Donald Trump's Ghastly Day
Defeat in the courts. Defeat in Congress. Defeat in Indiana.
There is not enough spray tan in the world to disguise the awfulness of the day Donald Trump just had.
The House of Representatives rejected one of his executive orders; another grand jury refused to indict Letitia James; a judge freed Kilmar Abrego Garcia and called out the Administration’s bullshit; Kristi Noem faceplanted in congressional testimony; his concept of a health care plan crashed in the Senate; and his poll numbers continued to crater.
But all of this was merely prologue to Trump’s humiliation by the sort of Republicans we are thought were utterly extinct.
Despite a vicious pressure campaign, the Republican-dominated Indiana Senate overwhelmingly rejected Trump’s demand that they gerrymander the state’s congressional map to benefit the GOP. Lead by Republican defectors, senators voted it down 31-19.
What happened yesterday — an outburst of Republican courage — was as rare as a sighting of Bigfoot, Lindsey Graham’s spine, or natural breasts at Mar-a-Lago. And it rattled and enraged all of TrumpWorld.
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Trump’s Indiana Backfire
There are, it turns out, limits to the power of Trumpian bluster and bullying.
It’s hard to overstate the amount of pressure Trump tried to bring on Indiana’s Republican legislature, or the assholery he mobilized to intimidate them.
As Russell Berman reported in The Atlantic:
Over the past several weeks, Republican state legislators have faced a wave of “swatting” incidents, bomb threats, and other anonymous acts of intimidation, leading some to worry about their personal safety. The current climate of fear in Indiana, lawmakers in both parties told me, is without modern precedent in the state….
Groups like Turning Point USA (Charlie Kirk’s group) swarmed the state, and the Heritage Foundation’s brute squad weighed in with naked threats of retaliation if the Indiana GOP did not bend the knee.
“President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: If the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state,” Heritage Action declared.
“Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”
And, no, there is nothing even remotely conservative in this kind of extortion.
In Washington DC — or in pretty much every other Republican dominated state — the threats might have worked, because fear is a powerful weapon, and political courage is vanishingly rare.
But in Indiana, it backfired royally. Spectacularly. Decisively.
State Senator Jean Leising, who voted three times for Trump, described the pressure campaign. This fall, she told CNN, she spoke at her 8th grade grandson’s school.
Hours later, when she was set to give him a ride home from basketball practice, he bashfully told her that his entire team had received text messages about her that day — “and they were all bad.”….
“Boy, when I got home that night, that’s when I decided,” said Leising, a 76-year-old grandmother of eight, first elected to the Senate in 1988. “I was angry. So the next day, I said, ‘I’ve got to talk about this.’ Because this is over the top. This shouldn’t be the way it was.”
Others were repelled by Trump’s own behavior.
Sen. Mike Bohacek has a daughter with Down syndrome. He was offended by Trump’s use of a slur for people with disabilities, in a Truth Social post deriding Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and said that Trump’s “choices of words have consequences.
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How big a deal was this? You can measure it in the furious, spittle-inflected response of the MAGAverse to Indiana’s show of independence.
“The spineless RINOs in Indiana, many hailing from districts where President Trump won by over 20% just last November have stabbed their own voters in the back and sold out America!” Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz posted on X. “We’ll be launching primary challenges against every last traitor who voted no, effective immediately! Pack your bags, your time is up!”
Don Jr. threatened to campaign against the defectors personally; JD Vance, who personally lobbied Indiana Republicans, also breathed vengeance.
Finally, of course, there was Trump, who vowed to destroy the Republicans who dared to defy him.
But there’s a man named Bray, I guess, head of the Senate, was that Bray? Is that the name? Bray? And I mean, I’m sure that whenever his primary is, it’s I think in two years, but I sure he’ll go down. He’ll go down. I’ll certainly support anybody that wants to go against him.
Exit take: On Thursday, Donald Trump got a taste of what it’s like to be a lame duck.
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: In this weekend’s “To the Contrary” podcast, I discuss this (and other topics) with the NYT’s David French, who thinks we are seeing a dramatic “vibe shift” on MAGA cruelty and over-reach.
Stay tuned.
ICYMI: A recap of Trump’s crappy day
House votes to nullify Trump order and restore bargaining rights for federal workers
Nearly two dozen House Republicans joined Democrats Thursday to pass a bill that would restore collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, an attempt to overturn an executive order that President Donald Trump issued earlier this year.
The measure passed 231-195 after reaching the floor through a bipartisan maneuver that bypassed GOP leadership — a so-called “discharge” tactic that is being used with growing frequency as Republicans seethe over dysfunction in the chamber. The bill still needs Senate approval to become law, but 20 Republicans sided with Democrats in a rare break from the president.
Trump DOJ Can’t Stop Failing to Indict Letitia James
Two separate federal grand juries in Virginia have now declined to reindict James on allegations of mortgage fraud in the span of one week.
These represent — by non-Trump-era standards — a huge public blow to the Justice Department, which is historically known for its high success rate in securing indictments.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from immigration detention | AP News
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was freed from immigration detention on a judge’s order Thursday while he fights to stay in the U.S., handing a major victory to the immigrant whose wrongful deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador made him a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to let Abrego Garcia go immediately, writing that federal authorities had detained him again after his return to the United States without any legal basis.
When it was his turn to grill Noem during a House hearing on on global security threats, Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) asked, “How many United States military veterans have you deported?”
Noem answered, “Sir, we have not deported U.S. citizens or military veterans.”
“I don’t believe you served in the military. I haven’t either,” Magaziner continued. “But I think you and I can agree as Americans we owe everything to those who have served our military in uniform, particularly those who have served in combat. Do you agree with that?”
As Noem answered in the affirmative, an aide appeared beside Magaziner with an iPad screen revealing the face of 55-year-old Sae Joon Park.
Magaziner cut off Noem’s answer, saying, “Madam Secretary we are joined on Zoom by a gentleman named Sae Joon Park, a United States army combat veteran who was shot twice while serving our country in Panama in 1989.”
Magaziner explained that the Purple Heart recipient struggled with PTSD and substance abuse, and was arrested in the 1990s for “some minor drug offenses” before getting clean and sober.
“Earlier this year you deported him to Korea, a country he hasn’t lived in since he was seven years old,” Magaziner said. “Will you join me in thanking Mr. Park for his service for our country?”
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Nota Bene
The Pentagon’s new smear machine. Dan Friedman: I Asked the Pentagon About Pete Hegseth’s Mentor. Then the Threats Started. – Mother Jones
Six weeks ago, Jack Posobiec asked me to comment on whether I have a “creepy fetish for Asian women.”
That was one of several false and wildly personal allegations that the far-right pundit and newly minted member of the Pentagon press corps said that he planned to include in “a story that I’m writing about you.”
I immediately understood his October 28 email to be a threat, though it was not made explicit. The day before, I had sent the Pentagon press office a series of questions concerning Eric Geressy, a senior Pentagon adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Geressy, who served with Hegseth during a tour in Iraq in the mid-2000s, is part of the Pentagon effort to instill a “warrior ethos” within the US military. He now leads a team reviewing the role of women in the armed forces….
I had discovered that Geressy’s email address was linked to a public Goodreads page with a “currently reading” list that included various books featuring stories about “Asian wife sharing.” These pornographic works, with titles such as “Asian Wife Went With Her Dad’s Friend: A Cuckold Story,” appeared on the list alongside two books by Hegseth and a handful of military histories. They contain detailed descriptions of cuckolding, group sex, and scenes involving “ladyboys”—a term used to refer to Thai transgender women. The page, active since 2021, was taken down the day after I contacted the Pentagon and Geressy about it.
I also asked about a 1997 domestic violence allegation against Geressy, about his dating habits, and past relationships with foreign women. I inquired if the Pentagon had assessed those relationships as part of Geressy’s security clearance process, and, more broadly, if his personal life might create concerns about his susceptibility to foreign influence operations.
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Creepy as shit, including the revelation that Barron Trump is an Andrew Tate fanboy. How Andrew Tate, Manosphere Star Accused of Rape and Trafficking, Was Freed - The New York Times
As his notoriety grew, Andrew Tate shrewdly courted Tucker Carlson and other media stars of the right, who in turn tapped into the brothers’ loyal following to expand their own reach.
Andrew also nurtured relationships with Donald Trump Jr. and his younger brother Barron, who recognized the role that young male voters could play in their father’s return to power.
Barron, now 19, admired Andrew, and spoke with him over Zoom last year, according to Justin Waller, a mutual friend who was on the call. During the call, they discussed their shared belief that the Romanian criminal case was an effort to silence the Tates, he said.
After Mr. Trump’s re-election, some of the Tates’ supporters ascended into the new administration. One of them, the diplomatic envoy Richard Grenell, twice discussed their case with Romanian officials, The Times found.
Within days of the second conversation, the Romanian prosecutors received their marching orders and handed the Tates the freedom to travel — after long arguing that the brothers were a public danger and a flight risk. The prosecutors were outraged, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.
Friday dogs
Flashback: Road trip with Auggie, Eli, and Pete!
“As rare a sight as natural breasts at Mar-a-Lago”…. Nearly spit out my coffee at that…😆🤣 I see Charlie is channeling his inner spicy imp there!
I just learned it is indeed possible to read, laugh and puke simultaneously!