Turkey Day With a Turkey President
Trump’s fixation on personal flattery feeds his authoritarianism. It makes for bad diplomacy, too.
No Morning Shots tomorrow or Friday—we hope you all get to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends. And for those of you who will be rubbing elbows with MAGA folks in your lives, keep on your best behavior, both because family’s more important and because you wouldn’t want to get in the way of anybody’s support for Trump collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Happy Wednesday, and gobble gobble.
George Washington’s Thanksgiving
by William Kristol
As we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, we’ll think back to the story of the peaceful encounter in 1621 of the Pilgrim settlers and members of the Wampanoag tribe. But I trust that it won’t dampen anyone’s enjoyment of the holiday if I note that this now familiar origin story of Thanksgiving became central to our commemoration only in the mid-nineteenth century.
The idea of a day of thanksgiving preceded the popularization of that particular story of the harvest feast. One sees that by taking a look at President George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. There is nothing there about the Mayflower or the Pilgrims or a feast. It’s all about giving thanks for the new nation and the free government the people of the United States had recently established.
As Washington explains, the first Congress had asked him “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” That day was “to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts” that the Almighty had afforded Americans “an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
And so Washington’s proclamation expresses our gratitude both for the success of our revolutionary struggle, and for the subsequent
peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
Washington then calls on the American people to ask the Almighty to continue to “render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”
In other words: Washington’s Thanksgiving was an occasion to give thanks for our new nation and for our form of government that safeguards civil and religious liberty with wise, just, and constitutional laws.
On many occasions and in many areas we have fallen short of the standard Washington sets forth. We haven’t always safeguarded civil liberty and enacted wise and just laws. Our national history has been marked by authoritarian episodes and unjust features.
But it is one thing to fall short of high goals; it is another to disdain striving for them, or even to scorn or despise them. We now have a presidential administration that is actively hostile to civil liberties, to the rule of law, to the fundamentals of free government. The authoritarian temptation isn’t an unfortunate part of this administration’s behavior, as it has been of other administrations. Authoritarianism is at the heart of its agenda. It defines it.
So this Thanksgiving, there is real cause for alarm. But after 250 years, we also have the examples of so many Americans, across so many generations, who have succeeded in the fight to preserve liberty and increase freedom. That history isn’t some kind of nice holiday story that we recall dimly through the mists of time. It’s real. It can reassure and educate and inspire us. It’s something from which to derive hope and for which to give thanks.
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Who’s Driving This Car?
by Cathy Young
The 28-point “Trump peace plan” for Ukraine—likely parroted, as an explosive Bloomberg report seems to confirm, from a Russian paper slipped to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff by Vladimir Putin’s emissary Kirill Dmitriev—is now an ex-parrot. After talks in Geneva, the United States and Ukraine have agreed on a 19-point plan not only pared down but substantially revised from the first version—which Trump says was not really a plan but just “a concept” anyway. (Where have we heard that before?)
So far, we don’t know what’s in the new plan. The good news is that the demand to surrender Ukrainian territories to Russia appears to be gone, with the territorial details to be hashed out between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump. (The bad news: Trump still thinks that Russia will soon take all of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, so Ukraine might as well give them up the easy way.) Also apparently off the table is the 600,000 cap on the Ukrainian armed forces and the permanent ban on Ukraine’s NATO membership under some further NATO expansion.
Ukraine is said to have basically accepted the new proposal, though “sticking points” remain. On the other hand, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov now asserts that the Kremlin “welcomed” the first plan and hints that the amended version will likely be rejected. (When the original 28-point plan was released, Lavrov’s ministry was dismissive, saying only that it had not been conveyed through diplomatic channels.) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, complained about the “information bacchanal” surrounding the peace plan—which is rich considering that Dmitriev was likely behind the first leak (there have now been many) that unleashed this current frenzy.
After some talk of a Zelensky visit to the White House on Thanksgiving Day, Trump now says he will meet with Putin and Zelensky when the peace deal is “in its final stages.” Meanwhile, there’s a lot of frenetic activity. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll is meeting with both Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi, where Ukraine’s enigmatic military intelligence chief Gen. Kyrylo Budanov is also reportedly talking to the Russians and the Americans. And Witkoff will soon head to Moscow for another Putin huddle, possibly with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Witkoff’s involvement is particularly concerning after Bloomberg revealed his role as a de facto Russian lobbyist, not only coaching the Russians on how to pitch a proposal to Trump but also advising that Putin place a phone call to Trump ahead of Zelensky’s October 17 White House visit—which likely helped scuttle the delivery of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
So what do we know, besides the obvious fact that the administration’s foreign policy is a clown show?
Is a peace deal really close? There are good reasons to remain skeptical. Ukraine is prepared to accept an agreement that leaves Russia in de facto control of Ukrainian territories it currently occupies. But whether Putin would accept that alone is doubtful. The Kremlin autocrat may not have even accepted the earlier “deal.” He still wants to subjugate all of Ukraine—and has good reasons to fear that peace now will mean upheaval at home.
The “peacemaking” efforts from the Russian side could be a psy-op to buy time and stave off the worst of U.S. sanctions, or an attempt by a relatively dovish Kremlin faction to coax Putin into ending the war. Ukraine’s supporters should recognize this possible state of play. And they should continue to apply pressure to ensure that Ukraine not only isn’t forced into a bad peace—but that it continues to receive essential aid should the war go on.
This Guy Gets Trump
by Andrew Egger
There’s so much that’s crazy about the aforementioned Bloomberg News release of an October 14 phone call transcript between Steve Witkoff and Putin apparatchik Yuri Ushakov that it’s hard to know where to begin. Why is Witkoff, the man tapped by Donald Trump as America’s pointman for diplomatic negotiations on a host of foreign conflicts, actively helping Russia strengthen its negotiating hand by reminding Putin what forms of flattery will land best with Trump and tipping him off when he should call the president for maximum effect? Why is Witkoff offering ministry-of-truth analysis like, “I told the president that the Russian Federation has always wanted a peace deal” in describing a war where Russia is the unequivocal and single aggressor? Why is Witkoff, a random billionaire with ties to Russian oligarchs, in this role at all? Why was Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemingly shoved out of the picture only to now regain a foothold?
But the thing I found most striking about the call was what it revealed about Witkoff’s assessment of what motivates the president. Trump, in Witkoff’s telling, has no particular asks or sticking points when it comes to this negotiation. Don’t have Putin talk about particulars on the call with Trump at all, Witkoff advises Ushakov. “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere. But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully, because I think we’re going to get to a deal here. And I think, Yuri, the president will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to a deal.”
What does “talking more hopefully” entail? Simple: a lot of flattery about how successful Trump’s negotiation in Gaza was and how glad Russia is that he is a “man of peace.” This sort of thing, Witkoff suggests, will put Trump in a good enough mood that he’ll be happy to hand the actual sausage-making back to Witkoff himself with little additional bother. And Putin should do it, Witkoff suggests, in time to preempt a planned meeting with Zelensky, in which Trump could be flattered in Ukraine’s direction.
Ushakov appears to get the message: “I agree with you that Putin will congratulate. He will say Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so and so.”
Amazingly, this appears to be exactly what happened. Putin did time his call to preempt Zelensky’s mid-October visit and did indeed open with flattery about Trump’s deal in Gaza. Trump responded just as Witkoff seemed to believe he would: “I have just concluded my telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and it was a very productive one,” he posted then on Truth Social. “President Putin congratulated me and the United States on the Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East, something that, he said, has been dreamed of for centuries. I actually believe that the Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
In retrospect, that moment led inexorably to the one we’re in now, with Trump—seemingly paying only half attention—blessing the peace agreement Witkoff brought him from the Russians, just as Witkoff predicted he would.
It makes you wonder whether there is any daylight at all between Witkoff’s view of what drives Trump and ours? We write all the time about Trump’s childlike solipsism—the way his assessment of other people depends entirely on how they treat him, personally. This, of course, makes Trump historically easy to manipulate, and Witkoff is in a position to wield that knowledge to world-historical effect. It’s too bad he’s decided to deploy it in the maniacal aim of bringing Putin’s war to a Putin-satisfying conclusion.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Turkey and Mess Halls: MARK HERTLING answers the question of how soldiers spend Thanksgiving.
A Defense of the Thanksgiving Turkey: The noble, beautiful, all-American bird pays worthy homage to our grand culinary inheritance. CLARE COFFEY explains why if you hate turkey for Thanksgiving, you are un-American.
Donald Trump Discovers, Again, That Health Care Policy Is Hard. He’s floating compromise ideas, but Republicans in Congress don’t seem interested. In The Breakdown, JONATHAN COHN has an update on how Trump’s “concepts of a plan” for health care are going.
From Republican House to Retirement Home: Mike Johnson is watching dozens of his colleagues shuffle off toward the exits. In the latest Press Pass, JOE PERTICONE reports from Capitol Hill on the forty members across both parties not seeking re-election.
We Are Approaching the MAGA-Trump Event Horizon, and we have no idea what’s beyond it. In The Triad, JVL considers the shift in political physics.
Quick Hits
THIS AGGRESSION CANNOT STAND, MAN: Yesterday, we reported on the Defense Department’s preposterous launch of an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, over his participation in a “don’t give up the ship” video filmed by a group of congressional Democrats who previously served in the military or the intelligence community. But the White House’s attempt to punish those Democrats for having the chutzpah to remind soldiers of their oaths not to obey unlawful orders isn’t stopping there. A group of other participants said in a statement yesterday that the FBI was requesting to interview them about the video too.
“President Trump is using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress,” Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) said in a statement. “We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship.”
Trump, making a valiant stab at good behavior, has so far abstained from making more calls for the lawmakers to be executed since his remarkable Truth Social outburst to that effect last Thursday. He did, however, repost a psycho claim from Glenn Beck the other day accusing the group of “tilling the soil [for a] color revolution” and saying they should serve “10 years in prison.”
OH, LIKE THAT’S A BAD THING? The economic statistics machine keeps issuing all manner of ominous bleeps, sirens, and awoogas. Bloomberg News reports that “U.S. consumer confidence slid in November by the most in seven months on growing anxiety about the labor market and the economy”:
The ongoing slide in consumer sentiment reflects lingering concerns about the impact of persistently high prices and a cooling labor market on Americans’ finances as well as the broader economy.
Recent hiring has largely been concentrated in just two industries — health care and hospitality — and the unemployment rate has steadily ticked higher. Companies announced a wave of layoffs in October, fueling consumers’ anxiety about their jobs.
See, folks. This is why you gotta eliminate the data. Who needs to hear this type of ominous news?
WHAT’S NEXT FOR JIM COMEY? As the dust settles from a federal judge’s dismissal of the criminal case against former FBI director James Comey yesterday, there’s still much we don’t know about what comes next. Will the administration be able to find someone else to refile the charges? Will Lindsey Halligan be able to stay on in the U.S. attorney’s office of Eastern Virginia in some role? Perhaps most importantly, will the statute of limitations on Comey’s (ridiculously) alleged crime now have been deemed to have expired? Over at Politico, friends of The Bulwark Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein have a good read on many of these questions:
When Halligan raced to indict Comey just three days after Bondi appointed her at Trump’s urging, it was to beat a Sept. 30 statute of limitations that would have prevented her from indicting him at all.
[U.S. Judge Cameron] Currie’s dismissal of the case, however, may have triggered a law that provides a six-month period for the Justice Department to try again, even after the statute of limitations expired. But it’s murky.
The judge herself suggested that the “void” indictment means there was never a valid trigger for the six-month grace period that would normally accompany the dismissal of an indictment. Other legal experts, however, say federal law is clear: if an indictment is thrown out “for any reason,” as the law states, the Justice Department has six months for a do-over.
AMERICA DROPS THE SCOUTS: There’s no way to know for sure that Trump officials spin a wheel every month to decide which beloved American institution to attack, but sometimes it sure feels like it. Universities, churches, hospitals—all have faced funding cuts and public threats for doing the things that they’ve always done and that made them widely respected. Now Scouting America, né the Boy Scouts of America, has had the eye of DOGE turned on it.
NPR has a draft memo to Congress from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office in which Hegseth—never a Boy Scout himself—says the military will cut off support for Scouting America, which he accuses of “attack[ing] boy-friendly spaces” and advancing DEI. (Who’d have thought an America First government would cut aid to the Boy Scouts a month after bailing out Argentina?)
Now a few things are of interest here. The biggest: The military aid Hegseth wants to sever isn’t funding that’s being used to teach scouts gender nonconformity. It’s medical and logistical support for the National Jamboree, an enormous scout gathering that occurs every few years.
That support serves a dual purpose for the armed forces: It’s a training exercise for troops and a ten-day-long recruitment ad for the impressionable youths gathered for the jamboree. With the military struggling to meet its recruiting goals, one would think there’d be a real interest in the Pentagon supporting a program that puts kids in uniforms and offers them firearm training.
But what’s more, the Pentagon’s medical and logistical support for the National Jamboree is congressionally mandated. There’s an exception if the defense secretary determines it would be detrimental to national security, which is what Hegseth has decided to claim, saying sending troops to the jamboree would divert resources from the border. There are border emergencies everywhere for those with the eyes to see.
Despite the rationale Hegseth claims, the frequent mentions of gender and “boy-friendly spaces” in the leaked memo shows what this is really about: The Boy Scouts started letting in girls in 2018. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of that issue, but cutting off medical aid at a gathering of thousands of kids learning how to use knives and start fires isn’t just unreasonable, it’s unkind.
Cheap Shots
As someone who attended a National Jamboree way back in 2005, it’s unsurprising that Hegseth would fear a bunch of Boy Scouts.
The theme of our Jamboree was “Character Not Only Counts, It Multiplies”.
Not exactly the kind of speech anyone in this administration could credibly deliver.
"For those of you who will be rubbing elbows with MAGA folks in your lives, keep on your best behavior, both because family’s more important and because you wouldn’t want to get in the way of anybody’s support for Trump collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions."
This is good advice, as family and friends are to be cherished, even amidst political turmoil and knowing that the odds are low of changing anyone's mind over a big meal and with at least one eye on a football game.
What I'm seeing in my own limited sample size is that the cracks in the MAGA wall are opening naturally already. It is best to let nature run its course with some of this rather than try to push too hard to get it over the goal line. I'm still not seeing much in the way of a direct turn away from the movement so much as subtle concessions that it isn't always right or doesn't always use the right tactics, one example being statements like "both parties are effed up right now" or "both the Rs and the Ds need help." It's a baby step to be sure, but at least it is movement in the direction of acknowledging that it's not always the other side to blame and that some of the current leadership is very flawed. I'm learning to let that small seed grow into something bigger when the current administration has become so willing to water and fertilize it.
To one and all here a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday, safe travels if you are underway, and thanks for your ongoing support and alliance. Looking forward to hearing and learning from you all again on the other side of the long weekend and as we shift gradually into Ho Ho Ho mode.