The Padilla Incident

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start

In a disturbing and unprecedented move, FBI agents grabbed the sitting California Senator, dragged him out of the room, and shoved him to the ground, handcuffing him even after he identified himself. Video Courtesy of the Office of Senator Alex Padilla. pic.twitter.com/s5ON5cTxXs

— Santa Monica Mirror (@SMMirror) June 13, 2025

Padilla: From the moment I entered the building, I'm being escorted by a member of the National Guard and an FBI agent. I asked, well, since we're waiting, can we go listen in to the press conference? They escort me over to the press conference. They opened the door for me. pic.twitter.com/R3ur8msJKh

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 12, 2025

Michael Luciano at Mediaite:

While Padilla’s treatment understandably received all the attention, lost in the incident was a pledge from Noem that the federal government will “liberate” Los Angeles from the leaders the city’s voters elected to represent them:

The Department of Homeland Security and the officers and the agencies and the departments and the military people that are working on this operation will continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city. We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor had placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.

It was at that point, Padilla interrupted and was physically pushed out of the room and into a hallway, where he was handcuffed.

Reaching Latino Men

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the role of Latino voters.

 Senator Ruben Gallego spoke with David Frum:

One of the things we knew instinctively, because growing up Latino and working class: Latino men do not intently watch Univision, Telemundo. They don’t intently follow politics. They largely are disconnected from the normal avenues of—well, I would say that normal people kind of consume news and political news.

And one of the things that I emphasized on my campaign early on is a nontraditional way to reach these men, because you’ve got to understand the way these guys are. I mean, when I was in construction, I would wake up at 6 a.m., go to the site. Hopefully, it’d be done by 3 p.m. but probably not. So maybe you’re back at home by 5 p.m. You’re dirty as hell. You’re smelly as hell. You’re jumping in the shower, and then maybe, you know, you’re in time—you’ve made it home in time for dinner, right? You’re sitting down to dinner, and then you have probably a couple hours before you zonk out to start the next day.

Do you want to spend that time watching the news? Do you want to spend that time talking politics? No. You want to spend time with your family or with your friends, because your day sucked, and it’s going to suck again tomorrow. And so you do this rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

So where are they getting all their information from? Well, a couple places. Number one, they’re getting it from their other coworkers at worksites—which by the way, people forget when it comes to Latino men, the people they’re most likely to work with besides other Latino men are white working-class men, right? And white working-class men are very much politically involved and have a lot of political information that they’re getting. And they’re sharing it with their Latino coworkers, right?

And number two, they’re living off their phones through different social media, whether it’s Instagram, Snapchat, or all this kind of stuff, Twitter. So one of the things that we emphasize is trying to figure out how to get a message, a vibe, about who I was to these Latino male voters early on, so that way they understood, like, Ruben Gallego is a Democrat. Ruben Gallego says he’s for the working class. But then we also had a very strong cultural attachment. Like, He understands me. He actually worked at factories, worked in construction, understands the dignity of work, the responsibility of a man to his family, to provide for his family, and how important that is to me as a man.

And that kind of stuff, we are afraid to approach to get these men to start considering us as Democrats. And then, because we never talk about it, we never give them the dignity of allowing them to be family leaders and not making them feel bad about being family leaders. And then we’re surprised when, year after year, we don’t continue to have this conversation with us, they keep on moving away from us. And it’s a dumb trade-off, because we continue to do that because we think that somehow we’re going to piss off female voters.

And I don’t think that’s the case. Female voters are worried about their sons or daughters and their husbands. They’re worried about the fact that they’re becoming less social. They’re worried about the fact that they’re not actually being productive in life. And they want to have good husbands—heck, they want to have good ex-husbands that are involved with their kids’ lives, and they’re making good pay and paying their child support, things of that nature.

But for some reason, the Democrats have continued this trade-off, and it’s going to continue going until we realize: Making sure [of] people’s economic needs will cross all racial barriers and, if you do it rightly, will also cross these gender gaps that we’re seeing.

Newsom v. Trump

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Trump likes riots.  He federalized National Guard units and sent them to Los Angeles, hoping to escalate the disorder.  He got his wish.

JACK BLANCHARD with DASHA BURNS  at POLITICO:

Let’s be clear: These are precisely the sorts of scenes — U.S. troops assisting with immigration raids in liberal cities — that Dems have feared since Trump’s election. They are also precisely the target of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for an emergency injunction against the way Trump is deploying military force in his state, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. District Judge Charles Breyer — the Bill Clinton-appointed brother of former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer — will hear that case tomorrow. It could be quite a moment.

We need to talk about Gavin: Newsom, for his part, delivered a pretty extraordinary address to the nation last night, in which he sought to position himself as the leader of America’s anti-Trump opposition. Speaking directly to camera in a crisp, eight-minute monologue, Newsom denounced Trump’s aggressive deployment of ICE officers and military forces in LA — before raising his eyes to horizons far beyond his own state.

“This isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles,” Newsom told America. “This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.”

Going viral: The video is getting plenty of love from Dems online — hitting more than a million views on the MeidasTouch YouTube channel inside three hours last night. And it was on the front pages of both the NYT and WaPo early this morning. “I for one am very happy to see somebody that isn’t afraid to speak up,” Ana Navarro told CNN. “I have been so thirsty for somebody that is not cowardly, bending the knee and selling out to Donald Trump as he does all of this to America.” Even the WSJ describes Newsom as “the leader of the opposition.”

This is all fascinating stuff for kremlinologists of the fledgling 2028 Democratic race. Playbook noted yesterday that politicians aligning themselves with anti-ICE protesters may be taking on political risk come a general election, but Newsom is playing a different game right now — and playing it well. He even leaned into Trump’s threat to have him arrested, spying the same political opportunity enjoyed by Trump himself in 2023. (POLITICO’s Jeremy White and Melanie Mason take a closer look at Newsom’s leadership prospects here.)

Incompetence and Disorder

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

The Trump administration's incompetence extends across the river into the Pentagon.

  Matthias Gafni at SF Chronicle:

President Donald Trump’s rush to deploy California National Guard troops to Los Angeles has left dozens of soldiers without adequate sleeping arrangements, forced to pack together in one or more federal buildings, resting on the floors of what appear to be basements or loading docks, the Chronicle has learned.

The state troops federalized by the Trump administration over the weekend to confront immigration protesters, without the approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom, were “wildly underprepared,” said a person directly involved with the deployment, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the issue.

The troops — whose makeshift quarters are shown in photographs exclusively obtained by the Chronicle — arrived without federal funding for food, water, fuel, equipment or lodging, said the source, who was granted confidentiality under Chronicle policies. This person said state officials and the California National Guard were not to blame.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell Responds to Possible Deployment of Marines to Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/bYrUSC4m0L

— LAPD PIO (@LAPDPIO) June 9, 2025

DTLA

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Trump likes riots.  He federalized National Guard units and sent them to Los Angeles, hoping to escalate the disorder.  He got his wish.

Politico Playbook:

The scenes everyone will be talking about this morning … Masked protesters pose for photos with Mexican flags in front of a burning vehicle in downtown LA … A law enforcement official shoots an Australian journalist with non-lethal ammo, the moment captured on her own rolling news camera … Protesters pelt stranded police vehicles with e-scooters and rocks from an occupied freeway bridge … A shirtless van driver attempts to reverse-ram rioters at spinning high speeds before racing off into the night … (Second vid here from ground level).

...

For Trump, this is simply a fight he has been waiting for. The president was under no illusions about the protests that would eventually meet his deportation strategy, nor in any doubt about how he would respond when the moment came. And Saturday’s historic decision to send in the National Guard may only be the start; last night Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put 500 Marines on standby for deployment.

And then … this: “Looking really bad in L.A.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, shortly after midnight. “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” Helping Trump’s cause were comments from the LAPD that the situation has spiraled “out of control” (though Newsom is blaming Trump himself for that.) It’s worth noting that Trump has not ruled out invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act — which gives authority for a president to deploy the U.S. military on the streets — though he told reporters yesterday afternoon that he did not believe the current situation meets that bar.

This is diving-line politics, and Trump thinks he is on the winning side. The president knows Democrats will stand in opposition to his every move in L.A, but believes the popularity of his immigration policies means he has enough of the public on his side. And for these protests to have escalated so rapidly into televised riots makes the ideal backdrop for the White House’s messaging; they want the president standing up for law and order, and the deluded Dems on the side of flag-waving rioters. The fact it all came just as Trump faced one of the toughest news cycles of his presidency is just … a delicious bonus. Elon who?

But for Newsom, there’s a big opportunity too — to stand up to a bullying opponent on behalf of his home state, while playing to the broader Democratic base ahead of 2028. It was striking to see Newsom invite the Dem-friendly MSNBC cameras right inside his situation room last night to stick it to Trump directly, even as the violence on the streets continued. “Donald Trump needs to pull back,” Newsom told viewers sternly. “He needs to stand down. Donald Trump is inflaming these conditions.”

And there’s more: There were even echoes of the WWE locker room when Newsom was told that border czar Tom Homan has not ruled out arresting California’s leaders if they obstruct federal law enforcement. “He’s a tough guy. Why doesn’t he do that?” Newsom shot back. “He knows where to find me.” Addressing Homan directly, he added: “Lay your hands off four-year-old girls who are trying to get an education … Come after me. Arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy.” Reminder: these people are meant to be the grown-ups.

Trump v. California

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.

Don't give them one.

Never use violence. Speak out peacefully.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2025

The Secretary of Defense is now threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens.

This is deranged behavior.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2025

Money Into Trump's Pocket

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  Its corruption is unprecedented.   Qatar's gift of a jet is just one example. His memecoin is another.

Eric Lipton et al. at NYT:

The Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China’s Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat.

But the administration appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group when it went along with a plan to give the biggest purchasers of President Trump’s digital currency access to the president and the White House.

Mr. Trump launched a so-called memecoin, a type of cryptocurrency, just days before his inauguration. To bolster sales, the president’s business partners created a contest in April, offering the coin’s top buyers a tour of the White House and a private dinner with Mr. Trump at his Virginia golf club.

One of those buyers was He Tianying, who is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, according to government documents in China examined by The New York Times.

A four-month list from NYT:

• While administration officials engage in complex negotiations in the Middle East, Mr. Trump and his family are making billions of dollars’ worth of deals with players in the region. The Trump Organization has six real estate projects planned in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The company struck a deal with the Qatari government to build a golf club and beachside villas that will bring in millions of dollars in fees. Mr. Trump announced recently that Qatar was donating a Boeing 747-8 worth about $200 million to serve as a more luxurious Air Force One, which he has said could go to his presidential library after he leaves office. For all this, he has made clear that tiny Qatar can expect a cozy relationship. “We are going to protect this country,” Mr. Trump said in Doha. “It’s a very special place, with a special royal family.”
• During his first term, those currying favor with Mr. Trump bought drinks and dinner or spent the night at his Washington hotel. Now they can spend half a million dollars to join the private club Donald Trump Jr. is opening in Georgetown. It is called Executive Branch. The club’s founding members include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, twin brothers whose cryptocurrency company was being sued by the S.E.C. — until Mr. Trump’s administration put a hold on the lawsuit.
• As his administration is negotiating with Vietnam to reduce the tariffs he imposed on the country’s goods, the government there is making way for a $1.5 billion golf complex outside Hanoi, as well as a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese officials said in a letter that the real estate project needed to be fast-tracked because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”
• Serbian officials cleared the way for a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade by using a forged document to permit the demolition of a cultural site at the location. Serbian opposition leaders say the forgery demonstrates how eager the country’s government has been to do a deal benefiting Mr. Trump.
• Mr. Trump has held meetings, including one in the Oval Office, to force a merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV golf circuit, which frequently holds tournaments on Trump courses. In April, LIV Golf paid the Trump family to host a tournament at the Trump National Doral in Florida. A merger could lead to more such events.
• The right-wing activist Elizabeth Fago attended a $1 million-per-person fund-raising dinner for MAGA Inc., Mr. Trump’s super PAC, in April. Less than three weeks later, The Times reported, he granted a full pardon to Ms. Fago’s son Paul Walczak, who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. The pardon is one of many issued by Mr. Trump to people who provided him with political or financial support or were associated with others who did.
• After personally suing media companies that the government regulates, including CBS/Paramount and ABC/Disney, Mr. Trump has won millions of dollars in settlements. Paramount has reportedly offered $15 million to settle a baseless lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against CBS, fearing that the Trump administration would otherwise block its planned merger with Skydance Media. Mr. Trump is demanding $25 million.
• Amazon has agreed to pay $40 million for the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump. That’s tens of millions more than such projects usually cost, Hollywood executives have said. Mrs. Trump’s cut is more than 70 percent. Defense contracts for web services would be reason enough for Amazon to curry favor with Mr. Trump.
• Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee raised $239 million, mostly from large corporations and business leaders. The committee spent far less than that on the inauguration and faces few legal restrictions on what to do with the rest of the money. It is typical for presidents not to spend all of their inaugural funds, but previous presidents raised far less than Mr. Trump. The largest donor, a chicken processor called Pilgrim’s Pride, already seems to be benefiting from favorable government policies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump v. Musk, Friday ed.

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Jonathan Karl at ABC:

In a phone interview Friday morning, hours after his blistering exchange with Elon Musk, President Donald Trump sounded remarkably unconcerned about their feud, as if it weren't even the most interesting thing that happened Thursday.

Speaking on a phone call Friday morning shortly before 7 a.m., ABC News asked him about reports he had a call scheduled with Musk for later in the day..

"You mean the man who has lost his mind?" he asked, saying he was "not particularly" interested in talking to him right now.

e said Musk wants to talk to him, but he's not ready to talk to Musk.

Andrew Howard and Adam Wren at Politico:

“Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years,” Musk said on X.

The post was an unambiguous warning from the world’s richest man, who has the power to single-handedly reshape elections with his wealth. It was not long ago that Republicans hoped Musk could pour cash into their efforts to help maintain control of Washington. Instead, he’s becoming their public adversary.

Musk spent Thursday online attacking President Donald Trump over Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill, which Musk says does not cut enough government spending.

He’d already threatened to challenge Republicans who support the megabill; on Thursday, he blasted House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, took credit for Republicans winning trifecta control in November, and floated the idea of launching a third party.

“This is a massive crack in the MAGA coalition,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and a former Trump administration appointee. “This town is historically built on Republican versus Democrat, and this seems to be crazy versus crazy. It is asymmetric and it seems, for the first time, President Trump seems to be out-crazied.”

Personnel is Policy

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  The administration's personnel choices are ... something.

Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs at Jewish Insider:

Multiple Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they plan to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s nomination of Paul Ingrassia, a far-right figure picked last week to lead the Office of Special Counsel, charged with fighting corruption and fighting federal whistleblowers.

Ingrassia has trafficked in conspiracy theories, including, as early as Oct. 8, 2023, describing the Hamas attack and ensuing war as a “psyop,” as well as defending prominent antisemites including Kanye West, Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes.

Several Republican members said they were not deeply familiar with Ingrassia’s record but planned to dig into it further before his nomination hearing.

 

"Trump is the constitution" - @PaulIngrassia, Trump's pick to run the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, replying to a user who disagreed when Ingrassia said, "When Trump gets back into office, he should remove his three Supreme Court picks and replace them with true loyalists." pic.twitter.com/XfW59eOsgs

— Jason Hart (@jasonahart) June 4, 2025

Hannah Allam at Pro Publica:

When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. “Onward and upward!” he wrote, with an emoji of a rocket shooting into space.

His career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism.

The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a Homeland Security role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence.

Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration.

Trump v. Musk

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

CBO estimates that debt-service costs under H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would total $551 billion over the 2025–2034 period—increasing the bill's cumulative effect on the deficit to $3.0 trillion.

AP:

President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s “disappointed” with Elon Musk after his former backer and advisor lambasted the president’s signature bill.

Trump suggested the world’s richest man misses being in the White House and has “Trump derangement syndrome.”

The Republican president reflected on his breakup with Musk in front of reporters in the Oval Office as Musk continued a storm of social media posts attacking Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and warning it will increase the federal deficit.

“I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

Musk has called Trump’s big tax break bill a “disgusting abomination.”

Annie Karni and Theodore Schleifer:

House Republicans suddenly find themselves scrambling to mollify Elon Musk, who has been venting his rage at them for voting for a Trump-backed domestic policy bill he calls a “disgusting abomination.”

After Mr. Musk threatened to “fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” Republicans from Speaker Mike Johnson on down are trying to manage an unmanageable tech billionaire who has become one of the most powerful figures in Republican politics.

Even as Mr. Johnson insisted at a news conference on Wednesday that “policy differences are not personal,” he admitted that Mr. Musk’s hard turn against the bill had come as a surprise given the “happy texts” they had shared 24 hours earlier. Mr. Johnson said he had tried again to talk to Mr. Musk but could not get through.

“I called Elon last night, and he didn’t answer, but, uh, hope to talk to him today,” he said.

Such ingratitude

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

Russia, Russia, Russia

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Benedict Smith at The Telegraph:

A senior official who dismantled the US government’s Russian disinformation unit is married to a Russian woman with links to the Kremlin, The Telegraph can reveal.

Darren Beattie has provoked alarm within the State Department since being appointed in February for his ardent pro-Russian views and focus on destroying the agency tasked with tackling Kremlin propaganda.

Mr Beattie, the acting under-secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, is married to a woman whose uncle has taken several roles in Russian politics and once received a personal “thank you” message from Vladimir Putin.

In the years before joining the government, Mr Beattie wrote social media posts suggesting Western institutions should be “infiltrated” by Putin, while he also attacked what he described as the “globalist American empire”.

Donald Trump is under pressure from many in his party, particularly senators, to take a tougher stance on the Russian leader while he continues to refuse to sign a ceasefire deal as the war in Ukraine drags on.

Many of Mr Beattie’s social media posts also concern China, repeatedly calling on the US to surrender Taiwan to Beijing, and labelling Britain a “poor and pathetic kingdom” that would be “far better off under Chinese dominion”.

Trump referred to Putin's invasion of Ukraine as a "genius" move.  Silence on an actual genius move: Ukraine's amazing drone attack deep into Russian territory.

Michael Luciano at Mediaite:

Leavitt took questions outside the White House on Monday, where she reiterated Trump’s position that Putin and Zelensky should speak directly with each other. One reporter brought up Ukraine’s shocking drone attack on Russian warplanes deep inside Russian territory.

“What was the president’s reaction to that Ukrainian drone attack – stunning drone attack – on Russian airbases?” he asked. “What’s his reaction?”

“Well, look,” Leavitt replied. “The reaction is this war needs to come to an end. And this war has been brutal from both sides. Too many people have died, and the president wants this war to end at the negotiating table. And he’s made that clear to both leaders, both publicly and privately.”

 

TACO Tuesday and Taxes

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

Dan Merica and Matthew Choi at WP:

TACO — or “Trump Always Chickens Out” — is a Wall Street acronym that suggests that the president often talks tough on tariffs but ultimately backs down. The term, coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, highlights how Wall Street, which Trump has long seen as a leading market indicator, has learned to ignore the president’s talk and focus on his actions after the president paused his harshest tariffs following the stock market’s plummet in April.

“He does check the score board, and the score board is the stock market,” said Michael Batnick, a managing partner at Ritholtz Wealth Management and one of the hosts of “The Compound,” a YouTube show and podcast on business and investing. He noted that Trump’s announcement Friday that he would double U.S. tariffs on European steel to 50 percent corresponded with a markedly quiet day of trading. “He ran out of juice,” Batnick told us. “He made that announcement and nobody cared, like it was a child having a tantrum and people said, ‘Leave him in the corner, he will stop crying.’

...

It’s hard to campaign on what a party didn’t do. But that’s essentially what Republicans have to do in selling their extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in their mega bill.

Here’s the test for Republicans: If they extend the tax bill, most taxpayers won’t see a difference on Tax Day and can enjoy current tax rates. But if they fail, taxes will pop back up under a fully Republican-led government and the GOP will get the blame. In terms of political messaging, it could wind up a draw or a loss since it’s hard to campaign on a counterfactual.

Trump's War on Knowledge

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic:

The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical.
...
By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that. It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed. Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.

Petula Dvorak at WP:

Huge volumes, bound in the timeless, red buckram linen of legacy books, are historians’ gold — and crucial to the nation’s understanding of how U.S. foreign policy is made.

There is a dispatch from Japan to President Abraham Lincoln’s administration describing the “bloody affair” of July 1861, the “daring and murderous attacks” by samurai warriors on British diplomats stationed in Edo, now known as Tokyo.

There is the top-secret report that pushed President Harry S. Truman to authorize covert actions in peacetime in 1947 to counter the “vicious psychological efforts” by the Soviet Union.

And then there’s the telegram handed over at 12:15 p.m. on April 18, 1961, from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to President John F. Kennedy hours after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, warning that the action endangers peace “for the whole world. … It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America.”

An advisory committee of diverse historians helps ensure that the record of America’s history — especially classified and covert actions — remains unbiased, transparent and thorough.

President Donald Trump just fired all of the members of the committee.

These advisers help oversee the exhaustive publication series called the Foreign Relations of the United States — or the FRUS, as insiders call it — and lawmakers rely on it daily. It is available to the public in major libraries and online.

The volume began in 1861, when Congress demanded a full account of Lincoln’s foreign policy during the Civil War. More than 450 volumes have been printed since

Musk Leaves a Trail

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Neal Rothschild at Axios:

The big picture: Elon Musk claims that his DOGE team saved $175 billion in taxpayer spending, though an outside analysis estimates the verified savings are closer to $16 billion.The "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed the House last week, is projected to add $3 trillion to 5 trillion to budget deficits over the next 10 years. Even using Musk's most generous estimate, those DOGE savings would amount to just 6% of the projected increase to the deficit from the bill.

Coral Davenport and Stacy Cowley at NYT:

DOGE promotes the purported savings on an “Agency Deregulation Leaderboard,” posted this month, where it claims that the Trump administration has saved Americans $29.4 billion as a result of reversing regulations in health insurance, bank fees, appliance efficiency standards and other areas.

But many of those regulatory reversals will actually pile more costs on to individual Americans in the form of higher bank fees, electric and water bills, and health insurance payments, according to experts and government analyses. The New York Times examined 10 of the largest claims on the leaderboard and concluded that several did not show evidence of savings to households.

Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey at NYT:

As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

Trump v. Conservatism

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It explains how Trump has exploited conservatism without believing in it.

Patrick Svitek at POLITICO:

President Donald Trump lashed out at the conservative legal movement and one of its prominent leaders, Leonard Leo, on Thursday night, blaming them for the federal court ruling that blocked most of his tariffs this week.

In doing so, Trump deepened a schism with an influential community that was crucial to shaping his first term but has increasingly fallen out of favor with the president as he ramps up attacks on the judiciary.

In a lengthy social media post, Trump called Leo a “real ‘sleazebag’ ” and suggested that the Federalist Society led him astray on judicial nominations during his first term.

One of the judges involved in the ruling on tariffs was appointed by Trump. And in recent months, Trump and Leo have been at odds over the wisdom of Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs: A group with ties to Leo is among those that have sued the administration, arguing that the president overstepped his authority in issuing them.

Charlie Savage at NYT:

Hours earlier Thursday, the Justice Department severely undercut the traditional role of the American Bar Association in vetting judicial nominees. A day before, Mr. Trump picked a loyalist who has no deep ties to the conservative legal movement for a life-tenured appeals court seat, explaining that his pick could be counted on to rule in ways aligned with his agenda.

Together, the moves suggest that Mr. Trump may be pivoting toward greater personal involvement and a more idiosyncratic process for selecting future nominees. Such a shift would fit with his second-term pattern of steamrolling the guardrails that sometimes constrained how he exercised power during his first presidency.

But it could also give pause to judges who may be weighing taking senior status, giving Mr. Trump an opportunity to fill their seats. Conservatives have been eyeing in particular the seats of the Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, who will turn 77 next month, and Samuel A. Alito, 75.

...'

And Professor Yoo, who wrote memos advancing sweeping theories of presidential power as a Bush administration lawyer, said Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mr. Leo were “outrageous.”

“Calling for the impeachment of judges, attacking Leonard Leo personally and basically calling him as traitor as far as I can tell — Trump is basically turning his back on one of his biggest achievements of his first term,” he added, referring to the reshaping of the federal judiciary.

Joni Ernst Gaffe

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) might have a competitive reelection race next year.  Yesterday's gaffe will not help.  Alexander Bolton at The Hill

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (R) pushed back against constituents who shouted out at her recent town hall meeting that cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would cause people to die, responding, “Well, we’re all going to die.”


The awkward moment came at a town hall meeting on Friday in Butler, Iowa, while Ernst defended the spending reforms in a House-passed budget reconciliation package that are intended to stop people who crossed into the country illegally from receiving federal benefits.

JUNE 1 UPDATE: Then she made it worse with a sarcastic video.

 

Absolutely bonkers — Joni Ernst doubles down on her “we are all gonna die” defense of Medicaid cuts while walking through a cemetery pic.twitter.com/tZrhtvODeK

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 31, 2025

Maybe the reference to Jesus was an effort to shore up her evangelical base after this:

#ICYMI: The Air Force revealed earlier this year that a general who oversaw its lobbying before Congress had inappropriate relationships with five women.

Sources say one of the women whose relationship with him was scrutinized was Sen. Joni Ernst.https://t.co/97qos9S9hC

— ProPublica (@propublica) June 1, 2025

Kryptonite for Tariff Man

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

Ben Berkowitz, Courtenay Brown at Axios:

A three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade — Reagan, Obama and Trump appointees — ruled that Trump does not have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs under 1970s-era emergency legislation.In fact, the judges said an injunction wasn't enough — they issued a summary judgment invalidating and blocking almost all of Trump's trade levies to date.

Those levies were vast, from a 10% global baseline tariff, to fentanyl-related tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, to (paused) reciprocal tariffs on dozens of other countries.

They effectively raised U.S. tariff rates to their highest levels since the 1930s, and threatened to cost American households thousands of dollars in higher goods costs.

The big picture: Tens of thousands of containers full of goods enter the United States every day.Whether or even what levies to assess on their contents today, versus yesterday, is a mess that could snarl commerce across the country for days to come.

Follow the money: The levies, while causing huge economic strain, were also generating significant revenue for the government — almost $23 billion so far this month.They were meant to be a cornerstone of the administration's fiscal plans — trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote in an op-ed Wednesday that tariffs would generate up to $3.3 trillion in revenue over the next decade.

Not all the income will disappear, though; tariffs imposed under a different legal authority called Section 232 — including on imports of autos, steel and aluminum — are unaffected by the ruling.

What they're saying: "This really *is* Liberation Day: The court's decision striking down Trump's mass tariffs as unlawful is a tremendous triumph for the rule of law, human freedom, and prosperity, and a deserved rebuke for arbitrary one-man rule over our livelihoods," Walter Olsen, senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, said of the ruling.

Trump Corruption, Continued

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its corruption is unprecedented. Qatar's gift of a jet is just one example. His memecoin is another. Abuse of pardons is third.

Kenneth P. Vogel at NYT:

As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.

Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.

Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.

Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.

Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.

An April 11 release from the US Department of Justice:

Owner Of Florida Health Care Companies Sentenced for Employment Tax Crimes

Friday, April 11, 2025
For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs
Defendant Did Not Pay Over $10M in Taxes


A Florida man was sentenced today to 18 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $4,381,265.76 in restitution to the United States for willfully failing to pay over employment taxes and willfully failing to file individual income tax returns.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Paul Walczak controlled a network of interconnected health care companies operating under various names, including Palm Health Partners. Through another of his entities, Palm Health Partners Employment Services (PHPES), Walczak employed over 600 people and paid over $24 million annually in payroll. As such, Walczak was required to withhold Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes from his employees’ paychecks and to pay those monies over to the IRS each quarter, and to pay the companies’ portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes.

For more than a decade, Walczak was not compliant with his tax obligations and instead used the withheld taxes to enrich himself. In 2011, Walczak did not pay two quarters of withheld taxes to the IRS. In 2012, the IRS began collection efforts, including by sending him notices about his unpaid taxes, and by meeting with Walczak to help bring him into compliance. When that effort was unsuccessful, the IRS assessed the outstanding taxes against him personally. After that was imposed, Walczak paid the assessments in October 2014. Walczak’s compliance did not last long, however. By the end of the following year, Walczak was again withholding taxes from his employees’ paychecks and keeping the money.

From 2016 through 2019, Walczak withheld $7,432,223.80 of taxes from his employees’ paychecks, but did not pay those taxes over to the IRS. While Walczak was withholding taxes from the pay of his employees under the pretext of paying these funds to the IRS, he used over $1 million from his businesses’ bank accounts to purchase a yacht, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal bank accounts, and used the business accounts for personal purchases at retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier, and Saks. During this same time, he also did not pay $3,480,111 of his business’s portion of his employees’ Social Security and Medicare taxes.

By 2019, the IRS had assessed millions of dollars in civil penalties against Walczak. Beginning with the 2018 tax year, Walczak also stopped filing personal income tax returns despite that he was still receiving income including a $360,000 salary from PHPES and $450,000 in transfers from his business bank accounts.

Moreover, in 2019, Walczak created a new business, NextEra. Walczak used a family member as the 99% nominal owner of NextEra, but Walczak had ultimate control of the finances and operations of NextEra. Through NextEra, Walczak transferred in 2020 just under $200,000 to a bank account titled in a family member’s name, over $250,000 to a bank account in his wife’s name, and over $800,000 in payments directly to third parties for Walczak’s personal expenses, including clothing stores, department stores, and fishing retailers.

In total, Walczak caused a tax loss to the IRS of $10,912,334.80

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney Karen E. Kelly of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Special Agent in Charge Emmanuel Gomez of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Miami Field Office made the announcement.

IRS-CI investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Brian Flanagan, Andrew Ascencio, and Ashley Stein of the Justice Department’s Tax Division prosecuted the case.
Updated April 11, 2025

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I interviewed a guy who did The Big Short, except using $TRUMP coin.

He got a free dinner with the President out of it. pic.twitter.com/NpLm5QEAop

— Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) May 27, 2025

Trump 2026

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

A Democratic takeover of the House in 2026 would mean investigations and possibly even impeachment. Mike Allen at Axios reports that Trump is taking five steps to protect the thin GOP majority.

1. Trying to prevent retirements. The White House is targeting several Republicans in politically divided swing districts and urging them not to ditch their seats or run for higher office.Incumbent lawmakers with established fundraising and campaigning networks are almost always better positioned to win than any challengers. It has sent a clear message to New York Rep. Mike Lawler that Trump wants him to stay in the House rather than run for governor.

2. Spending big. Trump has built a $500 million-plus political apparatus, and he's already unloading some of it with 2026 in mind.Securing American Greatness, a pro-Trump group that works with the White House, has launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign touting his economic agenda in the districts of eight vulnerable House Republicans. Trump also has a leadership PAC, Never Surrender, planning to give directly to Republican candidates.

 3. Taking primary challengers off the table. Besides Lawler, Trump has endorsed a slate of swing-district GOP incumbents in a series of moves aimed at shutting down would-be primary challengers before they get off the ground, people close to the president tell Axios....

 4. Raising gobs more money. Trump is the GOP's most powerful fundraiser, and he's begun helping the party fill its coffers.He headlined an April dinner benefiting the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) that raked in more than $35 million.

 5. Ramping up recruiting. Trump's political operation and the NRCC are seeking out candidates in swing-district contests with no incumbents.Their goal is to get the party to coalesce around a Trump-and-GOP-backed candidate to avoid a bloody primary, a Trump ally said.

Trump's Corruption

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.    Its corruption is unprecedented.  Qatar's gift of a jet is just one example. His memecoin is another.

Peter Baker at NYT:

When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.

Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.

The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.

Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr. Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.

And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.

Damien Cave at NYT:

This $1.5 billion golf complex outside the capital, Hanoi, as well as plans for a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City, are the Trump family’s first projects in Vietnam — part of a global moneymaking enterprise that no family of a sitting American president has ever attempted on this scale. And as that blitz makes the Trumps richer, it is distorting how countries interact with the United States.

To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”

And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports.