Time to Show Some Backbone
Congressional Republicans have started standing up to Trump on some little stuff. But what about the big new usurpation of their power?
Donald Trump really, really doesn’t like that the government of Ontario is playing clips of Ronald Reagan extolling free markets and disparaging tariffs on U.S. TV:
“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!” he wrote on Truth Social this morning, apparently under the mistaken belief that the Reagan quotes had been fabricated. “They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY. Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country.”
You’ve got to feel for him. What’s the point of being the most powerful man in the world if they can still put stuff you don’t like on TV? Happy Friday.
An Ounce of Courage in the Desert
by Andrew Egger
Here’s something unusual we spotted this week: faint stirrings of independent thought from Republican lawmakers in the Senate and around the country.
There’s the blue slips, for one thing. Donald Trump has chafed for months over a longstanding Senate precedent that gives senators a de facto veto over U.S. attorney and district court nominees in their home states.1 But although he used Tuesday’s lunch in the Rose Garden to berate his GOP Senate allies for honoring the blue-slip tradition, they are standing firm. At a Judiciary Committee meeting Wednesday, Republicans praised chairman Chuck Grassley for sticking with the practice: “I want to thank you for our courage,” Sen. John Kennedy said, “with respect to Democrat and Republican presidents, for standing your ground on the blue slip, which I support unconditionally.”
Meanwhile, farm-state senators took the opportunity of the Rose Garden lunch to push back hard against Trump’s idea of importing more Argentinian beef, pestering Trump himself and a number of his cabinet officials on the subject.
It was Senate opposition, too, that led to the collapse of Paul Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel this week after Politico reported on his racist group-chat text messages. It wasn’t until after a number of Republican senators flatly said Ingrassia wouldn’t pass that the White House pulled his nomination.
These small displays of courage are all to the good. But they are minor displays indeed—at a moment when Trump is making perhaps his most egregious attempt yet to claim powers that constitutionally belong to Congress alone.
As the government shutdown drags on, more and more ordinary recipients of government funds have had to go without. Various cash-assistance programs are starting to dry up, and many federal workers are furloughed or on the job without pay.
But there’s one group Trump is determined to keep paying: military service members. Earlier this month, the president instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to start cannibalizing various other parts of the Pentagon budget to keep paychecks rolling to the troops. “I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous government shutdown,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Hegseth complied: the Department announced it had rustled up $8 billion to send out paychecks this month.
Then, yesterday, Trump made a further announcement. An anonymous billionaire friend of his, he said, had cut a $130 million check to the federal government to keep the troops paid further. “I’d like to contribute, personally contribute, any shortfall you have with the military,” Trump quoted the unnamed benefactor as saying. “I love the military, and I love the country.”
It’s a terrible thing that troops should have to go without pay because Congress can’t find a way to fund the government. (See Mark Hertling for more on this over on the homepage.) But when Congress isn’t funding the government, the government isn’t funded—full stop. The legislature’s power of the purse isn’t just a managerial role bestowed on it by the president, to be reclaimed by him any time he deems lawmakers to be falling down on the job. The Constitution leaves no wiggle room: The executive branch spends money when the laws of the country tell it to do so, and nobody writes those laws but Congress.
This is far from the first moment Trump has tried to chip away at Congress’s spending authority—he’s repeatedly claimed the authority to refuse to spend money appropriated for various purposes via so-called rescissions. But even those infringements are less alarming than this naked attempt to say money should keep flowing from the Treasury despite no law authorizing it, based purely on his personal say-so.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Trump is claiming the personal authority to keep money flowing to the troops—either from Pentagon funds intended for other purposes or from his wealthy pals—while he continues to treat the U.S. military like a private army unbound by laws beyond his will. He sends them into blue cities, he uses them to blow up what he claims are drug-running boats in international waters—and now he pays them, he says, on his own authority. This is more than an affront to the Constitution—it’s a dangerous argument that the troops work not for us but for him.
Republicans in Congress have shown they can grow a bit of a backbone on blue slips and Argentinian beef. Is it so insane to hope they could also protest against the president overriding their constitutional authority and treating the U.S. armed forces as private mercenaries?
Globe Series
by William Kristol
The World Series kicks off tonight, and it will be quite the globalist affair.
Thanks to George Springer’s dramatic seventh-inning homer that brought the Blue Jays from behind in the seventh game of the ALCS, the American League will be represented by a team from [gasp] Canada! So we’ll get to hear before each game not just “The Star-Spangled Banner” but also “O Canada.” Two excellent anthems for the price of one!
And the National League will be represented by a powerful Los Angeles Dodgers team featuring not one, not two, but three star players—Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki—from . . . Japan.
What’s a MAGA nativist to do? He can’t root for a team from Canada, about whom Donald Trump announced last night that “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS” were “HEREBY TERMINATED.” But he can’t root for a team with Japanese stars who barely speak English.
Our dear MAGA nativist could, I suppose, turn his back on the national pastime, and spend his evenings contemplating the greatness of the president he voted for. But he might be a bit put off if he’s reminded that Donald Trump, this champion of all things America, has demolished more of our White House than anyone since British troops came rampaging through Washington in August 1814.
Well, it’s still a free country, and our nativists are free to deal with their dilemmas as they choose. I do hope that, despite it all, they watch and enjoy the game.
But you know who I’m confident would have enjoyed this World Series? Ronald Reagan. He loved America. And he was no nativist.
I’d normally quote Reagan here on the foolishness of trade wars and the virtues of immigration, but I don’t want to get a letter from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute telling me it’s “reviewing its legal options in this matter.”
It’s sad that the Reagan Foundation seems to have decided to court favor with Donald Trump and his supporters rather than defend the legacy of Ronald Reagan—the task for which it was created. The foundation could of course have said that the government of Ontario is perfectly free to quote Ronald Reagan’s criticism of tariffs and protectionism. And it might have added: If that upsets Donald Trump, tough luck. But like so many of our great and good institutions these days, it won’t stand up for its own principles, or act in the spirit of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Oh, well.
Meanwhile, I trust we’ll be treated to an exciting World Series. My prediction, since you ask? The Dodgers in six. Yamamoto wins the clincher and takes home the MVP. And Trump chickens out in his trade war.
AROUND THE BULWARK
For the Military, a Shutdown Is About a Lot More Than Just Pay, writes MARK HERTLING, explaining that the families, institutions, and services going unpaid are vital to readiness.
MAGA Media Keeps Thirsting for Left-Wing Violence… In False Flag, WILL SOMMER reports on how a fight at a debate-watch party in Virginia exposes the right’s yearning for cases of liberal violence, even if they have to make them up.
The Shutdown is Killing D.C.’s Food Trucks… In Press Pass, JOE PERTICONE also takes a look at the MAGA goodies bags that Trump gave Republican senators—showing what cheap dates they are. (Looking at you, Bill Cassidy. A hat? Really? What happened to “do no harm”?)
Is the Argentina Bailout a Glimpse Into the Future of the United States? Trumpism could dominate American politics long after Trump himself is gone—just as Perónism continues to dominate politics in Argentina, warns BEN RADERSTORF.
I’m a Teenager. Here’s How We Can Protect Kids From Online Harm… ELLE VIDRA shares some practical suggestions for schools and families.
Joyce Carol Oates, Our Most Surprising Horror Novelist… She was taking horror seriously before it was cool to do so, writes BILL RYAN.
In a survey, Bulwark Readers believe the Blue Jays will win the World Series… In the Overtime World Series Prediction Contest, 14.6 percent of respondents predicted the Toronto Blue Jays would win the World Series, and 9.8 percent selected the Dodgers, while 70.7 percent of respondents think the series will go 6 games.
Quick Hits
BIG GAZA QUESTIONS: More details are emerging about the White House’s plan for the fate of Gaza, with the U.S. and Israel considering dividing the enclave into two zones: One controlled by Israel, the other temporarily by Hamas. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Vice President JD Vance and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner summarized the thinking in a news conference Tuesday in Israel, where they had arrived to press both sides to abide by the current cease-fire, under which Israel pulled back its troops so that it now controls about 53% of the enclave.
Vance said there are two regions in Gaza, one relatively safe and the other incredibly dangerous, and that the goal is to geographically expand the area that is safe. Until then, Kushner said, no funds for reconstruction would go to areas that remain under Hamas’s control, and the focus would be on building up the safe side.
“There are considerations happening now in the area that the IDF controls, as long as that can be secured, to start the construction as a new Gaza in order to give the Palestinians living in Gaza a place to go, a place to get jobs, a place to live,” Kushner said, referring to Israel’s military by its initials.
Arab mediators are alarmed by the plan which, they said, the U.S. and Israel have brought up in peace talks. Arab governments strongly oppose the idea of dividing Gaza, arguing it could lead to a zone of permanent Israeli control inside the enclave. They are unlikely to commit troops to police the enclave on those terms.
WHO SIGNED FOR THIS BACKHOE?: The unexpected demolition of the East Wing this week had many people wondering, as they do so often these days—wait, they can just DO that?
The White House’s official answer: Yep, sure can!
In ordinary practice, these, uh, renovations would take place through the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees government construction projects. But the White House has claimed this week that NCPC approval is only required for new construction, not for demolition.
“It’s not the president who came up with that legal opinion himself,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters yesterday. “That’s a legal opinion that’s been held by the NCPC for many years.”
Former NCPC officials see that as a distinction without a difference. “The demolition element is inherent in the overall project,” L. Preston Bryant, who chaired the commission from 2009 to 2018, told ABC News. “Demo is not separated from construction. It’s part of it.”
It’s not likely the NCPC, which is part of the executive branch and staffed by White House personnel, would have dug in its heels and resisted Trump’s efforts to demolish the East Wing, even if he had followed proper channels. But that’s the whole Trump experience in miniature: Why go to the trouble of going through the protocols? Nobody’s going to stop you if you just roll in the excavators.
DUM DUM DUM: You’ve heard of the Streisand Effect. But the John Williams Effect is a new one.
Yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Sam O’Hara, a man they claim was unlawfully detained by D.C. police last month. What had O’Hara done to earn their ire? Peacefully protest the deployment of National Guardsmen in the capital by following them around while playing the Star Wars “Imperial March” on a small bluetooth speaker, and filming it all for TikTok.
“Ohio National Guard member Sgt. Devon Beck,” the ACLU alleges in the suit, “was not amused by this satire.” When O’Hara fell in behind Beck’s unit for his usual protest on September 11, Beck “turned around and threatened to call D.C. police officers to ‘handle’ Mr. O’Hara if he persisted,” according to the suit. When O’Hara did persist, Beck followed through. The D.C. cops he called “came to the scene and, in essence, did what Sgt. Beck had threatened, putting Mr. O’Hara in handcuffs and preventing him from continuing his peaceful protest.”
The ACLU, you might imagine, objected.
“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the group’s suit goes on. “But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the District’s prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.”
Who knows if anything will come of the suit—O’Hara was not arrested, just handcuffed for about twenty minutes. Still, the filing shines a spotlight on yet another example of the sort of protest that seems most effective against Trump in the current moment: Ridicule with an eye toward internet virality. Play it again, Darth.
Cheap Shots
The blue slip precedent has, for instance, stymied for now the confirmation of Alina Habba as U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
I was listening to the Sarah episode of the Grill Room podcast last night. In there she talked about some of the Bulwark readers and subscribers firmly believing that this was the inevitable end of the Republican Project that started under Nixon & took off under Reagan. I feel like this episode with the Reagan ad is a great example of why the readers are correct. Here is a party that has made free trade and open markets the cornerstone of its economic policy for decades. St Reagan celebrated the joys of a free market for years. He castigated countries like Japan for closing its market. So it’s absolutely hilarious to watch even the Ronald Presidential Foundation cave to Trump. Time for me to get my “JVL is right” t-shirt.
I love how a FRIEND of the president is donating $130 million to keep the military funded. Not like the president would actually provide money from his own accounts (as dirty as they are) to pay "suckers" and "losers." He'll be wealthier than Putin if he has to kill the country. (Oh, wait.)
Along these lines, Paul Krugman's post today is, in part, about how the Roman empire arose because all the folks made wealthy during the Republic era became oligarchs who didn't abide by norms. I think we're well past that point here.