Regrets? They Have a Few.
The stories we need to tell.
As they watch the betrayal of Ukraine, I wonder if at least some of the Democrats who voted to confirm Marco Rubio as Secretary of State regret their decision.
Not that it would make any difference, given Donald Trump’s full-on embrace of Vladimir Putin and all of his works. But the scenes out of Riyadh beggar imagination.
How bad is it?
“Many of us,” writes Robert Tracinski, “had worried that this negotiation would look like the Munich conference of 1938. It is looking more like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It’s not appeasement, it’s an alliance.”
Not content with simply surrendering, Trump is now parroting raw, undiluted Kremlin talking points that blame the Unites States and Ukraine for starting the war that Putin began.
“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” [Ukranian President Volodymyr] Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv during a broader discussion about the administration, which this week opened peace talks with Russia that excluded Ukraine.
Mr. Zelensky said that the U.S. president was “living in a disinformation space” and in a “circle of disinformation.”
The Russians are, of course, delighted that the United States is now whitewashing their genocidal war. And we can only hope that the voters will someday understand what they have wrought.
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If only they had been warned…
This, apparently, is the season of regrets.
Just days after voting to confirm anti-vax wingnut RFK Jr., as secretary of Health and Human Services, Senator Bill Cassidy was so worried about an outbreak of measles that he took to X to tell Americans that the measles vaccine has been "safe and effective since 1963." Using his ALL CAPS voice, Pediatric doctor Alastair McAlpine fired back at Cassidy: "Then why did you support the appointment of an anti-vaxxer as head of HHS just last week? I swear, I'm losing my mind here."
Other senators are suddenly realizing that nominees they supported are bumbling nimrods; and are “howling like stuck pigs” when they realize that the various spending freezes are hitting their own states.
I know: Let’s break out the world’s tiniest violin for the senators.
**
But don’t underestimate the power of regret in other quarters. It’s still early days, but the stories are rolling in… and there will be more. In his newsletter, Daniel Drezner highlighted some of the regrets we’re already seeing:
Like this: “Venezuelans in Florida angry at Trump TPS immigration move.”
Venezuelan migrants in South Florida say they feel betrayed by a Trump administration decision to end legal protections for hundreds of thousands of people who fled dictatorships and sought refuge in the U.S.
In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won the vote in Miami-Dade County, helped largely by the Hispanic vote, including naturalized Venezuelan Americans. That's one reason why Ferro and many others here say they're shocked and disappointed. "Beyond betrayed," she said. "They used us. During the campaign, the elected officials from the Republican Party, they actually told us that he was not going to touch the documented people. They said, 'No, it is with undocumented people.'"
**
And this: “Trump’s Funding Freezes Bruise a Core Constituency: Farmers.”
Skylar Holden, a cattle rancher in Missouri, had signed a $240,000 cost-sharing contract with the Agriculture Department to add fencing and improve the watering system for his property. But after the Trump administration abruptly froze federal funding, Mr. Holden said, he was suddenly out tens of thousands of dollars and on the hook for tens of thousands more in labor and material costs, and risked losing his farm.
“Whenever my farm payment comes due, there’s a good chance that I’m not going to be able to pay it,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Holden’s situation underlines the potentially precarious position of farmers across the country, as a rapid-fire array of directives by the Trump administration have paused federal funding on a range of programs and grants….
If funds remain frozen, that could affect more than 25,000 conservation contracts worth $1.8 billion funded by the climate change law, potentially involving thousands of farmers nationwide.
“This isn’t just hippie-dippy stuff,” said Aaron Pape, who raises cattle, pigs and poultry on 300 acres in Wisconsin. “This is affecting mainstream farmers.”
**
We are going to be seeing stories like this all over the country. And they are the sort of things that will be discussed in diners, truck stops, and across family tables — even in MAGA country. Consider this anecdote: “Inside the Trump administration’s error-plagued federal firing spree.”
Luke Graziani, a disabled Army veteran, was five weeks from completing his probation year on Friday, when he logged into his work computer at the Bronx Veterans Affairs hospital.
Waiting on the screen was a boilerplate termination email citing performance concerns. Graziani printed out the message and took it to his boss, who was shocked — and promised to submit a request for exemption.
“You’re critical staff,” Graziani recalled his boss saying. “We’re going to try.”
Graziani, who is 45 and has four children, had believed until this weekend that his veteran status would protect his job. He served 20 years in the Army, first as a supply specialist and then in public affairs, deploying for two tours in Iraq and another two in Afghanistan before retiring in 2023.
**
Or this one: “Yosemite delays summer reservations amid 'catastrophic' staffing fears.”
In the wake of what has been described as “catastrophic” staffing challenges caused by President Donald Trump’s sudden National Park Service hiring freeze, Yosemite National Park has announced that it is delaying the sale of summertime reservations for campsites at some of its most popular campgrounds.
**
Then there are the stories of the human casualties. “USAID refuses to Medevac employee's pregnant wife with 'life-threatening condition': lawsuit.”
In a damning affidavit filled with harrowing details, a USAID career foreign service officer alleges that the Trump administration’s “rushed, haphazard, and cruel” effort to shut down the agency has placed their pregnant wife and unborn child in grave danger….
"My wife is 31 weeks pregnant, after years of infertility and $50,000 of personal investment in countless fertility treatments across multiple tours, spanning three continents," the USAID employee, identified only as "Terry Doe," writes in the affidavit, part of a lawsuit by the American Foreign Service Association. AFSA says it is "challenging the unprecedented effort to dismantle" USAID.
"We have been overjoyed with this pregnancy but that joy has turned to turmoil, sadness, and dread. Because of the stress and strain of the constant onslaught by my employer in recent weeks, my wife has repeatedly been in the hospital with a life-threatening condition and stress-related complications," the affidavit reads. "Because of these medical complications, she was told she needed to immediately evacuate because of a high risk of hemorrhage, which would be life-threatening to both my wife and our baby."
They say the "request for medical evacuation was denied twice by the State Department [in] Washington," and were told that "there is no USAID funding for medevacs." They charge, "this administration cruelly has taken the position that our lives are acceptable collateral damage for their political gain."
In a particularly damning indictment, they write: "I later learned that there was a verbal directive from State Department Washington leadership to Regional Medical Officers and the Medical Evacuations Team to cease all USAID medical evacuations, hospitalization support, and guarantees of payment for urgent medical services."…
And while they finally were able to get medevac approval thanks to intervention from an unnamed U.S. Senator, it was too late: "before my wife could be medically evacuated, on February 8th, my wife began hemorrhaging and had to be admitted to the hospital at our overseas post."
It is no longer medically safe for her to get on a plane, they say, "even for a very short flight to better regional care and the three successive flights necessary to travel back to the US was simply a nonstarter."
"Now I'm afraid for her and my baby's health because of this rushed, haphazard and cruel push to shut down the agency. This didn't have to happen. I don't know how to explain to our daughter, who is living through all of this with me and my wife, that our own government is doing this to us," they say.
**
This is an email I received yesterday:
Mr. Sykes: Long time listener, first time writer.
I just received a note from a friend and colleague at the National Science Foundation. He and 164 of his fellow program officers (all PhD eminent scientists) were summarily fired today. The NSF has a broad remit but the area I work in is characterized by a rigorous but humane approach to science. This officer was particularly engaged in Fair AI and understanding the implications of cyber interfaces not only for science, but also for education, equity, and social impact.
He is a brilliant, dedicated, and thoughtful man who could triple his income in industry but chose the NSF in the spirit of service to mankind.
Mr. Sykes, I write to you in blind rage and profound sadness. These creatures are rampaging through the greatest scientific establishment in human history. It will take us a generation, if not more, to repair this damage now. Soon, it will be irreparable. You have a bully pulpit that I do not have. Please use it. My professional societies and political representatives are invertebrates and castrati…. I am leaving off my institutional affiliation as these are my own thoughts, but I am a clinical physician and researcher with a long academic career.
Sincerely,
[Name withheld]
Exit take: “Despite DOGE, Trump's agenda calls for adding trillions of dollars to U.S. debt.”
**
Will this make any difference? Maybe not. It would be naive to think that any of this will budge hard-core MAGAites. They are too invested in the cult they’ve chosen. But it would also be naive to underestimate the cumulative power of stories. We need to tell them. We need to share them with our neighbors and friends. Because, who knows…
One sparrow does not a summer make, but The Wall Street Journal (!) is reporting: “Some Trump Voters Have Regrets as President Upends Government.”
[Emily Anderson, from Duluth, Minnesota] is horrified by Trump’s focus on deportations and use of Guantanamo Bay to hold migrants. She alleged that Trump has been too focused on “ridiculous” flashy moves, such as banning paper straws and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Her daughter’s occupational therapist has stopped taking new patients over fears that the practice will have its federal funding dry up.
“I feel so stupid, guilty, regretful—embarrassed is a huge one. I am absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Trump,” said Anderson, 30.
The purge continues. But so does the resistance.
Nota Bene: “Denise Cheung, Top Prosecutor in U.S. Attorney’s Office, Abruptly Resigns - The New York Times.”
A top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., abruptly resigned on Tuesday after she declined to comply with a request from Trump administration officials to freeze the assets of a government contractor because of what she said was insufficient evidence to do so, according to her resignation letter.
In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, the prosecutor, Denise Cheung, who oversaw the office’s criminal division, described how the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin, had asked her to step down after she refused to order a bank to freeze accounts of an unnamed contractor.
Mr. Martin — in coordination with the office of Emil Bove III, a top Justice Department official — pushed Ms. Cheung to quickly open a criminal investigation into the vendor, which included securing subpoenas from a federal grand jury, and freezing the contractor’s unspent assets, she said.
Meanwhile, Harry Litman writes, more than 900 former federal prosecutors signed “an open letter meant to express support, as best we can, to the remaining career staff who continue to be under ferocious assault from the new administration (you can read it below).
Nothing remotely like this has ever happened at the Department. Career prosecutors willingly serve under department leadership of all political stripes, but never—until now—under leadership that treats them with contempt and orders them to violate their oaths.
Your Wednesday dog
When it gets this cold (it’s 4-degrees out right now), Eli prefers to snuggle inside.
If only they had been warned. Face eating leopards eat faces. Indiscriminately.
The Dems should be broadcasting these stories far and wide. Thanks for sharing Charlie and please give us links to more. So appreciated. The purposeful damage they are doing to our country and individual lives is pure evil.
Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact is perfect analogy. Surely Trump and Putin have some kind of secret protocol in place to divide up spoils of Ukraine, as Hitler and Stalin did with Poland.