It’s a weird spot we’re in when it comes to re-funding DHS: Even though leaders in both chambers and President Trump have backed a plan to fund the whole Department with the exception of ICE and the Border Patrol, which Republicans plan to instead fund through party-line reconciliation legislation, Republicans aren’t in a hurry to actually pass the deal. The shutdown remains in place, and House Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t yet taken action to call the House back from its recess, which is currently scheduled to go until April 13.
Sam Stein and Will Sommer are going live at 10 a.m. EDT on Substack and YouTube for MAGA Monday—don’t miss it!
Happy Monday.
Resistance and Impeachment
by William Kristol
“How are we going to make it through thirty-three more months of this?” a friend asked yesterday.
“This” is of course the presidency of Donald J. Trump. The query from my normally calm and composed friend was prompted by Trump’s Easter Sunday post:
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
One might minimize the importance of this one post. Perhaps the president merely got carried away at his keyboard, as one does. But later in the morning, Trump told ABC News that if there were no deal immediately to open the Strait of Hormuz, “We’re blowing up the whole country.” He repeated to Axios that “if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there.” And of course this post is merely one item in a long train of assaults on decency and sanity by the current president.
The simple fact is that we have a president who is irresponsible, reckless, and indeed unhinged. And he’s all the more dangerous because he is unconstrained by both his subordinates in the executive branch or by Congress.
What’s to be done? Let me offer two suggestions, one having to do with those subordinate officials in the executive branch, and one with Congress. I offer both of them in a spirit of tentativeness and as an invitation to further discussion. They may seem to be radical ideas—even desperate ones—but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The first proposal is that we think seriously about the case for internal resistance within the executive branch. When the head of the executive branch shows a repeated willingness to enrich himself, to lie to the public, to break the law, senior officials can appropriately recall that the oath they take is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They can remind themselves that they are obliged to obey the law rather than the illegal wishes of their boss or their boss’s boss.
In current circumstances, this means that serious people within the executive branch have to think soberly about what they can do every day to minimize Trump’s damage to the rule of law. Senior officials do have discretion. They can move quickly or slowly. They can act privately or more publicly. They can make life more difficult for their political masters who are seeking to engage in misconduct or abuses of power.
Even if such resistance doesn’t stop but merely exposes illicit schemes, it would be doing a service. And if conscientious public servants find they cannot stay in their positions, they need not resign politely and then keep quiet. They could—and should—rather force their political bosses to fire them for standing up against impropriety, and then should speak up about what they have seen inside.
Now any kind of internal resistance within the executive branch is obviously a complicated and delicate matter. And I’m aware that resistance is difficult, especially when you know you’re facing a vindictive administration that will use the media and the justice department against you. But such resistance has always been an important tool in the battle against authoritarianism.
Still, resistance from within the executive branch is necessarily piecemeal and limited in its effects. The bolder and more straightforward measure that ought to be put on the table for debate now is impeachment.
After two impeachments in Trump’s first term failed to produce convictions, there’s considerable reluctance to talk about impeachment once again: Been there, done that. But perhaps the third time will be the charm. In any case, the fact is that Trump deserves to be impeached and convicted for his behavior in his second term.
Impeachment is, as Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 65, the remedy in our system for “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” The misconduct of Trump, in terms of his corruption and that of his associates, is unparalleled in our history. His abuses of power leave Nixon in the dust. A trial of impeachment would allow all the evidence of his offenses to be presented coherently in one time and place. Even if conviction doesn’t follow, an unequivocal alarm would have been sounded.
Impeachment and conviction aren’t in the cards today. But it’s worth beginning to make the case now, because it may well be necessary for the public good to proceed along these lines in the next year. I’m the last person who would welcome JD Vance as president. But he would present less of a clear and present danger to the nation than Mad King Donald.
Raising the possibility of these two measures may seem alarmist. For some reason, even though the alarmists have been right all along in their analysis of Trump and Trumpism, it remains unfashionable to be one. But we shouldn’t be slaves of fashion. And in fact it’s not alarmism, it’s sober realism, to doubt that we can make it safely through the next thirty-three months without considering measures like these.
Resistance and impeachment. There may be convincing arguments against resorting to either or both these expedients. And there are of course many other important strategies for dealing with the situation we face. But the time to discuss all of them openly and candidly is now.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Why Democrats Should Shun Hasan Piker… They shouldn’t repeat the GOP’s mistake, argues MONA CHAREN, who also discusses Confronting Anti-Semitism, Left and Right with DAVID FRUM on her eponymous show.
The Cost of Boots on the Ground… On Shield of the Republic, ERIC EDELMAN welcomes MIKE NELSON to discuss the president’s White House speech making the case for war with Iran—and the key questions it left unanswered.
Remembering Shane DiGiovanna… In Overtime, JIM SWIFT remembers a friend of the Bulwark he profiled, who died last week at the age of 27.
It’s “Messing With Me Mentally”... The Atlantic’s ASHLEY PARKER joins SARAH LONGWELL on The Focus Group to break down a month of the deeply unpopular Iran war—and hear what swing voters are saying about the Trump administration, including who they like (Marco Rubio) and who they really don’t.
Dems Huffing the Hopium… In The Opposition, LAUREN EGAN writes of the Democrats’ growing optimism about the upcoming midterms. After that . . . it gets more complicated.
This Was the Moment Trump Lost His Mojo... In The Breakdown, JONATHAN COHN has the slo-mo replay of the exact point where Trump forgot what got him elected in the first place.
Quick Hits
DOWN IN FLAMES: How catastrophic has Trump’s second term in general and his prosecution of the war in Iran in particular been for America’s reputation among our allies? European leaders are now openly comparing our strikes on Iranian infrastructure to Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.
“Any targeting of civilian infrastructure, namely energy facilities, is illegal and unacceptable,” European Council President António Costa said this morning. “This applies to Russia’s war in Ukraine and it applies everywhere. The Iranian civilian population is the main victim of the Iranian regime. It would also be the main victim of a widening of the military campaign.”
THE STRAIT OF AFFAIRS: It was a weekend of confusing and contrary indicators for peace prospects in Iran, with official diplomatic contact inching forward even as the United States and Iran hurled increasingly wild threats at one another. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that oil prices, which careened upward after Trump’s Iran address last Wednesday, remained largely steady in weekend futures trading.
The number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz continues to tick up slowly. Twenty ships transited the strait yesterday, the most in any 24-hour period since the war began—but still far below the historical average of nearly 140 ships a day. Iran continues to wield total control over which ships are able to transit, and continues to insist it has no intention of letting the strait fully reopen to America and its allies.
AND NOW, A WORD FROM THE POPE: As the first American pope,1 and one elected at a moment of such upheaval for the world, Leo XIV’s statements have seemed to carry an unusual political urgency for America. His Easter message, released yesterday, is worth a read:
In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!
We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel. There is an ever-increasing “globalization of indifference,” to borrow an expression dear to Pope Francis, who one year ago from this loggia addressed his final words to the world, reminding us: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world!”
The cross of Christ always reminds us of the suffering and pain that surround death and the agony it entails. We are all afraid of death, and out of fear we turn away, preferring not to look. We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil! Saint Augustine teaches: “If you fear death, love the resurrection!” (Sermon 124, 4). Let us too love the resurrection, which reminds us that evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One.
Cheap Shots
And, of course, the first Bulwark pope.
With respect to the war with Iran, any member of the U.S. Armed Services who participates in any way in attacks on civilian infrastructure is obeying an illegal order, is guilty of war crimes under international law, and treasonously violating their oaths of service to the Constitution.
Full stop. End of subject.
I know everyone is (rightly) focused on Trump's message on 4/5 about further attacks on Iran, but I'm even more worried/scared about Hegseth especially since he has been firing General's left and right and who will be left in the Pentagon that is reasoned and ethical. Not sure what my question is really about this other than, how to we deal with someone like Hegseth who is surrounding himself with more people like him?