Tag: president donald trump
Echoes Of Iraq Invasion As Trump Lurches Toward War On Iran

Echoes Of Iraq Invasion As Trump Lurches Toward War On Iran

President Donald Trump is publicly toying with the possibility of joining Israel's war on Iran, ignoring his own administration’s intelligence assessment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”—giving nightmarish flashbacks to President George W. Bush’s war on Iraq.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble,” Trump said on the White House lawn Wednesday morning.

According to The New York Times, Trump is inching closer to U.S. involvement in Iran, even though national intelligence disputes Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was weeks away from achieving nuclear capabilities. It’s the same claim Netanyahu has been falsely asserting for three decades, making him sound like the boy who cried wolf.

Meanwhile, Trump is feuding with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who testified before Congress in March that Iran isn’t building a nuclear weapon and is now seemingly trying to deter Trump from going to war.

“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday. “I think they were very close to having a weapon.”

And like Bush, who was goaded into invading Iraq by fellow bloodthirsty Republicans—like Vice President Dick Cheney, who falsely claimed that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction”—Trump is being provoked by GOP hawks advocating for bombing Iran.

"He's very focused, very calm," warmonger Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told CNN. "I feel like when he says no nukes for Iran, he means it. He gave them a chance for diplomacy. I think they made a miscalculation when it comes to President Trump."

And Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, told Margaret Brennan, host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” that Iran is "very close to having enough pure weapons-grade uranium for several weapons."

He also said that Trump has "appropriately kept all options on the table."

This is terrifying because Trump has a history of believing the last person he speaks to on an issue. And given that the Iran hawks now have his ear, it looks like Trump may be swayed by their bloodlust and enter the United States into another aimless war.

"He’s easily manipulable, but this is on him. That is where we are now. He has engaged the U.S. in a new war in the Middle East, and he seems to be on the brink of going just all in," Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told the New Republic.

What’s more, Republicans and right-wing media are also painting people against U.S. involvement in the war as un-American—trying to pressure Trump’s base, which is uneasy about it, to fall in line. It echoes right-wing media tactics used to sell the public on the war in Iraq in 2002.

"This is good versus evil. You’re either a patriotic American who is going to get behind the president of the United States—the commander-in-chief—or you’re not," Fox News personality Mark Levin said Tuesday night.

Sound familiar?

As the saying goes: history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Former President Donald Trump

Global Approval Of US Plummets As Trump Imposes Tariffs, Attacks Allies

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, approval of the United States has fallen by double-digit percentage points in multiple countries, according to a Pew Research Center poll released on Wednesday.

The drop in global support follows Trump’s decision to insult multiple nations by imposing tariffs on allies—and even threatening military action.

In total, support for the United States fell in 19 of the 24 countries that Pew surveyed.

“Majorities in most countries also express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, including immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China relations, global economic problems, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and climate change,” the Pew report summarized.

Most respondents characterized Trump as arrogant and dangerous, and very few of the people surveyed regarded the only convicted felon to serve as president as honest.

Support for the United States significantly declines from Pew’s 2024 poll, when President Joe Biden was in office. Notable declines occurred among the closest U.S. allies, including a 32 percent decrease in Mexico, 20 percent in Canada, 10 percent in France, 15 percent in Japan, and 16 percent in Germany.

Only three nations view the United States more favorably than they did in 2024: Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey. Though support increased by just seven percent or less.

This loss of global support comes after Trump decided to unilaterally impose tariffs on a host of nations, increasing the costs for businesses worldwide.

On Tuesday, the World Bank announced that Trump’s tariffs disrupted global progress in the “soft landing” in recovery from COVID-19. The bank cited “turbulence” and lowered its projections of economic growth to the slowest in 17 years, outside of the 2008 and 2020 recessions.

When he isn’t disrupting global business, Trump has used his power to attack a steady succession of nations. He has repeatedly antagonized Canada, arguing that it should become the 51st state. He directly insulted the leaders of key allies like Ireland and Ukraine while reigniting his longstanding racist feud with Mexico, even renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

Trump also floated the notion of using military force to take over Greenland, where he even deployed Vice President JD Vance, further inflaming tensions.

In more recent developments, Trump’s military invasion of Los Angeles is unlikely to improve global perceptions of the United States, not to mention the harassment and detention of international visitors and students.

U.S. tourism is also down under Trump, as he’s made the country more inhospitable to trading partners and allies. The ripple effect of his actions continues to hurt U.S. businesses that rely on spending by tourists, putting a black mark on the country’s global reputation.

Let’s just hope it’s not permanent.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Fox Fantasizes About Migrant 'Insurrection' To Justify Tyrannical Response

Fox Fantasizes About Migrant 'Insurrection' To Justify Tyrannical Response

Fox News’ depiction of the protests that began in and around Los Angeles over the weekend is a grim fantasy — but one that encourages President Donald Trump to realize his vision of U.S. troops crushing left-wing dissent.

Prime-time host Jesse Watters laid out his network’s dominant narrative in a Monday night monologue.

“Democrats are causing mayhem in their cities, so when Trump restores order, they can label him a dictator and stir up even more hatred and violence against him,” Watters alleged. “They're burning their own cities just to prove to their bloodthirsty base that they're fighting Trump in the streets, burning their own cities for power.”

None of this is true. The LA immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s dramatic escalation of immigration enforcement. Democratic politicians have vocally opposed the riots that have sometimes accompanied those protests. That rioting, while deplorable, has not engulfed the city. But Trump has used it as a pretext to deploy U.S. troops for the confrontation with protesters he has long sought.

It is a core function of the government to maintain order on the streets and enforce the laws. That is properly the responsibility of officials like Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have condemned the rioting, attacks on law enforcement, and destruction of property that at times have occurred amid the protests and called for legal accountability for perpetrators.

By suggesting that those officials are instead actively supporting riots, while inflating the extent of those riots, Fox is creating a justification for Trump to step in. And given Trump’s drive to dominate his perceived enemies and his glorification of state violence, that could end very badly.

Immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s escalation of enforcement

The Wall Street Journalpublished on Tuesday an extensive investigation of what it termed “The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown.”

The story details how White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — disappointed by a pace of daily deportations that was below what the Biden administration attained last year — instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens” at targets like Home Depot and 7-Eleven.

According to the Journal, “ICE agents appeared to follow Miller’s tip and conducted an immigration sweep Friday at the Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles, helping set off a weekend of protests around Los Angeles County, including at the federal detention center in the city’s downtown.”

The story also provides this summary of the extraordinary tactics the Trump administration has used to try to increase its deportation numbers:

Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.

Trump won the 2024 presidential election while promising an agenda of mass deportation. But the naked cruelty and questionable legality of these policies will inevitably spur dissent, and some who oppose them will exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against them, including at public protests.

Democratic politicians don't support rioting that sometimes accompanied those protests

The civic core of Los Angeles has seen unacceptable levels of violence over the past several days. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “Protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.”

That rioting, according to LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, was caused not by “the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights,” but “by masked ‘anarchists’ who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.”

Fox propagandists like Watters, echoing Trump administration officials, have suggested that Democrats could instantly make the rioting stop but are refusing to do so because they support the violence.

They don’t offer evidence for this Democratic support for rioting. Democratic leaders have rightfully and repeatedly condemned the violence targeting law enforcement and destruction of property as anathema, as a simple perusal of their X accounts reveals. In addition to denouncing such tactics on their merits, they frequently point out that rioting plays into Trump’s hands.

Newsom’s messages to the public over the last few days have included:

Bass has likewise said:

Their statements are not anomalous. Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) “message to the people in LA” is “keep speaking out and protest peacefully.” His colleague Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted, “Los Angeles — violence is never the answer. Assaulting law enforcement is never ok.” Other caucus members who are as ideologically diverse as Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are on the same page, calling for peaceful protest while condemning violence. Indeed, the lack of support for rioting has led to condemnations of the Democratic Party from the left.

No one in a position of authority in the Democratic Party is following the path that Trump and his supporters at Fox took after the January 6 insurrection by making excuses for rioting and paving the way to pardon the offenders.

These riots, while deplorable, have not engulfed the city

Right-wing pundits have suggested that journalists are minimizing the violence by pointing out that the protests are occurring in a tiny fraction of a massive city where the vast majority of residents are unaffected by any violence that has occurred. But the scope of the problem really does matter in determining the appropriate government response.

Trump claimed on Sunday that Los Angeles “has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals” and that action is needed “to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.” On Monday, an official Defense Department social media account reported that “Los Angeles is burning, and local leaders are refusing to respond.”

The more extensive the destruction, the more justification there is for federal action.

In 1992, for example, President George H.W. Bush deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to days of widespread rioting following the acquittal of the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King. Time reported of the LA riots:

Over the course of several days, more than 60 people died, while another 2,000 were injured. More than 1,000 buildings were defaced, leading to damages that amounted to some $1 billion.

Bush called up the National Guard under the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the President to deploy the typically state-controlled military force in certain situations involving invasions or insurrections, on the third day of the riots.

“What followed Wednesday's jury verdict in the Rodney King case was a tragic series of events for the city of Los Angeles: Nearly 4,000 fires, staggering property damage, hundreds of injuries, and the senseless deaths of over 30 people,” Bush said in an address at the time. He went on to announce the commitment of thousands of additional troops to the city “to help restore order” at the behest of the governor and mayor, and the federalization of the National Guard.

The violence against law enforcement and property damage that has occurred since Friday is unacceptable, and the governor and mayor are right to try to control the chaos. It’s also not on the scale of the Rodney King riots, happening over what amounts to a handful of city blocks, as these graphics from The New York Times show.

But Trump has responded in unprecedented fashion. He has federalized and deployed roughly 4,000 soldiers of the California National Guard, an order the state called “unlawful” and that Newsom said came without the president “conferring with the state.”

He also deployed 700 U.S. Marines, which “are typically not trained or equipped to deal with civil disturbances,” as retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré toldTask and Purpose. Absent clear coordination, the arrival of those forces “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city,” according to McDonnell.

Trump is determined to get an escalation

The president has been described as a fascist by those who served at the highest levels of his first administration, including his former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, as well as by Gen. Mark Milley, who served under him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He promised on the campaign trail to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” and floated using the National Guard or even the military against “the enemy from within,” which he described as “radical left lunatics.”

He reportedly considered invoking the Insurrection Act during the 2020 civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd, was rebuffed by Esper and Milley, and said that he regretted not “immediately” sending in the military.

He has selected more pliant defense officials for his second term, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox host who supported the domestic deployment of the military and is known for defending U.S. service members who had been accused and convicted of war crimes.

Trump has praised the Chinese government’s murderous response to student protesters at Tiananmen Square, saying it showed “the power of strength,” and has repeatedly urged law enforcement officers to use rougher, more brutal tactics in dealing with those they apprehend.

And the president does not appear to observe a distinction between peaceful protest and violent riot — if the perpetrators aren’t his supporters, it’s all insurrection to him.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Musk Blowup's Fallout: Trump Allies Keep Turning On Each Other

Musk Blowup's Fallout: Trump Allies Keep Turning On Each Other

President Donald Trump's public falling out with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is now prompting additional infighting in MAGA circles between some of Trump's most high-profile supporters.

Semafor reported Monday that "War Room" podcast host Steve Bannon – who was White House chief strategist in the first Trump administration – is now setting his sights on venture capitalist and second Trump administration AI czar David Sacks (who is close to Musk and co-hosts the popular "All In" podcast). The MAGA pundit mentioned Sacks on a recent episode of his podcast, and accused him of exploiting his relationship to Trump to further his own goals.

"You’re dangerous," Bannon said of Sacks and his co-hosts. "It’s all about you, not the country."

However, Trump administration spokesperson Harrison Fields said that Sacks was "deeply committed to advancing the president's vision" on cryptocurrency and AI issues, and credited the billionaire Trump donor with being "a trusted ally and early supporter of President Trump."

While the White House defended Sacks himself, an unnamed source told Semafor that the administration was indeed having ongoing conversations "regarding the future of some of these big names that came to the federal government in that wave of Elon [Musk] coming here." The source also teased the possibility of some of Musk's hires being let go, calling it a "mutual separation" between the tech billionaire's team and the administration.

Whether Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which has spent the first several months of 2025 slashing the federal workforce across multiple agencies – remains in place is also an open question. Some DOGE staffers reportedly have been texting each other wondering if their own jobs will be next on the chopping block. Semafor's source also said that while the work itself of reducing the federal workforce may continue, Trump may rebrand it.

“Maybe we don’t call it DOGE,” the source said. “The mission is what we want to stay focused on.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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