference has faded from memory, and the news cycle has moved on to something new (more Epstein revelations?), Trump will quietly withdraw the National Guard and return control of the police department to local officials.

The more likely outcome, however, is that Trump finds another city to target when he needs a new distraction, or otherwise has a use for some red meat to feed the base. Indeed, he hinted at this possibility yesterday, suggesting New York City, Chicago or Los Angeles could be next up. One problem here is that voters might start to notice that he keeps invading American cities for no clear reason. Another problem is that California is currently fighting him in court over his use of the National Guard, and the case is going poorly for the administration.

So, the future is murky. However, one longer-term possibility, once Trump is out of office, is that his use and abuse of the District will create serious momentum for statehood. This is something that probably should already have happened anyhow, and increased sympathy for the residents there can only help that cause. It is true that statehood bills are filibusterable, and that is exactly what the Republicans would try to do, knowing full well that D.C. statehood would mean two more Democratic senators. However, it takes only 51 votes, or 50 plus the tiebreaker, to create a(nother) carve-out. And if there's any carve-out that carries a relatively low risk of payback, this surely would have to be it. What would the Republicans do the next time they had the trifecta, use their newfound power to make Mar-a-Lago a state? There just aren't that many potential states out there. (Z)

Abuse of Power, Part II: China Gets a Break

Since we don't really understand the Trump administration's tariff policy, we don't really understand, and cannot really anticipate, most of the decisions he makes. What we do know, however, is that the United States does vast amounts of trade with China, much of it in goods that are sold directly to consumers. That means that tariffs on China are more likely to produce inflation, and are more likely to be noticeable to voters, than, say, tariffs on railroad ties from India or industrial solvent from Serbia.

Yesterday, by virtue of there being no trade deal with China, tariffs on Chinese imports were supposed to be ratcheted back up to 145%. That comic-book number would undoubtedly trigger some level of financial crisis, and would have led to panic in the markets. So, it's hardly unexpected that, after much consideration (possibly as much as 2 seconds' worth), Trump decided to extend the deadline for negotiations by another 90 days. Inasmuch as we are specifically talking about China here, please feel free to insert your own orange chicken joke here.

We do not know exactly what will happen in the next 90 days (and perhaps the 90 days after that, and maybe the 90 days after that). What we do know is that China is an honor-shame culture, and so Xi Jinping understands very well that any sort of resolution will need to be structured so that Trump can declare a "win" and save face. Xi is also a shrewd operator, and has surely taken notice of the fact that: (1) Trump is being mollified with trade "deals" that give him things he can brag about, even if they lack substance and (2) Trump is leery of actually bringing the hammer down on China, even in a small way. Heck, he hasn't even been willing to force the sale of TikTok, despite very clear orders from Congress to do so.

What this means, we assume, is that sometime in the reasonably near future, Trump will fire up his orange-chicken-flavored social media platform, and will announce that he has secured a GREAT trade deal with China. The bestest, awesomest trade deal ever. And the details will be something along the lines of a tariff rate well south of the threatened 145%, along with some promise of "investment" in the United States that isn't even worth the paper it's written on. "Oh, you thought we said 600 billion dollars would be invested? Oops! We actually said 600 billion fen (under $84 billion). Sorry about the misunderstanding!"

Whatever is going on, despite his "markets be damned" rhetoric, Trump has now given 90-day extensions to two of the United States' three biggest trading partners (Mexico, in addition to China). The other is Canada, where things are more tricky, because it's gotten personal between Trump and the Canadians, and because Canadian PM Mark Carney was specifically elected to push back against Trump. It's very hard to know how that story will end, eh. (Z)

Abuse of Power, Part III: Trump Finally Gets around to UCLA

If you plan to keep a population under your thumb, then you are going to be hostile to education. Educated people tend to see through the lies of autocratic regimes, and they can also project forward and guess what the long-term implications of an autocratic regime's statements and policies will be. Oh, and they also know about resistance, and how it's been effective throughout history. There is a reason that all of the great servile rebellions in U.S. history were led by educated Black men, and that antebellum Southern law made it a crime to teach an enslaved person how to read. There is a reason that Mao Zedong went after the professoriate and the intellectual elite. There is a reason that various autocratic regimes in Poland, Turkey, Russia, etc., have insinuated themselves into the governance of those nations' universities.

We do not think Trump aspires to be a dictator, per se, with the title and the lifetime tenure, etc. But he most certainly aspires to exercise dictator-like powers. And so, it was hardly surprising that one of the very first items of business, once Trump v2.0 commenced, was to go after America's most prominent universities. Not only was it a direct challenge to a potential anti-Trump power center, it also allowed Trump to avenge his own personal grievances. To put it briefly, and bluntly: He hates pointy-headed academics because they make him feel stupid. (Programming note: See this weekend's Q&A for some questions about whether or not Trump actually IS stupid.)

The choices made for Trump's first few targets were also pretty predictable. Harvard is the absolute embodiment, worldwide, of "elite academic institution." Cambridge and Oxford are on its level, in terms of fame and image, but not many others (and maybe not any—we'd argue Yale, Tsinghua, U. Toronto, are maybe a quarter- or half-step behind). And of the "Big Three," as it were, Harvard's the only one in the U.S., and thus the only one under Trump's purview. As to Columbia, it's in the heart of America's biggest city (a city about which Trump also has... feelings), and it was a flashpoint for the Gaza protests. Since antisemitism is the official justification for the administration to put the squeeze on universities, targeting Columbia was a good way to sell that.

Somewhat more surprising is that UCLA did not get targeted in the first wave of attacks from the Trump administration. We can assure you, approximately 100.0% of UCLA faculty were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The list of "selling points," from the vantage point of the White House, is long:

• UCLA is an elite institution. Not quite as elite as the top Ivies, but not far off.
  
  
• UCLA is world famous. As strong a school as it is, it punches above its weight in terms of name recognition. In fact, UCLA makes more money from licensing its name than any other university. That is because it sells a LOT of merch in... Asia (particularly Japan). If you visit the UCLA campus during a regular week, you are very likely to see two things: (1) at least one movie or TV show being filmed and (2) at least one large group of tourists from Asia.
  
  
• UCLA rakes in the research funds (which, are of course, the tool that Trump is using to exert pressure). It's true, the Ivies collect plenty of money to support research, but only one of them (Penn) is in the top 10 on that front. Johns Hopkins is actually #1, and has been for years. In 2023, the most recent year for which full numbers are available, Johns Hopkins was followed by UCSF, Penn, Michigan, Washington, UW Madison, UCLA, UCSD, UNC and Stanford.
  
  Oh, and in case you are wondering, there are three keys to making it to the top of the list: (1) serious medical research (expensive!), (2) serious physics research (REALLY expensive!) and (3) a large student body and faculty (lots of people to apply for grants). Most of these institutions check two of those three boxes in a major way. Johns Hopkins checks all three in a major way, which is why that school is always #1.
  
  
• UCLA was, like Columbia, the site of high-profile Gaza protests.
  
  
• UCLA is under (fairly) new leadership. As we saw with Rep. Elise Stefanik's (R-NY) sham hearings, inexperienced administrators are more likely to misstep, and to provide ammunition for the politicians to use. They also tend to be easier to intimidate. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk assumed his current post on Jan. 1 of this year.
  
  
• UCLA is located in the hated state of California, where Trump nemesis Gavin Newsom (D) is governor (incidentally, though we doubt Trump knows this, Newsom is an ex officio member of the UC Board of Regents).
  
  
• UCLA is located in the hated city of Los Angeles, which has already served as a punching bag for Trump v2.0.

In short, UCLA checks an awful lot of boxes for the administration. Excepting Harvard and Columbia, it's hard to identify a more obvious target.

Late last week, the day that every Bruin had been expecting finally arrived. The administration had already frozen roughly $500 million in research funds, and on Friday revealed what the price will be to rectify the various "crimes" the university has committed: a fine of $1 billion, plus an agreement to make significant changes to university governance, in line with the White House's requirements. If UCLA agrees, the school would be "allowed" to pay on an installment plan: $276 million a year for 3 years, along with $172 million put into a trust fund to settle lawsuits.

At this point, let us note the story from The New York Times yesterday, reporting on the outlines of the agreement that Harvard is apparently about to make with the administration. The school will agree to a bunch of policy changes, and will also commit to investing $500 million on "vocational and educational programs" over some period of years. Other schools, including Columbia, have already agreed to similar deals.

The leadership of these various universities would not say so publicly, of course, but one imagines that compliance with the policy changes will be deliberately unenthusiastic, and will end the moment that the Trump administration does. Similarly, it is likely that the spending on "vocational and educational programs" will involve at least some creative bookkeeping. To take one obvious example, every major university has some sort of an extension program, where people can take versions of the serious academic courses (some of them), but can also take things like photography, cooking, wine tasting, infant care, selling real estate, etc. One can imagine some very large chunk of that being reclassified as "vocational and educational programs." That really wouldn't even be dishonest; those courses actually are "vocational and educational programs."

Meanwhile, the people who run Harvard, Columbia, etc. know full well that Trump cannot be relied upon to honor his commitments. They also know that if they take this to court, they will almost certainly win. But "almost certainly" is not "certainly," which means there's at least some small amount of risk. (Though note that the administration lost a case yesterday, and at the hands of a Trump-appointed judge. It did not involve a university, but it did involve arbitrary freezing of already allocated funds.)

More importantly, it's generally implausible to start and stop and start and stop a research project. If a project goes unfunded for a year or two, it probably dies. That means a loss not only of the funds that were to be paid, but also the funds that were already expended. So, the leadership is making a calculated decision, that it's worth paying, in effect, a bribe to avoid a long and expensive court case, and to salvage the future research funds, and to avoid the risk of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of partially complete research going up in smoke. If Trump does come back for more in a year, then they can think about changing tacks.

It is possible that, in the end, UCLA will also negotiate some sort of settlement, following the same logic. If we said we had any knowledge of what's going in Murphy Hall (where the administrative offices are located), we would be lying. However, there are two differences between UCLA and the other schools that are definitely worth noting. The first is that the amount of money being demanded is far greater than in any of these other cases, and of a university that is not quite as well-heeled. Yes, UCLA does have an annual budget in the billions, and yes, it does have an endowment of a shade less than $10 billion, but it's not in as good a position to take a nine- or ten-figure hit as, say, Harvard is.

The second difference, and this could be the biggie, is that the governors of Massachusetts, New York, and the other states that are home to targeted universities are not planning to run for president in 2028. Newsom is, and he's looking for every opportunity to burnish his credentials as the Trump slayer. Also, in contrast to nearly all of the other schools, Newsom is—as we note above—an actual part of university governance. Any payment, or other settlement agreement, would have to be approved by the Regents. Newsom might well use his influence to block that, even if UCLA tries it.

Incidentally, there is one possible answer to the mystery of why it took so long to get around to targeting UCLA. In contrast to nearly every other elite academic university (with Michigan, Stanford and Duke being the other exceptions), UCLA is also an elite athletic school. And college football season starts in a couple of weeks. Could be that the White House waited to maximize the attention it gets, since the extortion attempt is likely to get mentioned at least a few times during coverage of the football team. (Z)

Abuse of Power, Part IV: Imaginary Numbers

Another problem with educated people is that they tend to know what the real numbers are, or roughly what they should be, and so they can sniff out fake numbers. That is a problem for Trump, who is trying to create his own economic and statistical reality. Still, despite the fact that the nation's university system is still in operation, he's going to forge ahead with his imaginary numbers project. Yesterday, to replace the actually qualified, and recently fired, Dr. Erika McEntarfer at BLS, Trump tapped Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni.

On the surface, Antoni is qualified for the job, in the sense that he has Master's and Ph.D. degrees in economics, and he's worked in the public sector. However, he only completed his academic work in 2020, which means he's not exactly what you would call experienced. Further, his degrees are from Northern Illinois University. We certainly don't want to engage in "ranking snobbery," but we do think it is instructive that on his bio page at his current employer, he very noticeably avoids mentioning the name of his alma mater: "Antoni holds master's and doctoral degrees in Economics and regularly speaks at colleges and financial institutions."

More problematic than the strength of Antoni's qualifications, however, is the identity of the aforementioned current employer. It's the Heritage Foundation, the same right-wing think tank that employs Stephen Moore, the economist who visited the Oval Office last week to spin fantasies about the employment numbers. And before Antoni worked at Heritage, he worked at the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation. One hopes, for his sake, that there's enough oxygen in the bubble in which he lives.

Let us imagine that Trump had scoured the ranks of academia, and had appointed someone who is, say, a tenured faculty member from the Wharton School of Business (Penn), or maybe the University of Chicago Department of Economics. If so, we would have approached the numbers with caution, but would have been open to at least the possibility they could be legit. Not too many academics are willing to sell out their reputations (and thus, their careers) for a couple of years in a government position. Plus, it's conceivable that someone might have persuaded Trump that, in the end, fake numbers will backfire on him.

But choosing someone from Heritage? Readers can reach their own conclusions, of course, but for our part, we are going to take anything that comes out of BLS for the next 3 years with multiple barrels of salt. A lightly qualified think tanker is exactly the type of person we would expect Trump to pick once he realized that he wasn't going to be able to get a more legitimate candidate to behave corruptly.

Oh, and just in case there is any doubt that the White House is trying hard to create its own economic reality, it was trying to make private a database that tracks federal spending. The obvious purpose here is to hide outlays on things that might not be so popular, and also to hide any (illegal) impoundment of funds. The administration lost in court yesterday, though the database has not been restored as of 3:00 a.m. PT on Tuesday. Whether the White House just didn't have time, or it's planning to appeal, or it's continuing with its general program of disregarding court orders, we cannot say. (Z)

Abuse of Power, Part V: The Spoils of Office

One of the telltale signs of a dictatorial leader—fascist or not—is their use of their position to fill their own personal bank account. The money is right there, and there's so much of it available, and if they were the type of person to have scruples or guilt about such things, they wouldn't have pursued absolute power in the first place. Try to come up with any leader with absolute, or near-absolute, power who did not end up pilfering tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars, eventually. Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, the Shah of Iran, Francisco Franco, Saddam Hussein, the Castro brothers, Papa and Baby Doc, Pol Pot, Idi Amin—they all do it.

And so, the fact that Donald Trump has greatly enriched himself from the presidency, far beyond the book deals and speaking fees that have become characteristic for former holders of the office, just checks another box. But how much has he made, exactly? David D. Kirkpatrick, of The New Yorker decided to try to figure that out.

Before we share the numbers, it's useful to point out a few things. First, Trump is notorious for placing an astronomical value on his name as a brand. Kirkpatrick is not going to assign any meaningful value to such claims. Second, and in a similar vein, some of Trump's assets will drop precipitously in value once he leaves office (e.g., Truth Social); this must be accounted for. Third, Trump was at least somewhat cautious about profiting off the presidency in his first term. Yes, he compelled the Secret Service to rent hotel rooms from him, and he made it clear that anyone who stayed at Trump International in D.C. would be looked on with favor, but he basically did not hawk products from the Oval Office, nor did his business enter into new development deals overseas. All of that is out the window now, with the result that any guesstimate of how much grifting he will do between now and January 20, 2029, is necessarily very preliminary.

And now, the numbers:

Grift	Notes	Est. Value
Gulf projects	At least five new licensing/development deals since re-taking office	$105.8 million
Trump Hanoi Hotel	Licensing deal; largest Trump-branded property in the world	$40 million
1789 Capital	Trump family being paid to lend name to right-wing social clubs	$19.6 million
Licensing Total		$165.4 million
Mar-A-Lago	Trump has dramatically increased membership fees since becoming president	$125 million
Merch	Hats, shirts, collectibles, blasphemous Bibles, etc.	$27.7 million
Truth Social	Trump will undoubtedly realize far less than the "paper value" of his stock	$25 million
Business Ventures Total		$177.7 million
NFTs	"Collectible" Trump trading cards, etc.	$14.4 million
World Liberty Financial Tokens	Trump sons venture	$412.5 million
World Liberty Financial Stablecoin	Trump sons venture	$243 million
American Bitcoin	Trump sons agreed to license the family name to the venture	$13 million
Trump Media	First crypto venture from Trump himself	$1.3 billion
$TRUMP	President's personal meme coin	$385 million
Crypto Total		$2.3679 billion
Campaign "expenses"	Legal and other personal costs paid by campaigns/PACs	$100 million
Saudi wealth management	Money paid to Jared Kushner/Ivanka Trump by Saudi investment fund	$320 million
The Qatari Jet	Nominally "Air Force One" for some period of time	$150 million
Corporate shakedowns	"Protection" money paid to the Trumps by CBS, Amazon, etc.	$91 million
Other Total		$661 million
Overall Total		$3.372 billion

In case you didn't already know, crypto is THE place to be for the contemporary grifter.

It has been necessary for Trump and his grifty progeny to be at least a little bit creative, because unlike the other folks listed in the opening paragraph, they haven't yet managed to directly steer billions in government funds into their own pockets. Time will tell if they try to change that. On one hand, the Trumps are doing plenty well without trying to plunder the government directly, and taking the risks that entails. On the other hand, these are people who can never, ever, ever have enough money, and they have thus far been awfully good at avoiding the criminal consequences of their actions, and may be feeling bulletproof at this point. So, it could go either way. (Z)

Never Forget: No Time to Turn the Truck Around

We intended to wrap this series up (for now) on Friday of last week. But time did not allow us to run an entry that day, so we're going for one more week.

Today, we hear from R.G.N. in Seattle, WA:

A few weeks ago, while cleaning up some personal effects he retrieved after our mother's death, my brother stumbled upon a box containing a diary my father wrote after discovering he only had a few months to live before dying of colon cancer. My brother waited until I drove out to his house in Montana before reading the diary with me. It helped to clear up a chapter in my dad's life he rarely talked about.

Because the pay was much better than that of an Army private, when war was declared in the 40s, my father enlisted in the Merchant Marine (a job, in many ways, far more dangerous than that of a combat infantryman), but the draft board had other plans. My 5-foot-tall mother took a job as a welder at the Tacoma shipyards and my dad left for basic training in Louisiana and transport to England. My father was pretty much an Errol Flynn lookalike, and probably was quite the item with the English girls. I suspect that I wouldn't have been born after the war if my mother's resemblance to Myrna Loy hadn't provided strong encouragement for my father's return to her. Eventually, D-day arrived and Dad was one of the first to set foot on Omaha Beach, the most heavily fortified part of the Normandy coast. All my father wrote about that day was a detailed description of all the friends cut down in the invasion, followed by a discussion about his bewilderment and guilt over his survival and inability to prevent the deaths of the bravest men he had ever known.

Other than a brief description of his duties driving supplies to the front lines, there was no further discussion in the diary of his war experiences. He never considered himself a hero; he reserved that for describing his pride over my service as a Fleet Marine Force Reconnaissance Corpman during the Vietnam War and begging me to resolve any guilt over my survival or inability to save everyone in my care.

Dad never cried, but when asked about Omaha Beach, his eyes filled with tears and he found something else to talk about. The only other indication of his war experiences was his method of dealing with road wash-outs and fallen trees blocking progress on forest logging roads when we were on fishing trips. He had this remarkable ability to drive in reverse at full speed for miles back to the next fork in the road. You haven't experienced full terror until you travel several miles backwards in a car on a narrow gravel road at highway speeds. His only explanation was that when under enemy bombardment he never had time to turn the truck around.

I always knew dad was a hero, but his diary confirmed that concern and pride for the service and sacrifices of others is the true measure of a hero.

Thank you, R.G.N. (Z)

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