VIDEO OF THE DAY: Trump gives stunning response to MTG resignation
Brian Tyler Cohen breaks down Trump's eyebrow-raising response to his one-time supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation, which unsuprisingly included a LOT of insults.
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Donald Trump is a lame duck now
Alex Shephard, The New Republic: "All of a sudden, Donald Trump can’t catch a break. November has been a month of humiliations and stinging defeats for a president who, not so long ago, carried himself like an emperor who was universally adored and beyond reproach. In retrospect, we may look at November 4 as the turning point of Trump’s second term. On Election Day, Democrats romped to victory across the country. Since then, all Trump has done is lose big and melt down. He has lost control of congressional Republicans, been forced to walk back one of his signature issues, and watched his approval rating sink further. Americans increasingly loathe him. Even a Democratic capitulation on the government shutdown did nothing to stop Trump’s slide. Just 10 months into his second term, Trump has already entered his lame-duck era. And there’s no sign that the dynamic will change for the rest of his presidency. It all started on Election Day, which broke the spell that had defined much of the first year of Trump’s presidency. Even though he had won the presidential election by barely more than two million votes, Trump and his allies acted as if they had been granted a divine mandate. They came out of the gate with unprecedented intensity, destroying government departments, launching a fascistic deportation regime, and engaging in corruption so brazen it pales in comparison to that of the Gilded Age. The November 4 election results made clear that voters are sick of it. They see Trump as having broken the key promise of his reelection campaign—to lower prices—and desperately want a check on his increasingly lawless administration. It’s now clear that, for the first time in his presidency, cracks are showing in his control of the Republican Party. As all of this is happening, Trump has also been forced to walk back tariffs on agricultural products—a clear admission that his favorite economic policy is causing prices to rise. High costs destroyed Biden’s presidency, and they’re destroying Trump’s now too. He seems to understand this, because he’s unraveling. His public statements have become increasingly volatile and erratic. Most Americans view Trump as a catastrophic failure, and he has not even yet suffered the inevitable blows from next year’s midterm election. This lame duck will only get lamer and lamer."
Freshman Democrat under ATTACK for standing up to the GOP
Nellie Pou for Congress: Nellie Pou has only been in Congress a few months, but she’s already facing a barrage of GOP attacks for voting against their destructive budget bill that would hand out huge tax breaks to the wealthy while RAISING taxes on working families. Just a few days ago, the NRCC issued an error-filled press release written by Big Business lobbyists that falsely smeared her with lies. She’s one of the few Democrats to win her seat in a county that voted for Trump; she’s going to need all the help she can get if we want to protect the MUST-HOLD seat and retake Congress. Will you chip in to thank her for doing the right thing and helping her weather the storm against GOP attacks?
Zohran Mamdani knew how to handle Donald Trump
Peter Drier, Jacobin: "Why was Donald Trump so solicitous toward New York’s democratic socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani when he visited the White House on Friday? Throughout his mayoral campaign, Trump attacked Mamdani as a Communist who would destroy New York. He even gave Andrew Cuomo a last-minute endorsement. Mamdani then went to the White House and showed respect for the man he had excoriated during his campaign. Mamdani showed remarkable self-discipline and smiled during the entire meeting. It was a charm offensive. The two men met in private before welcoming the reporters and TV cameras for a joint press conference. Trump quickly realized that Mamdani was not going to engage in a fight. Mamdani was there to discuss policy and federal help. Trump couldn’t intimidate or fluster Mamdani, who kept his cool and refused to play by Trump’s rules. Trump realized that Mamdani had his number and quickly pivoted, flattering the thirty-four-year-old mayor-elect. 'I feel very confident that he can do a good job,' Trump said. A few times during their press conference, Trump said he wanted Mamdani to succeed and, incredibly, that the federal government would help him. It remains to be seen what that actually means, if anything. Will the US Transportation Department reverse its opposition to congestion pricing? Will HUD provide New York City with more housing subsidies? Will the Department of Commerce or Department of Agriculture offer New York City funding for a pilot program to create city-owned grocery stores in food deserts? Trump isn’t likely to do much for New York. But on Friday, he wanted to be seen as Mamdani’s ally, not his enemy. Why? Trump’s friendly meeting with Mamdani is rooted in a combination of both psychology and politics, although it’s sometimes difficult to know where each begins and ends. A good politician, Mamdani 'read the room.' He understood Trump’s weaknesses and took advantage of them. Mamdani probably worried that Trump was setting a trap for him. Even if their two staffs had agreed on the format and the gist of the meeting, Trump is impulsive. His anger and resentments have been on full display in the past few weeks. He’s lashed out at reporters and used his Truth Social platform to attack his enemies with long rants — even longer and more incoherent than usual. But, like most bullies, Trump doesn’t like personal confrontations (except toward reporters and women), unless he can intimidate them. He probably recognized that he couldn’t intimidate the self-assured, confident, and fast-on-his-feet Mamdani, who just came away with one of the most amazing against-the-odds political victories in American history. Two words Trump uses a lot are 'winner' and 'loser.' He likes winners. When he wants to attack an enemy or opponent, he calls them a 'loser.' It’s one of his favorite words. Above all, Trump likes to be both feared and liked. He enjoys intimidating people, but he also enjoys being flattered. See how he’s intimidated his own cabinet members into embarrassing, sycophantic displays in which they praise him in front of TV cameras him in ways that he loves. Trump has just a few core beliefs, including racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and nativism. Another core belief, which he learned from his mentor, mobster attorney Roy Cohn, is to never admit you’re wrong and never apologize. Trump has no overarching ideology about governing, global politics, human rights, or questions of fairness, equality, or federalism. He doesn’t care about policy or about how the government works. He doesn’t read the memos his staff prepares for him. He relies on people like Steven Miller — who is a true fascist — to set policy. (Surely Miller was aghast when Trump decided to meet with Mamdani). Above all, Trump is transactional. He views government in terms of short-term deal-making. His crazy zig-zags over his tariffs is a clear manifestation of that. It appeared that Trump was starstruck. Although Trump disagrees with everything Mamdani stands for, he can’t deny that Mamdani is a “winner.” He’s smart, good looking, and charismatic. To Trump, he came out of nowhere and defeated New York’s billionaire class. Trump had to be impressed with that accomplishment."
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We are not amused: The Olivia Nuzzi-Ryan Lizza scandal is a disgrace
John Ganz, The Unpopular Front: "The privilege, if not the function, of being a curmudgeon is not to have fun when it’s being mandated. The world declares a subject of universal amusement; the curmudgeon sulks and provides a sour remark. If he does his job well, he can manage to ruin other people’s enjoyment. Nothing provokes a curmudgeon like being told he must join in the mirth of the moment. With all this in mind, I have to say I don’t really find the entire Olivia Nuzzi thing to be funny. Perhaps in this I’m being a prig more than a curmudgeon, but I don’t care. Here I sulk, I can do no other. If you’re lucky not to be in the media or to consume it relentlessly, you may be blessedly not know what or who I’m talking about. Olivia Nuzzi is a sort of journalist. I say “sort of” because she is known for a constant connection to scandal rather than any work of reporting or writing. She always seems to be the story herself. Her affairs and breakups are the continual fodder for gossip. I know much more about them than any scoop of hers. You may remember the biggest of her indiscretions: she had an affair—of a sort—with RFK Jr., whom she was supposed to be covering for New York magazine. This led to the dissolution of her previous liaison scandaleuse, her engagement to former New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, who was dismissed from that august publication for sexual misconduct charges, and around the same time, left his wife and children for the younger Nuzzi. The RFK imbroglio also resulted in her brief “banishment” from New York media to the West Coast. Now she’s back: hired by the new regime at Vanity Fair, the subject of an excessive New York Times Styles section replete with glamor shots, and coming out with a book entitled American Canto, whose prose—on display in her mother publication—is perhaps the only actually funny thing about the whole sorry affair. Now the spurned Lizza has revealed even more juicy details about his disloyal former lover in a parody of her overblown style. Lizza of all people should’ve known Olivia è mobile. And mobile ever upwards, apparently. But is it an ascent or a descent? The pretentious title presumably comes from Dante’s Divine Comedy, which Nuzzi claimed to have been reading while writing her memoir. (They’re both Italian, you see.) It’s unclear to me what Nuzzi could’ve gotten from the Poet’s journey through hell, pulled by his chaste spiritual love for Beatrice. The Beatrice propelling our bard onward in this case seems to be the brass ring. There is, like in the Inferno, plenty of lust, greed, wrath, fraud, and, of course, that bottommost sin: treachery. But it’s hard to believe Nuzzi has overcome them all and embarked on her new life. She’s working for Vanity Fair, not the Little Sisters of the Poor. And count me as skeptical that this book will amount to a modern Dante: it’s not that type of comedy. Nuzzi’s latest grotesquerie with RFK Jr. and the overwrought memoirization is a travesty of American politics and journalism, a kind of drag show burlesque of Camelot’s legendary love affairs. In this lies its sole public service: finally ending the myth of the Kennedys. Under the harsh cafeteria fluorescents of the social media era, it doesn’t look so glamorous, but it always has been sordid. Don’t for a second think Jack and Bobby and Teddy were not every bit as lecherous and their lovers every bit as tacky. Now we get to the part about how I just don’t get it. This is the point! It’s just a bit of fun. What characters! What a lark! Lighten up, John! I’m hardly a Puritan, but here I must stay stern and pharisaical. It’s exactly this type of spectacle and permissiveness that allowed the Trump thing to fester for so many years. Then the same liberal elites are shocked, shocked that there was a monster in their midst. Or perhaps even more to the point: Jeffrey Epstein. When are we gonna stop indulging this? Without undue sanctimony, I think one can say it’s wrecking the country. It’s a goddamn disgrace. Especially when so many worthy journalists, who’ve dedicated their lives to their profession with ethics and seriousness, are being cast onto the ash heap. I can do very little to hurt Nuzzi’s prospects. She will make an absolute fortune on this. You may think you’re laughing at her, but you’re laughing with her. But I’m not smiling. The other book Nuzzi said she read during her exile was the King James Bible. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
Food for thought
The Sunday wrap-up
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