March 15, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Trump Tanks The Market

As is now the new normal, there were so many things happening in the political world this week it is hard to keep track of them all. But what is currently in the center ring is the vote happening in the Senate on the continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year.

Senate Democrats were put on the spot because the House Republicans actually managed to pass a bill on their own. Few expected that this would happen, since House Republicans have a terrible track record for being able to pass much of anything -- especially budget bills. So the Senate was caught kind of flat-footed on this one. They had expected to hammer out some sort of agreement between Senate Democrats and Republicans, pass it, and then jam it down the GOP House's throat (which is the usual way these things work out). Instead, they were jammed by the House (who, immediately after passing their bill, adjourned -- thus making it hard to call them back for any necessary vote, should the Senate pass their own version of the bill).

This put Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democrats between a rock and a hard place. The C.R. bill needed 60 votes to advance, and with Senator Rand Paul voting no it meant a total of eight Democratic votes would be necessary. Senator John Fetterman made it known that he was a "Yes" vote, and then yesterday Schumer himself decided to join him. This makes it likely that the vote will succeed (which happened as we wrote this -- the bill did advance, as expected) and the government will avoid shutting down.

As the price for Democrats to back the bill, there will be votes on a handful of amendments, designed to allow Democrats to save some face. All of these amendments will fail (as will a separate one from Rand Paul).

Many Democrats are disappointed (which is charitable, since "enraged" might be a better word) at how this all played out. They do have a point -- this will be the last must-pass bill where the filibuster is in play for a long time to come, so it was really their only chance to register Democratic disapproval of what President Elon Musk has been doing to the federal government. The bill that passed will not only fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year, it will also put a stamp of approval on Musk (and his sidekick Donald Trump) slashing funding for any program they don't like. It essentially hands all the budget decisions over to the executive branch, which is an abdication of the constitutional power of Congress. Which is why many Democrats are so enraged (more on that in a moment).

The problem with being pro-shutdown, however, is the same as it always has been: what would the endgame look like? Republicans -- the ones who normally cause government shutdowns -- have learned over the years that there really is no good outcome at the end of a shutdown. This time around, the Democrats have such limited leverage (since they control neither house of Congress) that it is laughable to even envision a scenario where they forced Republicans to accept their priorities or agenda (which mostly consists of changing the C.R. to include language reining in Musk). Even if through some miracle they could get it through the Senate, does anyone believe it would pass the GOP House? Or be signed by the president?

While Democrats were figuring all this out, in the meantime Trump and Musk would be having an absolute field day with a government shutdown. That has to be taken into account as well. They'd be able to decide what employees were "essential" and "non-essential" and furlough anyone they chose to (meaning "whole departments" and worse). This would make it even easier for them to get rid of employees and departments, which is not exactly the desired outcome for Democrats. But if they had shut the government down, that's exactly what would have happened.

So they went instead with the "least bad" option, and the government will not shut down at midnight. As Schumer pointed out, on the Senate floor: "For sure the Republican bill is a terrible option. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take... much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option."

Outside of the congressional drama, Trump continued his rather schizophrenic application of tariffs ("now you see them, now you don't" ), both levying and then backing off multiple tariffs on multiple countries. But this week, the stock market had had enough. Wall Street hates uncertainty, and that's all they've been getting from Trump. Unless you want to call it "complete chaos" instead, that is. So a sell-off began on Monday and continued throughout the week, until at least one index (S&P) entered into "correction" territory (down ten percent from recent highs). Fears of higher prices and plummeting consumer confidence have increased everyone's prediction that a recession is imminent, and the markets are reacting accordingly.

Just to remind everyone -- this is not what Trump ran on. He promised lower prices, immediately ("on Day One" ), and now that the opposite is happening -- as a direct result of his own actions -- he is shrugging off the prospect of a looming recession. He swears any pain will be temporary, and worth it in the end. He swears every American's pockets will soon be overflowing with money, too.

The public isn't exactly buying it. One poll this week put disapproval of Trump's handling of the economy higher than approval (by a wide margin -- 56 to 44 percent), which is something that never happened during his first term. People disapprove of his tariffs by an even wider margin as well (61 to 39 percent, including 20 percent of Trump voters). As time goes on and prices stay high (or go even higher), these negative poll numbers will most likely grow. Trump's voters are beginning to realize that he conned them into believing fantastical things about the economy, and nobody's happy when they finally realize that they've been had.

This is going to hit some red states very hard, it bears mentioning. The tariffs, in particular, are going to hit rural areas in the Midwest and South very hard indeed. And Trump keeps on undermining farmers (by cancelling programs they use to sell their produce), without seeming to care about the consequences.

The only bit of good news in all this economic catastrophe (in a schadenfreude sort of way) is that Tesla stocks are down -- way down. Tesla sank 15 percent in a single day this week, and the stock is down 50 percent since the high it hit after the election. Protests -- some of them violent, some including vandalism -- have been occurring at Tesla dealerships and charging stations. So Trump decided to turn the White House into a Tesla lot in an appearance with Elon Musk, and Trump then proudly claimed he was buying one of them (after mispronouncing the company's name as "Tesler" ). He urged all his followers to go out and do the same. Democratic senator Mark Kelly responded by announcing he was getting rid of his own Tesla, in protest.

This might not be the best business model for the company, it bears mentioning. Trump has long railed against and heaped scorn on electric cars (and boats, for good measure), and MAGA folks are known for sneering at electric cars and trucks too, so it's highly doubtful how many of them are going to rush right out and buy a few Teslas any time soon. People who buy electric cars generally hail from the left, so making the brand a partisan loyalty test is just going to drive consumers who are considering going electric to other brands. What we wonder is how much longer the Tesla board of directors is going to wait before they decide that the biggest problem with their company and their brand is Elon Musk, and that chucking him overboard could indeed save the company. Stay tuned!

To add insult to injury, the A.I. portion (named "Grok" ) of Musk's social media company will cheerfully admit that Democrats are much better for the economy, when they are in charge in Washington. That's gotta hurt!

Trump continues to do the opposite of what he promised in other regards as well. He has launched a frontal attack on free speech, by "disappearing" a permanent resident (green card holder) and locking him up without offering up a scintilla of evidence of any crime or wrongdoing. Trump bragged about it all, promising: "This is the first arrest of many to come," which is a chilling statement for any president to make. Here's the story, in case you missed it (emphasis in original):

Khalil was arrested for exercising his right to free speech, plain and simple. Marco Rubio just decided to chuck him out of the country. No actual evidence against him has been presented, either to a court or to the American people. Just that he said things that Trump didn't like.

In other First Amendment news, a judge ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to destroy a law firm it didn't like as well. The firm had represented people Trump didn't like, so he decided to use the full weight of the federal government to punish them. Luckily, a judge halted these actions, but the fact that Trump even tried to do so is alarming:



Why indeed.





Before we begin, we have to note the passing of Representative Raúl Grijalva, a staunch progressive much beloved by the left. His presence and leadership will be sorely missed in the House of Representatives, and we mourn his passing. Requiescat In Pace.

Before we get to the main award, we have a group Honorable Mention award to hand out first, to all the Democrats in the Maryland legislature (and the governor) who are trying out a rather radical idea -- creating a state-level drug pricing board that will force drug companies to lower their prices on prescription drugs for residents of the state. Federal efforts in this area have begun, but are extremely limited so far, so Maryland decided to get out in front of the idea. This week, they beefed up the powers of this board to provide reductions in price for all residents. This experiment will be well worth watching, to see how effective it turns out to be.

Our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week is also a group award. Democrats have struggled in deciding how to fight back against Republicans in the second age of Trump, and at first glance this seems like a rather minor effort, but it could be one that winds up paying off in a big way.

A coalition of Democratic groups has seen what is happening at many town hall meetings held by Republicans of late -- where GOP politicians get an earful from their constituents about all the chaos Musk and Trump have been causing. Things have gotten so bad that Republicans are now telling each other not to hold live town halls and instead do them virtually (where access can be controlled, to avoid angry questions). This cowardice needs calling out, so the group of Democrats decided to hold their own town hall meetings in districts where Republicans are too chicken to do so. Here's the story:



Once again, Bernie Sanders is showing the way for Democrats to tap into economic anxieties. So it is good to see that at least some Democrats have decided to follow in his footsteps.

Holding "empty chair" town halls in competitive Republican districts is a very local tactic to use in fighting back, but it is one that could help flip enough districts to the Democratic side of the aisle in the midterms, so it should be applauded.

People's feelings about the economy is a large reason why Trump won the last election, and it could be key to a Democratic revival. The more time goes on and the more prices stay high, the less patience even right-leaning voters are going to have with Trump's chaos (especially on his tariffs). And once you lose voters who throw up their hands on the economy, it is very hard to get them back.

So this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week goes to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Association of State Democratic Committees -- as well as Bernie Sanders -- for deciding to actually do something to fight back in the political arena. Most of these efforts won't make the front pages of national newspapers (the media, as usual, has barely lifted a finger to cover Bernie's rallies, even though they are drawing huge crowds), but they might just be headline news in the local districts, which is far more important. Pushing the message "Republicans are too chicken to face their voters" is a good idea just in general, and presenting an alternate economic message is going to be crucial for Democratic chances in the midterm elections.

[Congratulate the Democratic National Committee via their contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]





We were considering giving the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to Representative Jared Golden of Maine, for being the sole House Democrat to vote for the continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the year, but that was before Chuck Schumer entered the fray.

Schumer's announcement that he would also be voting for the C.R. has stoked a lot of rage against him. Some are even calling it the "Schumer surrender." Others are calling for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to launch a primary challenge to Schumer. House Democrats were mostly (with the exception of Golden) united in voting against the C.R., and they urged their Senate counterparts to hold the line.

However, as we mentioned before, there wasn't really a viable endgame to all of this. Anyone who thought shutting the government down would provide enough leverage to allow Democrats to rewrite the C.R. is fairly delusional, and that doesn't even take into account what Musk and Trump would do if handed the opportunity of a government shutdown to get even more extreme in dismantling the government.

Which Schumer pointed out, in a piece he wrote for the New York Times:



You've got to admit, he's got a point. But this didn't quell the rage many Democrats felt after his announcement. Democrats wanted to be seen as fighting back, even if they didn't have an endgame plotted out. This is the same motivation Republicans have always used when they have shut the government down, and it rarely ends well for them (and they didn't even have to worry about a president who would gleefully welcome a government shutdown).

So while we personally do find it understandable that Schumer decided to choose the least-bad option available, we also recognize that him doing so sparked a whole lot of disappointment (and rage) among a whole bunch of Democrats. Which is why he's the obvious choice for the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Contact Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on his Senate contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 787 (3/14/25)

We've got another mixed bunch of talking points this week. Keep hitting Trump on the economy, on his broken promises, and while you're at it, hit Elon Musk too (since so few people like him).



Checked your 401K?

Democrats need to continue pointing out the vast difference between what Trump promised and what he's done with the economy.

"Remember when Donald Trump said he'd create an economic boom immediately after he took office? Remember when he actually cared what the stock market was doing? Well, I don't know about you but I've been too scared to check my 401K this week, since the stock market is tanking and Trump just keeps right on making things worse. It's one thing to lay a big fat Trump Tax on everything by slapping tariffs on our closest allies, but the whole 'now you see them, now you don't' tactic Trump uses does nothing more than sow confusion and doubts about the future. So I would ask all those Trump voters out there -- are you happy when you go to the supermarket these days? Have you checked your 401K recently? Because no matter what he promised you, that is what Trump is doing to you."



It's all a game to him

A good metaphor to use, really.

"To Donald Trump, chaos and confusion and tanking stock markets is all just a fun game to play with the world economy. He doesn't care if a Trump Recession happens -- he's telling everyone it'll all be fine and they'll find their pockets stuffed with money afterwards. This is lunacy, folks. Tariffs are nothing short of a tax -- on you. Aluminum tariffs mean that you will pay more for a six-pack of beer. Is that what you voted for? It's all just a game to Trump, and anyone who claims he is playing some sort of three-dimensional chess is nothing short of delusional. I doubt Trump could play a game of two-dimensional chess, personally. No, it's not 3D chess Trump is playing -- it's nothing more than a game of 52-Card Pickup."



Good luck with that, Elon

Seriously, we should be taking bets on how long the Tesla board will put up with this.

"Elon Musk has seen his car company lose 50 percent of its stock value in the past few months. Tesla sales are way down all over the world, in fact. So his sidekick Donald Trump decided to use the White House as a car dealership lot and film a commercial for Tesla on the South Lawn. This is the last straw for many Tesla owners and for people in the market to buy a new electric car. Who wants to be a pariah just because of what you drive? So I would say to Elon Musk: 'Good luck convincing all those MAGA voters to rush right out and buy a Tesla!' Somehow I seriously doubt it's going to catch on as the new rightwing thing to drive, personally. From what I hear from Trump voters, they absolutely hate electric vehicles. So good luck with that business plan, Elon!"



Disappearing data

Of all the things Trump is doing, this is one of the most frightening.

"Donald Trump has an answer for any scientific data he doesn't like: just 'disappear' it all. Just erase it. Got documents that might say something you don't like? Burn them or shred them. Climate change data? Just cancel the program. This has started slow, but it could lead to a very dark place. What if economic data comes in as negative? Will Trump just delete it all? Or hire some toadies to come up with some fantasy numbers instead? Donald Trump is waging a war on data already, so it's easy to see him doing exactly that. Sending any data you don't like down the memory hole is the mark of a totalitarian government, folks."



Trump's for the birds? Hardly...

A minor point, but one worth making.

"Remember when Trump campaigned on how much he cared about birds? Remember that? Whenever he talked about wind turbines, he'd always darkly point out how many birds the windmills kill. But Trump just hates windmills, ever since they built some right offshore of one of his golf courses. He doesn't care about birds at all, in fact. His administration just ended the legal position that energy companies who kill birds with their activities should be held accountable. This gives not just wind producers but also the oil and gas industry a big green light to kill as many migrating birds as they feel like, without consequence. It's just one more thing Trump lied his face off about on the campaign trail, folks."



Chicken!

Speaking of birds....

"Republicans are increasingly becoming too chicken to face their own voters. They're too scared to hold town halls, because when they do they get to hear what their constituents think about President Elon Musk and Donald Trump and all their economic chaos. And they've been getting an earful! So they've decided to just stop holding town halls where people can confront them to their faces. It's a real sign of how unpopular the Trump agenda truly has been for millions of people. When politicians are too chicken to face their own voters, then it is time to vote them out of office, plain and simple."



Putin's laughing

This is going to become more and more evident.

"Vladimir Putin must just be laughing at Donald Trump right now. Trump is doing all his dirty work for him! All Putin needs to do is sit back and watch as Trump forces Ukraine to do exactly what Putin wants. Putin gets to call all the shots, and won't have to give up anything to bring an end to his invasion of Ukraine. Trump's never going to sanction Russia, and Putin knows this full well. Which is why Putin must be rolling on the floor laughing at his minion Donald Trump right about now."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

March 8, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Tariff Whiplash

While the biggest political spectacle of the week was the president's big speech to Congress, the biggest political news of the week was actually the American economy reacting to Donald Trump's on-again-off-again, now-you-see-them-now-you-don't tariffs. The whiplash began at the start of the week and hasn't fully subsided yet. Taken together with all of Trump's other disruptive wrecking balls, economists are now starting to talk about the possibility of an upcoming "Trump recession."

Where to begin? Well, Congress has one week to pass some sort of continuing resolution to fund the government, or there will be a shutdown at the end of next week. The chances of them averting disaster are really anyone's guess, especially considering they're going to need some Democratic support to do it. Both President Elon Musk and President (In Name Only) Donald Trump have expressed support for government shutdowns in the past, so it's not likely there will be much pressure from the White House to avoid one.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve downgraded its first-quarter economic prediction sharply, moving their forecast from 2.3 percent positive growth (their prediction on February 19th) to an updated negative 2.8 percent contraction. So how is the administration preparing the public for a possible economic downturn? In what can only be called "Marie Antoinette fashion," sadly.

The secretary of Agriculture took the cake (pun intended) with her answer for consumers angry about the high price of eggs: "Let them raise chickens." Well, no, she didn't actually say that, but what she did say was certainly in that vein: "People are sort of looking around thinking, 'Wow, well maybe I can get a chicken in my backyard,' and it's awesome."

The secretary of the Treasury, meanwhile, informed the public that "access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream." He brushed off the possibility of prices rising for everything with: "We could get a one-time price adjustment." Easy for you to say....

Trump's lawyer Alina Habba, when asked about the thousands upon thousands of veterans who have been summarily fired by Musk, played the "blame the victim" card, saying: "Perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment, or [they are] not willing to come to work." So much for all that honoring-their-service hokum, right?

More veterans are on the chopping block as well, as Musk is planning to fire over 80,000 workers at the Veterans Administration. No word on how many of them will be newly-unemployed veterans, but no matter if they have previously served in uniform or not, that is going to make the V.A. a lot harder to access and a lot less efficient for the veterans who depend on it.

So what is the Trump administration's plan to get prices back down? There is no plan:

Meanwhile, Trump still cannot figure out what he even wants to do with all his various tariff threats. He instituted a 25-percent tariff on products from Mexico and Canada this week, and the stock market immediately went into a nose-dive. Trump then seemed to realize how bad an idea it was and announced he was going to postpone first the tariffs on automobiles and auto parts -- and then followed this up by announcing he was basically kidding and he was postponing all the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for another month. This coincides with when his announced "reciprocal tariffs" on the entire rest of the world will begin, so the first week in April looks like it'll be just as much of a rollercoaster ride as last week was.

Perhaps the best comment we heard on all of this came from George Conway, who reacted to Trump's incomprehensible actions with: "What an incredibly incompetent clown. Maybe he should have thought about the (patently obvious) effect of tariffs on the auto industry before imposing them? He's like a monkey on a keyboard."

Let's review a few basics, shall we? Tariffs are a tax. They make things more expensive for the American consumer. Prices go up. When the other countries inevitably retaliate, it hits American farmers and plenty of other industries very hard, as they completely lose foreign markets they have come to rely upon. When prices go up across the board, inflation goes up for everyone. When the economy slows (due to higher prices and increasing inflation), Wall Street gets nervous, companies stop hiring (exacerbating all the firings of government employees), the stock market falls, and the entire economy can sink into a recession. And in keeping with his love of slapping his name on everything, America will come to know it as: "The Trump Recession." Or maybe even "The Trump Depression," for that matter.

In non-economic news, Team Trump continues to flail around on many other fronts as well. On a quest to remove any governmental honor or even mention of anyone who is not straight, White, and cisgender male, the Pentagon scrubbed photos of the bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan at the end of World War II. Why would they do such a thing? Because (you cannot make this stuff up, folks) the name of the plane was the "Enola Gay." This hearkens back to the culture war over the word that was fought 20 years ago, when a Christian news site's auto-replace function changed a wire-service story about Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay so that the headline wound up reading: "Homosexual Eases Into 100 Final At Olympic Trials." At least they were just attempting to Bowdlerize words for their audience -- Team Trump wants to send all such things entirely down the memory hole. This is after the Air Force had to earlier reverse a decision (after public outcry) which scrubbed any mention of the Tuskegee Airmen from a training course (in their crusade against "diversity" being honored in any way).

Elon Musk continues to chainsaw his way through the federal workforce, not caring a whit what essential jobs the people being fired were actually performing. This has resulted in mass firings at the National Weather Service and NOAA (because who cares where that hurricane really is headed, right? Just ask Trump, he'll draw a line on a map and show you!), an announcement that the government was selling over 400 buildings, including National Park visitors' centers and museums as well as core departmental headquarters. The list was then reduced before being yanked off the website entirely. Musk lied about restoring funding to prevent the Ebola virus too, just for good measure. The figures on his own website which purport to show the bazillions in savings he has achieved are so riddled with errors that it has become nothing more than a joke.

What else? Bowing to conspiracy theorists, the attorney general touted a big release of the "Epstein files," but it turns out it was a total dud, consisting of nothing more than documents which had been released years ago. Maybe Pam Bondi has (gasp!) become co-opted by the coverup!

The head spokesman at the Health and Human Services Department quit after just two weeks on the job, because he was disgusted with his boss Robert F. Kennedy Junior's handling of the spreading outbreak of measles happing in Texas. Oh, and measles vaccine supplies are low, too. So what could possibly go wrong with any of that?

Team Trump is floating an answer to any bad numbers that arise in the G.D.P. statistics: let's just change the way we calculate them! There! Problem solved!

Congress is also considering using this tactic, to make the $5 trillion in deficit spending that will happen if they extend the tax cuts this year completely disappear! You just cannot make this stuff up -- they really are going to try to sell that one to the public: "Nothing to see here, folks, this all won't cost a dime!" Meanwhile, the C.B.O. reported that it will be absolutely impossible for the House Republicans to follow the budget blueprint they have already passed without massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, or some combination of all three.

Speaking of inconvenient numbers, Trump is reportedly not happy with the deportation efforts so far, which is understandable since the first monthly number he charted was actually below what Joe Biden managed last year. Ooops!

Well, that's about as much of a weekly review as we can stomach this week, so we'll just move right along to the awards section....





We have to at least award an Honorable Mention to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who this week signed a law which will forever kill the "party machine" ballot design in his state. This has been an ongoing effort, and when you read about what it all meant, it's pretty laughably archaic -- back to the era when party bosses dictated who got a chance to even compete for votes. In any case, it is now consigned to the history books, as it should have been a long time ago.

We also have one Honorable Mention for best quote in reaction to Trump's speech to Congress this week, for Representative Jasmine Crockett, who when asked immediately after the speech what advice she would give to the president, responded: "I would tell him to grow a spine and stop being Putin's ho."

And we definitely have a Honorable Mention award for freshman Senator Elissa Slotkin, who delivered the official response speech to the president, from a town in Michigan. She hit all the right notes without a single gaffe or cringeworthy moment, which is enough of an achievement on its own to deserve an award (given the track record of response speeches over the past decade or so). But we wrote about this earlier this week, so we'll just mention it in passing here.

Quite obviously, the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week was Representative Al Green, who loudly interrupted Trump's speech mere minutes after it began, to take serious exception to Trump's claim of having a huge mandate from the American people (he didn't even crack 50 percent of the total vote, after all). Green protested with: "You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!" and would not sit down and be quiet, which forced the speaker to have the House sergeant-at-arms escort him off the floor.

This earned Green the admiration of many Democrats (as well as a few other things, which we'll get to in a moment), but this wasn't universal. Some might even argue he should be considered for our "disappointing" award instead, since he sank to the level of the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. But as far as we're concerned the whole "decorum" boat sailed a long time ago for these speeches, and it was certainly the most effective protest tactic of the evening, so we decided it was worthy of the MIDOTW award. It certainly was historic, that's for sure....

[Congratulate Representative Al Green on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





Where to begin?

[Sigh.]

It's not exactly "disappointing," more like "face-palm-inducing," but we have to at least mention a video made by a few House Democratic women that tried to plug into the meme of "video game stuff," but it just turned out completely and utterly cringeworthy. We can't even go into the details, so you'll have to check it out on your own, if you really want to see it.

But back to the big speech. All the other protest efforts from Democrats during the speech were pretty laughably ineffective, we have to say. From wearing pink (for a reason that had to be explained) to holding up little auction-bidding paddles with slogans (too small to be read by television shots of the crowd, for the most part), most of the Democratic response fell pretty flat.

We'd even have to agree with many Democrats who expressed one particular sentiment after the speech this week, and hand at least a (Dis-)Honorable Mention award to "all the other Democrats in the chamber who did not immediately stand up and follow Al Green out the door, in solidarity." Now that would have been a strong protest! And it would have made for some great television too....

More specifically, we have to award individual (Dis-)Honorable Mention awards to the 10 House Democrats who actually voted with the Republicans to censure Al Green. And, lest we be remiss, we should also award an Honorable Mention to the crowd of dozens of Democrats who stood in the well of the House floor while Green was officially being censured (after the vote) and sang "We Shall Overcome" in solidarity. The House is now considering a vote to kick Green off all his committee assignments, which only goes to show where supporting this sort of thing winds up.

But this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week goes to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom apparently just launched a new podcast. He had on (as his very first guest) rightwing podcaster Charlie Kirk, but that's not why he's getting the award.

Newsom, when Kirk brought up the subject of transgender athletes participating in school sports, agreed with Kirk when he pointed out the issue was hurting Democrats by responding: "We're getting crushed by it. Crushed."

He also agreed that Kamala Harris was hurt by a Republican ad that highlighted her support for taxpayer-funded gender transition care for immigrants and federal prisoners:



But what really raised eyebrows was his framing of the whole issue: "I think it's an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness -- it's deeply unfair. I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you." He then went on to talk about how he had four children of his own and how he and his wife had been involved with sports in college: "I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is completely legit," Newsom said. "And I saw that -- the last couple years, boy did I [see] how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level."

He tried to soften all this with some words of compassion, to his credit:



But apparently he's also been moving behind the scenes to try to convince his fellow Democrats in the state's legislature not to put pro-trans-sports bills on his desk.

Now, we want to be clear here. We decided to give Newsom the MDDOTW award for a reason, but the reason is not "we are in complete disagreement with him." We have even argued that Democrats who hold his belief should be welcomed and accepted into the "big tent" of the Democratic Party.

We instead decided on the award for two big reasons. The first is that, just by sheer volume, Newsom annoyed more Democrats this week (both inside and outside California) than anybody else, really. And the second is that this runs counter to Newsom's political persona in a big way. Which makes the whole thing look like nothing short of pandering or triangulating.

Gavin Newsom has his eyes on the White House. This is no secret. He won't admit it yet, but it's about as obvious as can be. And this entire episode smacks of nothing more than trying to manufacture his own "Sister Souljah moment."

And here's the thing: he might be right to do so. His chances of getting elected nationally probably will improve because of it. But that doesn't detract from the calculated nature of it.

Gavin Newsom entered the national stage of American politics in February of 2004. At that time, the gay marriage issue was raging. The highest court in Massachusetts had ruled a few months prior that gay marriage was indeed constitutional in the state, but they delayed implementation of their ruling until May, to allow the state legislature to react. Newsom -- then mayor of San Francisco -- became the first elected official in the country to approve issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He was an absolute pioneer, in other words. This was fully eleven years before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality for all.

In doing so, Newsom became an icon of the gay rights movement. Which is precisely why his new position on transgender sports in schools is so disappointing to so many people, who saw it as a betrayal (or worse).

As we said, for us the jury's still really out on whether Newsom's "Sister Souljah moment" will pay political dividends for him or not. But we have to acknowledge the feelings his new stance sparked in many Democrats and award him the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week nonetheless.

[Contact California Governor Gavin Newsom on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 786 (3/7/25)

We have to begin today by mourning the loss of the website FiveThirtyEight. Its corporate owner pulled the plug this week. It's been sort of heading downwards ever since Nate Silver left, to be sure, but it was a milestone of putting the raw numbers in front of the public so it was easy to track how the political polling was going. Perhaps it is emblematic of the decline of polling in general, but we still have to admit we're sorry to see it go.

Our talking points are kind of a mixed bag this week, leaning heavily on the economy (because it is such a weak point for Trump). But we do have two at the end to show that the spirit of protest is still out there, just to make everyone smile.



99 Minutes Hate

Handy for any Democrat who is asked about Trump's speech to Congress.

"You know, in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Big Brother forced everyone to sit and watch a video they called 'Two Minutes Hate,' full of propaganda about the regime's supposed enemies. My response to Trump's speech was that at least they only had to watch two minutes of hate -- we had to sit through ninety-nine minutes of it Tuesday night."



The Trump Recession

Make the title stick. Use it often.

"You know, most recessions hit while politicians and the president are trying to avoid them. But we could be headed for one now that will be unique, because this one will be caused by the president. If the American economy goes through a downturn, it will definitely deserve the label 'The Trump Recession'."



Trump has no plan

Again, hit them hard. Because they don't.

"Remember when Trump was campaigning and he promised everyone he'd bring all the prices down 'starting on Day One'? Remember that? And then he fudged it and told everyone he was going to direct all his departments to report back to him in 30 days, and a wonderful plan to bring prices down would be announced? Well, we're heading towards two months in, and they still have no plan. None. They are not doing anything to bring prices down. In fact, everything they're doing is causing prices to go even further up. Yet another example of Trump making big sweeping promises he has no idea how to keep."



Don't lose your head, Marie....

We just personally would love it if everyone started using this line, that's all.

"Did you hear what Trump's secretary of Agriculture had to offer as advice for consumers getting hit hard by the outrageous price of eggs these days? She said we should all get chickens and raise them in our backyards. No, really! That was her advice. 'Let them raise chickens.' Either that or go to the grocery store and pay a fortune to buy a dozen, I guess."



Why does Trump hate veterans so much?

This one is causing a lot of worry among Republicans, so drive the point home.

"President Elon Musk has been on a tear, firing all the veterans who have twice dedicated themselves to public service, by working for the government in all kinds of different jobs. Musk doesn't care, and neither does Trump. Veterans have been smeared by false accusations that they aren't doing their jobs or don't show up to work, which is about what you'd expect from 'Cadet Bone Spurs' Trump. And they've announced plans to fire eighty thousand people who now work for the Veterans Administration. This means veterans seeking medical care or other VA services are going to have to wait a whole lot longer and get a whole lot worse service. So I would ask my Republican colleagues: Why does Trump hate veterans so much?"



Stand up for science!

Finally, some good news to end on.

"Today, hundreds of people protested at the Lincoln Memorial and other places across the country to 'Stand Up for Science!' The American people are not happy with Trump's 'war on science' and it's about time somebody protested what is going on. As a former National Institutes of Health director who recently resigned his position put it at the rally: 'Moving Fast And Breaking Things might be an appropriate mantra for Silicon Valley... Let's go with: First, Do No Harm' instead. As a sign at the rally put it: AMERICA IS GREAT BECAUSE OF SCIENCE."



Go ski in Russia!

And finally, leave it to the good people of Vermont to make their voices heard. Right after Vice President JD Vance bullied the leader of Ukraine in the Oval Office, Vance decided to take a little vacation and go skiing in Vermont. He was met with roads and ski slopes lined with people protesting. Here are some of the best protest signs people created to let him know what they thought of him:



Some hurled some ski-specific insults:



Or some Vermont-specific ridicule:



Vermonters are known for their sense of humor, obviously:



The best ones however, were on businesses. One had a sign out front saying:



But the best one was a big sign at a resort saying simply:






Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

March 1, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Ronald Reagan Would Be Ashamed

Remember when the Republican Party, as a whole, absolutely revered the memory of Ronald Reagan? It really wasn't that long ago. Their devotion was so pronounced that we even took to using the term "Saint Ronald of Reagan" whenever we wrote about Republicans lauding him to the skies, just to poke fun at their deification (or at the least, canonization or beatification) of a politician that, in our humble opinion, really didn't deserve such devotion.

Jumping forward to the present, each incoming president gets to choose how to decorate the White House, which includes the art on the walls of the Oval Office. We have to say it was somewhat of a surprise to learn that Donald Trump in his second presidency chose to hang a painting of Reagan on the wall overlooking the same desk Ronnie used to sit behind. We learned this fact from the following article, which (please note) was written before what just happened in the Oval Office today:

Donald Trump has singlehandedly turned the Republican Party away from their longstanding (dating back to roughly the end of World War II) and staunch opposition to both the Soviet Union and Russia, and has now forced the entire party to openly embrace the dictator Vladimir Putin. That is an astonishing reversal, to put it mildly. Hillary Clinton even warned of this, when campaigning against Trump, accusing him of being Putin's "puppet." She could not have been more right, as today proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ronald Reagan is probably turning over in his grave after the embarrassment the world just witnessed. You could almost see, in the background, Elon Musk passing Trump's puppet strings to Putin -- maybe with a few pointers on the best way to make Trump look more lifelike.

Trump had a hard week all around, because for the first time in his second term in office, he was faced with people who are strong enough to stand up to his lies. This began with meetings with the leaders of France and the U.K., both of whom corrected Trump's misunderstandings of the way the war in Ukraine started, has been fought, and has been funded. These, after all, are leaders of their own countries. They are not journalists who could get banished from covering the White House or members of Trump's party who can be threatened with a future primary opponent. They have their own domestic support and don't really care what American voters think of them. So they were free to smack down Trump's lies.

According to Trump, the United States has given $350 billion to Ukraine to fight against Russia -- a war that Ukraine provoked by flirting with joining NATO (which forced Russia to invade in self-defense). We gave Ukraine all this money while Europe barely gave them any money -- all of which were in the form of loans (not grants), so Europe will be paid back while America won't.

None of this is true, of course. America has given Ukraine $119 billion, while Europe has given Ukraine $138 billion (most of which was grants that will not have to be repaid). Russia started this war of aggression and conquest without provocation. Which the leaders of France and the U.K. pointed out to Trump -- not that it did any good. Trump believes the fantasy version of reality in his head, and no facts will ever change his mind.

This all boiled over today in a disastrous Oval Office meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader. As far as Trump (and JD Vance, just for good measure) are concerned, Zelenskyy should have immediately prostrated himself before Trump and started salaaming, perhaps while chanting: "I am not worthy." That's the sort of visual they really wanted to see.

This did not happen (to put it mildly). If you can stomach it, the New York Times took the trouble to transcribe what did happen instead.

The upshot of all of this? While Putin's laughter was so loud it could almost be heard across the Atlantic Ocean, the portrait of Ronald Reagan behind Trump spontaneously burst into flames.

Well, no... that didn't actually happen. But it really should have.

Zelenskyy was then summarily kicked out of the White House. The planned signing of a deal for Ukrainian mineral rights was cancelled, as was a planned press conference afterwards. As of this writing, it is unclear whether a Fox News interview with Zelenskyy will take place later today.

It's hard to measure, but this may not have been the most disgraceful and disgusting thing the Trump administration has done this week, since earlier the U.S. voted against a Ukrainian measure at the United Nations that condemned Russia for its invasion of their country. We voted with Russia and North Korea, while all the countries who still care about democracy and freedom voted with Ukraine.

So Ronald Reagan's legacy is now officially in ashes. Standing strong against Russian aggression is now a thing of the past, as far as the Republican Party is concerned. Putin is a wonderful guy who has never done anything wrong, and when Trump eventually meets with him and showers him with praise (without a single word of rebuke), the Republicans will all join in the chorus praising him to the skies. This is not "Making America Great Again," this is "Making America Irrelevant." But as long as that's what their Dear Leader wants, that's what he will get from the GOP.

This is a dark day for America -- so dark, in fact, that it's hardly worth itemizing all the other embarrassments from the past week. Except one.

President Elon Musk held a cabinet meeting this week, which he graciously allowed Donald Trump to also attend. Musk did his usual schtick, in a humiliating reminder to the country of who is truly in charge at the White House. Perhaps he needed an ego boost because Tesla sales have now fallen by a whopping 45 percent in Europe?

This wasn't the most amusing Musk news of the week, however. We saved the funniest one for last, since we all could use a laugh right now. It seems somebody hacked the video screens on display at the Department of Housing and Urban Development this week, which all then started showing a little video loop generated by A.I.

The loop showed Donald Trump sucking on Elon Musk's toes.

Check it out, courtesy of the New York Times. Maybe the culprit will make another one showing Trump sucking up to Vladimir Putin soon? One can only hope....





There have been some signs of life in the Democratic Party of late, and that was even before the disgraceful display we all witnessed in the Oval Office today. This could be a direct result of the fact that Americans are paying close attention to what Trump has been doing, and want to see some stronger resistance to it from Democrats. They're showing up to town hall meetings with Republican congressmen and venting their outrage as well (which is encouraging to see). A recent poll showed that a whopping 73 percent of Democrats wanted to see more from Democratic leaders. Here is what one local Democrat had to say about what she was looking for:



Rachel Maddow took House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to task in a recent interview as well, speaking specifically of standing up to Elon Musk:



Senator Chris Murphy, who won the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week a few weeks back, is still out there fighting, and Senator Bernie Sanders is doing a barnstorming tour of America to whip up opposition to the new oligarchy as well. So we've got to hand out Honorable Mention awards to all Democrats who are at least trying to fight back.

But this week's MIDOTW goes to the governor of Maine, Janet Mills. In an event where President Trump addressed a group of governors, she was singled out by Trump for some abuse (over her state's resistance to Trump stomping on local control of education by dictating policies for schools on transgender students). Trump had apparently heard about this and asked her if she was going to comply with his orders or not. Miller tried to tactfully respond: "I'm complying with state and federal law," but Trump pushed back with a threat:



Another news story written about the exchange reported that Mills shot back: "Should be for me," in response to Trump's: "That should be a real easy one."

This is how you stand up to a bully! Get in his face. Make him lose his cool. And brush off his bluster and his threats.

For standing up to Trump in such notable fashion, Governor Janet Mills is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Maine Governor Janet Mills on her official contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]





We don't really have any Democrat who was a major disappointment this week, so instead we are going to point out one thing that was not just disappointing but downright disgraceful this week in the world of journalism.

The previously-respected Washington Post continued its descent into ignominy this week, as owner Jeff Bezos further interfered with the content of the news organization. This follows a series of equally-disgraceful actions Bezos has been making over the past few months.

Bezos called the editor of the editorial pages in and gave him new marching orders. The editorial pages would henceforth be focused on supporting "personal liberties and free markets," to the exclusion of any other viewpoints. The paper will no longer publish opposing viewpoints on those topics, Bezos demanded.

To his credit, David Shipley, the editorial page editor, immediately resigned.

This move has been condemned far and wide, since it flies in the face of independent journalism and further diminishes the Post in the world of journalism. Marty Baron, who used to be the Post's executive editor, slammed Bezos for this move this week in no uncertain terms:



One brave Post columnist (Dana Milbank) wrote at length how there is one clear enemy right now of the two ideals Bezos is dictating, that the newspaper really should be fighting:



It is more than just a little sad to see what used to be an icon of the free press descend into toadyism in such a fashion. So while we don't actually have an award for "Most Disappointing Journalistic Organization" we have to add our voice to the condemnation of Bezos turning a previously-respected news organization into a paper tiger.

For shame, Jeff. For shame.

[Waves of people have been cancelling their subscriptions to the Washington Post in protest, after each one of these moves by Bezos, so that might be one way to let them know what you think of what Bezos is doing to the paper. Just a suggestion....]




Volume 785 (2/28/25)

We can't exactly endorse it as a talking point, but we did want to at least point out one Democratic senator who had some harsh language this week for Elon Musk, after he sent out a message to all federal employees to justify what they did last week. This was such a power grab that even some Trump administration people pushed back on it, mind you. But Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota put it in possibly the most memorable way, tweeting:



As we said, some rather strong language, but then again we resorted to some strong language of our own in one talking point this week, so we certainly can understand the urge.



Those were the days...

This first one is from a New York Times article. It's included here more for the construction than what the author is specifically talking about (the fact that Elon Musk fired a bunch of people responsible for nuclear weapons maintenance and also wants to see everyone's tax info). Because it can work as a talking point for all sorts of things really: "Remember when..."





$880 billion

Democrats have been handed a gift by House Republicans. So hammer them with it!

"House Republicans are just flat-out lying to the American public about what they plan to do with next year's budget. They swear up and down that the bill they passed 'doesn't even mention Medicaid,' but that's really just an artful lie. Sure, they didn't use the actual word 'Medicaid,' but they did include a mandate to cut a whopping eight hundred and eighty billion dollars from either Medicare, Medicaid, or the children's health insurance program. That's close to a trillion dollars to slash, and it has to come from somewhere. Donald Trump keeps swearing up and down he's not going to cut Medicaid, but he's lying too. Because those cuts are in the bill. So every time a Republican lies about it to a journalist, the very next question should be: 'Well, if you're not going to cut it from Medicaid, where are you going to cut it from?' Because they simply have no answer for that one. Don't believe their lies -- they are about to slash funding for the 70-plus-million people on Medicaid, plain and simple."



Bannon's got it right, for once

It's not only Democrats who have noticed this.

"I hate to admit it, but I agree with Steve Bannon, for once. He's out there pointing out that there are, quote, 'a lot of MAGAs on Medicaid,' and he's right. This is going to hurt a whole lot of people in red states, and it's going to mean a whole lot of rural hospitals are going to close their doors. All of these people -- including millions of Trump voters -- are going to pay a very steep price, even though none of them voted for ending their own medical insurance. You think these voters are just going to somehow not notice this, even though Trump promised he wouldn't touch Medicare and Medicaid? I think it is much more likely that one Democrat's response to the vote in the House might prove to be prophetic, when she said: 'We just won back the House.' There's a reason these programs are called 'the third rail of politics,' and Republicans in the House are about to find out why, that's my guess."



Nothing to see here...

Make America Healthy Again? Hardly...

"This week in Texas, a child died from the measles. When asked about it during a cabinet meeting, R.F.K. Jr., who is in charge of the nation's health services, shrugged it off -- while getting his facts wrong. Kennedy said there were two deaths when there had only been one, and he mumbled something about quarantines, even though that's not actually happening in hospitals. And he callously called the whole thing no big deal, trying the old 'happens all the time... nothing to see here... move along' excuse. In reality, this is the first American measles death in ten years and only the first measles death of a child in 22 years. And it is happening because fewer and fewer parents are getting their children vaccinated -- the child who died was unvaccinated. In unrelated news, a meeting of scientists to plan next year's flu vaccine was cancelled this week. Who could have possibly foreseen this sort of thing happening, with an anti-vaxxer in charge of the nation's health services? Kennedy's callousness is disgraceful, but it's precisely what you'd expect from him."



Banana republic shit

Sorry for the strong language, but sometimes you have to call it what it is.

"Donald Trump, while campaigning, kept trying to accuse Joe Biden of turning America into, quote, 'a banana republic.' But in reality, it is Trump who is now doing precisely that. Just this week alone, Trump fired a whole bunch of top military brass, because he didn't think they were personally loyal to him. He also fired some others -- top-ranking military lawyers -- because they might at some point tell him his orders to the military were illegal and unconstitutional. Trump decided that he would get to pick which reporters from the White House press would get to cover him and which would be denied access -- so only people who sing his praises get to ask him questions from now on. And the White House explained a visible bruise on the back of one of Trump's hands as being caused (you just can't make this stuff up, folks) by his 'shaking hands all day, every day,' because 'Trump is a man of the people.' Trump also put out a revolting video showing his fantasy of turning the Gaza Strip into his own real estate kingdom -- complete with a 'Trump Gaza' resort. I don't know what else you'd call all of this other than banana republic shit, personally. And that's not even a complete list of all the pettiness Trump's ego has been demanding, it's just the worst from this week, folks."



Down the memory hole!

There's another term worth using as well, here.

"Or maybe you could call it 'Orwellian' -- like the news story that the inspector general's office of U.S.A.I.D. has compiled two reports on the fallout from their agency being dismantled, but that the I.G. hasn't released them -- even to Congress -- because they are too scared of how the White House will respond. The reports show that this global audit found 'security dangers, risks of widespread looting and disease' and 'heightened hunger and desperation' worldwide. The ceasefire in Gaza may even be threatened by America withdrawing from the world in such a fashion. People will die of starvation, people will die of AIDS, and this is all a wonderful gift to China in terms of spreading their influence and undermining America's throughout the world. That's what these reports found, but nobody's seen them yet because the inspector general is too afraid of being the bearer of bad news to Donald Trump. It's so much easier to just shove such bad news down the memory hole, isn't it?"



Tell it to Ronnie -- I dare you.

And finally, we end where we began.

"You know what I say to all of those Republicans who are cheering on Donald Trump's embrace of Vladimir Putin right now? I dare you to stand in front of a picture of Ronald Reagan and say the same things. Look into Ronnie's eyes while you heap praise on a Trump for sucking up to the dictator of Russia. Just imagine what he would say to you as you become an instrument of Russian propaganda. You think Reagan would approve? You think he might have some harsh words for you? So yeah -- every Republican praising Trump right now should be forced to do it to Ronnie's face, just in the hopes that some small remnant of a shred of shame still exists within them."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

February 22, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- King Trump? Um... No.

The first month of the second presidency of Donald Trump is now over. Only forty-seven more to go!

That, of course, is a daunting prospect, but we can at least open with some good news this week: Trump is already wearing out his welcome with the public. The presidential "honeymoon" period is apparently over (almost before it began). Trump started off his second term with historically dismal ratings, although they did best one previous president -- himself, in his first term. His job approval numbers were actually at 50 percent or just above when he was sworn in this time around (which, as mentioned, every other modern president has beaten), so he could at least claim a majority of the public was behind him. Not any more.

Of course, whenever Trump is faced with an unpleasant reality (like falling poll numbers), he just goes ahead and makes up a new reality in his head. He just gave a speech to a meeting of Republican governors, where he delusionally boasted: "I had an approval rating today of 71 [percent] and another one of 69. I have not heard of those numbers before." Well, there's a reason you (and everyone else) have "not heard of those numbers," and the reason is they do not exist. Trump just made them up out of thin air. His actual approval rating is roughly 25 points lower than what he claimed. Maybe he got it confused with his golf score or something.

There was even better news from the polling as well -- Elon Musk is far less popular than Trump. Also, Trump's numbers are way down on his handling of the economy. Those are two easy lines of attack for Democrats, obviously (more on that later).

Meanwhile, President (de facto) Elon Musk is still rampaging through the federal government without the slightest clue what he's doing. He began the week with what people are now calling the "Saint Valentine's Day massacre," with tens of thousands of emails going out to federal workers telling them they were fired. The firings have continued, and with such a scattershot effort, a whole lot of people are being canned who do very important jobs -- some so important that Musk has been forced to back off and immediately try to rehire the people he just fired.

People at the Federal Aviation Administration were fired -- just after yet another airline accident (which, thankfully, everyone on board survived). Food and Drug Administration employees whose jobs centered on fighting bird flu were let go -- and then hastily brought back. Musk and his minions were all set to scrap half a billion dollars' worth of COVID tests before the media broke the story and forced them to reconsider. People responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal were also summarily canned, before they attempted to rehire the same people.

Not everyone is getting rehired, though. People are being let go who work for agencies like FEMA, and the C.D.C., all the way down to the National Park Service. The effects of these firings is going to be felt by the public in various ways, of course. Government services are going to be slower and more infrequent, and harder to access for lots and lots of people. This is not making things more "efficient" -- it is doing the exact opposite. Here's the best rundown we've yet read on the many, many ways this could all go horribly wrong:

And that doesn't even mention the latest outrage -- cutting money from the fund for 9/11 survivors. The next targets in the parade of chaos might generate some blowback from Republican voters, though. The Pentagon has been told to prepare across-the-board cuts of eight percent -- every year for the next five years. If these actually happen, it would shrink the military budget by over a third. Perhaps a few GOP members of Congress might have different ideas about that? We'll see... they've been willing to go along with just about everything so far, but this might just be a bridge too far for them.

The Republican Congress has mostly ignoring what has been happening (publicly, at least, while they privately beg the White House not to slash the money going to their states and districts). But they might just be sparking some blowback of their own, because they are now working on a budget bill that would cut a whopping $880 billion from Medicaid. Even though Trump is still saying things like "Medicare, Medicaid... it's not going to be touchable." If the Republicans do pass such a Draconian cut, Democrats should point it out to the millions of Trump voters on Medicaid with the slogan: "Promises made, promises broken" (but again, more on that later).

Some Republican voters are already seriously annoyed at what Musk has been doing and how he's been doing it. Farmers, for instance, who aren't getting money they were promised from the government. One Republican House member in Georgia just got an earful at a town hall this week, even though he is from a very safe red district. People are not happy with all this "move fast and break stuff," to put it mildly.

Trump held an interview (with a friendly network) this week, and once again, there was Elon Musk at his side. It's pretty obvious who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings. Maybe Trump likes Elon so much because they both use the same technique when talking to the press: lie. Tell whoppers. Make numbers up out of thin air. Lie about all the wonderful "savings" Musk has made (with Trumpian made-up numbers which are then exaggerated even further, just for good measure). Musk claims he's saved $50 billion so far, but when the numbers are examined it turns out to be more like $4 billion. Trump then doubles down and claims "hundreds of billions" have already been saved.

The two both seem to be vying with each other as to who can be more Orwellian in their lies. The Washington Post had to already print an article translating the words Trump says into what they actually mean in plain language, and this is only going to increase over time.

This was pointed out in a rather interesting way this week by a federal judge, who is overseeing a case brought by transgender servicemembers who are accusing Trump of discrimination. The Department of Justice had to argue that all of the actions the new administration has taken are not actually "discrimination," so these people had no right to sue because none of it rose to the level of actual prejudice. Here's some of what the judge had to say:



But Judge Ana Reyes saved her most scathing comment for the homeless shelter situation. She revealed that someone had sent her an email asking if she had a relationship with Jesus Christ.



Remember when it was actually Republicans who made: "What would Jesus do?" a slogan? It's nice to see the "WWJD?" question get thrown back at them, to point out the cruelty of what has been happening.

So far, President (de facto) Musk hasn't been interested in foreign policy, so he's allowed Trump to do whatever he wants on the world stage. This, of course, has been an utter disaster from start to finish. This week it got even worse, as Trump talked to Vladimir Putin and apparently is ready to give Russia pretty much everything it wants in Ukraine.

As usual, Trump has been doing so with a blizzard of lies. He claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "started" the war (he didn't, Russia invaded) and claimed Zelensky was a "dictator" (which is not true, he was duly elected) with a "four percent" approval rating from his people (Zelensky is in the mid-to-high-50s in the polls).

The Republican Party, seeing a U.S. president appease a Russian leader, immediately rose up as one and demanded we honor our commitment to an ally and fight Russia's tyrannical land-grab, invoking the name of Ronald Reagan.

Well, no. They didn't actually do that. Mostly, they just rolled over and went along with Trump, overturning the anti-Russian stance the party has strongly held onto since World War II. Ronnie? Ronnie who? Never heard of the guy....

Meanwhile, Trump is apparently attempting to quote Napoleon ("He who saves his Country does not violate any Law" ), and not only referred to himself as a king, but posted on social media: "LONG LIVE THE KING!" The official White House tweet showed Trump with a crown on his head on a fake magazine cover. Your tax dollars at work, folks!





Democrats, for the most part, need to get up off the mat, dust themselves off, and forcefully make their case to the American people. So far, most of them have not been especially notable in their efforts to do so. But Trump is now vulnerable, in a whole bunch of ways. He and President Musk have been setting so many things on fire that they have provided multiple ways to fight back.

We do have to honor those who are getting themselves out there, though, which is why our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She has been fighting back in numerous ways, some of which have really gotten under the skin of some Trumpies.

One of which is Trump's "border czar," who tried to sic the Justice Department on A.O.C. for notifying immigrants of their rights (which is perfectly legal, by the way).

A.O.C., true to form, slapped back at both Tom Homan (the border czar) and Vice President JD Vance (for his hypocrisy in urging Europe to uphold free speech). Part of her response:



This is the type of fighting spirit Democrats are now looking for. It's not only Trump's polling numbers that are down -- Democratic voters are not very happy with the way Democrats in Congress have been acting (or "not acting," to be more accurate). Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer haven't really been very inspirational as yet, so it falls to people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to show the rest of them what taking on Trump should look like.

Which is why she is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]





It's not really disappointing, more like "a swing and a miss," but we had to at least mention House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries this week. Jeffries hasn't been all that prominent over the past month, although he occasionally does try to take potshots at Trump. But the nickname he came up with (if anyone actually notices) could actually backfire, because rather than a taunt it sounds kind of cool instead. The nickname? "Captain Chaos." Which you could easily see Trump using, with a grin on his face. Back to the drawing board, Hakeem.

We actually don't have a Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week, but in its place we're minting a new award -- the Silliest Democrat Of The Week.

See if you agree with that label -- here's the story:



Style points for making it Assembly Bill 666, we suppose. But seriously... Bigfoot? Do we really need to give the rest of the country a reason to laugh at California Democrats right now? We love a good joke too, but the timing seems incredibly bad, that's all we're saying.

So for being a poster child for "Democrats doing silly things" this week, Chris Rogers is our Silliest Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Contact California Assemblyman Chris Rogers on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 784 (2/21/25)

It is tempting to "fight fire with fire," by which we mean "use the same lies and propaganda techniques as the Republicans," but Democrats for the most part are better than that. They wouldn't, for instance, use as a talking point: "Under Donald Trump, planes are falling out of the sky!" It's not really fair and it cheapens tragedy to use it as a political weapon. So Democrats won't use it (leave it to the late-night comics, instead).

But boy, it sure is tempting, isn't it?

Instead, this week's talking points are mostly geared towards talking to Trump's own voters. They're starting to turn on him (in the polling), so now is the time to drive that wedge as deep as possible. Point out the many ways Trump is breaking the various promises he made to them. Sure, it's fine and good when Trump is attacking lefties, but what about what he's been doing to all those folks who voted for him?



Trump's only plan is to make the economy worse

This is the strongest talking point for Democrats because it is Trump's biggest vulnerability.

"Donald Trump promised everyone on the campaign trail that he would fix the economy starting on Day One. Prices would go down. Things would get cheaper. Inflation would fall to almost nothing. Well, he's had a month and so far he has done absolutely nothing about the economy. The only idea he has is to slap tariffs on everything, which will make everything more expensive, not cheaper. Meanwhile, inflation is going up again and the price of eggs is through the roof -- they used to be about a dollar a dozen and now it's more like a dollar per egg. Is housing getting cheaper? No. Are prescription drug prices going down? Nope. Gas prices are going up again too. And the only person Trump cares about is the world's richest man -- not you. Promises were made, and promises were broken. If I was a Trump voter, right about now I would be feeling ripped off. Or lied to."



Medicaid on the chopping block

Again, this is going to hurt a whole lot of Trump voters. So point it out.

"Promises made, promises broken -- like on Medicaid. Trump swore up and down he wasn't going to touch Medicaid funding. But he's cheering on the Republicans in Congress as they are slashing 880 billion dollars from Medicaid. And it's a safe bet that the Republicans are all going to claim they're just cutting 'waste, fraud, and abuse.' Which is a lie. How many of you are on Medicaid, or have a family member on Medicaid? You are nothing more than waste, to Trump. Or you're a fraudster, abusing the system. So your health insurance is going to disappear, or get more expensive at the very least. And they're also eyeing cutting the subsidies that allow working-class people to afford premiums on the Obamacare marketplace, so that's going to get a whole lot more expensive too. Trump promised he wouldn't touch Medicaid, but to him you are just 'waste' that can easily be cut. He's not fighting for you -- he's fighting to make your life worse."



Free I.V.F.! Well... maybe not....

Trump dodged this one this week, hoping that nobody was paying attention.

"Remember when Trump was campaigning and he made a promise that in vitro fertilization services would all be covered by everyone's medical insurance? He even said he'd make I.V.F. 'free' for everyone, as I recall. His exact words were: 'under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment. We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.' Well, guess what? Trump just signed an executive order that is completely toothless and doesn't even come close to fulfilling that promise. It has no mandate, either for the government or private insurance. There is no plan to bring the costs down at all, his order basically just says: 'Wouldn't it be nice if this happened?' without any actual plan to make it happen. Yet again -- promises made, promises broken."



Farmers getting ripped off

Keep hitting this one, because people out there in rural pro-Trump areas are feeling the brunt of it.

"The federal government promised farmers money to achieve certain goals. But once Donald Trump took over, they just cut off all the payments. Leaving farmers on the hook for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The promise made to pay them this money was broken, plain and simple. And if Elon Musk has his way and cuts off all foreign aid, farmers won't have that market to count on anymore either. You know, a whole lot of farmers voted for Donald Trump, and now he seems intent on just ripping them off. I have no idea why -- you'd think Trump would take care of farmers, since most of them voted for him. But they're just getting chalked up as more 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' and Trump doesn't seem to care one bit."



Keep my data private!

This one is kind of flying below the media's radar, but average people are pretty horrified by the prospect.

"You know what? Nobody elected Elon Musk to anything. And yet now he wants to see all my tax returns and other tax data, and he wants to comb through the Social Security database as well. And he doesn't care if he publicly posts classified data. The world's richest man wants to see what your tax returns look like. I don't know about you, but I am definitely not OK with that. Keep my data private! Don't let Elon trample through it with hobnailed boots! Nobody elected Elon!"



Why are they firing veterans?

This one seems to be hitting home even on Fox News. While they are free to ridicule all the other types of federal employees who are being summarily fired, there's one group -- and it's a big one -- they do seem to care about. So speak directly to that.

"Why is Elon Musk firing so many veterans? These are people who know what service to their country is all about, since they served in uniform already. And then a lot of them want to continue serving the country, so they get government jobs after they retire from the military. Thousands of them have been swept up in Musk's firing spree, for no reason whatsoever. Because the richest man in the world doesn't care about serving this country. If he did, he might have second thoughts about firing so many veterans, but he obviously doesn't. All those veterans are just 'waste, fraud, and abuse' to him."



The meat-axe comes for the Pentagon

This one is sure to make plenty of Republicans uncomfortable (if not downright angry).

"So the new secretary of Defense just told everyone in the Pentagon that they're going to have to cut one-third of the budget over the next five years. Yep, you heard that right -- they want to trim almost three hundred billion dollars a year from the military budget. Funny, but I don't remember Trump campaigning on that one. How many Republicans are really OK with this? You really think that one-third of the Pentagon's budget is 'waste, fraud, and abuse'? You really think now is the time to slash our military budget by one-third? What do you think that is going to do to our military readiness, not to mention our national security? How many Trump voters really think this is the right thing to do?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

February 15, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Real Censorship, Not Fake

It's hard, as each new week goes by, not to get distracted by all of the chaos emanating from Washington. This week, we're going to begin by connecting a few dots that really need connecting, and (so far) haven't gotten enough attention (in our humble opinion).

Before Donald Trump became president again, both he and his MAGA choir spent a lot of time decrying "censorship" and wailing about their "free speech" being somehow suppressed. This was largely due to social media sites policing their allowable content, and occasionally removing objectionable or flat-out false posts and even kicking people off their platforms.

This is not "censorship," as both we and many others pointed out, at the time. A social media company is a private entity, and what they allow or don't allow on their sites is their own business, plain and simple. Twitter was not "the public square," period. No First Amendment rights were being trampled upon by any of it.

Let's review, shall we? Here is the First Amendment, in full:

You'll note that the key word in this is the first one: Congress. In other words, the government. Doesn't say one word about what a private company can or cannot do, unless you count the fact that it guarantees the freedom of "the press" -- which is, in fact, the only mention of any private industry in the entire Constitution.

Twitter policing its own site isn't covered by any of it, to put this another way. If you wanted to change the policing practices of Twitter, you could always just buy the company and institute those changes. Coincidentally enough, Elon Musk did just that. And for all his supposed reverence for free speech, he can now just squelch anyone (or kick them off) for any speech he doesn't personally like.

Which is all completely fine, because none of it is covered by the First Amendment. What Trump and all the rest of them were annoyed about wasn't censorship, it was a made-up interpretation -- which is why we write it as "censorship," to denote that it truly isn't.

Real censorship comes when the government tries to police free speech. Which is what is happening now. As usual with Trump, the things he complains the loudest about are exactly the things he wants to do himself.

So let's review what has been happening, just in the past week. Early on, many government webpages simply disappeared. They just yanked them, because Trump disapproved of certain things they said -- mostly having to do with pointing out the existence of transgender people or any other kind of diversity (especially racial). This included even medical studies. Later in the week, a federal judge had to order the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. to restore these webpages.

The Trump White House has now kicked out the reporter from the Associated Press from their briefings and events, because the century-old organization has not changed their official style sheet to direct editors to always use "Gulf of America," rather than "Gulf of Mexico" (as everyone on the planet has been calling it for the past four hundred years). This violates both the free speech clause and the freedom of the press in the First Amendment, because it equates to the government dictating editorial policy to a press organization. One article, reporting on the decision, wrote that the press secretary "might as well have been stomping on a copy of the Bill of Rights under the lectern" while she tried to justify the White House's position.

A medical C.D.C. report was delayed (although it finally did get released) that documented new information about the spread of bird flu. This is rather ominous, because bird flu has the potential to become the next pandemic, and this seems to be a harbinger of how the White House is going to handle it: stomp on any bad news so people don't know what is going on. This isn't all that surprising, after watching Trump's anger at people like Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic (for telling the public the truth rather than Trump's personal false beliefs).

Linda McMahon, Trump's nominee to be the secretary of Education, could not say during her Senate confirmation hearing whether schools would be allowed to teach lessons about Black History Month. Alongside making trans people disappear in government documents, they've also been scrubbing any mention of race they can find. And, obviously, teaching a Black History Month lesson is going to discuss race, in some way or another. So she wasn't sure it that would be allowed.

Donald Trump kicked everyone he didn't like off the board of the Kennedy Center, and then named himself their new head. This is all so he can decide what artists are allowed to perform and which aren't. Nothing quite says government censorship like the president of the United States deciding whether artists praise their Dear Leader enough, eh? And we certainly can't have any representations of gay people or any diversity whatsoever. This move was just stunning for its pettiness, really.

All mentions of a $400 million contract with Tesla (to build armored vehicles for the military) were scrubbed from a State Department document. Hmmm... wonder if Elon Musk had anything to do with that, after reporters have been asking him about conflicts of interest....

Massive databases from the U.S. Census disappeared online briefly, before also being restored. This is data about the public that is used in countless ways by all sorts of organizations (both governmental and private), and sent a shock of fear throughout those who rely on it. Here's how the Washington Post started their article reporting on this worrisome development:



And finally -- and perhaps most egregiously -- transgender people were sent down the memory hole by the National Park Service, on their site for the Stonewall Uprising National Monument. Which is more than a little problematic, since trans activists were leading the uprising. As the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative wrote, condemning the erasure:



Remember all the angst from Trump and his followers about "liberals rewriting history" by taking Confederate heroes' names off of things like U.S. military bases? Remember them insisting: "It is part of our history -- you can't just erase it!"? Well, turns out erasing things from history is just fine, at least in some instances. They've even tried to erase them from the acronym, in fact:



Demonstrators gathered today at the site with signs saying things like: "You can't spell history without a T."

Twitter kicking an objectionable post or a user off their site is not censorship. This is censorship, plain and simple (and quite Orwellian). "We don't approve of you, so we are just going to erase you from history." Couldn't get any plainer, really. It is (for now) still allowable to mention "L.G.B. civil rights" (even though nobody uses this truncated acronym), but who knows? Tomorrow we might just decide to get rid of one more letter from it. After all, when you start throwing things from history down the memory hole, it's easy to get carried away.

This has all happened in the past week, mind you. And it doesn't even count things like the Trump administration pulling funding from schools because they have COVID vaccine mandates (which is a different sort of censorship, and also puts the lie to the claim that Republicans revere local control of schools above all else).

This isn't the only way they're going to do exactly what they've been upset about for decades, now. Here's another reaction (which also points out the Orwellian nature of all this) to the upcoming changes at the Department of Education (emphasis in original):



No explanation has been given as to how the Department of Education is now going to police patriotic education and vaccine schedules if it completely disappears -- which is a stated goal of the Trump administration as well. They'll cross that bridge when they blow it up, we suppose.

Speaking of doing things they once hated, Trump and his followers have been ranting about how liberals force everybody to use idiotic terms, but that "Gulf of Mexico" idiocy apparently didn't go far enough for some. One enterprising Republican has now introduced a bill to Congress to rename "Greenland" as "Red, White, And Blueland." You just couldn't make this stuff up if you tried, folks.

Trump has been getting more and more pushback from federal judges, who have been issuing stays and other rulings blocking some of the worst things Trump has attempted to do. In the past week alone, here is what federal judges have done:

Blocked Elon Musk's minions from sensitive Treasury Department files and computer systems.

Slapped down Trump's attempts to ignore a previous order ending Trump's freeze on all federal grants and payments (also upheld by an appeals court ruling, signifying this one might get to the Supreme Court first).

Blocked (yet again, as multiple judges have now done so) Trump's rewriting of the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Blocked slashing funding for the N.I.H.

Ordered the CDC and the FDA to restore websites with valuable medical information.

Blocked Trump's trans healthcare bans for children.

Reinstated a government watchdog who had been summarily fired by Trump.

This last one included a sharp message from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who wrote of the illegal firing of Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel (an "agency that enforces whistleblower protections and political corruption laws" ) the following:



The Washington Post has a page up now that tracks the current status of key lawsuits against the Trump administration, but it doesn't list all of them.

Things have gotten so bad that the American Bar Association posted a statement titled: "The ABA Supports The Rule Of Law." It does not mince words denouncing what has been going on:



As if to prove their point, this week Trump directed the halt of all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and told New York City Mayor Eric Adams he wouldn't have to go to trial before the next election. Making bribery great again! Woo hoo!





Senator Chris Murphy has never exactly been our idea of a firebrand. He's one of those politicians who usually is pretty calm and restrained in what he says, meaning he's also a senator most people have never even heard of. But this week, he was a lot more visible and a lot more intense in his tone, and for that -- for being out there fighting the good fight, one might say -- Murphy is the winner of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

Murphy appeared on the Sunday political shows (and made other television appearances) and strongly stood up for how dangerous the concept of Trump ignoring the rule of law truly is. This was after several hints from Trump, Elon Musk, and Vice President JD Vance that the easiest thing for them to do might be to just ignore court rulings that they don't like.

Murphy pushed back, hard:



In a separate interview with the Washington Post, Murphy encouraged other Democrats to start naming names instead of just vaguely speaking of "billionaires."



While many other Democratic politicians have been notable mainly for being completely absent from the conversation over what is happening, Murphy seems to have stepped up (and in a big way). Since we would sincerely like to encourage some other Democrats to do so as well, Murphy is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Senator Chris Murphy on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





Um... all the Democrats who haven't been giving interviews on television?

(Sigh.)

Snark aside, we have to give the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams is now about as compromised as a politician can get. He was facing charges of bribery, but these charges were then dropped by Attorney General Pam Bondi -- which caused the resignation of multiple people in the prosecutors' office as a direct result. These are the first of what is likely to be many such resignations, in the face of Trump and Bondi doing exactly what they said they hated: weaponizing the Department of Justice against their political enemies.

Adams, of course, is a Democrat. But he has been saying nice things about Trump pretty much ever since he was charged with bribery, and it paid off. But now he will be forced to knuckle under to Trump's crackdown on immigration, or face the charges suddenly being revived (they were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning the case can start up again at any time).

Almost immediately, Team Trump yanked back over $80 million that had already been deposited in N.Y.C.'s bank accounts, because it was supposed to pay for the housing of immigrants.

So what is Adams going to do? Fight back? Hardly. He is now under the thumb of Trump and (as we said) about as compromised as a politician can get.

Which is why he's also our winner for the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. He could have easily avoided all of this, as the prosecutors did: by resigning, rather than participating in a nakedly partisan manipulation of the legal system, but he didn't. He stuck around, and now he will forever be seen as nothing more than a Trump lackey for doing so.

[Contact New York City Mayor Eric Adams on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 783 (2/14/25)

Another mixed bag of a week, and that's without even commenting on all the censorship detailed at the start of this column.

We did throw in the most amusing thing we've heard in quite a while at the end, just to leave everyone with a smile on their faces. Enjoy!



Trump looks small next to President Elon

This was just bizarre, when you get right down to it.

"Donald Trump got miffed that Time magazine ran a cover showing Elon Musk behind the presidential Resolute desk. So he held a press conference with Musk, where Trump was pointedly sitting behind the desk while Elon stood a few steps in the background. But the whole thing just backfired on Trump, because it was 'President Musk' who did most of the talking to the press, and Trump just sat there looking small and weak, while Musk's young son picked his nose in front of him. If Trump is smart, he won't stage this sort of thing again, because all it did was reinforce the fact that Elon is truly the one in charge in the Oval Office."



Inflation is up

OK, sure -- the January numbers aren't quite fair, since Joe Biden was president for two-thirds of the month. Nevertheless, this drum needs beating as relentlessly as Democrats can manage, so why not start now?

"Did you see that inflation is going up again? Prices are up for gas, for groceries, and for used cars. The price of eggs went up by over 15 percent in one month -- which all American consumers are seeing at the grocery store. And what has Trump done to get prices down? Absolutely nothing. He promised he'd bring everyone's prices down starting on Day One, but here we are almost a month out and he still hasn't lifted a finger -- because he has no idea what to do. His only answer is to threaten the rest of the world with tariffs -- which will do nothing more than drive prices even higher for American consumers. When Trump told the voters he'd bring prices down, it was nothing more than a big fat lie, folks."



;$500 million in food rotting away

This should really be universally condemned.

"Trump likes to talk about 'waste' in government spending, but he is currently overseeing almost half a billion dollars in food rotting away in warehouses rather than being given to starving people worldwide -- right after firing the guy that had the temerity to point this massive waste out to the public. Because President Musk decided to attack U.S.A.I.D., all of these shipments have been halted. This has left tons and tons of food just wasting away inside warehouses worldwide. While people starve. Because the food can't be distributed to them. This isn't just waste -- it is downright inhumane and cruel. But that's what Trump wanted, so that's what he got. This is food paid for by your tax dollars, folks, and it should be criminal how Trump is just wasting it all."



Screwing farmers and consumers

We wrote about what's been going on with farmers (and what Democrats should say about it) at length earlier this week, if anyone's interested.

"President Elon and Donald Trump are not stopping waste, fraud, and abuse -- instead they are busy screwing over farmers and consumers. Farmers are not getting payments they had been promised, and Musk hasn't even gotten around to gutting the Department of Agriculture yet. Maybe he'll just halt all farm subsidies, on a whim -- who knows? At this point it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Meanwhile, President Musk wants to turn his social media site into a bank, so he eviscerated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- the agency that protects people from banks and bank fees and banking scams. So rather than getting rid of 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' Musk is instead eliminating those who police the waste, fraud, and abuse of American consumers. All so he can make a buck, without any oversight at all. Bring on the fraud and abuse, because there is no cop on that beat anymore, thanks to Elon Musk."



Screwing the poor and working class

This is going to be a bigger deal in the next few weeks, but why not start early?

"Republicans in Congress are finally putting together their budget ideas. They can be summed up as 'screw the poor, screw the working class, screw the middle class -- because we've got to give tons and tons of tax breaks to the ultra-rich.' They like to talk about 'fiscal responsibility' but their tax cutting plans are going to blow a gigantic hole in the deficit and national debt. They're going to try to paper this over with pretend math, but don't get fooled. To pay for some of it, they're going to attack Medicaid and other programs that are a lifeline to working class families. Millions of people who voted for Trump are about to get paid back by having their healthcare snatched away from them -- all so Elon Musk can get a big tax break."



About as well as you'd expect

Speaking of giving things away....

"Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have entered into negotiations with Russia's Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, and it's going about as well as you'd expect. Which is to say, they're already caving to Russian demands -- before the negotiations even begin. Trump couldn't even say if Ukraine should be involved in the talks when asked about it this week. He's just going to sit down with his buddy Putin and give him everything he wants. Hegseth went even further, telling Putin it's really just a matter of how much Ukrainian territory Russia will wind up with. Which, as I said, is pretty much exactly what everyone expected was going to happen, with Trump being in Putin's pocket."



Where do we sign?!?

And finally, a bit of comic relief to end on here.

"There's a petition in Denmark with over 250,000 signatures on it already, for their country to go ahead and buy California for a trillion dollars. As they put it in their petition: 'Most people say we have the best freedom. Colossal freedom.' Sounds pretty good, right? This is in response to Trump coveting Greenland, of course, but speaking as a Californian, I have to say: Where do we sign? They're offering universal healthcare for all, 'fact based politics,' and a lifetime supply of Danish pastries to boot! I mean, what's not to love?!?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

February 8, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- President "Nobody Elected Elon!" Musk

We aren't even three weeks in to the administration of President Elon Musk, and already he has instituted an ideological purge the likes of which America has not seen since the time of Senator Joe McCarthy. Except this time they're not rooting out communists (or suspected communists, or communist sympathizers) but instead just "people they don't like." Or maybe "people who have pissed off Elon" -- that's probably closer to the reality of it.

Musk -- and to a lesser extent President (de jure) Donald Trump -- don't really care what laws they break or what parts of the Constitution they have to ignore, they're on a crusade to terrorize all federal workers (and anyone else who gets in their way) in this ideological purge.

People in government jobs are indeed terrified. Mass firings have already happened, and will continue. People are getting singled out for the ideological "crime" of (in one case personally known to us) merely adding to their email signatures in the past the pronouns they prefer -- even if they're the same pronouns they've used since birth.

Government services are being halted in all sorts of areas. Information is being censored on government websites and in scientific and medical reports. American foreign aid -- things like feeding starving people and providing life-saving medical care -- has all but stopped. This will leave an enormous vacuum in developing countries that China will be happy to step into. American interests are being harmed, but Musk doesn't care.

This all seems rather familiar, Michelle Goldberg pointed out in the New York Times this week, in perhaps the best commentary to date on what President Musk is doing:

We're already far into "chaos and instability" back here at home, with teenagers and early-20s tech buddies of President Musk taking control of vast government computer systems and agencies. One of these aides was just forced to resign because some seriously racist comments by him were uncovered -- but Vice President JD Vance is now arguing that he should be forgiven and re-hired, since racism isn't a disqualifier in the Musk administration (just "wokeism" ).

It's hard to even keep track of the scope of the destruction, and we're not even at the end of the third week yet. Here's the best roundup that we've yet seen of all the chaos and illegality that has so far taken place:



Here's another good rundown, just of the laws that the Musk administration has so far broken:



Since President Musk is doing all the heavy lifting, Donald Trump is left to stage "performance art pretending to be foreign policy." He is pretending he is in charge of everything, pretending to score victory after victory, all while the rest of the world either scratches its head in confusion, recoils in horror, or laughs long and loud that America would allow such an ignorant clown to lead them once again.

First, Trump pretended to levy tariffs on all products coming in from Mexico and Canada. Then, in a stunning turnaround, he decided not to. Both Mexico and Canada reacted in the same way -- by offering "concessions" that they either had already agreed to (while Joe Biden was still president) or were already in the process of doing anyway. Trump caved (or "got played," take your pick), plain and simple. But he got to pretend to be a tough guy for a couple of days, which is the only thing he really cares about.

Then Trump sent Marco Rubio down to Panama to pretend to threaten them over the Panama Canal. Rubio later announced that Panama had "agreed to no longer charge fees for U.S. government vessels to transit the Panama Canal. This saves the government millions of dollars a year." Except, you know, he was just pretending. Panama's leader shot back: "I am very taken aback by yesterday's news release from the [U.S.] State Department. They are making important statements from the entity that controls U.S. foreign affairs based on a falsehood, and that's intolerable."

You would think it would be, wouldn't you? But pretending to be tough is much more important than reality. Trump then decided things hadn't gotten outrageously divorced from reality enough, and he announced that America would be taking ownership of the Gaza Strip, expelling all the Palestinians who live there, bulldozing it flat, building a "Riviera in the Middle East," and handsomely profiting off the whole deal. Oh, and if the (close to two million) Palestinians didn't want to leave, then the U.S. military would eject them by force. Can't forget that part of it, can we?

This was so insane the only person who went along with it was Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. Later, the White House tried to walk back Trump's idiocy by stating that U.S. troops would not be used in Gaza and American taxpayers wouldn't be footing the bill for reconstructing it, but Trump apparently didn't get this memo and proceeded to double down on the idea on social media.

The disconnect between Trump's fantasy view of the world and reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Except now, the entire government and the state-run media channels (Fox News, we are looking at you) will back him up to the hilt. "What beautiful new clothes the Emperor is wearing!" they all enthusiastically gush, in what can only be called North Korean-levels of sycophancy (and Dear Leader idolization).

This is not going to end well, obviously. As just one example, let's take a look at one thing Trump pretended to do which ended not so much "badly" as "insanely." Trump was annoyed at the fires in California, because he has deluded himself into believing that there is a "giant valve" somewhere in California which controls the flow of water (from the whole Pacific Northwest, which is even more insane) that the state government refused to turn on (or "turn it towards Southern California" ) and thus all that water drains out to the Pacific Ocean where it is useless, when it could instead be used to fight fires. Got all that?

None of this is true, mind you. But Trump insisted that it was, and tried to take command of the situation. He ordered that the valves be turned on (any valves, anywhere) so he could see some beautiful images of water flowing. He bragged that now Southern California was getting lots of water.

That was Trump's insane view. But it wasn't even remotely connected to reality. Senator Alex Padilla pointed this out on social media:



Senator Adam Schiff posted his reaction:



Eventually, the farmers who were affected by all of this convinced their Republican representatives to talk the White House down. The water release was cut back from "maximum" to only one-third, and then was halted altogether. But they still support Trump, of course, because even when your own livelihood is on the line, pretending is so much more fun than facing reality:



So far, the only good news in all this frenzy of malfeasance has come from the multiple federal judges which have stepped in to halt some of the most egregious actions President Musk and all his underlings have been attempting. Just today one more judge stepped up and halted the firing of thousands of employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was the first such government entity targeted by President Musk. He reportedly wanted to fire over 10,000 employees and leave only 300, but today it was announced that a whopping 600 will get to stay. All over the world, health clinics and food deliveries to starving people have been halted, and all overseas employees told to return home within weeks.

This was somewhat of a mystery, really. Republicans have long hated the idea of foreign aid (even though it is only one percent of the federal budget), but who would have thought this was first on the chopping block? One explanation has emerged, however: the inspector general's office of U.S.A.I.D. had previously announced an investigation into one of Musk's businesses. Now it all begins to make more sense.

Everyone was so worried, before the new regime took power, about who was on Donald Trump's enemies list (since he had been promising "vengeance" against them). Turns out the more important thing to worry about was who was on President Elon Musk's enemies list.

Which, of course, nobody voted for.





Democrats seem to be slowly waking up to the crisis erupting all around them, but so far their response hasn't been all that impressive. The only truly impressive Democrats right now are those that are now suing the administration in courts across the country, and getting judges to at least halt all the "bull in a china shop" damage that President Musk and his underling Donald Trump have been doing.

So for now, we're not going to award a Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Maybe next week someone will emerge as a strong voice against all the chaos and destruction, but so far all we've got are a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out this week.

The first goes to Ken Martin, who won the election to lead the Democratic National Committee. Good luck, Ken! You've got a tough job in front of you, that's for sure.

Next, both California senators deserve credit for pushing back on Trump's insane "let's just turn on some valve somewhere so I can get a photo of water flowing" idiocy (see above).

Ro Khanna deserves credit for reacting to the breaking news that Elon Musk is now going to rehire the kid who posted racist stuff in the past, because "to err is human, to forgive divine" (yes, Musk really said that).

The employee, who resigned when his shameful past was exposed, had previously:



But after JD Vance -- who is married to an Indian-American -- said the kid should be rehired, Elon Musk agreed. So Khanna posted a question to Vance:



And finally, from the "coming up with cutesy acronyms" file, we have a good one this week:



Heh. Good one. Honorable Mentions all around!





Again, we can't really single out any truly disappointing Democrat this week. So for the first time possibly ever (?), we're going to have to go completely award-less this week, it seems.

Senator John Fetterman came close to winning the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week, by being the only Democrat to cross the aisle and vote to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general. But he mitigated this later on by announcing -- much to the disappointment of Republicans -- that he would in fact be voting against Tulsi Gabbard and R.F.K. Jr. So we decided he only earned a (Dis-)Honorable Mention this week, and we'll have to put the MDDOTW award back on the shelf until next week.




Volume 782 (2/7/25)

There's a theme running through this week's talking points, and indeed throughout all of this week's column. See if you can guess what his name is... (heh).



Nobody Elected Elon!

This seems like a great slogan for Democrats to rally behind. Elon Musk is not a popular guy and he is getting even less popular by the day. So hit him hard -- it's working.

"You know what? Nobody elected Elon Musk to anything. His name appeared on no ballot last November. And yet, this multibillionaire has been given a free hand to take a wrecking ball to the federal government. He is trying to destroy U.S.A.I.D. because they had the temerity to investigate his Starlink company -- this is all personal to him, folks. His twentysomething minions are busy accessing everyone's tax returns, everyone's Social Security number, everyone's health information, and lots of other classified information stored in government databases. When you get your tax return check this year, remember that Elon Musk can access exactly how much it was. This despite him not being elected to any office whatsoever. I don't know about you, but I don't want some billionaire to have my private information. Nobody elected Elon!"



President Musk

Just to get under Trump's skin....

"Nobody elected Elon, but Donald Trump has obviously abdicated all his power to President Musk. It's not Trump who is firing all those people -- it's President Musk. It's not Trump who is trampling through secure databases, it is President Musk's minions. I don't know what we should now call Trump -- PINO? President-In-Name-Only? We've already got a vice president, so maybe 'Assistant President Trump'? Because it is pretty obvious who is pulling the strings here and who is the puppet. So we should just admit the new reality and address him as 'President Musk' from now on, since (de facto) that is what he has become."



Vote to disband yourselves

We wrote about this at more length earlier this week.

"The Republican Congress is apparently ceding all power to Trump. He is running roughshod over their constitutional power of the purse, but rather than pushing back they are cheering him on. It matters not what federal laws are broken -- or even parts of the Constitution itself -- they're all fine with it. Sooner or later they're going to realize that if Trump ignores their laws and budgets, that they might as well just vote to hand over all their legislative powers to Trump and be done with it. They can hold one vote, disband Congress, and all go home and relax. Because there's simply no point in them being there if Trump is just going to ignore everything they do, while they cheer him on."



America first?

Remember? The slogan Trump's whole political brand is built around?

"Donald Trump promised 'America first' and that he would avoid foreign wars and bring peace to the world. Really -- that's what he ran on, remember? But ever since he got back in office, he's been itching to send the U.S. military somewhere on the planet to seize something or another, just because Trump wants it. Now he wants to use them to commit the war crime of ethnic cleansing by expelling all the Palestinians from Gaza. You'll have to forgive me, because I certainly don't remember that being something Trump ran on in his campaign. How many wars is Trump going to get America into, folks? I mean, if you had to pick the one place in the world where we'd be in the middle of an endless war, it'd have to be Palestine. That's not what Trump sold to the voters -- not by a long shot."



"NO! Put it DOWN!"

Once again, let's see if we can get under Trump's notoriously thin skin, shall we?

"Any parent can recognize Donald Trump's approach to the rest of the world, because all parents have had to instruct their toddlers about the basic concept: 'That is not yours.' You cannot just grab things that don't belong to you and call them your own. How would you feel if others grabbed your toys and said they weren't yours but theirs? You cannot just grab stuff you like. If it is not yours, then you have to put it down. And yet our toddler-in-chief thinks he can just grab Canada, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal, or the Gaza Strip just because he wants them. To him I echo the words of every parent everywhere: "NO, Donny! Put that DOWN! That DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU!'"



Bringing government efficiency to the judiciary

It's ironic, isn't it?

"President Musk and PINO Donald Trump are attempting to achieve 'government efficiency' all over the federal government. One place where they are having some notable successes is in the judiciary. Normally, federal court cases take quite a long time before decisions are made, but the blitzkrieg of illegal actions has forced federal judges to move very quickly. They are issuing orders to stop the worst of the new regime's constitutional excesses in multiple courtrooms. They've halted the ending of birthright citizenship, the spending freeze Musk wanted to impose on all federal spending, the destruction of U.S.A.I.D., and the list grows longer each week. So congratulations, President Elon, you are indeed bringing some real efficiency and quick action from the federal judiciary!"



Eggs keep going up

This should be a constant refrain from Democrats, really.

"Did you see that Waffle House is now charging a 50-cent surcharge on every egg you order? You know, for all the smoke and mirrors coming out of Washington, I still haven't heard a single thing that is going to bring down prices on anything. So to all those voters who voted for Donald Trump to bring down the price of eggs -- what has he done for you lately? Hmmm? Think about that, next time you order at Waffle House."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

February 1, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Meritocracy? Don't Make Me Laugh.

We begin today with an apology and a solicitation for donations. Our apology is for perhaps not doing as thorough a job of reviewing the past week as we normally do, because last night instead of doing our homework we instead watched the FireAid benefit concert for the victims of the recent Los Angeles fires. If you missed it, at least check out the fireaidla.org site, where you can donate to the cause if you wish. It was quite a show, and well worth watching (note: this review contains only a partial list of the performers...):

Sadly, there was yet another tragedy this week to focus on as well, as a commercial airplane crashed into a military helicopter just shy of the runway at National Airport in Washington. And before most of the bodies had even been pulled out of the icy waters of the Potomac River, President Trump offered his words of mourning and tried to pull the country together. For a few seconds, that is. Then he reverted to who he is, in a seriously ugly way:



Of course, as with just about everything Trump utters, the claims he made were either completely made-up or just flat-out lies. Trump specifically spoke of one program he blamed on Democratic presidents to hire disabled people as air traffic controllers... which was actually begun during Trump's first term. Here's the truth of the matter:



There were plenty of other things requiring fact-checking in Trump's remarks, to the surprise of just about no one. Today, even one brave Republican was contradicting Trump:



We had intended to directly highlight some of Trump's odious remarks during his press availability yesterday, but for some strange reason (as of this writing) the transcript hasn't been posted on the White House website yet. Maybe they're actually ashamed of it? Nah... probably just more incompetence....

Democrats are pushing back on Trump as well:



One Democrat neatly flipped the issue on the Republicans. Because after all, if we're supposed to be a "meritocracy," then how do they explain Trump's cabinet choices?



This week started out with Trump attempting to banish "woke" from the federal government in a different way -- one that is precipitating a constitutional crisis. In a very ham-fisted way, the Office of Management and Budget tried to just halt all payments the federal government makes. Well, not "all" -- direct payments (Social Security checks, etc.) were supposed to continue, but everything else was supposed to go on "temporary pause" while Trump and his minions worked to weed out any dastardly D.E.I. initiatives and other left-wing influences on federal spending. This went about as well as you can expect from team Trump, which is to say "total chaos immediately ensued."

Nobody had any clue what would be covered and what wouldn't, which put such programs as Meals On Wheels (to name just one) at risk of halting all operations. The Medicaid site for processing payments went offline. The Air Force tried to yank videos from training which described the Tuskegee Airmen (since it's pretty hard to talk about them and not mention racism).

Minutes before the pause was scheduled to take effect -- only one day after a two-page memo created it -- a federal judge blocked it. So the next day, the White House seemed to reverse course, issuing another memo which rescinded the first memo. But then they insisted that their plans were still going forward, it wasn't the policy but just the memo that had been rescinded. This made no sense whatsoever, so a second judge stepped in to prevent the White House from trying some sort of legal end-run.

Trump then made an appearance where he just made stuff up, in an effort to claim the whole thing had been a great success. He claimed -- without an iota of evidence -- that they had stopped $50 million from being sent to buy "condoms, for Hamas." Nobody had any clue what he was talking about, since this program does not actually exist.

As mentioned, this is all teeing up a constitutional confrontation, over a law Congress passed in reaction to Richard Nixon which spells out how presidents must spend the money Congress apportions -- whether they approve of the spending or not. Trump is trying to create some sort of constitutional right to "impound" money he doesn't want to spend, which does not actually exist in the U.S. Constitution (which clearly and unequivocally gives Congress the so-called power of the purse).

In the meantime, the White House is also apparently trying to halt all medical research and sharing of knowledge. For good measure, Trump fired over a dozen inspectors general, so he can put some bootlicking toadies in instead. These firings broke the law, but Trump simply doesn't care about such niceties.

This flurry of incompetence and anti-science spurred conservative writer David Brooks to write a New York Times column devoted to stupidity. Here's how it begins:



It's actually a very comprehensive look at Trumpian stupidity all around, and well worth reading.

The continuing frenzy of White House activity finally spurred some Democrats into action. Not immediate action, mind you, but they finally did get their act together to push back on Trump's blanket funding freeze. However, statements from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer aren't all that exciting, meaning Democrats still have a ways to go in terms of upping their game to counter Trump.

Teed up for tomorrow (the use of a golf metaphor there is intentional, since Trump will be taking the weekend off) are new tariffs: 25 percent on Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on China. Which will only serve to institute a "Trump tax" for American consumers, of course.

We also had Senate hearings this week on three of the most unqualified of Trump's nominees -- Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Junior. They all went about as well as you'd expect, which is to say "disastrously." The current scuttlebutt is that Patel will almost certainly be confirmed, but that some Republicans are urging Trump to withdraw Gabbard so they don't have to vote her down themselves. Kennedy could make it through or could be derailed; his nomination still seems up in the air.

The purges, meanwhile, have already begun. Even though Kash Patel swore under oath that no political retribution would happen at the F.B.I., senior officials there have been given ultimatums to quit or be fired next week. This is already going on at the Department of Justice as well. Anyone seen as even remotely anti-Trump is being handed their walking papers.

After all, it's not like there are a bunch of inspectors general overseeing the process anymore, right?





Senator Bernie Sanders did provide a little amusement this week during the hearing of Robert F. Kennedy Junior, by displaying two anti-vaccine babies' "onesies" and grilling Kennedy over whether he supported the message on them or not. "Are you supportive of these onesies?" is a sentence we would be willing to bet has never before been uttered in a Senate confirmation hearing.

But we're going to hand our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week instead to an Iowa Democrat who just pulled off a rather stunning upset. Mike Zimmer just won a special election for a state legislative seat in a district that overwhelmingly went for Trump. Here's the story:



Zimmer reportedly "ran on his own background as a teacher," and "kept it local, not about Trump." Which proved to be a winning formula. So for giving Democrats across the country a little optimism in dark times, we have to say Mike Zimmer was indeed the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[State Senator-Elect Mike Zimmer has no official contact page yet, as he has not been sworn into office, so you'll have to wait until that happens if you would like to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





This is really a footnote to an older story, so we'll be quick. Robert "Gold Bar Bob" Menendez was sentenced in federal court this week to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes and selling his own influence to a foreign power while chairing a national security committee in the Senate, making him a shoo-in for the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week once again.

Apparently the American system of justice still works to root out some political corruption -- that's the best takeaway of the whole sordid mess, really.

Oh, and a further footnote, for those of you wondering who would win the bidding war for Kyrsten Sinema, now that she's retired from the Senate, the answer is: cryptocurrency! We had "pharmaceutical companies" on our own Bingo card, we have to admit, but it simply wasn't to be -- the crypto bros apparently had more money to stuff her pockets with.

[Bob Menendez is now a private citizen (soon to be a federal prisoner), and it is our policy not to provide contact information for such folks, sorry.]




Volume 781 (1/31/25)

A mixed bag of talking points this week. And we couldn't even squeeze in one more, so we leave it for readers to make their own talking point: people who live in Greenland were just polled and a whopping 85 percent of them have no interest in becoming part of the United States. Which isn't really too surprising, really.

In any case, here are this week's offerings. As always, use responsibly!



Trump tax approaching

Democrats need to hammer this idea constantly.

"Donald Trump swore up and down that somehow he'd bring the prices down for everything Americans buy. It's been two weeks, though, and what has he actually done? Are eggs back to a dollar a dozen again? And average American families can now expect to see grocery prices go even higher, now that Trump is about to slap huge tariffs on Canada and Mexico. This new 'Trump tax' will not -- as Trump doesn't seem to understand -- be paid for by foreign governments. In fact, the Trump tax will be paid for by you and me and every other American who buys things. Every American voter should ask themselves while at the checkout line: 'Why is Trump making things more expensive, when he promised the opposite?'"



Trump halted Medicaid

Only for a day, but it's still fair game.

"This week Trump caused the Medicaid payment site to go dark. Millions upon millions of Americans rely on Medicaid, including a fair number of people who voted for Donald Trump. But he didn't care -- he just picked up an axe and started slashing away, without ever giving a single thought to who would be affected by it. Trump is dangerously incompetent, and Medicaid going dark is just the most obvious proof of this."



Have some respect and decency!

Trump is always at his worst in a crisis, as we were reminded this week.

"Donald Trump could have said some comforting words to the families of the victims of this week's air disaster, but instead he insisted on pointing the finger of blame everywhere he could think of. This is not leadership. I mean, does Donald Trump even understand words like 'decency' or 'respect'? He could have waited to inject politics into a tragedy for no reason at least until the dead had been given proper burials -- but he didn't. He didn't care about the suffering of the families and friends left behind, because that is who he is. It's disgraceful and disrespectful and Americans should be shocked and disgusted by it all."



Meritocracy? Oh, please....

We have to give credit to Senator Raphael Warnock for this one (credit where credit is due...).

"Trump keeps talking about how he wants America to be a 'meritocracy,' where only the best people get hired. But have you taken a look at his cabinet choices? Meritocracy? Don't make me laugh. What qualifies Robert F. Kennedy Junior to be in charge of health care for America? What qualifies Tulsi Gabbard to be in charge of the intelligence services? What qualifies any of these clowns for the jobs Trump has appointed them to? The only qualification Trump cares about is loyalty to Trump. So please... don't even try to use the word meritocracy, because that is nothing more than a sad joke in the Trump administration."



War on science

This is happening in a number of ways, but it really needs a catchy label.

"Donald Trump has apparently declared war on science. He is halting medical studies, restricting doctors from publicly sharing data, and ending all grants to science groups. He pulled out of the World Health Organization and will not let government doctors participate in any conferences or meetings on deadly diseases. He must really hate people who are smarter than him, or something. Or maybe it's because everyone didn't tell him what a genius he was back when he was suggesting injecting bleach to cure COVID. He's putting a total nutjob in charge of the federal health services, who has no clue how Medicare and Medicaid actually work. What could possibly go wrong with any of this? Trump's war on science is truly the height of stupidity."



Death penalty for drug dealers, except the ones he pardons

This is pretty disgraceful, but that's about par for Trump's course.

"Remember when Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he wanted to bring back the federal death penalty for drug dealers who caused deaths? Well, the first thing Trump did was to completely reverse course and instead issue a full pardon for a man serving a life sentence in prison for causing multiple deaths, by selling heroin and cocaine and other illegal drugs online. A mother of one of the people who died reacted to Trump's pardon with shock: 'He talks about immigrants coming here to the States, bringing drugs to the U.S., but yet he pardons this individual that was sentenced for life in prison back in 2015. I really don’t understand.' And yet Republicans all seem just fine with this pardon. So much for all that 'law and order' nonsense, eh?"



Trump invades California!

Another one for the "too stupid to be even remotely believable" file...

"Donald Trump bragged this week that he sent the U.S. military to invade California. No, really! He posted on social media: 'The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER.' Um... no. Just: no. The California Department of Water Resources had to explain: 'The military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful.' So no matter how much Trump may fantasize about sending the Marines to invade California, nothing of the sort actually happened."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 25, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Out-Of-Control Eggflation!

In just about every presidential election, the political punditry tries to frame what happened in it in the easiest possible way, sometimes pinning a win or loss on a certain demographic slice of the electorate (remember "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads"?) and sometimes putting the focus on a single oversimplified issue. One of the big themes in this regard for the last election was the price of eggs. True to form, they even slapped a cutesy label on it: voters were angry about "eggflation."

Which is why we sincerely hope that Donald Trump is asked about it as often as possible -- say, once a week, at a minimum -- now that he is president again. Because for all his promises, eggflation is going to be a very tough problem for him to solve.

During Trump's first term, the average national price of a dozen large eggs mostly hovered around a dollar. There were two upward spikes which rose above $2.50 per dozen (but stayed below $3.00), one of which happened at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joe Biden saw things get worse. When inflation spiked to nine percent, the price of eggs also spiked, to over $5.00 per dozen. This did fall right back down again (to once again hover around a single dollar per dozen), but then it started rising again at the end of 2023.

This month, eggs hit an all-time high. The average price of a dozen large eggs is now $6.55. And over $2 of this spike happened after Trump's election. That's where we are, at the start of his second term. And the current spike could go even higher quite soon, which would mean consumers would continue paying many multiples of the dollar-a-dozen prices they had previously been used to, for the foreseeable future. That's if they can even find eggs to buy, as it has become a rather common sight to see supermarkets with empty egg shelves and signs saying: "Sorry, no eggs today."

Democrats would do well to prod the media into asking Trump about this as often as possible: "Why haven't egg prices come down like you promised?" Because it is currently the best example of the difference between what he promised on the campaign trail and what he is actually focused on now that he's in office. For all the populist talk, Trump is much more interested in keeping his billionaire buddies happy. He really does not care how much eggs cost average Americans.

Of course, there's a reason for this spike in egg prices (and decline in availability). It's called "bird flu" (H1N1), and although it is not all that well-known to the public (as of now), it is already decimating the flocks of laying hens that produce America's eggs. It's basic economics: fewer birds laying eggs means a drop in supply, which means higher prices. And when farmers are being forced to kill their entire flocks because of infection, it doesn't seem likely to get better any time soon.

Trump has already exacerbated the problem, by bringing a halt to meetings of doctors and scientists (for no particular reason), and by naming R.F.K. Jr. to head the federal department that deals with diseases and pandemics. Sooner or later the anti-science moves of the Trump administration are going to make things harder for those fighting bird flu, which is only going to make everything worse (and make the price of eggs go up even further). The only real question is whether both Democrats and the media make a big deal of it or not, really.

So far, Democrats are pretty demoralized, which is completely understandable at this point. There are plenty of people outside Washington who are demoralized as well. The "Resistance" is exhausted, to put it bluntly. And there simply is no clear leader of the Democratic Party out there fighting back against Trump's actions. In fact, the biggest public pushback Trump has so far gotten has come from a bishop during a sermon and a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan.

Here's how the New York Times summed things up:

The article goes on to report on what the Democrats have come up with:



Representative Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was the one to call the meeting. He put this message in starker language: "It's going to be really critical for Democrats to point out what Trump's real intentions are, which is to screw people over on pocketbook issues in service of the mega-rich."

Perhaps two wings of the Democratic Party can come together on this message. After all, it is merely a restatement of the old Clinton-era "It's the economy, stupid" slogan, as well as exactly what Bernie Sanders has been saying for decades now. And it can all be wrapped into one easy question, really: "Why haven't egg prices come down like Trump promised?"

As mentioned, the best news of the week came from a federal judge, who immediately put a hold on Trump's executive order to deny the birthright citizenship (to all babies born within the United States) that is actually guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. To say that the judge "laughed the Trump administration out of court" is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Here's the story:



This isn't the only case challenging the order either -- 18 other states have sued in a different lawsuit and other lawsuits have also been filed, so there's plenty of time for other judges to weigh in as well. After all, they have a previous Supreme Court decision and over 100 years of precedent to back them up.

Sadly, there's no guarantee as to what the current Supreme Court will do when one of these cases winds up before them (which seems pretty inevitable, at this point). They have shown a remarkable ability to just flat-out ignore parts of the Constitution they don't approve of, after all.

That's about it for the positive news for Democrats, really. Just for this week, though, we're not even going to attempt to cover the firehose of negative events from the past week -- we're just as exhausted as everyone else, sorry.

We will close by pointing out one sterling example of journalism from HuffPost this week, who ran their inauguration story under the headline: "Trump Makes History: First Convicted Felon To Take Oath As President." Here are the first three and the final paragraphs of the article, which pulls no punches:







We have to give at least an Honorable Mention for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for taking Elon Musk to task for giving what clearly appears to be a Nazi salute during a speech in the midst of all the inauguration frenzy. Musk denied this, and went on to crack some Nazi-infused jokes on social media, showing how clueless he truly can be at times.

A.O.C. wasn't having any of it. She shot back:



Of course, she's right. Condemning Nazis and anything associated with them used to be a "foundational, defining thing" in this country.

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week goes out to all 22 of the state-level attorneys general who immediately challenged Trump trying to change the U.S. Constitution's clear text with an executive order. We wrote earlier this week at length on the subject of birthright citizenship (and the idiocy of interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment in any other way), but suffice it to say that the judge who has already put a hold on the order got it right -- it is "blatantly unconstitutional" on the face of it.

Here's how just one of those attorneys general put it, after filing a lawsuit:



For the next four years, these same state attorneys general are going to be the Democrats' front line of defense against Trump's reign. It'll be up to them to sue the Trump administration to prevent clearly unconstitutional orders and actions from taking effect.

Of course, many (if not most) of these cases will wind up before the Supreme Court, which is not exactly a comforting thought, but perhaps they'll surprise everyone by not going along with Trump's worst impulses. Trump actually had a historically-terrible record during his first term, when it came to Supreme Court decisions on his policies. So perhaps (just perhaps...) the same thing might be true now. It's impossible to say, really.

But no matter what the outcome, at least the state attorneys general can (at the very least) delay things, to some extent or another. So for entering the fray almost immediately (the order was signed on Monday, the 22 states sued, and by the end of the week the order was put on hold -- which is lightning speed, when it comes to federal courts), and for clearly winning the first round, the Democratic state attorneys general who filed the various suits are all our Most Impressive Democrats Of The Week.

[There are too many state attorneys general to list contact information for each of them, but this PBS article (at the very bottom) has a handy list of them all, if you'd like to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]





We understand the bind President Joe Biden was in. We really do. If he had decided not to issue pre-emptive pardons to many of those on Trump's "enemies list," it could have resulted in them being harassed by the very thing Trump is facetiously promising to end (while in reality, putting it on steroids): the "weaponization" of the Justice Department.

So Biden went ahead and issued the pardons. But by doing so, he set a rather horrible precedent which is undoubtedly going to be copied by other presidents leaving office as well. It will give all the "whataboutism" enthusiasts in the Republican Party cover for when Trump does exactly the same thing at the end of his term, in fact.

Which is why we have to give Biden one last Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. As we stated, we do sympathize with the impossible position Trump put Biden in, with his talk of second-term "retribution" on his perceived enemies. But it is going to tarnish Biden's legacy nonetheless, and it is now a precedent which others will use for far less understandable reasons.

[Joe Biden is now merely a private citizen, and it is our blanket policy not to provide contact information for such persons, sorry.]




Volume 780 (1/24/25)

As always, we present these offerings to all Democrats to use in order to focus people on the man behind the curtain rather than the explosions and fire and smoke that is center stage right now. It's only Day Five of a very long four years, so we're going to assume we'll have time to get to every bit of Trumpian idiocy eventually, but for now here's what we've got.



Out-of-control eggflation

Lean on this one. It is easy for people to understand, and it's not likely to get better any time soon.

"We were all told that Donald Trump got elected because the price of eggs was too high. But since the week he got elected, the price of a dozen eggs has gone up another fifty percent! It is now at an all-time high of $6.55 per dozen. This is nothing short of out-of-control 'eggflation.' And that's when you can even find them in the grocery stores. So when is Trump going to solve this problem -- the same problem that he supposedly got elected to fix? Well, I'm not exactly holding my breath, because it's pretty obvious that Trump is only interested in standing up for his billionaire buddies -- he does not care what the price of eggs is for you."



Inject the hens with bleach, maybe?

If anyone brings up the fact that egg prices are high because of the growing spread of bird flu, then answer them back thusly:

"OK, so then what is Trump's plan to combat and defeat bird flu? Because as we've seen, when it comes to fighting pandemics, Trump is absolutely clueless and ineffective -- and that's when the disease was killing thousands upon thousands of Americans. And putting R.F.K. Jr. and a bunch of anti-science people in charge of running the federal government's response doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that Trump has any sort of plan to combat bird flu. Unless maybe you count 'inject all the hens with bleach,' of course. Because that was the only answer he had for COVID."



How many? And what did they offer her?

This is from a bombshell story the Washington Post published yesterday (which we wrote about as well).

"So exactly how many Republican House members tried to have sex with Cassidy Hutchinson? We already know it was more than one, from the report which exposed this sordid fact. When did these attempts to get 'sexual favors' from Hutchinson begin? Before she testified to the January 6th Committee about what Trump was doing that day? Or after? And what exactly were all these Republican House members offering Hutchinson in exchange for these sexual favors? Because inquiring minds want to know."



I am woman, hear me roar!

This one's from Helen Reddy.

"Donald Trump signed an executive order which mandated that all babies born in the United States be considered one sex or the other, quote, 'at conception.' Actual biologists are pretty confused by this designation, since 'at conception' everyone is essentially just a single cell - the 'reproductive cells' the order talks about don't develop until far later in the process. And at the earliest stage of this process, everyone is female. So did Donald Trump just classify every person in this country as female? I guess everyone should start learning the words to Helen Reddy's classic song 'I Am Woman,' huh? She even included a verse that seems particularly appropriate right about now:"





Have these people ever actually read any of it?

This one never ceases to amaze.

"At a prayer service Donald Trump attended, the bishop giving the sermon called on Trump to show some 'mercy' to the least-powerful among us. Trump, true to form, later called her a 'Radical Left hard line Trump hater,' and ripped into her for supposedly bringing politics into church. Some Fox News personalities had an absolute meltdown on-air, calling the sermon 'the rantings of a lunatic,' and 'discarded propaganda,' while singling out the bishop as a 'heretic.' These are all self-professed Christians, one assumes. They are all shocked to hear such sentiments -- because it's not like anyone else in history spoke in defense of the helpless, right? I mean... have any of these so-called Christians ever actually read the words of Jesus in the Bible?!? If they ever manage to do so, one assumes they will be equally as shocked! Might I suggest the Sermon on the Mount, to begin with? Just trying to be helpful...."



Ratings way down

Just threw this one in to taunt him, because we all know it means so much to him.

"Did you see that the ratings for Trump's inauguration were way, way down? In fact, over nine million fewer people tuned in to see it than tuned in to watch Joe Biden getting sworn in. The numbers were even far worse than Trump's first inauguration, which drew six million more viewers. And for Trump, you just know that's gotta hurt."



How long? Any bets?

To us, this seems almost inevitable.

"Anyone want to bet on how long it'll take before Elon Musk totally pisses off Trump and gets thrown under the MAGA bus? Vivek Ramaswamy didn't even last a full seven Scaramuccis before he was chucked out. And Musk is even more offensive (which, considering Ramaswamy in general, is pretty hard to do). I have no idea what will be the cause of it, but I'd be willing to bet that Musk won't make it more than a few months, tops. Sooner or later, he's going to eclipse Trump in the media, which to Trump is the one unforgivable sin. So any takers? Let's say 'by June'... anyone want to take that bet?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 18, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- Farewell, President Biden

And so we come to the final Friday Talking Points of President Joe Biden's term in office.

It is perhaps appropriate that the funeral of Jimmy Carter happened in the midst of Biden winding down his final weeks. Because Joe Biden -- another one-term Democratic president like Jimmy -- will likely become more appreciated as time goes by, just as Carter was.

Joe Biden had a pretty spectacular first two years in office, in terms of getting legislation passed. Granted, he had a Democratic Congress to work with and the continuing crisis of a pandemic to spur the politicians to actually act. He used both to get a sweeping agenda passed which will have an impact for years to come. But he had to grapple with two corporate-friendly Democrats in the Senate who held him back from achieving an even-more-historic agenda. If the full "Build Back Better" plan had made it past Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, then Americans would doubtlessly feel a lot differently (and better) about government's role in their economic lives.

This is actually one of the things that has been interesting to see, over the past few weeks. There has been a gradual realization in both the Democratic Party and the media that might be summed up as: "Bernie was right." As Salon helpfully pointed out:

This week, President Biden mentioned this during his primetime farewell address, warning the nation of the rise of the oligarchs (most prominently in what Biden termed "the tech-industrial complex," attempting to piggyback on Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous phrase from his own farewell address). Which is all happening right out in the open, now. Elon Musk seems to be the puppetmaster pulling Donald Trump's strings (a role he has embraced since the election) while all the other tech-bros are scrambling to jettison any policy from their companies that could be considered "woke," including fact-checking and policies that forbid hate speech. They've all been donating to Trump's inaugural fund (giving millions), and they've all been rewarded with prime seats at his inauguration. As noted, it's all right out in the open for all to see. Which is precisely what Biden warned of: "Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead."

But the best commentary (on Biden's farewell address comments) came from late-night comic Seth Meyers (who was actually the target of a Trump social media tirade earlier in the week). Here is Seth reminding everyone that one politician has been warning of this for over three decades now, in case anyone's forgotten (skip forward to 3:37 in the video to see an awesome mashup reel of some of the various times Bernie Sanders has pointed this out over the past 31 years).

The Democratic Party as a whole might be waking up to the concept as well, as there have been some pointed statements and questions to Trump's cabinet appointees during their Senate hearings on the subject of large corporations and pay-to-play politics. This could be an emerging wider strategy going forward -- one that actually does have the chance to succeed. Point out the difference between real populism and the fake populism championed by Trump. Point out that Trump is surrounding himself with more billionaires in his administration than any other president ever. Point it out every time the Republican Congress tries to slash funding for everything on their Project 2025 menu -- cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP), Obamacare subsidies, infrastructure cuts, and all the rest. Point it out when Republicans refuse to support Union rights and refuse to even consider raising the minimum wage. Point it out every time Trump's campaign promises get changed by his oligarch friends into policies that pad the pockets of giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy at the expense of average working folks. Point out the fact that they're all doing precisely nothing to reduce the cost of rent or groceries too, while you're at it. As far as political strategies go, this at least has the possibility of success.

There have been a lot of other things going on in the world of politics than just Joe Biden's swansong, however. Trump will be inaugurated on Monday, which is forecast to be a miserably-cold day in Washington D.C. But we can't really say that Mother Nature is weighing in with a political opinion, since we personally damn near froze to death waiting (from before sunup, when the temperature on the National Mall was approximately 15 degrees Fahrenheit) to see Barack Obama get sworn in, back in 2009. In case anybody missed the obvious, January 20th falls smack in the middle of what scientists technically call "winter," so there's a good chance it's going to be a miserable day for an outdoor event. Trump's inauguration has now been moved inside, which is going to seriously chafe at him (since he won't even get to lie about the size of any adoring crowds watching it all). Oh, well, at least he'll have Carrie Underwood and (!) The Village People performing for some of Trump's inaugural balls, that should cheer him up somewhat, right?

There will be protests before Trump gets sworn in, but they are likely to be a lot smaller than the ones which erupted right before his first term in office. Everyone in "the Resistance" is too damn exhausted to spend energy on such things, to be quite blunt. It's been a long eight or nine years, and it's going to be a long four more years to come.

President Biden is trying to do what he can at the last minute to lock in some of his policies and "Trump-proof" them. We'll see how successful any of this is, since Trump is reportedly readying over 100 executive orders to sign on his first day in office. A big focus is going to be getting the massive deportation effort started in a big way, but Trump will also be overturning as many of the things Biden did as he can, as well.

One footnote in all this was how Biden essentially tried to have things both ways in one final act, which left us searching for: "how many amendments does the U.S. Constitution now have?" early this morning. Biden put out a statement expressing his belief that there were now 28 amendments, but didn't actually order his official archivist to do anything to make that belief a legal reality. Here's the story:



Maybe it'll be useful if anyone ever tries to challenge the whole mess in court -- that is reportedly Biden's thinking, at any rate. But it certainly has the feel of "too little, too late," at least to us.

What else? A ceasefire was agreed to by the leaders of both Israel and Hamas, which led to political squabbling between Biden and Trump as to who deserved more credit for it (Trump is likely to win this tug-of-war for public opinion).

Parts of Los Angeles are still burning, although the situation has improved as the winds have relented. Republicans have now hit upon the bright idea of tying any federal disaster aid to "things Democrats don't want," which is a profoundly stupid idea (ask California Republicans, they're not big fans of this new tactic). How long is it going to take (they might well ask themselves) before Democrats are in control and a hurricane hits Florida or the Gulf Coast?

Half of Jack Smith's final report was released by the Justice Department this week, and it had a very On The Waterfront feel to it: "I coulda taken him... I coulda been a contender!" Smith expressed full confidence that even after the Supreme Court equated presidents with kings he still could have secured a conviction in a jury trial on Trump's culpability in causing the January 6th insurrection attempt at the United States Capitol. But now we'll never know, will we? Thanks a lot, Attorney General Merrick Garland, for wasting a whole two years before even getting this investigation started. The other half of Smith's report -- on the case concerning national security documents that Trump refused to return even after being subpoenaed for them -- was not released, and may never be publicly released (once Trump's A.G. will be in charge of such decisions).

The big news from the Senate was a parade of hearings for Trump's major appointees. So far, it seems the Republican Party has completely jettisoned any remaining shreds of morality as they support candidates with all sorts of what used to be disqualifying events in their past, as well as gigantic problems with their relative experience and/or fitness for the job. They're trying to tee up as many votes as they can for Trump's first day, or "first few weeks," at the very least.

A big MAGA spat spun up this week, pitting Steve Bannon against Elon Musk, with Bannon actually telling Musk to "go back to South Africa," and plenty of far-more-juvenile language being flung at each other. Stay tuned! This could get interesting....

An earthquake is about to happen in the world of social media, as the TikTok ban was upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court today, meaning the deadline of this Sunday for them to either divest of Chinese ownership or face being yanked from all the app stores is nigh. But who knows how this'll all play out -- President Biden announced in essence that he won't be enforcing the law on his final day in office, and Donald Trump wants to somehow overturn the law by issuing an executive order (which isn't legally possible, but that might not stop him from trying).

And so we close the final Biden-era weekly wrap-up here with an interesting bit of numerology from the Washington Post. Donald Trump will soon have been alive for precisely one-third the time the Constitution has been in effect. Make of this what you will....







The Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week was President Joe Biden. We realize we are stretching that definition a wee bit, as we're really giving this as more of a swansong award for his entire term of office, but we are allowed to bend these rules whenever we feel like.

Joe Biden accomplished a lot while in the Oval Office. He oversaw the comeback of the American economy from the disastrous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This cannot be overstated. Even if Americans still have economic gripes, the American economy truly is the envy of the rest of the Western world.

Biden oversaw the most spectacular jobs numbers of any presidential term, ever. There was not a single month while he was president where the American economy lost jobs -- an extraordinary achievement on its own. We recovered from the pandemic, wages rose, and despite pretty much every economist out there predicting a recession in the middle of his term, it did not happen. Yes, inflation spiked for a while, but it is back down to manageable numbers once again.

All of this is, as mentioned, the envy of the Western world. And it is all to Biden's credit.

This is just the most impressive thing Biden got done, out of a long list of achievements. We saved a Politico article last February because it was such a good wrap-up of what Biden had done in only his first three years in office, but we won't list all of them (because "30 things" is too much to list here). Here are the ones from this list that impressed us the most (in the same order they were presented in the article):



That's just an abbreviated list, mind you. And it only covers Biden's first three years -- nothing that he achieved in 2024 is even on it.

Joe Biden had a more productive term as measured by important legislation passed than any president since L.B.J. (at the very least -- some even say "since F.D.R." ). His first two years with a Democratic Congress were pretty breathtaking in this regard, even with the ball-and-chain pair of Manchin and Sinema holding him back.

Sadly, one of the biggest achievements Biden managed (like a whole lot of other things that will be soon undone) was bringing back decency and being humane to politics once again. Biden will nestle in the history books as a sort of interregnum between the Trump terms, but it was a solid relief nonetheless. For four whole years we have not been panicked a single time by some late-night tweet from the country's leader. For four whole years, we have not had high-ranking officials in the executive department arrested or charged or convicted of criminal activity. Biden appointed no aides or cabinet members who had been accused of sexual assault (or worse). A sense of normalcy returned.

That, of course, is all about to go by the wayside, but even so we have to express our gratitude and relief for all of it. Our expectations is that once he retires from politics, Joe Biden will rise in public opinion as people remember the things he actually did (as opposed to the smears and mudslinging from his opponents).

Thank you for your service, President Biden. As a measure of our gratitude, please accept this last Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, on your way out the door.

[Congratulate President Joe Biden (while you still can) on the White House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





To counterbalance all of that, we also have to award the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to President Joe Biden -- again, for his whole term in office, not just for the past week. Because while there were successes, there were plenty of disappointments as well.

One of Biden's flaws as a politician has been evident in his last-minute flurry of trying to get a lot of things done before he leaves -- Biden sometimes takes too long to make a decision and then act on it, and when he does act it is often not forceful enough to achieve his objective.

To cite just one example, although the Biden administration moved the process further than it has ever gone before, marijuana is still just as illegal as it was when Biden took office. The process of rescheduling it from Schedule I to Schedule III is still in Limbo. Donald Trump could either continue (and complete) this effort or undermine it. Because Biden simply took too long to get it done. And that is merely one small example -- there are plenty of others.

Biden never really used his presidential "bully pulpit" as effectively as he could have, either. He never pushed hard to achieve goals in Congress when members of his own party balked. In his farewell address, Biden called for an 18-year term limit and ethics reforms for Supreme Court justices, but he never made getting this passed through Congress a priority. That's just one example, but there are others. If Biden had twisted some arms in the Senate, he could have whittled away at the filibuster (without completely removing it) to allow simple majority votes for issues of constitutional rights -- which would have allowed him to get a new voting rights act passed as well as enshrining the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law. These were both gigantic disappointments to millions.

Then there was the 2024 election. Biden could have announced his decision right after the 2022 midterms not to seek a second term, and we would have had a wide-open Democratic primary season which would have tested the mettle of the up-and-coming contenders and allowed the media and the public to fully vet them. That (obviously) didn't happen. Instead, Biden drew no serious challengers himself (as a sitting president) and cleared the field for his own nomination -- which turned out disastrously.

Kamala Harris, who had to step in at the eleventh hour and try to turn Biden's slide into victory, did a pretty good job of at least trying. But Biden simply waited too long to bow out, and Harris lost, in the end. Sadly, this may in fact be the main thing Biden's presidency is remembered for, in the years and decades to come.

And finally, one of the biggest disappointments with Joe Biden was his inability to get his own party members to sing from the same songbook, in praise of what he and the party had already achieved. This is a failing of many Democrats, but somehow it seemed more acute with Biden. In order to drive the media narrative, you've got to be a lot more forceful in framing your political message than Biden could ever manage to do. This isn't so much about being a great orator (which Biden definitely isn't) but instead a matter of focus and repetition.

We wrote a review of Biden's farewell speech yesterday (if anyone's interested), and we were struck while writing it how much there was a definite flavor of "what might have been" to Biden's presidency. He accomplished a lot, but he could have accomplished a whole lot more, too. For this, we are awarding Biden one last Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, on his way out the door.

[Contact President Joe Biden (while you still can) on the White House contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 779 (1/17/25)

We've got an all-Trump list of talking points this week, to get ready for the onslaught of weirdness which will doubtlessly be emanating from Washington for the next four years (like a firehose, without pause). Because this is truly the last bit of calm before the upcoming storm, so we thought we'd try to get ready for it all.



Let chaos reign

Just a quick reminder, before it all begins.

"We should all say goodbye to being able to ignore what the government is doing, because with Trump at the reins again, things are just not going to be that calm. If Trump's second term is anything like his first, then we will have multiple scandals and outrageous statements and lies and endless drama every single week that we will all have to pay attention to, for the next four years. Are we at war with Canada yet? Check Trump's social media feed.... Has a government program that millions rely on been put on the chopping block? Pay attention.... Are we going to try battling hurricanes with nuclear weapons? Could be! The quietude of Joe Biden's term in office will end abruptly, and we'll all be on the rollercoaster for the next four years, so let the chaos begin!"



President Id

This is a big change, and it will doubtlessly lead to some epic disasters.

"Remember in Trump's first term when he was forced to have some reality-based aides around to tell him when he couldn't do things? Yeah, well, those days are gone. This time around, there simply will be no 'adults in the room.' If Trump throws one of his tantrums, he's going to be surrounded by people who cheer him on and goad him to react in outrageous ways. There will be no guardrails. Instead, Trump is going to do what he damn well feels like, whether it is legal, ethical, or makes a lick of sense or not. We're going to be governed by President Id, in fact. Buckle up, everyone, it's likely to be a rough ride!"



What are the odds?

The job "churn" could set records, as well.

"When you see Trump's nominees getting confirmed by the Senate and as his cabinet takes shape, you should ask yourself: how many of them will still be there in a year's time? How many of them will annoy Trump or undercut Trump or even (gasp!) refuse to do something Trump wants to do and then find themselves out on their ear? The only thing for certain is that all of them won't make it through their first year on the job, but what I wonder is how many of them will wind up getting thrown under the bus when things don't go well for Trump."



Day Never

Democrats need to make a big deal of this, as many chances as they get.

"Trump promised a whole bunch of things would get done on his first day in office. But now he's having to come to terms with the hard cold fact that a lot of them are things that are actually very hard to do. So how many of Trump's sweeping campaign promises are going to go by the wayside? How many of them are just never going to happen? What is the price of eggs these days... hmmm? Has Trump cut gasoline prices by half, like he promised? What items on Trump's 'Day One' list are going to migrate over to 'Day Never'?"



For better or worse

Things could get better, and then again, they could get worse. Either way, there's one person who is going to be seen as being responsible.

"It is Trump's economy now, for better or worse. If interest rates go up, that's Trump's fault. If inflation spikes because of Trump's economic policy, he's not going to be able to blame Joe Biden for it. When Trump fails to magically bring down the price of rent and groceries, that's going to all be on him and no one else. Because for better or worse, it is now Trump's economy."



Smallest ever?

Rub this one in, because you just know it'll annoy him.

"Hell might not have frozen over, but according to the weather reports Washington is going to do precisely that for Trump's inauguration. In fact, he has already announced it'll be held indoors. So there just won't be any photos of Trump in front of the Capitol with a crowd of people in attendance. He won't even be able to send out his press secretary to lie his face off about how big the crowd was, because it simply won't exist. In fact, Trump may go down in history as having had one of the smallest inaugural crowds ever -- how ironic is that?"



Um... sure, Donny, sure, call it whatever you want...

This final one was in response to one of those off-the-cuff Trump ideas that truly reaches the level of "profoundly stupid." It was in an article in the Washington Post, to give credit where it is due.






Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

January 11, 2025

Friday Talking Points -- 34-Time Felon Sentenced

In an extraordinary confluence of events, America mourned one former president as his body lay in state in the United States Capitol, while another former (and soon-to-be-again) president was sentenced after being found guilty of 34 felonies by a jury. Jimmy Carter had become almost the personification of decency in his post-presidential life, while Donald Trump has always been the personification of something a lot more tawdry.

Trump's sentence didn't actually amount to much. Officially, he was sentenced to "unconditional discharge," which sounds more like an embarrassing medical condition than a legal designation. What it amounts to is the state of New York sternly admonishing Trump by saying: "Tsk, tsk!" while perhaps wagging a disapproving finger at him. Trump will not serve a day in jail, he will not have to pay a penny in fines, and he won't even be subject to probation. None of these options were really available to the judge, since in ten days Trump will become president once again.

But even with the lack of any real punitive judgment against Trump, it will still stain his record. He is the first president to ever be convicted of a felony, and he will also be the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president once again. To use one of his favorite put-downs, this is nothing short of a national disgrace.

Trump fought hard to prevent the sentencing from even happening. If he were a normal citizen, he likely would have been sentenced last summer. But he asked for (and received) sentencing delays because of the election. This week, he appealed all the way to the Supreme Court in an effort to prevent the sentencing from happening just before he is sworn back into office. He even called up his buddy Sam Alito earlier in the week in an obvious effort to sway the court. But the Supreme Court rejected his plea, so Trump had to sit and take his medicine today. The most beautiful thing about the sentence? Trump cannot pardon himself, because these were state crimes, not federal. Barring the election of a Republican to the office of governor of New York, the sentence will remain. Trump is going to appeal it through every venue he can, but his chances of having his sentence overturned are slim, at best.

Other than his numerous civil cases (which he keeps losing), this is likely the only legal price Donald Trump is going to pay for his crimes. The other three cases against Trump will not go forward now, or likely ever. Trump will walk away from the consequences of not securing national security documents (and refusing to hand them over to the rightful owner, the National Archives, even after being subpoenaed for them), his blatant attempts to interfere in the presidential election results in Georgia (which were actually caught on tape), and his culpability in the January 6th attempted insurrection and attack on the United States Capitol and the Congress itself. No jury will hear the evidence in any of those cases -- at the very least, until after Trump leaves office again. Justice was delayed, and justice was denied in all three of these cases.

This is, more than anything, a condemnation of the justice system in this country. Prosecutors had four whole years to hold Trump accountable, and (led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who bears much of the blame) they wasted entire years of this time. Then Trump ate up the remaining time with his endless appeals of every single aspect of the cases he could come up with. So here we are, four years later, and Trump beat the rap because he has enough money to pay lawyers to endlessly throw sand in the gears of the justice system. America's two-tier justice system -- one tier for the wealthy, another for everyone else -- has been shamefully on display throughout all of this.

There will be one coda -- hopefully, at least. Jack Smith is preparing two reports on the cases that never made it to a jury, and while one of them is still ongoing (because Trump had two co-defendants in the documents case) the other is now over for the time being, so the Justice Department will be releasing a redacted version of Smith's report before Trump gets back into office. This should lay out the case against Trump for his involvement in January 6th, so at least we'll all get to see most of what that investigation uncovered.

Meanwhile, Trump is offering a preview of what we can all expect for the next four years, which can be summed up in two words: angry chaos. Showing his masterful ability to hijack the headlines with complete nonsense, Trump has been trolling the nation's journalists with the concept of returning to the days of Manifest Destiny and American imperialism. He wants Canada to somehow magically become "the 51st state," he wants to buy Greenland, and he wants the Panama Canal returned to America post-haste. Also, he got a bee in his bonnet and wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" instead, just for good measure. He hinted that in the cases of Greenland and Panama, he might just send in the Marines if the people there don't go along with his expansionist plans.

None of this will lower the price of a dozen eggs, of course. But that's beside the point -- the point is that Trump successfully got everyone talking about it, and he will continue stirring everyone up as long as it gets him new headlines.

The chaos got even angrier when Los Angeles started burning. Major areas of Southern California are being devastated by some of the most-destructive wildfires California has ever experienced, so of course Trump decided to wade into the crisis and spout lots of lies and propaganda in order to blame Democrats for somehow creating the Santa Ana winds. Or something. This is a quick reminder (or it should be) that Trump's first response to any disaster anywhere is to always point the finger of blame elsewhere, while spreading plenty of lies about everything. It's how he operates. And we may very likely see Trump decide how to dole out disaster-relief money based on the political affiliation of those impacted -- which is an absolutely terrible thing to do, of course. But it'll likely become par for Trump's course in the very near future.

President Joe Biden has entered into the swansong phase of his presidency, and while he is actually doing some notable things -- creating two new national monuments, blocking offshore drilling for a huge swath of ocean, extending legal status for almost a million immigrants -- one has to wonder how much of it will survive Trump's anticipated rollbacks of everything Biden has accomplished. Team Trump is reportedly preparing 100 executive orders for him to sign on his first day, and that'll just be the start of it.

Congress has returned to Washington, and Speaker Mike Johnson actually got re-elected to his leadership position on the first ballot. This used to be routine, but it's the first time it's happened since Republicans retook control of the chamber. Well, it was actually two rounds of voting but officially it was only one, for technical reasons -- but either way it's a lot more impressive than what had preceded it. Johnson will still hold an incredibly weak position -- he's got one of the smallest majorities in American history to work with -- but the Republicans basically decided to let him keep going because they couldn't think of anyone else who would do any kind of better job than the one Johnson has been doing.

Speaking of herding Republican congressional cats, their plans of quickly passing a big and impactful bill and putting it on Trump's desk to sign seem to be falling apart at the seams. They are now arguing among themselves whether to attempt one gigantic bill that would include a rewrite of the tax code and an extension of all the Trump tax cuts, or to split it into two bills so they can pass some border money for Trump to use more quickly. Both of these (or one, if they do settle on combining them) will be contentious and will have to pass on purely party-line votes. Which it's not clear they'll be able to do. Democrats may be comforted by the sheer ineptitude of the House Republicans to get their act together, since it'll mean far fewer things actually getting done.

And to end on some good news this week, Virginia held special elections for a few seats in the statehouse, and Democrats managed to hold onto their (very slim) majorities in both chambers. This will effectively tie the hands of their Republican governor, so it is worth celebrating. And due to their odd rules about multiple terms, the current governor will not be able to run for re-election later this year, so Democrats have at least a decent shot of taking back the governor's office.





This one is easy, and it's self-explanatory.

The Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week was James Earl Carter Junior.

We wrote about Carter earlier this week, if anyone needs any justification. Jimmy will be missed, and his longevity record among former presidents may never be broken (he reached 100 years old, the first one to do so).

[You may pay your respects at the Carter family's tribute webpage, if you'd like to let them know you appreciated his efforts.]





Senator John Fetterman keeps charting his own course, which increasingly seems independent from the Democratic Party. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if he starts being called the "Democratic John McCain," since he seems to be charting a full-blown maverick personality. This is different, it should be noted, from merely wallowing in corporate money and doing their bidding (à la Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema), since Fetterman is more about charting his own ideological course than just raking in campaign donations. So while Fetterman's announcement that he'll be heading down to Florida to meet with Donald Trump disappointed many Democrats, but it's really just building his maverick brand.

Which is why we decided to instead hand out the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week (once again) to Bob Menendez. Gold-Bar Bob was back in the news this week because his sentencing hearing is looming. And the prosecutors have asked for a stiff 15-year prison sentence. Here's the (continuing) story:

Lawyers for Menendez have requested no jail time at all, arguing that he has already become a "national punchline," and that should be punishment enough. Good luck with that one, Bob.

The sentencing is scheduled for January 29th, so we'll likely have another MDDOTW award for him then, but for now we're going to hand him the one from this week, just on general principles.

[Bob Menendez is no longer in office, and it is our policy not to provide contact information for private citizens, so you'll have to look it up on your own if you'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 778 (1/10/25)

We've got a mixed bag this week, as we kick off a new year. We find we can't directly address what the new Republican Congress is doing, because they haven't actually managed to do much of anything yet. But there'll be plenty of time for that in the coming weeks. For now, here's what we've got.



Felon

We've seen one phrase emerge this week, and we have to say we approve.

"America is ready to inaugurate a president who has been impeached by the House of Representatives not once but twice and who just got sentenced after being found guilty of 34 felonies. So there's a few firsts for the history books -- the only twice-impeached 34-count felon to ever enter the White House. Maybe someday we'll limit ourselves to only presidents that children can look up to as role models, but that'll have to wait until the end of the second term of the twice-impeached 34-count felon is over."



No drama at all

This shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.

"On January 6th of this year, Congress met for the official counting of the Electoral College votes for president and vice president. There was no drama and the entire exercise only took about a half-hour. This is the way things are supposed to work, of course. Up until four years ago, most Americans weren't even aware of this ceremonial congressional duty, but of course all that changed after Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. I sincerely hope in the future that January 6th once again becomes just a parliamentary footnote in the peaceful transfer of power in this country. Because what happened four years ago was an absolute disgrace, and I hope nothing like that ever happens again."



A very liberal 51st state

Has Trump really thought this through?

"You know, if Donald Trump could wave a magic wand and make Canada the 51st American state, it would have the effect of making the Senate, the House, and the Electoral College a lot more liberal. Canadians are going to want to keep their national health care, just for starters. And it'll make it much harder for any American conservative to get elected president. I mean, has Trump really thought this whole thing through?"



DOGE already dialing expectations back

By half.

"Elon Musk has already backed down from his promise to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget and has now announced he'll only be targeting $1 trillion in federal spending instead. Kind of a remarkable moving of the goal posts, don't you think? Musk is fast learning what a whole lot of armchair conservatives find out when they get to Washington -- talking about slashing spending is one whale of a lot easier than actually doing it."



Florida man considers his future

Shamelessness abounds down in the Sunshine State.

"I see that Matt Gaetz is seriously considering running for governor of Florida, because why not? The days when a politician's career would be considered over after getting caught in some horrendous scandal appear to be over -- just look at who is about to enter the White House, right? If the voters of Florida decide that a man accused of having sex with minors is the man to lead them, then who am I to say differently? Good luck with that, because what could possibly go wrong?"



Nothing but contempt

There was some other court news this week, in case anyone missed it.

"Rudy Giuliani -- the man who led the legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- was found in contempt of court not once this week but twice -- in two different courtrooms, by two different judges. I don't blame them -- I've felt nothing but contempt for Rudy for years now...."



Don't forget what he actually ran on

Hammer this one home as often as possible.

"Remember when everyone said Trump got elected because the price of eggs was too high? Well, the price keeps going up and up, when you can even find eggs in the supermarket. In fact, the price will probably continue to climb all this year, since bird flu is out there decimating the egg-laying chickens across the country. And Donald Trump is not exactly known for steering America out of a pandemic crisis (to put it mildly), so I don't expect things to get better with bird flu any time soon. But in the midst of all of Trump's blather about Canada and Greenland and the Panama Canal, I hope some journalists keep asking him: 'When are you going to make good on your promise to get the price of eggs down?' Because if that's really what he got elected on, it's only fair to measure his presidency by it, right?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com