Trump’s AI Brain Rot
Plus: Trump’s increasingly dumb, and undoubtedly painful, global tariff loop.
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an ultimatum to Hamas yesterday: Accept their latest joint proposal to end the war in Gaza, or America will stand by and let Israel finish the war however it sees fit. “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas,” Trump said in a joint appearance with Israel’s prime minister. “This can be done,” Netanyahu added, “the easy way or the hard way.”
The peace proposal is remarkable for many reasons, not least because it calls for a redevelopment of Gaza helmed by a committee personally chaired by Trump himself and with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair playing a prominent role. Did anyone DM Paul Bremer? U.S. nation-building in the Middle East: It’s good again! Happy Tuesday.
Don’t Normalize His Bigotry
by Bill Kristol
Yesterday evening, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social and then reposted on X an AI-generated video showing House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.
In the video, the AI-generated Schumer argues for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare” so Democrats can get their votes in the next election. Jeffries is depicted ostensibly as a Mexican immigrant who would benefit from that healthcare.
You can, if you have the stomach, watch the plainly racist, obviously fake video here.
Jeffries and Schumer showed impressive discipline in their responses a few minutes later. The Democrats’ approach to the government shutdown slated to start at midnight tonight is: 1) focus on the issue of healthcare, and 2) demonstrate a willingness to talk, even as Republicans aren’t. And so Jeffries wrote on X, “Bigotry will get you nowhere. Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down.” Schumer followed, “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.”
The Democrats’ message isn’t quite the one I’d prefer, and their leaders’ tone is too mild for my taste. But ultimately I have no important quarrel with how Jeffries and Schumer handled the moment. There was probably no reason for them to be justifiably indignant and angry—though I would be. And I suppose there was no need to tell the truth about what this latest glimpse into Donald J. Trump’s character reveals—after all, we’ve seen countless exhibits of this before. Doing so would presumably have generated media stories about both sides hurling charges at each other. It might have been a distraction. It’s perhaps what Trump wanted.
But I do feel, both for the sake of political hygiene and the historical record, that someone should tell the simple truth: Donald Trump is a vulgar bigot and a reprehensible human being. He is unworthy to serve in any high office in this country, let alone its highest. Just because he’s acted this way before doesn’t mean we should let it go unremarked upon. If anything, it makes the obligation to call him out in these moments that much greater.
At some point, Republicans will have to face up to the fact that they have nominated this lowlife three times for president, and that their party continues to slavishly support him. Democrats will have to face up to the fact that they have twice failed to defeat him. Americans will have to face up to the fact that we have twice elected this man as president, and that far too many of us are still not repulsed by him.
It would be good if that point came sooner rather than later.
Liberation Pay
by Andrew Egger
So far in his second term, Donald Trump’s tariff regime has played out across two different timelines.
The first is the narrative timeline: The parade of announcements, rollbacks, double-downs, and the news cycles accompanying each. These came thickest and fastest in the spring, when tariffs were a central policy focus. There was the bickering with Canada, the game of chicken with China, the market panic after “Liberation Day,” and the delayed implementation and prolonged negotiations with dozens of countries. Since then, tariffs have slid somewhat out of the news, which has played to Trump’s benefit. Many voters now have the vague sense that, after the rockiness of the global-tariff rollout, things have basically settled down and that while the economy isn’t great it has, at least, survived. Meanwhile, Trump keeps trumpeting all the great things he’s going to do with all the new tariff revenue that’s pouring in. Win-win!
But the second timeline—the one that actually matters—looks different. This is the timeline of tariff implementation, the one where Uncle Sam actually starts going around to U.S. businesses, shaking his hat, and those businesses are forced to adjust. This second timeline has moved more slowly than the first, for a few reasons. Many of Trump’s global tariffs didn’t clunk into operation until last month. Businesses had planned ahead best they could, rushing as many imports in ahead of the various deadlines as possible to better weather the tariff pain in the short term. Beyond that, it’s taken some time for the dust to settle and businesses to figure out what sort of shape they’re in under the new normal.
But the data is looking increasingly clear: They don’t like what they see.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported on the current, grim tariff outlook for small businesses in particular—many of which are now facing a “make-or-break moment.” If they rely on global supply chains in any way, their own costs have risen dramatically—either because they’re paying tariffs themselves, or because their suppliers are. But they also think they might drive off customers if they raise prices too sharply and abruptly. Running a business thus becomes an exercise in treading water: How long can I eat these new costs without scaling down or closing up shop?
In its annual survey conducted in recent weeks, the Times reported, the small-business payroll company Gusto found that “50 percent of companies thought tariffs had hurt their businesses this year, and 56 percent expected them to do so next year.”
For some, this had come as an unwelcome surprise. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that flowers would also be tariffed,” Kimberly Hyde, who runs a flower shop in Denver, told the Times. Her business relies on selling flowers imported from central America and decorations imported from China.
It will only grow worse. At a political level, the tariff problem is the same as it’s ever been under Trump. He does not see a tariff for what it is: a distortionary, net-negative tool, one that can protect given companies or industries only by placing quiet distributed strain on the rest of the economy. Instead, in his mind, tariffs are a win-win magic button that somehow strengthens the U.S. economy while also delivering huge new windfalls to the U.S. Treasury.
We therefore shouldn’t be surprised that he keeps tacking new ones on. Last week, Trump abruptly announced that he would implement new tariffs on lumber, bathroom vanities, and kitchen cabinets. Yesterday, he ad-libbed several additional ones, taking to Truth Social to promise “substantial tariffs on any country that does not make its furniture in the United States” and “a 100% tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States.”
What we’re seeing now is thus the likely start of a new vicious cycle: The more drag tariffs put on the economy, the more economic problems start to crop up, and the more economic problems crop up, the more frequently Trump turns to new, increasingly arbitrary tariffs to deal with them, making the drag worse.
Whether you’re flying a plane or stewarding a global economy, there’s a certain amount of drag you can get away with. There’s also a point at which you’re going to fall out of the sky.
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Bulwark Invades Canada…The Bulwark hit Toronto for a sold-out live show with TIM, SARAH, and SAM serving up laughs and politics on both sides of the border with Trump’s bizarre digs at Canada, the Comey indictment, Canadian trivia, rowdy crowds, and even a questionable blunt rotation.
Trump’s Own Words Have Discredited the Case Against Comey… The evidence that the president directed a vindictive prosecution is overwhelming, writes WILL SALETAN.
How Trump is Using Kirk’s ‘Martyrdom’ to Create a Fake Emergency… On The Mona Charen Show, The Atlantic‘s JONATHAN CHAIT discusses how MAGA is using Kirk’s tragic death as a pretext for full-on authoritarian repression of dissent.
It’s Time for the States to Start Investigating Trump… Democratic-led state governments can hold the aspiring autocrat’s feet to the fire, argues STEVEN STRAUSS.
Trump’s Shady TikTok Deal… On FYPod, TIM MILLER and CAM KASKY dive into Netanyahu’s shocking admission at the UN that TikTok is now a “weapon” in Israel’s arsenal, and the rise of virginity culture in Gen Z.
Private Jet-Flying, Charlie Kirk-Wannabe Teen Sets Off MAGA Firestorm… The fight over Brilyn Hollyhand symbolizes a bigger problem for MAGA, reports WILL SOMMER in False Flag.
Quick Hits
VIBE CHECK: As Democrats decide whether to plunge ahead with a high-stakes shutdown fight over healthcare spending, their own voters remain convinced party leaders are too willing to cave in such standoffs. That’s according to a series of focus groups done last month by the Democratic group Slingshot Strategies for the Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund in Tarrant County, Texas, which contains the city of Fort Worth. “Many participants said Democrats were too old, out of touch, and beholden to big money,” the group wrote of Texas Democratic voters in a memo revealing their findings, which was first shared with The Bulwark. “Several said the party caves when Republicans push hard. . . . Others described Democrats as ‘disappearing when fights need to happen’ or ‘talking a good talk’ but then cutting deals with Republicans.”
The group also ran a pair of focus groups, one with independents and another with Republican voters. Among the Republican voters, the most notable finding was that many shared the belief that a Democrat could win statewide in Texas under the right conditions. That might be good news for Sen. John Cornyn, who’s trying to fend off an insurgent primary challenge from the state’s scandal-ridden MAGA attorney general, Ken Paxton.
But the most interesting national nugget came from the group’s group of independents. Within this cohort, there was an overwhelming sense of bipartisan failure and corruption, and also deep unease about immigration enforcement and ICE in particular under Trump. “You can just be out and about in a store somewhere and somebody can literally just come up to them and just take them,” a young black woman said, describing a personal experience. “It was horrible to see.”
The findings are yet another data point that the backlash to Trump’s immigration crackdown is real. Whether Democrats can reap the benefits of it is another question entirely.
A TEMPLATE TO END LAWFARE: Senator Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Dan Goldman are set to introduce a new bill designed to guard against political prosecutions either by the Trump Administration or future presidents. The bill, titled Preventing Political Prosecutions Act and shared exclusively with The Bulwark, was unveiled in light of Donald Trump’s overt (and ultimately successful) efforts to gin up a prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. It contains a slew of provisions that would either raise the stakes for government officials to bring cases or put in place reforms that would give the defendants more rights and legal protections. Among them, the legislation would
Create a right of action against federal officials who engage “in selective or malicious prosecution or investigation based on political or partisan considerations.”
Require prosecutors to present exculpatory evidence to the Grand Jury, and require disclosure of grand jury vote tally to the defendant as part of discovery;
Strengthen judges’ ability to scrutinize the evidence presented to grand juries where improper political considerations are credibly alleged;
Prohibit direct or indirect White House instructions to the Department of Justice concerning investigative or charging decisions in individual criminal cases;
Require all line prosecutors and U.S. Attorneys to certify under penalty of perjury that the indictment did not rely on impermissible political considerations.
Legislation like this is bound to remain on the shelf so long as Democrats are in the minority and Trump is in the White House. Even should power switch hands, there are enough vagaries in here that it’s unclear whether the bill would withstand a legal challenge. But as a political marker, the Preventing Political Prosecutions Act provides a solid indication of how Democrats would pursue reforms in a post-Trump era. One has to imagine that prospective 2028 presidential candidates will have to outline a similar plank, too.
FB-I DIDN’T TWEET THAT: If ever there was evidence that our futures will be spent trying to sort out real news from AI generated or photoshopped slop, it came via Eric Swalwell, the Daily Caller, and the DOJ. It started Monday morning when Swalwell, the outspoken California Democrat, posted a picture of the alleged Michigan Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shooter wearing a Trump shirt. “I’m sure @JDVance agrees with me that it doesn’t matter that the Michigan terrorist was a MAGA supporter,” he wrote. “Because in America, regardless of your politics, violence has never been the answer.” It was a bit of snark, wrapped under valid commentary about how muted the Trump administration has been about this shooting compared to others involving allegedly leftist perpetrators. Alas, the Caller thought it was fake. The site accused Swalwell of sharing a doctored photo. Except the photo was very much real, plucked right from the shooter’s Facebook page. The Caller had to retract its story. “We deeply regret the error,” the site posted in its place.
How could they get it wrong? It’s possible they trusted the Justice Department. A top spokesperson for the FBI, Ben Williamson, similarly accused Swalwell of sharing a fake picture of the shooter in a post on Twitter. The Caller’s mistake was bad and regrettable. But having Kash Patel’s right hand man—whose job is to put out reliable information in these moments—make a similar error, is more problematic. Williamson seemed to understand this quickly, at least, as he promptly deleted the tweet.
Cheap Shots
Where is the seething rage over the Mormon church massacre? Where are Trump’s and Vance’s flaming socials condemning the murderer and demanding vengeance and justice? Where is Vance personally helping the victims’ families? Where’s is the public mourning on the religious Right?
Oops, the murderer appears at this point to be a Trumpie. So … crickets.
Is this the new mantra of the White House? “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”