<....Frum: You’re on the border, and the Trump administration, one of its areas of greatest military adventurism has been with increased military activity in Mexico. They’re overlying drones. They say the drones are unarmed, but they’re drones that are capable of being armed. It looks like they didn’t give the Mexican government advanced notice of all the drones that are flying. President Trump, the vice president, many others in the Republican Party have spoken about taking some kind of military action inside the territory of Mexico or on the seas that are just outside Mexico’s territorial waters. How do you think about that as someone who represents Arizona?

Gallego: We want, and we do have, a good relationship with the Mexican government in Arizona. Our police forces will talk to their police forces. They have problems. There’s no doubt there’s corruption. There’s no doubt. But what you’ve seen is when some of the best outcomes have always been when we’ve actually worked with our friends and treated them like friends and allies, and helped them build their capability to fight back, fight corruption, fight these cartels, fight these terrorists.

You’ve seen some of the best COIN operations in, for example, Colombia that were effective. And I think we could continue doing that. But if we decide to do these unilateral actions without working with these countries, without giving them some level of respect, we’re going to end up having less support from that government, but less support from the people who will continue to hide these horrible, horrible humans that are also terrorizing these communities.

It’s also very insulting to a lot of—and this is something that I’ve seen that we’ve done, not just to them but to sort of Afghan allies we’re not rolling in. It’s insulting to them as if they don’t have some agency, right? Thousands and thousands of Mexican police officers, government workers die every year fighting these cartels. And the fact that we kind of give this whole broad brush and say they’re all corrupt, they’re all evil I think is something that’s going, again, to not help us make friends where we need friends to fight these organizations.

Frum: Well, you mentioned Colombia. Until a little while ago, it looked like one of the big successes of American policy in the 21st century: Plan Colombia that restored order, the reorientation of the Colombian economy away from drugs to exporting agricultural goods that serve people rather than killed people.

Colombia got hit with a wave of tariffs by the Trump administration. Now he’s helped to legitimate the far left that has come back into Colombian politics. Is that a situation that you follow, and what lessons do you see for countering surgency from the Colombian experience?

Gallego: Yeah, I do follow it a lot. Look—you know, when President Petro of Colombia really used this opportunity to kind of create this jingoistic situation where you’re able to draw attention to the sins of what the United States is doing, and not necessarily the things that are occurring in Colombia, which economically aren’t great. And when you’re putting tariffs, you’re creating two things: Number one, for your kind of marginal farmer, especially out in rural Colombia, doing, you know—export farming is profitable, but not that much. And it is also fairly marginal, right? It is a lot more profitable for you to farm and harvest cocoa, right? And other, drug, products.

And so you’re making an economic incentive for people to move away. You’re also messing with our economy, too (the United States economy), because talking to some of these big industries down there who import American flour, corn, soy—they’re right now looking for new partners anywhere else besides the United States because they don’t want to deal with the drama of Am I under a tariff? versus Am I not under a tariff?

You know, their biggest import from the United States is actually soy, which is ridiculous considering they’re essentially next to—they share a border with—Brazil. Now, you know, the Brazilian soy market is hunting around in Colombia, trying to basically say, like, We’re your better partner. They’re gonna—look: They’re gonna try to get flour from somewhere else. You know, the Colombian farmers, because it’s a very volcanic earth, really value American tractors and farm equipment because they’re solid. You know, they have a great reputation. They’re easy to fix. The parts are easy to get. And now they’re trying to get new products from Korea, from China, from Europe, because they don’t want to deal every year, again, with whether your tractor is going to end up having a 10 percent, 20 percent tariff or counter-tariffs. So this is the instability we’re causing....>

<....That what was essentially unnecessary instability, right? Because Colombia has always accepted Colombians that are being returned for deportation. All they were asking is, like, Hey—just don’t bring them in a military plane and we’re fine. And I think that’s some of the least thing we—one of the things we could do to keep relations, to keep the flow going, obviously, people that should be deported. But, you know, we end up, again, shooting ourselves in the foot because the way that this administration does security is they focus on being tough and not smart. They focus on showing, like, We’re gonna do these things, but at the end of the day, all they’re doing is causing more chaos.

They were talking about criminals, and now they’re rounding up kids, rounding up parents, rounding up workers that we need, just so they could prove that they’re wrong, when the voter really did not ask for that. They didn’t ask for this, they asked for criminals. They asked for a tighter border; they got a tighter border. But now you’re deporting families just so you could say you’re hitting these arbitrary numbers that Stephen Miller wants.

Frum: A lot of you—you talk about the harm of tariffs very eloquently. A lot of people in your party have been having a difficult time articulating a tariff message because they actually kind of like tariffs.

If President Trump has been the most protectionist president since 1945, President Biden was the second-most. And so you hear a lot of Democrats saying things like, Well, I’m against dumb tariffs. I’m for smart tariffs, implying they’re for smart tariffs, implying that there is or could be such a thing as a smart tariff.

And the result is you have a very narrow difference. And to your point just now, I mean, when Democrats say, I want to do the same thing as Donald Trump, but I want to do it smarter, what a lot of people hear is not, Well, you are smarter. [It’s] Oh, you’re the party of people who think they’re so smart, but you don’t actually have a principled criticism of what the president does. You’re just showing off that you think you’re better educated and more intelligent. But you want to do the same thing, only with fancier words, the way you always want to do it.

So are there Democrats who are going to be able to say, You know what? Tariffs are just dumb. Don’t do them. We should trade in peace and freedom with the rest of the world?

Gallego: Are there? —I mean, I’m not a miracle worker here, David. But look—what we’ve seen in terms of the turnaround in our economy, right? If you would’ve said eight years ago that the United States was gonna be able to manufacture the majority of the chips it needs within 10 years, we would’ve been like, You’re freaking nuts, right? Because all the chip manufacturing was being done overseas. And within that short time period, we were able to stand up and move U.S. manufacturing of advanced chips to a point where we’re going to be net exporters in the next couple years.

That wasn’t from tariff policy; that was from an actual industrial policy about how we’re actually gonna brick this back, right? And we need to figure out how we can bring certain industries back and how we could do it smartly by competing, right? By having the best workers possible, by having the best industry possible, with having the best regulatory frameworks they could add to the tax policies, everything else. Like, that’s how you make it.

So you could actually bring these middle-class jobs back. But the other thing that really annoys me is that, like, who do they think works these middle-class jobs? Who do you think works these factories? Right now they’re about, last I heard—I’d have to go back and check. But, you know, we’re probably close to a million—sorry, we’re at about a million factory jobs that are opening right now. Those are immigrants that work those jobs. When I was working at a meat factory, growing up, I got $1 more because I was the only one that spoke English—or, well, I spoke English. I’m sure there’s others that spoke English too.

But the people that worked at that factory were Mexican immigrants and Polish immigrants, right? So let’s say we do build that steel plant here. First of all, let’s find the investors that are willing to put in the seven to 10 years to build it. Like, the people that work in a lot of these places are the people that we’re trying to kick out of this country right now, or won’t let in.

And so how are we—how is this smart in any way?>

<....Frum: You come from one of the most outward-facing states in America, in the country—a border state, a state with a dynamic economy, a state of entrepreneurship and immigration. If anyone’s gonna carry a flag for open trade, free trade, it’s gonna be a senator from Arizona. John McCain was a great free trader. Can we look to the senators from Arizona to lead the fight against tariffs and for free trade?

Gallego: Yeah. No, like, I think I can’t speak for the other senator, but what we’ve seen is, like, Arizona is richer because of trade—and not just, by the way, [with] Mexico, which, by the way, has definitely been a big driver, besides the fact that everyone just focuses on the security side of it. We are actually a richer state, and the country would be much richer if we actually made our ports of entries faster, more aggressive, and predictable in some regards because some people don’t know when they’re gonna come in.

But we are now trading with, you know, all around the world. We just opened up a direct airline route, or will be soon, from Phoenix to Taiwan. Our jobs, our high-skilled jobs, our highest-paying jobs are due to trade. And in some regard, if we actually want stability, especially in the Western hemisphere, we should embrace free trade that, you know, emphasizes our brothers and sisters south of the border getting good-paying jobs, getting those industry jobs that we don’t want to do in the United States, so they could stop the migrations that are moving here to the United States. There is a way for this all to be a win-win for the United States. And I think using our ability, in terms of our superpower—which I think our biggest superpower is actually human capital—where we can bring anyone from all around the world and use their drive, their brainpower and put it into this massive other amount of brainpower to experiences all around the world. We could outcompete anybody, but we actually have to believe in them. We have to make the investments in them. And I think that is going to be a better way to actually move the middle class, get them those jobs that they need, than these types of, like, ham-fisted tariff policies.

Frum: Last question, because I know we have a hard out, and you’ve been very generous with your time. You came from a tough background. You had an astonishing career. Your talent was picked out early. You went to Harvard. You volunteered. You saw some dark things in combat. You came back. You chose politics after that background at a strikingly early age. You didn’t get rich first. You went into politics directly.

Gallego: I did want to get rich first, to be honest. (Laughs.)

Frum: (Laughs.) Why did you choose politics?

Gallego: You know, I think it really chose me. I always wanted to do government service. I actually thought that I was going to end up in the State Department, or the FBI, or something of that nature. I got back from the war—I mean, I was f***ed up, to be honest. You know, my best friend died. It was seven months of just hard, hard combat.

And then we got back and, you know, we were Reservists, and they just let us go, right? So two weeks after I get back from Iraq, I am given my orders, I throw my stuff in my sea bag, and they’re, Right. You’re out; you’re gone. You know, no housing, nothing. And luckily, I had friends and family to fall upon.

But then the stories started coming from my guys that they were having problems getting jobs. They were having problems getting VA treatments, getting into the VA—all these things that were just terrifying to me. And I was already pissed from the war because, again, they sent me to war without the proper armor on our vehicles, proper intelligence, without enough manpower, all this kind of stuff.

And so I found myself talking more and more to these guys about—these guys, my brothers—trying to help them get into the VA, trying to help them get into school. You know, some of them were living on my couch for a little bit to keep them off the streets. And I started complaining to the state reps, to the state senators, Why can’t my guys have in-state tuition? Marines would be overseas for three years, and they’d come back to their home state or to another state, and they say, like, Well, you never lived here. Like, Yeah, well, I’ve been gone forever.

And it just kept on coming back and forth, back and forth, and I just kept complaining to congressmen and to everybody. And I realized that, I mean, everyone talks a big game, but no one really gives an f about us until they really need us....>

<....But I have a purpose here, and it’s going to continue to service. You know, my guys and I are going to have our 20-year reunion this year. I’m 45. I’m one of the older side of veterans, and if I’m not doing this right now, you know, who’s going to hold this administration to the fire? They want to cut 83,000 veteran—VA employees arbitrarily, right? And for me, I’m able to use my position as a veteran, as a combat veteran, and I’m pushing back on them. I’m not sure if I was here, would someone be doing as aggressively as I am? And I think that that tells me I’m doing something right.

Frum: Thank you. Thank you for the time today. I’m really grateful. Thank you for the candor. It’s been an interesting conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time for us. Bye-bye.

Gallego: Appreciate it. Adios.

Frum: Thanks so much to Senator Gallego for joining me here on The David Frum Show. Remember, if you enjoy this dialogue and similar content, please subscribe to The Atlantic. That’s the best way to support the work of The David Frum Show and all of my Atlantic colleagues.

I’m going to close with some farewell thoughts about the weekend ahead. If you are planning to fly into Washington, D.C., over the weekend of June 14, be prepared for a lot of airplane closures. Reagan National Airport will be closed, and traffic at the other regional airports is likely to be disrupted. The reason for this is the big parade scheduled for June 14.

Now, ostensibly, this is a parade to salute the 250th anniversary of the United States Army, founded in June of 1775. But we all know this story is not true. The Continental Navy was founded in the fall of 1775, and the Marines shortly thereafter. They, too, are celebrating 250th anniversaries this year. No parade for them, because their anniversaries do not coincide with the birthday of President Trump. President Trump is throwing a big birthday bash for himself at public expense, making a parade, which he has wanted for a long time.

And the Army is his excuse but not his motive. As I say, if it were the real thing, you would find a way to honor the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps together, all of them celebrating their 250th anniversary this year. Now, President Trump has wanted a big military parade since he saw one in France in his first term, on Bastille Day. The Army and the other services, the Department of Defense, resisted this demand for a long time, and for three main reasons.

The first was the reason of expense. The Trump birthday party, the military component of it, will cost, all in—both the cost of the parade and the cost of repaving the city streets afterwards—probably in the vicinity of $100 million. That’s a very large amount of money, even by military standards. And in the first term, at least, the money would’ve been spent at a time of general prosperity and pretty lax controls of spending. In the second term, President Trump is engaged in massive budget cuts throughout the rest of the government. We’ve eliminated the PEPFAR program for Africa that delivers anti-HIV drugs to Africans of all ages, and especially children. People’s lives are at risk to save the $7 billion that PEPFAR costs. It’s indecent to be cutting PEPFAR and throwing the president a $100 million birthday party. So the military has resisted on grounds of expense.

They’ve also resisted on grounds of uselessness. Look—parades used to serve a purpose. The skills on display in a parade—marching in step, the cavalry trotting in line—those were highly relevant military skills in the days when armies fought in formation, when infantry formed into line, when cavalry moved at a trot. But in today’s world, the skills that you need to do at a parade have nothing to do with how armies fight.

And the weeks and weeks of preparation that the units have to do in order to be ready for the parade is just a waste of time. And these are all, by the way, highly paid, highly skilled professionals. Their time is valuable. We want our war fighters, as Secretary of Defense Hegseth calls them, to be preparing to fight actual 21st-century war, not demonstrating their skill and readiness to fight the wars of the 18th and early 19th century....>

<....But there’s an even more fundamental reason that the Army resisted for such a long time, and that was: They sensed there was something political about these parades. Trump was not doing this, really, to salute the military. He was summoning the military to salute him. And the military, rightly, would never refuse an order, but they would point out, This is expensive. This is a distraction. And if you order us to do it, we will leak the details of how expensive and how useless it is to the newspapers, so that everyone will see what you are doing.

That was the first term. But in this second term, the military is headed by people who—unlike the military leadership in the first term—under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, pose no resistance to the orders and demands and wishes and imperatives and whims of President Trump. The Hegseth DOD is an arm of Trump’s PR politics. And so it’s all parade, all the time. There is no one now to advocate for the interests of the national defense against the whims of the president.

I think this you’ve all heard before, but there’s something else I want to point out here. The idea that a president would cause massive inconvenience to the traveling public, disrupt the traffic of the District of Columbia, all to honor himself is a real slap in the face and a real denial of the fundamental relationship that the constitutional system envisions between the president and the people.

The president is a public servant. He is the highest-ranking government employee. He’s not the master. He’s not the king. He’s not the emperor. Traditionally, presidents receive no honor of any kind in their own lifetimes. If they had distinguished themselves in office, after they had passed then they would be honored in all kinds of ways: the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Monument. Everything’s the other way around. I think it’s the Lincoln Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. You’d issue postage stamps for them. The streets would be named for them, counties. There are Jackson Counties all over the United States. Presidents were honored after the end of their lifetime. But in their time, they were just another government employee, like the undersecretary of agriculture. And there certainly was no public commemoration of their birthdays.

Donald Trump does not see himself as a public servant. He sees himself as a public master. That’s why he’s always demanding thanks for his allocation of government resources. When President Trump sends emergency assistance to a county that’s in need, it’s not his money. No one owes him any thank-you. He’s doing his job, sending the public’s money to the place where public law provides for it to go. And yet he thinks, because he is the president, he, therefore, is owed deference, he is owed obedience, he’s owed thanks, and he’s owed a parade.

And this habit of thinking is spreading through his government. Other Cabinet secretaries have also given themselves birthday parties of public expense and have issued statements on Twitter saluting the Cabinet secretary for the birthday. It’s a habit that grows from the top down, and it’s a violation of the way that Americans used to conduct themselves.

Look—in Britain, there’s a long and lively tradition of military parades on the monarch’s birthday. They troop the colors. In fact, this year, the trooping of the colors for King Charles’s birthday will be June 14. Charles’s birthday will be June 14, just like President Trump’s parade. But Charles’s parade is not on his actual birthday; his actual birthday is in November. but he’s going to have his parade on June 14 because that’s the best day for the public to watch it and enjoy it, and it’s also the easiest day for the troops to parade. If you know London, you’d much rather parade in the June sunshine than in the November gloom and rain.

So Charles, the king of England, is thinking of others when he arranges the continuation of the long-established tradition of the trooping of the colors on the monarch’s birthday. President Trump, ostensibly a servant of the people, ostensibly a lowercase r Republican official, ostensibly just the highest-ranking person in the government bureaucracy—he’s doing more than King Charles to honor himself at other people’s expense and other people’s inconvenience. It’s not the biggest scandal of the Trump administration by any means, but in some ways it’s the most revealing....>

<Israel’s war-provoking strikes on Iranian nuclear targets may have humiliated Iran, but the biggest "humiliation" was on President Donald Trump, says New European politics Editor James Ball.

“Donald Trump … made clear both privately and publicly that he did not want Israel – one of America’s closest allies in the world – to launch the attack,” Ball writes. “The U.S. had been due to hold talks with Iran on Sunday, a process now undermined, potentially fatally, by the actions of Israel.”

The U.S. normally contributes about $4 billion in military and financial aid to Israel every year, but since the 2023 Hamas attacks Ball says the U.S. has upped those payments between $12-18 billion. That’s roughly a quarter to a third of Israel’s defense spending. In addition, Israel relies on direct U.S. military and intelligence assistance.

And yet, Israel felt confident enough to “publicly and spectacularly disregard the wishes of Trump, undermine his negotiations, and get away with it,” writes Ball. “As public displays of disrespect towards an ally go, there are few cases to match it.”

Israel’s latest disdainful move rolls in on top of other international embarrassments for the president, said Ball.

“Trump campaigned through 2024 telling Americans that they were being humiliated and disrespected on the world stage – and that he was the man who could correct that,” he writes. “Trump famously claimed on more than 50 occasions that he would be able to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on ‘day one’ of his presidency. He suggested that Hamas would not have dared to carry out [its 2023] atrocities … if he were in the presidency. He promised to achieve a lasting ceasefire in Gaza within days.”

Trump promised he could deliver unprecedented wins and slammed the performance of his predecessor, President Joe Biden. But now, “mere months into his presidency, all of this has fallen apart in front of him,” Ball writes.

His hope of a Russian/Ukrainian peace deal has evaporated while Putin repeatedly embarrasses Trump by refusing to make even minor concessions or adhere to ceasefires. Trump’s tariffs are also coming “to nothing,” Ball writes. His ceasefire in Gaza “collapsed into a fresh occupation of Gaza, which has come closer to starvation in recent months”.

Ball says “[i]n his desperate search for something he could sell to the American people as a win,” Trump was even exploring Barack Obama’s old Iranian nuclear deal, which Trump killed in his first term—probably in hopes of repurposing it as his own creation. But Ball says even that hope now has crumbled because “Israel has essentially done what it wished and dared the President to do anything about it.”

All this is happening because Ball says Trump approaches “diplomacy as if it was reality TV deal-making, as if a tough show for the cameras will do most of the work and the details will sort themselves,” without regard to “the slow, agonizingly-detailed diplomacy” required to realistically delivers results. And Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is “an inevitable consequence of the president’s own empty bluster,” because Trump “truly believes himself to be the world’s greatest negotiator and has come back with nothing.”

“That must be quite the blow to the ego.”>

More truth, ouch!>

Yet another nine-page dissertation filled with untruth from <fredwhoreson> after being concisely, ruthlessly exposed. Same as his hero <fallen taco>, he loathes truth and loves the lie.

<Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, his administration has bombarded the U.S. Supreme Court with emergency requests seeking immediate intervention to free up his initiatives stymied by lower courts. The strategy is paying off.

Once a rarely used pathway to the nation's top judicial body, its emergency docket now bulges with an unprecedented volume of requests for rapid attention by the justices in clashes over Trump's far-reaching executive actions.

As the Republican president tests the limits of executive power under the U.S. Constitution, Trump's administration has made 19 emergency applications to the court in less than five months, with one other such application filed by lawyers for migrants held in Texas who were on the verge of deportation.

The court already has acted in 13 of these cases. It has ruled in Trump's favor nine times, partially in his favor once, against him twice and postponed action in one case that ultimately was declared moot.

Trump's wins have given him the green light to implement contentious policies while litigation challenging their legality continues in lower courts. The court, for instance, let Trump revoke the temporary legal status granted for humanitarian reasons to hundreds of thousands of migrants, implement his ban on transgender people in the U.S. military and take actions to downsize the federal workforce, among other policies.

The court's 6-3 conservative majority includes three justice who Trump appointed during his 2017-2021 first presidential term.

Six more emergency requests by the administration remain pending at the court and one other emergency request was withdrawn. Among the requests still to be acted upon are Trump's bid to broadly enforce his order to restrict birthright citizenship, to deport migrants to countries other than their own including politically unstable South Sudan and to proceed with mass federal layoffs called "reductions in force."

Emergency applications to the court involving Trump policies have averaged about one per week since he began his second term. His administration's applications this year match the total brought during Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden's four years as president.

"The Trump administration uses every legal basis at its disposal to implement the agenda the American people voted for," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told Reuters. "The Supreme Court will continue to have to step in to correct erroneous legal rulings that district court judges enter solely to block the president's policies."

The administration has "not sought Supreme Court review in all the cases it could, and part of the story may be that the government is appealing what it thinks are strong cases for it," said Sarah Konsky, director of the University of Chicago Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic.

Georgetown University law professor Stephen Vladeck, who wrote a book about the court's emergency docket, said in a blog post on Thursday that the results favoring Trump should not be attributed only to the court's ideological makeup.

At a time when Trump and his allies have verbally attacked judges who have impeded aspects of his sweeping agenda, there is a "very real possibility that at least some of the justices ... are worried about how much capital they have to expend in confrontations with President Trump," Vladeck wrote.

The onslaught of emergency applications has diverted the attention of the justices as they near the end of the court's current term. June is usually their busiest month as they rush to finish writing opinions in major cases. For instance, they have yet to decide the fate of Tennessee's Republican-backed ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

Among the emergency-docket cases, the court most recently on June 6 allowed Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in his drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal data on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration systems and blocked a watchdog group from receiving records on DOGE operations.

The court also has allowed Trump to cut millions of dollars in teacher training grants and to fire thousands of probationary federal employees.

On the other side of the ledger, the court has expressed reservations about whether the administration is treating migrants fairly, as required under the Constitution's guarantee of due process. On May 16, it said procedures used by the administration to deport migrants from a Texas detention center under Trump's invocation of a 1798 law historically used only in wartime failed basic constitutional requirements.

The justices also declined to let the administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work already performed for the government....>

<....Trump turned to the emergency docket during his first term as well. His prior administration filed 41 such applications to the court. During the 16 years prior, the presidential administrations of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama filed just eight combined, according to Vladeck.

The court has quickly decided weighty matters using the emergency docket in a way often at odds with its traditional practice of considering full case records from lower courts, receiving at least two rounds of written briefings and then holding oral arguments before rendering a detailed written ruling.

It is sometimes called the "shadow docket" because cases often are acted upon without the usual level of transparency or consideration.

Some recent decisions on the emergency docket have come with brief opinions explaining the court's reasoning. But typically they are issued as bare and unsigned orders offering no rationale.

Konsky noted that the justices sometimes designate emergency cases for regular review with arguments and full briefing.

"But in any event, the emergency docket raises complicated questions that are likely to continue to play out in the coming years," Konsky said.

Among Trump's emergency applications this year, oral arguments were held only in the birthright citizenship dispute.

The liberal justices, often findings themselves on the losing side, have expressed dismay.

Once again "this court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent in the Social Security data case.

"The risk of error increases when this court decides cases -as here - with barebones briefing, no argument and scarce time for reflection," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the teacher grants case.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito defended the emergency docket in 2021, saying there is "nothing new or shadowy" about the process and that it has wrongly been portrayed as sinister.>

<Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ opposition to the First Amendment is well established: see for example his efforts to roll back legal protections for media outlets and to quash diversity measures at private companies (which earned a colorful condemnation from a federal judge back in 2022). But his administration’s latest effort to shut down a news investigation into alleged corruption is uniquely disturbing, even by his standards.

The administration is facing criticism from First Amendment advocates over an unsigned cease-and-desist letter from Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) sent last week to the Orlando Sentinel, demanding that the paper and its reporter Jeffrey Schweers stop investigating allegations of fraud related to a community welfare program spearheaded by Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife and potential Republican candidate in next year’s gubernatorial race.

As NBC News reported:

The investigation, first reported by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald, centered on what the DeSantis administration did with money from a $67 million settlement with Medicaid contractor ... Desantis administration officials ‘directed’ $10 million from that pot of money to the Hope Florida Foundation, the nonprofit arm of an organization led by Casey DeSantis, according to records the group had to file as part of its nonprofit status. Of that money, $5 million was then sent to a group aligned with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and another $5 million to a group called Save Our Society from Drugs. Those groups then sent a total of $8.5 million toward a political committee led by [state attorney general James] Uthmeier that was working to defeat the recreational marijuana amendment. It’s not clear how much of the $10 million went directly to the PAC.

The governor’s administration apparently wants the Sentinel to cease its reporting on the matter. The cease-and-desist letter from the Florida DCF accuses Schweers of “falsely and with malicious intent asserting that the families are implicated in fraudulent activity by accepting financial assistance from Hope Florida Foundation” and claims that Schweers’ “threats and accusations were used as coercion to get the families to make negative statements about Hope Florida.” (The Hope Florida Foundation, as NBC News notes, is the nonprofit arm of the DeSantis’ welfare alternative, “which has a goal to steer Florida residents away from government programs and instead toward services from nonprofits and faith groups,” according to the Tallahassee Democrat.)

“We stand by our stories and reject the state’s attempt to chill free speech and encroach on our First Amendment right to report on an important issue,” Roger Simmons, the Sentinel’s executive editor, told The Associated Press via email, adding that DCF’s description of Schweers’ reporting was “completely false.”

DeSantis appeared to co-sign the agency’s demand in a tweet sharing the letter. “Bottom feeders gonna bottom feed,” he said.

In a reply to the governor’s post, Schweers asked why the administration hadn’t responded to his public records requests. He’s also shared social media posts from people who say he’s done nothing untoward and accusing the administration of blatant intimidation tactics.

In the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing by Schweers or the Sentinel, it certainly looks like DeSantis is bearing down on the free press to silence a story simply because it might portray his family in a bad light.>

<One of the biggest potential hurdles to Casey DeSantis running for Florida governor in 2026 may have just been knocked down — for now.

For weeks, Republicans in the Florida state House of Representatives have been investigating whether Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration illegally used $10 million tied to a federal Medicaid settlement to help defeat a 2024 ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana in the state.

Those leading the investigation suggested that DeSantis and his top allies broke the law by transferring the money to a political organization helmed by James Uthmeier, the governor’s former chief of staff and current state attorney general, saying it represented “wire fraud and money laundering.”

One of the groups the money flowed through along the way was an organization tied to Florida’s first lady.

But the main subcommittee leading the probe abruptly said it was ending its investigation Thursday after key figures declined to offer testimony.

“The House might continue investigating in a different venue than my subcommittee,” Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade, the chairman of the subcommittee, told NBC News. “As far as my role, I have the information I need to confirm that James Uthmeier engaged in wire fraud and money laundering. I’ll be coming back next [legislative] session with proposals to address the corruption within the DeSantis administration.”

Even though Casey DeSantis has statewide recognition as Florida’s first lady, she would be something of an underdog if she were to run for governor — especially facing a Trump-backed candidate. The Hope Florida investigation simmered down significantly this week, but the scrutiny it brought to the DeSantis administration, and Casey DeSantis in particular, may continue to cast a shadow over the race.

The investigation, first reported by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald, centered on what the DeSantis administration did with money from a $67 million settlement with Medicaid contractor Centene, which inked the deal after overbilling the state for prescription drugs. As part of that settlement, Desantis administration officials “directed” $10 million from that pot of money to the Hope Florida Foundation, the nonprofit arm of an organization led by Casey DeSantis, according to records the group had to file as part of its nonprofit status.

Of that money, $5 million was then sent to a group aligned with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and another $5 million to a group called Save Our Society from Drugs. Those groups then sent a total of $8.5 million toward a political committee led by Uthmeier that was working to defeat the recreational marijuana amendment. It’s not clear how much of the $10 million went directly to the PAC. The ballot measure received 57% of the vote but it needed 60% to pass.

Andrade and House Republicans said the money represented an illegal use of public funds for political purposes. He requested testimony this week from Florida Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Mark Wilson and Hope Florida attorney Jeff Aaron, both of whom declined to testify before Andrade’s committee.

On Thursday morning, Andrade told reporters that the GOP-led Florida House would end its investigation, his focus on Hope Florida concluded after the two men declined to appear before his committee.

The Hope Florida saga is shaping up to be among the most contentious political fights for the DeSantis family as Casey DeSantis openly mulls a run against Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who has already jumped in and been endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Casey DeSantis was the public face of the organization, which aimed to offer grants to help low-income state residents become more financially self-sufficient.

Both Ron and Casey DeSantis have said that the settlement money was a “cherry on top” — funds negotiated as part of the settlement, but that the money that went to Hope Florida was separate from the Medicaid portion of the agreement. They have argued the probe was politically motivated, and defended the program throughout the investigation, including as recently as Thursday morning.

Critics of the arrangement, however, contend that all the money should have gone back to taxpayers....>

<.... “Hope Florida is not a program. Hope Florida is an idea,” Casey DeSantis told reporters during a Thursday morning news conference. “Hope Florida is a philosophy. It is: How can we help people in need and do better legitimately? It’s not about just giving somebody a check and hoping it goes well,” the first lady said.

It’s not entirely clear what the political fallout on the governor’s race will be now that the Legislature’s investigation appears to be stalled, at least for now. There are some DeSantis allies who believe the end of the probe is helpful to her potential run, while others say that the damage has already been done.

“Can you imagine millions of dollars in ads being put behind that?” said a person supportive of a Casey DeSantis gubernatorial bid. “She has not really, in a serious way, had to answer for any of this. That’s going to change if she actually runs.”

Andrade said that there is no indication that Casey DeSantis herself broke any laws but that the entire saga is a stain on her resume.

“I don’t know if she committed any crimes, but she certainly looks incompetent at running a small charitable organization,” he said.

After Andrade announced he was ending his subcommittee’s investigation, DeSantis allies said the entire Hope Florida issue was “debunked.”

“It was clearly all a public student to get sound bites,” a DeSantis ally familiar with the governor’s thinking said.

While the Hope Florida investigation seems likely to be coming to an end, Casey DeSantis still would face an uphill battle if she were to run for governor. Not only does Donalds have Trump’s endorsement in a state he won by 13 percentage points in 2024, but he also has already raised more than $12 million and a political operation in place, something that is lacking for the DeSantis family.

The only political staffer currently working for the governor and likely political team for Casey DeSantis is Taryn Fenske, a longtime DeSantis adviser and Republican communications veteran. A handful of former DeSantis political staffers — including Ryan Tyson, who helped helm Ron DeSantis 2024 presidential race; Makenzi Mahler, a top former DeSantis fundraiser; and Alex Valdes, also a fundraiser for DeSantis — have left the operation and would not work for Casey DeSantis if she ran in 2026, three people familiar with the matter said.

“I don’t know who her team is, or who would work for her at this point,” said a person familiar with Casey DeSantis’ attempt to build a political operation. “If she runs, I assume people will come, but for the most part those who have helped the DeSantises in the past are gone.”

Casey DeSantis does continue to enjoy significant support from Florida Republicans. A February poll conducted by the University of North Florida showed 57% have a favorable opinion of the first lady, compared to 27% for Donalds.

“She likely enjoys some favorability by association as Florida’s first lady,” UNF political science professor Michael Binder said. “But most of these potential candidates suffer from a lack of recognition, some suffering more than others.”

“That said, I expect we’ll see a few of them become household names by the time the August 2026 primary rolls around,” he added.>

<When is a “school choice” proposal not really about school choice? In the budget bill that Republicans rushed through the House on May 12, 2025, school choice is just a cover-up for tax relief for the rich.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are trying to ram through a major taxpayer-funded private school program, according to education policy experts who appeared on an online “town hall” on May 22, 2025, which was about a nationwide school voucher scheme that’s buried deep in the text of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

On the surface, the bill promises to provide $5 billion annually in school voucher funds for parents to apply for and use to pay for private-school tuition, homeschooling, and for-profit online learning. “Supporters [of school choice have] hailed the proposal as ‘historic’ and a ‘huge win,’” reported Dana Goldstein of the New York Times in May.

But that topline description of what the measure proposes is deceptive and hides what amounts to “a tax shelter that serves to benefit only the most wealthy Americans,” said David R. Schuler in the town hall. Schuler is the executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

Although Goldstein framed the measure in pure political terms as a way for Republicans to push through a bill Democrats oppose, it’s not really about party politics, and opposition to the proposal is bipartisan.

And like Goldstein reported, while it’s true that the rhetoric of school choice is at the center of the fight over this measure, “This is not about giving families or parents choice,” said Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, another speaker at the town hall. “This is about giving schools choice to discriminate against kids.”

Yet there is a reason for this deception, and it’s got everything to do with what’s at the core of the Trump administration’s MAGA agenda.

It’s telling that the measure, originally called the Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025 when it was introduced and in committee, is now called “tax credit for contributions of individuals to scholarship granting organizations” and appears in the part of the bill devoted to “Additional Tax Relief for American Families and Workers,” rather than grouped with other education proposals in the Committee on Education and Workforce section.

But the subterfuge goes much deeper than the name, according to the speakers at the town hall, including Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), who called the measure “the quintessential definition of a tax shelter.”

The tax advantages are derived from how the program is funded. As Hanauer explained, school vouchers would be funded by a tax credit system and a federally mandated network of scholarship granting organizations (SGOs), one in every state. Each SGO is its own nonprofit that can grant vouchers to parents who apply. When private individuals and corporations donate to an SGO, they would, in turn, receive a tax credit from the federal government that’s dollar-for-dollar equal to the amount of the donation—limited to 10 percent of a donor’s income.

The first advantage is that the reward for donating comes in the form of a credit rather than a tax deduction, which, as the Tax Policy Center pointed out, increases the value of the tax advantage because a credit is “subtracted directly from a person’s tax liability,” while the value of a deduction “depends on the taxpayer’s marginal tax rate, which rises with income.”

Those specifics make the voucher program a more attractive system for giving than other charitable causes.

Also, “no other charity, not pediatric cancer research, not disaster relief, not assisting disabled veterans, nothing gets this level of tax incentive,” said Hanauer, “no other charity has ever gotten this kind of one-for-one payback.”

There’s a ripple effect of savings on state tax, too. “Because state income taxes largely piggyback on federal law,” Hanauer said, “the bill would also reduce [a donor’s] state tax.”

Even more lucrative to donors is a provision in the proposal to allow stock donations and avoid capital gains taxes on what they earned from the stock.

In other words, by donating to an SGO, wealthy donors can profit from their “donations,” and the wealthier the donor, the higher the potential profit.

“Elon Musk would have cut his capital gains tax bill by $690 million alone, him personally, if this [provision] had been in effect in 2021,” Hanauer said. It’s an “unprecedented giveaway that would enrich the wealthiest people, particularly those whose incomes come from stock,” she said.....>

<....Perhaps all these tax-related shenanigans could be justified as a federal program for “kids and families,” but that’s not really true of this proposal.

As Rodrigues explained, parents who want to use voucher money to pull their children out of the public system and send them to a private school will find that these schools don’t have to accept them.

She and other speakers in the town hall pointed out that private schools, regardless of whether or not they get public funding through a voucher program, will continue to have the freedom to screen out applicants who struggle with academic work, who aren’t fluent in English, who have histories of discipline problems, or who have learning disabilities.

Although the bill includes language about holding voucher receiving schools accountable for ensuring federally required supports—IEPs or Individual Education Programs—for students with learning disabilities, there’s no enforcement mechanism included, according to Rodriques, and the bill “doesn’t enforce or ensure any dispute resolution” when a parent doesn’t agree with how a school is treating their child.

Another speaker at the town hall, Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, noted that because the vast majority of private schools are religious, the voucher program would fund religion with tax dollars.

Religious private schools “cannot separate their faith from their teaching, and nor should they,” she said, but that condition creates problems for kids and families when practicing religious faith means excluding LGBTQ+ families and students or barring enrollment of families who do not share the school’s religious faith.

Passage of a federal voucher program would be especially detrimental to rural families, said Ginny Mott, vice president of the Maine State Parent Teacher Association, who also spoke at the meeting. There are very few private schools in rural parts of her state, she pointed out. “For rural working families, limited availability, distance, lack of transportation, and cost of tuition beyond what the voucher system will cover means for many families there is no realistic choice,” she said.

While a voucher program with limited choice would provide benefits for a very select group of families, it would inflict serious harm on the public schools that 83 percent of families send their children to, according to 2024 figures provided by Pew Research Center.

“Rural communities, children, and families will be especially hard hit by a voucher school system which would divert funding away from their public schools,” Mott said. “[I]mposing a new national voucher program would simply drain… resources away from our existing schools.”

Indeed, public schools everywhere would feel the impact, according to ITEP’s Hanauer, as public coffers that pay for education and other services lose funds to tax credits taken by donors. “We estimate that this bill would reduce federal tax revenue by $23.2 billion over the next decade,” she said. States would take a revenue hit too, losing $459 million to voucher tax credits, according to Hanauer.

AASA’s Schuler also noted that “[private schools] can also kick kids out whenever they want.” And when they do, the voucher funds the school collected don’t follow the child back to the public school....>

<....Given all the negatives in the bill, numerous speakers questioned why it was pushed through.

True, President Trump and his Secretary of Education Linda McMahon are openly hostile to public schools, and many in the Republican party have long campaigned to privatize education by expanding school voucher programs and enticing parents to pursue education options other than their local public schools.

Town hall participant Denise Forte, President and CEO of the Education Trust, echoed this theme when she called the voucher proposal “part of the great American heist on public education.”

But politics alone doesn’t explain the design of this particular bill.

Kentucky parent Maria Clark, who also spoke at the town hall, described her state’s rejection of a school voucher referendum in the 2024 November election, noting that “voters in all 120 counties” voted against vouchers in a state where Trump won the popular vote in 118 of those counties.

Voters also gave thumbs down to vouchers in Nebraska in November 2024, another conservative state where Trump won overwhelmingly.

“Why is Congress,” Clark asked, “specifically a Republican Congress, voting to force a voucher program on our state?”

Hanauer likely put her finger on the primary motivation when she said the bill “is something that’s as much about increasing inequality as it is about undermining our public schools.” Public education, after all, has long been an engine for equality, so any effort to undermine it is an effort to undo the public system’s equalizing force.

Such an outcome makes sense in the minds of Trump and his MAGA followers, who see the world in terms of a “zero-sum” struggle with winners and losers. In this worldview, proposing a federal voucher system with an accompanying budget to fund it is not enough. The program must come at the expense of the public school system. It’s not enough that beneficiaries of this bill—primarily well-to-do, white Christian parents who already can afford to send their children to private schools—get a boost; the rest of us who remain in the public system must make do with less.

That goal might sound fine to Trump and his supporters, but it’s a governing philosophy that will result in the worst possible outcomes for our children.>

<I must admit, if Trump wasn't such a power-hungry demagogue, a danger to democracy, a sexual predator, racist, sociopath, pathological liar, bully, and impulsive and unstable megalomaniac, I might feel sorry for him.

He has no real friends, just sycophants. All his relationships are transactions, including with his three wives and his children. When people are no longer useful to him—wives, lawyers, advisors, Cabinet members—he discards them.

His current wife Melania is transactional, too. She married him for his money. She obviously doesn't love or respect him and she occasionally displays her disdain for him in public. She didn’t even campaign for him last year, except to make a few public appearances.

Trump hardly ever laughs. He has an almost-constant angry scowl on his face. To Trump, the world is a dark and foreboding place, where, like him, people are consumed by greed and lust. He relies on money and intimidation to get what he wants because he has no capacity for empathy or love—or any belief that people can be motivated by idealism and compassion.

Trump grew up in a world of vast privilege, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't emotionally wounded.

Both the federal raids on immigrants in Los Angeles and the upcoming military parade in Washington, D.C. reflect Trump’s need to look tough, manly, and in control.

According to his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, he was bullied by his father, who must have told Donald that he wasn't smart and that he was (or should be worried about being) a loser. In 2017, 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts published a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, warning that he was erratic and unstable as pressures mounted on him. Two years later, they updated the book—this time with 37 experts weighing in on Trump’s troubled mental health.

He has no strong beliefs about governing or public policy. His major motivations are money, power, revenge, racism, and adulation.

One of Trump’s few joys in life are the cheers from his fans at MAGA rallies. So, to compensate for his insecurities, feed his ego, and to mobilize his MAGA followers, he has planned this massive parade on June 14—today—ostensibly to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, but which also just happens to coincide with this 79th birthday. The plan is to include 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, and seven military bands, and 34 horses—at a cost of about $50 million—money that could otherwise be spent on improving the lives of soldiers and military veterans. The event will require the closure of Ronald Reagan National Airport to accommodate flyovers and fireworks displays. Trump intends it as a display of force, domination, and personal power. It is more about him than about honoring our soldiers and veterans.

In U.S. history, large military parades have typically come at the end of wars as part of demobilizing troops and celebrating getting the country back to normal. But such spectacles have a long tradition in authoritarian countries, where dictators, including the current rulers of Russian and North Korea, seek to bind themselves to national identity. The most disreputable of these displays of dominance were the mass rallies and parades organized by the Nazis to celebrate Adolf Hitler, depicted in Leni Riefenstahl’s pathbreaking propaganda film “Triumph of the Will,” that celebrated Hitler speaking at a massive Nazi Party rally in Nurenberg in 1934.

Having won a second term, Trump is now wants to consolidate his grip on power. He’s sought to bend those whom he views as his critics and opponents—universities, media companies, law firms, judges, businesses, scientists, artists and performers, and even professional sports teams—to his will. Both the federal raids on immigrants in Los Angeles and the upcoming military parade in Washington, D.C. reflect Trump’s need to look tough, manly, and in control.

From his father, who was arrested at a Klan rally in 1927, he also absorbed the racist ideas of the fake science of eugenics, which was popular in America in the early 1900s.

In 1988, he told Oprah Winfrey that a person had “to have the right genes” in order to achieve great fortune. In 2010, he told CNN that he was a “gene believer,” explaining that “when you connect two racehorses, you usually end up with a fast horse.” He compared his own “gene pool” to that of successful thoroughbreds. During a 2020 campaign speech to a crowd of white supporters in Minnesota, Trump said, “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? You have good genes in Minnesota.”....>

<...But in fact, Trump has thus always been insecure about his family's genes. His father lied about his family's heritage, pretending that the Trumps were from Swedish, not German, ancestry. Trump repeated the lie in his book, The Art of the Deal. (He later said that he wouldn't mind if the US had more immigrants from Scandinavia, but kept out immigrants from "s***hole countries," an outrageously racist comment). Trump said at a rally in Iowa that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of the country. They're destroying the fabric of our country, and we're going to have to get them out."

Trump believes that most white Americans share his racism toward immigrants and that he can weaponize that hatred by carrying out a mass deportation of people he calls “illegal” and “criminals.” He’s sent federal agents to Los Angeles to arrest immigrant workers and parents, followed by National Guard troops to intimidate and arrest those who are protesting the anti-immigrant raids. This is all designed to create fear and chaos to give Trump cover as the “law and order” president and, as Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA) noted, “an excuse to declare martial law in California.” The timing is no accident. The federal raids—which Trump is likely to expand to other cities—are meant to divert public attention from Trump’s legislative plan to cut Medicaid and other essential programs in order to give a huge tax cut to the super-rich.

Trump often claims that he's a self-made billionaire. In fact, he inherited his father's wealth, as reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig explain in their 2024 book, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. His father bankrolled his developments and bailed him out when they failed. Despite his boasts, he knows that most of his business ventures—his casinos, hotels, golf courses, fake university, airline, football team, clothing line, steaks, and others—failed. Most banks won't go near Trump, because they consider him a toxic grifter who consistently defrauds his subcontractors, employees, and lenders. According to Forbes magazine—which ranks the world’s billionaires—Trump was never as wealthy as he claimed to be.

The timing is no accident. The federal raids—which Trump is likely to expand to other cities—are meant to divert public attention from Trump’s legislative plan to cut Medicaid and other essential programs in order to give a huge tax cut to the super-rich.

Trump's favorite insults, directed toward people he considers his enemies, are "not smart" and "losers." Clearly the man is projecting.

Trump was terrified of losing last year’s election because he might have had to go to prison and also because he'd be viewed as a "loser," which in his mind is the worst thing you can be, a consequence of his father's disparagement and his mother's neglect. He was doubly worried that he might lose to a Black woman, Kamala Harris, whom he described as “not smart.”

Trump is clearly insecure about his mental abilities and worries that it's due to his inferior genes. He’s boasted that he comes from a superior genetic stock and that he is a "very stable genius." For years, he has constantly insisted that "I'm smart." “Throughout my life,” Trump tweeted in 2018, “my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” He lied about being first in his class in college. He didn't even make the Dean's List. Whenever he has defended his intelligence, it isn't clear if he's trying to convince his interviewers or himself.

He’s even defensive about his vocabulary. He claims to have "great words," although linguists who have studied his speeches and other statements say he has the vocabulary of an adolescent. He doesn't read—for pleasure or work. As president, he doesn’t read the memos prepared for him by his staff, including intelligence briefs. Some observers attributed this to his arrogance. But more likely it is because he can’t understand what is in them. He'd rather be considered arrogant than stupid.

At least 26 of his top aides publicly said that Trump was unfit to be president. They questioned his competence, character, impulsiveness, narcissism, judgement, intelligence, and even his sanity....>

<....According to Michael Wolff, in his book, Fire and Fury, both former chief of staff Reince Priebus and ex-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called Trump an “idiot.” Trump’s one-time economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump was “dumb as s***.” His national security adviser H.R. McMaster described the president as a “dope.” In July 2017, news stories reported that Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first Secretary of State, called the president a “moron.” When asked, he did not deny using that term. In an interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Tillerson recounted that Trump’s “understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited.” He said, “It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” said his former Vice President, Mike Pence. Mark Esper, one of Trump’s Defense Secretaries, said that Trump is not “fit for office because he puts himself first, and I think anybody running for office should put the country first.” In his farewell speech, Mark Milley, a retired Army general who served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023, warned “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” clearly referring to Trump. John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps four-star general who served as chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, said that Trump “admires autocrats and murderous dictators” and “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Soon after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, McMaster, the former national security advisor, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump had incited the riot through “sustained disinformation… spreading these unfounded conspiracy theories.” He accused Trump of “undermining rule of law.” Sarah Matthews, deputy White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, witnessed Trump staffers trying, without success, to get the president to condemn the January 6 violence. “In my eyes, it was a complete dereliction of duty that he did not uphold his oath of office,” she told USA Today. “I lost all faith in him that day” and resigned from her job. Trump’s “continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office ever again,” Matthews said.

What kind of president invites the media to attend Cabinet meetings where each member is required to humiliate themselves by telling Trump how wonderful he is?

But let's give Trump some credit. He does have the kind of intelligence, sometimes called "street smarts," attributed to hustlers, con men, and grifters. That seems to have worked for him.

Trump knows that many Republicans in Congress laugh at him behind his back but don't say anything in public because they fear him—particularly his ability to find candidates to run against them in the GOP primaries.

He also knows that most world leaders don't respect him. We’ve now been witness to the ritualized Oval Office meetings between Trump and his counterparts, where Trump seeks to bully, coerce, and humiliate them. A few have challenged him, which gets him angry enough to seek revenge. His meetings with Putin are somewhat different, since he envies the Russian autocrat’s power. Trump’s bromance and recent break-up with Elon Musk is partly about policy but mostly a battle of egos and wills.

What kind of person craves being famous for telling people, "You're fired"? But that's how he became a TV celebrity. What kind of president invites the media to attend Cabinet meetings where each member is required to humiliate themselves by telling Trump how wonderful he is? To Trump, respect is a zero-sum game. He likes to demean others to boost himself....>

<....Trump will try, and fail, to cancel the 2028 elections and remain in power. But don't expect him to fade away. He will seek to become the leader of a white nationalist supremacist movement while continuing to dominate the Republican Party. The MAGA forces he’s unleashed since 2016 will also still be around. It is no accident that racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic incidents have spiked since Trump began campaigning for president. Trump verbalizes, encourages, enables, tolerates, winks at, and makes excuses for hate groups, most notably when he said that some of the Nazis marching in Charlottesville in 2017 were “good people.”

But as he gets crazier and crazier, and no longer has the power of the presidency, most of his followers will abandon him, crowds at his rallies will be smaller and smaller, and he’ll become a lonely, decrepit old man, a fallen idol like the Orson Welles character (Charles Kane) in the 1941 film "Citizen Kane" and the Andy Griffith character (Lonesome Rhodes) in the 1957 film "A Face in the Crowd."

He'll retreat to Mar-a-Lago—his Xanadu—by himself and with his paid staff. Or perhaps he'll spend much of his remaining years in federal prison, seething over how he was the victim of conspiracies.

When Trump dies from the side effects of obesity, the nation and the world will breathe a huge sigh of relief. And while he can't quite admit it to himself, he knows it, and it terrifies him.>

<"Our colleges [have] become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics." Donald J. Trump, July 17, 2023

"We need to … aggressively attack the universities in this country; the professors are the enemy." J.D. Vance, November 2, 2021

Under Donald Trump, the federal government has mounted the most aggressive and sustained assault on American universities in our history, targeting not only the values of intellectual freedom but also the institutions that drive innovation and economic growth. This campaign will shape the battle for democracy and could have grave consequences for the nation's future.

Attacks on intellectuals are not new. Think of Galileo, whose endorsement of Copernican heliocentrism earned him an Inquisition and house arrest by the Catholic Church. Because intellectuals frequently raise difficult questions and challenge authority, those in power often make efforts to silence them. But rarely have institutions of intellectual life themselves come under such organized threat. Trump understands that undermining the economic vitality of universities can also choke off dissent and critical thought.

Americans hold sometimes conflicting views about higher education, especially our prestigious institutions. A college education is celebrated as a gateway to economic success and social mobility. But some schools such as Harvard, Columbia, and even the University of Virginia (UVA) are labeled elitist, often resented for their perceived liberalism, high costs, and admissions practices. This has made them vulnerable to political attack.

Universities are also economic powerhouses, often providing major engines for regional growth and employment. What would Charlottesville be without the University of Virginia, New Haven without Yale, or the Regional Triangle without Duke and the University of North Carolina? According to a recent report by United for Medical Research, every $1 invested in the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.) research generates $2.56 in economic activity. Cutting funds means fewer start-ups, higher health care costs and the dismantling of one of our strongest innovation engines. And that is what Trump is trying to do.

American universities are also magnets for global talent and the reason the U.S. leads the world in science and innovation. It is no accident that students from around the world hope to study in the United States, because this is where breakthroughs occur and inquiry abounds. That standing is now imperiled.

Attacks on universities and intellectuals are typically associated with totalitarian regimes. Stalin executed and imprisoned many intellectuals as part of purges to consolidate power and eliminate perceived threats to the regime. Mao's Cultural Revolution persecuted and jailed intellectuals deemed "counter revolutionary." Castro showed little tolerance for intellectuals expressing dissent opinions or challenging the government. Similar practices occur today in places like Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Trump has adopted a new strategy for stifling dissent, one that does not imprison thinkers, but instead economically starves the institutions in which they work.

In the U.S., attacks on intellectuals have generally not led to imprisonment or death. Our embrace of the First Amendment and academic freedom have made such attempts difficult. Nonetheless, when attacks have occurred, they have been serious, and many lives have been destroyed in the process. Senator Joe McCarthy's war on academia in the 40s and 50s, for example, focused primarily on individual professors with whom he disagreed, labeling them as Communists in hopes of getting them fired. A number of universities, including Harvard, took the bait, and discharged faculty (even those with tenure) not for dereliction of their professorial obligations, but because of their political philosophy. More than 100 left-leaning faculty lost their jobs during these years, often without due process. The exact numbers will never be known; many professors suffered in silence to enhance their prospects for future employment while the institutions that purged them often kept dismissals secret to avoid negative publicity.

After McCarthy's political collapse, the attacks on professors subsided until resurrected in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War. Still, the focus remained on individuals not institutions. When Ronald Reagan came to power in California assailing the free speech movement at places like UC-Berkeley, for example, he focused on individuals, either students or professors, who he considered dangerous because of their beliefs, famously declaring in 1969 that "if there has to be a bloodbath then let's get it over with." Nixon's "enemies list" included respected academics like heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, Harvard law dean Derek Bok, Norm Chomsky, John Kenneth Galbraith, Daniel Ellsberg, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the Presidents of Yale University and M.I.T....>

<....Issues may change, but elected officials continue to target professors with whom they differ. In 2010, for example, then Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took aim at climate scientist Michael Mann, then a professor at the University of Virginia. Cuccinelli, who subsequently became Donald Trump's Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and is now Gov. Youngkin's nominee to the UVA Board of Visitors, employed a little used legal tactic called a civil investigative demand (CID) in hopes of forcing Mann and the university to release a broad range of documents related to his research that argued the severity of climate change. Cuccinelli's actions struck many as harassment of an individual because of what he thinks. UVA came to Mann's defense, and the CID was eventually dismissed by the courts.

And conservative commentators continue to relish in their criticism of so-called leftist professors. For a decade, Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA group have pursued college faculty members seen as proponents of dangerous ideas, even launching a website called "Professor Watchlist," which lists faculty members it claims discriminate against conservative students or advance leftist thinking in the classroom.

With Trump in the White House, a more insidious approach has emerged to undermine dissent. Today, individuals are not the only focus; instead, the institutions themselves are also in the crosshairs. Entire departments like Black studies and initiatives on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are targeted for extinction. Research funding is being withheld or cancelled. Governmental investigations are being pursued.

These attacks are easier because of the decline in public confidence in higher education over the past decade. A Gallup poll in 2015 found that nearly 60% of Americans expressed trust in colleges and universities. By 2024, that figure had fallen to just one-third. Conservative media has relentlessly painted universities as bastions of "wokeism" and indoctrination. Phrases like "cancel culture," "political correctness," "critical race theory," and "wokeism" are now code words to signal the disapproval of higher education. And the institutions and their leaders have not helped. When three Ivy League presidents cannot explain how calls to kill Jews are antithetical to free speech at a university, public confidence can easily waiver. And universities have done a poor job explaining why the overhead they collect from federal grants is justified.

Recent Trump attacks were foreshadowed by one of his competitors, Gov. Ron Desantis of Florida, who in 2023, totally transformed New College from an acclaimed small public liberal arts school into a conservative haven by appointing a new Board of Trustees, who then fired the President without cause, and began dismantling programs and courses that were anathema to conservatives. Within two years, over 30% of the faculty were gone, some resigning and others fired. Librarians were terminated. Books from now-discredited programs were "dumped." In the process, Desantis had sent a message to other public institutions that the state would not tolerate education that posed a threat. Trump is now bringing these threats to a national stage.

In a recent meeting to discuss Harvard with his aides, President Trump reportedly asked, "What if we never pay them?" That soon became a key piece in a multifaceted pressure campaign designed to impose his will on the institution and academia. Threats to withhold funds work, especially as so many universities around the country rely increasingly on the federal government for research funds. Trump has already been successful in getting Columbia to capitulate to a series of demands in exchange for restoration of $400 million in funding. By executive order, Trump ordered funding freezes at other elite institutions like Brown, Northwestern, Princeton, and Cornell.

Harvard alone found the courage to refuse the demands of the administration. The institution has a lot to lose. In addition to freezing $3.2 billion in federal grants, Trump is threatening the institution's financial health and global influence by trying (so far unsuccessfully) to halt the university's enrollment of international students. The General Services Administration directed all federal agencies to explore ways to cut remaining contracts with the university, and Trump is targeting the school's tax-exempt status, an action that, if embraced by Congress, could cost Harvard an estimated $850 million a year. The administration has opened eight investigations against the institution, adding Harvard to the list of 52 universities that are being examined by the Department of Education for DEI programs. According to the university, nearly every direct federal grant to Harvard's school of public health was terminated in May, including those researching cancer screenings and lung disease....>

<....Harvard has responded with a flurry of lawsuits and has already been successful in obtaining a temporary order restraining Trump from preventing the enrollment of international students. It has been joined by a coalition of 22 state attorneys general who have challenged Trump's funding cuts to universities and research institutions. But lawsuits take time, and substantial damage can be done even if the university prevails. Trump's purpose seems clear-force Harvard to capitulate and use that victory to sow fear among more than 1,700 private universities and colleges that they could be the next target.

Several states, especially those with Republican legislatures, are also intruding on traditional university autonomy, from restricting DEI to undermining the system of shared governance of faculty and administration. Last year, HB 2735, a measure that would have reduced faculty members' statutorily protected participation in shared governance while upgrading the power of public university presidents and the Arizona Board of Regents, passed the Arizona legislature before being vetoed by the state's Democratic governor. The Chronicle of Higher Education lists other state bills passed into law prohibiting DEI at public universities and watering down independence in curriculum development and academic policy.

Modern universities embrace the Enlightenment tradition of a free search for knowledge in the belief that informed discussion fed by a wide range of ideas and is the best way to reach toward truth. As ideas are tested in public debate, people can choose the best of them. This was the basis of academic freedom that has enjoyed broad support for decades. As Steven Pinker recently argued, "Intellectual freedom is not a privilege of professors but the only way that fallible humans gain knowledge."

Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, has considerable experience with the so-called "cancel culture", where a professional remark can expose an academic to unwarranted personal attacks–from either right or left. He nonetheless asserts that universities should encourage unfettered discourse, because this is not only its purpose but the way society advances. Governmental action to compel universities to comply with a set of principles dictated from above merely stifles inquiry and undermines the fundamental purpose of education.

Except for Ken Cuccinelli's attack on Michael Mann, the Virginia system of higher education has generally enjoyed bipartisan support. A recent poll conducted by the Virginia Business Higher Education Council (VBHEC) reported that 81% of Virginians believe Virginia's colleges and universities prepare students with the skills needed to succeed in our changing economy. While tuition increases have been a concern for elected officials throughout the last two decades, rarely were arguments made that our universities needed a massive makeover–until recently with Gov. Glenn Youngkin's attacks on DEI.

In Virginia, the governing boards of state colleges and universities are nominated by the governor and approved by the General Assembly. The legislature typically defers to gubernatorial recommendations, and, once approved, members of the governing boards generally put politics behind and cooperate in charting the future for their institutions. Youngkin's selections to these boards, however, have proven to be less about proper management, and more out of efforts to transform these institutions. An example was the appointment of Bert Ellis to the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia. Known for his abrasive nature and criticism that UVA had lost its way, Ellis was also a key player in The Jefferson Council, which recently published full page newspapers ads in the Richmond Times Dispatch calling for ouster of President Jim Ryan, primarily due to his past support of DEI initiatives. Ironically, Ellis's performance on the Board, while clearly in line with Youngkin's policy designs, was troubling enough that the governor ultimately discharged him from the role. He has now nominated Ken Cuccinelli as Ellis's replacement, though it is highly likely that the General Assembly will NOT appoint him, especially if Democrats keep control of that body after this fall's election....>

<....Youngkin's big push has been to eliminate DEI in state educational institutions, and he recently crowed on Fox News that "DEI is dead at UVA." That has meant intruding upon traditional faculty prerogatives such as university curricula. Two courses recently developed in a multiyear effort at VCU and George Mason on "Racial Literacy" and "Just Societies" were cancelled shortly after Youngkin's education secretary requested a view of the syllabi, and a Youngkin spokesman suggested the course requirements were a "thinly veiled attempt to incorporate the progressive left's groupthink on Virginia's students."

Even medical centers cannot seem to escape the politicization of higher education. When K. Craig Kent, the then CEO of UVA Health was recently forced to resign following an investigation by the UVA Board of Visitors, Thomas Scully, a self-described lifelong Republican conservative who previously served as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the second Bush administration and was serving on the UVA Health Services advisory board, called the action "silly partisan politics" played by the Board of Visitors, the vast majority of which have been appointed by Youngkin. Whether present President Jim Ryan, previously a prominent proponent of DEI initiatives can survive, remains an open question. The Trump administration and DEI critics such as the Jefferson Council continue to agitate, DOJ recently sending a letter to the Rector asking for more specific evidence of the unwinding of DEI.

Virginia's schools are not as dependent on federal grants as many other institutions. Nonetheless, as of late May, Trump executive orders have frozen or eliminated at least 183 federal research grants totaling over $232 million across four UVa, Virginia Tech, VCU, and George Mason. Since UVA received $549 million in research awards in 2024, it is not yet clear whether other cuts are ahead.

Supporting our universities at this time is critical. Make a contribution, however small, to your local college or university, to your alma mater, or even to Harvard, with a note that you support academic freedom and oppose Trump and state governments who would undermine it. Write your favorite college president and applaud him or her for joining several hundred college presidents in a Call for Constructive Engagement, or encourage them to sign the open letter. Thank a scientist for what they do. Participate in public protests coming up, including June 14. Write a letter to your paper or post your support on social media. Contact your state representative asking him or her to defend our system of higher education. Just like the Trump campaign is multifaceted, so too must ours.

Intellectuals often expose the lies of governments and provide challenging analyses of our society and culture. When they are silenced and their institutions crippled, critical thinking disappears-and with it, the foundation of a free Republic.>

<As the sun dawned on the West Coast on June 12, the Trump administration’s assault on California looked unstoppable, if not necessarily legal. Even before widespread ICE raids turned Los Angeles into a cauldron of fear and anger, the president of the United States was threatening the Golden State with threats of a complete shutdown of federal assistance programs. Donald Trump has demonized California and its “radical left” elected leadership for years, claiming (with zero evidence) that Californians robbed him of a popular vote victory in 2016, caused their own wildfire problems, and are at the cutting edge of a Democratic Party conspiracy to flood the nation with predatory scum-of-the-earth immigrants. The ICE raids kicked off what appeared to be premeditated administration-wide offensive to bring California to its knees.

Almost immediately Trump federalized National Guard units, claiming that scattered protests against ICE represented a “rebellion.” Before these units could even be deployed, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth doubled down on the troop call-up, mobilizing U.S. Marines to join a preemptive clampdown in and near the country’s second-largest city. ICE’s ultimate boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled L.A. a “city of criminals” that not only deserved but required a scourging from armed federal agents. And soon enough she was on the scene herself, in tactical garb, accompanying ICE agents on raids. Polls showed mixed reactions to the sudden confrontations between Washington and Angelenos. But Team Trump seemed confident that the politics of the situation favored its position.

But in the course of June 12, the administration suffered two blows to its self-confidence. First, Noem held a press conference in Los Angeles to boast that her department was just beginning its armed occupation of this terrible place:

“We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this Governor Newsom and this mayor placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city.”

Within minutes, Noem’s presser exploded when Alex Padilla, a U.S. Senator from California who had been down the hall in an unrelated meeting, entered the room, tried to ask a question, and was promptly hustled out by Noem’s security, forced to the floor, and handcuffed. The sights and sounds of a Latino Senator being humiliated in his own state by a federal interloper who clearly despised this heavily Latino city echoed across the state. Congressional Democrats in Washington were outraged, and even some Republicans expressed misgivings; Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said of the manhandling of her colleague: “It’s horrible. It is — it is shocking at every level. It’s not the America I know.”

Despite Noem’s efforts to play the victim, suggesting not so subtly that her people had every reason to fear and loathe this large brown man interrupting her presser, the optics for her are unforgiving. She came to Los Angeles to bully the locals and overplayed her hand. If Trump is smart, he’ll yank her right out of there....>

<....The second blow to the administration’s campaign against L.A. came from Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, who issued a temporary restraining order reversing Trump’s takeover of California National Guard units on Thursday evening. In a strongly worded decision, Breyer rebutted the claim that scattered and originally limited protests against ICE raids represented a “rebellion” that justified a massive expansion of presidential powers. The White House is appealing the ruling, and hours later it received a temporary reprieve from a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (two of whose members were appointed by Trump). The panel blocked Breyer’s ruling and set a hearing on the matter for June 17. But even if that panel upholds Trump’s authority (which is not at all certain), the full 9th Circuit (with 16 judges appointed by Democratic presidents and 13 by Republicans) may not agree. And it’s unclear if the U.S. Supreme Court will rush to Trump’s assistance in a case where the facts are so unfriendly.

Even if this case lingers in the courts and Trump can keep control of California’s Guard, the litigation could inhibit federalization of National Guard units in other states, which the administration is clearly contemplating, according to the Washington Post:

The Trump administration wants to use the National Guard more broadly to enact the president’s immigration agenda, according to border czar Tom Homan, documents and people familiar with plans.

“They can’t make immigration arrests, but they can certainly augment for security, transportation, infrastructure, intelligence,” Homan said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The third blow to Team Trump is still in the making. The events in Los Angeles led to a huge expansion of nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, which had been planned weeks ago to coincide with Trump’s massive military parade in Washington. The Republican governors of Missouri and Texas have already called out the National Guard in a clear attempt to intimidate people participating in these “No Kings” protests. More and more, Trump and his allies are looking like politicians who need few excuses to deploy armed forces to suppress any objections to their policies. The backlash already evident in California may go truly national in the coming days.>