A thousand miles from the austere buildings where Washington runs, Donald Trump’s transition team in his Mar-a-Lago resort has begun what a close ally calls a hostile takeover of the federal government.
Since his victory, Trump has ignored many of the rules and practices intended to guide a seamless transfer of power and handover of the oversight of 2.2 million federal employees. Instead, the president-elect, who has pledged to fire thousands of civil servants and slash billions of dollars in spending, has so far almost fully cut out the government agencies his predecessors have relied on to take charge of the federal government.
Trump has yet to collaborate with the General Services Administration, which is tasked with the complex work of handing over control of hundreds of agencies, because he has not turned in required pledges to follow ethics rules. His transition teams have yet to set foot inside a single federal office.
In calls with foreign heads of state, Trump has cut out the State Department, its secure lines and its official interpreters.
As his team considers hundreds of potential appointees for key jobs, he’s so far declined to let the Federal Bureau of Investigation check for potential red flags and security threats to guard against espionage — instead relying on private campaign lawyers for some appointees and doing no vetting at all for others. Trump’s transition team is considering moving on his first day in office to give those appointees blanket security clearances, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.
All of this is irregular, if not unprecedented. It all violates longstanding norms. Much of it violates Federal law, notably the Logan Act and the Presidential Transitions Act. But, even in normal times, those laws have no teeth; given the fealty of Trump’s Congressional co-partisans, there’s is unlikely to even be mild pushback for any of this.
In his first go-around, Trump routinely violated the norms of the office and steadfastly refused to follow the law, or even the Constitution, when it came to personal ethics. This time, he holds a personal grudge against agencies who get in his way—and his backers will cheer him on.
At the root of this unprecedented approach, say those close to Trump’s transition, is an abiding distrust and resentment of federal agencies that the president-elect blames for blocking his agenda in his first term, leaking his plans to the press, and later sharing his documents with investigators and bringing criminal charges against him.
For Trump, who campaigned on radically reshaping the federal government by moving entire departments out of Washington, closing others andreplacing scores of civil servants with political loyalists, fulfillment of that vision begins with a privately run transition from Palm Beach and nearby offices.
“The American people rendered their verdict by putting him back in the White House,” said Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, a nonprofit group that has defended Trump against the criminal charges brought against him. “He should not trust the politicized and weaponized intelligence and law enforcement agencies that hobbled his presidency the first time. It’s a hostile takeover on behalf of the American people.”
In my post “It’s the Institutions, Stupid
,” the Sunday before the election, I favorably passed on Doug Ollivant’s observation, “Democrats have become the party of the institutions. Meanwhile, the Republicans now exist in a realm somewhere between suspicion of, and outright hostility to, the institutions.” Everything that has happened since makes more sense in light of that explanation.
Of course, both Dan Drezner’s Toddler-in-Chief argument and the more sinister charge that Trump is a would-be authoritarian, if not a fascist, work here as well.
In choosing his Cabinet, Trump has emphasized a willingness to take on federal agencies he believes have wronged him or stymied him in the past, advisers said. That has motivated many of his controversial picks, such as Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, former congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida for attorney general and South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
[…]
Many of the president-elect’s moves to skirt official transition policies are within the law, experts said — or at least are subject to laws that are not regularly enforced.
But his transition alarms some officials who say the president-elect is weakening transparency, eroding checks and balances, and risking national security.
“The Trump team is attempting to convert the government into an instrument of his private agenda,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive officer of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. Instead, Stier said, “We’re seeing a push to revert to the spoils system,” a reference to the 19th-century practice of rewarding supporters with government jobs without vetting and often not based on merit.
Eric Rubin, a former ambassador to Bulgaria who led the American Foreign Service Association before his retirement last year, called the approach a “massive crossing of the unwritten lines that have prevailed [in presidential transitions] for 140 years.” He acknowledged that Trump is able to take advantage of the reality that “so much in our system is not written.”
A toddler will throw a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. A fascist will thumb his nose at norms and rules simply to prove that he can.
But I’ve heard multiple intelligent, decent people defend the absurd appointments along anti-institutionalist lines. If the Defense Department is broken, it’s not going to be fixed by someone who has spent decades working inside the Pentagon, acquiring specialized expertise and becoming acculturated to its ways. Similarly, if it’s clear that the FBI, CIA, and even the GSA are staffed by a Deep State fundamentally opposed to Trump’s agenda, there’s nothing to be done but blow them up.
While Trump has harnessed this sentiment and even helped feed it, it long predates him. There’s a deep sense in large pockets of the country—by no means confined to Trump cultists—who simply don’t trust our institutions. There have been conspiracy theories about the CIA and FBI as long as I can remember—mostly from the left. Gallup has been polling on confidence in institutions
—from organized religion to the military to the Supreme Court to banks to public schools to newspapers to police to Congress and the presidency—for a quarter century. Most of these are at their lowest point during that period. Only the military enjoys strong support. Only the military and, oddly, the police* enjoy majority support. The rest enjoy “a great deal or quite a lot” of support from less than a third of the country. Newspapers and television news are in the low teens. Congress is in the single digits.
This helps explain not only Trump’s re-election but also the seeming indifference to many of his transgressions. But, again, the toddler and authoritarian explanations explain his actions just as well.
Presidential transitions are formally led by the GSA, which typically provides furnished office space and computer support to both nominees for pre-election planning.
But Trump harbors deep distrust for the agency, several allies said,which shared thousands ofemails from his 2016 transition team with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III during his probe into allegations of Russian election interference. Trump claimed the correspondence was collected unlawfully and belonged to the transition team.
This time, he has so far declined to work with the GSAand spurned offers from the Biden White House to clear a path for a formal transition.
To date, he has not signed memorandums of understanding thatinclude a robust ethics pledge from the transition staff and — in a new provision added by Congress after ethical issues dogged the first Trump administration — from the president-elect himself, who must delineate how he would avoid his own conflicts of interest.
Leaders of the Trump transition said days before the election that they planned to sign the agreements with the GSA and the White House and were negotiating details with the Biden administration. But the White House had not received them as of this week, according to an official with the Office of Management and Budget. The holdup, according to people close to the process, is the conflict of interest provision for Trump.
Trump’s team says its staffers have signed their own ethics code and conflict-of-interest pledge, although those documents do not cover Trump or meet the requirements of the Presidential Transition Act. Transition officials said they continue to “constructively engage” with the Biden administration, but have not provided details of the negotiations.
In his first term, Trump himself refused to follow ethics rules, up to and including the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution. But, with a handful of notable exceptions for family members, his appointees followed the basic parameters of the law. I distinctly remember several early appointees to sub-cabinet roles withdrawing in frustration over the onerous filing and divestment requirements. It looks like we’re going to have an administration filled with Jared Kushners this time.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris signed the official agreements and made them public before taking office. Trump is not required by law to do the same, but the repercussions are emerging.
Trump’s transition teams cannot participate in national security briefings, enter federal agencies or speak with employees, and can’t receive formal briefings about ongoing operations and projects. (Trump has begun receiving intelligence briefings
.) The transition team cannot use secure federal email servers to communicate (a particular concern, security experts said, after the Trump campaign was hacked by Iran). Unless Trump signs the pledges, his transition team will forgo about $7 million in federal funding set aside for the inauguration, leaving the event funded by private donors who do not need to be disclosed and do not have to abide by a $5,000 cap on individual donations.
It is also unclear if Trump plans to require his nominees to submit to separate ethics reviews required by the Office of Government Ethics. If not, once his appointees are on the job, the office will be unable to ensure they divest from companies or other entities to avoid potential conflicts.
“Their conflicts of interest will leave them vulnerable to outside influences, potentially including foreign powers,” said Walter Shaub, who led the office from 2013 to 2017.
Even if we assumed these were all honorable people—and we have substantial evidence to the contrary in many cases—this would be highly problematic. But, as we learned in the first time, the presidency is mostly governed by longstanding norms and voluntary compliance with laws that are enforced by people who answer to the president. At the end of the day, even Richard Nixon was constrained by them.** Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is not. And it seems clear he thought he was too much of a Mr. Nice Guy then.
The day after Trump won the election, congratulatory calls began pouring in from world leaders from French President Emmanuel Macron to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a traditional post-Election Day ritual.
However, Trump did not include State Department officials or U.S. government interpreters on the line, according to government and transition officials.
Trump’s mistrust of the State Department dates to early in his first presidency, when transcripts of his calls with then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and another with then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull were leaked in full to the press. Several career diplomats were subpoenaed by Congress to testify at Trump’s first impeachment hearings about their alarm atthe Trump administration’s unorthodox policy toward Ukraine.
Trump is not required by law to engage theState Department on calls with foreign leaders;Biden took calls without State officials after his 2020 victory because Trump refused to concede his loss for weeks. A president-elect is prohibited by the 1799 Logan Act from negotiating foreign policy until he is sworn in, but the statute has rarely if ever been enforced.
Government officials also traditionally rely on State to help create an official record of such conversations, in case disputes arise over what was said.
Trump’s calls have raised alarms from some foreign policy experts — particularly his call with Vladimir Putin. He advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, as The Washington Post reported
. The absence of an official transcript of the exchange already has created a challenge for Trump, said Daniel Fried, a retired diplomat now at the Atlantic Council think tank, because the Kremlin quickly denied that the call had taken place.
“It would be a lot easier for the Trump team if he were able to say that the Russia team was lying,” said Fried, who played key roles in designing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. “So there’s a cost to doing it this way. People are scratching their heads and saying, ‘Somebody’s lying.’”
That Biden did the same thing will be cited by Trump defenders as evidence that this is No Big Deal. But, of course, Biden had no choice in the matter since Trump refused to concede the election and denied him the ability to use government assets during the transition.
Even after four years as President, Trump fundamentally does not understand that the State Department and, indeed, the entire Executive Branch (aside from the White House staff and a handful of appointees) do not exist to serve him, personally, but rather to carry out missions outlined in federal law. Readouts of presidential calls with foreign heads of state are a longstanding custom designed to create a public record for all manner of purposes. They’re only problematic if the president is acting nefariously.
Biden White House officials have encouraged Trump to sign an agreement with the Justice Department that would allow for FBI background checks, temporary security clearances and other standard steps to begin the handoff of power at all levels of government.
A Justice spokesperson said the department was committed to an orderly transfer of powerand that discussions about signing a memorandum of understanding, as past presidents-elect have done, remains “ongoing.”
“We are prepared to deliver briefings to the transition team on our operations and responsibilities, and we stand ready to process requests for security clearances for those who will need access to national security information,” the spokesperson said.
Trump advisers have begun discussing an executive order that would award clearances to Trump appointees on Day 1, without the customary checks, people familiar with the matter said. Trump resented in his first term how long it took for some people — particularly his family members — to get clearances, and what a “mess it became publicly,” a person who talked to him about it said.
Again, the toddler, authoritarian, and institutionalist explanations all work here. In his mind, the White House and the entire federal government are his toys to play with. Why are people who work for him telling him what to do?
In 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which allows major party candidates to submit priority lists of names for security clearances before Election Day. Trump’s team did not provide names, and still hasn’t, according to people familiar with the transition.
Those vetting shortcuts already are dogging some of Trump’s Cabinet choices. Trump and his advisers were not aware of an allegation that Hegseth, his nominee to run the Pentagon, sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 until it emerged last week. Hegseth has denied wrongdoing and a police investigation into the allegation did not result in charges. One person familiar with the transition team’s discussions told The Post that Hegseth had “not been properly vetted.”
Some critics said the transition has skipped the FBI to get nominees clearances who would not normally pass a background check.
Members of Congress in both parties questioned whether Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman Trump plans to nominate as director of national intelligence, and Gaetz, who was recently the subject of a federal sex-trafficking investigation and is Trump’s choice for attorney general, could survive FBI background checks. Gabbard has been widely criticized for meeting in 2017 with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and for allegedly promoting Russian propaganda, leading to allegations that she is a national security risk. Gaetz has denied wrongdoing in the sex-trafficking probe, which prosecutors dropped last year; Gabbard has denied ties to Russia.
The President is the ultimate classifying authority and has the ability to allow anyone he deems has a need to know to have access. But Senate confirmation, FBI background checks, and all manner of other safeguards exist for a reason.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) called the plan to outsource background checks “a dangerous and reckless thing to do” that could compromise the process by which the FBI ensures that “people who have concerning backgrounds do not come into government and compromise the country’s secrets.”
“There is a theme here,” Van Hollen said of Trump’s unfolding transition. “He is getting rid of all checks on executive power that are in the system.”
Trump could break another norm around the transition to avoid that problem, however: He has demanded that Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) the majority leader elected last week, support Trump’s demand to makerecess appointments — a rarely used process thatsidesteps confirmation hearings and Senate votes.
Recess appointees do not serve full presidential terms, and other presidents in both parties have made them on occasion. But Trump’s early line in the sand signaled that he could make these appointments regular practice, a threat that did not seem theoretical last week when some planned nominees with extreme views came under scrutiny by Senate Republicans.
Van Hollen called Trump’s rush for regular recess appointments “an indication he wants to do a complete end run around our review of his nominees.”
“It’s an end run around constitutional design,” the senator said. “We have tools in the confirmation process to make sure nominees get vetted. What he’s asking Republicans to do is make him king.”
There have been signals that Thune and others will resist the recess appointment demand and will vote down the most extremely unqualified of Trump’s nominees. It’s their duty to do so. My confidence that they will is not high.
*Granting that this is a single poll, it’s noteworthy that the police have rebounded to 51 percent after the relative lows in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. That the two institutions on the list entrusted with carrying out violence in the name of the state are far and away the most trusted is either reassuring or deeply disturbing. The medical system and public schools, by contrast, are at 36 and 29 percent, respectively.
**For all of his many faults, Nixon was an institutionalist. When a 9-0 Supreme Court ordered him to hand over the tapes, he dutifully complied and resigned his post. Trump would have followed Andrew Jackson’s example.
In light of both James Joyner’s post this morning and some rhetoric in the comment thread along the lines of “how’s literally Hitler” working out? Let me emphasize something that I wrote not that long ago and to also lay down some markers.
For the record, I personally have never said Trump=Hitler. What I did, in some detail
, was show the disturbing (in my view) similarities between the rhetoric and politicking of the two men. I did, however, state that his approach to politics is clearly fascistic
.
Let me note the following, from the first post linked above:
While it is true that Hitler was a fascist, not all fascists are Hitler. Neither Franco nor Mussolini had clean hands, but neither of these fascist leaders were are awful as Adolph Hitler. I note this not to exonerate anyone’s crimes, but to acknowledge the truly grave category of Hitler’s.
Further, when it comes to Hitler comparisons, there is a difference between comparing Hitler at the end of his life, with all the commensurate horrors that that life entailed, and Hitler the burgeoning politician who led the Beer Hall Putschand who went on to write Mein Kampf.
So, sure, if the comparison is about the scale of mass murder, then no one is Hitler until they kill millions. I mean, I get the rhetorical game, which is why Hitler comparisons go off the rails or are used to mock. Hitler=genocide, so I understand why it is hyperbole to say, which no one around here anyway has, that Trump is literally Hitler. But there is no denying that Trump has engaged, more than any politician since the segregationist era, in using race/ethnicity/nationality-based us vs. them rhetoric, to include threats of force and violence against “them” to solve problems ascribed to “them.”
In all of these conversations, it is amazing to me that the topic of Trump’s behavior in and around January 6th gets ignored. He whipped up the crowd. He sicced them on his own Vice President. He watched TV for hours doing nothing when he could have helped stop the attack. He eventually told the crowd that he understood them and loved them. He recently called that day a “day of love.” And that is all in addition to the various attempts at subversion of the election via the courts, weird schemes, and even calling up the state of Georgia to demand more votes be found.
These are not the actions of a democrat. Moreover, the above paragraph describes actions when he was last in power. In other words, we are not dealing with hypotheticals. He tried to overturn an election in more than one way.
Regardless of whether he pulls it off or not, he is constantly threatening mass deportations and the use of the military on US soil to accomplish it. He threatens purges of bureaucracies. He talks about using DoJ against political and media enemies. If the neighbor constantly carried on about how they were going to rape your wife, you wouldn’t say, “Well, he never really follows through with things, so let’s not get all upset!”
He could have been held to account by the Senate. He wasn’t.
He could have been held account by the courts. He wasn’t.
The Supreme Court handed him a broadened definition of presidential immunity.
Remember, this is the guy who said, “I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president
.” Given the immunity ruling, Trump’s own self-perception, and the people he will surround himself with, there are reasons to be very, very concerned about what he will do in this term–especially in the first two years when he controls Congress and all the member of the House and a chunk of the Senate will be worried about mid-term primaries.
The tests of his authoritarian sway (if “fascist” still seems a bridge too far for some reason): he has made four utterly abhorrent nominations: Pete Hegseth for SecDef, Matt Gaetz for AG, RFK, Jr. for HHS, and Tulsi Gabbard for DNI. Just outside that frightful four is Kristi Noem for DHS. While there have been some objections to these, they are hardly as vociferous as would be the case under normal conditions.
“Look, Matt Gaetz is a colleague of mine. We’ve been serving together for more than eight years,” Johnson said. “He’s one of the brightest minds in Washington or anywhere for that matter, and he knows everything about how the Department of Justice has been weaponized and misused.”
“And he will be a reformer. And I think that’s why the establishment in Washington is so shaken up about this pick,” Johnson said.
Keep in mind that Gaetz’s legal career was only a few years long, and consisted of things like working with HOAs. He is credibly accused of having sex with a 17-year-old and of using illegal drugs as part of a broad pattern of behavior. This is not the profile of someone who should even be semi-considered for Attorney General of the United States. Moreover, Johnson certainly knows the basics of the ethics investigation that was halted because of Gaetz’s resignation. And yet, he describes him on national television in glowing terms to an audience primed to believe a false image of Trump and to ignore the true horrors of it all.
At a minimum, Johnson is playing along out of partisan fealty to Trump and in acquiescence to Trump’s power. Sure, he may be hoping the Senate does its job, but he is helping solidify and, dare I say, normalize Trump’s behavior.
So here’s a marker: how many of these people make it through? None of the four I listed are qualified save in the sense that there are no constitutional requirements for the offices in question. While I think that Gaetz will prove a bridge too far, I am not convinced that Trump can’t whip up 50 votes plus VP Vance to get him through.
Let’s put it this way.
Under normal conditions, someone who gleefully admitted to putting down a puppy personally, would not have been nominated for a cabinet position, let alone someone whose resume does not match the office. And yet, Noem.
Under normal conditions, a TV commentator with White Nationalist tattoos, a questionable personal life that includes multiple martial infidelities and a sexual misconduct allegation would not be nominated for SecDef. And yet, Hegseth.
Under normal conditions, an anti-vaxxer with a string of bizarre personal stories to include, but not limited to a brain worm, dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park after realizing he didn’t have time to take it home so he could eat it later, and sawing the head off a whale and strapping it to his van, would not be nominated for HHS. And yet, RFK, Jr.
Under normal conditions a person who zero experience with intelligence, and who has repeatedly said questionable things about US adversities like Putin and Assad would not be nominated to be the DNI. And yet, Gabbard.
I am no expert on security clearances, but there is no way Hegseth, Gaetz, and Gabbard could get one, yet consider how much they would be allowed to know in those jobs.
The very fact of these nominations speaks poorly of Trump and his seriousness about governing. That members of the Republican Party feel the need to say nice things about any of these people and to talk about fair hearings instead of saying that, in fact, the Emperor has no clothes, is deeply concerning.
There is a non-zero chance that any one, or even all, of these people, could be confirmed. I have a very hard time seeing the Senate GOP denying him more than one or maybe two (Gaetz is the most likely sacrificial lamb, with Gabbard or Hegseth as the other, but I doubt all three).
These nominations are loyalty tests and demands that the party bend the knee.
So, not Hitlerian, per se, but clearly authoritarian. But the mass deportation thing is, just as a reminder, Hiterlian.
I would note again, that some of the elements of fascism
on display here include propaganda, unreality, and anti-intellectualism
As a general matter, the common thread through all the appointment is loyalty to Trump, not expertise, not governance. I also think that when if comes to things like DHS, Defense, and DoJ he wants people who won’t stand in his way for whatever he wants to do.
And while I do not think that the recess appointment scheme is deployed, if it is, that will be crossing into a new, very bad, stage of American politics.
None of this addresses the power of people like Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, who at least rhetorically sound pretty damn fascistic to me.
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported
on a draft executive order that is under consideration by the Trump transition team that would establish a so-called “warrior board,” to review top generals over whether they should continue service or not, and whether they lack certain leadership qualities.
The proposal mirrors calls from conservative think tanks, lawmakers and Trump to weed out what they call “woke” generals — broadly defined as officials who have promoted diversity in the ranks or supported taking vaccinations.
I would note that a main pillar of Hegseth’s schtick is based on being “anti-woke.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump confirmed on Monday that he intended to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations
of undocumented immigrants.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump responded overnight to a post made earlier this month by Tom Fitton, who runs the conservative group Judicial Watch, and who wrote that Mr. Trump’s administration would “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” to address illegal immigration “through a mass deportation program.”
At around 4 a.m., Mr. Trump reposted Mr. Fitton’s post with the comment, “TRUE!!!”
I would submit: a compliant Noem, who thought that her story of animal cruelty would ingratiate herself to Trump, isn’t going to stand in the way of this. Hegseth won’t. Gaetz won’t. And people like Miller and Homan will be happy to proceed. As such, I don’t buy the argument that the incompetence will save us. My fear is that the goal is incompetent compliance at the Secretary level and then operatives like Miller can do what they want.
Maybe none of this comes to pass, which will be a relief. But every indication is that some form of deportation is coming, as is Trump’s destruction of DoJ’s independence and his politicization of the DoD. I haven’t even gotten into the damage he is going to do to US foreign policy long-term. See Daniel Dresser for that, The End of American Exceptionalism
.
So, is he literally Hitler? No.
Are his politics authoritarian, if not fascistic? Yes.
Is he actively trying to tear down competent government and replace it with unqualified lackeys? Absolutely.
Should people like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski go make nice with him? Absolutely not.
And so, I have less confidence than my dear friend and co-blogger about treating Trump as described in his post.
In that case, it seems to me, one in fact normalizes him in the sense of treating him as though he were indeed the President and then holding him to the standards of a normal President.
When he nominates reasonably qualified people to key posts, it seems perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that. In so doing, it makes calling out obviously-unqualified nominees more impactful.
When he proposes perfectly normal policy ideas one happens to disagree with, disagree with them as though they were a normal policy idea proposed by the leader of a legitimate opposition party. And when he opposes policy ideas that violate the Constitution or basic norms of human decency, label them accordingly.
For me, I am simply relieved when he nominated reasonably qualified people, but think that the overall grade has to factor in the grossly unqualified. I can certainly acknowledge that Rubio to State is a different universe than Hegseth to Defense. But Hegseth plus the others named above clearly demonstrate that he is looking to govern in a way that is more reflective of the Hegseths than the Rubios. It also occurs to me that he, as president, can ignore his Secretary of State pretty easily insofar as to do the kinds of things he wants done in foreign policy that are directly in the President’s control.
But I do not think he deserves any benefit of the doubt or that he deserves a wait-and-see, judge-each-move-on-its-own-merits kind of approach. Sure, I can easily assess the difference between a Rubio pick and a Hegseth pick. However, the grading should not be solely case-by-case in isolation. Because picks like Hegseth, Gabbard, Gaetz, et al. mean more, in the broader context than Rubio or some of the other more standard picks.
A case-by-case approach still treats him as a normal president. He isn’t.
His behavior in office was not normal.
The way he handled the 2020 election (and has continued to do so) should be seen as disqualifying.
His selection of the persons noted above for positions of power underscores this fact.
And, to be clear, I am not saying James disagrees with me on most of this, but temperamentally I think he is more willing to try the case-by-case approach while at this point in this saga, I think a holistical assessment is the way to go.
Again, I will be relieved if I am wrong. I still hold out hope that Senate Republicans will stand up to the nonsense and the mid-terms will come and help stop Trump from doing damage.
But I realistically have to say that he has been demonstrably awful in key ways and that there has always been the hope that the “normals” will stop him or that, this time, he has finally gone too far.
And yet, here we are.
If none of these kooky picks are confirmed, I will both feel better, and critics can tell me I was overreacting (predicated, of course, as to who he still manages to get in there). But for each one who is confirmed, the more it will be confirmed that he will face very little opposition from his party, and that is the real issue on the table right now.
And no one should be going to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring unless they are cool with being complicit in it all.
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NYT
(“‘Morning Joe’ Stars Reveal a Mar-a-Lago Reunion With Trump“):
The married MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough drove half an hour from their Florida home on Friday to meet with an old friend turned frenemy turned enemy: President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Their relationship has been complicated. Mr. Trump was once a regular guest on their talk show, “Morning Joe,” and the couple rang in 2017 at a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Then things deteriorated. Mr. Trump called Mr. Scarborough a “psycho” and Ms. Brzezinski “crazy,” claiming
that he had once seen her “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” “Morning Joe” became a redoubt of the anti-Trump resistance. This year, the couple repeatedly warned that a second Trump presidency would threaten democracy’s future.
Even for talk show hosts, it turns out, elections have consequences.
“For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’” Ms. Brzezinski told viewers on Monday, disclosing the meeting for the first time. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”
CNN
‘s Brian Stelter (“MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ hosts reveal they met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago ‘to restart communications’“):
The news was so shocking that some “Morning Joe” viewers probably spit out their coffee.
MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski “went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally” with President-elect Donald Trump, Brzezinski revealed at the beginning of Monday’s show. The Friday rendezvous was “the first time we have seen him in seven years,” she added.
[…]
The meeting between Trump and the progressive cable network’s hosts — two of the most avowed anti-Trump hosts on television — immediately raised speculation about a détente with the president-elect and sparked criticism from some “Morning Joe” fans.
Veteran media critic Jeff Jarvis, a loyal “Joe” viewer, said on Threads that the meeting was a “betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all. It is a disgusting show of obeisance in advance.” Others on social media vowed not to watch the show anymore, though it is impossible to measure how widespread that sentiment was.
Scarborough and Brzezinski anticipated the criticism and addressed some of it in Monday morning’s announcement.
“Don’t be mistaken. We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump,” Scarborough said. “We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights” for “understanding these deeply unsettling times.”
RedState
(“Megyn Kelly Unleashes the Hounds of Hell on Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough“):
Megyn Kelly offered up a simple three-word response to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visiting Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
[…]
“I searched for a way to respond appropriately and I called on my 10 years as a litigator, in addition to my now 20 as a journalist, and I think I found the perfect phrase,” Kelly calmly responded. “Go f**k yourselves.”
“G f**ck yourselves, you dishonest jokes of faux journalists,” she added. “What an absurd farce.”
[…]
“How long have they been telling us that he’s (Trump’s) an existential threat, that he’s a Hitleresque figure, that he’s a fascist, that women will die – will die! – if he gets elected?” she seethed. “Well, they’ve done a 180. They’ve done a 180 as their ratings circle the bowl.”
[…]
“They’re grifters,” she said of Scarborough and Brzezinski. “These two, yes, worked day and night to get Trump the nomination back in ’15-’16. They embarrassed themselves and sacrificed any pretense of journalistic ethics in doing it. It was true bootlicking.”
“It is nauseating,” she added. “It’s so stomach-turning. They are so disgusting.”
I was a regular viewer of “Morning Joe” once upon a time, but it has been years. Mostly, my morning routine has just changed, and it’s now rare, indeed, that I turn on a television before 8 pm on a weekday.
While I never thought they were actively working to get Trump elected, Joe and Mika clearly had a personal relationship with him. And they were adamant that those of us dismissing his chances of becoming the 2016 Republican nominee were missing the boat. Eventually, for whatever reason, they soured on him and he, as is his penchant, went after them in the most ugly manner.
That they’ve now gone the way of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, ignoring past humiliations to ingratiate themselves with him, is indeed worthy of ridicule.
If one ignores the personal baggage, though, they have a point. Like it or not—and, I suspect they like it even less than I do—Trump is once again the President-Elect and will once again serve a four-year term as President of the United States. It rather behooves the hosts of a political talk show to have access to him, both to be better-informed commentators and to be able to book him as a guest on their air. It’s not only good for their ratings, it benefits their audience.
Jarvis and Kelly are on both sides of a good point: if one truly believes Trump is a literal fascist and a threat to human rights and the future of American democracy, it is a betrayal of the highest order to kowtow to him.
But what if one merely thinks, as I do, that Trump is morally and temperamentally unfit to the highest office in the world but is nonetheless the legitimate holder of said office? In that case, it seems to me, one in fact normalizes him in the sense of treating him as though he were indeed the President and then holding him to the standards of a normal President.
When he nominates reasonably qualified people to key posts, it seems perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that. In so doing, it makes calling out obviously-unqualified nominees more impactful.
When he proposes perfectly normal policy ideas one happens to disagree with, disagree with them as though they were a normal policy idea proposed by the leader of a legitimate opposition party. And when he opposes policy ideas that violate the Constitution or basic norms of human decency, label them accordingly.
I’ve been rather resolute in defending Republican politicians for aquiescing to the fact that the Republican nominating electorate has repeatedly chosen Trump as the leader of their party. Ditto journalists who treat the Republican frontrunner/nominee/President-Elect/President as though he was those things. The problem comes when they treat truly outrageous behavior as “just politics.”
President-elect Donald Trump chose lawyer Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday to be U.S. ambassador to NATO, selecting a loyalist with little foreign policy experience for what may be one of the highest-profile ambassadorships during Trump’s second administration.
[…]
Whitaker, who served as acting attorney general for three months during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, has been actively involved with the America First Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank that has been working to shape policy for Trump’s second term.
Whitaker was known as one of the most outspoken critics of a special counsel investigation into contacts between Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials.
The best I can say about him is that he is more qualified to be AG than Gaetz is, but that is what we call in the trade, “damning with faint praise.”
Whitaker, 55, has no experience in foreign or military affairs, but he did work in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term in office, initiallyas chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then briefly as acting attorney general after Sessions was pushed out in 2018.
He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa during the George W. Bush administration. Whitaker has deep roots in Iowa; he grew up there and played football at the University of Iowa.
Everyone will be relieved to know that he did have a brief stint on CNN in 2017, so the TV box has been checked yet again. The loyalty box should be obvious.
Of course, the main thing I remember from his stint as interim AG, apart from his thin resume, is this (via Vanity Fair):
Whitaker appeared in multiple promotional videos for the company’s products
, offerings that included a toilet for “well-endowed men” and “theoretical time-travel commodity tied directly to price of bitcoin.”
I did not recall this part:
He also reportedly used his prior work as a federal prosecutor to intimidate people who complained the company was a scam. According to e-mails filed by the F.T.C, in August 2015 Whitaker allegedly responded to a customer who had complained about World Patent Marketing to the Better Business Bureau by telling
them, “I am assuming you understand that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you. Understand that we take threats like this quite seriously.” Another victim who tried to get a refund received an e-mail from a company lawyer who told her, “Since you used e-mail to make your threats, you would be subject to a federal extortion charge, which carries a term of imprisonment of up to two years and potential criminal fines. See 18 U.S.C. ii 875(d).” In other incredible correspondences, customers were threatened with a “World Patent Marketing Security Team” comprised of “ex-Israeli Special Ops” who are “trained to knockout first and ask questions later.”
Rep. Tony Gonzales
(R-Texas) said Sunday that targeting others besides convicted criminals for deportation means “government has failed us.”
“You know, if we’re going after the guy that’s picking tomatoes or the nurse at the local hospital and we’re not going after the convicted criminal, then our government has failed us,” Gonzales told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz
on “This Week.”
This is rather frustrating to read. Trump repeatedly promised to deport every undocumented immigrant in the United States, often throwing around numbers like 25 million (although most estimates place the number close to 11 million).
There is zero doubt that a lot of the guys picking tomatoes are undocumented. Less likely the local nurse, but maybe. Indeed, what Gonzalez seems to be indicating is that there are labor needs in the US and that maybe our immigration processes aren’t adequately addressing them.
“You know, our country was built on those fleeing persecution, and it would be, it would be just absolutely terrible if we don’t protect those that are doing it the right way,” Gonzales said. “Legal immigration should never be mixed with these hardened criminals.”
I would note that those who are here seeking asylum fall under that category. They are here legally. But, as we saw the way that Haitian immigrants were treated as rhetorical punching bags by the Trump campaign, I wouldn’t count on compassion and nuance from the Trump administration. Trump has threatened ending Temporary Protective Status for various groups in the country.
Indeed, the Guardian reports that at least some Haitians are worried and acting accordingly: Haitian immigrants flee Springfield, Ohio, in droves after Trump election win
. I mean, how would you react if your very specific community had been rhetorically targeted by an incoming presidential administration? Would you wait to find out if it was just hot air?
Gonzalez seems to still be playing the “do we take Trump literally or not?” game.
Well, time to take him seriously. He has empowered Stephen Miller and his incoming “Border Czar,” Tom Homan
, is a hardliner on this topic.
Do I think there will be an attempt to deport millions? I do not, as the logistics are immense.
But do I expect some high-profile actions to demonstrate that Trump is serious? I do. And rest assured that some of the easy targets will be places with guys picking tomatoes and other sundry fruits and vegetables. And plenty go people who tried to do it “the right way” will be caught up in it all and many American citizens will be directly and indirectly harmed.
Let me share this clip of Homan, and I purposefully share it via Charlie Kirk, as the clip that Kirk gleefully shares includes Homan endorsing the notion of deporting whole families, including American citizens, to maintain the family unit. As noted above, these policies are going to cause a lot pain and isn’t going to just be criminals who are harmed. I would note that in every clip I have heard, seen, or read of Roman he comes across as arrogant, simplistic, and dismissive of the human costs involved.
Ladies and gentlemen, your new Border Czar, Tom Homan.
To deploy a phrase: the cruelty is clearly part of the point.
A side note: Homan is listed as one of the contributors to Project 2025, although he is not a named author of any of the chapters.
Let me share this one as well, because his answer on child separation is detached from reality insofar as, yes, if a person is arrested for DUI and their child is in the car, they are separated. But the odds that that will lead to a permanent separation are small, not to mention the in most cases that child would be immediately returned to other family. And even if non-family is required, at least the child is still in their own country and being adequately tracked by state entities.
Note, again, this is posted approvingly by the account. In my view, Homan is being too clever by half and is utterly ignoring the human toll of the “zero tolerance” policy. His approach is condescending assurance that he knows best, won’t be lectured to by the legislature, and that, ultimately, he believes that the deployment of force against human beings he sees as not being part of “us” is justifiable, indeed to be celebrated. That reminds me of something…
Across the US, migrants like Gabriela are grappling with what the incoming Trump administration’s vow to conduct mass deportations could mean for their future.
In over a dozen interviews, undocumented immigrants said it was a topic of heated discussion in their communities, WhatsApp groups and social media.
Some, like Gabriela, believe it won’t impact them at all.
“I’m not scared at all, actually,” she said. “That’s for criminals to worry about. I pay taxes, and I work.”
“In any case, I’m undocumented,” she added. “[So] how would they even know about me?”
But then there’s the flip side:
There are many others who don’t share in this optimism, and are living in fear.
Among them is California resident Eric Bautista, a so-called “Dreamer”, who benefits from a longstanding programme that protects from deportation those who were brought illegally into the US as children.
At 29, Mr Bautista has only fleeting memories of life in Mexico, the country in which he was born and left at the age of seven.
For the last four years, he has taught US history to high schoolers – including details of how waves of immigrants from Italy, Ireland, China, Japan and Mexico settled in the country, and often faced xenophobia.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way, even after more than 20 years here,” Mr Bautista told the BBC. “It feels like we’re at a turning point, a new wave of nativism like those I teach about.
“It’s just a future of fear and uncertainty for us.”
Also, more context:
US authorities deporting migrants is nothing new. More than 1.5 million people have been expelled under President Joe Biden, in addition to millions swiftly turned away from the border during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the eight-year administration of Barack Obama – whom some dubbed the “deporter-in-chief” – about three million people were deported, with a focus on single men from Mexico that could easily be deported from border regions.
Trump’s promised plans, however, are more wide-ranging and aggressive, including enforcement operations in the US far from the border. Officials are reportedly also mulling using the National Guard and military aircraft to detain and ultimately deport people.
JD Vance, Trump’s running mate and incoming vice-president, has said that the deportations could “start” with one million people.
And so we wait to see if it is just business as usual, or something more brutal and obvious is coming.
Under House rules
, the Speaker has “general control” of facilities in the chamber, giving Johnson the authority to issue the policy surrounding bathrooms.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said. “It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.”
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” he added.
It seems worth noting that the private restrooms in Congressional offices are in other buildings, not in the US Capitol.
And to add insult to bigotry:
Johnson’s statement — which was made on Transgender Day of Remembrance, recognized annually to memorialize trans people who died due to anti-trans violence — comes days after Rep. Nancy Mace
(R-S.C.) introduced a bill to bar transgender women from facilities on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity, a response to the election earlier this month of Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.).
The Texas General Land Office is offering President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a site to build detention centers for his promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a letter
the office sent him Tuesday.
Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham
said in the Tuesday letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”
The state recently bought the land
along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley and announced plans to build a border wall on it. The previous owner had not let the state construct a wall there and had “actively blocked law enforcement from accessing the property,” according to the letter the GLO sent Trump.
