The Shame of What We’ve Become
Trump’s deportation regime is a stain on our country. The bigger stain is that we voted for it.
A tough lede to read, from the AP:
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman's behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.
If these stories are true, we hope Sen. Fetterman can get the help he needs. Happy Thursday.
The Point Is Cruelty
by William Kristol
Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty calls the United States of America the land of “world-wide welcome,” the nation of “the golden door.”
We are not that today.
On Monday, a 19-year-old was stopped in Dalton, Georgia, for making a right turn on a red light. Ximena Arias-Cristobal, an honors graduate of Dalton High School, is a student in good standing at Dalton State College. But she is an undocumented immigrant. ICE was informed of her apprehension for this minor misdemeanor, and Ximena was promptly transported with chains around her wrists and ankles to the Stewart Detention Center near Columbus, more than three hours away.
Ximena was brought here in 2010, as a 4-year-old, by her parents, who were themselves undocumented. The family has lived law-abidingly in Georgia ever since. Her father owns a construction company, pays taxes, and, because their daughter is undocumented, has been paying out-of-state tuition for her at college.
The district’s representative in the Georgia State House, Kacey Carpenter, is a Republican. He wrote a letter to the judge on Ximena’s behalf. And he remarked to local media:
The conversation has always been that we need to get hard criminals out of the country. Unfortunately, the people that aren’t hard criminals are getting caught up in the wash. It seems like we are much better at catching people that are committing misdemeanors than people that are actually a danger to society.
Carpenter is right, of course. But it’s hard to imagine he’s surprised. “Mass deportation” is what Trump promised. This is just an example of his policy at work. The question we must ask ourselves is: How could we have gotten to this place?
A more ambitious manifestation of the policy became visible Tuesday in news reports that the Trump administration planned to start deporting migrants originally from certain Asian countries to detention in Libya. Lawyers for detainees rushed to court to ensure that their clients weren’t sent to Libya or any other third country without some form of due process, as has been required by the courts.
Yesterday, in Boston, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy reminded the Trump administration that he had already barred the Department of Homeland Security from deporting someone to a third country without having given them a chance to challenge their removal and seek protection in the United States.
“This case,” Judge Murphy wrote, “presents a simple question: Before the United States forcibly sends someone to a country other than their country of origin, must that person be told where they are going and be given a chance to tell the United States that they might be killed if sent there?” The answer, Murphy said, consistent with previous judicial rulings and with “common sense [and] basic decency” is yes.
But the Trump administration denies this. The administration is appealing this and other cases, making the argument that they have the unilateral right to deport anyone they detain to any place they chose.
This position of the Trump administration (and its practice in El Salvador) prompted a powerful cri de coeur yesterday from my former Weekly Standard colleague, Matt Labash. Writing on his substack (to which you should subscribe!), Labash asked:
Regardless of what the courts say, how is that plan okay? When did it become acceptable for us to have our government put even illegal immigrants into foreign prisons for the crime of trying to come to America? You don’t have to be for illegal immigration (and I’m most definitely not) to find that abhorrent.
Labash continued:
Every day, a fresh assault by this administration on what we used to think of ourselves as standing for. Which seemingly doesn’t want us to think of ourselves in those terms anymore. As aspiring authoritarians often don’t. Their power comes from shattering all former notions of yourself. But rather, they want you to think of yourself as they think of themselves, as a people capable—as they have proven again and again—of much greater cruelty.
Labash’s lament echoes Lincoln’s in a (private) letter 170 years ago: “Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.”
There is no more striking instance of degeneracy than Trump’s mass deportation policy. But as painful as the sight of this moral rot is the recognition that we voted for it.
The question before us is: Now that we see this policy in action, do we have the moral clarity and courage to reject it?
The Corruption Is Everywhere
by Andrew Egger
Who’s excited for the official $TRUMP Gala Dinner? The president’s openly, hilariously corrupt private gathering for the top buyers and holders of his crypto token—which caused the meme coin’s price to spike by 50 percent when it was announced last month—is now just weeks away. And the headlines underscoring how very legal and very cool the whole business is just keep piling up.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that more than half of the token’s top holders “have used foreign exchanges that say they ban U.S. users, suggesting that many of the purchasers are based outside the U.S.”
Meanwhile, some buyers are openly admitting that they’re accumulating the coin in the express hope of gaining influence with the president. A small logistics company called Freight Technologies announced plans this week to buy $20 million in $TRUMP, calling the purchase a way to “advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.”
The Trump dinner may be the most grandiose, corrupt crypto scam the president and his family have been running recently, but it’s far from the only one. To take just one other example: The Financial Times reported yesterday that a small group of unknown traders1 made a nine-figure killing on Melania Trump’s memecoin when it was announced back in January. Their strategy was simple but effective: They bought huge shares of the memecoin two minutes before the incoming first lady announced the venture publicly, then sold those shares hours later after the announcement spiked the price.
It would be bad enough if the Trumps and their pals were merely trading off the presidency on the side. Even worse are the cases where the president is getting the U.S. policy apparatus involved. Check out this story yesterday from the Washington Post:
Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink.
The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years.
The decision drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post, which states: “As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.”
Lesotho is far from the only country that has decided to assist Musk’s firm while trying to fend off U.S. tariffs. . . . A series of internal government messages obtained by The Post reveal how U.S. embassies and the State Department have pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name.
In theory, America still enjoys all the institutions that help ensure such crimes don’t pay: a strong independent judiciary, a Congress with impeachment powers, a free press that can’t be bullied into silence or cut off forcibly from its audience. And yet Trump is plainly making a bet that when it comes right down to it, none of those things will actually interfere with or punish his schemes to make a naked buck however he pleases. And he’s browbeating the judiciary, the press, and the Congress into submission, just to be safe.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Popular Resistance to Trump Is Working… Whenever one more institution or individual stands up to the administration, everyone benefits, argues JONATHAN BLANKS.
Trump’s Lies Blow Up in Shocking Declassified Report… On The Bulwark Podcast, REP. JIM HIMES joins TIM MILLER to discuss the declassified report revealing the Trump administration used disputed intelligence to justify mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act despite internal reports contradicting their claims.
How to Remember David Horowitz… His turn toward Trumpism finally broke their decades-long friendship, which had seen them move from left to right. Here’s what RONALD RADOSH will mourn and miss about the man.
Quick Hits
WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY KENNETH: We hate to say it, but the time has come to start emotionally preparing for a future in which Ted Cruz is no longer Texas’s slimiest senator.
State Attorney General Ken Paxton—best known for his herculean attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his impeachment (and subsequent acquittal) on personal corruption charges in 2023—launched an insurgent Senate bid against Sen. John Cornyn last month. And he’s surging.
An internal GOP poll obtained by the Houston Chronicle last week showed Cornyn trailing Paxton by 17 points. Meanwhile, a poll released yesterday by the University of Texas gave Paxton significantly higher favorables among Texas Republicans: 59 percent favorable to only 11 percent unfavorable for Paxton, 46 percent favorable to 22 percent unfavorable for Cornyn.
If there’s a small (and we mean really small) silver lining for Democrats here, it’s this: The Senate map is so bad for the party this cycle that they would need both to play perfect defense and run the table knocking out purplish-state GOP incumbents just to get back to 50-50. You never know: Maybe a world where the Texas GOP decides to trade in a safe incumbent for a highly controversial gunslinger cracks the door open for Dems to eke out that elusive 51st seat.
‘I DON’T KNOW THAT’: We think it’s pretty obvious Donald Trump doesn’t take too many of his governing cues from your Morning Shots correspondents. Nevertheless, we’ve got one tip for the big guy: Spend a bit less time getting your policy ideas from what you happen to be watching on the boob tube, and a bit more time tuning into your daily briefings.
Here were three of the biggest news stories yesterday: JD Vance said publicly that Russia was “asking for too much” to end the war in Ukraine. The administration was laying new plans to deport migrants to Libya, starting as early as this week. And a key Republican senator signaled he might oppose Ed Martin’s confirmation as U.S. attorney for D.C.
Speaking to the press in the Oval Office yesterday afternoon, what did Trump have to say about these important stories?
On Vance’s comments: “When did he say that? Well, it’s possible that’s right. He may know some things.”
On the Libya story: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Homeland Security.”
On Sen. Thom Tillis’s opposition to Martin’s confirmation: “I didn’t know that, but if anybody voted against him I feel very badly about it.”
This might be just a case of a politician practicing the art of evasion. But if so, it’s a break from Trump’s historical practice: deploying a simple “we’re looking into that very strongly” to squirm out of answering a question he doesn’t like. This new approach seems worse—suggesting he’s in the dark about the big issues, indifferent to them, or both.
DO THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS?: Wake up, babe—new Trumpworld brain genius just dropped. Here’s NPR:
President Trump has switched up his pick for U.S. Surgeon General, tapping best-selling author and wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means in place of his initial pick, former Fox News contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat. . . .
In an announcement on Truth Social, Trump said that Means “will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans.”
The move exchanges one Trump-cabinet archetype for another. Out is Nesheiwat, a pick with the ordinary kind of Trumpworld cred—a Fox News gig, mild COVID vaccine skepticism, opposition to gender-conversion treatment for minors—but also mounting questions about whether she dramatically exaggerated her medical experience. In is Means, a surgical-residency dropout who has gained a cult following as a Make America Healthy Again #thinkfluencer, railing against pharmaceutical companies, processed food, the pediatric vaccination schedule, and the FDA while hawking supplements and piling up claims about the importance of “good energy.”
Means’s elevation is significant, less because of any policy change it portends than because of what it demonstrates about Trump’s current thinking. Trump has no plans whatsoever to restrain or sideline his conspiracy-addled Health and Human Services Secretary.
Still, not everyone is thrilled, even within the RFK Jr. camp. Kennedy’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has been railing against the Means pick, saying she was promised that it wouldn’t happen. And Laura Loomer—de facto chief personnel vetter for the administration—seems absolutely determined to tank it. It got so bad overnight that Casey Means’s brother Calley was forced to push back at Loomer for accusing his sister of not sufficiently condemning their father for being vaguely kind to trans people.
Cheap Shots
Unknown if you’re the most gullible person alive.
It's not hard to connect the dots on all these issues today. Peeling back the onion and its many layers, the common denominator is how indifferent most people are to what is going on around them, as long as it does not impact them personally and their own wealth and standing. "It's what we voted for" is how we tie the bundle together, and it is true. But I'm less inclined to say it is "what we've become." I submit that we've been that way all along, at least since the 1990s when Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Ted Nugent, and other human turds of faux morality began urging -- all too often largely for personal gain -- the slimiest among us to crawl out from underneath their rocks and seek the daylight. They were there all along, sometimes hiding in plain sight. They simply waited for a permission structure to do so, gradually at first and then en masse about a decade ago when some guy came down an elevator and proclaimed that he would be their agent for change, their retribution, and everything else that welcomed them aboard a viable political movement and sought to blame and own the libs for every societal and even personal ill that they had endured, real or imagined, regardless of the consequences of their own poor choices. Too many people bought into it over time, and too many among us did not take a hard principled stand against it when it still could have been stopped. And now it is all this, with the prospect of still worse to come.
It's bad enough that migrants are being shipped off to distant lands like El Salvador and maybe Libya, Rwanda, and any other extremist regime willing to make money off of our cruelty and human suffering. The elephant in the room remains what will happen when, if they get away with it with migrants, American citizens next are targeted for export, as treasonous people who dared speak out against the regime, got a speeding ticket, or committed any other transgression that makes them a viable prospect for elimination, never to be seen again by their loved ones and rendered out of sight and eventually out of mind. And the ultrawealthy among us will continue to grift, scam, and monetize for their own gain right out in the open while we strive simply to earn through actual work and save enough to make it to and through retirement and any unforeseen health crisis.
(We've reached a point where some among us will spend more FOR ONE DINNER at a crypto or political fundraiser than most of us will earn over the course of our entire working careers. Unconscionable.)
Our political leaders would not do it or allow it if they knew that enough people would rise up to stop them. They count on the passivity that comes with a large majority of us all thinking that it is someone else, it doesn't harm them personally, it doesn't impact their cost of living, and it punishes a class of people who deserve it anyway. They do it because they know they can. They know who and what we are. And that we will not change. Truly it has become a situation where each time they hit bottom on the morality and outrage meter, they begin to dig, simply because they know there is more oil to strike. Shame on them for doing it. Much more shame on us all for allowing it and leaving it for some future generation to clean up our willing mess and both write and read the history books that will tell of how we utterly failed the test when it was our turn to take it.
Here's what scares me. Not "breaking the law" is a very, very thin line. If the standard for staying in the government's good graces is "no law breaking" we're all in trouble. We're all one unseen traffic sign away from being an unperson.