Yesterday in TrumpWorld, Part I: The Invasion of Memphis Is Imminent

Was there more Charlie Kirk-related news yesterday? Yeah. But it is all pretty disheartening. Plus, it's nothing particularly time-sensitive; it will still be there tomorrow. So, we're going to take a Kirk-free day today. Not that the other news is much better.

Anyhow, for a while, Donald Trump was saying that the next city to be invaded was Chicago. That hasn't happened (yet). In fact, he seems to have changed his target. He now says that Memphis will be invaded next, and then maybe Chicago. He didn't explain the change of plans. He never does. But the strong opposition from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) may have played a role in Trump's decision-making, since Pritzker was never going to cooperate. Fundamentally, Trump is a coward and when faced with someone who fights back, he tends to withdraw.

Trump's nominal goal of occupying Memphis will be to fight crime rather than pick up litter, as the National Guard is doing in D.C. In reality, it will be to intimidate a blue city in a red state. It is true that Memphis is the big city with the highest crime rate in the country; Trump said that the city is "deeply troubled." Can Guardsmen on every corner change this? Highly unlikely.

Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) said he supports the move. Of course, if he really thought there was an emergency, he could have called up the Guard himself. Obviously he doesn't think so, but it is very inconvenient to say that now. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was all for an invasion, and is enthusiastic about sending federal troops to Memphis. Memphis' mayor, Paul Young (D), who is Black, is definitely not on the same page. He said: "I want to be clear, I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don't think it's the way to drive down crime." Other officials in Shelby County (which includes Memphis) were worried about the symbolism of sending soldiers into a majority-Black city in the South. But they were also worried about their budgets—and space in the local jail, which is completely full and can't handle any more arrestees.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris (and yes, the title for a county leader in Tennessee is "mayor"), is looking at his legal options, including suing to stop the occupation. He said: "I'm scared. Don't send folks in military fatigues. Don't send folks with semiautomatic weapons to patrol our streets. I want less crime, but I need America."

On Sept. 2, a federal judge ruled that deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which bans using federal troops for domestic law enforcement except in very special circumstances. That case is on appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Not that Trump cares much about court rulings.

Reader and regular correspondent B.C. in Walpole, ME, was a longtime resident of Memphis, and agreed to send in some thoughts:

Trump's plan, as I write, is to postpone sending the National Guard into Chicago in favor of Memphis, where he'll have the support of the governor and the state legislature.

Some people may not realize that police forces in the Deep South were not formed to protect and serve the people. Rather, Southern police forces, which evolved from slave patrols, were formed to enforce racial segregation (thereby relieving unpaid volunteer citizen-terrorists of the responsibility and allowing them to stay home at night with their families). Southern policing has always been racial.

The taint of those origins, despite recent and concerted efforts on the part of law enforcement leaders and others, has never gone away. Black Southerners have never been able to fully trust law enforcement. Use of the National Guard is worse: It's a naked show of force, and it will be viewed (as everything in Memphis is sooner or later, but usually immediately) through a racial lens. Black Memphians will be mostly unified in opposition, and the majority of whites will support, if not cheer, the action.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the mayor called in the National Guard to shut down the city and prevent Black citizens from rioting. (Individual white boys will be boys, but Others must be held collectively responsible.) I was there. I remember it.

One of the things I remember vividly is never seeing the National Guard in person, but only on television, because none of the troops were ever sent into my (all-white) East Memphis neighborhood. When the troops arrive in 2025, they are not going to be scattered over the 324 square miles of the city. They are going to be concentrated in areas frequented by Black Memphians, and that will likely be taken as a great provocation, exploiting Memphis and its citizens for Trump's own political purposes while creating an explosive situation.

I left Memphis, a great place to be from, in 1997, and the last time I was there was for my mother's graveside service in 2016. I'm too distant to speak about my hometown as it is today. We surely have Electoral-Vote.com readers there who can report on the situation, as so many readers have so well in so many other places and situations. I look forward to hearing from them.

Thanks, B.C., for that insight. (V & Z)

Yesterday in TrumpWorld, Part II: Another Venezuelan Boat Is Attacked, Sunk

For the second time in about a week, the U.S. has destroyed a boat containing alleged Venezuelan drug runners/terrorists. In this latest incident, three people died.

Pretty much everything that is publicly known about this story comes from the message Trump sent out on his violence-loving social media platform:

This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S. These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests. The Strike resulted in 3 male terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this Strike. BE WARNED - IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU! The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!

He does love to use violent force, at least against certain... shades of people.

Maybe our response to this will surprise some readers, but we thought carefully about it, and we don't see a substantive difference between this and the various other military operations carried out by most of the last dozen or so presidents, in which Congress got little or no say, and civilians were killed. For example, since 9/11, U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen, which were ordered by George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, have killed between 910 and 2,200 civilians. (Note that we are open to arguments that the drone strikes are substantively different from the boat attacks; we just aren't seeing them ourselves).

Following from this, we'd say the story here is not "Donald Trump is authorizing illegal and immoral military actions, largely to fire up the base, and to distract attention from Epstein-Contra and other scandals." At least, that's not the ONLY story. We'd say the story here is that, as in so many areas, Congress has abrogated its prerogatives to the executive branch, regardless of which president/party is in control, and has not had the will/fortitude to reassert itself.

We recognize that presidents need to have at least some ability to respond quickly to certain kinds of situations, without waiting for Congress to sign off. But it seems to us that some kind of balance can be restored. Notice that Joe Biden's name does not appear in the above list; that is because he stopped the drone strikes, and limited himself to military targets (at least when using American firepower). It seems that could be a model for, say, a new War Powers Act. (Z)

Yesterday in TrumpWorld, Part III: The Corruption Is Right Out in the Open

Donald Trump is getting more and more brazen about his grift. The New York Times has a report that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, of one of the ruling families of the United Arab Emirates, "invested" $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto scam. A couple of weeks later, the Sheikh received the "unexpected" good news that, per the Times, "the White House agreed to allow the UAE access to hundreds of thousands of the world's most advanced and scarce computer chips, a crucial tool in the high-stakes race to dominate artificial intelligence."

What are the chances there was no quid pro quo here? One in a million? One in a billion? One in 2 billion? Is there really any possibility whatsoever that the Sheikh really thought World Liberty Financial was a great investment and then, just by chance, received a GIANT concession from the White House? The only way this could be any more obvious is if the Sheikh had pulled up to the front door of the White House in a golden Lamborghini, and had handed Trump a suitcase full of $100 bills. Although your average suitcase will only hold about $2.5 million in hundreds, so it would actually need to be about 800 suitcases.

One can only hope that, one day when he no longer has the shield that is the United States presidency, Trump will be held accountable for his vast corrupt and illegal behavior. And, you know, it's not impossible. Democrats, with AG Merrick Garland being a prime example, were very cautious about going after Trump because of concerns about optics. But now, the office of the presidency, and maybe even the Constitution itself, are threatened. That, we would argue, leaves the next presidential administration no choice but to take action, the whining of Fox and Joe Rogan be damned.

We'll also point out one other thing. You know what Bob Menendez, Jair Bolsonaro, Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, Jim Traficant, Edwin Edwards, Marion Barry, Nicolas Sarkozy, Ricardo Martinelli, Lee Myung-bak, Najib Razak and countless others had in common? They thought they were bulletproof... right up until they weren't. Trump is becoming so brazen and so aggressive in his grifting, it may well come back to bite him.

Meanwhile, in a development that is undoubtedly completely unrelated to the Times' reporting, Trump just filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper. It's another Monopoly-money lawsuit; he's demanding $15 billion. Here's his only-partly-comprehensible explanation:

Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Dollar Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against The New York Times, one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual "mouthpiece" for the Radical Left Democrat Party. I view it as the single largest illegal Campaign contribution, EVER. Their Endorsement of Kamala Harris was actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF! The "Times" has engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole. I am PROUD to hold this once respected "rag" responsible, as we are doing with the Fake News Networks such as our successful litigation against George Slopadopoulos/ABC/Disney, and 60 Minutes/CBS/Paramount, who knew that they were falsely "smearing" me through a highly sophisticated system of document and visual alteration, which was, in effect, a malicious form of defamation, and thus, settled for record amounts. They practiced this longterm INTENT and pattern of abuse, which is both unacceptable and illegal. The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW! The suit is being brought in the Great State of Florida. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

We presumably don't need to remind readers that it's very difficult to defame a public figure (and the Times has very good lawyers who are there to make 100% certain it doesn't happen). And the notion that the placement of the Harris endorsement somehow constitutes libel against Trump is among the most laughable legal theories we've ever heard (and from an administration that has uncorked many laughable legal theories). Presumably he filed in Florida in hopes of drawing Aileen Cannon, or someone nearly as sycophantic. And surely he doesn't actually think he can get $15 billion out of the Times, because they don't have it. This is just another shakedown operation, though we doubt that the Times will play ball. After all, they don't have any federal research funds on the line, while at the same time their entire business model is wrecked if they cannot cover the President of the United States in exactly the manner they see fit. (Z)

Yesterday in TrumpWorld, Part IV: You Win Some, You Lose Some

Donald Trump would very much like to turn the Federal Reserve into a fully owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization. Yesterday, on that front, he went 1-for-2.

We flipped a coin, and we'll start with the "hit" part of that 1-for-2. In a development that should surprise absolutely nobody, the Senate approved Stephen Miran, Trump's pick for the open seat on the Fed, by a vote of 48-47, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) the only person to cross the aisle. The seat was left open, readers will recall, when Biden appointee Adriana Kugler resigned unexpectedly, with about 6 months left in her term.

In general, presidents should be allowed to appoint the people they want to appoint. However, Miran is problematic. He's not totally incompetent, like, say, BLS nominee E.J. Antoni. So, there's that. But Miran does have a severe conflict of interest, in that he works for the Trump administration. And not only does he work for the administration, he works in the White House. Miran says he will take a leave of absence from his White House job. And that's probably what he will do, in terms of not drawing a paycheck for that job while serving on the Fed. But does anyone seriously believe he will be an independent voice, as opposed to a mouthpiece for his once (and presumably future) boss, Trump? There was a time that such an affront to the independence of the Fed would have had senators from both parties up in arms. Now, it's become normalized to the point that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) wasn't even "concerned" about the obvious conflict of interest. She voted to confirm him. As noted above, the vote was 48-47 for Miran. If she had been concerned and voted "no," the nomination would have failed. It's funny how she votes against the administration when her vote doesn't matter, but she is 100% behind Trump when her vote does matter. Odd.

And now, the "miss" part of that 1-for-2. Trump either tried to fire, or is trying to fire, Fed member Lisa Cook (we're not sure which verb tense is quite right). She is Black, she is a woman, she is a Biden appointee, and she's not going to take the President's marching orders on interest rates, so she had to go. A Fed governor can only be fired "for cause," and Trump and his team cooked up a cause, namely that Cook allegedly committed fraud on her mortgage paperwork.

Cook sued, and yesterday a three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the termination is not legal. The judges in the majority were Brad Garcia and J. Michelle Childs (both Biden appointees) and the dissent came from Gregory G. Katsas (a Trump appointee). So, Cook gets to keep her job, at least for now.

The White House will undoubtedly appeal, and who knows what will happen when the Supreme Court gets involved. The justices, even the conservatives, have signaled that when it comes to the Fed, the president needs to keep his grimy paws to himself. On the other hand, the conservatives also tend to be supporters of near-unchecked executive power. So, we could be in an "immovable object meets irresistible force" situation. Meanwhile, Trump has some ants in his pants here, as the Fed has a big meeting this week at which it will decide what to do about interest rates. He would really like to be able to fire (re-fire?) Cook before then, but he won't be able to do it unless the Supreme Court rams the decision through in record time, using the shadow docket (which, obviously, is certainly possible). (Z)

Yesterday in TrumpWorld, Part V: The Clock Is TikToking

Donald Trump has made a mockery of the bill passed by Congress requiring TikTok to be sold to non-Chinese interests. He has refused to enforce the terms of the bill, which called for a shutdown of the service if it was not sold within the required timeframe. He also granted three extensions to himself/TikTok when the legislation only allowed for one.

The basic dynamics in play really could not be clearer. Last year, Trump was very anti-TikTok because he was very anti-China. However, the content on that platform then took a very pro-Trump turn. That development is surely not a coincidence given the Chinese government's interests here, and its ability to influence the site's algorithm. Thanks to the newfound Trumpiness, and the fact that Trump did not want the blowback of being "the guy who killed TikTok," he was clearly never going to swing the axe. You might say that the President TikTACOed out.

Yesterday, the White House announced that our long national nightmare is over, and that the TikTok situation has been resolved. Predictably, when the White House said "this has been resolved," what it meant was "well, it hasn't actually been resolved quite yet." In fact, and again predictably, what the White House has negotiated is a "framework" for a deal. A spokesperson said that Trump (aka the Dealmaker-in-Chief) will hammer out the final details when he meets with Chinese president Xi Jinping later this week.

One would think that this should be a relatively simple matter, and would not require "frameworks" and other such half-measures. Similarly, one would think that if the deal is that close to the finish line, the White House could give some general sense of what the nature of the deal is. The administration has not done that; the details of the framework (assuming it even exists) are entirely unknown.

If a deal is actually reached (certainly no sure thing), we think it very unlikely that it will comport with the intent of Congress as expressed in the legislation that it passed. First, if TikTok was really going to be sold to non-Chinese interests, why not mention that when announcing the "framework"? Second, and more importantly, Xi wants to retain some control over the platform, AND he's a better negotiator than Trump, AND he knows Trump isn't actually willing to go nuclear and shut the platform down. In other words, the Chinese leader basically has all the cards. We suspect that the final "deal" is going to faintly look like divestment, but won't be actual divestment. The other possible outcome is that Trump gets angry when Xi won't yield, pitches a fit, refuses to discuss the matter any further, and returns home to fire off a dozen messages on his made-in-China social media platform. Recall what happened when Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, for example.

It is at least conceivable that Larry Ellison, who is currently the world's richest man, buys TikTok. After all, Elon Musk bought Twitter back when he was the world's richest man. Ellison is also a strong Trump supporter. It is at least possible. (Z)

Kamala Harris Throws Joe Biden under the Bus

There are two people who are: (1) Biden administration insiders, and (2) potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates. Those two people, of course, are former VP Kamala Harris and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Those two people have access to polling and to advice that most people do not. In addition, they have very good political instincts, which is how they have gotten to where they are in the first place. And both of them have very clearly concluded that, in 2028, they are going to have to have a good answer to the question: "Why didn't you do anything when you knew Joe Biden had lost his fastball? And maybe even his curve, his slider, and his eephus pitch?" Perhaps other Democratic contenders will also have to face this question, but perhaps not. After all, Harris and Buttigieg interacted with Biden on a regular, sometimes daily, basis. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), to take two examples, did not.

Harris has clearly been wrestling with this quite a bit, and she spent the past half-year writing a book. It is called 107 Days and was leaked in part late last week. In it, she says it was reckless for Democrats to leave the decision up to Joe Biden about whether he should seek reelection at his age (81). Harris writes: "On his worst day, [Biden] was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best. But at 81, Joe got tired. That's when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles."

Harris also implies other Democrats should have tried to stop Biden, but she doesn't explain how. Did she want a contested primary, with many entrants, in which he would have to prove himself in primary debates? If she really thought that, why didn't she file to run herself and challenge him, which would have opened the gate for many other candidates? Biden might have won, but he would have had to prove that he was up to it. She says now it was reckless to just let him run but when she had the chance to stop him, she didn't. Sounds like 20-20 hindsight.

Harris goes on to accuse Biden's staff of not being nice to her because they were afraid she would upstage him. She wrote that "My success was important for him. His team didn't get it." Once that came out, a bunch of Biden loyalists fired back, which led to a counter-volley from Harris loyalists, and so on and so forth.

Sometime soon, this Democrat-on-Democrat violence will subside. However, Harris is clearly running for president, and she's clearly settled on a narrative of JoeGate, one that was presumably workshopped with many advisors and focus groups. For our part, we think she's chosen a very unwise tack. First, she is taking no responsibility for what happened, and trying to pass the buck to anyone and everyone else. Voters don't like that. Second, she is kind of stabbing Biden in the back. Remember, this is the same Kamala Harris who slammed Biden, in the 2019 debates, for opposing school busing. Then, once she was a serious candidate for the #2 slot, she decided she wasn't that upset about it after all. The whole incident, back in 2019, made her look like a political chameleon of the worst sort. The new "take" on Biden's presidency feels similarly chameleon-like to us.

After the book excerpt leaked out, Buttigieg appeared on Meet the Press, and was asked for his views on the whole situation. He said:

He should not have run. And if he had made that decision sooner, we might have been better off. But it literally was his decision. Nobody else was able to make that decision. And now in front of us, we're confronted with the decisions that come next, whether that's inside of a political party or movement or as we're all weighing right now, in our own lives, as Americans, as a country. And that's where we've got to focus.

There's really no GOOD answer to this question, at least not for Harris and Buttigieg. But we are inclined to think that Buttigieg's answer threads the needle a fair bit better than Harris' does. (Z)

Black Unemployment Is Way Up

At a time that Donald Trump is doing everything he can to provoke an incident involving Black people and law enforcement (see above), Black unemployment is skyrocketing. The overall unemployment rate is 4.3% right now, as compared to 4% in January. The unemployment rate for white workers is 3.7%, as compared to 3.5% in January. The unemployment rate for Black workers is 7.5%, which is a full point higher than in January. These numbers come from the government, so believe them or not, as you prefer.

There are a few explanations for this trend. First, the federal government layoffs have disproportionately affected Black workers. Second, the crackdown on DEI initiatives has disproportionately affected Black workers. Third, when the economy starts to slow down, the industries that are first to be affected tend to employ a disproportionate percentage of Black workers.

Societally, this is bad news for everyone. Obviously, for Black workers, it's yet another case of their community taking it in the teeth. Meanwhile, unemployment and the resulting economic privations tend to increase tension levels. And again, this is at a time when the Trump administration is being deliberately provocative in cities like Washington, DC, and—very soon—Memphis.

Politically, whether Trump realizes it or not, this is bad news for him and for his party. Black unemployment, as we note, tends to be a leading indicator of an economic slowdown. If the economy tanks just as the U.S. is heading into the midterms, well, everyone reading this knows what the implications of that are likely to be. Meanwhile, Trump may want a riot so bad he can taste it. However, riots tend to rebound on the party in power, as they make it seem like the nation is out of control, and the person in the White House is asleep at the wheel. So, the President might want to be careful what he wishes for, because he and his party just might get it. (Z)

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