‘America First’ Is Dead
And Donald Trump killed it.
Worth keeping an eye on the strains growing between GOP appropriators and Donald Trump’s OMB Director Russell Vought. Politico reports:
The White House budget director has been persistently touting the virtues of “pocket rescissions,” a tactic he has floated as a way to codify the spending cuts Elon Musk made while atop his Department of Government Efficiency initiative, and which the federal government’s top watchdog says is illegal. . . .
In such a scenario, President Donald Trump would issue a formal request to claw back funding . . . But in this case, the memo would land on Capitol Hill less than 45 days before the new fiscal year is set to begin Oct. 1. By withholding the cash for that full timeframe—regardless of action by Congress—the White House would treat the funding as expired when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
Just the latest Trump attempt to suggest he, not Congress, controls the nation’s purse strings. We’ll see how far they try to push it. Happy Friday.
The Globalist-in-Chief
by William Kristol
There’s much to be said about the likely consequences of the Israel–Iran war for the future of the Middle East and indeed for global politics. Fortunately, we have experienced foreign policy practitioners and fine analysts who’ve provided very useful guidance on how to think about those consequences. The first thing I want to do is to recommend you spend some time this weekend reading and listening to them.
So do take a listen to the discussion by the wise and experienced foreign policy experts Eric Edelman and Eliot Cohen on Shield of the Republic, as well as to former U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro’s talk with Tim Miller. Have a look at my conversation with leading Iran analyst Ray Takeyh. And read Eliot Cohen’s excellent piece in the Atlantic on “The Three Dramatic Consequences of Israel’s Attack on Iran,” as well as an article this morning in Foreign Affairs, “The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran,” by Edelman, Takeyh, and Reuel Gerecht.
All these students of foreign policy would be the first to warn that interpreting events in the midst of the storm is very difficult, and that their analyses are therefore tentative. Indeed, all of them emphasize the extraordinary rapidity of change. They also note the remarkable reversal of fortunes that we’ve witnessed in the last two years.
After October 7, 2023, Israel was reeling following the savage attack by Hamas. The subsequent response in Gaza was by no means a quick success. But then Israel proved able to decimate what had been regarded as its most formidable neighboring foe: Hezbollah. The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad unexpectedly fell in December. And now we’ve had the stunning achievements of the first waves of the assault on Iran.
So what was at first an unprecedented defeat for Israel has been followed by unexpected successes. It’s a good reminder that affairs in politics don’t move in a straight line. And it’s also a reminder that, especially in times of uncertainty and fluidity, the actions of individual players can make a huge difference.
But I do want to add one suggestion to my colleagues’ excellent analyses of international politics: The promise of “America First” foreign policy is dead.
Right now we’re in the midst of a raging debate about whether President Trump should make one last effort at negotiating with Iran or use military force in trying to remove Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity for good. Whichever of these alternatives you prefer, neither is “America First.” “America First” would tell you the whole fight should be none of our business. An “America First” administration would warn both parties not to attack our homeland or our people. That’s it.
But that’s not what’s happening. And it isn’t what’s been happening elsewhere in the world either. This administration has been reluctant to help Ukraine but claims to stand resolutely behind Taiwan. It seeks deeper ties with the Gulf States. It wants to move away from NATO, but is happy to intervene in European politics, supporting, for example, the extreme right-wing AfD in the recent German elections.
The fact is, for all the talk about rejecting “globalists,” the experience of the Trump administration is one of intervening, repeatedly, in global affairs. There is no Fortress America possible in the 21st century. “America First” is dead, if it ever really existed. The conduct of American foreign policy raises huge questions and implicates very different visions of America’s role in the world. But the question isn’t whether or not we’re going to shape the global order. We are going to do that. The question is how we will do it—for better or for worse? And as we make our choices, we should also remember that inaction is as much a choice as action.
The slogan “America First” is an attempt to short-circuit the serious debate we need to have about our foreign policy. But as the Israel-Iran crisis shows, one way or the other, we’re going to be involved. We are all globalists now.
Trump v. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
by Andrew Egger
It’s a big time for tiny truces between Donald Trump and factions he hates. He’s finding common ground with neocon hawks on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And he’s finding even more with neolib eggheads on another issue: nuclear energy generation here at home.
America’s political appetite for nuclear energy has been steadily growing in recent years, with Republicans discovering they prefer it to flightier renewables like wind and solar and Democrats realizing they prefer it to dirtier fuel sources like natural gas and coal. A growing number of states are moving forward on legislation to make nuclear power generation less onerous, and last year, President Biden signed into law the bipartisan ADVANCE Act, which among other things made it easier for certain small reactors to get regulatory licenses.
But the main thing standing between America and revitalized nuclear energy generation remains the regulatory books of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which—thanks to the overzealous application of good intentions about minimizing the risks of meltdowns and maximizing nuclear-worker safety—have grown into an impenetrable tangle that makes it nearly impossible to produce nuclear power at a price competitive with other energy sources. The barriers are complex, but one that nuclear advocates have zeroed in on is the ALARA radiation standard, which mandates that there is no safe threshold for radiation exposure and that plant builders and operators must thus plan to get exposure levels “as low as reasonably achievable.”
This sounds fine—“reasonably” is right there in the definition! But in practice, as The Roots of Progress writer Jason Crawford noted back in 2021, the standard “eliminates, by definition, any chance for nuclear power to be cheaper than its competition,” since “under ALARA, any technology, any operational improvement, anything that reduces costs, simply gives the regulator more and more excuse to push for more stringent safety requirements, until the cost once again rises to make nuclear just a bit more expensive than everything else.”
Matt Yglesias summed up the problem last year:
Suppose I had a design for a cost-effective nuclear reactor, and I said I should be allowed to build it, because electricity is good and air pollution is bad. The regulator is going to look at it and say, “Well, that reactor seems awfully cheap to build, why not add a bunch more features to make the radiation levels even lower?” And then I will say, “That would be hideously expensive in a way that is net bad for public health, because it leads to more burning of fossil fuels and worse air pollution.” But the regulator comes back and says, “We’re not using a cost-benefit framework, we’re using ALARA.” And I say, “That doesn’t make sense, coal ash is radioactive—you are creating more radiation by raising my costs.” And the regulator says, “I don’t regulate coal plants, I regulate you—ALARA!”
Anyway, Trump apparently agrees. Last month, he signed a suite of executive orders aimed at making nuclear energy more viable by hacking away at the NRC regulatory tree. “Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion,” one order stated. Quite true!
But here’s the bad news: Even while he’s pursuing good purposes, Trump does so with the bull-in-a-china-shop toolkit he uses for everything else. While he’s purporting to reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there’s plenty of reason to think he’s stripping it down to the studs instead—in ways that may be counterproductive even for the reforms he himself wants.
Last week, Trump abruptly fired one of the NRC’s five commissioners, Christopher Hanson, whom he himself appointed to the body in his first term. In a statement, Hanson said Trump had done so without cause, “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.”
Meanwhile, Trump has turned DOGE loose at the NRC, searching—as they have in so many other places—for a bunch of bureaucrats they can fire. As elsewhere, this has had the deeply unsurprising effect of cratering agency morale, which has led to a cascade of resignations beyond even the firings DOGE sought. These resignations have included the three senior-most members of the NRC’s office of the executive director for operations—not exactly a good sign for keeping an agency productive and shipshape.
“DOGE only arrived a couple weeks ago, but many people are scared,” one NRC employee told The Bulwark this week. “Lots of senior management has already left.”
Even among those who support the goal of loosening the NRC regulatory framework, some see this approach as backwards. Last month, the nonpartisan pro-nuclear think tank Nuclear Innovation Alliance offered praise for the goals of the White House’s executive orders, but added that “some of the provisions in the EOs would actually undermine the administration’s goals.” In particular, they argued that “NRC is already making significant progress on reform” and that “it is in everyone’s interest that this progress continue and not be undermined by staffing cuts or upended by conflicting directives.”
Mike Hillman, a nuclear engineer and former NRC inspector, agreed with that assessment. While the NRC bureaucracy “is not conducive to new power plants at all,” he told The Bulwark, “at the same time, it can’t be changed overnight, because they’re all federal rules and regulations that have to go through a rule-and-regulation change.”
“So getting rid of people isn’t gonna make anything faster,” Hillman added. “In fact, it’s gonna make things slower, because they still have to go through all the requirements.”
The White House waves these concerns aside. “President Trump is revitalizing the nuclear industrial base by advancing state-of-the-art technologies to achieve energy independence and safeguard national security,” administration spokesman Harrison Fields told The Bulwark in an email. “He is committed to modernizing nuclear regulations, streamlining regulatory barriers, and reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission while prioritizing safety and resilience.”
AROUND THE BULWARK
Trump Loves ‘Les Misérables.’ But Does He Know What It’s About? Or: What having no opinion about the human soul reveals about one particular human soul, by ROBERT TRACINSKI.
Yes, Car Headlights Are Too Damn Bright… On Bulwark+ Takes, LAUREN EGAN talks with REP. MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ about the perils of LED headlights.
Mark Cuban: Harris Camp Asked For VP Vetting Papers… The former Dallas Mavericks owner declined, saying he wouldn’t make a particularly good Number Two. A preview of today’s Bulwark Podcast with TIM MILLER and MARK CUBAN.
Living Waters… Robert Macfarlane’s meditation on the life and times of great waterways poses many perplexing questions but answers few, notes BILL COBERLY.
Quick Hits
WHAT HAPPENED, ELON?: Social Security’s annual status report was released this week. Year by year, the program’s long-term financial picture keeps looking worse. Funding reserves, the trustees1 note, are now less than a decade from insolvency, with funds estimated to be depleted by 2034. That’s three fiscal quarters earlier than in last year’s estimation.
While the report is enough to set off alarm bells, it also serves as a thorough and embarrassing indictment of none other than Elon Musk.
After all, the centerpiece of Musk’s DOGE efforts was his work sniffing out supposed massive fraud in the Social Security system. The SSA’s former administrator, Michelle King, was forced out over struggles with DOGE; her acting replacement was Leland Dudek, an underqualified middle manager who had distinguished himself by helping DOGE infiltrate SSA.
With his DOGE-friendly administrator at the wheel, Musk spent months telling Americans that he was on the precipice of uncovering massive, systemic fraud in the agency. On February 10, he wrote that “significant funds” appeared to have been “siphoned from Social Security to pay for illegals.” He went on: “The goal of auditing the Social Security Administration is to stop the extreme levels of fraud taking place, so that it remains solvent and protects the social security checks of honest Americans!” One week later, he posted that what he was uncovering at SSA “might be the biggest fraud in history.”
You probably remember the rest. Musk went running after one Social Security conspiracy theory after another, insisting that he’d uncovered millions of active accounts belonging to dead people, or that 40 percent of all calls to the SSA were attempted fraud.2 At every turn, he suggested that massive government savings were just around the corner.
When those claims were routinely and thoroughly disproved, Musk just waved it all aside—who are you gonna believe, he asked his fans, me or the lamestream media? Now, though, it’s not the media saying it was all vapor. Here are four Trump cabinet officials, issuing their latest report on the fiscal health of the country’s largest entitlement program without a single breath spared for the supposed transformational work of DOGE. You’ll be shocked to hear Musk hasn’t tweeted about the report.
SHELL GAME: In the days ahead, we’ll find out whether congressional Republicans will get away with the most shameless piece of budgetary spin in their Big Beautiful Bill. From Politico’s Inside Congress newsletter this morning:
[Senate parliamentarian] Elizabeth MacDonough is scrubbing the final draft of the megabill in a “big, beautiful” Byrd bath. Her rulings on which provisions will fly under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process are expected to roll in through the middle of next week, when [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune wants to schedule the first procedural vote related to the package . . .
Republicans are bracing for an answer to one consequential question they punted on earlier this year: whether they can use an accounting maneuver known as “current policy baseline” to make it appear that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would cost nothing.
Back in April, Andrew teed off on the current policy baseline, which works like this: Back in 2017, many of the tax cuts in Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act were designed to expire eventually, precisely to shrink their impact on the deficit as the bill was scored. But now, Republicans are turning around to argue that, since the new bill extends tax cuts that already exist rather than creating new ones, we should pretend making those cuts permanent has zero impact on the debt—which will in reality grow several trillions of dollars faster per year than if the tax cuts were allowed to expire. We’ll see if the parliamentarian lets them get away with it.
TWO WEEKS: Our ears pricked up yesterday when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the podium to read a statement from Trump on Iran: “I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”
“Within two weeks,” as many longtime Trump-watchers leapt to note, has been Trump’s favorite unit of time for nearly a decade now. In fact, Andrew found an Axios piece yesterday that was written in his very first week as a journalist, back in June 2017. It noted that Trump had already used the “we’ll be announcing within two weeks” framework on taxes, on wiretapping, on the timetable for his infrastructure plan, on the Paris Climate Accords, on the war against ISIS. “Trump’s timeline?” read the headline. “Always ‘two weeks.’”
More recently, “two weeks” has been Trump’s go-to timetable even for supposedly quick-time decisions on military conflicts. Eight weeks ago, Trump told reporters he’d know whether he could trust Vladimir Putin in “about two weeks.” Three weeks ago, he announced that the White House would find out whether Putin was “tapping us along” within “a week and a half, two weeks.” As with many such pronouncements in the past, we’re all still waiting.
Cheap Shots
The program’s current trustees are Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisgnano. So, you know, it’s in good hands.
Just this week, the New York Times put on a clinic with one of the most extensive debunkings of this particular claim—or of any claim, honestly—we’ve ever seen.
It was always Felon Trump First. That was the entire project, the grift wrapped in a flag, the rot disguised as revival. A gold-leaf hallucination staggering across history like some bloated parody of Stalin and swearing fealty not to country, not to principle, but to the black hole of his own insatiable ego. Trump is a a faux-billionaire, made billionaire by LARPing as a blue-collar messiah while mainlining loyalty, cash, and state power straight into the bloodstream of his vanity.
He was never about trade. Never about borders. Never about sovereignty. He was about domination. About spectacle. About himself. He always was.
There was no “America First.” Just a slogan zip-tied to a smash-and-grab spree. What we’re seeing now isn’t a twist. It’s the inevitable result of a man who’s always mistaken grievance for governance and public office for personal property.
If some folks are only now rubbing the sleep from their eyes and realizing Donald Trump was never fighting for them, never defending democracy, never standing against “globalists,” then fine. Congratulations. You’ve finally caught up.
But I don't think we should pretend they were tricked. They weren’t fooled by shadowy elites. They fooled themselves.
What Bill calls Israel's "unexpected successes" I call war crimes. Hamas killed about 1200 Israelis on October 7th. Since then, Israel has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians and injured more than twice that. They've attacked aid workers and blocked aid from reaching Gaza, provoking a completely avoidable famine.
The pager operation against Hezbollah killed two children. One was a little girl who heard her father's pager go off and was trying to be helpful by taking it to him.
In it's war against Iran, Israel as already killed more than 200 people, almost all of whom are civilians. For every "top military leader" they kill, there are two dozen innocent people killed too. Targeted strikes my ass.
Last year, Bill Kristol said it was time for Joe Biden to pass the torch. I sincerely hope that Bill will heed his own advice. Andrew and the the other brilliant minds at The Bulwark will do just fine without him.