By Pure Coincidence, Masked Agents Show Up Outside Newsom Event

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is on an ominous course.  Sending masked agents to an opponent's event is an authoritarian move.

 Connor Sheets, Brittny Mejia and Julia Wick at LAT:

As Gov. Gavin Newsom prepared to announce that he would take on President Trump’s redistricting plans on behalf of California, scores of federal immigration agents massed outside the venue Thursday.

Newsom was set to speak at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, when Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading the immigration operations in California, arrived in Little Tokyo, flanked by agents in helmets, camouflage, masks and holding guns.

“We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place since we won’t have politicians that’ll do that, we do that ourselves,” Bovino told a Fox 11 reporter in Little Tokyo. “We’re glad to be here, we’re not going anywhere.”

When the reporter noted that Newsom was nearby, Bovino responded, “I don’t know where he’s at.”

Newsom’s office took to X to share that agents were outside, posting: “BORDER PATROL HAS SHOWED UP AT OUR BIG BEAUTIFUL PRESS CONFERENCE! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED!”

Authoritarian Talk

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is on an ominous course.  

Homan: President Trump doesn’t have a limitation on his authority to make this country safe again. There is no limitation on that pic.twitter.com/fFcWciVEso

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 13, 2025

Trump on DC: “The White House is in charge. The Military and our Great Police will liberate this City, scrape away the filth, and make it safe, clean, habitable and beautiful once more!” pic.twitter.com/BJ5nAWzHcP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2025

REPORTER: Your federalization of the police has a 30 day limit unless Congress acts. Are you talking to Congress about extending it?

TRUMP: If it's a national emergency we can do it without Congress pic.twitter.com/8p0yOUT1cN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2025

Immigration Policy Threatens GOP Gains

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

Shortest political honeymoon ever

— Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) August 5, 2025

Marianna Sotomayor at WP:

Hispanic Republicans in the U.S. House say they are increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign could backfire with Latino voters, as they look for ways to protect some undocumented immigrants from deportation.

These Republicans expressed fear that the inroads Trump and the GOP made with Latino voters in 2024 could erode because of what they see as a haphazard approach to mass deportations, which are starting to disrupt their communities and threaten local businesses. They are growing especially anxious about the push to arrest and deport migrants whose only crime is crossing the border illegally.

“We’re all against criminals and gang members and those with deportation orders. But as this is starting to touch some folks who have known somebody who’s been here 20 years, more and more [people] are starting to see it, and there’s more and more response in the districts,” Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R), who represents a predominantly Hispanic district in South Florida, said in an interview.

The concern from Latino Republicans — along with some of their conservative colleagues — comes as the Trump administration, through White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, has directed immigration officials to make a minimum of 3,000 arrests daily.

And the leakage of Hispanic support could cause the looming Texas gerrymander to backfire.   Pooja Salhotra at NYT:

Texas Republicans are hoping that the surge of Hispanic support for President Trump in 2024, which was especially sharp in South Texas, will last through the 2026 midterm elections. They also hope that voters, Hispanic or not, in districts like the currently Democratic one around Laredo will not be overly angry about the Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade redistricting push, a hardball tactic to retain power in Washington that is being pressed by Mr. Trump.

More than a dozen conversations with voters in South Texas over the weekend showed that neither hope is a sure thing.

“The Republican Party is going to lose a lot of votes around here,” said Ricardo Sandoval, 35, a trucking and warehousing businessman in Laredo who supported Mr. Trump in November.

Mr. Sandoval said he agreed with Mr. Trump’s campaign promises for tax cuts, tariffs on China and an immigration crackdown along the border. But now, he said, he feels he was misled. The roller coaster of on-again-off-again tariffs has depressed cross-border trade and upended his business, pushed prices up and forced him to lay off more than a dozen employees. Mr. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions have been disrespectful to the thousands of Hispanics who supported him, Mr. Sandoval said. And he said the Republicans’ redistricting effort in Texas was an unethical way to try to hold onto power.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” he said.

Recent polling has suggested that misgivings like Mr. Sandoval’s might be spreading among Hispanic voters, especially those who say they are feeling the impact of rising prices for groceries and imported goods, as well as a slowdown in the labor market.

 

Abusing Religion

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  It is abusing religion to achieve its ends.

Trump has literally claimed that God is on his side.

Eileen Sullivan at NYT:

The Trump administration released guidance on Monday reminding federal agencies that religious expression in the workplace is protected by the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act — guidance that protects employees and supervisors seeking to recruit fellow federal workers to their religion.

Such expressions are protected as long as they do not cross into harassment, the guidance says. Wearing religious symbols and staging them in office cubicles is also protected, the guidance says, as are hosting prayer groups in empty offices and posting about religious events on office bulletin boards.

The Clinton White House issued similar guidelines in 1997, though at greater length and with more detailed examples and caveats. The Trump administration did not say whether its guidelines superseded those issued in 1997. Neither set of directives affects the First Amendment to the Constitution or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths,” said Scott Kuper, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, which released the policy, said in a statement.

 On July 7,  David A. Fahrenthold reported at NYT:

The I.R.S. said on Monday that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits.

The agency made that statement in a court filing intended to settle a lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters.

From the Christian Defense Coalition:

In the video, a man’s voice quotes Isaiah 6:8, which says: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’"

(Here is a link to the video)

DHS is implying it is the Lord, and not the government, who is issuing this call to be sent which is deeply troubling and manipulative.

The video takes an even darker turn as it states: “And who will go for us?” signaling the “us” of Isaiah 6:8 is not God but rather the government and the DHS.

Liking the voice and purposes of God to the voice and purposes of the United States government is offensive and must be challenged.

Also offensive is a song playing in the background with the lyrics: “Run on for a long time, Sooner or later God'll cut you down” which focuses on undocumented immigrants who cannot avoid God’s judgment.

Alexei Laushkin, Founder of Kingdom Mission Society, comments:

“We need to let DHS do their critical work free of politics. Using a video on Isaiah 6:8 is very misguided. The twitter account for DHS should be for critical informational tweets that protect our homeland. The DHS account should not be used to make a mockery of faith.

"God calls people to serve in DHS and throughout the government, but that message should be coming from the pulpit not a government ad.

"We want DHS to uphold the rule of law, to uphold due process, and fulfill its mission, not be a substitute for the voice of the Church. Things are best when there is collaboration, not co-opting.”

Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Washington, DC based Christian Defense Coalition, adds:

“The Trump Administration and DHS have manipulated and misused Scripture by releasing this offensive recruitment video. The DHS video is using the Bible verse, Isaiah 6:8, to imply it is the Lord Himself and not the government who is issuing the call to be involved with the DHS.

"As a Christian minister, I take issue with the Word of God being used by the Trump Administration as a marketing and promotional tool to deal with the immigration challenges facing America.

"Likening the voice and purposes of God to the voice and purposes of the United States government is harmful and must be challenged.

"The video takes an even darker turn as it states, 'And who will go for us?' implying the 'us' of Isaiah 6:8 is not God but rather the government and the DHS.

"The Bible should be used to reveal the nature of God, point people to a relationship with Jesus Christ and instruct us in understanding the purposes and will of God. It should never be used as part of a manipulative and misleading recruitment ploy by the DHS.”

For more information please contact
Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741

SOURCE Christian Defense Coalition

CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741

Some Green Shoots for Democrats

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Democrats have problems, but still take hope.

Mike Allen at Axios:

Here's the five-part theory of the case for why Dems are optimistic about 2026, as laid out by more than a dozen of their top campaign staffers:

1. The "big, beautiful bill" is polling terribly.
2. Cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are expected to make the "big, beautiful bill" even more unpopular.
3. Prices are still high despite Trump promising to bring them down. Economic approval had long been one of Trump's consistent political strengths. Now it's not.
4. Trump's deportations are getting blowback after going well beyond violent criminals and gang members. Polls show Republicans losing an advantage on one of their key issues in the 2024 election.
5. Democratic enthusiasm. A recent CNN poll found 72% Democrats and Democratic-aligned voters are extremely motivated to vote in the midterm elections, compared to just 50% of Republicans and Republican-aligned voters.

Washington Post:

How closely are Americans following news about government files from the federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, and what do they think about President Donald Trump’s handling of the issue? The Washington Post texted 1,089 people Monday to ask.

The Post’s poll found that most Americans are paying at least some attention to news about the Epstein files. Americans largely disapprove of how Trump is handling the issue, with most Democrats and independents disapproving and Republicans expressing a mix of approval and uncertainty. Most Americans strongly support releasing all files in the Epstein case and suspect the documents contain embarrassing information about Trump, Democrats and billionaires.

Immigration Politics Is Shifting

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

Lydia Saad at Gallup:

Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.

These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.

With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.

Mike Madrid:

The shift represents a large movement in political opinions driven by two critical developments that anyone paying attention could have seen coming.

The first factor is undeniably the success of border enforcement measures. With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, suggesting that voters’ primary concern about border security has been largely addressed.

The Trump administration’s swift action upon taking office appears to have satisfied many Americans’ desire for border control, creating space for more nuanced views on immigration policy overall. When the immediate crisis perception subsides, voters naturally begin to evaluate the broader implications and methods of immigration policy. This shift from crisis mode to policy evaluation mode has proven pivotal in reshaping public opinion.

But the most telling evidence of Republican overreach lies in the large political shift among Republicans themselves. And this is where things really get squirrelly. About two-thirds of Republicans now say immigrants are “a good thing” for the country, up from 39% last year. This 27-percentage-point swing among the party’s own base is precisely what happens when a political movement goes too far, too fast.

...

Latinos, unsurprisingly, have demonstrated the most pronounced opposition to current policies. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies. This demographic shift has particular electoral significance, as Latino voters continue to represent a growing share of the American electorate.

Direct from the source. ICE and Border Patrol detain people "based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their accent."

Ok. Ethnic profiling. Got it. https://t.co/HXfsCJng0f

— Congressional Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) July 11, 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

The Bill of Particulars Against Trump

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

 J. Michael Luttig at The Atlantic:

As Trump turns the federal government of the United States against Americans and America itself, the bill of particulars against him is already longer than the Declaration of Independence’s bill of particulars against King George III and the British empire.

For not one of his signature initiatives during his first 100 days in office does Trump have the authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States that he claims. Not for the crippling global tariffs he ordered unilaterally; not for his unlawful deportations of hundreds of immigrants to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), El Salvador’s squalid maximum-security prison; not for his deportation of U.S. citizens to Honduras; not for his defiantly corrupt order from the Great Hall of the Department of Justice to weaponize the department against his political enemies; not for his evil executive orders against the nation’s law firms for their representation of his political enemies and clients of whom he personally disapproves; not for his corrupt executive orders against honorable American citizens and former officials of his own administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security chief of staff who dared to criticize Trump anonymously during his first term; not for his unlawful bludgeoning of the nation’s colleges and universities with unconstitutional demands that they surrender their governance and curricula to his wholly owned federal government; not for his threatened revocation of Harvard University’s tax-exempt status; not for his impoundment of billions of dollars of congressionally approved funds or his politically motivated threats to revoke tax exemptions; not for his attempt to alter the rules for federal elections; not for his direct assault on the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship guarantee; not for his mass firings of federal employees; not for his empowerment of Musk and DOGE to ravage the federal government; not for his threats to fire Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell; not for his unconstitutional attacks on press freedoms; and finally, not for his appalling arrest of Judge Dugan.

Leo XIV on Trump and Vance

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

Zach Kessel and Jon Levine at The Washington Free Beacon

Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Robert Prevost, voted in several Republican primaries before being elevated as successor to Pope Francis, election records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

Leo XIV, who previously lived in Chicago, voted in Republican primaries during the 2012, 2014, and 2016 election cycles, according to records from conservative polling firm Pulse Decision Science.

Illinois does not allow voters to register with a political party, so the pope’s voting record does not mean he was a registered Republican. The records do, however, indicate that he only voted in primary elections on the GOP side.

Federal Election Commission and Illinois State Board of Elections databases do not list the newly elected pope as having donated to any political campaigns.

Matt Knee, Pulse Decision Science’s chief data officer, told the Free Beacon the pope’s voting history and public pronouncements lead him to believe Leo XIV is a former Republican.

"The fact that he hasn’t voted in a Republican primary since 2016 and, in fact, didn’t vote in the general in ‘16—and his public statements—if I had to guess, he certainly would fit the profile of a former or Never Trump-type ex-Republican," Knee said.

 Isaac Schorr at Mediaite:

Pope Leo XIV’s social media presence is causing quite the stir.

Shortly after news broke that he had been selected as the new pontiff, observers began scouring over his X account for clues as to his leanings.

It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to decipher them. His last post on the platform was a retweet that read “As Trump & Bukele use Oval to 🤣 Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident (https://bit.ly/3ROMjnP), once an undoc-ed Salvadorean himself, now-DC Aux +Evelio asks, ‘Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?'”

A few posts down, Leo XIV shared articles about Vice President JD Vance’s explanation of ordo amoris, one of which bore the headline “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

 

JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others https://t.co/hDKPKuMXmu via @NCRonline

— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) February 3, 2025

As a result, President Donald Trump’s most faithful fans online are not taking to the new pope especially well. “THIS IS THE NEW POPE!” wrote Laura Loomer, the self-proclaimed “white nationalist” with considerable influence on the president. “His name is Robert Prevost. He’s the first American Pope. He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis. Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to. Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican”

Trump on Abiding by the Constitution: "I Don't Know"

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

Amanda Terkel and Lawrence Hurley at NBC:

In an interview last month with “Meet the Press,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Yes, of course,” when asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process.

Trump, however, isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether he agreed with Rubio. His comments came during a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which aired Sunday.

The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”; it does not say that person must be a U.S. citizen, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights. Trump has also said that while “we always have to obey the laws,” he would like to see some “homegrown criminals” sent to El Salvador as well, a proposal that was widely panned by legal experts.

When Welker tried to point out what the Fifth Amendment said, Trump suggested that such a process would slow him down too much.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said. “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he added.

“But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

Going After Judges

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

Andrew Solender at Axios:

Democratic lawmakers reacted with ferocity — and some Republicans with cheers — to the Friday arrest of Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an undocumented defendant avoid arrest by ICE agents.

Why it matters: To Democrats, the arrest marks a significant escalation in President Trump's efforts to consolidate power and use federal law enforcement to crush legal obstacles to his agenda.

• "It is remarkable that the Administration would dare to start arresting state court judges," said House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). "It's a whole new descent into government chaos."
• "The Trump administration again is breaking norms in how it's dealing with immigration, the legal system, and normalcy. ... This is stuff I expect from Third World countries," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) told Axios.
• Said Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio): "They arrested a judge?! They can no longer claim to be a party of law and order. This will have to be a red line for congressional Republicans. Unbelievable."

Tal Axelrod at Axios::

Behind the scenes: Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have urged patience, insisting to the base that they're hard at work targeting "deep state" provocateurs and other enemies of MAGA. Friday's arrest took some pressure off.

Patel has "been taking a little heat from our base, actually," Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said on Charlie Kirk's podcast. "Kash and Pam both — [Trump faithful] want to know: What are they doing? They need to get started. This just shows you they do a lot of stuff behind closed doors and they can't do it in public, but they're acting fast on it."

"Just because you're not seeing something in the news does not mean that it's not happening," Mike Davis of the Article III Project, and a top Trump ally, added on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast. "There's a lot going on. There's a lot more that's coming. I can assure you … we're firing on all cylinders in the Trump administration."

Aaron Blake at WP:

Attorney General Pam Bondi actually seemed to lean into the idea that this was part of the larger pattern of judicial wrongs that the administration now seeks to right. Her commentary is unlikely to temper fears that the administration is trying to send a message to other judges who would stand in its way.

Appearing on Fox News, Bondi discussed the Wisconsin case and another in which a local New Mexico judge resigned after a man the government has alleged is a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was arrested at his home.

...

 When Fox host John Roberts asked about the perception created by arresting judges — “They’ll say this is a government that is expanding the powers of the Article One of the Constitution, now they’re arresting judges,” he said — Bondi didn’t dispute that.

“No one is above the law, John,” she said. “No one is above the law in this country.”

At another point, fellow host Sandra Smith asked, “So when you see these judges trying to obstruct your efforts to make this country safer, what is your message to them?”

Bondi responded: “We are going to prosecute you, and we are prosecuting you.”

The big question for our democracy and our separation of powers is just how broad is the administration’s definition of obstructing its efforts to make the country safer. Obstruction is a legal term, but also a political one.

At the very least, the administration appears to be content to send a signal to other members of the judiciary to look at what’s happening and think the administration is more than ready for an ugly power struggle.

Another Step Toward Authoritarian Rule

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

 Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein and Hassan Ali Kanu at Politico:

Though Trump has long admired foreign authoritarians, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s repressive regime is in some ways the beta test for Trump 2.0. Bukele calls himself the “world’s coolest dictator.” Trump said he would be a dictator on Day 1. And Trump has floated or deployed many of the same tactics Bukele used to consolidate power: removing judges, intimidating political adversaries, bypassing due process and evading term limits.

Now, Bukele is actively helping Trump sidestep court orders in the United States.

During a White House visit Monday in which the two leaders bantered like old friends, Bukele insisted on one thing: He will not release Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a native Salvadoran who was living in Maryland until the U.S. illegally deported him last month. The upshot of that declaration: It gives Trump cover to maintain that he is powerless to implement a judge’s directive that the U.S. “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s immediate return from a brutal El Salvador prison. The Supreme Court upheld that directive last week.

Lawrence Hurley at NBC:

If an immigrant who the government claims is a gang member can be deported to El Salvador without any due process rights, then why not a U.S. citizen?

That was the nightmarish scenario immigration advocates and constitutional law experts were considering on Monday after President Donald Trump again pushed a provocative plan to deport U.S. citizens who have been convicted of unspecified crimes.

Trump discussed the issue in the White House with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has agreed to deposit people deported from the U.S. into a notorious prison.

“We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump told reporters. “I’d like to include them.”

...

"It is pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional," said Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

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.

Kristi, She-Wolf of the DHS

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

Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark:

Some of the individuals who have been apprehended under the Alien Enemies Act have been rendered to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison. Yesterday, Kristi Noem, America’s secretary of homeland security, toured this facility and then staged a photo-op and interview in front of a cell containing dozens of what we can only assume are prisoners of the supposed “war”1 we are fighting with Tren de Aragua.2

...

The use of prisoners for propaganda purposes is as old as war itself. But there are a few recent examples you may recall. ISIS made extensive use of videos and pictures of imprisonment and execution. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese alternated their approach. Sometimes they used American POWs as props to suggest that all was well in their camps and that prisoners were being treated properly. (They were not.) Other times, they used images of American prisoners as tools to spread fear. They would parade captured American soldiers before mobs and display them at press conferences.

The goal is always the same, though: To use prisoners’ bodies as weapons of political war and to do so against their will.

This is what evil, illiberal regimes do.

Liberal regimes have standards for the treatment of prisoners. These standards are codified under the Geneva Conventions, which the United States has signed and ratified.

Among the standards dictated by the Geneva Conventions is this: Prisoners may not be publicly exploited for purposes of propaganda.3

Another standard of liberal governments is that people who present themselves through legal pathways as refugees fleeing oppression are vetted and provided due process, not disappeared into foreign gulags.

And yet here we are.

A high-ranking American official visits a prison on foreign soil which we are using to warehouse enemies of her regime. She appears in a fitted long-sleeve tee and active-wear slacks. There is a ballcap on her head and a pound of makeup smeared across her plasticized face. A gold Rolex Daytona—worth more than some of these men will make in their entire lives—sits proudly on her dainty wrist. Every piece of this visual is carefully engineered.

She visits the prison armory and shakes her head approvingly while inspecting the rifles. Then she pauses in front of a cage where human beings have been posed to her liking so that she can speak to the cameras in front of a powerful visual. She is sending a message on behalf of her country.

The message is this:

America is no longer a shining city on a hill. It is no longer the leader of the free world. It no longer stands on the side of liberty as a beacon for those who yearn to breathe free.

Opinion on Trump Policies

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

Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Trade: Trump has discussed a new 10 percent tariff on imports from China and a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. There is longstanding concern in public opinion about China’s unfair trade practices as well as sustained support for protecting workers’ jobs and American manufacturing. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in the new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll favored imposing tariffs on China. Fewer, 40 percent, supported new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. In a new AP/NORC poll, only 29 percent favored a tariff on all imports, while 46 percent opposed the idea. Sixty-eight percent in the Wall Street Journal poll said new tariffs would raise prices.

Immigration: Americans want policymakers to get serious about the border and illegal immigration. In the Harvard/Harris poll, 61 percent favored closing the border and reinstating past policies that discouraged illegal immigration (39 percent were opposed). Seventy-one percent favored deporting undocumented or illegal immigrants who have committed crimes (29 percent were opposed). There is majority support in several polls for mass deportations. The new Fox poll, however, provides a more nuanced impression: 30 percent of registered voters wanted to deport all illegal immigrants, 50 percent deport only those with a criminal record (but allow those without a record to remain and eventually qualify for citizenship), and 10 percent allow all illegal immigrants to stay.

NATO: For years, Americans have believed our NATO allies aren’t contributing their fair share to defense costs. Forty-five percent in the Harvard/Harris poll wanted to raise NATO members’ minimum contributions to 5 percent of their GDP, but 55 percent were opposed to this substantial increase which is larger than what the US spends on its own defense. Only 24 percent wanted to withdraw from the alliance.

Energy and Environment Policy: Americans want to tap America’s vast energy potential — but carefully. Forty-seven percent in the Harvard/Harris poll favor undoing Biden’s ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, but 53 percent are opposed. In the AP/NORC poll, the public split more evenly on increased oil drilling on federal lands, with 35 percent in favor, 39 percent opposed, and 25 percent in the middle. In the Wall Street Journal poll, 50 percent favored easing these regulations, but 46 percent were opposed. More than twice as many Americans opposed withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement as favored the action, 52 percent to 21 percent. As the data on NATO and energy show, Americans see value in working with other countries to address problems.

Pardons: In the AP/NORC poll conducted before Trump’s executive order, 60 percent opposed pardoning most people who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, with 21 percent in favor. The Wall Street Journal poll found 57 percent opposed and 38 percent in favor.

Government: Americans have long believed that the government in Washington is wasteful and inefficient. In the Journal’s poll, 53 percent wanted Trump to make changes in how government is run, but 61 percent opposed closing the Department of Education. Sixty-one percent opposed replacing thousands of career civil servants with presidential appointees.

Trump v. Arithmetic

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. Trump completes the comeback with his inauguration today.

He faces big challenges as he becomes president again. These challenges have one thing in common: arithmetic.

Trump has promised “the largest deportation program in American history,” targeting millions of undocumented immigrants. According to the American Immigration Council, it would cost up to $88 billion to deport a million immigrants in a year. And that’s just the direct cost of finding, detaining, and removing them. Americans would have to pay billions more to replace the labor that undocumented immigrants currently perform.

Trump also wants to cut taxes and raise military spending. Together with the cost of mass deportation, these decisions would increase the federal deficit, now nearly two trillion dollars a year. Those deficits would add to the federal debt, which currently stands at an astounding thirty trillion dollars. American taxpayers must pay a trillion dollars a year for interest on this debt.

How will Trump offset his tax cuts and spending increases? He proposes new tariffs, claiming that other countries will pay them. That is false. American importers pay tariffs, and they pass the cost to American consumers. The result will be higher prices. Inflation led to Joe Biden’s defeat and would make Trump unpopular, so do not expect him to follow through with this policy.

Trump has named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a commission to fight wasteful spending. (Ramaswamy, however, will reportedly leave the commission to run for governor of Ohio.) There have been many such commissions over the years, and they have never had much impact on the deficit. Do not expect Musk to fare any better. He has no government experience or any expertise in the federal budget.

Perhaps the best thing for the United States would be for Trump to break his promises on taxes and spending.

MAGA Lite

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

Aaron Zitner and Xavier Martinez at WSJ:

Some 53% want Trump to make significant changes in how government is run once he is inaugurated Monday. But more than 60% oppose one of his central ideas for doing so—replacing thousands of career civil-service workers with people chosen by the president.

More than 60% also oppose eliminating the Education Department, a marquee Trump proposal for paring the federal government. Only 18% would supersede congressional powers and give Trump more authority over federal spending, as he has proposed.

Similarly, the poll finds that, while voters want Trump to build his promised wall along the border with Mexico and address illegal immigration, they also want limits to his plans for sweeping deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Nearly three-quarters say that only those with criminal records should be removed from the country, and 70% would protect longtime residents from removal if they don’t have criminal records. Trump is planning to scrap a policy that focused arrests on serious criminals and discouraged officials from targeting illegal residents who have no criminal record.

Trump Starts the Year with Anti-Immigrant Lies

In Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics, we look at Trump's dishonesty and disregard for the rule of law.  Our next book continues the story through 2024.

 Maggie Haberman at NYT:

On Wednesday morning, hours after a man drove a pickup truck into New Year’s Eve revelers in New Orleans, killing 10 people, President-elect Donald J. Trump falsely suggested on social media that his condemnations of undocumented immigrants had been validated.

“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” Mr. Trump said on his website, Truth Social. “The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” he added falsely. “Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”

Mr. Trump, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, added in his post, “The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”

Some early reports about the attack said the truck was driven across the border from Mexico into the United States. Officials have since identified the suspect as a U.S.-born citizen and Army veteran who lived in Texas, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.

He lied about the crime rate:

 

Trump, Musk, and H1B

Our next book discusses the 2024 election.  Immigration was a top issue.

 Ken Bensinger at NYT:

President-elect Donald J. Trump appeared to weigh in on Saturday on a heated debate among his supporters over the role of skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. economy, saying he had frequently used the visas for those workers and backed the program.

“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” he told The New York Post. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”

But his comments — which were enthusiastically embraced by the technology industry as an endorsement — may muddy the waters because Mr. Trump appears to have only sparingly used the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled workers like software engineers to work in the United States for up to three years and can be extended to six years.

Instead, he has been a frequent and longtime user of the similarly named, but starkly different, H-2B visa program, which is for unskilled workers like gardeners and housekeepers, as well as the H-2A program, which is for agricultural workers. Those visas allow a worker to remain in the country for 10 months. Federal data show Mr. Trump’s companies have received approval to employ over 1,000 workers through the two H-2 programs in the past 20 years.

The Trump transition team did not reply to multiple requests for comment seeking clarity on the type of visas the president-elect was referring to in the interview.

But it did respond to a prior query about Mr. Trump’s position on work visas by sharing the text of a speech he made in 2020 extolling the work of American citizens in building the country, noting that “Americans must never lose sight of this miraculous story.” While campaigning in 2016, Mr. Trump spoke out against the H-1B program, calling it “very bad for workers” and stating that “we should end it.”

Still, the news report on Saturday set off a wave of celebration in the tech industry and among supporters of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has been an outspoken advocate of H-1B visas.

Ian Miles Cheong, a social media influencer with 1.1 million followers on X, posted, “Donald Trump backs Elon Musk on H-1B visas.

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