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January 6 rioters assault police

Perps, Not Victims: The Big Lie At The Heart Of Trump's Slush Fund

The Orwellian 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Trump has created — the legal equivalent of twirling the combination lock on Fort Knox and driving off with gold bars — purports to be righting a wrong. The bogus (and badly written) "settlement agreement," which is laughable as there was no true lawsuit, claims to be compensating those who were victims of the "sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials." It goes on like that, accusing Democrats of "lawfare" and "weaponization."

Even more than usual with Trump, this foul fund represents a total inversion of reality. It's as if he's trying to create a handy shorthand for projection. Trump, after more than a year of subjecting his critics and opponents to wrongful prosecution, firing and other harassment, now insists that he and his allies have been the victims of lawfare and weaponization. It's upside down.

When asked whether convicted rioters from January 6 should be eligible for taxpayer dollars, Trump responded with his familiar drivel about how "horribly they've been treated," about how their lives had been destroyed, about their legal bills, and closed with, "And they were right!"

No, they were fed a damnable lie and acted upon it. Millions of other Americans were credulous enough to believe the lie, too, but they didn't fly to D.C. to erect gallows and hunt for Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. That required a certain criminal disposition. Dozens of the insurrectionists had prior records of criminal violence, and scores have been rearrested since receiving Trump's January 2025 pardon. One "patriot," Andrew Paul Johnson, was arrested in October 2025 for sexually abusing two children (one was 11). Confident in the character of the president for whom he climbed through a broken window on Jan. 6, Johnson somehow came to believe he was owed $10 million as part of his pardon, and used that anticipated windfall to try to buy the silence of one of his victims.

In no way were the January 6 rioters victims of "lawfare" or politicized prosecution. They assaulted Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers, causing five deaths and at least 150 injuries, including concussions, traumatic brain injuries, cracked ribs, heart attacks, spinal damage, loss of an eye, stab wounds, taser burns, and other severe trauma.

For Trump, it wasn't enough that even the most violent received unconditional pardons. No, now he proposes to enrich them with taxpayer funds. Those deserving of punishment get rewarded. The victimizer becomes the victim. The criminal becomes the patriot.

Letitia James, New York's attorney general, was indicted on mortgage fraud charges just a couple weeks after Trump publicly called for her to be charged with something. (She had successfully sued him for civil fraud.) It should go without saying that presidents are never supposed to demand that individuals be charged with crimes, far less those against whom the president has a personal vendetta.

Needless to say, the evidence was extremely thin, but neither a judge nor jury got the opportunity to rule on that. After U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert apparently signaled that he wouldn't pervert justice by bringing the politically motivated sure loser of a case, Trump replaced him with the inexperienced, hapless Lindsey Halligan — but did so illegally. Case dismissed. Undaunted, the Justice Department then attempted two more times to bring charges against James but was thwarted by grand juries who refused to indict.

Halligan, during her illegal tenure as a federal prosecutor, also indicted former FBI Director James Comey on the dubious charge of lying to Congress. When that case too was thrown out due to Halligan's illegitimate appointment, the Justice Department returned to the well and indicted him for threatening the life of the president — by posting a photo of seashells. If eye-rolling were a crime, every judge in America would be guilty.

Jerome Powell, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, was subjected to a criminal investigation due to ... cost overruns during a building renovation. Any high schooler could tell you that the true reason for the investigation — and the accompanying stress, expense and distraction — was Powell's refusal to set interest rates to serve Trump's short-term political agenda. (See also Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was fired when her agency reported accurate jobs numbers that displeased the president.)

Speaking of the Federal Reserve, let's not forget that Trump attempted to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, again on charges of mortgage fraud (the projection is almost too obvious to point out — almost). She fought back, and her case is before the Supreme Court. A decision is expected by June.

Sometimes the lawfare goes the other way. Trump directed that all charges be dropped against former New York Mayor Eric Adams, though the prosecution had him dead to rights. One of the top prosecutors in the case resigned, alleging a direct quid pro quo between the decision to drop charges and Adams' newfound willingness to use city resources to support Trump's political agenda.

Trump has also used the withdrawal of security clearances as a form of weaponization of government. Leading law firms need those clearances to represent clients, as do any number of former government officials. Among those who were targeted: the firms of Covington and Burling, Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Wilmer Hale. Among the individuals whose credentials were pulled were Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Mark Milley, James Clapper, and Sam Vinograd, among many others.

Trump has attempted to use the Federal Communications Commission to silence critics. It's Weaponization 101. When Jimmy Kimmel made a tasteless joke about Charlie Kirk's death, the FCC strong-armed ABC into firing him. Only a public backlash persuaded Disney (ABC's owner) to reverse course.

Kimmel came out fine, arguably stronger, from that brush with authoritarian government. Larry Bushart had a much tougher time. A 61-year-old former Tennessee law enforcement officer, Bushart posted a couple of Kirk-related items to social media, including reposting a quote from Trump after a school shooting, "We have to get over this." Bushart was arrested and held in jail for 37 days. Dozens of people were fired and several were prosecuted for saying the wrong things in the wake of Kirk's murder. The perpetrators of this lawfare were not Trump officials, but they were MAGA-adjacent and egged on by Vice President JD Vance.

The list of Trump critics or adversaries who've been investigated, indicted or fired in the past 18 months is staggering.

Who can forget "sandwich guy," who was charged with a felony for tossing a Subway sandwich at a National Guard member? Or the FBI officers fired for having participated in the search of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump cases? Or the widow of Renee Good, who was investigated after Good was shot and killed by ICE? Or Cassidy Hutchinson, the star witness in Trump's second impeachment, under investigation as of April 2026 by the Justice Department's Civil Rights division? There are hundreds more.

That is what lawfare and weaponization look like. Trump's fund is not just blazingly corrupt and unjust, it is also a massive exercise in gaslighting. Trump and his followers are not victims, they are perpetrators.

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

How Crooked Is Trump? His Grifting And Corruption Are Growing Every Day

How Crooked Is Trump? His Grifting And Corruption Are Growing Every Day

This is the Trump era, which means if you blink, you will miss another shattering example of unabashed corruption. I don't usually write about the same topic twice in a row, but the latest revelations of Trump's wanton, shameless profiteering from the White House cannot go unremarked. The term "drain the swamp" will go down in history as a bitter irony. The latest outrage against the public — and since I started typing this sentence, there have surely been more — concerns Trump's stock trades.

When I was being considered for a job in the Reagan White House, I had to reveal every cent I had ever earned from any job or investment (which was simple since I had no money), and everyone else who worked for the administration had to do the same. It was a pain, but I was happy to do it, knowing that I would be serving in an honest government.

High-ranking officials like cabinet secretaries with substantial portfolios put their assets in blind trusts during their public service. Blind, meaning the principal had no control. And though the ethics rules do not apply to the president, past presidents put their funds (with the exception of U.S. treasuries and mutual funds) into blind trusts anyway for appearances' sake.

The reason is obvious, but since this is a time of foggy ethics, let's spell it out: Government officials are in a position to steer policy and award government contracts in ways that benefit or harm private interests. By requiring blind trusts, we minimize the chance that a decision-maker is swayed by the opportunity for private gain. (Though opportunities to affect outcomes by individual members of Congress are more limited, Congress needs to reform its own practices on this score.)

Trump, naturally, defied this ethical norm outright. This week, we learned from NOTUS that he went on a share-buying spree in the first months of this year, purchasing stock in companies that were about to get lucrative contracts. On January 6, Trump purchased between $500,000 and $1,000,000 (financial disclosure forms require a range, not exact figures) in Nvidia stock. A week later, the Commerce Department announced permission for Nvidia to sell chips to China. He also purchased stock in AMD, another AI chip maker, right before they too were granted the right to sell in China.

Also in January, Trump purchased between $65,000 and $150,000 in shares of Palantir, days before that company secured a billion-dollar contract to provide services to the Department of Homeland Security. Trump bought shares in Axon, a taser manufacturing firm. Coincidentally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a plan to spend $200 million over five years on new tasers.

A White House spokesman helpfully explained that "President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public ... President Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest." That is the definition of a conflict of interest. What do they take us for?

Remember the special forces guy who was caught betting on Polymarket before Nicolas Maduro's capture? This dishonest master sergeant participated in the operation and apparently used his inside knowledge to bet $30,000 on the timing of Maduro's fall, netting more than $400,000 because, lucky guess, he was right.

There were other suspicious bets placed on Polymarket just before major developments in the Iran war. Almost inexplicably well-timed bets were placed just before Israel's attack on Iran, before the United States started bombing, before a ceasefire was announced and at other key moments. Many accounts, some opened only hours before, made tidy sums. Who else in the Trump government may have made these bets? Did the president, ever grasping for lucre, take advantage of this ultimate form of insider trading?

It's worth noting that there was no "swamp," at least not in the way Trump claimed. There are huge inefficiencies in the federal government, along with redundancies, waste and overspending. But the main issue was never that the "swamp" denizens were siphoning off government funds for their private yachts. The chief corruption in Washington before Trump came along consisted of elected representatives unwilling to make tradeoffs between tax cuts and spending, thus creating ballooning deficits.

Old-school corruption was comparatively small-scale. In 2015, the United States scored 76 (where 100 is clean and zero is totally corrupt) on Transparency International's ratings, the 16th-least-corrupt nation in the world. Today, we are ranked 64th and dropping. There was corruption — no nation is without it — but Trump's constant howls about America being a "third world nation" were not remotely true before he came to dominate our politics. Yet under his maladministration, we are making rapid progress in that direction. He crows that the United States is "respected" in the world now. Does he really believe that people respect kleptocracies? We are becoming more loathed than respected.

he American Bar Association offered a partial list of the pay-to-play transactions in the first few months of Trump's second term. Coinbase contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, while its major investors, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, together contributed another $6 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.

In the early days of Trump's second term, the SEC dropped an enforcement action against Coinbase. Other crypto players — Ripple, Robinhood and Gemini — apparently seeing how the game is played, also made large contributions to Trump's super PAC and were also rewarded by the SEC dropping charges. Ditto for Justin Sun, who purchased $75 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens (putting money directly in the Trump family's pockets). Not only were criminal charges against Sun dropped, but he was invited to a private White House dinner for top purchasers of WLF tokens.

When it's too late to drop charges, pardons are for sale. A woman who donated $3.5 million to the MAGA super PAC was able to get a pardon for her father, who faced charges of bribing Puerto Rico's governor. A healthcare executive who attended a $1 million-a-plate fundraising dinner with Trump secured a pardon for her son, Paul Walczak, a nursing home owner who pleaded guilty to tax crimes. The pardon freed him from prison and also from the obligation to pay $4.4 million in restitution to his victims.

There are many others: Changpeng Zhao, Trevor Milton, Joseph Schwartz, Lawrence Duran, and David Gentile — thieves, fraudsters and swindlers all. A whole cottage industry has sprung up consisting of grifters taking fees for getting pardon petitions to Trump's desk. You may not have thought of Rod Blagojevich lately, but having received a pardon from Trump himself, he's now in the business of lobbying Trump on others' behalf. So are Keith Schiller, George Sorial, Jack Burkman, Jacob Wohl and Ches McDowell.

Which brings us to the putrid "deal" that is apparently in the works to "settle" Trump's lawsuits against the U.S. government. Recall that Trump brought a suit against the Department of Justice for the Mar-a-Lago search and the Russia investigation, and against the IRS for the unauthorized release of his tax returns (which wasn't the IRS's doing). His original ludicrous ask in the IRS suit was $10 billion (two-thirds of the IRS's annual budget) along with $230 million for the other inconveniences.

As the judge in the IRS case observed, Trump was sitting on both sides of the table, and thus there is no actual case, just an undisguised attempt to loot taxpayers. She asked for briefs on this question due by May 20. Rushing to beat the deadline in which sanity might prevail, the administration announced that a deal is in the works to avoid the court altogether and hand Trump $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars for a gargantuan slush fund.

Under the terms of this deal with himself, Trump would agree to drop the $10 billion and $230 million suits in exchange for $1.7 billion to compensate anyone who claims to have been injured by what Trump considers the Biden administration's weaponization of the Justice Department.

It's just as grotesque as you imagine. Trump is reaching his grubby hands into the largest till in the world, the U.S. Treasury. Along with an apology from the IRS, the arrangement would also guarantee that the IRS would never audit any member of the Trump family ever again. As The Bulwark's Andrew Egger described it:

"The members of the commission overseeing disbursements (of the $1.7 billion) would serve at Trump's pleasure, and he'd be able to remove them without cause at any time. The commission would have no obligation to disclose its decision-making process for how to disburse the money.

"And then, of course, there's the unbearable rottenness of the purported settlement fund itself: the shamelessness of Trump keeping a backdoor way to profit from it personally, the utter absence of any oversight controls that would even allow him to plausibly argue that the money will be spent justly, and the completely topsy-turvy travesty of creating a slush fund for January 6ers and other MAGA villains in the first place."

The Trump administration already gifted $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbit. Michael Flynn and Carter Page received $1.25 million each. We can see where this is headed. The January 6 rioters, all pardoned, will now cash in, among others. Will it include those who've subsequently been convicted of other offenses including possession of child porn? That will probably depend upon whether they can make large purchases of Trump cryptocurrency.

The damage to our civic culture is incalculable. Nations with high levels of corruption suffer from a suite of pathologies from crime to inequality to low growth to unhappiness. And what can't be measured but is no less real is the deep sense of shame that living in a corrupt country engenders. The achievement of a well-run, honest government is something to be cherished. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are witnessing the trashing of a carefully constructed, hard-won system. The United Arab Emirates is no less corrupt than the United States. So is Uruguay. And that was before the latest orgy of plunder.

Each and every act of theft and corruption is bad in itself and damaging to our national project. It's something else, too — an offense against those who desperately need government help.

If Trump succeeds in looting $1.7 billion from the Treasury, consider what that money could have been spent on. In round numbers, that cash could:

— Fund vaccines for children in developing countries for 33 years.

— Fund PEPFAR for two and a half years.

— Restore funding cut by DOGE for medical research on deadly pathogens like hantavirus and Ebola.

— Restore Medicaid funds that were cut in the Big Beautiful Bill.

— Pay the salaries of 7,000 immigration judges for a year.

— Employ 40,000 home health care aids for one year.

— Buy replacements for some of the munitions Trump burned through in the feckless Iran war.

— Purchase 2,600 Stinger missiles or about 6,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles.

— Fund research to expand the use of mRNA vaccines (cut by RFK Jr.) which have shown promise against RSV, HIV and flu (in addition to the aforementioned Ebola).

— Fund studies or demonstration projects on mitigating the effects of climate change.

— Invest in biotechnology and defenses against future pandemics.

The list of worthy projects that would benefit the public, not just the kleptocrat in the White House, is nearly endless.

Trump's claim that he would "drain the swamp" is a cosmic joke. His administration is an ongoing shakedown of the American people.

Has The Worm Finally Turned On Trump's Staggering Personal Corruption?

Has The Worm Finally Turned On Trump's Staggering Personal Corruption?

Did you catch the story about Trump trying to raid the Treasury to the tune of $10 billion? It's the latest in a string of grasping, grubby assaults on public integrity that have marked the Trump regime. This is not just the most corrupt presidency in American history; it is among the most corrupt regimes on earth.

Trigger warning: The thefts and abuses below are eye-watering. I cite them not to enrage readers, but to offer a theory that we may, at long last, be passing out of the "LOL nothing matters" phase of this travesty. There is good reason to believe that, finally, Trump's unprecedented corruption is going to bite him in the ass.

The IRS farce, which began in Trump's first term, goes like this: There was an actual offense committed against Trump. Between 2018 and 2020, Charles Edward Littlejohn, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton under contract with the IRS, leaked confidential tax information about a number of wealthy individuals, including Trump, to ProPublica and The New York Times. (Recall that Trump, after repeatedly vowing to disclose his tax returns, never did.) The Times subsequently revealed that Trump, then a putative billionaire, paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.

Littlejohn was discovered, fired, and prosecuted by the Justice Department under Joe Biden. At the conclusion of the trial, Judge Ana Reyes handed down the maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Fast forward to 2026. In January, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose department oversees the IRS, announced that it was terminating all contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, totaling $21 million, for failure to safeguard taxpayer information. Three days later, Trump and his sons sued the IRS for the aforesaid $10 billion, alleging that the leak had caused them "reputational and financial harm" and "public embarrassment."

Hmm. The financial harm claim is risible — is the Trump family really arguing that, if not for this leak, they would have accumulated money even faster than they have over the past six years? As for embarrassment, it seems the Trumps bear the burden of proving they've ever felt such a thing in their lives.

Beyond that, there is the preposterous sum of $10 billion for this piddling "injury." It would amount to two-thirds of the IRS's annual budget and be about 1,000 times more than the largest payout in the history of the Federal Tort Claims Act. But that isn't the most eye-popping aspect of the case. No, that honor goes to the fact, highlighted by Judge Kathleen Williams in her order requiring a new hearing, that there are not two contending parties here.

Courts only have jurisdiction when there is a bona fide "case or controversy." In this case, Judge Williams observes, Trump is sitting on both sides of the table. He is the plaintiff, but he is also the superior of all the respondents and can fire any at will. She quoted Trump himself, who admitted that "I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself." So it's not a lawsuit, it's a gargantuan shakedown of American taxpayers.

There is so much more. Remember the thousands of hours of vitriol he devoted to Hunter Biden's corruption? I can't sum up the contrast better than National Review's Andrew McCarthy did, in a series about Trump's stupendous grifting. McCarthy carefully documented how Trump and Steve Witkoff founded their crypto business, World Liberty Financial, just before Trump returned to the White House.

The Wall Street Journal reported that WLF then received, four days before the inauguration, a $500 million investment, amounting to a 49 percent share in the company, from Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, aka the "spy Sheikh," the second-highest-ranking royal in Abu Dhabi and the Emirati national security advisor. Nothing remotely like this has happened before.

What did the UAE want in return for this largesse? During the Biden years, the UAE's ambitions to become an AI player had been thwarted. The administration declined to give the UAE access to high-end computer chips because the regime had close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Hold that thought.

Speaking of China, one of the figures who helped midwife WLF with technical advice was the Chinese-born Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Zhao had pleaded guilty to permitting his cryptocurrency exchange to be used by terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers. But he was very useful to WLF, helping to launch their first stablecoin, USD1. UAE-linked entities then purchased $2 billion of these. Trump pardoned Zhao in October 2025. He told 60 Minutes that "I don't know who he is," and then immediately contradicted himself by adding, "I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt."

Oh, and the UAE got the chips. So much for the supposedly "tough on China" Trump administration.

Andrew McCarthy, recalling the Republican outrage over Hunter Biden, put it this way: "You know what the difference is between the Biden family business and the Trump family business? You'd have to add two digits to the sum of Biden abuses of power, foreign entanglements, and [alleged] corruption ... to get near what Trump has raked in just from the UAE."

Qatar gave Trump a $400 million luxury jet. Just like that. No embarrassment, no extenuating circumstances, no nothing. Just the bottomless greed of an unleashed Midas (without the curse — for now).

To escape tariffs, Vietnam approved a $1.5 billion Trump Organization project to build a huge golf course near Hanoi. Mar-A-Lago increased its membership fee to $1 million, and the Bedminster club raised its initiation fee to $125,000. Paramount paid Trump $16 million in settlement of a suit over Kamala Harris' interview on 60 Minutes. ABC donated $15 million to the future Trump library in settlement of a case about George Stephanopoulos. Amazon put $28 million in Melania Trump's pocket for an unwatchable documentary. The Trump juniors have invested in drone companies and other firms that have received government contracts. Trump pals like Michael Flynn and Carter Page have received $1.25 million "restitution" payouts from the government, though Flynn pleaded guilty and Page's lawsuits have been dismissed twice.

The Trump family has increased its net worth by about $4 billion since January 2025, with the total now approaching $6.2 billion.

And this is just the financial corruption. The perversion of justice is perhaps even worse — prosecuting Trump's critics and pardoning his allies.

Why then do I say that we may be nearing a turning point? Any country that could passively accept the UAE gift, the Qatar plane and the January 6 pardons is beyond caring, no? We'll see. My theory is that two things must be present for people in a free republic to turn a blind eye to corruption: 1) Their personal bank accounts must be flush, and 2) they must believe that most of the corruption stories are just partisan attacks.

We have recent evidence from Hungary. Between 2010 and 2019, while the economy was (mostly) growing nicely, Hungarians were prepared to overlook Viktor Orban's subversion of the judiciary, capture of the media, and personal wealth aggrandizement. But when the economy went south in 2023, people became outraged about the corruption. Peter Magyar, especially because he had been a Fidez party insider at one time, was able to capitalize on that anger.

Alexei Navalny, though he could not win an election in Russia (because they're rigged), became a national sensation by documenting the palaces and other wealth that Putin and his cronies had obtained. Putin's trajectory was similar to Orban's. When he first gained power, the economy was strong due to high energy prices, allowing him to consolidate power. But when the economy soured, people became much more open to criticism about corruption, though sadly, they were in no position to remove Putin. Still, Navalny was enough of a threat that Putin had him consigned to a penal colony (where Putin's government later killed him).

The American economy was very strong in the 1990s, and though Bill Clinton behaved in an abominable fashion toward women, people were willing to overlook it. Similarly, voters in 2024 made a bargain: Though they knew Trump was corrupt, they bet that he would bring them the kind of economy they'd enjoyed in 2018. This isn't an admirable trait, but there is good reason to think it's the way many voters operate.

Trump has not delivered on the bargain. On the contrary, economic conditions are now worse than they were in 2024. Nor can Trump rely on partisanship to come to his rescue because it isn't the Democrats who are making the case about corruption, it's Trump himself and his allies.

It is Trump who attempted to use the attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner to make the case for his garish ballroom. It is Senate Republicans who are adding the insult of demanding taxpayers pay $1 billion for this monument to Trump's ego. It is Trump, not his opposition, who instructs voters that they should be happy with fewer dolls at Christmas. It is Trump who accepts gold bars from the Swiss delegation and adorns the Oval Office in a style that could be called neo-Saddam.

The corruption never mattered before, but when gas prices are near $5 a gallon, groceries have only gone up and the economy is skidding toward recession, the gold leaf becomes not an eccentricity but an indictment. The worm has turned.

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


Americans Reject Monarchy, But We Admire The King For Upholding Democracy

Americans Reject Monarchy, But We Admire The King For Upholding Democracy

I've always been both a small-r republican and an Anglophile, so I looked upon the British monarchy with at least a pinch of smug superiority. The Windsors are revered for nothing more than birth — not talent, nor accomplishments, nor virtue. It's all a throwback to an earlier stage of human development, when people were not mature enough for representative democracy.

I wasn't feeling smug as I watched King Charles III address Congress the other day. Quite the opposite. Though I remain a small-r republican, I couldn't help but be embarrassed at what we supposedly mature, self-governing Americans have wrought.

Seated behind Charles were the vice president and speaker of the House, among the highest officers of the land. But befitting our descent from mature self-government, they were both bedecked in the MAGA uniform — blue suits, white shirts and red ties. Everything about them — every word, every gesture and even their clothing — attests to their fealty to their liege lord. Ditto for more than half of the representatives and senators in attendance. While they didn't all wear the uniform (they weren't on camera), the Republicans in Congress have surrendered their self-respect and independent judgment to the man who would be king. They are far more subservient to Trump than any member of Parliament is to Charles.

Trump revels in the servility of his vassals. The White House tweeted a picture of the two men with the caption "two kings." Yes, this tweet is partly a troll to enrage the "libs," but frankly, it doesn't go far enough. Trump aspires not just to be a king but to be a god-emperor. Look around — the massive Trump banners defacing official buildings, the renaming of the Kennedy Center and U.S. Institute of Peace, the coins, the proposed triumphal arch, the Trump ballroom, the reflecting pool (which will now look like Mar-A-Lago north), the new passports, the Trump class battleships, the national park passes, to say nothing of sidelining Congress, disregarding court orders, making unilateral war, and attempting to criminally prosecute his critics — all of it flagrantly un-American. And this from the party that garlands itself in flags and showy patriotism.

King Charles had a tricky task. His government (did you notice the way he referred to Kier Starmer as "my" prime minister?) and our other European allies are both horrified and scared about what Trump is doing to the transatlantic relationship. They've been adopting different tactics — concessions, flattery, toughness — to deal with the unhinged president who has stooped even to threatening military action against a NATO ally. Are the British questioning the "special relationship" with the United States?

Oh, yeah. In contrast to King Charles' soothing words, the Financial Times reports that Britain's ambassador in Washington, Sir Christian Turner, told a visiting group of students in early February that the phrase "special relationship" was "quite nostalgic, quite backward looking" and that the only country that currently enjoys a special relationship with the United States is "probably Israel." He did add that "there is a deep affinity between us, particularly on defense and security," but the message was clear. Trump has strained, if not quite ruptured, relations.

The king's visit can thus be interpreted as one more effort by the spurned Europeans to keep Trump on their side. Starmer, aware of Trump's imperial pretensions, played the "King Charles" card. The pomp, the state visit, the photo ops, and the speech to a joint session of Congress are all in service of both flattering and taming the disordered president.

King Charles, despite his title, is not free to say what he thinks. And yet he managed, subtly, to convey his awareness of the threat Trump poses not just to the relationship with the United Kingdom but to the values on which the Euro-American relationship is based. Referring to the shared legal traditions of the United States and Great Britain, he said:

"The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances."

The King also mentioned September 11, and reminded his audience that it was the first and only time that NATO invoked Article V. The allies came to our aid, not the reverse — a pointed rebuke to the president who has repeatedly disparaged Europeans' contributions to NATO and to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then added, "Today, Mr. Speaker, that same, unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people."

The king's speech closed with an invocation of Abraham Lincoln (hard to top), and a prayer:

"I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our shared values, with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth, and across the world, and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking."

We all know who is issuing those clarion calls. One of the callers hosted the state dinner, and another was sitting over his right shoulder. The actual king has never looked better than in contrast to the American pretender to a throne.

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


Poison Podcasting: Why Democrats Should Avoid Hateful Hasan Piker

Poison Podcasting: Why Democrats Should Avoid Hateful Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer, is having a bit of a moment. Democrats are quarreling over whether he should be kept at arm's length.

What kind of opinionator is Piker? He said in 2019 that the United States "deserved 9/11." When someone challenged him online about his anti-Israel rants, Piker replied with vituperation: "You f——-g baying pig. You f——-g bloodthirsty violent pig dog." In the same clip, referring to Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Piker praised the Al Qaeda terrorist who disfigured him. "What the f—k is wrong with this dude? Didn't he go to war and like literally lose his eye because some mujahideen — a brave f——-g soldier — f——d his eye hole with their d—k?"

Frankly, that should be enough right there to exclude that person from polite society. Some of us knew in 2015 that Donald Trump was a sociopath. We knew because he said things that were cruel, crude and demeaning to other people. If the Republican Party and the country had drawn a line against him then, for mocking a handicapped reporter, making light of rape, disparaging the heroism of John McCain or vowing to commit war crimes, we would have spared ourselves the current debacle.Speaking of making light of rape, Piker did precisely that regarding the conduct of Hamas on October 7. "It doesn't matter if f——-g rapes happened on October 7," Piker said. "That doesn't change the dynamic for me."

He has repeatedly praised the Chinese Communist Party, claiming it's the country from which we have the most to learn. He justified Russia's annexation of Crimea: "I call it a part of Russian territory, b—-h. I call it Crimea River, a Russian river." His level of concern for the suffering that communist regimes have inflicted is summed up in his commentary regarding a Vietnamese woman who testified about what she endured: "F—k you, old lady. Shut the f—k up you stupid f——-g idiotic old lady. Suck my d—k, old lady. Goddam. F—k this refugee."So that's who we're talking about. Now to the matter of antisemitism.

There are two arguments advanced for why Democrats should campaign with Piker — as Abdul El-Sayed, candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan plans to do — and appear on his show. One is that he is reaching an angry audience that Democrats should want to tap. The other is that Piker has a fair point, that he's right to hate Israel and that it's time Democrats dropped their even-handedness.

My colleague Tim Miller made both of these points recently. Israel, he asserted, is a "malign influence in the world." And he went further, essentially endorsing an antisemitic trope: "If you had said a few months ago that 'Israel is going to drag America in a war that has nothing to do with us based on their influence over our political leaders,' that would have been called antisemitic and yet that is what happened."There are a few disheartening lapses here. The first is that Trump must own his own choices. Tim didn't patronize Trump in this way when he repeatedly bent over for Vladimir Putin, or when he did extraordinary favors for the Gulf states, or when he intervened repeatedly to prop up Viktor Orban. Why, in this case, is the fault for Trump's notorious suggestibility not on Trump?

Benjamin Netanyahu may have been successful in playing upon Trump's vanity, and damn him for that if you like, but the people who put such an emotionally unstable person in the White House deserve a far larger share of blame.

The second lapse is Tim's suggestion that the war with Iran "has nothing to do with us." I think this war is a disaster, but it's just not the case that the United States has nothing at stake here. To sum up 50 years in a few sentences: The Islamic Republic of Iran has been making asymmetric war on the United States since its inception. A thorough list of the hijackings, kidnappings, assassinations and other terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests can be found here.Finally, Tim makes the pragmatic point that many people, particularly young men, are angry about the war and looking for leaders who will channel their rage. For Democrats to blackball Piker, he argues, is political malpractice.

That's doubtful. Ignoring hateful people is a good policy. And if Democrats pander to the bigots and haters on the left, as Republicans have done with the bigots and haters on the right, there will be nothing left of the pro-democracy movement. It will be red shirts versus brown shirts, as in Weimar Germany.

Finally, Tim argues that Democrats will be helped electorally by appealing to angry constituencies such as those who tune into Piker. On the contrary, Democrats need to win over people who previously voted for Trump but are more moderate in outlook, as Tim has often argued in the past.

As Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who defeated her opponent in 2025 by 15 points, admonished a few years ago, the words "defund the police" had badly damaged Democratic candidates. She continued, "We need to not ever use the word 'socialist' or 'socialism' ever again. ... We lost good members because of that." As it happens, Piker is a fan of "defund the police."The public doesn't need persuading that the war was a huge mistake. They already believe that. Democrats need not flatter Piker or his audience in order to win elections. On the other hand, if they taint themselves with his hateful rhetoric and extremist views, they will be making a moral and strategic mistake.

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

Iran Hawks Must Confront The Catastrophic Failure Of Trump's Leadership

Iran Hawks Must Confront The Catastrophic Failure Of Trump's Leadership

I am an Iran hardliner. But I'm struggling to understand how other hardliners can be so credulous about President Donald Trump's leadership of this war. It's as if you were stranded by the side of the road and accepted a ride from an obviously drunk driver.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal editorial board scolded those of us who were not cheerleading for this war: "There's remarkable pessimism in the media and political class about the U.S. bombing campaign against the terrorist regime in Iran. Five days into the war, you'd think from the coverage and commentary that the U.S. is losing."

In the weeks since, the Journal, along with other unreconstructed hawks, has worried that Trump may not "finish the job" and have chided doubters by reminding us of the many depredations perpetrated by Teheran.

But here's the problem with the hawks' posture: You cannot separate the war from the people directing it.

Trump fans believe he always has a plan — that if he threatens, cajoles, or pivots, it's a sign of his unique ability to keep others off balance. To me, it looks like he's the one who's off balance. How do they account for Trump's pronouncements early in this now monthlong war that it was "won in the first hour"? Do they recall Trump's proclamation on March 6 that he would accept only "unconditional surrender"? What about the demand, five days into the conflict, that Trump have a say in choosing Iran's next leader? Did all of that suggest the smooth unfurling of a master plan or clear evidence that he expected a quick and decisive toppling of the regime and was surprised by reality?

The Iran hawks stress that the regime is one of the most dangerous and repressive on the planet and note that the region and the world would be so much better off without the mullahs in charge. Yes. But: Where is the evidence that a bombing campaign led by an impulsive narcissist can achieve that goal? Was there a Plan B if the bombing failed to ignite a popular uprising? How confident can we really be that Iran will, in the long term, be less dangerous, less hostile to the United States and Israel, less likely to support terrorism, less brutal to its own people thanks to Trump's "excursion"?

One of Trump's throughlines is the belief that other leaders and specifically his predecessors have failed to achieve goals due to "stupidity" and lack of will. Enraptured by America's military might, he imagines that threatening it and using it are the skeleton keys to pick any lock. There are no complex challenges requiring subtlety and discretion. There is no understanding that not every problem can be solved through the application of force. He disdains expertise, preferring to surround himself with lickspittles who bring only good news.

And when reality intrudes, as it did when his 2017 inauguration crowds were smaller than Obama's, or the COVID pandemic was not less harmful than the flu, or he lost the 2020 election, he chooses to believe lies and to insist that everyone else assent to the lies as well. Lies are his pacifier. When such a toddler is calling the shots in a war, it's acutely dangerous.

What Trump should be learning (though he isn't) is that previous presidents refrained from attacking Iran not out of fecklessness but because they weighed the risks. Yes, Iran is a weaker nation militarily than the United States (or even Israel), but it happens to own the high ground above the Strait of Hormuz.

Days into the war, Trump crowed that Iran had "no navy." But even as Trump spoke, Iran was in the process of disabling the Strait of Hormuz through the use of drones and fastboats and threatening to mine it. Meanwhile, they are charging a hefty toll for the ships they allow to pass, a new revenue stream for the regime.

Because Trump pulled the trigger without securing political or popular support, without allies (save one) and without considering how much damage to the world economy Iran could inflict, he is highly vulnerable to economic pain, and the Iranians know it. That's their asymmetric advantage. As a military matter, it doesn't matter that they have no navy. They don't have to hit a single ship in the strait. Their threats are hitting the insurance companies, and that's enough.

A large share of the world's supply of not just oil and gas but also helium, fertilizer and other chemicals now relies largely on the Iranian regime. We teeter on the edge of a worldwide recession and widespread hunger. Yet we are being led in this war by a fantasist who does not assimilate reality. "Trump is getting a little bored with Iran," an administration official indicated last week. "Not that he regrets it or something — he's just bored and wants to move on."

It's impossible to say which is more alarming, Trump's inattention or his engagement.

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

Trump Rubio Wiles at Mar-a-Lago

Why Trump's Ego-Driven, Impetuous War Just May Leave Iran More Dangerous

Two weeks after the start of the Iran War, the picture is coming into focus. Why would a president who promised countless times not to start new wars have leapt into this conflict? As always in the age of Trump, it's necessary to separate the president's motives and mindset from the old ways we used to decide questions of war and peace, tariffs, sanctions, immigration, taxes and other matters. Before venturing into Trump's mind, let's consider the shape of the discussion.

Those who imagine that we are still operating in a normal world are making arguments in favor of military action as if we were engaged in a national debate. Where is the acknowledgment, they demand, of what a vicious regime the mullahs in Iran run? The Islamic Republic has been at war with us since 1979, they stress, and if you doubt their murderous intent, you're forgetting the 444 days our diplomats were held hostage, the attack on our Beirut embassy and on Marines stationed at the Beirut airport, the Khobar Towers bombing, and countless IEDs and other attacks by Iranian proxies during the Iraq War, to say nothing of their unofficial national slogan "Death to America/Death to Israel."

Iran's internal repression is nearly as brutal as its external support for terrorism, with women in particular bearing the brunt. The population loathes the regime, as we've witnessed many times, but most recently in January when they thronged the streets in their tens of thousands — only to be gunned down en masse.If we had a normal administration and a normal decision-making process, those factors would have been considered. We would have weighed the risks of war against the opportunity to strike a fatal blow to a terrible regime. The fact of Iran being a nasty piece of work is not dispositive on the matter of going to war. A poorly planned or executed war can make things worse.

Now we turn to the juvenile, facts-optional world of Trump, where the president commits the United States to war without planning, without consultation with allies, without congressional authorization and without a clue about how badly things could go.

Thrilled by U.S. firepower in last summer's attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, and giddy from the perceived success of removing Nicolas Maduro, Trump came to believe that the military was a magic wand that he could wave according to his whim. Of course he was aware of his vows to keep us out of wars, but wars are boots on the ground, not beautiful strikes from the skies. Disregarding warnings from wiser heads about the risks to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump dove in.

My best understanding of his motive harks back to the hostage crisis of 1979. Trump lives in the past more than most people, and due to his exceptional sensitivity to humiliation, I think he carries the shame of that episode in his heart. In a 1980 interview that is believed to be his first public statement on foreign policy, he said, "That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror."

In addition to wounded pride, we must add vainglory. The Lindsey Graham/Binyamin Netanyahu tag team played upon Trump's lust for glory by convincing him that while Iran had been a thorn in our side for half a century and previous presidents had vowed not to permit it to become a nuclear power, no other president had the cojones to do the job.

Trump obviously thought he could achieve regime change with an air campaign alone. He invited the Iranian people in the early hours of the attacks to take back their country. Perhaps both he and Netanyahu misread the lesson of January, believing that the people would seize power. But the real lesson of January was that the regime would do anything, including massacring thousands of its own citizens, to maintain its grip on power. The brutality worked. Only the regime has guns. The demonstrations subsided.

Iran has inflicted pain on its people for decades and it is more than happy to intensify it now. They can bear shortages, blackouts, misery and death because they have no choice. All the mullahs have to do to "win" this conflict is survive. Meanwhile, an American public that was never consulted and certainly not convinced to undertake a risky war will be intolerant of even higher inflation or a recession. The advantage in a contest of wills goes to the mullahs.

The Iranian regime is one of the worst on the planet, and we must still hope for the sake of the Iranian people and the world that it does not survive. But this war is being conducted to heal psychic wounds and to boost the ego of our dangerous commander in chief, who is now obliged to plead for help opening the Strait of Hormuz from (former?) allies and enemies alike. If the Iranian regime survives, even in a weakened condition, it may be more dangerous than ever, having shown the world that it can withstand simultaneous assault from the "big and little Satans."

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

Protecting Trans Rights -- And Rethinking Gender Transition For Kids

Protecting Trans Rights -- And Rethinking Gender Transition For Kids

Within the past few weeks, two major medical groups, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association, have issued statements recommending against gender-affirming surgeries on minors. This is a break from the past few years, when all the relevant medical societies endorsed these treatments. It comes on the heels of the first verdict in favor of a detransitioned woman who underwent a double mastectomy at age 16.

As with nearly everything in modern life, this issue has been tainted by politics. The Trump administration, with its characteristic brutishness, has targeted trans people — firing trans service members from the military, forbidding Veterans Affairs hospitals from providing trans care, and more. The right's contempt for people in genuine distress is almost enough to make one embrace the full gender-affirming model.

But not quite, because this is about what's best for kids. As the statement by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons noted, it isn't just surgeries on those younger than 19 that they now discourage, but a whole panoply of gender-affirming care because there is good evidence that a "substantial portion of children with prepubertal onset gender dysphoria experience resolution or significant reduction of distress by the time they reach adulthood, absent medical or surgical intervention."

It's odd that so much ink has been spilled about the question of sports and the unfairness of natal boys potentially snagging prizes over deserving girls. That's unjust, but really, it's insignificant. The number of trans athletes is very small, and the harm, while real, hardly begins to match the damage that may be done to kids who are rushed into transitioning without proper evaluation.

As BBC journalist Hannah Barnes found in her examination of Britain's transgender program, 60 percent to 70 percent of the kids who presented at the clinic with gender distress would eventually grow up to be gay.

Most parents desperately love their kids and don't want them to suffer, so it's inexcusable that some clinicians were telling parents that unless they agreed to support their child's sexual transition, the child would be likely to commit suicide. The doctors sometimes said, "You can have a live girl or a dead boy" or vice versa. Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer who argued the U.S. v. Skrmetti transgender case before the Supreme Court, reluctantly acknowledged during oral argument that there is no evidence that gender-affirming care reduces suicide.

Parents have been disserved by a medical establishment that got carried away by a cultural fad and failed to protect children. Puberty blockers were advertised as a fully reversible intervention that would simply give children "time to think" before their bodies began the process of maturation. But in fact, between 96 percent and 98 percent of patients who started puberty blockers went on to cross-sex hormones (whose effects, like body hair, deepening of the voice, and development of an Adam's apple, are not reversible). Rather than a pause, it was a first step on the ladder. As the Cass Review in the U.K. stressed, the studies on these interventions are of poor quality and lack long-term data on how adults who transitioned as children are faring.

If a child proceeds from blockers to transition, one thing many natal males will lose is the capacity to achieve orgasm. Is a child able to understand the nature of that trade-off? Most boys and girls will also lose their fertility.

How many kids are being diagnosed as trans and put on the pathway to transition and lifelong medication, infertility and sexual anhedonia, when their real issue was discomfort with being gay, autism, a history of sexual abuse, depression or mere confusion after absorbing online content? The vast majority of children with gender dysphoria have other medical and psychological issues as well. Are they being carefully evaluated? Not always. Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a leading practitioner of transgender medicine, rejected the idea of extensive psychological evaluation in 2018, explaining that "I don't send someone to a therapist when I'm going to start them on insulin."

Throughout history, there have always been a small number of people (mostly male) who feel that they are in the wrong body. But as a number of surveys have found recently, the share of young adults who are trans or nonbinary is dropping. The Cooperative Election Study, which included 60,000 respondents, found that in 2020, 8.6 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds identified as transgender. By 2024, that share had declined to 3.2 percent.

Most of the people who embrace gender identity do so to be inclusive and humane. The movement for trans rights seems like the struggle of gays to achieve true equality. In one sense, it is. Discrimination against trans adults needed to be stopped, and transgender people of all ages deserve respect. But as Europe, our own medical establishment and juries are coming to see, the trend to aggressively alter children's bodies and minds was too much too soon. That Americans are tapping the brakes now is a welcome corrective.

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


NBC News poll on immigration

The Democrats' Opportunity, If Only They Can Seize It

President Donald Trump's approval rating is sinking and gasping for air. His average net approval stands at -13.7, which is lower than Joe Biden's was at this point in his term. This matters beyond cosmic justice: The president's approval rating is the best predictor of midterm election outcomes. When it falls below 50 percent, his party tends to lose seats, as in the 1982, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 elections.

So the Democratic Party, written off as dead by some a few months ago, stands poised for victory in November. That's good, but not good enough.

The stakes are so high that a win isn't sufficient to meet the moment. We need a crushing repudiation of this fascistic horror show.

The easiest issue, perhaps surprisingly, is immigration. Since 2024, Democrats have been snakebit on the subject, afraid that their instinctive pro-immigrant positions were unpopular enough to lead voters to select a snarling villain vowing mass deportations. They can exhale. What the polls over the past year suggest is that most Americans are not white-supremacist goons like Stephen Miller, ready to trash the Constitution in the name of purifying die Volk.

Instead, voters actually believed that Trump would only deport "the worst of the worst." As they watched the inhuman treatment of gardeners, veterans, children, and American-citizen protesters, they soured fast. Following the shooting of Alex Pretti, fully 60 percent of respondents told NBC they disapproved of Trump's immigration policies, 49 percent strongly so.

If Democrats present themselves as opposing the brutal tactics of ICE and CPB and favoring firm border controls, they should find themselves in the sweet spot. Messages like Billie Eilish's "No one is illegal on stolen land" are unhelpful. By all means, get angry about the savagery; stress that law and order means that first and foremost the state cannot be the lawbreaker. But also add that borders are not notional and chaos cannot be permitted to prevail along the Rio Grande.

The other big issue on voters' minds is inflation, or "affordability." The reality is that politicians cannot actually bring prices down, as Trump promised to do in 2024, except by crashing the economy. Still, some voters presumably believed him, and they are disillusioned now. Some Democrats may be tempted to run on taxing the rich. This is a comfortable old shoe for Democrats, but as a political strategy it hasn't been terribly successful. Middle-class voters often fear that they will be labeled as rich.

On the other hand, voters have already concluded that tariffs are making life more expensive. The issue is a layup — if Democrats can get out of their own way. Nearly 60 percent of Americans blame Trump for rising prices, and 65 percent disapprove of his tariffs. Fifty-nine percent of independent voters say the tariffs have hurt the economy and their personal finances. Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs. Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.

The progressive wing of the party has long favored tariffs as a way to protect American workers from competition from low-wage nations. This muddies the waters.

Cutting tariffs is one of the only levers governments can pull that will actually reduce prices, and since price sensitivity is very much on voters' minds, does it make sense to temper that message at all? All House Democrats voted in favor of a resolution that would end the national emergency excuse for tariffs, and three Republicans joined them. This is the moment. Tariffs are bad — full stop.

Finally, a vulnerability that Democrats must overcome is seeming soft on crime. Here again the Trump administration has handed them a golden opportunity. MAGA is so fixated on ethnic cleansing that it is pulling Justice Department officials off crime-fighting to pursue immigration cases. A memo from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed officers who had been working on transnational organized crime, money laundering, and major drug trafficking networks to focus instead on assisting ICE. Ditto for the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces.

Ditto for the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces. In fact, roughly 25 percent of FBI agents (and 40 percent in larger field offices) have been diverted from fighting financial crimes, public corruption, cybercrime and complex corporate investigations and pulled into immigration enforcement. Most maddening are the thousands of FBI and Homeland Security agents who've been pulled from investigations of child sex abuse to assist with deportations — as if the administration needed more ways of signaling that it's OK with child sex trafficking.

In fact, roughly 25 percent of FBI agents (and 40 percent in larger field offices) have been diverted from fighting financial crimes, public corruption, cybercrime and complex corporate investigations and pulled into immigration enforcement. Most maddening are the thousands of FBI and Homeland Security agents who've been pulled from investigations of child sex abuse to assist with deportations — as if the administration needed more ways of signaling that it's OK with child sex trafficking.

Cutting tariffs is one of the only levers governments can pull that will actually reduce prices, and since price sensitivity is very much on voters' minds, does it make sense to temper that message at all? All House Democrats voted in favor of a resolution that would end the national emergency excuse for tariffs, and three Republicans joined them. This is the moment. Tariffs are bad — full stop.

Democrats should stress that the funds appropriated for ICE would be far better deployed to local police departments. Bill Clinton's promise to hire 100,000 police officers was very popular in the '90s and cut against the Democrats' soft-on-crime image. The slogans write themselves: More Cops, Less ICE.

The voters are the last redoubt in the fight to reclaim American democracy and decency, and the Democratic Party, the world's oldest political party since the advent of universal suffrage, is the only entity that can carry the burden. If they can win a resounding victory in the House and Senate in nine months, there is hope for us.

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


How Big Is The MAGA Cult, Really? Smaller Than You May Imagine

How Big Is The MAGA Cult, Really? Smaller Than You May Imagine

As we survey the wreckage of Trump's second term, it is often said that half the country voted for this, or worse, half the country is fine with this. That isn't true.

MAGA is a bit of a moving target, but a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 27 percent of all voters described themselves as "MAGA supporters" and a perhaps surprisingly low 54 oercent of Trump voters so identified. In other words, a minority of the voting public and only a little over half of the GOP is Trump's loyal base.

A new survey from More in Common, an international pro-democracy organization (I sit on its global board), offers a more granular look at Trump 2024 voters and provides further evidence that MAGA is definitely not half the country. They canvassed over 18,000 Americans over eight months. In looking over their findings, the group categorized the Trump voters into four clusters: MAGA Hardliners, Anti-woke Conservatives, Mainline Republicans and the Reluctant Right. Their conclusion? Trump voters were a coalition, not a cult.

The MAGA Hardliners

These are the people we usually picture sporting red hats. They are highly religious, are 91 percent white, mostly over 45 and less educated than other Trump voters — only 24 percent hold a college degree or higher compared with 29 percent of total Trump voters. They have little trust in institutions, believe that a sinister cabal runs media, business, and politics, and are not averse to their leader ignoring the Supreme Court or other constitutional checks in order to "get things done."

A lamentable majority (60 percent) of the Hardliners say their man should serve a third term. (In case you're wondering, yes, they do know the Constitution imposes a two-term limit, because it was included in the question.) Nearly three quarters think we should "use our military to round up everyone who came to the U.S. illegally, put them in mass detention camps, and deport them." Seventy-four percent say voting for Trump is part of "living out my faith," and 94 percent (75 percent strongly) believe that God intervened to save Trump's life in Butler, Pennsylvania, so that he could make America great again.

This crowd cannot be trusted with power. They are conspiratorial, cultish, dismissive of constitutional limits and punitive toward their perceived political enemies. There isn't much good to say about them except this: They represent only 29 percent of Trump 2024 voters.

The Anti-Woke Conservatives

This next group is a little different. Among Trump voters, they are the least likely to say their faith determines their votes (14 percent versus an average of 27 percent among all Trump voters), but also the most hostile to Democrats. This is an alienated bunch who believe (91 percent) that wokeness is a very serious problem plaguing America. So, while that was enough to put them in the GOP column, only 33 percent agree that Trump should punish his opponents. This group represents 21 percent of Trump's coalition.

The Mainline Republicans

Making up some 30 percent of the coalition, these are the most likely to say that they are Trump supporters and Republicans equally, the least likely to say America is in decline (39 percent versus 58 percent of all Trump voters) and somewhat cool (43 percent) to ignoring court orders. Fifty-four percent of this group, compared with 76 percent of all Trump voters, agree with the statement "The woke left has ruined American education, news, and entertainment."

The Reluctant Right

Of this final cohort, only a scant majority even identifies as Republican, and they were the most likely to say they voted for Trump because he seemed less bad than Kamala Harris. This group, which represented one in five Trump voters, was the most likely to say they were ashamed of what happened on January 6. Only 28 percent of this group favored rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them (compared with 52 percent of all Trump voters). Twenty-five percent of the Reluctant Right say they have doubts about or regret their vote entirely. That's a start.

The Hardline MAGA group believes all of the worst things, but it's worth noting that some of the policies associated with Trump 2.0 have far less support among the rest of the coalition. Only 31 percent support deporting immigrants to third countries.

The Economist/YouGov poll found further fissures suggesting that Trump voters are not a monolith. Asked whether they supported increases or decreases in spending on Medicaid, for example, which the GOP cut by $1 trillion in last year's "Big Beautiful Bill," only 28 percent of Trump voters favored decreasing spending.

Trump's base is hate-filled and dangerous, but it is not the majority. Nor is it half of the country. As a January Pew poll found, only 27 percent of respondents say they support all or most of Trump's policies, down from 35 percent when he took the oath of office. Nearly all of that decline is attributable to Republicans. The erosion is proceeding fast, and based on the small size of the cult, there is plenty of room for more. Onward!

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

Fight The MAGA Bully -- And See How He Keeps Backing Down

Fight The MAGA Bully -- And See How He Keeps Backing Down

Does it sometimes seem as though too many people have never learned the lessons of the schoolyard? If you capitulate to a bully, you will be bullied forever. If you stand up to him, he will back down. What's true on the playground is also true in the office, in politics and in international relations.

Standing up to bullies is not free of risk. You might get bloodied in the process. But afterward, the bully, having learned that there is a price, will hesitate to push you around, whereas if you fail to stand up to him, he will grow ever more menacing.

All of the bowing and scraping before the reelected Donald Trump last year by corporate leaders, university presidents, major law firms, leading journalistic outlets and European allies wasn't just demoralizing — it was foolish. If he had met firm opposition in all directions, his power would have been diminished. Each pushback would have inspired others, creating a flood. Instead, we saw a cascade in the other direction — a cascade of capitulation.

But the other path — etched in tragedy and martyrdom in Minneapolis — has shown repeated success. When you stand up to the bully, he backs down.

We don't yet know from whence a national political leader will arise, but the people of Minneapolis have reminded us that this country is still planted thick with inspiring, selfless, heroic people who will put their very lives on the line rather than submit to MAGA's naked barbarism. Renee Good, Alex Pretti and so many others who have braved bitter cold, pepper spray and tear gas and even being shot are the best of us. All honor to them.

That's the spiritual message of Minneapolis. The political message is this: The bully backed down. In the face of opposition not just from his opponents but from some of his allies who found that their vocal cords were actually operative, Trump announced that the Border Patrol ogre Greg Bovino was being demoted and removed from Minneapolis in favor of the slightly less brutal Tom Homan. Republican Sens. John Curtis (R-UT), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) called for investigations of Pretti's murder. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has asked the heads of ICE, CBP and USCIS to testify on the Hill.

Before there was Minneapolis, there was Chicago. Recall that in September, Trump posted that "I love the smell of deportations in the morning. ... Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."

The governor of Illinois struck back, vowing that his state "won't be intimidated by a wannabe dictator." Other Illinois elected officials joined in. Thousands thronged the streets in protest, and lawsuits were filed challenging the legality of Trump's National Guard deployment. Eventually, the courts ruled against the administration, and Trump backed down.

Trump's climbdown from the asinine "Liberation Day" tariffs was so swift that it inspired the acronym TACO, for Trump Always Chickens Out. The pushback in that case came from the markets, but the principle holds — when there's resistance, Trump can be rocked back on his heels.

Trump's operating assumption on trade has always been that no one can counter U.S. market power and must tamely accept our terms. But in October, China reminded him that it isn't 1970 anymore and they have cards to play as well. They announced new restrictions on the distribution of rare earths. This is a vulnerability for the United States, which acquires 70 percent of these minerals from China. When the two sides met in South Korea in late October, the Trump administration backed off its threats and agreed to reduce its tariffs on China to levels comparable to other Asian nations. As one analyst put it, "Xi was ready for Trump in his second term and has a powerful weapon in rare earths. China is getting the better of the US in these recent truce negotiations."

Finally, the catastrophic Greenland threats, talking menacingly of getting the island "the easy way or the hard way," demonstrated to the Europeans that appeasing this ravenous bundle of appetites was not a successful strategy. Europe got tough and Trump deflated — yet further proof that standing up to him works. Our (former?) allies let it be known that they were finished capitulating. Eight NATO nations deployed troops to Greenland to participate in military exercises. The Danish prime minister declared that "Europe will not be blackmailed," and adding teeth to this position, a number of European diplomats spoke openly of deploying Europe's "trade bazooka" that would limit intellectual property protections for American businesses and deprive U.S. companies of access to public procurement opportunities in Europe, among other things. Trump caved.

This is not to say that Trump is a paper tiger. He is erratic, frequently irrational, flagrantly immoral and endlessly acquisitive. If he could confiscate all the wealth of the world, he would do so and still be unsatisfied. He's dangerous — but the only counter is to resist with everything you've got. It's the right thing to do, and it works.

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


With Trump's Fresh Insults To Democratic Allies, The Mask Slips Off

With Trump's Fresh Insults To Democratic Allies, The Mask Slips Off

Throughout 2017 and into 2018, I hoped that a moment would come when Republicans would see Donald Trump clearly. But years ago, I accepted that the scales-falling-from-the-eyes revelation will never come for the MAGA faithful. They are too invested.

Still, as a recent Chicago Tribune report found, a small but significant percentage of 2024 Trump voters either regret their vote or have serious concerns about the way things are going. When elections are decided by just a few hundred thousand votes in seven states, those defections are crucial.

It's entirely possible that those swing voters care only about the cost of living and not about the collapse of American decency. Still, it's worth spelling out one of the great delusions of the Trump era that has been definitively unmasked by the Davos Debacle.

Trump has never believed in the principles that NATO was founded to promote and preserve. He doesn't feel affinity for liberal democracy. Recall that in early 2024, Trump recounted a conversation (probably fictional) with the leader of a "large" European nation who supposedly asked Trump whether America would come to its defense in the event of a Russian invasion. Trump claimed to have replied: "You didn't pay? You're delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay."

Trump doesn't respond to naked aggression the way normal people do. He gets excited. Recall that when Vladimir Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine, Trump swanned into the Mar-a-Lago dining room gushing over what a "genius" Putin was. He later issued some rote condemnations, but his initial response to the murderous violence was delight, just as he had reveled in the January 6 attack on the Capitol — the gravest assault on our democracy since 1861.

Most hostility to the "neocon" agenda stems from the belief that the "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan failed, but Trump doesn't even endorse the goals. He doesn't believe in promoting democracy at all, even if it costs us nothing. Early in his second term, Trump visited Saudi Arabia and declared that the days of Western leaders "in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs" were over. In hindsight, it's clear that this rule applied only to authoritarian countries. The Trump administration applied no such rule to our democratic allies.

Trump called former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a "far left lunatic" who had destroyed Canada with COVID mandates. He lambasted Volodymyr Zelensky (but not Putin) for failing to hold elections. JD Vance, among other MAGA figures, excoriated European nations for their tolerance of limitations on free speech.

It's hard to think of an occasion when Trump has criticized any authoritarian for their repression.

It's Trump's lack of belief in liberal democracy, as much as stinginess, that explains his coolness toward Ukraine. What seems blindingly obvious to every liberal democratic leader — that brute conquest by a quasi-fascist regime against a fellow democracy demands a forceful response — is not at all clear to Trump. What's in it for me? he keeps asking. Can I get a Nobel? Can we extort some rare earth minerals?

With the snatching of Maduro in Venezuela, we can see the full contempt Trump harbors toward democracy. The United States went to considerable risk and expense to capture Maduro — but there isn't even a pretense of pivoting now to help restore democracy to Venezuela. It's all about the oil. If a Maduro lookalike will pony up petrodollars to Trump, that's all he cares about. It's Putinesque.

Trump behaves as a bullying autocrat at home; why would he uphold the rule of law and democracy abroad?

And now we come to Greenland — the mad king in full regalia. There are several layers to this betrayal of American and Western values:

1. To even threaten military force against a peaceful ally violates common sense, as well as the norms and rules that America spent decades enshrining in international law and practice.

2. To do so because a private entity in a third country — which Trump himself confirmed he knows is not the same country — hurt his little feelings by declining to give him the Nobel Peace Prize is cringe-inducing and frankly borderline insane.

3. To insult every member of NATO is to alienate the United States from the entire democratic world.

4. To admit, in public, that because he is pouting over not winning the Peace Prize, he will no longer prioritize peace is as clear a confession as can be that his true interest was never peace.

For now, Trump has climbed down from his threats (after a market plunge). But our former friends will no longer labor under the delusion that he is a fellow liberal democrat.

Trump has contempt for democratic norms. He wants to move America's pieces to the other side of the chessboard, alongside those whose systems and methods he finds more congenial — Russia, China, El Salvador, Turkey and Hungary. NATO leaders at last see it. Perhaps it will also dawn on some critical American voters.

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


Only In A Thugocracy Could ICE Agents Pretend To Be 'Law Enforcement'

Only In A Thugocracy Could ICE Agents Pretend To Be 'Law Enforcement'

We've seen masked government agents roughing people up, shouting obscenities at them, trapping them on freezing cold roofs, smashing their car windows, shooting pastors with pepper balls, shoving women to the ground, separating mothers from their children, and killing an unarmed American citizen as she attempted to maneuver her car away, dog in the backseat and glove compartment overflowing with colorful stuffed animals.

Why was Renee Good executed in cold blood? Because, our jefe explained, "that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement." That's a lie, as the 80% of Americans who watched the video can attest. Her last words were, "I'm not mad at you." But even if it were true, we live in a country that protects speech — even disrespectful speech — above nearly all other things. That means a person cannot be penalized — say, pulled over or denied a government benefit — for exercising their First Amendment rights. And oh, yes, it certainly means that they cannot be murdered by the state for being disrespectful. You know where that can happen? In places like Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and China — countries ruled by thugs.

Before Good's body was cold, before a single question had been asked in any investigation, the Secretary of Homeland Security declared her to be a "domestic terrorist" and asserted that she was attempting to run down the officer who killed her. Having blamed and defamed the victim, the administration next attempted to investigate and perhaps prosecute her widow while blocking inquiries into the ICE agent who pulled the trigger and then pronounced her a "f—-ing bitch." Six Department of Justice lawyers resigned rather than participate in that travesty, which is not nothing. Add their names to the roll of honor that also includes the 10 lawyers who resigned rather than drop the case against Eric Adams, and the more than 5,000 officials who have quit the Justice Department in the past year.

The battle against thugocracy is being fought on many fronts — by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who called out the president for his blatantly political persecution by prosecution; by the Republican legislators in Indiana, who rebuffed Trump's demand that they redistrict midcycle; by Jimmy Kimmel, who refused to be cowed; by the millions who showed up for No Kings rallies; by the five Republican senators who voted to invoke the War Powers Resolution over the Venezuela attack; by the judges who have ruled against Trump's usurpations of power; by the voters who turned out in 2025.

It's not yet clear who's winning. Every day, judges are issuing rulings expressing their disgust and alarm at the immoral and illegal actions of this administration. It cannot be emphasized too often that respect for the law is the ballgame. When that goes, there is no republic to preserve.

So consider the words of Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointee, concerning ICE's treatment of detainees. This decision was issued just before Christmas.

The case concerned a Jamaican immigrant named Erron Anthony Clarke, who entered the country legally in 2018 on an H-2B visa. Clarke does not dispute that he overstayed his visa (which is not a crime), but, as Judge Brown noted, he has never been accused of committing any other offense — no violence, no drug use, no arrests — and has since married an American citizen and sought to adjust his immigration status to permanent residency on that basis. Should he have been deported? Some might say so. But that is not what the case turned on. It was the conditions in which ICE is detaining people.

After he was arrested, Clarke was placed in a "hold room" meant to temporarily house one person. Judge Brown recorded the conditions: "Nine men locked in a putrid ... cell containing an open toilet." They were held "day after day, without access to bunks, bedding, soap, showers, toothbrushes or clean clothes."

ICE's own regulations, along with numerous judicial rulings and simple decency, require that detainees be provided with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, sanitary napkins for women, clothing, and humane conditions. ICE provided none of those. Another detainee, cited by Judge Brown, offered similar testimony, noting that when detainees slept, they had to lie around the toilet.

Most Americans would not let their pets stay overnight in such conditions.

Last year, 32 people died in ICE custody, exceeding any yearly total since 2004 — including the pandemic years. ProPublica found that at least 170 American citizens have been caught in ICE dragnets and spent time in detention without access to a phone or a lawyer for hours and sometimes days.

Judge Brown may yet hold officials in contempt. He closed with these words:

"After nearly 35 years of experience with federal law enforcement ... encompassing service as a prosecutor and a judge, I have never encountered anything like this. ICE's seeming disregard of procedural requisites, combined with the chillingly brutal conditions of confinement to which Petitioner has been, and presumably would continue to be subjected, cries out for immediate remedy."

Judge Brown no doubt has a legal remedy in mind, but the enduring remedy can only be political.

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


Plunder: How Trump's Greed Is Turning America Toward Piracy And Autocracy

Plunder: How Trump's Greed Is Turning America Toward Piracy And Autocracy

The Wall Street Journal editorial board has delivered its share of idiocies over the past few years, but its response to the capture of Nicolas Maduro has set a new standard. Calling the military intervention "justified" because Venezuela had allied with "Russia, China, Cuba, and Iran," the board then declared triumphantly that "Mr. Trump is pursuing the Bush freedom agenda, at least in the Western Hemisphere. Are we all neocons now?"

Also living in a dream world is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who told Fox News, "We all wanted this man gone, and now he is gone. I think we should really appreciate exactly what happened here." Fetterman then offered a benediction, saying that he just wanted to "remind everybody that America is a force of good order and democracy, and we are promoting these kinds of values. We are the good guys."

That's delusional, and I say that as someone who believed in humanitarian interventions abroad, who supported the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the bombing of Serbia and the invasion of Grenada. American power has been used for bad ends at times (the Mexican War was unadulterated aggression), but it's hard to think of a country that has more often extended itself for good purposes around the globe. We had losses and failures — South Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya — but tens of millions of people in places like Taiwan, Germany, South Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Bosnia and, yes, Iraq owe their freedom and prosperity to American arms. Hundreds of millions more live free from oppression only because the United States armed them against aggressors or threatened to use force if they were attacked. Damn right, we were the good guys!

As Colin Powell put it in 2003: "We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years ... and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in."

To imagine that President Donald Trump is doing anything remotely like those interventions in Venezuela is risible. "Good order and democracy"? At his strutting press conference, Trump mentioned the country's oil more than 20 times and democracy not at all. Asked later whether the United States would encourage elections, Trump dismissed the idea: "We have to fix the country first. You can't have an election. There's no way the people could even vote." Would a "freedom agenda" president beat his chest and roar that "American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again"?

That press conference was not about democracy or human rights or even capitalism. It was about straight up plunder undergirded by threats. The country's oil, Trump announced, would be pumped by American oil companies for American oil companies — not even for American taxpayers. The welfare of Venezuelans is, at best, an afterthought, if that. Trump's eyes sparkle at the prospect of looting another country's natural resources. His lone complaint about the first Gulf War was that we failed to "take the oil." He has shaken down Ukraine for its rare earth minerals, and he is casting lascivious glances Greenland's way. But sure, it's a freedom agenda.

In the past, when the United States has toppled dictators, it has sought plausible leaders from among the democratic opposition and sometimes settled for less than inspiring choices like Hamid Karzai and Nouri al-Maliki. Not only is the Venezuelan opposition unusually united and organized; not only does it have a legitimate president in Edmundo Gonzalez; but it has a clear leader in Maria Corina Machado, who happens to be a global heroine and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The opposition won that election with two-thirds of the vote, though Maduro refused to recognize his loss (sound familiar?) and held onto power. There is no need to search for plausible democratic leaders. They are right there, but Trump said Machado is unable to lead: "She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect."

How can the Wall Street Journal editorial board and others credit the idea that Trump is pursuing some sort of freedom agenda when he has rejected the clear democratic leader of the country and the winner of the last election, and instead chosen to work with Maduro's Marxist Vice President Delcy Rodriguez?

Trump and his people don't leave any doubt that they are in the business of intimidation and possible conquest, but the justifications are delusional. None of the reasons that Venezuela is truly guilty seem to interest Trump, but he's obsessed with the fantasy that they somehow emptied their prisons and insane asylums and shipped the inmates to America.

This. Is. Not. True.

Back in 1980, when Trump was just a novice charlatan, Fidel Castro did something like that during the Mariel boatlift. Trump got that idea stuck in his brain and spews it about every country he dislikes.

The United States under Trump is an outlaw nation, threatening excellent neighbors like Canada with economic devastation, blasting people in fast boats to pieces, withdrawing from international agreements, bullying friends and foes alike, and now kidnapping foreign leaders (however evil). We are becoming the kind of nation against which America used to defend others.

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

Shame: How The 'Pro-Life' Trump Regime Brutally Abuses Pregnant Migrants

Shame: How The 'Pro-Life' Trump Regime Brutally Abuses Pregnant Migrants

Absorbing the news about the brutal treatment of detainees, to say nothing of the outright murder of "suspected" drug runners in the Caribbean, I think back to a conversation I had in February of this year. My interlocutor was a Trump voter who had just had a friendly encounter with an African immigrant striver — the kind who came from poverty and had started a successful business here.

I recall saying, "I hope he has his documents in order."

The Trump voter scoffed: "They're not going after people like him. They're only going after the criminals."

Eleven months later, that naive faith has been smashed. Not his — mine. I have no idea how that person feels about the Trump administration now, but when I advised in February that they were going to cast a wide net for deportations, I had no idea how bad it would be. This is not just a matter of aggressive deportation. The things that are being done by our government to our fellow human beings are monstrous.

The testimony of the Venezuelans who were deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador is harrowing. Snatched from workplaces or homes on mere suspicion of being criminals — supposedly members of the Tren de Aragua gang — 252 men were bundled onto planes and flown to a prison known for torture. There, courtesy of a heinous bargain between Trump and Nayib Bukele, the dictator of El Salvador, they were "trampled, kicked ... forced to kneel for hours," as well as waterboarded, forced to sleep on mesh metal bunks, shot with rubber bullets, forced into stress positions (including the "crane" in which their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs and then lifted to put pressure on the shoulders and back) and sexually assaulted. At least one attempted suicide. Their accounts are available now only because El Salvador arranged a prisoner exchange with Venezuela in July.

Copious reporting has since demonstrated that only a fraction of those deported had criminal records in the United States and most of those were for relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting, possession of drug paraphernalia or traffic violations. Only six had convictions for violent crimes.

Again and again, Trump administration goons have insisted that they are deporting only the "worst of the worst ... rapists, savages, monsters." They have even — and this is one of the most vile aspects of this government — encouraged their base to revel in the misery of their victims by releasing videos lovingly dwelling on images of people being bound and frog-marched toward the planes. The videos are titled "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight."

Those enjoying what they imagine is righteous pleasure at the abuse of the "worst of the worst" might want to consider the testimony of Physicians for Human Rights or the Women's Refugee Commission, both of which have reported on the treatment of a group that the Trump administration apparently considers a dire threat: pregnant, nursing and postpartum women.

Melanie Nezer, vice president for advocacy and external relations at the Women's Refugee Commission, described the conditions that hundreds of these women are facing in U.S. detention centers. Pregnant women and nursing mothers are grabbed from their cars or workplaces by masked agents, hustled into buses or cars and whisked to overcrowded centers. In one Louisiana facility, according to a Senate report, at least 14 pregnant women were visible during the staff's visit. A woman who was four months pregnant and experiencing bleeding had not been seen by a doctor for months. Another had a miscarriage and was deported while still bleeding.

Nezer described pregnant women being forced into overcrowded detention facilities with inadequate sanitary facilities, only frozen burritos or potato chips to eat, lack of clean drinking water (except by purchase) and no medical care or medicines. Some pregnant women were sleeping on concrete floors. The WRC spoke to mothers who had been deported to Honduras. Several nursing mothers had seen their milk dry up due to poor nutrition while they were held in detention in the United States. A woman who was four months pregnant was denied medication for gestational diabetes.

Among these dangerous criminals that the Trump administration is devoting huge resources to detaining and deporting were a mother arrested as she was on her way to pick up her special-needs child from school, a mother separated from her 2-month-old baby, the mother of a five-year-old whose husband is a U.S. citizen and hundreds of others (though exact numbers are impossible to obtain due to government noncooperation).

Among those Nezer interviewed in Honduras were housecleaners, restaurant workers and stay-at-home moms. All of them were working, and quite a few had open asylum cases pending. Many were frantic about the children they'd been forced to leave behind in the United States. While they had phones with them, many did not have chargers and had no way of contacting their families, far less lawyers. As Nezer told me: "Before this year, detaining pregnant women was the rare exception, and there were safeguards. Now it happens all the time and conditions are beyond inhumane."

Do you feel safer now? I feel deeply ashamed.

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 Worst Enabler In Epstein Files Isn't Larry Summers -- It's Steve Bannon

The Worst Enabler In Epstein Files Isn't Larry Summers -- It's Steve Bannon

If you followed the twists and turns of the Jeffrey Epstein saga over the last few weeks, you already know that several prominent names emerged from the tranche of emails that the Epstein estate released. Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard president Larry Summers, who exchanged scores of emails with the convicted pedophile, has seen his reputation shredded. But there is one big name that has so far received very little attention.

It's important to stress that Summers is not accused of any immoral or illegal conduct with underage girls, but he did betray a callous indifference to immoral and illegal conduct. Summers maintained a chummy relationship with Epstein years after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting underage prostitution, which is mind-boggling, and the consequences have been swift. Summers has withdrawn from half a dozen boards and has taken a leave of absence from Harvard.

Summers' behavior in his interactions with Epstein was appalling, but his response to the disclosure has been within normal bounds. Within hours of the emails' release, he released a statement acknowledging guilt. "I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."

Why has there been no similar accountability for another of Epstein's pen pals — Steve Bannon?

Trump's consigliere, strategist, propagandist and former senior counselor at the White House was on very friendly terms with Epstein. He exchanged hundreds of emails with the convicted felon and conspired to whitewash his public image.

Do you have friends who can send a private jet to retrieve you when your flight has been delayed? Epstein apparently did that for Bannon in 2018. On a trip to Great Britain, Bannon was greeted by protests. He emailed Epstein: "Don't think I can make the flight we r enroute to heathrow."

Epstein replied that he could fix it: "There. Is a gulf air that leaves at 950 with a stop in Bahrain."

Bannon was appreciative, joking that "U r an amazing assistant."

Keeping up the theme, Epstein emailed a few days later asking how it feels "to have the most highly paid travel agent in history."

Bannon responded, "U r pretty good asst."

Epstein in turn replied, "Massages. Not Included." Yes, you read that correctly.

The emails suggest that Bannon and Epstein often met in person, though, as Epstein's case drew more attention in 2018 and 2019, they took precautions. Epstein emailed Bannon, "Btw Im in New York tonite thru sat , if you want to visit under the cover of darkness or breakfast tomorrow if you like."

Bannon apparently did like, but requested "access that's not the front door," since Epstein was under "24/7 surveillance."

Epstein sought Bannon's counsel on how to respond to then-Sen. Ben Sasse's highly critical comments: "Continue to ignore? Ann Coulter on hannity/. Attack? Op ed , ? Not my skill set. ... What about the attunes penning something that suggests indignation and lays out some of the facts."

Bannon replied, "That drives it a week."

Some weeks later, apparently planning some sort of public response, Bannon advises Epstein, "If you do an interview it can't be like 'Johnnie does a utube' - has to be amazingly professional and perfectly cut."

One of those professionals was evidently going to be Bannon himself. He filmed 15 hours for a documentary that would attempt to redeem Epstein's reputation. When Epstein related that a Christian group he had met with said the media were portraying him "as beyond redemption," Bannon responded, "Yes yes yes of course — but we must counter 'rapist who traffics in female children to be raped by worlds most powerful , richest men.'"

The public Steve Bannon was another matter.

While sometimes casting doubt on the QAnon conspiracy, at other times he fed the flames. At the height of the 2020 campaign, he told his audience that the pedophile conspiracy is "at least directionally correct." And earlier this year, addressing Turning Point USA, Bannon offered that "Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things. ... Not just individuals, but also institutions. Intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who was working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government."

Well, the released emails show that one of those who was working most closely with Epstein, up to and including attempting to scrub his public image, was Bannon himself. Whatever else Summers may be, he is not one of the principal authors of the MAGA movement who stoked conspiracies about the "deep state" and gave oxygen to the most unhinged beliefs in circulation. Bannon, the man millions of MAGA fans trust to tell it like it is, stands revealed as one of the most cynical liars ever to mar this country.

Where are the firings and denunciations? Where is Turning Point USA, the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson? Where are all the MAGA faithful who claimed to believe or did believe in the vast conspiracy among elites to abuse children? And where, finally, is Bannon's acknowledgment of wrongdoing? Where is his shame?

Of these two men, the less guilty has acknowledged wrongdoing and been harshly punished while the more guilty man sails on without a backward glance. It's a travesty.

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

If You Love Democracy, Prepare Now To Defend Free Elections In 2026

If You Love Democracy, Prepare Now To Defend Free Elections In 2026

Democrats and other democracy well-wishers are spilling gallons of ink and a profusion of pixels on the question of whether ending the government shutdown was a blunder or not. I submit that either way, it won't matter very much if at all in 12 months — and the 2026 elections are where our attention needs to pivot right now.

After the most depressing year in American politics of my lifetime, the 2025 election results were like a defibrillator shock to a moribund body. The landslide percentages achieved by Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill; the record-smashing turnout in New York City; the huge Democratic gains in the Virginia House of Delegates; the sweep of three state supreme court seats in Pennsylvania; the lopsided results in obscure Georgia races, like for the public service commission; and the success of the California redistricting plan (a response to Texas' naked gerrymander) all point to the fact that the electorate — unlike CEOs, partners in major law firms, university presidents and media companies — is not surrendering to President Donald Trump.

Coming on the heels of the massive No Kings demonstrations across the nation, last week's elections are reminders that voters are the final bulwark against despotism.

Of course, these races should not be overinterpreted. Democrats tend to turn out in greater numbers for off-year contests than Republicans; the GOP's Virginia gubernatorial candidate was off-putting; and Democrats ran disciplined campaigns. But the biggest drag on Republicans was something that felled Kamala Harris and is unlikely to change markedly by this time next year: prices remain high. Millions of non-MAGA voters supported Trump because they believed his promise to restore the 2019 economy. That he cannot do, and wouldn't be able to accomplish even if he refrained from the boneheaded tariffs that are his delight.

Over the course of the past year, the question I've had the most difficulty responding to was also the one that was most often asked: What can I, as a citizen, do to counter this descent into authoritarianism? The No Kings rallies were one answer. The 2025 elections were another. And now, the next step is coming into focus.

The Trump team will also certainly attempt to rig the midterm elections while falsely claiming the elections are rigged against Trump. They have already begun. The mid-decade gerrymanders that the president has demanded of red states are a brazen effort to skew election results. It's Trump's style to do the corrupt things openly, so that they almost seem above board.

A president who pulled every lever, jiggled every handle and applied every kind of pressure he could think of, up to and including inciting a riot to prevent his successor from taking office deserves no benefit of the doubt about what he might attempt in 2026. Let's not forget that Trump entertained the possibility of using the military to confiscate ballot boxes in close states.

Still perseverating about the "stolen" 2020 election, Trump is already posting on Truth Social that he detects similar fraud in 2026: "No mail-in or 'Early' Voting, Yes to Voter ID!" he wrote. "Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being 'shipped.' GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!"

The Justice Department sent "monitors" to polling sites in California and New Jersey, which may have been nothing, or it may have been a dry run for deploying large numbers of federal officials to intimidate voters. Since 2020, Trump has been able to install election deniers in key federal posts, most importantly as attorney general, and has created a new, MAGA-inflected paramilitary force in ICE. It is no stretch to imagine ICE agents snatching people from voting queues and thereby deterring U.S. citizens who speak with an accent or have dark skin from exercising their right to vote. God knows, they've already pulled any number of citizens into their unmarked vehicles and held them for hours.

Everyone can participate in the pushback. Thankfully, elections are local and state affairs, not federal, which means the Trump administration has limited power to interfere with the way votes are cast. Still, leave nothing to chance. Sign up to be an election worker. The turnover rate has increased since 2020, with 2 in 5 election workers leaving the job. Contact groups concerned with election integrity, like Protect Democracy, the Campaign Legal Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, the NAACP, States United Democracy Center, Society for the Rule of Law (especially if you have a law degree) or the Fair Elections Center. Contact your state representatives and senators to inquire about funding for election security measures. File Freedom of Information Act requests as American Oversight has done to discover if the Trump administration is preparing military or other deployments at election time next year.

We've witnessed what unified Republican control of the government has meant over the past 11 months. Winning back the House and, who knows, maybe even the Senate, is the whole ballgame now.

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