An Iconic Oval Office Moment

Plus: The Trump DOJ's Thursday Night Massacre

Via ENews: “Elon Musk’s Son Picks His Nose and Wipes It on Donald Trump’s Desk.”

My friends, we have reached that stage in American history where you cannot write a week-in-review without using the word “booger.”¹

To be sure there were far more important things happening — the Munich-level betrayal of Ukraine; Trump’s spasm of corruption; the dramatic resignations from the Department of Justice; and the abject surrender of the Senate GOP to Trump’s vilest cabinet nominees, including Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard and omni-wingnut, RFK, Jr.

As Erick Erickson noted, things have gotten to the point where Mitch McConnell, was “the only Republican brave enough to reject a man who provoked his wife to kill herself before having a showy funeral for her, then digging up her body and moving it out of the family plot once the cameras were gone—a metaphor for the GOP.”

We will get to all of that in a bit. But I think we need to start with the archetypal moment in the Oval Office with Elon Musk and his 4-year-old child who, as God is my witness, is named: X Æ A-Xii.

Happy Friday.

Folks, we are really going to have to hang together if we’re going to make it.

And I’m afraid we can’t count on the billionaires, the oligarchs, or the corporate media to hold the line. That’s where you come in.

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Out of the mouths (and noses) of babes

In a different time, in a different world, we might simply avert our eyes. Or squint hard enough to see it as an episode of infant charm. And you are certainly free to do so.

We, on the other hand, saw it dripping with beyond-parody symbolism. And, yes, I know I should be better than this, but the whole thing seemed to capture the absurdity and humiliation of our moment.

Poets throughout the ages have panted for such poignant imagery of the vanity of power. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote of the broken statue in the desert with “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” that declared:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

But how do you top the implicit verdict of a 4-year-old child who stands before the throne, tells the Master of the Universe to “shush” his mouth, picks his nose, and wipes its contents on the most famous desk in the world?

I ask you.

You know the scene: Donald Trump sat slumped and bored behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, as his Shadow President Elon Musk — clad in a MAGA hat and t-shirt — strutted his hour upon the stage. Lawrence O’Donnell called it “the most powerless image of a president of the United States ever created by a camera.”

But the real show was X Æ A-Xii. Here is how ENews recorded the moment:

While President Donald Trump and the Tesla CEO discussed their plan to establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with reporters at a Feb. 11 press conference, Musk’s 4-year-old—who he shares with ex Grimes—was causing a bit of a distraction.

In fact, all eyes were on the little one as he spent a notable amount of time knuckles-deep in his nose….

Not only did X rise to the occasion by digging for gold and dropping it on the 47th president’s desk—the famed Resolute Desk many presidents have used dating back to the 19th century—but he also mocked his father’s movements and latched onto his leg until his dad ended up hoisting him up onto his shoulders.

Little X also had a message for the president. In one video clip that’s gone viral, X Æ A-Xii appears to tell President Trump, “I want you to shush your mouth.” ²

From the mouths of babes, as prophesied, X spoke for all of us.

**

BONUS: Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic: “There’s a Term for What Trump and Musk Are Doing: How regime change happens in America.”

Meanwhile… The Lawyers Resist

Danielle Sassoon. US. Attorney’s Office.

When so many others kissed the ring, Danielle Sassoon and her colleagues stood athwart Trumpism and shouted: Not on my damn watch.

This story is extraordinary on a number of levels, and not merely for the courage of the prosecutors who resigned on principle rather than go along with Trump’s order to drop the case against NY Mayor Eric Adams.

Olivia Troye: Standing Up to Kash Patel

Some key points to keep in mind: (1) Sassoon has solid conservative legal credentials. She clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and is a Federalist Society member ; (2) The resignations of the career lawyers highlighted the cynicism and abnormality of Trump’s decision, and (3) Their principled stand had a domino effect.

Via the NYT:

Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.

Then, when Justice Department officials transferred the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption prosecutions, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter.

Several hours later, three other lawyers in the unit also resigned, according to people familiar with the developments.

The serial resignations represent the most high-profile public opposition so far to President Trump’s tightening control over the Justice Department. They were a stunning repudiation of the administration’s attempt to force the dismissal of the charges against Mr. Adams.

Here is the heart of the matter — and the essence of the Trumpian DOJ’s fuq up:

The agency’s justification for dropping the case was explicitly political; Mr. Bove had argued that the investigation would prevent Mr. Adams from fully cooperating with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Bove made a point of saying that Washington officials had not evaluated the strength of the evidence or the legal theory behind the case.

Do yourself a favor and read Sassoon’s remarkable letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which she says that Bove’s order to dismiss the case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”

Seriously… download and read the whole thing here.

**

And Nota Bene: This bombshell about a January 31 meeting with Bove, Adams’ counsel Alex Spiro, and members of her office.

"Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed," Sassoon wrote. "Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”

Exit take: The judge in the case will have questions for the DOJ… and it could get very messy for the Trumpkins who are acting as if no norms, rules, or guardrails apply to them any longer.

The Betrayal of Ukraine

“It Took Trump only twenty-four days to sell out Ukraine,” writes Susan Glasser in The New Yorker.

It is, indeed, hard to overstate the victories that Trump has just handed to Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin will be hailing Wednesday’s confirmation of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with a hearty toast, former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton said. Gabbard, a former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman turned Republican surrogate, was confirmed by the Senate despite her history of taking positions seen as friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think Putin couldn’t be happier,” Bolton told CNN’s The Source. “They’re drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight.”

In the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire called it: The Day the Ukraine War Ended.”

Bloody fighting between depleted militaries will continue to barely move the frozen front lines. Russian missile and drone raids will still pummel Ukrainian cities and terrorize their citizens. Gutsy, covert Ukrainian strikes will hit deep behind the Russian border.

But a new, and likely final, chapter in the nearly three-year conflict began today with a confluence of clear signals from the United States that it will no longer back Kyiv’s goals in the war, all but ensuring that Ukraine will not regain its sovereign territory or achieve its most sought-after security guarantees

**

Writes Glasser:

The selling out of Ukraine was an inevitable consequence, no doubt, of America’s decision to reëlect Trump—the car crash that we’ve been watching unfold in slow motion since the evening of November 5th. For those who have been warning about Trump’s plans for Ukraine, Wednesday’s revelations felt like the crash had finally happened. John Bolton, the hawkish Republican who served as Trump’s national-security adviser and who has since publicly turned on him, said that his former boss had already “effectively surrendered to Putin” and appears prepared to force Ukraine to accede to “a settlement that could have been written in the Kremlin.”

**

BONUS: Matt Labash: “Our New Pandemic: Moral Cowardice.”

Friday dogs

Eli contemplates the portrait of my great-great grandfather Boris Susan (painted by his son, Robert Susan, who was the father of novelist Jacqueline Susann.) But Eli doesn’t really care. He just wants his back scratched.

Auggie and Boris.

Finally…

1. And please spare me the comments because, no, I am not “better than this”. Thank you.

2. Via the Irish Times:

During a joint press conference held by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump appeared to turn angrily away from Musk's son after the child turned to him and appeared to say something.

As Musk was addressing reporters with his son in front of him, he appeared to say something else and Trump reached out to him in an apparent attempt to quiet the child while his father was speaking.