Trump and Power

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  Just as an authoritarian regime would, it is abusing the legal process to punish opponents.

Trump lost the Iran War, but his spin is revealing. Dave Lawler at Axios:

President Trump denied that the Iran war revealed the limits of his ability to exert power, telling "The Axios Show" he still believes there are "no limits."

The big picture: Trump entered the war demanding "unconditional surrender." He ended it with a limited memorandum of understanding instead.Trump acknowledged to Axios' Marc Caputo that he'd negotiated that deal to keep the war from turning into a global economic depression.

Still, Trump denied he was in any way humbled by that experience. Asked what he'd learned from the war about the limits to his power, he said: "There are no limits."

What he's saying: "I haven't learned that lesson yet. I know there are, but there are no limits," he continued.

Trump claimed that "we defeated them totally militarily," and even that the MOU "probably is unconditional surrender."

He argued the war had actually demonstrated America's military strength. "Who else could have done a blockade like that? I did a naval blockade where not one ship was able to get through. Some tried. It didn't last very long."

Tim Bauk at NYT with takeaways from Regime Change:

In an interview that Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan conducted with Mr. Trump for the book, the president, who had started the war with Iran two weeks earlier, reflected on his power.

The president listed a series of powerful figures from history, drawn from a two-page document that an acquaintance had given him, and then explained why he thought their power paled in comparison to his, since they lacked global reach.

Rattling off names including Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, the president noted, “They didn’t have airplanes,” according to the book.

He continued, reciting more names: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Those leaders, Mr. Trump told the authors, “maintained power through fear.”

“Who would ever do a thing like that?” Mr. Trump asked, according to the book. “Right?”

(The paper was by Gary Player's caddie.)  

Brian Schwartz, Natalie Andrews and  Alexander Ward at WSJ:

President Trump has delivered the same retort to political allies who have offered him strategic advice in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the conversations: “I’m the president and you’re not.”

Seventeen months into his second term, Trump is increasingly relying on his own gut instincts, dismissing the counsel of aides, conservative lawmakers and longtime associates. The result has been a series of decisions that have confounded and frustrated Republicans—heightening fears that voters will punish the GOP in the November elections and testing Trump’s iron grip on the party.

The Politics of the US Surrender

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. 

War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November.  The only question is how much.

Niall Stanage at The Hill:

President Trump tried to make the case for his interim peace deal with Iran on Wednesday, but a lengthy news conference only revealed that no last-minute rabbits would be pulled from the hat to assuage his critics.

Trump’s comments, delivered as he prepared to leave a Group of Seven (G7) summit in France, also exposed just how far the U.S. has shifted from its original war aims as the president avidly seeks to bring the conflict to a close.

An especially startling example came when Trump defended Iran’s right to maintain ballistic missiles — despite the fact that a prior U.S. and Israeli objective had been the destruction of this capacity.

“They have to have some because other people have some. You’ve got to have some,” Trump mused, referring to Iran’s position in relation to other Persian Gulf nations.

The president added that when unnamed advisers told him he needed to wholly eliminate the Iranian conventional arsenal, “I said, ‘Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles but they can’t have them?’”

Trump cast his push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as critical for American prosperity. He raised the specter of “economic catastrophe” in the absence of a deal and said he had no desire to end up analogous to former President Herbert Hoover, who is widely blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression.

On the central issue of Iran’s stock of enriched nuclear material, Trump waved away concerns, saying that while the U.S. has “the equipment to get it” and that it would be “psychologically” satisfying to do so, “it’s actually not valuable. Not a lot of value.”

Trump further confirmed that the interim memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreed between American and Iranian negotiators calls for a fund of $300 billion to be set up to help with the cost of Iranian reconstruction. While this would not be directly bankrolled by the U.S., Washington would be involved in the planning and facilitation of the fund, and it appears its Persian Gulf allies would be expected to contribute.

At roughly the same time as Trump was speaking, a senior administration official was on a media call reading the full text of the MOU to reporters. The agreement is expected to be signed in Switzerland on Friday.

The text confirmed by the official shows that the MOU provides for the reopening of the crucial strait by both sides, allows Iran to immediately resume crude oil exports, and includes a provision for the U.S. to unfreeze Iranian assets so long as the deal is implemented.

In return, Iran pledges that it will not “procure or develop” nuclear weapons. Trump is presenting this as a major victory but it in fact merely echoes a promise Iran has made numerous times in the past — including in the deal arrived at during former President Obama’s tenure, known as the JCPOA, which the current president excoriates.

The MOU does say that Iran’s existing stock of highly enriched uranium will, at the least, be subject to dilution on-site under the eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the relevant paragraph is vague and also notes that a final resolution on “the issue of enrichment” will be punted to a final deal. Skeptics worry this allows Tehran a capacious amount of wiggle room.

Critics on the left and right alike are asking why the war was fought in the first place, if this is to be the shape of its resolution.

The angst is especially sharp among conservative hawks. The staunchly pro-Israel commentator Ben Shapiro called the deal a “disaster” during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday. Another prominent conservative commentator, Erick Erickson, wrote on social media that the accord was “an American surrender.”

It isn’t just the pundit class who are outraged.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who lost a primary fight last month after Trump backed one of his opponents, blasted what he called “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during part of Trump’s first term but went on to run against him in the 2024 presidential primary, wrote on social media that the Iranians will use any funds received to “further their nuclear ambitions and on terrorist proxies against us.”

Haley added, “It’s a huge mistake to pay to rebuild the threat we just destroyed.”

Dana Blanton at Fox:

Voters doubt a peace deal will keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, according to the latest Fox News poll.

Sixty-four percent say it’s unlikely a peace agreement with the U.S. will stop Iran from pursuing nukes, including more than half of Republicans (53%), independents (69%), and Democrats (73%). Today’s views match those in 2015, when the Obama administration made a deal with Iran, as 63% of voters at that time also said it was unlikely an agreement would stop Iran from building a nuclear program.

 

Another Lost War

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. 

War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November.  The only question is how much.

Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic:

President Trump lost. The war he waged against Iran promises to conclude in a humbling whimper with the signing of a cease-fire agreement later this week. The United States is left weaker—diminished militarily, strategically, economically, and perhaps morally.

The war, which the United States fought alongside Israel, accomplished none of the goals that Trump named at the outset. Instead, it only empowered the hard-liners in Tehran and arguably emboldened them to someday seek a nuclear weapon. Despite that, the president was so desperate for the war to end that he repeatedly backed off his threats—allowing Iran to call his bluff—and upbraided his close ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for responding to attacks in the region in a manner that jeopardized the negotiations.

Trump won’t admit to any of this. He has spent recent days furiously spinning the tentative deal as a clear win, and has seethed at unflattering comparisons with the deal that President Obama struck with Iran more than a decade ago, aides and outside advisers told me. Trump, they said, has privately denounced Iran hawks, some of whom are among his closest allies in the Republican Party, for questioning the strength of the agreement. Within the administration, there is a divide on the deal, but Trump sided with those advocating for the war to wind down, no matter the terms, as fears mount about the economic toll on Americans and the political costs for Republicans in the midterms.

Trump’s own anger masks a desperate desire to find an off-ramp from a conflict that did not go the way he had planned, an outcome that has threatened to leave the United States—and Trump—reduced in the eyes of the world. For a decade, Trump has dominated the global stage and wielded extraordinary executive power. But now he is saddled with low poll numbers and unhappy Republicans, and he may soon have to contend with a Democratic Congress. His evolution into a lame duck is accelerating, and the political world is poised to soon look beyond him and focus on the 2028 contenders hoping to succeed him. World leaders, who were once cowed, have begun to defy him. Trump’s defeat in Iran, and the way he lost, may hasten his irrelevance.

Trump DOJ Going After Newsom

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  Just as an authoritarian regime would, it is abusing the legal process to punish opponents.

Melanie Mason and Dustin Gardiner at POLITICO:

Gavin Newsom is seizing on the political upside of his newly elevated place on Donald Trump’s enemies list.

The California governor mounted an aggressive response to revelations that he is facing multiple investigations by the Trump Justice Department — breaking the news in a video that also bluntly acknowledged his likely presidential ambitions, rallying Democratic allies to his side, and sending out a fundraising appeal within hours.

The defiant posture gave Newsom the chance to disclose the probes on his own terms — and bask in being lifted, once again, to the role of president’s chief antagonist.

“Persecution by Trump — or even prosecution by his weaponized Department of Justice — is a badge of honor to Democrats, kind of like the political version of a Purple Heart,” said Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist who’s worked with Newsom on past campaigns. “The idiot has already made a martyr, and national figure, out of Newsom by attacking him and calling him childish names. So, of course this revelation will just add to Newsom’s standing as a 2028 presidential candidate.”

The probes echoed those of California Sen. Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey: Democrats whose feuds with Trump escalated from social media spats to DOJ targets. So far, the retribution campaign has resulted in embarrassing setbacks for the administration instead of successful prosecutions — and has lifted those in Trump’s crosshairs to folk hero status among the Democratic base.

Newsom’s team is hoping he will enjoy a similar boost. Already, the governor’s pugnacious posture toward Trump during last year’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and his prescient foray into the redistricting wars sent his approval numbers soaring and landed him among the top contenders in early 2028 polls.

Going After Habeas Corpus

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at NYT:

Last spring, Will Scharf, an arch-conservative lawyer serving as the White House staff secretary, wrote a secret memo to the chief of staff that reflected growing unease in the West Wing about one of the extreme measures being weighed by Stephen Miller, the powerful adviser driving President Trump’s deportation campaign.

Dated April 29, 2025, and stamped “confidential,” the memo was careful and lawyerly but amounted to a warning against end-running the rule of law. The subject line read: “THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.”

Habeas corpus — the centuries-old right to force the government to justify, before a judge, why it has locked a person up — is enshrined in Article I of the Constitution. Mr. Scharf’s memo, in its unassuming way, was a blinking red warning light. The second Trump White House was deliberating an explosive new claim of presidential power: the suspension of habeas rights for unauthorized immigrants.

The suspension of habeas corpus has occurred just a handful of times in U.S. history, and always under the most dire circumstances of war or invasion. Yet to a greater degree than previously known, administration officials, encouraged by Mr. Trump, actively weighed taking that step in the early months of his second term — this time to accelerate the mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.

...

Suspending habeas corpus was one of two radical ideas Mr. Miller had been pushing that alarmed Mr. Scharf. The other was invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to enforce the law on American streets as protests grew against deportation sweeps.

...
But the documents reflected alarm among a small group of senior aides. They felt that Mr. Miller’s eagerness to test the limits of executive power — and to accuse other branches of encroaching on it, echoing a president who bristled at any constraint — risked steering the administration, and the country, in a dangerous direction.

...

“The Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Mr. Miller said. “So it’s an option we are actively looking at.”

Mr. Miller was intentional about his choice of words. The president had been trying to recast the immigration surge across the southern border during the Biden years as an invasion by enemy forces — a highly dubious claim intended to unlock extraordinary powers, intended only for wartime, to repel the migrants. Mr. Miller kept using the word “invasion” even after border crossings had fallen to multidecade lows.

“Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Mr. Miller added to the reporters, a not-so-subtle warning to federal judges to give the president the leeway he was seeking.

After weeks of uproar, and disagreement between government officials on whether it could be done, the proposal eventually faded from view. Asked about it later, Mr. Trump appeared to acknowledge discussing suspending habeas corpus, but downplayed that the discussions were serious, and suggested it was not worth doing so just then.

The Nodfather, Age 80

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments.  In 2024, Trump was already showing signs of cognitive decline. It's getting worse.

 Annie Linskey at WSJ:

President Trump closed his eyes and appeared to nod off while seated in a suite this week at an NBA Finals game in New York City as cameras caught him snacking on french fries and pizza. He returned to the White House after 2 a.m.

By 10 a.m. the next day, he offered a lengthy critique of a recently published Wall Street Journal editorial to a reporter who called him on his cellphone, and said the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz “wasn’t a big deal.” Hours later, he ordered strikes on Iran in retaliation for the incident.

As Trump approaches his 80th birthday on Sunday, he and his advisers have made a strategic decision to turn the president into an omnipresent figure in American life, drawing a contrast with his octogenarian predecessor, Joe Biden. Trump makes regular marathon appearances in the Oval Office, he answers reporters’ cold calls and he tees off on social media at all hours of the day and night.

fThe result is that Americans are seeing more of both the good and the bad of an aging president.

In question-and-answer sessions that sometimes last more than 30 minutes, the president spars with reporters, delivering one-liners that ripple across cable news and the internet.

But cameras often zoom in on his bruised hands, stooped posture and closed eyes. And he sometimes trips over his words and confuses details. He has referred to Greenland as Iceland. He has called the Strait of Hormuz the Strait of Iran. And he has mixed up recent conflicts in South America and the Middle East.

Schumer Redux

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

Jordain Carney at POLITICO:

Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party
moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.


But he ticked through moves he oversaw in the past year — from leading opposition to GOP safety-net cuts to picking shutdown fights over health care and immigration enforcement funding and orchestrating national intervention in several Senate primaries — that he argued have strengthened Democrats’ hand for the midterms and beyond.

“We made a lot of strategic decisions that got us to this place — it didn’t happen by accident,” Schumer said. “I knew from the beginning that if we recruited strong candidates, found paths to victory, focused on the issues the American people cared about, and forced … the Republicans, to carry Trump’s water, we’d be in much better shape, and that has happened.”