A crazed man sprayed Rep. Ilhan Omar with a liquid from a syringe during a constituent event last night. The congresswoman has been the bête noire of the right for some time now. But President Donald Trump has ramped up his vilification of her in recent weeks as part of his efforts to justify the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to her home city of Minneapolis. Asked about the attack, the president showed a surprising degree of magnamity—who are we kidding. He was as irresponsible and cruel as anyone would have predicted.
“No. I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” Trump told ABC’s Rachel Scott. Asked if he’d seen the video, Trump added: “I haven’t seen it. No, no. I hope I don’t have to bother.” Remember the good ol’ times of four-and-a-half months ago when the White House was denouncing the rise of political violence? Those were the days. Happy Wednesday.1
The Democrats’ Opportunity
by William Kristol
The most important legislation of the 119th Congress so far is last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Passed in July 2025 with only Republican votes, it included a massive, multi-year appropriation of an additional $165 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, with $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Democrats could have sounded more alarms at the time or since about this huge infusion of funds to agencies central to Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which is at the heart of his overall authoritarian program. But they chose then, and have mostly chosen since, for understandable if perhaps short-sighted reasons, to focus on the bill’s tax cuts for the rich and its health care cuts for the rest of us.
But it’s now obvious that this funding is the most important part of the legislation. It is what is enabling everything that ICE and the Border Patrol are now doing. And so Democrats in Congress need to leave no stone unturned in trying to claw as much of that money as is possible from these agencies of injustice, oppression and intimidation. A promise to try to do this should be a key part of their legislative platform for this November’s elections. But the drumbeat for this needs to be constant, loud, and urgent. And in the wake of the last few weeks’ developments in Minnesota, that effort needs to begin now.
The annual DHS appropriations bill that is now before the Senate provides an opportunity to make a start. The House has passed a $1.3 trillion package of six spending bills, including the one funding the Department of Homeland Security, and sent the package to the Senate. Senate Democrats have said they will support five of the spending bills, and have asked that they be unpackaged so those five bills can be passed into law. The continuing resolution that has been funding much of the government since November ends on Friday. As for the $1.2 trillion funding for the rest of the government, Republicans, for now, are holding it hostage for the ransom of $64 billion for DHS.
What’s more, Democrats have, so far as I know, no objection to the parts of the $64 billion for DHS that would provide funding for other DHS agencies like the Coast Guard, airport security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They’d presumably pass that part of the appropriations bill if it were separated out and the funds guaranteed to be used for those agencies only. So all that Democrats are balking at is writing a new $18.3 billion blank check for Customs and Border Protection and a new $10 billion blank check for ICE.
In light of the long train of abuses and usurpations we’ve witnessed from ICE and the Border Patrol, it shouldn’t be hard for Democrats to make the case that the Republicans’ proposal for business as usual is unacceptable. It shouldn’t be hard to explain that Congress needs to place restrictions and limitations on their policies, practices, and operations so that their standards approach those of other U.S. law enforcement agencies, and so that their behavior becomes what we’d expect from agents of the government of a civilized nation.
Furthermore, in light of the depredations that have been carried out against the people of Minnesota, there should be an immediate requirement that ICE and the Border Patrol be withdrawn from that state, where they have done so much harm. Indeed, there should be a pause in ICE and Border Patrol street operations anywhere in the country “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” to quote Donald Trump in a different context.
Naturally, Republicans don’t want to face up to what’s going on. They don’t want to actually debate various constraints and limitations on the operations of ICE and the Border Patrol, and to consider the evidence for why they are necessary. That’s why the House Republicans in the Freedom [sic] Caucus have asked Trump to weigh in with Senate GOP leadership to refuse to “allow Democrats to strip [DHS] funding out to pass other appropriations separately.” These Republicans, like their colleagues, are terrified of a robust congressional discussion of the actions over the past year of the Department of Homeland Security. They don’t want a debate that would bring to the fore uncomfortable truths about the administration they support and the indecency and authoritarianism at its heart.
Democrats can now force such a debate. It will be a debate over ICE and the Border Patrol. It will focus on questions of law enforcement procedures and government funding. But it will also be a debate that goes to the heart of what kind of a nation we are, and what kind of a nation we want to be.
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AROUND THE BULWARK
Trump Can’t Stop Backing Down… Where the bully encounters strength, MONA CHAREN writes, he withdraws. Constantly.
The Department of Defense’s ‘Strategy’ Is More Like a Wish List… The military needs more than campaign slogans and political rhetoric, argues MARK HERTLING.
Secret ICE Memo Says They Can Enter Homes Without Warrants… On The Illegal News, former ICE attorney and CNN Analyst ELLIOT WILLIAMS joins SARAH LONGWELL to discuss the growing clash between ICE, the Justice Department, and the courts.
This Focus Group Should Absolutely Terrify Trump… They voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024. And they aren’t happy with what they’re seeing, especially in Minneapolis, reports SAM STEIN.
Quick Hits
ONE WHOPPER AFTER ANOTHER: Last night, Trump headed to Clive, Iowa to deliver one of his free-wheeling stump speeches, this time loosely focused on the economy. Amid the usual fire-hose of invention, one thing stuck out: a lengthy anecdote in which he described browbeating Emanuel Macron to raise drug prices in France so Trump could lower them in America.
It’s called Most Favored Nations. Every other president tried it, they didn’t try very hard. They didn’t get anything. I got it done. I got all the nations to agree. You think that was easy? I said if you don’t agree, we’re going to put tariffs on you. They said we agree, we agree. . . .
And I called Macron of France. I said, “You’ve got to double the price of your drugs.” He said, “No, no, no, I will not do that.” . . . I said, “I’m going to increase tariffs by 25. I’m going to charge you a 25 percent tariff if you don’t do it.” They said, “We will do it, we’d love to do it.” So I got something done that no other president could have gotten done . . . I don’t even think they tried, if you want to know the truth.
Trump did, in fact, get many pharmaceutical companies to agree to price some drugs in the U.S. at a price competitive to other countries—although how much that will actually lower costs remains to be seen. (Some companies, for instance, have already suggested it would make more financial sense for them to pull out of European markets altogether than to lower U.S. prices to match what they’re sold for abroad.)
But that business about browbeating “all the nations” is entirely invented. One of Trump’s trade deals—the one the White House struck with the UK—contains language about pricing for pharmaceuticals. And every component of the conversation with Macron is a pure fabrication. Macron has denied any such conversation ever took place, pointed out that he doesn’t have the authority to set drug prices, and noted that prices in France have not in fact changed at all.
It’s not exactly breaking news that Donald Trump is a pathological liar—a guy who makes no effort to keep the world of the narratives he tells himself and others in keeping with actual reality. But it’s easy to forget, unless you regularly watch him actually speak, just how all-consuming this personality tendency toward constant, pure BS really is.
OUT TO LUNCH: Donald Trump has always spent lots of time hanging out in these fantasy lands of his own creation. Recently, though, there’s been reason to wonder whether he ever leaves them at all. As the White House has reeled from the death of Alex Pretti and its own insane first-take response of smearing him as a “domestic terrorist,” one figure has been all but absent from the conversation: Trump himself. When prompted by reporters, he’s offered vague, noncommittal remarks, suggesting he was planning to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis and promising an “honorable and honest” investigation. But when left to his own devices on Truth Social, he’s barely mentioned Pretti. Instead, he’s been popping off about any number of his bizarro personal hobby horses.
Since this weekend, he’s posted two separate denunciations of the NFL’s new kickoff rules: “Who has the right to make such a change? So disparaging to the game! The original was Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting.” And again: “It is the same mindset that gave pro football the new and unwatchable ‘Sissy’ Kickoff Rule, that made it possible for Bill Belichick to not be elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.”
He’s posted multiple times about the release of his wife’s new movie, Melania, calling it a “MUST WATCH” and an “unforgettable, behind-the-scenes, look at one of the most important events of our time.”
He’s written a 448-word screed about the haters of his new White House ballroom: “a desperately needed space, sought for over 150 years by previous Presidents and Administrations, so that the White House would no longer be forced to use a cheap and unsafe ‘tent,’ for big and important STATE EVENTS, Dinners, Meetings, Conferences, and already scheduled future INAUGURATIONS (for safety, security, and capacity purposes!), on a very wet, and subject to weather, White House lawn.”
And he’s defended his own takeover of the Kennedy Center: “People don’t realize that The Trump Kennedy Center suffered massive deficits for many years and, like everything else, I merely came in to save it and, if possible, make it far better than ever before!”
DOG EAT DOG: Trump’s apparent indifference toward his own administration’s scandalous treatment of Alex Pretti stands in stark contrast with the finger-pointing bonanza taking place just one level down, with top administration figures scrambling not to take the blame.
At first, it looked like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was shaping up to be the scapegoat, with senior officials griping anonymously that “the Secretary definitely could have handled it better.” Sensing danger, Noem chose Stephen Miller as her human shield: “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Axios reported her saying. For his part, Miller, who like Noem spent Saturday smearing Pretti as a terrorist and would-be “assassin,” tried to push blame down the chain of command, pointing the finger at the officers on the ground who, he suggested, had given faulty information: “Any early comments made were based on information sent to the White House through CBP,” he told Axios.
ICE GOES INTERNATIONAL: The Trump administration has been beset recently by diplomatic controversies in Europe and by controversies involving ICE here at home—and now they’re planning the greatest crossover event in history. In addition to the diplomatic row caused by ICE agents trying to enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis, a separate international incident is brewing around the White House’s plans to bring an ICE unit to the upcoming Winter Games in Italy.
It’s not uncommon for officers from the ICE arm known as Homeland Security Investigations to assist at major overseas events like the Olympics. But the hostile response from some Italian authorities shows just how far the agency’s sour reputation has traveled in recent days: “This is a militia that kills, a militia that enters into the homes of people, signing their own permission slips,” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told a local radio station this week. “It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt.”
Cheap Shots
Shout out to reader Eric Olson, who flagged this post for us:
We double-checked and are confident that, unlike yesterday, today is actually Wednesday.
I hope Italy bans ICE from stepping foot in their country. And then the US backs out of the Winter Olympics. And then the rest of the world boycotts the World Cup. Wouldn't that be lovely? It would demonstrate what the US has done to its reputation around the world.
Bulwarkers are pretty savvy, but for the record: a wedge issue is something that your squad agrees on and your opponents disagree on. You can't totally control what winds up wedging the opposition, but when you find it, you need to hammer it, to split the opposition's coalition. When your team is getting wedged, there's a lot of scrambling, basically survival is a matter of desperately trying to change the conversation. Think: trans sports bans for Dems in 2024.
If you're keeping score, the Democrats are spoiled with a richness of effective wedges. It's like they have multiple iron spikes driven into multiple cracks, and they could pick one or multiple, and shatter the GOP coalition.
Wedge #1 - ICE/DHS. It has become incredibly unpopular; the public is behind reigning them in (if not abolish/defund). So, hammer. Reps can't abandon the turf because it's Trump's whole schtick and his malignant narcissism won't let him admit defeat. But some Reps want to have a political future, so they will be forced to distance from Stephen Miller and Noem and Trump. So all the republicans will be forced to die on the hill, fighting EACH OTHER, if you fight them on it.
Wedge #2 - Healthcare. Dems are united, Reps are scrambling and have no ideas. Moderate Reps keep showing a willingness to throw in with Dems and split with Trump and the Freedom Caucus. The public is pissed, and it can easily tie into affordability.
Wedge #3 - Epstein. Again, passed almost unanimously out of the House and Senate and signed into law. Dems should be pressuring oversight. Trump et al. can't release the files, because ****we all know why**** and so all the Reps in Congress will be wedged from the admin, causing infighting.
Wedge #4 - Guns. Time to go full in on 2A. Trump cannot help himself and keeps complaining about lawful carry. Dems can still stand on their traditional ground, i.e. gun safety, common sense measures supported by 80% of people, but it isn't even a pivot for them to affirm the 2A, they do this reflexively ever since the 90s. Meanwhile, Reps in Congress have their hair on fire because Trump keeps doubling down on ICE/CBP being justified killing a protestor lawfully carrying a firearm.
Wedge #5 - Tariffs and Taxes. Dems are united, Republicans are split. Some republicans want more social programs, some want none. Some Republicans drink the kool aid or pretend to believe in the Trump tariff agenda. Dems just need to not hedge with "some tariffs are good," that's not the issue, just attack attack, attack, attack the Trump Tariffs in the form of the Trump tariffs. And point out these raise costs on goods and do the opposite of affordability. Point to coffee prices. Point to beef.