One of my great meta-journalistic interests is to observe the moments when more or less obvious political realities enter D.C. conventional wisdom. They’re not strongly overlapping Venn diagrams. They often diverge pretty dramatically. I noticed one of those moments Saturday when Axios published this piece entitled “Term-limited Trump mortgages GOP’s future.” The headline mostly speaks for itself. President Trump won’t face voters again. So he’s increasingly indifferent to his political standing or perhaps more specifically unwilling to shift from or limit unpopular policies. It’s true that there are big consequences for Trump in the midterm elections. But even in the biggest blowout election Democrats aren’t going to gain supermajorities that would allow them to pass veto-proof legislation or remove Trump from office. Given the scale of High Court corruption, investigations will amount to trench warfare.
As the Iran war drags on, I wanted to share some thoughts on the proper context in which to see the conflict. Donald Trump lost this war in its very first days. Everything that has happened in recent weeks — the threats, the negotiations, the live-on-social-media breakdowns — has simply been a matter of trying to get free of that fact. This isn’t a political attack. It’s simply an accurate appraisal of what we all see. More importantly, it is the only way to understand what is happening now. Everything that’s happening today and for weeks has been focused on breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, something it didn’t have before the war started. That’s the definition of failure: fighting a war and continuing a war to clean up the mess the war of choice actually created. By this measure, the best way to achieve what is now the central war aim — opening the Strait — would have been simply not to start the war in the first place.
In a late-night Truth, Trump claims that the Southern Poverty Law Center was part of his grand, imagined conspiracy to steal the 2020 election, and writes that his DOJ’s politicized prosecution of the non-profit is a step toward overturning his electoral defeat.
Here’s U.S. Attorney for DC “Judge” Jeanine Pirro announcing that her office is dropping its investigation into the chair of the Federal Reserve:
Her attempt to save face here is accomplished by claiming the Fed Inspector General will take over her work. But, as various reporters have noted, Powell himself had already asked the IG to look into cost overruns. It’s not clear anything new is happening.
I mentioned this a bit earlier on Ari Melber’s show tonight when we were talking about the high-profile MAGA defections of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan and others. I’ve seen various theories: It’s about the Iran War. It’s about AI Jesus. Yes, it’s about all those things, but as off-ramps more than causes or drivers. Trump looks like the weak horse and no one wants to bet on or be associated with the weak horse.
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