You’re Getting Robbed. By Trump. In Broad Daylight.
But don’t worry, it’s going to a good cause: a slush fund for January 6ers.
This morning, amid the ongoing negotiating stalemate in Iran, Donald Trump made a sudden public concession: He was no longer calling, he said, for Iran to permanently abandon its nuclear ambitions, but rather to accept a twenty-year moratorium. “Twenty years is enough, but the level of guarantee from them is not enough,” the president said aboard Air Force One while returning home from China. “In other words, it’s got to be a real twenty years.” Happy Friday.
The Worst Grift Yet?
by Andrew Egger
I have to admit: Amid the daily carousel of Trump outrages, I’d sort of lost track of his absurd $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for failing to prevent the years-ago leaking of his tax returns. It wasn’t that I thought Trump’s lickspittle Treasury Department wouldn’t be willing to settle with him on his terms, or that I thought he’d be ashamed to take the money. There was just something about the ludicrousness of the story—the size and scope of the shameless attempted robbery of taxpayer money—that made it tough to get my brain around it. The corruption literally boggled the mind.
Well, I’d better start getting my brain around it quick. Multiple outlets reported this week that Trump and the IRS are close to finalizing a settlement in the case. And according to ABC News, that settlement is expected to hinge upon the funding of a truly insane new pot of government money: “a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration.”
ABC News’s sources cautioned that the deal wasn’t yet finalized. But the fund under discussion would be the next step in the evolution of Trump’s unimaginable presidential graft. The members of the commission overseeing disbursements would serve at Trump’s pleasure, and he’d be able to remove them without cause at any time. The commission would have no obligation to disclose its decision-making process for how to disburse the money. And while Trump himself would be barred from directly receiving payments, “entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims.”
This story is one that piles intolerable outrage on intolerable outrage. There’s the baseline obscenity of the lawsuit in the first place. Even if Trump hadn’t been reelected president, $10 billion was always a ludicrous ask in damages for the leak of his tax returns—a leak perpetrated by an outside contractor, not one countenanced in any way by the IRS. (That contractor, Charles Littlejohn, was caught and is serving a five-year prison sentence.)
There’s the obvious conflict of interest. The IRS has fought other lawsuits brought on the basis of Littlejohn’s leaks, arguing it isn’t liable for the misdeeds of a contractor. But the idea that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s IRS would fight as hard to keep money out of the hands of Bessent’s boss was laughable from the start.
Then there are the extraordinary steps the White House and IRS have taken to prevent the federal judge overseeing the case, Kathleen Williams, from weighing in on that obvious conflict of interest. Williams, who has been scrutinizing the question of whether the two parties are in fact on opposite sides in the matter, gave the parties a May 20 deadline to submit briefs explaining in what sense they actually are in conflict. If the government were really interested in defending its own interests, this imminent prospect of a judge throwing out the case on procedural grounds would strengthen its resolve to fight.
Instead, the New York Times reports, it is treating that date as a settlement deadline: “White House and Justice Department officials have in recent days been exploring ways to potentially settle the suit before that deadline.” Far from straining to protect public funds in an adversarial legal process—the government’s responsibility even if the lawsuit were completely just—the defendants appear to be bending over backwards to avoid anyone coming to those funds’ defense, even the judge.
And then, of course, there’s the unbearable rottenness of the purported settlement fund itself: the shamelessness of Trump keeping a backdoor way to profit from it personally, the utter absence of any oversight controls that would even allow him to plausibly argue that the money will be spent justly, and the completely topsy-turvy travesty of creating a slush fund for January 6ers and other MAGA villains in the first place. The whole thing reeks to high heaven. Should it come to fruition, it would be not merely a miscarriage of justice but a sacrilege against it.
What’s to be done? The terms of the deal, ABC notes, are not yet totally set. In theory, there is time yet for America to spit this obscenity out of its mouth. Every member of Congress that retains a modicum of self-respect and love for the country should be shrieking from the rooftops about this. And not merely shrieking, but threatening action. If this sort of looting of the public coffers at the president’s behest and for his personal gain and that of his allies isn’t an impeachable offense, then the term has truly lost all meaning.
It’s a mark of how bad things have gotten that I’m not holding my breath. But I grimly console myself that he is not going to get away with this shit forever. America has had enough of this guy, and everyone is starting to see it. His scrambling efforts to line his pockets more and more, to pillage everything that isn’t nailed down, before he’s sent packing once and for all—happily, this can only sharpen the rage of the electoral vengeance that’s coming for him.
Trump Chooses Decline
by William Kristol
“Decline is a choice,” Charles Krauthammer famously said. Donald Trump has chosen decline for the United States, and his trip to China was confirmation of that fact.
The Trump administration’s own National Security Strategy, published late last year, announced that “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” As Eric Edelman remarked at the time, “This resignation from the role of chief maintainer of the global order is what marks the real break from eighty years of American foreign policy.”
So Trump agrees with Xi Jinping’s statement that we are living through “great changes unseen for a century.” And Trump seems more than willing to accept that in the “new positioning” Xi says these changes require, America has to step back from any claims to leadership. The “constructive China–U.S. relationship of strategic stability,” which China’s Foreign Ministry said Xi and Trump agreed to, would be a relationship between “partners” or equals.
But China is a rising power and the United States a declining one, as China sees it. This era of partnership and stability would therefore be a way station on the path to Chinese global dominance.
And so China conceded nothing at the summit. Xi was a polite host, but he clearly felt no need to be generous or even forthcoming. There appears to have been almost nothing in terms of concrete concessions on trade, and no help at all on the war with Iran.
In fact, the New York Times reported yesterday that
Iran has allowed some Chinese vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following diplomatic overtures from China’s government. . . . Fars and Tasnim, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies, said Iran had approved the passage of some Chinese vessels under rules set by Tehran for managing traffic in the waterway. Fars reported that the crossings had begun on Wednesday night, following a diplomatic outreach by China’s foreign minister and its ambassador to Iran.
In other words, China was demonstrating it can work with Iran in the current situation. And China shows no interest in using any leverage it has with Iran to restore free passage through the strait, or to get Iran to agree to remove its enriched uranium, or in any way to help Trump deal with the quagmire he’s gotten himself into.
But Trump seems not to be resentful. Instead, he’s full of admiration for his bigger brother in the new strategic partnership. As Trump said to Sean Hannity yesterday,
If you went to Hollywood and you looked for a leader of China to play a role in a movie . . . you couldn’t find a guy like him. Even his physical features, you know, he’s tall, very tall. Especially for this country [China], because they tend to be a little bit shorter. You look at the military, the military today was incredible. That military marching was incredible.
Trump also told Xi he was “very impressed with China.”
Trump’s other takeaway from the summit, based on a Truth Social post from Air Force One early this morning, seems to be that “China has a Ballroom, and so should the U.S.A.!”
China has a leader who looks good. China has incredible military marching. China has a big ballroom. In an era of “great changes unseen for a century,” we have a child as our president. That’s one way to choose decline.
AROUND THE BULWARK
BULWARK ON SUNDAY… This Sunday at noon, BILL KRISTOL will be joined by ROB FLAHERTY to discuss his recent feature-length article, “Here’s What I Told the DNC Autopsy.” Watch it on Substack or YouTube!
Putin Is Still a Liar. His Peace Talk Is Still Bullshit… If he wanted to end the war, he could, argues NATALIA ANTANOVA.
SONNY BUNCH reviews In the Grey, the stylish new thriller from Guy Ritchie.
Republicans Just Handed Black Voter Organizers Their Best Message Ever… On Bulwark+ Takes, JOSHUA DOSS joins SAM STEIN to discuss why black voters are abandoning the Democratic party, and how Republican redistricting may have accidentally handed organizers their most powerful message in years.
The Top Ten War Movies… A special episode Bulwark Goes to Hollywood episode with MARK HERTLING joining SONNY BUNCH.
San Diego here we come! We’re thrilled to announce our lineup for this Bulwark Live featuring special guest San Diego Mayor TODD GLORIA. Plus our very own MAGA culture expert WILL SOMMER.
Join Sam, Tim, and Sarah for this one-night live show at the Balboa Theatre on May 20. Grab your seats today.
Quick Hits
CRISIS ON OUR DOORSTEP: Cuba, the New York Times reports, is out of oil. The country’s longstanding energy crunch became catastrophic this year when the U.S. decapitated the Maduro regime in Venezuela, shut off Venezuelan energy exports to Cuba, and then blockaded oil to Cuba from everywhere else for good measure. Here’s the Times:
The governments in Havana and Washington have been engaged in secret negotiations for weeks. For Cuba, the goal is to end the energy blockade. For the United States, the talks are focused on ending the government’s grip on the economy and ending political repression. . . .
In recent months, many Cuban cities beyond Havana have been hit with prolonged daily blackouts. The lack of oil has forced people to rely on charcoal or even wood to cook, and some people have taken to the streets, banging on pots and pans to express their frustration.
SNORKELING WITH THE HALLOWED DEAD: Sometimes an AP headline requires a little unpacking. Other times they speak for themselves, as here: “Emails show FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included ‘VIP snorkel’ at a Pearl Harbor memorial.” Here’s more:
With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona. The battleship, now a military cemetery reachable only by boat, has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank it in 1941. Marine archaeologists and crews from the National Park Service make occasional dives at the memorial to survey the condition of the wreck. Other dives have been conducted to inter the remains of Arizona survivors who wanted to rest eternally with their former shipmates. . . .
It was not clear how Patel’s snorkeling session was arranged. A Navy spokesperson, Capt. Jodie Cornell, confirmed the outing but said the service was not able to track down who initiated it.
Participants in Patel’s swim were told “not to touch/come into contact with” the sunken ship in any way, Cornell said. She added that the snorkelers were also briefed about “the historic significance of the Memorial as the final resting place/tomb for hundreds of service members.”
We knew Kash had a bizarre habit of going where he isn’t wanted. But randomly inserting himself into a gold-medal U.S. hockey celebration doesn’t hold a candle to randomly inserting himself into an ocean tomb of American war dead. Read the whole thing.
TRUMP MOBILE RETURNS: Two-bit Chinese smartphone fans, rejoice: The Trump phone is—apparently—real after all. Trump Mobile has not been deaf to the bellyaching from would-be customers who handed over their $100 months ago for a “deposit” on a phone that never materialized, or to all the recent ridicule from media wags (like us) for whom the whole thing looked like the beau ideal of a two-bit MAGA scam. On Wednesday, the announcement went out on Trump Mobile’s long-dormant social accounts: “The T1 Phone has arrived!!” they blared. “Phones start shipping this week!!!”
The first trouble sign was obvious immediately: Across all social media platforms, Trump Mobile had turned comments on the post off. The company, it turned out, wasn’t expecting its customers to be eager to share their excitement about the news. (Don Jr. and Eric Trump, who headlined the company launch event last June and were heavily featured in early Trump Mobile marketing materials, are nowhere to be found this time around.)
Nor did the launch video include many specifics: The phone is a “powerful device,” it said, that “gives you the confidence of a phone that’s ready whenever you need it.” It’s gold, has a headphone jack, and comes with a charging cable and a phone case “right out of the box.” Watching the hype video was like watching an ad for a car that plays up that it comes with tires, seats, and an engine.
The actual specs listed online are a bit more specific, suggesting the phone ships with a Snapdragon 7 chipset and Android 15—a last-gen chipset and last-gen operating system, in other words, on what the company is describing as a cutting-edge “flagship” phone. It’s hard to imagine customers being thrilled at getting what is, it’s increasingly clear, a cheapo Chinese-made smartphone with Trump’s name slapped on it, in place of the premium phone they were promised. But the fact that they’re getting a phone at all may at least make Trump Mobile harder to sue.
Cheap Shots
"there is time yet for America to spit this obscenity out of its mouth". What a powerful phrase! I am going to get a T-shirt made with this to wear to the next No Kings and just around the house...with your permission, of course, Andrew (and with full attribution). It applies not only to this bit of egregious corruption but to the whole Trump mistake. People understand few outrages as quickly and clearly as unfairness and corruption. An anti-corruption message put Zelenskyy and Magyar in office and it will work here too, maybe even better.
MS: "Every member of Congress that retains a modicum of self-respect and love for the country should be shrieking from the rooftops about this."
Well, we know that won't be Lindsey, since he wants his fair share.
Meanwhile, MAGA's going, "But Hunter Biden!"