Trump v. Free Elections

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

Erica L. Green at NYT:

The Trump administration has forced out the three remaining members of an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections, the White House confirmed on Thursday. The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted.

Mr. Trump terminated, effective immediately, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, two members selected by congressional Democrats to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, and accepted the resignation of a Republican member, Christy McCormick.

The board has no other remaining members, as its fourth commissioner resigned this spring.

An unidentified White House official issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump reserved the right to remove individuals who “may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.” The White House official cast the dismissals as part of the federal government’s strategy to work across agencies to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse.

The official pointed to the recent decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump had the authority to fire most independent regulators for any reason, ushering in a vast expansion of presidential power. Mr. Trump had hailed the decision as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.”

Mr. Trump has been laying the groundwork for months to claim that Republicans would face a tough midterm election, not because of the broadly unpopular war in Iran and plummeting approval ratings on the economy, but because the country’s election system is fraudulent.

...

Last year, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that calls on the Election Assistance Commission to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day. A judge permanently blocked the order, saying the president exceeded his authority.

Michael Waldman, the president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, in a statement called the terminations “deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”

Feds Losing Legal Talent

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. 

Eileen Sullivan and Andrea Fuller at NYT:

President Trump’s upheaval of the federal government has led to an exodus of more than 10,000 lawyers since the beginning of 2025, a striking loss of legal talent that has left some agencies pushing to find attorneys to carry out his agenda.

Roughly one in five lawyers who worked in the government at the end of 2024 had left by March of this year, according to a New York Times analysis of federal employment data.

Along with the usual retirements and turnover in the federal work force, the last year saw deep staffing cuts and the resignations of some staff members who objected to Mr. Trump’s policies. Their departures show how rapidly the president has eroded the image of the federal government as the gold standard for lawyers seeking public service roles.

Instead, many of those looking for such work are flocking to the offices of Democratic state attorneys general and nonprofits that are challenging administration policies in the courts, boosting Mr. Trump’s opponents with seasoned lawyers.

ICE Barbie

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.The DHS killing of a disarmed man is among the worst.

Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have done significant harm to DHS. Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey, and Tarini Parti at WSJ:

Throughout her tenure as secretary of Homeland Security, a sprawling agency charged with carrying out Trump’s central campaign promise of a mass deportation, Noem has attempted to burnish her personal stardom at every turn. With Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, at her side, she has staged a headline grabbing immigration crackdown while sidelining rivals and dissenters.

She’s carried out confrontational operations over the objections of longtime immigration officials who warned such flashy displays would discredit the department’s ultimate mission, according to two dozen current and former administration officials. Instead, she’s made the case that her approach would lead to more arrests as well as induce more people to leave on their own.

She has donned flak jackets on ICE raids, posed toting a large gun and recorded messages urging immigrants to self-deport. In one, she stood before a group of imprisoned men with shaved heads packed into tight rows in a notorious El Salvadoran prison. And she has done it all with an eye to her style, with TV-ready hair and makeup.

Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior level staff, give polygraph tests to employees they don’t trust and have fired employees—in one incident, Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to people familiar with the incident.

Simmering criticism over the past year for Noem’s policies and publicity moves exploded in Minneapolis, jeopardizing her grip over DHS and putting her standing with Trump on thin ice. Though some in Trump’s inner circle have tried to persuade the president to fire Noem and Lewandowski, according to administration officials, he has so far resisted, saying publicly he has no plans to dismiss her. Lawmakers from both parties have been critical, and Democrats in Congress are demanding changes to the department’s enforcement methods, threatening to withhold DHS funding.

Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more:

The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 MAX jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country, according to people familiar with the matter. DHS is leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million. DHS has previously used other planes through the Coast Guard or other agencies for the secretary’s use.

 

Ungoverning

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

Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum at Foreign Affairs:

He is pursuing “ungoverning”: the comprehensive and intentional destruction of state capacity. As we described in Foreign Affairs in late January, ungoverning is rare in the history of politics. Authoritarians generally want to take over a state so they can use it, not so they can destroy it. They need loyalty and select for it, but they also need competence. Trump, by contrast, shreds regular procedures, shrugs off the expertise needed to bring policies to life, and promotes administrative incompetence in order to eliminate any authority other than himself. None of his decisions are about slashing bureaucratic red tape or privatizing parts of the state. Instead, he issues capricious commands and negotiates deals that serve his whims. From his first days back in the White House, Trump made it clear that he will reward anyone who breaks the law in support of him. It is why he pardoned all the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists, declaring later that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

...

Prizing incompetence over expertise also explains the sweeping powers Trump gave to the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE was not about cutting $2 trillion from the deficit, as Musk originally promised, or $1 trillion, as he later pledged, or even $150 billion, the amount he finally settled on. Instead, DOGE was the sharp end of a battering ram directed at the so-called deep state, which includes both essential operations, such as tax collection, and apolitical employees, such as the National Weather Service scientists who gather weather data. Its purpose was to hollow out the administration.

The Unqualified Dr. Antoni

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is on an ominous course.  Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he did not like a jobs report.

Trump is nominating right-wing economist Erwin John “E.J.” Antoni to head the Bureau.

Paul Kiernan at WSJ:

According to a commencement program from Northern Illinois University, Antoni earned a master’s and Ph.D. in economics from that school in 2018 and 2020, respectively, and a bachelor of arts degree from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Antoni’s LinkedIn profile says he attended Lansdale Catholic High School outside Philadelphia from 2002 to 2006.

According to the profile, Antoni went to work in 2021 as an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin that has sued the federal government to overturn climate-change regulations. The following year, he joined the conservative Heritage Foundation as a research fellow studying regional economics. He is now the foundation’s chief economist and an adviser to the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a group of conservative economic commentators.

Past BLS commissioners have had extensive research experience, and many have climbed the ranks of the agency itself. Antoni doesn’t fit that profile. He doesn’t appear to have published any formal academic research since his dissertation, according to queries of National Bureau of Economic Research working papers and Google Scholar. Much of his commentary on the Heritage website praises Trump’s policies and economic record. He frequently posts on X and appears on conservative podcasts such as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” where he criticized the economy under President Joe Biden and lauds Trump’s economy.

...

According to Google Scholar, Antoni’s paper has earned one citation, by the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2021, while he worked there. Publications by Erika McEntarfer—the BLS commissioner who was ousted by Trump on Aug. 1, midway through her term, after a weak jobs report—have been cited 1,327 times.

Trump fired McEntarfer after a report showing significant downward revisions to prior months’ job growth. Trump supporters have since seized upon the agency’s tendency to revise some of its numbers, as well as other issues they see with the data.

Ben CasselmanAlan Rappeport and Lydia DePillis at NYT:

Economists said they found Dr. Antoni’s history of distorting economic statistics to support partisan positions more concerning.

They cited numerous examples of Dr. Antoni’s appearing to misunderstand the same government data that he will now, if confirmed, be in charge of. In one case, he cited the rising number of Americans who aren’t in the labor force, without acknowledging the role of the aging population; in another, he appeared not to know that the bureau’s measure of import prices did not include the effect of tariffs.

“He has either shown a complete misunderstanding of economic data and principles, or he’s showing a willingness to treat his audience with contempt and mislead them,” said Kyle Pomerleau, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

And apparently, he was a J6er:

 

Trump’s new pick for Bureau of Labor Statistics claims to have been a “bystander” on J6 who just wandered over because he heard about it on the news.

That is a flat out lie. This is all the way up front. Tens of thousands are behind him.https://t.co/B5jDQlGmQt pic.twitter.com/6JX2omRktV

— Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🏴‍☠️🇺🇸 (@jimstewartson) August 14, 2025

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.

Malevolence Compounded by Incomptence: Oveview

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

MAGA people (e.g., Hegseth) have replaced the normals (e.g., Mattis) that populated the first Trump administration. Luke Broadwater at NYT:

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive military information in not one, but two Signal group chats. The I.R.S. has had three different leaders in the span of a single week. A Salvadoran man living in Maryland was deported because of an “administrative error.” And, in yet another misstep, administration officials kicked off a war of threats with Harvard University by sending a letter to the school prematurely, two people familiar with the matter said.

...

The administration’s tariff policy has whipsawed back and forth so rapidly that businesses planning their futures can barely keep up.

Also this month, the president fired more than a half-dozen national security officials on the advice of the far-right agitator Laura Loomer, who was granted access to the Oval Office and ticked through a list of officials she deemed disloyal.

In general, however, the president has been reluctant to fire those close to him in part because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving a victory to the news media.

...

Also this month, the president fired more than a half-dozen national security officials on the advice of the far-right agitator Laura Loomer, who was granted access to the Oval Office and ticked through a list of officials she deemed disloyal.

In general, however, the president has been reluctant to fire those close to him in part because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving a victory to the news media.

Malevolence Compounded by Incompetence, Pentagon Edition

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.

Daniel Lippman and Jack Detsch at Politico:

Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.

Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

The latest incidents add to the Pentagon’s broader upheaval in recent months, including fallout from Hegseth’s release of sensitive information in a Signal chat with other national security leaders and a controversial department visit by Elon Musk.

Caldwell, Carroll, Selnick and Kasper declined to comment. Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination. The Pentagon did not respond to a request of comment.

Joint statement from Colin Carroll, Darin Selnick, and Dan Caldwell:

All three had their employment terminated by the Pentagon on Friday. Prior to that, they were placed on administrative leave.

The three were the target of an investigation into unauthorized leaks.

Colin… pic.twitter.com/6cti6UFtMk

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) April 19, 2025

Malevolence Compounded by Incompetence

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

Malevolence --  Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Meryl Kornfield at WP:

Two days after the Social Security Administration purposely and falsely labeled 6,100 living immigrants as dead, security guards arrived at the office of a well-regarded senior executive in the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters.

Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, had pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages and, officials hoped, spurring them to leave the country. In particular, Pearre had clashed with Scott Coulter, the new chief information officer installed by Elon Musk. Pearre told Coulter that the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead, according to three people familiar with the events.

But his objections did not go over well with Trump political appointees. And so on Thursday, the security guards in Pearre’s office told him it was time to leave.

...

Employees’ fear was partly that a bad actor who gained access to government credentials could label groups of living individuals as dead to target them for punishment, according to the person and the records. Some of those raising the alarm worried specifically that the Trump administration might try to use the database to go after people the president dislikes, the person said.

Incompetence -- Naftali Bendavid at WP:

President Donald Trump regained the White House in large part by trumpeting his ability to get things done, accusing his opponents of ineptitude and senility and promising that on Day 1 he would restore basic competence to government.

And, he said, it wouldn’t even be hard.

But 2½ months in, agencies such as the Social Security Administration have struggled to provide basic services. Trump’s team issues edicts, then reverses them. A leaked Signal chat suggests top security officials were unfamiliar with the basics of protecting military secrets.

Crucial government workers have been fired, then rehired. A much-ballyhooed immigration detention center at Guantánamo Bay has faced logistical problems. Trump’s team told laid-off workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to contact a particular individual if they felt they were being discriminated against; she turned out to be dead.

These and other missteps are now being compounded in dramatic fashion by a roiling stock market and bond sell-off prompted by Trump’s tariff policies, raising fears of a collapsing economy. Trump’s formula for calculating the tariffs has been widely panned by economists. And on Wednesday, he paused many of the levies just hours after they took effect, even while leaving a 10 percent blanket tariff in place and further hiking duties on imports from China.

On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported a glitch in the system that is used to exempt some freight from tariffs, CNBC reported, adding to the confusion over the chain of abrupt policy shifts.

Americans have long harshly judged leaders who seem, fairly or unfairly, to lack competence, whether it was President Joe Biden’s troubled withdrawal from Afghanistan, President George W. Bush’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina or President Barack Obama’s introduction of a vaunted health-care website that immediately crashed.

Screwups: DOGE Hurts Veterans and the Elderly

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

Lindsay Ellis at WSJ:

Managers say essential staff have been cut, and that the administration hasn’t followed detailed rules on how to enact widespread layoffs. Government agencies have granted voluntary buyouts to tens of thousands of people, fired probationary workers—a term for those who were hired or promoted in the past year or two—and are planning for deep reductions in the next few months. So far, many cuts haven’t taken into account workers’ performance or the necessity of their roles.

...

In interviews, more than 60 current and former federal workers said the wide slashing has worsened services Americans receive and hindered remaining staff working on areas like improving healthcare and lowering energy bills. It also has discouraged top talent from working for the federal government.

...

In many parts of the country, the Trump administration’s job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect.

Chief among them is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which plans to cut about 70,000 positions and has already laid off thousands. The agency employs about 470,000 people.

Fewer VA staff are handling veterans’ claims that will get them treatment for military-service injuries and mental health conditions, two current employees said. This has already resulted in veterans waiting longer to get treatment in North Texas, one said.

 Tara Siegel Bernard at NYT:

The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets.

But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff.

Many current and former Social Security officials fear the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income.

The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarm bells, saying it would be difficult to repair the damage, which could threaten access to benefits.

1. EXCLUSIVE

An internal Social Security Administration memo, dated March 13, lays out a plan to sabotage the agency.

The memo itself predicts "service disruption," "operational strain," and "budget shortfalls" will result.

Follow this thread for details. pic.twitter.com/nlf71ATp9z

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 17, 2025

Amateur Hour 2025

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

Jonathan Swan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

The explosive Trump administration order that froze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans this week was published without vetting by key officials in the White House, according to three people with knowledge of what happened.

The order was drafted inside the Office of Management and Budget by the agency’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta, two of the people said. And it was released without being shown to the White House staff secretary, Will Scharf, or to Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.

The White House rescinded the directive on Wednesday after legal challenges and widespread condemnation and confusion, including the interruption of the Medicaid system, which provides health care to millions of low-income Americans. President Trump was angered by the media coverage of the order and its aftershocks, according to a person who spoke to him.

During a bill signing at the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Trump cast blame on the media for the confusion. “We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” he said.

Absolutely bush league and childish.

It’s like listening to a child figure out what happened.

Let grown adults work it out first Mr. President then you can send your opinion https://t.co/JwqEot9DW7

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) January 30, 2025

Trump and the Bureaucracy

Our next book is titled The Comeback: the 2024 Elections and American Politics.

With Vance casting the tiebreaker, the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SECDEF.  McConnell voted no.

“Stewardship of the United States Armed Forces, and of the complex bureaucracy that exists to support them, is a massive and solemn responsibility. At the gravest moments, under the weight of this public trust, even the most capable and well-qualified leaders to set foot in the Pentagon have done so with great humility – from George Marshall harnessing American enterprise and Atlantic allies for the Cold War, to Caspar Weinberger orchestrating the Reagan build-up, to Bob Gates earning the wartime trust of two Commanders-in-Chief, of both parties.

“Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough to fill these shoes. And ‘dust on boots’ fails even to distinguish this nominee from multiple predecessors of the last decade. Nor is it a precondition for success. Secretaries with distinguished combat experience and time in the trenches have failed at the job.

“Effective management of nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion, and alliances and partnerships around the world is a daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests.

“Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test. But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been.

David Nakamura,  Lisa Rein and Matt Viser at WP:

The White House late Friday fired the independent inspectors general of at least 12 major federal agencies in a purge that could clear the way for President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.

The inspectors general were notified by emails from the White House personnel director that they had been terminated immediately, according to people familiar with the actions, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private messages.

The dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general.

 Lisa FriedmanHiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport at NYT:

President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections.

Lee Zeldin, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the E.P.A., has little experience with environmental policy. He will be expected to hit the ground running, though, to fulfill Mr. Trump’s fire hose of orders directing the agency to cut regulations.

Mr. Zeldin already has marshaled more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers. The quick appointments are in contrast to Mr. Trump’s first term, when many Republicans hesitated to join the administration and internal squabbling delayed the selection of the deputy administrator as well as the chief air pollution regulator for nearly a year.

The top appointees, who have already moved into their offices, include David Fotouhi, Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Alex Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist who will work on automobile emissions; and Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.

Trump to Pentagon: Drop Dead

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book is about the 2024 election. The consequences of that election are coming into view.

Vivian Salama, Nancy A. Youssef and Lara Seligman at WSJ:

The Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership.

If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire “woke generals,” referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.

As commander in chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intends to purge a number of generals and admirals.

James Bickerton at Newsweek:

Donald Trump's appointment of Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator, and former National Guard officer, as his secretary of defense has sparked controversy within military circles, with one commentator describing him as "the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history."

Hegseth's selection was announced by Trump in a social media post on Tuesday evening. The president-elect said: "Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First."

During his first term, Trump had an often tempestuous relationship with the two defense secretaries he appointed, Jim Mattis and Mark Esper, both of whom became highly critical of their former boss after leaving office. Speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan in October, Trump said his biggest mistake in the White House had been appointing "bad people," including "neocons," to serve under him.

...

Reacting to Hegseth's appointment on X, formerly Twitter, Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Association, commented: "I first met Hegseth when he started running Vets for Freedom around 2007. He is a highly effective and ferocious media, culture and political warrior for MAGA. And beyond loyal to and trusted by Trump.

"I figured Trump would pick probably pick him for Chief of Staff or Press Secretary. But this... "Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history. And the most overtly political. Brace yourself, America."

In a statement Paul Eaton, chairman of VoteVets, a group which aims to support veterans and fight "for progressive values," said: "Pete Hegseth is wholly unqualified to head the Department of Defense and hold the lives of our troops in his hands. Period. Nothing more needs to be said."

According to Politico, when asked for their reaction to Hegseth's appointment, one defense industry lobbyist commented: "who the f*** is this guy?" adding they'd been hoping for "someone who actually has an extensive background in defense."

 

 

Post-Election 2024: What's a President-Elect to Do?

The General Services Administration Runs the Transition:

• GSA continues to provide office space and support services to the President-elect and Vice President-elect, with support continuing up to 60 days after inauguration
• A classified summary regarding national security is given to the president-elect as soon as possible after the election
• Training and orientation activities commence for prospective presidential appointees (typically funded by Congress for the fiscal year in which the transition falls)
• 30 days before the expiration of the term, GSA begins support to outgoing president and vice president, with support continuing for seven months total.

Personnel:

• The Plum Book
• RFK
• Project 2025 database
• "You won't work in this town again."
• Schedule F

Policy: Unilateral Power

• Tariffs
• Deportation
• Pardons
• Prosecutions
• Ukraine
• NATO

Policy: Congressional Action

Trump DOJ

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

 Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

Eight years ago, Benjamin Wittes wrote:

The soft spot, the least tyrant-proof part of the government, is the U.S. Department of Justice and the larger law enforcement and regulatory apparatus of the United States government. The first reason you should fear a Donald Trump presidency is what he would do to the ordinary enforcement functions of the federal government, not the most extraordinary ones.

Alex Leary and  Sadie Gurman at WSJ:

...Trump has repeatedly signaled he could seek retribution against his perceived enemies. This has alarmed many Americans, including some former supporters who think Trump during a second term would be savvier and more determined to bend the institution to his whims. Trump has said winning in November would be his form of retribution.

Trump and his allies have been considering candidates for attorney general who share his expansive view of presidential authority and would be more willing to do the White House’s bidding. President Biden and other presidents before him have sought to portray the Justice Department as independent of politics, taking pains to avoid even the appearance of seeking favor with the nation’s top cop.

Trump wants a loyalist, people familiar with his thinking said, and he has openly expressed regret over his choices in his first term, Jeff Sessions and William Barr. Sessions stepped aside from the department’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, angering the president, and Barr refused to pursue Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in 2020.

Among those under consideration to lead the department in a second Trump term are John Ratcliffe, who served under Trump as director of national intelligence; Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a former state attorney general; and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, according to people familiar with discussions. These talks have included informal musings by Trump, who has mentioned Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

...

Moves Trump has suggested include giving political appointees at the Justice Department greater oversight of the FBI, including its traditionally independent director, shrinking the size and power of its Washington headquarters and affording more resources instead to agents in the field. Some allies have suggested reviewing all of the FBI’s investigations and terminating those they find objectionable.

People familiar with Trump’s policy goals said he would give priority to religious rights over LGBTQ protections and that he would go after what they see as a left-wing ideology that drowns out other voices on college campuses.

Post-Constitutional

 Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.     

At WP, Beth Reinhard, profiles Trump OMB director Russ Vought, who is making plans to concentrate power in the executive.

“We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution.”

Vought aims to harness what he calls the “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration. The proposals championed by Vought and other Trump allies to fundamentally reset the balance of power would represent a historic shift — one they see as a needed corrective.

Trump spokespeople claim deniability.

But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”

.And when the last law was down...

“Our need is not just to win congressional majorities that blame the other side or fill seats on court benches to meddle at the margins,” he wrote in the 2022 essay. “It is to cast ourselves as dissidents of the current regime and to put on our shoulders the full weight of envisioning, articulating, and defending what a Radical Constitutionalism requires in the late hour that our country finds itself in, and then to do it.”

In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it.

“We showed that millions of illegal aliens coming across, and Mexican cartels holding operational control of the border, constitute an invasion,” Vought wrote. “This is where we need to be radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to return to the original Constitution.”

Protection Money

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Thomas Edsall at NYT:

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor at Princeton of sociology and international affairs, summed up in an email the Trump-driven changes in the politics of raising money: “Most business leaders unfamiliar with autocratic government believe that when they support someone running for office, that person will owe them something if elected, tax cuts, deregulation, whatever the business leaders want.”

But, Scheppele continued, “autocrats turn the tables. Once elected, autocrats use the power of the state to squeeze business.

In these circumstances, she added, political leaders “can threaten businesses with tax audits, more regulation, even criminal charges, unless they give in to the autocrats’ demands.”

Project 2025, Scheppele wrote,

is a blueprint for autocracy. In fact, it’s a direct copy of the plan that Viktor Orban used to take over the Hungarian government in 2010. If it is carried out, Project 2025 will concentrate huge power in the hands of the president, giving him the power to control the whole federal government at his whim. If business leaders think that this will benefit them and that giving up the rule of law is good for business, they will quickly learn that they are wrong. But it will be too late.

...

Perhaps most important, Project 2025 asserts that “President Trump’s Schedule F proposal regarding accountability in hiring must be reinstituted.”

Schedule F, which Trump sought to initiate by executive order in 2020, would turn the top 50,000 or so civil servants, who are currently protected from arbitrary firing or demotion, into political appointees under the control of his administration. Trump lost the White House before Schedule F could be applied, and Biden withdrew the executive order creating it.

For corporate America, application of Schedule F would radically escalate uncertainty. Federal officials making decisions ranging from penalties for failed occupational safety violations to initiation of antitrust proceedings, from I.R.S. rulings to the application of sanitary regulations in nursing homes would presumably have to prioritize loyalty to Trump to keep their jobs.

Trump Structure

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended. At Axios, Mike Allen:

1. Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the top two officials at the Palm Beach-based campaign, run a tight, lean ship.Wiles is a former top political adviser to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who left on bitter terms. LaCivita is a former Marine with decades of brass-knuckle campaign experience. Along with well-connected Trump senior adviser Brian Jack, they put in place a methodical process for Republicans to seek Trump's endorsement for congressional and statewide offices. This machine gave Trump leverage with rising stars throughout the party, along with extensive data about their home-state political operations.
Trump campaign staffers get along, stay in their lanes and don't leak like sieves — all dramatic changes from his past operations.

2. The Trump team has methodically wired obscure state Republican delegate rules to his advantage. Operatives worked state by state over the past three years to be sure he benefited from mechanics such as winner-take-all rules."This team is lean, efficient, experienced, eye on the prize — none of the backstabbing and gossip and drama," ...
Here again, Trump was greatly limited by disorganization and bureaucratic naïveté when he was in the White House. The Heritage Foundation and other groups are spending millions to make sure that doesn't happen again if he wins.

3. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump built extensive ground operations that helped cement him as a formidable front-runner in both states almost a year before voting began.

4. The establishment opposition melted and proved much more amenable to his ways and plans.The shackles imposed on Trump in Term 1 are gone, especially in Congress.

5. Trump, who had flown solo his entire political life, allowed his allies to embrace the Heritage Foundation and other outside groups that are building talent banks and policy blueprints to help him swiftly staff the government to control and shrink what Trumpers call "the deep state."Heritage president Kevin Roberts recently told The New York Times that he sees the think tank's role as "institutionalizing Trumpism."

6. Maybe the biggest shocker: Trump took indictments on 91 felonies in four criminal cases — a death knell for any other candidate — and turned them into a net positive. Even many traditional Republicans see the prosecutions as piling on.

 Lulu Garcia-Navarro at NYT:

Since taking over the Heritage Foundation in 2021, Kevin D. Roberts has been making his mark on an institution that came to prominence during the Reagan years and has long been seen as an incubator of conservative policy and thought. Roberts, who was not well known outside policy circles when he took over, has pushed the think tank away from its hawkish roots by arguing against funding the war in Ukraine, a turnabout that prompted some of Heritage’s policy analysts to leave. Now he’s looking ahead, to the 2024 election and beyond. Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as “institutionalizing Trumpism.” This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that “the Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”

"Now, Putin and Russia deserve the blame. I’ve been very clear about that. Having said that, it was our saber-rattling about Ukraine entering NATO that is one of the many factors that led to this. "

...

One priority for both your organization and the Republican Party writ large is reducing the size of the federal work force. What do you envision when you say, as you have said, you want to destroy the administrative state?

I envision the destruction that I’m referring to, which I presume is the real focus of your question, as a political entity being significantly weakened. People will lose their jobs. Hopefully their lives are able to flourish in spite of that. Buildings will be shut down. Hopefully they can be repurposed for private industry. But the administrative state — most importantly, what we’re trying to destroy is the political influence it has over individual American sovereignty, and the only way to do that, or one of the ways to do that, is to diminish the number of unelected bureaucrats who are wielding that power instead of Congress.

... 

In a recent podcast episode, you were speaking with Jesse Kelly, the right-wing radio host, and the episode was about, and I’m quoting here, “the secret Communist movement inside America.” And you were not talking about Chinese government infiltration. You said about those employed in the U.S. government, “These men and women, these Communists, really, are in positions where they’re dictating with the power, the authority of law, what other Americans do.” You use the word “Communist” a lot to describe those you might disagree with politically inside this country.

Well, at least a few of them must be Communists. I think there are far more Chinese Communists who’ve infiltrated our government than American Communists, but at the very least, they’re socialists. So if I were to revise that, I would say they were socialists, not Communists.

Trump: What He Says and Whom He Appoints

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.  Trump is already planning on returning to the White House, appointing obedient officials and taking revenge on those who have opposed him.

Just a huge difference w Ds in 2020, who got peppered with questions about specific interest group asks. Trump's deal: Stop asking for unpopular stuff, just let me win and appoint your people.

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) January 5, 2024

Dictator

 Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

David Jackson at USA Today:

Donald Trump mocked questions about authoritarianism on Tuesday, saying he would be a dictator only on "day one," and then he's going to close the border and get to drilling.

"After that, I'm not a dictator, OK?" the Republican presidential frontrunner told Fox News host Sean Hannity before a very friendly crowd in Davenport, Iowa.

Trump declined to discuss his pledges of "retribution" against political opponents, including threats to investigate President Joe Biden and others who have criticized him.

Biden and other opponents, including some Republicans, describe Trump as a grave threat to democracy, and this will likely be a huge issue in the 2024 election.

Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage at NYT:

A confidant of Donald J. Trump who is likely to serve in a senior national security role in any new Trump administration threatened on Tuesday to target journalists for prosecution if the former president regains the White House.

The confidant, Kash Patel, who served as Mr. Trump’s counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council and also as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, made the remarks on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former strategist, during a discussion about a potential second Trump presidency beginning in 2025.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Mr. Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” He added: “We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”

Earlier in the interview, when asked by Mr. Bannon whether a new administration would “deliver the goods” to “get rolling on prosecutions” early in a second term, Mr. Patel noted that the Trump team had a “bench” of “all-America patriots,” but he said he did not want to name any names “so the radical left-wing media can terrorize them.”

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

 If reelected, Trump would attempt to gain authoritarian control of the Defense Department’s uppermost levels from the very beginning. There are more Anthony Tatas and Douglas Macgregors out there, and Trump’s allies are likely already seeking to identify them. If the Senate refused to confirm Trump’s appointees, it wouldn’t matter much: Trump has learned that he can keep rotating people through acting positions, daring the Senate to stop him.

The career civil servants underneath these appointees—who work on everything from recruiting to nuclear planning—would disobey Trump if he attacked the constitutional order. These civilians, by law, cannot be fired at will, a problem Trump tried to remedy in the last months of his administration by proposing a new category of government appointments (Schedule F) that would have converted some of the most important civil-service positions into political appointments directly controlled by the White House. President Joe Biden immediately repealed this move after taking office, but Trump has vowed to reinstate it.

In his two-pronged offensive to capture the military establishment while eviscerating the civil service, Trump would likely rely on former officers such as Miller and fringe-dwelling civilians such as Patel, but he would also almost certainly find at least a few serving senior officers—he would not need many—who would accept his offer to abandon their oath. Together, they would make a run at changing the nature of the armed forces.