There were numerous, er, notable moments
from President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, but perhaps one of the most striking was when he turned to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, patted him on the back
, and said he “won’t forget it.”
“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” the president said while shaking Roberts’ hand after delivering his speech.
We don’t know exactly what Trump meant by this, considering all of the favors Roberts has done for him. After all, Roberts is responsible for authoring the decision
that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution
, essentially giving them power to commit crimes under the guise of “official acts
” in office.
There was also the Roberts-authored
ruling that narrowed obstruction charges for defendants accused of participating in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and the time when the Supreme Court’s conservative majority usurped the Fourteenth Amendment, ruling that states could not disqualify
Trump from the ballot despite the Constitution’s ban on insurrectionists holding office.
In short, Trump could have been thanking Roberts for a number of things, but the president insists
that his gesture was merely routine.
“Like most people, I don’t watch Fake News CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they are going ‘crazy’ asking what is it that I was thanking Justice Roberts for? They never called my office to ask, of course, but if they had I would have told these sleazebag ‘journalists’ that I thanked him for SWEARING ME IN ON INAUGURATION DAY, AND DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB IN SO DOING!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, with “MSNDC” being a portmanteau of MSNBC and the Democratic National Convention.
Judge Juan Merchan presides over proceedings in the hush money case against President Donald Trump on May 7, 2024.
But as judges who bow to the president receive gratitude, those who don’t are met with death threats.
According to Reuters
, law enforcement has warned federal judges that they are facing unusually high levels of threat as they attempt to uphold the law despite Trump and his allies’ efforts to undermine it
.
Eleven judges expressed concern to Reuters about their physical security, saying that they’ve faced death threats in recent weeks.
And Musk isn’t the only one criticizing the judiciary.
In February, Vice President JD Vance posted on X
that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” suggesting that Trump possesses ultimate authority.
While Roberts hasn’t been as compliant as some other members of the Supreme Court—and has even shown a willingness to break
with his conservative colleagues—he’s still unlikely to serve as a check
on Trump’s lawlessness.
At least two judges, Tanya Chutkan
and Juan Merchan
, faced threats for presiding over cases involving Trump where the verdicts were rejected by conservatives.
Meanwhile, the six Republican Supreme Court appointees, three of whom were appointed by Trump during his first term, have delivered some stunning victories
in the president’s favor. And considering that conservative judges often assist Trump in his continued assault on democracy
, he might have even more to thank them for in the future.
Roberts stated
in December that “violence, intimidation, disinformation, and threats” jeopardize judicial independence, so it would be hypocritical if he’s now helping Trump dismantle existing statutes.
White House trade adviser and ex-convict
Peter Navarro told Fox News’
Bret Baier on Wednesday, that “Canada has been taken over, Bret, by Mexican cartels. They bring up these pill presses and printers, and the medicines that they fake, you can’t tell the difference.”
Navarro was running interference for his boss, who walked back his big trade war tariffs
against Canada and Mexico in less than 48 hours
. (Though he continues to flip-flop on the tariffs
at a breakneck pace.) President Donald Trump chose to continue his attack on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—after folding like a cheap suit—by claiming that fentanyl smuggling was an enormous problem along the Canadian border.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection
, only 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the Canadian border in 2024. During that same period, more than 21,000 pounds were seized along the Mexican border. So, of the more than 21,043 pounds of fentanyl seized at our country’s borders in 2024, approximately 0.2% of it came through Canada.
Navarro’s wonderlandian assertion was quickly parroted, albeit with less hyperbole, by Trump’s other minions. White House press secretary, and front-facing lie machine
, Karoline Leavitt had this to say when she was presented with those facts by Senior White House Correspondent for NBS News Gabe Gutierrez.
Gutierrez: Respectfully. It’s just 43 pounds that were found last year. That’s less than a carry-on suitcase. Is that a lot of fentanyl compared to, say, Mexico? The vast majority of the fentanyl is brought in through Mexico, not Canada. So what else does Canada need to do?
Leavitt: Well, I just told you, last year alone, there was a 2,000% increase in illegal fentanyl. If you’re asking me, you’re asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It’s not up to you. You’re not the president, Gabe.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick performed even less coherently when asked about the incongruity by CNBC. “I think autopsy deaths, as horrible as that is, should be the statistic,” Lutnick said, but when pressed, added: “Remember, the process in America for tariffs is that the president launched a study. And those are the rules of tariffs in America.” Huh?
In 2019, the Treasury Department deemed “the most common distribution method”
for fentanyl into our country was by way of China and the mail. The Biden administration had been making headway
on an agreement to get help from China on their end.
On Thursday
, bipartisan legislation was introduced by Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican from Idaho, and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, that targets fentanyl coming into the U.S. by way of China and Mexico. The bill looks to expand the authority to sanction “state-owned or state-controlled Chinese entities, including banks,” according to the Associated Press
.
President Donald Trump is having another terrible week in court.
Federal judge John McConnell of Rhode Island issued a ruling
on Thursday extending a block of Trump’s federal funding freeze from his first days in office.
McConnell issued a preliminary injunction after he granted a temporary restraining order in January against the Office of Management and Budget, which sent a memo
directing federal agencies to withhold congressionally appointed grants, loans, and financial assistance to states.
The preliminary injunction
, which maintains the status quo until the court makes a final decision, is supposed to protect states from the immediate hardship of losing federal funding.
McConnell’s ruling blocks Trump’s federal funding freeze for now and declares that the states—which claimed to still be waiting for some funding—have proven that “concrete and imminent harm” was done by the short-lived memo.
“The States have introduced dozens of uncontested declarations illustrating the effects of the indiscriminate and unpredictable freezing of federal funds, which implicate nearly all aspects of the States’ governmental operations and inhibit their ability to administer vital services to their residents.These declarations reflect at least one particularized, concrete, and imminent harm that flows from the federal funding pause—a significant, indefinite loss of obligated federal funding,” McConnell wrote in the ruling.
This follows U.S. District Court Judge Loren L. AliKhan’s barring of Trump’s
pause on federal aid, granting a win to nonprofits and small businesses.
New York Attorney General Letitia James
In January, a group of 23 Democratic attorneys general
challenged Trump’s actions stating that they impacted
Americans’ essential programs
, hindered accessibility to health care portals
, and wreaked havoc on the government. The lawsuit was led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is now praising McConnell for ruling against Trump’s executive overreach.
“The Trump administration’s illegal funding freeze jeopardized law enforcement funding, essential health care and childcare services, and other critical programs that millions of Americans rely on. Today we secured another court order to block the administration’s funding freeze while our lawsuit progresses. The power of the purse belongs to Congress – not the President,” James said in a statement
on Thursday.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha also praised McConnell’s decision.
“Americans pay taxes to the federal government knowing that the Congress will allocate their dollars towards agencies and programs that will support them in their daily lives. The President’s federal funding freeze would be laughable if it wasn’t so utterly destructive. It flies in the face of everything we know to be true about our government, namely our separation of powers, by attempting to render the Congress as irrelevant,” he said in a press release
on Thursday.
Trump faced another loss on Wednesday, when the Supreme Court shut down
his request to withhold $2 billion in foreign aid in an attempt to shirk USAID payments
to federal contractors.
With two federal judges now extending the block on his funding freeze and the Supreme Court rejecting his bid to withhold foreign aid, Trump’s mounting legal obstacles
are just beginning.
And Democratic pushback is finally seeing some wins.
The creators of “Hamilton” refuse to let their hit musical be performed next year at the Kennedy Center, where a now-canceled 8-week run was slated to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—and this snub has MAGA acolytes seeing red.
President Donald Trump purged the board of the performing arts center in February and has since been made chairman
, which caused an exodus of board members and performers.
“This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said in a joint interview
via The New York Times with lead producer Jeffrey Seller. “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.”
And while Seller pointed out in a separate statement that their decision had to do with the “partisan policies of the Kennedy Center” and not with the Trump administration itself, the president’s loyalists aren’t very happy.
“Let’s be clear on the facts,” Richard Grenell, a Trump administration diplomat, said in a post
via X. “Seller and Lin Manuel first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans. This is a publicity stunt that will backfire.”
Grenell—who recently campaigned on behalf
of accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate—then argued that arts are for both sides of the aisle and “not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with.”
“The American people need to know that Lin-Manuel is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers don’t want Republicans going to their shows,” he added.
Grenell’s comments come at an interesting time, given that Miranda and Seller pulled the show partly because of Trump’s sudden ousting of Democrats from the previously bipartisan board at the Kennedy Center.
President Donald Trump
“Our cancellation is also a business decision,” Seller wrote in a statement posted
to Instagram. “‘Hamilton’ is a large and global production, and it would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of ‘Hamilton’ if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement.”
He added, “The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted.”
It’s likely Seller was referring to Trump’s firing
of Deborah Rutter, the center’s longtime president. Trump also fired multiple board members, replacing them with his own supporters.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote
via Truth Social in February.
“Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth—THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation,” Trump added, though he’s admitted to never having seen a Kennedy Center show
.
As Trump has brought his loyalists, those on the other side of the aisle have made their exit.
Singer-songwriter Ben Folds resigned
from his role as artistic advisor to the center’s National Symphony Orchestra, as did TV legend Shonda Rhimes
as a board member.
“Hamilton” has a history of butting heads with the Trump administration, with cast members personally pleading
to former Vice President Mike Pence onstage in mid-November 2016 to do right by the American people.
“We, sir—we—are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” actor Brandon Victor Dixon, playing Vice President Aaron Burr, said to Pence from the stage. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
While “Hamilton” won’t be gracing the stage and several other performers have canceled in protest
, most of the Kennedy Center’s schedule appears to remain intact.
One other play, “The Story of a Rose,” however, relocated to Northern Virginia. The World War-I themed concert was said to have been moved due to seating capacity, per the New York Times.
However, one performer later told the outlet, “I’m glad at how it turned out. I wanted to do a show that everyone could attend—left, right, and center.”
It’s time to acknowledge that the DOGE bros have no clue what they are doing.
After Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency abruptly fired around 180 probationary employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the department sent a new round of emails Tuesday—this time requesting them to come back to work.
“Read this e-mail immediately,” the subject line demanded, according to the Associated Press
.
“You should return to duty under your previous work schedule. We apologize for any disruption that this may have caused,” the email said.
It’s not clear how many
employees have actually returned to their roles.
The sudden about-face comes amid a rapidly escalating bird flu crisis
and measles outbreak
, which has forced Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a stunning reversal
of his long-held anti-vaccine stance.
Cartoon by Clay Bennett
In mid-February, Kennedy fired
nearly half of the public health workforce. And recently, members of his own staff have been jumping ship
in response to his lackluster leadership.
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, which is home to the CDC headquarters
, railed against
the firings in February, citing the danger of Kennedy.
“The moment at which you put the CDC and Nazi death camps in the same statement, and you’re the secretary nominee for HHS, Houston, Georgia, America, we have a problem. And that problem is Robert Kennedy,” he said.
On Thursday, Warnock expressed relief over the CDC rehirings, but he also warned about the risks DOGE’s role in the federal government poses to the United States.
“Today’s announcement is a welcome relief, but until all fired CDC employees are restored, our country’s public health and national security will continue to be at risk,” he said
.
The CDC fiasco is only the latest chapter in Musk’s heavy-handed and incredibly reckless mass purge
of federal agencies under the guise of “government efficiency,” which has led to protests at Tesla dealerships
, state capitols
, and town halls across the country.
But the CDC is hardly the first government agency to fall prey to Musk’s chaotic firing and rehiring spree.
In February, after numerous
plane crashes and near misses, Musk begged
Federal Aviation Administration employees to return to work after a round of mass firings, which included the FAA chief
.
And in similar chaos, President Donald Trump bailed
on his plan to force tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Thursday—just two days after boasting about it during his address to a joint session of Congress.
And later on Thursday, Trump walked back
his plan to sign an executive order to dismantle
the Department of Education.
The CDC whiplash is just the latest in a series of embarrassing reversals from MAGA. It’s almost as if these goons are entirely unqualified to run the U.S. government.
In the debut episode of his new politics podcast
, California Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested that his party members were mistaken for arguing that transgender women and girls should be allowed to participate in sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
For the first episode of “This is Gavin Newsom,” the governor sat down with conservative provocateur
Charlie Kirk for a discussion about the state of the Democratic Party. According to Mediaite
, Newsom asked Kirk for “advice” and argued that people “need to understand your success.” (Kirk, a conservative influencer and ally of President Donald Trump, whose policies have had a devastating effect
on LGBTQ+ youth, likely has no insight into what messages can benefit the left.)
Donald Trump and ally Charlie Kirk
“Would you say ‘no’ to men in female sports?” Kirk asked the governor.
“Well, I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness; it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom replied. “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”
During their 75-minute tête-à-tête, Kirk also encouraged Newsom to speak out against AB Hernandez, a transgender high school track star
from California who has received backlash from conservatives after setting the record for the highest triple jump
in the girls’ competition. In response to a question about Hernandez, according to Politico
, Newsom went off on a tangent about his four children and noted that he and his wife both participated in college-level sports.
“I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is entirely legitimate,” Newsom stated. “And I saw that—the last couple of years, boy did I [see] how you guys were able to exploit that issue at another level.”
Politico noted that Kirk debated Newsom’s use of the word “exploit,” which Newsom replaced with “highlight.”
While some conservatives have criticized Kirk
for appearing on the podcast, Newsom admitting that his party is getting “crushed” on transgender issues is arguably more devastating. The Democratic Party was already shifting right
on immigration—hopefully, the takeaway from the party’s defeat in 2024 wasn’t that potential 2028 presidential hopefuls
should start aligning with conservatives
on policies affecting LGBTQ+ Americans as well.
Indeed, on his podcast, according to Politico, Newsom also acknowledged that one of Trump’s most damaging ads against former Vice President Kamala Harris was one where the president called out Harris’s support for
providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related care for detained migrants during her 2020 presidential run.
“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” Newsom said of Harris’s response. “Then you had the video [of Harris] as a validator. Brutal. It was a great ad.”
Of course, Trump’s attack and Newsom’s comments on Harris’s position lacked nuance. As Politifact
reported last year, federal statute
requires that inmates receive access to necessary medical care, which can include gender-affirming surgery
. Trump adhered to this ruling during his first term in office, the outlet noted, as any effort to eliminate access to this care would run afoul of the law.
In an interview with Daily Kos, a spokesperson for Newsom defended the governor’s decision to initiate a new podcast venture and to prominently feature conservatives on it. Newsom has previously stated that his show would take inspiration from HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” another controversial host
.
While Newsom did, at one point, express sympathy for transgender individuals, it was arguably overshadowed by his more concerning comments about this population.
However, Newsom’s criticism of his own party didn’t stop with their positions on transgender issues. According to Politico, the governor also distanced himself from the use of the gender-neutral term “Latinx,” referred to defunding the police as “lunacy,” and criticized perceived internal issues with the leadership of the Black Lives Matter organization.
It’s somewhat ironic that Newsom would bother to make comments about any of these things, as he previously criticized the right
for not having its priorities in line—as conservatives at the time worked to ban “the word ‘Latinx’ and AP Black history courses” instead of addressing more pressing matters. Maybe the governor should follow his own advice and focus future episodes on some of the more pressing issues
facing the nation.
Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security commissioner installed
by President Donald Trump, reportedly admitted
in a closed-door meeting that Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is behind massive cuts planned at the vital agency.
The Washington Post reports that Dudek made the admission in a meeting held with advocates for the elderly and disabled, legal aides, and senior members of agency staff. According to a meeting participant’s notes, Dudek described DOGE as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs.”
Dudek said the billionaire Republican donor’s emissaries will “make mistakes” but pushed to give them access to the Social Security system that millions of Americans rely on.
Dudek was installed after former acting commissioner Michelle King resigned in February
after refusing to give DOGE access to sensitive government data. By contrast, Dudek worked to give
DOGE access to data even before getting his promotion.
Last week, the agency announced plans
to cut 7,000 jobs despite ongoing staffing concerns and stretched resources affecting wait times and disability hearings.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who served as IRS commissioner under President Joe Biden, told CNBC
on Monday that DOGE cuts could lead to a collapse of the Social Security system in one to three months.
An elderly couple walks down a hall on Nov. 6, 2015, in Easton, Pennsylvania.
“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said, and advised people to save funds immediately.
DOGE’s actions come as rhetoric from Trump and Musk has increased concerns that an attack on Social Security—which was signed
into law in 1935 by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt—could be imminent.
During his speech to a joint address of Congress on Tuesday, Trump repeated a lie from DOGE that millions of Social Security payments are being made to people over 160 years old. The lie has been repeatedly debunked
. In reality, the old computer system maintaining agency records inaccurately shows
recipient ages, and virtually none of those people receive payments. But Trump’s rhetoric helps to undermine trust in the system.
Similarly, in an interview with conservative podcaster Joe Rogan, Musk repeated
the longtime conservative lie that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.” Invoking such a fiction has often been used as an excuse to attack the system. Musk is the richest person in the world, and unlike most Americans, he has no need for Social Security savings. Killing the program would affect them, but he (and Trump) would be unscathed.
DOGE isn’t being welcomed with open arms throughout the government. On Wednesday, employees of the U.S. African Development Foundation blocked
DOGE representatives from accessing their headquarters in Washington, D.C., even as DOGE tried to get into the agency’s data systems.
Following revelations
of DOGE attacks on multiple systems and the bigoted beliefs of some on the DOGE team, disapproval of the organization has been rising. But the threat to foundational American institutions continues.
A new report
from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released on Wednesday proves that Republicans were lying when they downplayed the effect that the House’s budget blueprint
would have on Medicaid.
Republicans have been claiming
that their budget—which calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in order to partly pay for the tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers—would not target Medicaid.
“The word Medicaid is not even in this bill,” Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said
at a news conference on Capitol Hill the day the budget passed. “Democrats are lying about what’s in the bill.”
Calling their bluff, Democrats on the House Budget Committee asked
the CBO to determine the breakdown of funding the House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees.
And indeed, the CBO report determined that—excluding Medicare, which Trump and Republicans wouldn’t touch—Medicaid accounts for 93% of the funding the committee oversees. That means in order to find $880 billion in cuts, the vast majority of that would need to come from Medicaid
(or Medicare).
Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee
“I keep hearing Republicans claim their budget doesn’t cut Medicaid. We all know that’s a lie — so I asked the nonpartisan CBO to look into it,” Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, wrote in a post on X
. “Their analysis confirms it: the Republican budget delivers the largest Medicaid cuts in history to pay for giveaways to billionaires.”
Cutting Medicaid—which provides health insurance to 72 million low-income Americans—is deeply unpopular
.
A Civiqs poll
conducted for Daily Kos from Feb. 28 to March 3 found that 63% of registered voters oppose cutting Medicaid and food stamps—another social safety net program that the Republican-passed budget blueprint is also expected to cut. The poll found that every demographic group sampled opposes cutting Medicaid and food stamps—except for Republican voters.
The fact that Republicans want to slash Medicaid and food assistance to pay for Trump’s tax cuts has led to backlash from voters, who are showing up at Republican town halls
to voice their anger.
The town halls have been so ugly for Republicans that GOP leaders have ordered
their members to stop holding in-person events so that they cannot be dressed down by their constituents.
Of course, the budget blueprint Republicans passed is not final. The House Energy and Commerce Committee now has to lay out the specifics of what they will cut to achieve the $880 billion reduction. And given that we now know the cuts would have to come largely from Medicaid (or Medicare), it’s unclear whether House Republicans can cobble together support from their vulnerable members to get those cuts passed.
“This letter from CBO confirms what we’ve been saying all along: the math doesn’t work without devastating Medicaid cuts,” Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey said in a statement
. “Republicans know their spin is a lie, and the truth is they have no problem taking health care away from millions of Americans so that the rich can get richer and pay less in taxes than they already do.”
Canadians, best known for their niceness rather than fierce nationalism, have been stirred
and galvanized
by Donald Trump’s childish insults and belligerent actions toward their country. In the process, our usually laid-back neighbors to the north have revived their country’s Liberal Party
while striking deep fear in the heart of red America.
It wasn’t long ago that Canada’s Conservative Party was headed for an electoral landslide, with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s popularity hitting rock bottom
. Just like every other governing party
in the industrialized world, the country’s Liberal Party was the target of voter fury due to high inflation, leading Trudeau to announce in January that he would resign as party leader and prime minister.
But between threatening and then enacting
and then backing down
on tariffs, mockingly referring to Trudeau as “governor
,” and demeaning Canada
as “the 51st state” while threatening to annex the sovereign nation
, Trump has single-handedly revived Canadian Liberals, who are now running just slightly behind the Tories
this election year. Canadians are set to head to the polls on Oct. 20.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a news conference on imposed U.S. tariffs as Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty look on in Ottawa on March 4, 2025.
It is an act of breathtaking idiocy for Trump to turn our closest ally into a firebreathing foe that’s foaming at the mouth to take us on. But he’s certainly being cheered on by his minions in online forums, where the conventional wisdom is “Canada is small so they have no chance, they are too dependent on America!”
Weirdly, few are trying to justify a trade war with no rationale behind it. Trump’s claim that fentanyl is coming into the U.S. from Canada
is not only wildly overblown, but an excuse and a legal necessity to give Trump the power to enact tariffs without congressional approval. But that hasn’t stopped his cult members from cheering on the world’s dumbest trade war.
You know who isn’t cheering him on?
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
“We’ve courted Mr. Trump’s ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the ‘dumbest’ in history, and we may have understated the point,” they wrote
. “His taxes will hit every cross-border transaction, and the North American vehicle market is so interconnected that some cars cross a border as many as eight times as they’re assembled.”
This is the same editorial board that said
a vote for Kamala Harris was an endorsement for “the bloody-mindedness of the modern left, with its regulatory coercion, cultural imperialism, economic statism, and desire to strip judicial independence.” Meanwhile, the editorial board argued
, Trump “would stop the crush of new regulation, restore a freer market for health insurance, unleash U.S. energy production, and reform the tax code. His default priority would be growth, which the U.S. desperately needs after a decade of progressive focus on income redistribution and the worst economic recovery in 70 years.”
You know who wouldn’t have enacted “the dumbest” tariffs in history? Kamala Harris, that’s who.
You know who else isn’t cheering Trump’s tariffs? Rural Americans.
“Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States,” Trump wrote
in a social media post. “Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!”
The reality for those farmers?
The Des Moines Register reported
the following, while noting that (red-voting) Iowa “leads the nation in corn, pork, egg and ethanol production, ranks second in growing soybeans and 10th in raising beef: “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs on $20.7 billion worth of U.S. imports and on another $86.2 billion if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days. China’s commerce ministry on Tuesday said its new levies, which take effect March 10, will include a 15% markup on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton and 10% on soybeans, pork, beef, fruits and dairy. Mexico did not immediately announce its response.”
But are farmers having fun, as Trump said they would?
“Lower prices aren’t fun for farmers,” the president of the Iowa Farmers Union board told The Des Moines Register. “Losing reliable trade markets is not fun for farmers. It’s unrealistic to expect that domestic demand is going to magically take up the slack.”
In deep-Red Kansas, the president of the Kansas Farm Bureau said
, “We truly believe that tariffs are going to hurt us in the short term, but we certainly hope that it brings a better deal in the long term.” Part of their problem isn’t just that the American market is smaller than the global one (it’s simple math that escapes Trump), but American farmers get 80% of their fertilizer from Canada—and it’s suddenly 25% more expensive.
The American Farm Bureau is doing math
: “Mexico’s $30 billion a year in our ag exports. Canada’s $29 (billion). China’s been about $24 (billion). Add them up. Those three countries are half of all U.S. agricultural exports
.”
Yeah, Kansans aren’t having fun either.
During Tuesday’s speech in front of a joint session of Congress, Trump asked farmers to “bear with me again” as he once again destroys their foreign markets. Last time he did this in 2018, he bailed out farmers
to the tune of at least $23 billion in response to another one of his trade wars. (The Topeka Capital-Journal, deep in farm country, says
the number was $28 billion.)
This time around, Trump is too busy hollowing out federal agencies (including the Department of Agriculture) while his billionaire co-president Elon Musk and his cost-cutting bros at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency cancel out every bit of aid they can get their hands on. And why would Democrats in Congress go along with a bailout this time? This is exactly what rural America voted for, and there are few farm-state Democrats left to carry their water.
Funny enough, one prominent messenger for the “elections have consequences” platform is none other than Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.
While the consequences from tariffs aren’t “very good news for farmers,” he said
, “[Trump is] doing what the voters voted him to do. Elections are supposed to have consequences.”
As for those consequences?
“We’re just going to have to see how it works out. If he’s doing it for negotiating purposes, to get people to the table, to get tariffs down [and] we have lower tariffs around the world, then I’ll have to say he’s been successful. And I would say amen to his work,” Grassley said. “And if he fails to do that, and it’s catastrophic for Iowa and the nation’s economy, then I’d have to say, ‘I told you so.’”
Given the fallout from Trump’s first trade war and the tens of billions that were needed to bail out farmers then, there is nothing to suggest that this round won’t be even more catastrophic for the so-called heartland of America.
And with Musk and his billionaire buddies feeding at the government trough
, there won’t be any money left to bail anyone out this time.
Anyone who still thinks Canada is powerless isn’t paying attention—and Trump’s most recent retreat
indicates that even he gets it. Actually enacting tariffs would extend the pain far beyond farm country to home builders
(as if the price of housing isn’t already high enough), the spirits industry
in red Kentucky, the auto industry
(its carve-out is only for one month
), and more.
Canada is certainly not powerless in this trade war and Trump’s bullying has only rallied our northern neighbors the way Russian aggression rallied Ukraine. In a battle of wills, I’m betting on Canada to better withstand any coming economic pain.
Just days after using his prime-time address to a joint session of Congress to tout his tariffs on Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump has found himself in the middle of a humiliating situation as he walks back those very tariffs.
In his speech
on Tuesday, Trump hailed tariffs and looming trade wars with China, Mexico, and Canada as a surefire pathway to economic success.
“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance. We’re okay with that. It won’t be much,” he said.
But less than 48 hours later, Trump announced
that he postponed the tariffs on most Mexican goods after speaking on the phone with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Despite Trump’s bravado, Sheinbaum said they “had an excellent and respectful call in which we agreed that our work and collaboration have yielded unprecedented results.”
The retreat on tariffs against Mexico echoes Trump’s near-simultaneous concession to Canada.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration was discussing plans
to exempt automakers from Canadian tariffs after a devastating Fox Business report
that featured the owner of an auto dealership explaining that Trump’s tariffs would increase the cost of a car by $20,000. This isn’t the first time that Trump, an avid fan of Fox, has made a policy decision based on a segment from the network.
And on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced
in a CNBC interview that Trump was going to concede on his tariffs.
Trump’s cold feet on his tariffs comes on the heels of a terrible few days for the stock market. In reaction to Trump’s tariffs, the Dow average fell 1,300 points
in just two days as the market began assessing how consumers will deal with massive price hikes.
For all of Trump’s false bravado
, the leaders of China, Mexico, and Canada immediately responded to his tariffs either with tariffs of their own or future plans for retaliatory tariffs.
“Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a press conference
.
Trump’s trade war with China during his first term failed, triggering
a farmer bailout. Now just weeks into his second term, he has proven that he didn’t learn a thing from his past mistakes.
