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Mona Charen

Donald Trump Has A Family Policy -- Now Stop Laughing!

The animating beliefs of this administration range from dangerously wrong to head-spinningly crazy. Tariffs are in the first tranche, along with the myth that NATO has been ripping off the United States for decades, that immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans and that "He who saves his country commits no crime" (just to name four). The beliefs that vaccines cause autism, that fluoridated water is a public health threat, that threatening allies and neighbors enhances national security, and that taxing foreign holders of Treasuries would be a good way to solve the (nonexistent) problem of trade deficits belong in the second tranche.

The Trump administration marries insane ideas to gross, bullying tactics. But even when this administration stumbles upon an idea that is not deranged, illegal or immoral, it has the capacity to do great harm. I'm thinking of the reported plans to encourage marriage and motherhood. The administration is considering proposals to award mothers $5,000 "baby bonuses," to reserve 30 percent of Fulbright scholarships to parents, to reduce the costs of IVF (not clear how) and to fund programs to educate women about ovulation cycles (I kid you not).

I've been promoting marriage for decades, not as part of a religious agenda but as the result of studying the social science literature demonstrating that marriage makes adults happier than non-marriage and that stable, two-parent homes are the very best environment for raising children, building thriving neighborhoods and reducing crime, homelessness and substance abuse.

The Trump administration cannot adopt this message without turning it rancid. If you hope to persuade people, you must start by showing good faith — that your intentions for them are good. This crowd has displayed open contempt for women — at least those women who vote for the other party or otherwise assert their individuality. In light of the president's apparent requirement that any nominee for a major cabinet role have at least one serious accusation of sexual misconduct, the vice president's sneers about "childless cat ladies" seem mild. Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, and Linda McMahon all trailed accusations that would have been disqualifying in any other administration. (Only Gaetz was undone.)

But then, the thrice-married, adulterous president himself has been found legally liable for sexual assault in the E. Jean Carroll case and has been accused of similar behavior half a dozen or more times by other women. What that may mean is that Trump must convince himself and others that accusations of sexual misconduct are always and everywhere "fake news." Also, he just doesn't give a damn. Trump has endorsed and campaigned with sexual predators ranging from Roy Moore to Herschel Walker, and one of his first acts as president in the second term was to effectuate the release of Andrew and Tristan Tate from custody in Romania on rape and human trafficking charges. (So they can effectuate releases from foreign countries.)

The Trump crowd's approach to fertility is not the joy of parenthood or the warmth of close families. It's more like the "great replacement" theory made flesh. As Elon Musk admits, he wants a "legion" of offspring "before the apocalypse" and is creating a harem to achieve it. He has been married but is also father to at least 14 children by four different women and willing to outsource his semen upon request. "No romance or anything," he explained to one baby mama, "just sperm."

It's remarkable to consider that Musk is a pin-up for the GOP these days. I well remember the party of "family values." Musk is the most famous progenitor of illegitimacy in the world. (William Bennett, call your office.)

The Trump crowd worries about America's declining fertility rate and yet treats immigration as a mortal threat.

You don't convince women in a free country to have more babies for the sake of the fatherland. If you want to encourage family formation and increase the birth rate, you can't treat women as breeder mares. It helps to model good behavior. That includes being good husbands who don't cheat on their wives, good fathers who actually live with their kids, and good parents who don't commit or condone adultery.

Baby bonuses have been tried in other countries with poor results. Hungary, Singapore, South Korea, and Russia have all adopted policies to support families that are far more generous than what the Trump administration is considering, but the results have been disappointing.

There are many things governments can do to ease the burden on parents — tax credits, parental leave and banning smartphones in schools, among other ideas — but policymakers should keep their expectations in check about the effect these initiatives will have on fertility. If they just make family life easier and better, that's a good start. But frankly, we'd all be better off if the Trump people stay far away from family policy, lest they besmirch it.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

We May No Longer Be Safe In Our Own Country

In a couple of months, I am planning a business trip to Europe. I don't scare easy, but despite the fact that I'm an American citizen and have committed no crime, I am worried about what might happen when I attempt to come home.

Will Customs and Border Patrol agents pull me from the customs line as they did to Amir Makled? He's an American citizen, too, a lawyer born and raised in Detroit who was returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. But he happens to represent a pro-Palestinian student protester.

CBP detained Makled and demanded access to his phone. CBP can demand to examine your phone or laptop under authority to search for child pornography, drug smuggling, human smuggling and other suspected crimes. Last month, a French scientist was denied entry into the United States because border guards searched his phone and found texts critical of Trump.

The European Commission has just announced that it is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States, a measure usually restricted to countries like China or Russia.

"Well," you may say, "that's a nuisance, not a true threat." That's probably right, not because they respect the Constitution or basic decency, but because if they're going to start arresting Trump critics, they have bigger fish to fry.

And yet, consider that Trump is now openly speculating on sending "home grown," U.S.-citizen criminals to the Salvadoran gulag. At his Oval Office meeting with strongman Nayib Bukele, while beaming at Bukele's refusal to return the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump mused about expanding El Salvador's prisons to include American citizens, saying that some of our criminals are just as bad as immigrants and that "I'm all for it."

There are too many layers of outrage here to unpack, but let's just note that even agreeing to send accused (not convicted) illegal aliens to Salvadoran custody violates basic rights. By one estimate, 90% of those deported to El Salvador had no criminal records. Prisoners are held in inhumane conditions, stacked on metal bunks with no bedding 23 1/2 hours per day, subject to torture and summary executions.

Let's also take note of Trump's expansive concept of criminality. Last week, Trump targeted two former officials from his first term, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.

Krebs, as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, committed the unpardonable sin of affirming that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In a flagrantly Orwellian order, Trump declared that Krebs "falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen."

He then directed the attorney general and other officials to scour the record to see if they can find instances of misconduct. This not only violates the semi-sacred separation between the White House and the Justice Department; it is reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's hatchetman Lavrentiy Beria's dictum: "Show me the man and I will find the crime."

Trump's order on Miles Taylor — who as chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security penned the "anonymous" New York Times piece in the first Trump administration, went even further, accusing Taylor of sowing "chaos and distrust in government" and closing with an accusation of treason.

The prosecutorial power of the state is vast. Even without a conviction, a criminal investigation can upend a person's life and potentially bankrupt them with legal costs. In the Anglo-American tradition, the danger of overweening state power is cabined in many ways: the requirement of a grand jury, the presumption of innocence, the right to trial by jury, the ban on star chambers and many other protections. But these all rest ultimately on the public's sense of what's right.

Back to the airport example. Let's assume that someone in the Trump administration decides to harass me. They could say that I had spread the "false and baseless" claim that the 2020 election was not stolen and therefore sowed "chaos and distrust in government." Or they could allege that I have terrorist ties, as they said about Rumeysa Ozturk, the Turkish grad student who was hustled off the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. What then?

Republican members of Congress, if asked about my detention, would say that "We have to trust the president's instincts." The Wall Street Journal editorial page would say that this is not ideal because just think of what Democrats might do with this power. And the right-wing media would dredge up every critical word I've ever written about Trump to show that, after all, I had it coming.

Would I be able to consult a lawyer? Fortunately, I'm married to one. But I wouldn't be able to count on legal advice from many of the big firms who are doffing their caps to the president.

I love to travel, but I love to return home even more. The sight of the Stars and Stripes at the airport never fails to move me as I proudly line up in the American passport holders lane. The flag meant home — but it also meant decency and ironclad adherence to the law.

Meant.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

The Cowardice Of Conservative And Business Elites Led Straight To This Disaster

A Wall Street Journal editorial described President Donald Trump's tariffs as the "dumbest trade war in history." It's important not to overrate intelligence, even in leaders. Judgment and maturity may be more crucial. But Trump is no ordinary dunce. He displays a stubborn stupidity that threatens to plunge the world into chaos and potentially into depression.

It should go without saying that our constitutional system was never meant to be so vulnerable to the whims and fantasies of one man. Nothing as critical as the entire world trading system or the maintenance of the NATO alliance should be decided by which side of the bed the emperor woke up on today, but due to the cowardice and cupidity of the GOP and others, we've gradually lost our antibodies to strongman rule and find ourselves bowing before a power-drunk man/child.

His peculiar blind spots and obsessions now threaten everyone. All of those supposedly worldly-wise Wall Street types who either supported or did not oppose Trump's return to power deserve some of the blame today. One thinks of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who has a long history opposing tariffs but was becalmed to the point where he told a Davos audience in January that tariffs are a good "economic weapon" and that critics should "get over it."

This kind of insouciance in the face of a severe economic threat is breathtaking. Even if Wall Street executives and others who chose to believe that Trump was preferable to Kamala Harris were indifferent to the civil liberties implications of a Trump second term and uninterested in public health and the administration of justice, you'd think they'd be interested in their own bottom lines. You would think they might have noticed that one of Trump's only long-term convictions was that America had been victimized by world trade and that tariffs would solve all of our problems.

Trump has an obsession with trade. He always has, and his views are wrong historically, economically and even morally. At his Rose Garden declaration of "Liberation Day" he repeated his oft-stated view that the U.S. has been "looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far" for 50 years and more. Long-term trade deficits, he declared, are a "national emergency" that "threaten our way of life."

In vain did a procession of first-term advisers attempt to disabuse Trump of his absurd views about trade. They patiently explained that it is Americans, not foreigners, who pay tariffs. He was deaf to this. They noted that trade deficits are not a measure of wealth, far less who is "winning" or "losing." If we buy coffee from Costa Rica and they buy nothing from us (which isn't true, but just as an illustration), in no sense has Costa Rica taken advantage of, far less "raped," America. We gave them dollars and they gave us coffee in return.

That is called commerce, and nearly every exchange between a willing buyer and willing seller yields two winners, not one. Besides, as those first-term Trump advisers also tried to convey, those Costa Rican businessmen then take those dollars and buy American assets.

The global trading system the United States shepherded into existence in the post-World War II era has been a boon to people around the globe, and no one has benefitted more than the people of the United States. We've run trade deficits with many nations for many reasons. Sometimes that's a reflection of savings versus investment rates in other countries (think Germany). Sometimes it's a reflection of relative wealth (Vietnamese consumers can't afford to purchase as many American products as Americans can afford to purchase of Vietnamese products).

But in any case, it doesn't really matter because countries that run big trade deficits can be super wealthy. The United States has run trade deficits since the late 1970s and has also been the richest nation on the globe during those years. In fact, even during Trump's first term, which he has widely proclaimed to have been the greatest economy in the history of the universe, we ran consistent trade deficits. In fact, the trade deficit increased during the first Trump administration from $481 billion in 2016 to $679 billion in 2020.

In a saner world, Trump's delusions would not guide U.S. policy. They'd be checked by his own advisers, the Congress and the public. But here we are.

This is not the first time in history that a leader's misconceptions have been implemented on a broad scale, but you have to reach into the history of dictatorial regimes to find parallels. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the ideas of agronomist Trofim Lysenko gained acceptance not because they were true but because Stalin wanted them to be true. Lysenko promised a new golden age with dramatically improved crop yields that would transform even Siberia into a paradise of orchards and gardens. This was touted by Stalin as the "new biology" and ruthlessly enforced. Naysayers were arrested and executed. The result was repeated famines in the USSR and in China, where Mao also embraced the fallacy. Millions of men, women and children starved to death because a leader was able to impose his fantasies on a whole society.

Global trade is an engine of prosperity, and one man's stupidity now threatens billions.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

What Happens When The U.S. Government Reports 'Alternative Facts'?

Much has been written about the Trump team's assault on civil society, universities, public health, the judiciary and our global alliances, and rightly so — but there is one danger that deserves more attention because our ability to thwart this attempted revolution, this upending of our constitutional system, depends upon truth itself.

We have seen one institution after another buckle before President Donald Trump's onslaught. If Congress is conquered, and Big Tech won't oppose him, and Big Media is bending the knee, and Big Law is folding, and universities are crumpling, and the judiciary is a question mark, who is left? Only the voters.

But what if the voters don't have a grasp on reality? What if the inflation rate rises to 9%, bird flu is ravaging farms across the Midwest, unemployment is rising, the economy is shrinking, measles is killing hundreds of children, crime is rising — but the government has suppressed or falsified the data that would reveal those conditions? We face the prospect that many government statistics will be manipulated by Trumpists.

The demolition work has already begun. The Labor Department has dismissed a committee of economists, academics and business leaders who advised the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Commerce Department has disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee — an arm of the Bureau of Economic Analysis — which seeks, or rather sought, to help the government provide accurate statistics on many aspects of the economy.

The move came on the heels of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick telling Fox News that he plans to alter the way GDP is calculated. "You know the Commerce Department runs the statistics of GDP. Governments historically have messed with GDP. They count government spending as part of GDP. So I'm going to separate those two and make it transparent."

Yes, some governments (think China) do sometimes misrepresent economic statistics. But our government has been pretty clean in this regard — until now. Keep in mind also that any first-year economics student could tell you how to break down GDP into government spending, consumption, investment and net exports — all statistics that are, for now, easily accessible thanks to the government.

This is yet another way the Trump administration is undermining America's global standing. As Tara Sinclair, a professor at George Washington University's Center for Economic Research, told NPR, "If the data were manipulated, even in a small way, that will affect the credibility of our entire statistical system. And that's going to have global financial implications, because people around the world rely on the quality of U.S. economic data to make decisions."

Advisory panels do more than offer expertise; they provide insurance against the politicization of government statistics. Without neutral outsiders looking over the shoulders of government decision-makers, it becomes easier to fudge or hide data. That brings us to the Census Bureau, the agency that determines who lives where and how many votes each district is entitled to, among many other things. It just dismissed five outside advisory panels.

Simultaneously, the administration is curtailing public access to climate-change data compiled by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. You say the Earth is warming — well, we have data that say the opposite. It's "alternative facts," but this time, it's not just Kellyanne Conway riffing with reporters — it comes bearing a government imprimatur.

It would be easier to count grains of sand on a beach than to keep track of the lies emanating from this administration, but manipulating official government studies and statistics is a step beyond anything we've seen and a profound threat.

Consider the secretary of health and human services, who has spent his entire career denying reality about infectious diseases, vaccines, and other matters. Nominating and confirming (looking at you, Sen. Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana) such a dangerous crank for a key public health post was an antisocial act.

Even if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. never did anything but repeat the falsehoods about vaccines that have marked his career, it was a certainty that people would look to him for guidance and be harmed. Sure enough, last week, in the midst of the measles outbreak in Texas, a number of unvaccinated people who contracted measles were admitted to hospitals with vitamin A toxicity.

Under Kennedy, HHS is taking lying to new extremes. Though multiple studies, including one featuring half a million Danish children, have discredited the notion that there is a link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy has authorized a new study to search for a "link." This is beyond mendacious. The original study suggesting a connection was found to have been a hoax years ago, and again, no reputable research since has found any association between vaccines and autism. Autism diagnoses are rising due to awareness, not vaccines, as any person not suffering from oppositional defiant disorder can figure out.

Kennedy has chosen David Geier to conduct this sham "study." Geier is not a physician (though he was sanctioned by the state of Maryland for practicing medicine without a license), and he's a proponent of the vaccines-cause-autism deceit. But few will remember this when he produces a government-sponsored "study" showing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

The Trump administration is doing more than attempting to seize unconstitutional power for an unaccountable executive. It is seeking to destroy truth itself, the last tool of the opposition.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

I Reject Mahmoud Khalil's Politics -- But His Rights Must Be Respected

Mahmoud Khalil could have been cooked up in a lab to offend — no, worse — to disgust me. And yet, despite temptation, I cannot endorse what the Trump administration is doing to him.

Based upon the postings of his group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Khalil, who was born in Syria, seems to hold grotesque opinions. CUAD, a leader of the anti-Israel protests on Columbia's campus, has cheered the October 7 pogrom that killed and maimed more than 1,200 Israelis, writing, "The act of Palestinian resistance on October 7, known as the Al-Aqsa Flood, breached Israeli security and made significant military advances," adding that it was "a day that will go down in history." Not a word of condemnation for the deaths of innocents, the mass rapes, the immolation of whole families, nor the kidnappings.

CUAD has lavished praise on other terrorists and enemies of the United States and Israel, like Ismail Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah, leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah respectively, which gives you a flavor of the movement. And while some members of the organization at first distanced themselves from a student, Khymani James, who posted an Instagram video telling university officials that "Zionists don't deserve to live," and "Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists," CUAD's leadership later thought better of it and issued an apology to James and to all individuals involved in the movement for Palestinian liberation it "alienated" by "compromising our values and tailoring our actions and narrative to the mainstream media." In case there was any doubt, the letter also clarified that the group supports "liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance."

In addition to celebrating the suffering and deaths of Israelis, CUAD has supported acts of domestic terrorism in the United States, praising Casey Goonan, an arsonist who carried out attacks on a federal building and the University of California in 2024.

"CUAD stands in full support of Casey Goonan and all of our comrades who have bravely undertaken the call to escalate for Palestine," the group announced in a statement.

If I were vested with plenary authority to decide who could come to the United States, I would turn away someone like Mahmoud Khalil, who not only participates in but leads an organization that cheers terroristic violence. But no one in America has that plenary authority; we have laws and procedures, and under those laws, Khalil became a legal permanent resident. As such he enjoys most of the rights of a citizen.

As law professor Steve Vladeck has outlined, there are certain rare instances in which a green card-holder can be subject to deportation, as when "an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." But the law goes on to specify that aliens should not be deported for opinions or actions that "would be lawful within the United States" unless "the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's (continued presence) would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest."

Perhaps our Gumby secretary of state would so certify, but that is an abuse of authority and a step toward tyranny. Khalil's views are execrable, but he has committed no crime, and the government has made no showing that his continued presence in the country compromises a "compelling" foreign policy interest. He is being targeted because he's obnoxious and on the left. As Jonathan Chait notes, claims of fighting antisemitism ring a bit hollow from an administration that just intervened to free the Tate brothers, hired a deputy press secretary at the DOD with a history of antisemitic posts, and is led by a man who dined with Ye and Nick Fuentes.

No, this is a salvo in a corrupt plan to punish speech Trump dislikes. Taking a law-abiding legal permanent resident into custody for speech crimes is un-American. Nor is it the only attack on fundamental liberties perpetrated in the past couple of weeks. Trump's executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie is another frontal assault. The risible EO attempts to punish the firm for representing "failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton" and hiring the political consultancy Fusion GPS, among other supposed offenses. The order instructs federal agencies to terminate contracts with firm clients and to forbid all employees of Perkins Coie to enter federal buildings.

Or consider the exiling of the Associated Press for declining to abide by Trump's embarrassingly juvenile ukase about the "Gulf of America." Trump has also targeted another law firm, Covington and Burling, for representing Jack Smith. These flagrant assaults on American liberties are coming thick and fast and deserve our attention and alarm.

I won't defend Mahmoud Khalil's despicable views, but I will defend his rights. Though he supports movements and individuals who deny rights to those they oppose, we are not like him.

We live in a country governed by law — or at least, we are supposed to. If Khalil is to be deprived of his liberty, it can only be through due process of law. We defend his rights because if his are not secure, neither are ours.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Where Would Trump Be Without His Spineless Enablers?

It's amazing how men who prided themselves on strength and toughness will submit to a gangster.

In 2022, after Russian tanks rolled across an international border into Ukraine and missiles pierced the quiet of cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earned worldwide acclaim for his courage and heroism. No one was more pro-Ukrainian than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who exulted in an arrest warrant the Russians had issued against him:

"I will wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin's corrupt and immoral government as a Badge of Honor."

Last Friday, after mad king Donald and his scheming viceroy, JD Vance, performed a tag-team ambush on Zelensky in the Oval Office, Graham sounded a different note. "Somebody asked me if I was embarrassed about President Trump. I have never been more proud of the president. I was very proud of JD Vance for standing up for our country."

Disgusting. A politician whose identity was forged as a hawk and staunch defender of liberty and democracy now praises the most powerful man in the world for sandbagging the beleaguered leader of a bleeding ally, a victim of aggression? That's standing up for America?

Ditto Marco Rubio, that gelding who has likewise transformed himself from a champion of freedom into an obedient toady to the man whose project is to destroy the Western alliance.

We live in an upside-down world where the far greater man, Zelenskyy, is being hounded to apologize to the gangster who behaved abominably.

Consider that even before the Oval Office debacle, Trump and his team had been grossly disrespectful and abusive toward Zelensky and Ukraine. Trump called him a "dictator" (though he declined to say as much about Putin). Trump then repeated Putin's propaganda that Ukraine, not Russia, had started the war. Vance told a European audience that he feared "the threat from within" far more than Russia or China. And then Trump proposed a "deal" that amounted to extortion, demanding the right to mine rare earth elements (which Trump called "raw earths") on Ukrainian soil in return for ... nothing. It was a shakedown. As Trump unguardedly admitted when he lost his temper, he regards Ukraine as a target for extortion because they "don't have any cards."

It was the most shameful moment in American history in at least a century, and a special shame attaches to the explainer class of analysts who, without even the excuse of fearing voters, perform pirouettes on their principles.

Marc Thiessen used his perch as a Washington Post columnist to excoriate not Trump for this blatant betrayal of 80 years of American world leadership but Zelensky.

As recently as June 2023, Thiessen had seen his role differently — that of guide to help MAGA types remain on the side of Ukraine. He outlined an "America First Case for Supporting Ukraine." But now, when the leader has pivoted, so has Thiessen. "The blowup was Zelensky's fault," he wrote. Thiessen excoriated Zelensky for resisting a deal without security. "He summarily dismissed Trump's idea of an immediate ceasefire — something that is extremely important to Trump, who is committed to stopping the killing — because he said Putin had already broken ceasefires 25 times."

But that's a key stumbling block, isn't it? Trump is demanding a ceasefire without security guarantees for Ukraine, which is an open invitation to Putin to sign the deal and then regroup and attack again as he has done repeatedly. Thiessen was quick to accuse Zelensky of disrespect but didn't notice the key part of an exchange he himself highlighted. When Zelensky noted that Putin had broken previous agreements, Trump interrupted to say, "He never broke to me. He never broke to me." Putin's agreement was not with Trump. But Trump's narcissism, solipsism and moral obtuseness were painfully obvious in that exchange.

Thiessen further scolded Zelensky for contradicting Trump in front of "the entire world." Well, it was Trump's decision to invite the cameras, not Zelensky's. As he boasted afterward, it was "great television." Thiessen was referring to a moment when Trump was repeating Russian disinformation about how all of Ukraine's cities have been destroyed. Zelensky was the soul of restraint saying, "No, no, you have to come, Mr. President, you have to come and to look."

Trump is as deaf to such appeals as he was indifferent to the photos of starving Ukrainian POWs Zelensky had brought along. Throughout the latter part of the meeting, when it became heated, Trump's favoritism toward Putin showed through. He scowled when Zelensky called Putin a war criminal, and when a member of the press asked whether Trump saw himself as "in the middle" between the warring parties or "on Ukraine's side," Trump said he was not on Ukraine's side and went on to scold Zelensky for his harsh words about Putin.

"It's wonderful to speak badly about somebody else," he noted sarcastically, "but I want to get it solved." Later, he said about Zelensky, "You see the hatred he's got for Putin. It's very tough for me to make a deal."

Trump is a soulless sociopath. This is not news. But without the Vances, Rubios, and Thiessens of the world, he would not be quite the danger to the Atlantic alliance, peace and security that he is.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Under Trump Regime, America Is Wide Open For Corruption

Is America open for corruption now? Unabashedly? Nakedly? Are we tossing aside not just our hard-won victories over infectious diseases but also the more than hundred-year battle against fraud, bribery and graft?

Honest, clean government doesn't follow automatically from democracy. Before civil service reform, the wealthy or well-connected were able to line their pockets by bribing public officials. The Credit Mobilier scandal, which featured bribes to a dozen congressmen paid in the 1860s by railroad executives, was just one example of a widespread plague.

But just as we were able to defeat smallpox, measles and diphtheria with sensible public health initiatives, Americans were able to beat back public corruption. Reformers, calling themselves Mugwumps and Progressives, animated by opposition to the spoils system, passed laws demanding transparency, requiring a nonpartisan civil service, and paying salaries to public servants so that they would no longer have to rely on a percentage of fees or taxes collected.

And what do you know, it worked! American public administration became much more efficient, the nation became a better place in which to conduct business, and — one almost blushes to extol this in our era — there was a net increase in justice and fairness.

Public corruption is never completely vanquished of course. Look no further than former Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez's gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in his bedroom. (He claimed not to trust banks.) Clean government requires constant vigilance from the police, prosecutors and the courts. It requires a consensus in society that this is crucial, and journalists on the lookout for tales of venality and malversation. There are also tons of civil society groups dedicated to this. They're known affectionately as "goo-goos" for "good government guys." They do more than guard against corruption; they're also committed to good policy and implementation. And all of that helps to make the United States a first world nation.

Or it did.

In his first month back in the White House, Donald Trump is yanking the rug out from under open, honest government and signaling a complete reversal to a time of rank corruption. There may be no historical analogue to the level of corruption Trump is inaugurating.

One reversal is even conveniently labeled. Trump has issued an executive order to Attorney General Pam Bondi to cease enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids American companies from paying bribes abroad. Correspondingly, he has shut down the units in the FBI, State Department and the Department of Homeland Security that were thwarting foreign influence operations in American elections.

Trump has fired 17 inspectors general from federal agencies. Those IGs provide independent oversight and serve to unmask government abuses. If the DOGE project were even remotely sincere, Trump would be adding and empowering more IGs, not firing them. No, the presence of truly independent watchdogs is a threat to the Trumpist project, which is permitting agencies to be used to reward friends and punish foes.

That reward/punish metric was the operating principle in the case of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Toss out the principle of blind justice (so antique) and bring on the distortion of the prosecutorial power for nakedly political ends. Pause the Adams prosecution in return for assistance in rounding up illegal immigrants, but leave the sword dangling over the mayor's head (the government asked that the criminal case be dismissed "without prejudice," meaning that it could be reopened at a later date) to compel total obedience.

The Office of Special Counsel was created in the post-Watergate era to oversee whistleblower complaints, prevent prohibited personnel practices and enforce the Hatch Act, among other duties. (Despite the similar name, it is entirely separate from special counsels, like Jack Smith, who are appointed by the Justice Department.) Trump attempted to fire the current special counsel, Hampton Dellinger, but his firing has been stayed by a court, for now. The director of the public integrity section of the Justice Department was not so fortunate. He was reassigned, and three "anti-kleptocracy" units crucial to targeting the assets of foreign corrupt actors in several countries were shut down.

It is all friends/enemies now. Trump just ended a database on police misconduct. Police misconduct, after all, may be useful in the coming months and years.

Trump extended his personal reach to Brazil, where fellow coup plotter Jair Bolsonaro is on trial for siccing a mob on his own capital. Trump's company is suing the judge in the case, accusing him of illegally censoring right-wing voices. The unmistakable signal: We like coup plotters as long as they're Trump pals. A fortiori the Jan. 6 insurrectionists Trump pardoned en masse. Not so much as a nod toward making individual evaluations.

Trump pardoned Rod Blagojevich, withdrew felony charges against Rep. Jeffrey Fortenberry (R-NE) and had the DOJ attempt to drop criminal charges against Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN).

And it's hard to know where even to begin to describe the walking conflict of interest that is Elon Musk, who, with no transparency, is reportedly terminating all manner of government agencies and offices, including many that touch on his business interests.

Trump's America no longer fights the old foes of good government. It has hung a giant neon sign on our door proclaiming Open for Corruption.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Do Trump Voters Understand What They Have Inflicted On America And The World?

As I watched election returns on the evening of November 5, 2024, I was struck by the sense that Americans had missed the memo. Across the nation, in blue states as well as red, county after county showed a marked rightward shift. It was so seemingly normal. What do you do when groceries are much more expensive than four years ago, the border is flooded with immigrants? You vote for the other guy.

It has been only four weeks since Trump took the oath of office, and I wonder whether casual voters or even those who truly despised Joe Biden have taken onboard what they've done. The American republic is barreling toward a constitutional crisis as the president attempts to rule as an autocrat ("He who saves his country does not violate any law," he claimed), a heedless billionaire smashes through people's lives and complex systems he doesn't understand with sadistic glee, the Justice Department descends into corrupt bargains antithetical to the ethical standards upheld for two centuries, a Putin/Assad apologist sits atop our intelligence agencies, a conspiracy theorist/anti-vaccine fool directs our health agencies, and the United States is in the process of reversing 80 years of world leadership.

Let's focus on the global about-face, because however grievous the other depredations, they are, at least in theory, reversible. Abandoning world leadership is not.

Violating the understanding that Vladimir Putin's naked aggression made him a pariah among decent nations (he is an indicted war criminal), Trump engaged in a 90-minute phone call with him (over Volodymyr Zelensky's head), invited the dictator to visit the United States and suggested that Russia be asked to rejoin the G7. All of these marks of favor were offered in exchange for Putin doing what? Promising to withdraw troops? Returning the kidnapped Ukrainian children? Agreeing to cease targeting hospitals and power plants? No. For chatting on the phone with the world's most credulous narcissist.

Next, the out-of-his-depth weekend TV host-turned secretary of defense offered two unilateral concessions to Putin by declaring that "The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement" and that no U.S. troops would be part of any security guarantee to Ukraine.

Isolating Ukraine from Europe and keeping it out of NATO has been Russia's aim for 30 years. While NATO membership was not offered, it was never entirely rebuffed either — until now. Though Pete Hegseth attempted to walk back his comments in the face of criticism, the damage was done. Before a single water glass was filled at the negotiating table, the United States conceded some of Russia's main aims. Besides, much worse damage was right around the corner, emanating from the vice president.

JD Vance delivered the most shameful address by an American leader to a European audience in living memory. Vance did not mention Russia's continuing aggression against Ukraine at all. Instead, he presumed to lecture America's allies on their supposed failure to uphold our shared values. How so? By restricting speech too harshly and — the truly soul-crushing part — being too intolerant of neo-Nazis. In sync with co-president Elon Musk, who has blessed the AfD as the only hope for Germany, Vance scolded the Germans for being unwilling to enter into coalition with a party that wants a "180-degree turnaround in the politics of remembrance" about the Holocaust, plans to deport all Muslims from Germany, and believes Germans should be proud of their soldiers from both world wars.

Not only is it morally bankrupt to ignore the fascistic aggression of Russia; it is galling to watch an American leader who supported the attempted violent overthrow of our 2020 election and who has called for the president to defy the Supreme Court and rule as an autocrat to presume to speak as a small-d democrat. European diplomats exiting the meeting told the Financial Times that "America itself is now a threat to Europe."

All of that was a prelude to Trump's total betrayal of Ukraine — and with it, America's global role. In a screed that mixed Kremlin talking points (Zelensky is a "dictator") with Trumpian grotesqueries (alleging that Ukraine, not Russia, started the war, that Zelensky was a "modestly successful comedian" who hoodwinked Biden into spending $350 billion on defending Ukraine when the true figure is $183 billion that Republicans and Democrats approved), Trump has surrendered Ukraine to its tormentors without so much as a backward glance. On the contrary, he's bursting with self-congratulation for this "negotiation to end the war with Russia" which "all admit only TRUMP ... can do."

What the world knows, and will not unlearn, is that the United States cannot be trusted. Faith in America, and in basic American decency and goodwill, has kept the peace for generations, but that is over. Nations that refrained from getting nuclear weapons because they were secure under the American umbrella will rush to get bombs. Nations that resisted China's bullying will make their accommodations. The Taiwanese can kiss their independence and their freedom goodbye. Formerly close allies will not share intelligence about impending terrorist threats.

That is what Americans did on November 5. Voters were thinking about high costs. Perhaps they are beginning to see what a price we will all pay for that election.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Demolition Of USAID By Trump And Musk Is A Scandalous Waste

A "special government employee," wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus, chose as his first target the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth. On Sunday evening, Elon Musk and his peach-fuzz goons locked employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development out of their email accounts, shut down the agency website, announced that nearly everyone would be fired and crowed that USAID had been fed into a "wood chipper." President Onlooker muttered approvingly that the agency had it coming because it was dominated by "radical left lunatics." Musk called them criminals.

USAID is a duly constituted government agency created by Congress and the president. By law, it can be shut down only by Congress and the president. The attempt to close it by the whim of a ketamine-popping oligarch is flagrantly illegal, and will eventually, one assumes, be reversed by the courts. But that could take months (and there's a sting in the tail, which I'll come to in a minute).

Meanwhile, Americans who work for the agency, most of them overseas, have been thrown into chaos, and the people who benefit from the assistance have been left in the lurch. Until last week, USAID was the largest distributor of humanitarian assistance on Earth. Today, by abruptly pulling the plug, the world's greatest humanitarian country has become one of its least, raising a huge middle finger to those facing hunger, disease, war and oppression.

Silicon Valley types like to move fast and break things. I guess that's fine if the only thing you break is your own bank account, but applying that spirit to foreign assistance (again, without a shred of legal authority) means breaking human beings. And it means criminal waste. Wasn't Musk supposed to be seeking to limit waste?

According to a source with knowledge of foreign assistance activities at the Department of State and USAID, there are currently more than 475,000 metric tons of American food commodities (purchased from American farmers in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa) that have already been ordered and are now at risk of becoming spoiled on railroad sidings or ports. Another 29,000 metric tons, valued at $30 million, are reportedly sitting in a Texas warehouse and cannot be shipped to needy people.

Most of the 10,000 people who work for USAID have no idea if they will ever see another paycheck. Those in conflict zones like Ukraine are unsure whether they retain diplomatic status. They've been told to come home, but they have no guidance about how or whether the government will pay for their transportation. They've been locked out of their phones and their computers and feel anxious and isolated.

Like any agency or, frankly, any human organization, USAID has faults. Some of its programs could be streamlined, one employee told me, but "we respond to earthquakes and wars — don't smash everything because 2% have problems!"

Most USAID employees could make much better salaries in the private sector but feel called to help the most vulnerable people in the world. They accept long separations from their families and endure uncomfortable and often dangerous postings in places that Silicon Valley types don't frequent. They stand ready, with bags packed, to receive a midnight call.

"When there was an Ebola outbreak in 2013," one USAID employee told me, "doctors with USAID rushed to Uganda to stop the spread. They put their own lives at risk. No one knows about it because they succeeded and Ebola never spread to the [United States]. So much of what we do is unseen, but that doesn't make it unimportant."

Now they are afraid to speak freely. They sound more like dissidents in places like China or Russia than like Americans. They fear they are being monitored and targeted for God-only-knows what kind of accusation or retribution.

Foreign aid never polls well. Many Americans imagine that we spend 25 percent of our budget supporting humanitarian needs in far-flung places. When asked how much would be about right, they suggest about 10 percent. The true figure is less than one percent. Though our presence — and our bags of grain labeled prominently with the words "From the American People" — is felt in scores of nations around the globe.

Even if they were preaching gender ideology with every shot of penicillin (and they're not), it would still be worth doing. We should give to the poor both for its own sake — it is basic morality, after all — and for the reputation and standing of the United States.

Now for the sting in the tail. The courts will take up Musk's attack on American benevolence in due course, and while one cannot predict with certainty how they will rule, it's a reasonably safe bet that they will find that the Trump/Musk demolition project was illegal. It remains an open question whether Trump will obey the court. If he does, we still have a republic. If not, we've turned the page.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Why America Needs Birthright Citizenship

It's part of who we are.

The White House executive order theoretically ending birthright citizenship grandly proclaims its purpose as "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." As we've come to expect from this administration, the proposed change to American law would do the exact opposite. Also in keeping with the Trumpian model, the president's comments accompanying the signing were false. "Birthright, that's a big one," Trump frowned. "It's ridiculous. We are the only country in the world that does this with the birthright, as you know, and it's just absolutely ridiculous."

Trump frequently adds "as you know" or "as you know very well" to his reality-bending comments to rope the hearers (usually members of the press) into a kind of involuntary consent. They have no opportunity to object or protest, and so he seems to rope them into his various fantasies, such as the lie that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election or that Ukraine hosted Hillary Clinton's CrowdStrike email server.

But, no, we don't know very well that the United States is the only country in the world that grants unconditional birthright citizenship. Not even close. According to a 2018 report by the Library of Congress, practically the entire Western Hemisphere does the same, including Canada and Mexico. Pakistan too gives citizenship to every child born within its borders, and Germany and the UK have something close — extending it to babies with one citizen or permanent resident parent.

Nor is it the case, as Trump contended in his first term, that "birth tourism" is an urgent national problem. The anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies published a claim that 33,000 babies were born per year to women traveling to the United States just to give birth. The Niskanen Center examined their statistics and found that, while it's true that some women do scheme to have their babies here, the CIS numbers were wildly exaggerated. The true number, they reckon, was closer to 2,000.

Trump is trying to behave like an emperor. He sits at the Resolute Desk and scrawls his Sharpie across documents as if that's all there is to it. He has the effrontery to do so with the preamble "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered ... "

The president has vast powers, but he does not have unlimited power. He cannot, with the stroke of a pen, repeal a Constitutional amendment. And the Constitution of the United States is entirely clear about birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment prescribes that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This was a Constitutional corrective to the infamous Dred Scott decision that had denied all rights to African Americans. The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was understood at the time to exclude the children of diplomats and some Native American tribes — not immigrants. This isn't some throwaway line that no one has ever challenged. In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that a man who had been born to Chinese immigrant parents on U.S. soil could not be denied his citizenship even though in the years after his birth, Congress had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

As Judge John C. Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, noted last week in a ruling temporarily blocking Trump's order, "This is a blatantly unconstitutional order." He even directed some ire at Trump administration lawyers, saying, "Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind."

The assault on birthright citizenship is more than an overzealous assault on immigration; it is part of Trump's ongoing attempt to limit membership in the American family. He rose to political prominence by calling the first Black president's citizenship into question, bullied Black lawmakers with the taunt that they should go back to where they came from and lamented that we are not attracting more immigrants from places like Norway. Not subtle.

Those who approve of Trump's approach (even if they acknowledge that he should do this via a proposed constitutional amendment instead of an absurd ukase) should reflect on what it would mean to repeal birthright citizenship. The rule that your citizenship cannot be questioned if you are born on American soil is integral to American identity.

This country is not comprised of people sharing the same ethnicity and heritage. It is not the ancestral homeland of anyone except the Native Americans. It is composed of immigrants (most voluntary, some enslaved) who made this their home. No American should feel that his Americanness is dependent upon long ancestry in the land. Trump's own mother was born abroad. Most of his children are also the children of immigrants. No, if you're born here or become a naturalized citizen, you are as American as any Mayflower descendant.

If we were to dispense with birthright citizenship, we would erode the sense of equality that Americans enjoy and replace it with tiers — legitimate citizens who can trace their ancestry back a generation or two, and interlopers.

One of the greatest strengths of this country has been our ability to assimilate immigrants and transform them from whatever they were into Americans. Birthright citizenship is a vital aspect of this process. The parents who welcome an American citizen child are tied to their child's nationality and all the more willing to contribute and participate.

As a Jewish American, I've looked countless times at my passport in gratitude that I was born in New York City and no one could contest my legitimacy. If birthright citizenship is overturned, what will the criteria for unassailable Americanness be?

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Does Trump Now Believe That -- Like His Cult -- God Worships Him?

The tone was set by Franklin Graham's invocation. Preachers are a fixture at presidential inaugurations, but until now they've confined their words to asking the Almighty to bless the new president and his family and to guide the nation to goodness and mercy. The prophets were popular choices. Not this time. Graham used the opportunity not to praise God but to worship Donald Trump. Regarding the inauguration, Graham exulted, "Look what the Lord has done!"

It was a theme the most glassy-eyed Trump acolytes have sounded since the Pennsylvania assassination attempt — that God turned Trump's head a fraction of an inch at just the right moment to spare him for a great purpose. (God neglected, according to this interpretation, to turn the head of Corey Comperatore.) Trump himself echoed this theme in his speech, calling his return to the presidency the "journey to reclaim our republic."

"Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again."

The Catholic priest who delivered closing remarks elevated the reelected president to even greater heights, seeming to sanctify his dead parents and thanking God for having created them so that they could bless the world with Donald.

Trump has never been a religious man, as he has acknowledged many times. He worships himself so devoutly that there was never much room for God. But it does seem possible that after Pennsylvania, and after November 5, and after the whole corporate world has come crawling, and after Big Tech has truckled, and after news organizations have surrendered, Trump has come around to the idea that God worships Trump, too.

Accordingly, the familiar Trump strut has now taken on a religious/nationalist cast. Invoking "manifest destiny," he says the United States will "once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory" — and as for the Panama Canal, "we're taking it back." He's going to rename the Gulf of Mexico, renew our cities, and send American astronauts to "plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."

Karl Marx said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Trump's second victory partakes of both tragedy and farce. As in the past, Trump imagines that he commands magic wands — that by declaring cartels to be terrorist organizations and resorting to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, he can "eliminate the presence of all foreign gang criminal networks" in American cities, or that by imposing tariffs he can "enrich our citizens," or (as he promised on the campaign trail but noticeably didn't mention in his inaugural address) that he can end the Ukraine war in one day. But, unlike in the first term, this time around, a cowed leadership class in America — not just in his own party — is conspiring to affirm that the naked emperor is beautifully clothed.

A would-be autocrat is welcomed into office not just without skepticism but with religious zeal and nationalist truculence.

After Trump's address promising the dawn of a new golden age — "the four greatest years in American history" — the very first act of the new era was to be Carrie Underwood's rendition of "America the Beautiful."They handed her the mic, but the music failed to cue up. After everyone looked uncomfortable for a couple of minutes, Underwood sang it a cappella. She improvised in the face of a screw-up. Perhaps it was the first peek into our future: Reality will assert itself into the fantasy world Trump aims to create.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Trump's Election Win Was Tiny -- So Stop Knuckling Under And Shake It Off

It's important in a democracy that the losing side grapple with its defeat and learn the right lessons for next time. A certain amount of reflection and self-criticism is healthy, but we've blown past that point and are in danger of over-interpreting the 2024 results. Despite headlines proclaiming the GOP won in a "rout" or declaring that "This is the collapse of the Democratic Party,"

November's election was actually quite close. Trump received 49.9 percdent to Kamala Harris's 48.4 percent, a difference of a point and a half. That's a smaller margin than any winner since Richard Nixon in 1968. The popular vote margin in 2000 was also razor-thin, but the candidate who received more votes that year was not the Electoral College winner. If the same percentage of Hispanic voters that chose Hillary Clinton in 2016 had voted Democratic in 2024, Harris would have been the victor. The Republicans took control of the Senate, but their margin in the House was reduced.

This is not to say that the Democrats don't have lessons to learn. It seems pretty obvious that shaking off the outsized influence of "the groups" — the immigration rights, LGBTQ rights, anti-development, anti-police agitators is a good place to start. By all means, Democrats should convene conclaves and discuss all of that with their pollsters and greybeards.

But in the meanwhile, Donald Trump did not suddenly become more normal or less of a threat to democratic norms and institutions than he was on Nov. 3. Yet a fog of obfuscation has settled on the country, one in which Democrats are offering peace pipes, withholding judgment on some of the wilder Trump Cabinet nominees, and focusing on areas in which the two parties can work together rather than the ones on which they differ. The papers have been filled with chirpy articles offering how Trump can really make a difference on housing policy or public health or our energy future.

If the Democrats have concluded, with Rep. Jared Moskowitz, that "we (Democrats) were to the left of the American people" on immigration, fine. And if Democrats want to pay lip service, with Rep. Ro Khanna, to the DOGE initiative (if it even is an initiative), OK, though it would be nice if they noted that other commissions have addressed the matter of government waste and deficit spending to zero effect. The Grace Commission in the 1980s and the Simpson-Bowles Commission in the 2010s made substantive proposals to Congress and the president.

But in order for anything to happen, Congress and the president must take their duties seriously and, just perhaps, enact laws. Instead, our elected leaders said thank you very much for your service and ignored them. In keeping with the unseriousness of MAGA, this DOGE (the title is an acronym for Department of Government Efficiency but also a reference to, what else, an internet meme) is not even a congressionally authorized investigation, far less a new government agency. It's a chimera, and even before Trump has taken the oath, Elon Musk is already retreating from the fantastical claim of cutting the budget by $2 trillion.

Democrats and others should focus a bit less on last November's election and a bit more on what Musk has become. Not content with threatening to primary any Republican who dares assert independence from Trump, Musk has gone abroad seeking fascist-adjacent leaders to support and promote. The man Trump has entrusted with vast influence has endorsed the German AfD, a Russia-philic, extremist right-wing party that cannot seem to stop using racist and antisemitic slogans; agitated against the British government by spreading lies, promoted the cause of right-wing provocateur Tommy Robinson, and announced, as it were ex cathedra, that Nigel Farage is no longer acceptable as the leader of the Reform UK party.

Where are the calls for Trump to repudiate Musk?

Perhaps people are feeling defeated. After all, Trump himself just gave a press conference in which he repeated Kremlin talking points (totally false) about the origins of the Ukraine war. It's perfectly reasonable for Democrats and others to conclude that Trump is aligned with Putin and with the fascists worldwide who adore him. Remember how he responded to news that Putin's tanks had rolled into Ukraine? He thought it was brilliant. Maybe he's trolling when he threatens to use force to retake the Panama Canal or, God help us, Canada.

But maybe his authoritarian juices are rising as inauguration day beckons. It's impossible to say at this moment, but what is possible to say is that most Americans do not perceive Trump to be a would-be Putin. They may be OK with him firing some bureaucrats and deporting some illegal aliens, but they didn't sign up for unabashed authoritarianism.

Or perhaps they did. But one thing is certain — we'll never know unless the opposition shakes off its torpor. If Democrats and tech barons and newspaper owners and columnists keep pretending that Trump is really interested in health reform or housing initiatives and continue to sweep the dangerous and fascist messages under the rug, there is zero chance that the American people will understand what is happening.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

The Decline And Fall Of The (Trumpist) 'Wall Street Journal'

Many American institutions have beclowned themselves in the past 10 years — too many to list. To count the right-leaning institutions that have not succumbed to Trumpian populism takes only one hand. But the decline of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page has been particularly galling because, compared to the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College or the Claremont Institute, it had farther to fall.

In the pre-Trump era, the paper had some integrity. While the board was broadly aligned with the Republican Party, its editorials didn't hesitate to differ with Republicans on major questions.

In the Trump era, the Journal has become, if not Pravda, then something like The Nation magazine.The Nation reliably whitewashed the sins of the Soviet Union and other communist regimes because it regarded anti-communism as a greater threat to the world than communism itself. Similarly, The Wall Street Journal has gradually become a parody of itself on the grounds that Democrats are always and forever the greatest threat to the country.

With that guiding principle, there is simply no Republican, no matter how deranged or unfit, whom the Journal will not prefer to a Democratic opponent. In 2022, the Journal advised its Arizona readers to choose Kari Lake for governor despite the fact that Lake had called for the 2020 election to be decertified, denounced mask wearing and encouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic, promised to criminally pursue journalists who "dupe the public," and pronounced the nation "rotten to the core" when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago. The Journal didn't mention most of that in its endorsement, claiming, hilariously, that Arizona's election was primarily about school choice.

This week, commenting on the drone kerfuffle, the Journal intoned that it couldn't be sure what people were seeing — but it was certain that the whole thing could be attributed to the erosion of trust in government.

Noting that "non-cranks" have reported seeing things that move strangely in the dark, the Journal quoted Jon Bramnick, a GOP state senator from New Jersey, who said, "It must be something going on that they can't tell us because they are so fearful of what the public's gonna do when they hear what the drones are doing."

You might think the paper would rebuke this state senator for getting out over his skis and encouraging conspiratorial thinking, but no, the editorial notes that "This is how deep the suspicion runs. And when that happens, conspiracy theories fill the air as much as drones do."

And guess who's responsible for this erosion of trust?

"The Biden administration has squandered its credibility to the point that it's rational not to believe what it says. Remember the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across the continental U.S.? The administration downplayed its importance while it was courting better relations with Beijing, only to shoot it down over the Atlantic Ocean."

Whoa. If you want to cite relations with Beijing as a source of mistrust, the Trump administration offers far more dire examples. While he was chasing a "great trade agreement" with Xi Jinping (the terms of which were never honored, by the way), Trump repeatedly lied about and minimized the risk of COVID-19, which had far more serious consequences for Americans' lives than waiting until the big spy balloon was over the ocean before shooting it down.

Nor did the Journal see fit to mention that Trump is, right on schedule and very on brand, stoking conspiracies of government malfeasance about the drones. He popped off: "Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge. I don't think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!"

This is not to excuse President Joe Biden's betrayal of trust in repeatedly promising that he would not pardon his son and then doing so, or misleading the public about the degree of his physical and mental decline. But for the Journal to look at the world of 2024 and conclude that the erosion of trust in government is due to Biden without ever once mentioning that Trump and his minions are the most prolific bilge spillers imaginable is to be completely without scruple.

Just in the last few weeks of the campaign, Trump falsely alleged that FEMA was purposely withholding hurricane assistance in order to funnel funds to illegal immigrants, that the Congo was emptying its prisons to send convicts to the United States and that the 2020 election was stolen.Trust is crucial to the successful functioning of society. Many social science studies have found that nations with high trust have less corruption and greater prosperity than those with low trust. It makes sense.

If you believe that most people are untrustworthy, you will rely only on those within your own family or tribe and be less likely to engage with outsiders. Trust is a social and economic lubricant. It's also, as we've learned, quite easy to undermine when people get their information from online rumors and irresponsible politicians and other actors who stoke distrust for their own political ends.

The drone affair is fluff and will doubtless be forgotten in a month if not sooner. But the spectacle of the Journal chastising the Biden administration without a solitary word about Trump and his enablers (in whose ranks they stand) is breathtaking.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

The 'America First' Nominee Who Loves America's Enemies

Glance through any post-election voter interview and you will inevitably find someone who mentions "America first" when explaining his or her vote. They understand the term in varying ways, but the throughline is the belief that Trump is a strong leader who will steadfastly pursue America's national interests.

Sorry, but that is deluded. Even by the strongman standard, Trump is not securing America. His nominees are not just unqualified; they are anti-qualified. If he were attempting to sabotage America's interests, it's hard to see how he would do things differently.

Someone who cared about America's security would never dream of nominating a weekend TV host with no relevant experience in running large organizations to serve as secretary of defense, far less someone who has an alcohol problem, white nationalist sympathies and a history of sexual misconduct. Many Republican senators are minimizing the credible accusations against Peter Hegseth, so perhaps a primer is in order about why character matters.

It matters for all officials if you care about honest, responsible government (an antique taste perhaps). For those in sensitive national security posts though, good character is more than desirable; it's essential. If a defense secretary is drunk during a crisis, lives can be lost. And if he has a history of sexual assault, it's possible, even likely, that there may be more unreported episodes out there that could be exploited by an enemy to blackmail him.

The choice of Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence is even less explicable. Her appalling judgment comes into sharp focus this week with the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Before she was red-pilled, Gabbard's outstanding trait was warmth toward dictators. In 2017, she traveled to Syria and met with Assad not once but twice. Like so many political pilgrims, Gabbard saw what she wanted to see, not the reality staring her in the face. In 2017, she had every reason to know that Assad had not only used chemical weapons against the Syrian people, but had welcomed Russian assistance in his civil war, and that Iranian-allied troops and Russian fighters had conducted operations against American interests in the region.

No one knows what Assad and Gabbard discussed in their two hours together, but soon after she emerged, Gabbard was expressing skepticism that Assad had really used poison gas, and by the time of her 2020 presidential run, she was citing full-on conspiracy sites that claimed the chemical attacks were false flag operations designed to bring the United States into the war.

Her credulousness — if that's what it is — looks particularly obscene this week, as stories are coming out about the grotesque human rights abuses committed by Assad in Sednaya prison and at other places around Syria. Within hours of Assad's departure, people swarmed the prisons in hopes of finding loved ones alive. At Sednaya, they forced open the doors of the prison morgue and found bodies in conditions reminiscent of the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide. The New York Times reported some of the grisly details:

"One woman shrieked at what she found. Most of the bodies were emaciated, the skin hanging off their bones. The shoulders of one man was covered in the scars of puncture wounds. Another had a thick red scar around his neck — a rope burn, the examiners believed. Yet another man was missing his eyes."

Some of the women prisoners were found with toddlers in their cells, doubtless the result of prison guards raping them. Rape and torture were routine in the prison Amnesty International labeled a "human slaughterhouse." Human rights groups vary in their estimates of the number of Syrians murdered by their designer-clothes-clad, Bentley-driving dictator, but the range is between 13,000 and 30,000 dead at Sednaya alone since the uprising against Assad began in 2011. The total of all Syrians killed since 2011 in the civil war is estimated to be 620,000, with 12 million refugees.

Gabbard demonstrated similar credulousness about Russia and Putin, mouthing so many Kremlin talking points that Russian TV hosts referred to her as "Russia's girlfriend." She repeated the propaganda that the United States and NATO were responsible for Putin's invasion of Ukraine, tweeting in 2022 that "This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns." She has denounced Volodymyr Zelenskyy as corrupt, and repeated the baseless smear (originated in the Kremlin) that the United States was operating biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine and was responsible for sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

There is something wrong with Gabbard. The pull of conspiracism — particularly anti-American conspiracism — seems to be her overriding mental frame. In this, she and Trump (and RFK Jr. and so many others) are united. If she were merely a member of Congress, her tropism toward murderous dictators would be disturbing, but as head of America's intelligence community, it's utterly insane. This is the furthest thing from America First.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

RFK Jr. Should Be Treated Like The Plague He Is

At a New York rally in October, Donald Trump promised the crowd that if elected, he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "go wild" on health, food and medicines. It delighted the crowd, who imagined they were cheering for better health and better medicine. They're in for a bitter surprise.

Some who should know better are offering cautious approval.

Well, he has a point about fluoride in the water, a Washington Post columnist conceded. American health care has "become too reliant on treating every matter of discomfort with a pill instead of tackling questions about environment, culture and behavior," mused a New York Times contributor.

They seem to think we can take what we like from the Kennedy buffet and leave the rest. Not so. If he is confirmed, we won't get only the three percent of Kennedy ideas that are sane; we will be saddled with the 97 percent that are deranged. It isn't that Kennedy is merely misinformed — though he is. It's that he's an active agent of misinformation. That's a character problem. Hiring him to run health policy for this country is like hiring an arsonist to head the fire department.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases to which human beings are susceptible. It used to kill about 500 in the U.S. every year. In 2019, Samoa was experiencing a spike in measles cases due to a mistake and a lie. The mistake was made in 2018 by two nurses who mixed ingredients for a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine incorrectly, causing the deaths of two infants. (They pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.)

The lies came soon after, encouraged by RFK Jr., who has consistently propagated the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism, peanut allergies, and other ailments. Though he now denies that he was ever "anti-vaccine," Kennedy declared as recently as July that "there's no vaccine that is safe and effective," and, in another interview: "I do believe that autism does come from vaccines."

Many Samoans had seen the film Vaxxed, produced by two of Kennedy's anti-vaccine allies, which alleged that the MMR vaccine was dangerous, which led to an uptick in parents refusing to get their kids vaccinated. After the deaths of the two infants, RFK Jr. threw gasoline on the fire with a visit to the island in 2019, meeting with local vaccine opponents and voicing suspicions that the MMR vaccine had contained a mutant strain and had caused the then-burgeoning epidemic. Eventually, more than three percdnt of the whole population of the island was infected. For babies aged 6 to 11 months, that figure was closer to 20 percent. More than 150 of them died.

When you think of RFK Jr., think of rows of tiny coffins.

Anti-vaccine activism has been the hallmark of Kennedy's career, but it by no means exhausts his appetite for crackpottery. He has sworn to end the FDA's "war" on raw milk. Listen, if Kennedy wants to drink the stuff himself, it's a free country and he can afford as many cows as he wants. But how did we reach a point in our history when it became necessary to argue that pasteurizing milk is a sound health measure? Unpasteurized milk and cheese has been implicated in many recent outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. It can also transmit bird flu.

RFK Jr. has speculated that Wi-Fi causes cancer and "leaky brain," that antidepressants are responsible for school shootings.

Nor is it just Kennedy's attraction to doltish ideas that should set off alarms. It's his tendency to imagine sinister forces controlling things. He believes the CIA killed his uncle, John F. Kennedy, as well as his father, Robert F. Kennedy.

It wasn't enough for him to claim that the COVID-19 vaccine was the "deadliest vaccine ever made"; he also suggested that the virus itself was somehow "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." He is on record supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin instead of vaccines.

As secretary of health and human services, RFK Jr. would have supervisory authority over the FDA, CDC, NIH, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the Indian Health Service, among other agencies. He has suggested that 600 employees of the NIH, which oversees vaccine development, should be fired immediately and replaced by his own choices.

Some Pollyannas imagine that Kennedy's leadership might mean healthier eating habits. That would be desirable (if unlikely), but it substitutes hope for analysis. Kennedy goes on jags about healthy eating at times. He has inveighed against ultraprocessed foods (which isn't crazy) but then lurches into jeremiads about seed oils "poisoning" our bodies. For the record, canola, sunflower and soybean oils are safe (though fat, like anything else, is best in moderation). If Kennedy wants to fry his potatoes in beef tallow and wash it down with raw milk, more power to him, but under no circumstances should any sane person take his health advice. Nor should any senator consent to give him authority over government agencies that regulate our food and medicines.

He sees himself as a knight errant, but unfortunately, his "cures" involve reversing some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history: pasteurization, vaccines, and the scientific method of determining truth.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Why The President Should Not Pardon Hunter Biden

While all eyes are on Mar-a-Lago and the goons Trump is nominating to besmirch high government offices, there is another potential threat looming to the rule of law, and it comes not from MAGAworld but from the sitting president. I'm referring to the possibility that President Joe Biden might pardon his son Hunter Biden.

Ana Navarro, a panelist on The View, urged the president to do it, saying, "Joe, since they're talking smack about you anyways, you know what? Maybe pardon Hunter. Pardon Hunter because we, basically America, just pardoned a criminal who was convicted of felonies."

The temptation is understandable. Navarro went on to note that Trump has promised to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and that Hunter "probably wouldn't have been prosecuted if his last name wasn't Biden. Baby, you got two and a half months. I'm good with you pardoning Hunter."

Though his spokesperson has denied it, the president might well be considering it. The devil on Biden's shoulder might be whispering:

Do it. Why not? For the sake of propriety? Hell, propriety is over! You did everything by the book all along the way. If you were like the other guys, you would have fired David Weiss, the special counsel appointed during Trump's term to investigate Hunter. But you didn't. You let the process play out, just like a damn Boy Scout. And whatever your feelings on the matter, you never pressured Merrick Garland to prosecute Trump for Jan. 6 or anything else. You upheld the norm that presidents should not interfere with the Justice Department's prosecutorial decisions. Another Boy Scout move. Unlike your predecessor and successor, you didn't berate the DOJ for bringing charges against people in your party. When the DOJ under your administration indicted Andrew Gillum, Rep. Henry Cuellar, Rep. "TJ" Cox, Sen. Bob Menendez, Mayor Eric Adams and Hunter himself, you didn't breathe a word.

And did the people thank you for it? Did they even notice? No! They just elected a convicted felon who thinks criminal behavior is a prerequisite rather than a bar to high office. They elected someone who will pervert justice to persecute his political opponents - exactly the un-American outcome you warned about. Yet here you are, still clinging to standards that are smashed. Don't be a sucker. You know what Trump would do in your shoes.

Here's something else to think about: You owe this to Hunter. He's always had troubles — ever since his mom and baby sister were killed in that car crash. And then Beau was struck down, too. Yes, he made poor decisions, but let's face it, he wouldn't be facing jail time if his name weren't Biden, and you're the only one who can save him.

People with influence should implore the president to listen to his better angels. Pardoning Hunter would be a serious blow to the rule of law.

Forget the notion that Hunter wouldn't be in this fix if his name were Smith instead of Biden. It's a two-way street. He cashed in on being a Biden for most of his adult life. In 2017, he sent a WhatsApp message to a Chinese businessman referring to his powerful dad "sitting next to me" and threatening that his interlocutor would "regret not following my direction."

That's not a crime (Biden was out of office at the time), but it's unseemly at best and indicative of an entitled influence peddler, which isn't really in question, is it? What else did Hunter Biden bring to Burisma? As for the criminal charges, no one forced him to cheat on his taxes or lie about his drug use on a gun purchase background check.

The president's unconditional love for his son is admirable and relatable. But the good of the nation requires that Biden put aside his feelings.

Pardoning Hunter, who has pleaded guilty, would persuade those who still believe in impartial justice that it's all a pretense — that Democrats mouth the words about nobody being above the law but when it comes down to it, they don't believe it and they don't act on it.

If Biden pardons his son, no one will remember the many ways he upheld important norms during his term. Objections that "this is different" or "pardons are designed for extraordinary circumstances like this" will be blown down with hurricane force by the "see, everyone does it" narrative.

At this moment, when Trump threatens to transform the Department of Justice into a sinister joke, it is crucial that Biden not lend credence to the idea that justice is a sham and that everything depends upon whose ox is being gored. Trump's plan is to obliterate decency, honor, responsibility and every other lofty thing that makes him feel small. Joe Biden must not help him.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

In A Democracy, There Are No Permanent Defeats

In 1994, Republicans won a sweeping victory that cost Democrats control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. Republicans took an eye-popping 54 seats, leading many to conclude that this was a permanent political realignment.

Two years later, Bill Clinton won reelection with 379 electoral college votes to Bob Dole's 159.

A loss, however painful, is not the end of the world. Every election result is provisional. There are multiple examples in recent memory of the American electorate delivering victories to a party and then swiftly reversing course. Following George W. Bush's 2004 success (in which opposition to same-sex marriage was thought to have played a big part in GOP turnout), Democrats fretted that they might need to change their approach to social issues if they ever hoped to return to power. Two years later, Republicans lost control of the House. Two years after that, in 2008, the country turned to Barack Obama, handing Democrats control of the Senate as well. In 2010, the GOP triumphed, gaining 63 seats in the House, yet in 2012, Obama won reelection comfortably.

This is not to minimize the seriousness of the mistake voters have made this year, just to keep some perspective. There are many turns of the wheel.

The Democrats will do themselves some good if this loss causes them to reconsider their boutique views on immigration, public safety, trans athletes and other matters, but the thumping rightward shift in the electorate between 2020 and 2024 suggests to me that this election really came down (mostly) to inflation, with a side of immigration, rather than an embrace of Trump or Trumpism.

Most voters decide based upon their own financial condition. This year, 68 percent of voters rated the economy as "not so good" or "poor." Yes, the other economic indicators were great, but 75 percent said inflation had inflicted moderate or severe hardship on them. Compared with Biden in 2020, Harris lost ground with nearly every demographic — urban, suburban, rural, you name it.

It's impossible to gauge how big a part racism and sexism played in Harris' performance; few will admit such motivations. Harris performed a bit worse with Hispanic women than Biden did. Was that closet sexism? Doubtful. Nor does it seem plausible that so many young women who voted for Biden switched to Trump out of misogyny. Only 26 percent of voters were satisfied (19 percent) or enthusiastic (seven percent) about how things are going in the country, whereas 43 percent were dissatisfied and 29 percent were angry. This underscores the importance of people's personal financial condition. They will hire a creep if they think he'll improve their personal prospects. Most voters neither understand nor particularly care about the rule of law or foreign policy (beyond war and peace).

Much will change before the next election — and yes, there will be more elections. The winning party nearly always overreads its mandate and goes too far, prompting a backlash at the polls. The president's party typically loses seats in off-year elections, so expect a rebuke in 2026.

But Democrats cannot just wait for the election cycle to solve their problems. There are a number of lessons they should take to heart from this year's results: 1) the abortion issue has run its course as a motivator in national elections; 2) Hispanic voters cannot be taken for granted as part of the Democratic coalition; 3) woke postures like taxpayer-funded sex change operations for incarcerated immigrants are toxic; and 4) big federal spending programs don't deliver immediate political dividends.

Of all people, Joe Biden should have understood that passing big bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act would not be noticed by voters in time for 2024. He was vice president when the Affordable Care Act passed and witnessed that not only was Obama not rewarded for it, but Democrats lost the House in 2010. Only much later, after it had been fully implemented and people began to enjoy the benefits (and Republicans failed to come up with an alternative), did the program become popular.

Both the IRA and the infrastructure bill, ironically, contain lavish spending for rural and Trump-friendly parts of the country that will begin to come online just in time for Trump to take credit for them. The legislation may or may not have been good policy, but it's important for Democrats to recognize that passing big bills doesn't translate into votes — at least not right away.

The Democratic Party has suffered a setback, not a wipeout. The country remains closely divided. Democrats still hold nearly half the seats in the Senate and (depending on the races still outstanding) nearly half of the House. Twenty-three states have Democratic governors. Democratic officeholders need to gird their loins for the avalanche of lies, scandals, outrages and betrayals that a second Trump term is sure to deliver. They must prepare to educate voters about the consequences of Trump's tariffs (which are taxes), deportations, tax cuts, vaccine misinformation and whatever other insane policies emanate from MAGA Washington.

There's a place for autopsies and wound licking, but it's soon time to move forward.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

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