Trump’s Permanency Project
Who cares about popularity when you can make elections irrelevant?
The House of Representatives delivered a remarkable rebuke to the White House yesterday, passing a war powers resolution that would require the president to withdraw forces from Iran or seek congressional approval for ongoing military action. Four Republicans broke ranks to support the measure, which now heads to the Senate.
Donald Trump wasn’t pleased. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing,” he fumed on Truth Social. “They know where the negotiations stand. . . . They should be ashamed of themselves.”
In other words: Quit telling me to end my war! Can’t you see I’m TRYING? Happy Thursday.
The Authoritarianism Accelerates
by William Kristol
Last night, President Trump announced at a dinner in what used to be the Rose Garden that he would be nominating acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold that post in a full capacity. As Trump put it, “we are going to make him permanent attorney general.”
It’s an interesting formulation. Trump can’t actually “make” Blanche attorney general. That will require Senate confirmation, which could well be problematic. And moving up from acting attorney general doesn’t make you “permanent attorney general.” Unless Trump plans to remain permanent president.
Which, it seems, is something Trump increasingly seems to have in mind.
In his two months as acting attorney general, Blanche has gone out of his way to show Trump, conspicuously and publicly, his unsparing commitment to the autocrat’s precept: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies the law.” From the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, to the authorization of a sweeping investigation of former law enforcement and intelligence officials allegedly engaged in a decade-long conspiracy against Trump, to the attempt to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund for Trump’s allies and supporters, to his earlier work on the Epstein coverup—Todd Blanche has done what Trump wants. Trump’s announcement last night sends the signal that such an effort will be recognized and rewarded.
Trump’s announcement of his intention to promote Blanche came hard on the heels of Trump’s selection Tuesday of his spectacularly unqualified but fervently loyal henchman, Bill Pulte, to be acting Director of National Intelligence. And the last few days have also seen progress, if that’s the word, in the ongoing Trumpification of other key national security agencies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has intervened in unprecedented ways in the selection of senior military officers, and has also put a 24-year-old convicted January 6th rioter in a counterterrorism job at the Pentagon. Trump has also been increasingly strident in recent days in his defense of what he and his supporters attempted on January 6, 2021. And in testimony to Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has refused to commit to obeying court orders. This led senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to comment, “If you’re a Republican or a Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out.” Just yesterday, Trump signed an executive order converting some 8,000 career, non-partisan civil service positions into political appointments, making those employees hirable and fireable at will.
We all should be “really, really freaked out.” Because it’s clear that Trump’s power grab over the executive branch is not just proceeding apace, but is intensifying. Yes, Trump is less popular than he used to be, and he has less of an absolute sway over Republican members of Congress than he once did. But this seems to be causing not hesitation on Trump’s part, but an intensification of his power-grabbing efforts. He seems no longer to care much about political backlash, or electoral consequences. As he said last week, “I don’t care about the midterms.” It’s almost as if he doesn’t expect elections to matter because he’s not going to do everything he can to allow them not to matter.
Trump seems to be at the stage of his authoritarian project when the mask comes off, when he increasingly disdains to conceal his aims. Trump has always presented himself as the tribune of the people. But yesterday he posted on Truth Social:
Communists always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL! Great Violence proceeds at levels never seen before, and the entity dissolves into Poverty, Squalor, and Crime. Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!
This professed disdain by Trump for the “Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE” is striking. Trump has been a fantastically successful demagogue, a master flatterer of the people. But at some point in an authoritarian takeover, one has to explain why one is taking over power despite or against the wishes of the people. What we are seeing is a president who is going full steam ahead on his centralization of power in a way that should make one doubt he intends to give it up—whether over the next two years, whatever a Democratic Congress tries to do, or in 2028, whatever the people try to do at the polls.
Many of the authoritarian efforts of Trump and his apparatchiks remain in the shadows, to be sure. But he wants to accustom his supporters to the idea that the opposition is thwarting him and that he may therefore need to take extraordinary measures. Trump didn’t have to nominate Blanche as “permanent” attorney general. Blanche can stay in the job as acting attorney general, with all the powers of a “permanent attorney general,” for quite a while. Trump wants these public fights. Authoritarianism needs to come into the daylight in order to socialize the acceptance not just of particular measures, but of the overall project, and to justify what might need to be done to seize power or stay in power in order to defeat the “Communists” who have seduced the people.
Over the past century, in many nations, fascist movements and authoritarian coups have sought justification in the need to save their respective countries from the Communists. One hopes and trusts that American exceptionalism will win out, and that we will not go down in history as merely another chapter in this sad story. We’re in no way destined to succumb to such a fate.
Schrödinger’s Slush Fund
by Andrew Egger
Earlier this week, facing a Senate Republican mutiny, the White House suggested it would cancel a planned $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund for payouts to January 6th rioters and other Trump allies. Yesterday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told the House Appropriations Committee that the Justice Department was “not moving forward with the fund.” But nobody involved—not the president, not the rioters, not the senators who oppose the fund—seems convinced that the idea of cash transfers to insurrectionists is really dead.
In an interview with the New York Post this week, Trump continued to insist that the January 6th criminals he pardoned last year “should be reimbursed for a crooked government.” Yesterday, when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked him whether the fund was dead or merely on hold, Trump dodged the question: “It’s, uh . . . I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know.” He then pivoted to an extended personal attack on Collins.
Meanwhile, many of the rioters and the lawyers representing them are still holding out hope for a payout. The slush fund, after all, was just a financial mechanism for bundling their claims; Trump’s ongoing endorsement of the idea that they should get money has many thinking the Justice Department may prove more willing to settle with them individually. Peter Ticktin, a MAGA lawyer with hundreds of J6er clients, said this week he has filed claims for 200 clients and expects to file 200 more.
“As much as we’re disappointed that the plan was canceled,” Ticktin told ABC News, “right now we’re still very optimistic.”
Several senators suggested yesterday they’re not taking the administration at face value here either.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, told reporters he wasn’t inclined to take Blanche at his word. “You want to make sure something’s dead, not just mostly dead,” the physician legislator told NOTUS, channeling his inner Billy Crystal.1 “You want to make sure it’s really dead, and I think we can make it really dead.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) sounded a similar note. “They will call it dead so long as it is politically expedient for them to do so,” she told reporters. “We will only know that that fund, that slush fund, is dead when we make that the law that the president cannot do this.”
It’s exactly the right sentiment. If Congress has learned nothing else during the Trump era, maybe they’ve at least learned this: You’d have to be a fool to take these guys at their word.
If Congress is going to do anything to make sure the slush fund is truly dead and buried, today’s the day to do it. The Senate will be voting for hours today on amendments to its $70 billion reconciliation package to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, a top legislative priority for Republicans on the Hill. It’ll be a good opportunity to see how gullible this crew still is.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Tell Me How the Iran War Ends… MARK HERTLING asks: What are we fighting for?
Why Stone-Faced Fascists Keep Getting Antiquity Wrong… Online bigotry masquerades as a love of history in the fever swamps of Elon Musk’s X, writes BRET DEVEREAUX.
The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy… On the flagship pod, LUKE RUSSERT and JOSH TUREK join TIM MILLER to discuss why it sure feels like there’s a vast right wing conspiracy to try and take over the media.
Quick Hits
YANK PULTE OR STOP SPYING: For Senate Democrats, reauthorizing America’s broad post-9/11 spying programs is one thing—and reauthorizing them with a Trump hatchet man like Bill Pulte in the government’s top intel position is quite another. Punchbowl News reports that Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, met with Majority Leader John Thune Tuesday to urge him to press Trump to change his mind on Pulte. If he refuses, Warner said, Democrats may be forced to tank a bill under consideration to extend the administration’s FISA 702 intelligence authorities. Here’s Punchbowl:
Democrats believe they’d be doing Republicans a favor because they also see Pulte as unqualified for the job, even if few openly say it. As we scooped Tuesday, the White House had indicated to top Republicans that Aaron Lukas, whom Trump announced as the acting DNI 12 days ago, would remain in the role for an extended period. Senate Republicans felt blindsided.
Despite Republicans’ concerns about Pulte, many argued Tuesday that reauthorizing Section 702 shouldn’t be “conflated” with his appointment. . . .
But Democrats have leverage here. Republicans can’t pass a FISA reauthorization on their own. With a handful of GOP senators expected to oppose any FISA agreement, Thune would likely need at least a dozen Democrats to support the bill. . . . That’s where Warner comes in. As his party has grown more antagonistic toward the surveillance authority, the Virginia Democrat is seen by Republicans as a crucial ally who can deliver Democratic votes.
Read the whole thing—and watch this space. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.
CEASEFIRE, DESPITE ALL THE FIRING: Despite Iran’s strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait Tuesday and American strikes against Iran’s Qeshm Island, the Trump administration yesterday maintained that nothing fundamental has changed: The war against Iran is over, the ceasefire holds, and negotiations with Iran are ongoing.
“Epic Fury has concluded,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a House committee in testimony yesterday. “We’re no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military because Epic Fury is over.”
It’s an argument the White House is politically obliged to make: If Epic Fury were still ongoing, the administration would have been compelled by law to seek congressional authorization for its continuance weeks ago. But the distinction is largely one of scale and definition only, with Iran and American forces continuing to trade missile barrages that both sides insist on describing as “defensive strikes.”
Meanwhile, negotiators remain hung up on the same roadblocks as ever: In addition to the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program, Trump has grown skittish about granting Iran sanctions relief after a reported preliminary deal that would have freed up billions for Iran sparked backlash among Republicans last week. Trump is eager, CNN reports, “to strike a deal that will be viewed as superior to a prior agreement inked during the Obama administration.”
TINKERER IN CHIEF: As early as March of last year, we were already remarking on the remarkable amount of time Donald Trump was spending on vanity projects like shaking up the Kennedy Center and redecorating the White House relative to working on his actual political agenda. At the time, we considered this a good thing: “Every minute spent critiquing the upholstery in the Kennedy concert hall is one less minute the president has to search out new beefs with Canada or personally vet FBI agents to no-knock Liz Cheney’s home.”
We stand by the sentiment—but even we have to admit this stuff’s getting ridiculous. Yesterday, the president summoned reporters to the Oval Office for a major announcement: The resurfacing of the bottom of the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial was nearly complete. He even had bizarre props on hand: “Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers,” read the giant posterboard printout Trump brandished, boasting that the reflecting pool is longer than the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center are tall. (This is, of course, true of many bodies of water, both natural and artificial.)
Trump was equally exultant on Truth Social: “Excitingly, the final coat of protection will be completed on the Reflecting Pool . . . at 4 P.M. today,” he posted shortly before that hour. “The water will start flowing, shortly thereafter. The walking paths outside of the Pool will, likewise, be cleaned, sandblasted, and finished soon. This will be the first time since the day it was built, 1922, that it has worked, and worked wonderfully, indeed!” Our long national nightmare, it seems, is finally at an end. Thank you, Mr. President!
Cheap Shots
Seriously, you’ve got to see this thing:
No relation.
"Over the past century, in many nations, fascist movements and authoritarian coups have sought justification in the need to save their respective countries from the Communists."
As an ever-learning citizen of the world, it is becoming clear to me that the "communist" label usually has nothing to do with Marx or economic systems. As Trump and others have made clear, it just means anyone in the anti-authoritarian population who believes power resides with the people - that is, the majority of the people themselves.
We are all "communists."
The President is right, the House's resolution DOES weaken his bargaining position with Iran. Shame he didn't consider this possibility BEFORE starting a war of choice without Congressional approval.