Sleepwalking Congressional Republicans Consumed With Confusion
Plus: Did Trump voters want leniency for alleged human traffickers?
Members of Congress are not quite sure who exactly is in charge of American foreign policy right now. It’s not about who is actually making the decisions. That, they know. Instead, we might put the core issue in the form of a question: “What gave these people the gall to do exactly what they promised they’d do if they were given the power to do it?”
There is overwhelming consensus on Capitol Hill that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, NATO is critical to European and global security, and the United States has led the common defense. But Republicans just backed a presidential candidate and voted to confirm several key cabinet officials who do not accept those realities. Confronted with the consequences of their support for Trump and votes for his nominees, Republican lawmakers are putting their hands up in surprise and saying, ‘What the?’
“[Pete] Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Politico while in Germany last week. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”
Wicker was referencing Hegseth’s decision to declare that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO—a massive concession to Russia that came with, seemingly, nothing offered in return.
“I don’t know who wrote the speech—it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” Wicker added. For what it’s worth, Wicker attended the same Republican National Convention last summer in which Carlson was given a top speaking slot.
As for his remark about Hegseth not being his “choice for the job,” Wicker had a different tune when considering the nomination. Back then, he called Hegseth a “top-shelf communicator” with a “spirit that can cascade from the top down” through the military.
Another senator who seems confused about the Trump administration’s agenda is Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cotton is one of several Republicans whose dander is up over Trump’s nomination of Elbridge Colby to serve as under secretary for policy at the Department of Defense.
In a podcast interview with Fox News’s Will Cain, Cotton reiterated concerns about Colby's fitness for the job, citing his past writings about the ability to contain a nuclear Iran:
I wanna make sure that the president’s nominees and all critical national security positions—whether it’s this one, elsewhere in DoD, the Department of State, or the intelligence community—share his priorities and are gonna advance his priorities. Most notably, a core conviction of the president and mine is making sure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. So I’m gonna explore that with Mr. Colby in meetings and hearings just as I have with other nominees who have come in front of the committee, and I’ll continue to do that on that issue and other issues as we move ahead.
Cotton noted that a contained, nuclear Iran is “not the president’s position.” He added: “Again, we’ve got meetings and hearings coming up, so I’ll explore it with him just like I do with other nominees for the Department of Defense, Department of State, and the intelligence community.”
The instances of Trump apparatchiks suddenly discovering that they don’t like the party’s manifesto extends from there. While in Tel Aviv Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) deflected questions about Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza before turning it into the Atlantic City of the Middle East:
The one thing that President Trump has done, he started a discussion that was long overdue. I think the Arabs have woken up: ‘Hey, we need to find a better alternative than what’s been said.’ So I’m quite optimistic the Arab world will come up with a plan and present to President Trump that shows how you can provide security to Israel and deal with the Palestinian issue without driving them all out.
In the House, meanwhile, longtime hawks like Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) hinted that the Trump administration’s Ukraine strategy may have a clear—and unfortunate—historical precedent.
Bacon continued, posting: “If Latvia, Estonia & Lithuania were not part of NATO, it is very likely that Putin would have already invaded them. Putin denies their sovereignty as it is. These countries want democracy, independence, free markets & rule of law. NATO serves a great purpose & remains relevant.”
This was obviously in response to rumors that Trump is “considering” pulling the United States out of NATO.
The dumbfoundedness is part of a decade-long tradition in the GOP, whose lawmakers are by now well accustomed to cheering on Trump and his top aides as they march against those lawmakers’ own policy preferences—and sometimes, as they directly attack the very principles and deeply held beliefs that are expressed in those preferences. In each case, lawmakers eventually cede the ground to Trump, more closely embrace cynicism, and watch as the party continues its unceasing drift towards selective isolationism. The only differences from past Trump eras are that in Trump’s second term, this is all happening at a much faster rate—and they can no longer say they weren’t warned.
The Tate Modern
Speaking of going along with ghastly policy, one of the latest acts of informal advocacy from the Trump administration has American representatives abroad pushing the Romanians to lift restrictions their courts have placed on accused human trafficker Andrew Tate and his brother, fellow accused human trafficker Tristan Tate.
According to the Financial Times:
The Tates’ case was first brought up by US officials in a phone call with the Romanian government last week and then followed up by Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell when he met the Romanian foreign minister at the Munich Security Conference, according to three people familiar with the matter.
A fourth person said a request was made to return the brothers’ passports and allow them to travel while they wait for court proceedings to conclude.
Romanian foreign minister Emil Hurezeanu declined to comment on his exchange with Grenell. His spokesperson said Hurezeanu initiated the meeting and that they had “known each other for a long time” as they had both served as ambassadors in Berlin during the first Trump presidency.
The spokesperson did not comment on their specific discussions but said: “Romanian courts are independent and operate based on the law, there is due process.”
Grenell said he had “no substantive conversation” with Hurezeanu, whom he denied knowing. He “saw me in the hallway” in Munich and “asked for a meeting”, but there was no other follow-up encounter, Grenell said. “I support the Tate brothers as evident by my publicly available tweets,” he added.
Tate is a prominent online misogynist shitfuck who regularly instructs his audience of insecure young men and boys to feel manlier by treating women like actual garbage. In Romania, Tate has been accused of rape, human trafficking, and developing an organized crime racket for the purpose of exploiting women.1
Tate’s pronouncements over the years are loathsome and not worth recounting in detail. That anyone in an American foreign policy role would think his cause is worth taking up is one more indication of the steepness of our national decline.
Che peccato!
You might recall a special Italian Press Pass supplement from earlier this month about Donald Trump Jr. allegedly breaking local Italian hunting laws while killing a rare species of duck in December.
We have an update.
Venetian prosecutor Daniela Moroni has opened an investigation into the matter. The probe is focusing on the whole hunting trip, not Trump in particular. But the outcry from locals got intense enough that Moroni has signaled the state intends to at least figure out whether or not Trump or others broke the law.
According to Corriere della Sera, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the Italian minister of the environment and energy security (similar to our secretary of the Department of the Interior), wanted to see a report on exactly what happened on the hunting trip.
Trump Jr. has a way of wiggling out of controversial and legally dubious hunting trips in which he’s killed rare animals, as was the case in a 2019 trip to Mongolia. That said, I don’t think he’s tangled with angry Venetians before.
Not for nothing, but he also dresses horribly.
"Tate is a prominent online misogynist shitfuck"..... Straight, with no chaser. Nicely done.
I am glad to know that the GOP have thoroughly questioned and vetted Trump's nominees. Their seriousness and due diligence are certainly paying off for Putin.