Canada Sits the United States Down for an Intervention

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

What Your Friends Say About You

Saturday’s extraordinary speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was ostensibly about the collapse of U.S. trade talks, but it was really about the collapse of the United States as a beacon of economic freedom, a worthy partner, a trusted ally, and a reliable neighbor.

As you would expect, the speech was written for a domestic political audience, with laundry lists of things already done and still to be done to protect Canada from the sudden emergence of an erratic aggressor on its southern border. But sprinkled among the reassurances to Canadians were blistering indictments of the United States under President Trump as a untrustworthy, deceitful, and calculating former (and hopefully future) friend.

This speech was more direct and explicit than Carney’s January address in Davos that received so much attention. “You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” Carney said after pulling Canadian negotiators from the trade talks late Friday.

I grew up in Cajun south Louisiana, so I was particularly struck by Carney’s account of the Trump administration’s attack on Canadian cultural policies that protect French language and culture, via the NYT:

On Saturday, he said that American negotiators “asked too much and offered too little.” Among other things, Mr. Carney said that American negotiators pushed to roll back Canada’s efforts to promote Canadian and French language content in online streaming services, subsidies for industries like publishing and film production and even mandatory labeling in French, an official language in Canada, as well as English on packaging.

“We were close to reaching a comprehensive agreement with the U.S., but they made changes, including threats on French language and culture and Canadian culture that would never be acceptable for that reason,” Mr. Carney said in French. “That marked the end of that stage of negotiations.”

When Carney talks about U.S. threats to Canadian sovereignty, as he did Saturday, he doesn’t seem to be referring as much to Trump’s preposterous chest-thumping about making Canada the 51st state — though that looms heavily over U.S.-Canada relations — but rather to a steady stream of demands and expected concessions that chip away at Canadian autonomy in ways that would over time subordinate it to the United States. But it’s all of the same piece: a relentless Trump administration effort to demean, denigrate, and demote Canada to American sidekick status.

Lawless Boat Strike Campaign Resumes

After a two-month pause, the Trump administration’s lawless campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats resumed Sunday with a strike in the eastern Pacific that killed two people.

Sayanora, Ed!

Ed Martin — who variously served as acting D.C. U.S. attorney, U.S. pardon attorney, special attorney, and head of the Weaponization Working Group — is leaving the Justice Department “to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028,” President Trump said.

Trump US Attorney Scheme Blocked Again

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Friday that John A. Sarcone III was unlawfully appointed as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.

The 2-1 decision aligned with a key decision earlier in the week by the 9th Circuit that a vacant U.S. attorney position can only be filed by a first assistant U.S. attorney who was already in place at the time of the vacancy. In a workaround designed to bypass Senate confirmation, Sarcone was installed as first assistant attorney after the vacancy created when federal judges declined to extend his term as acting U.S. attorney.

Trump’s interpretation “would turn the FVRA’s common-sense framework on its head,” the 2nd Circuit ruled. “Under that reading, the President could install virtually anyone as the acting officer simply by naming that person First Assistant, regardless of whether they possessed any of the qualifications Congress required for the Executive to depart from the default.”

The Corruption: Live Nation Edition

Many DOJ officials regard President Trump’s direct and personal political interference in the Live Nation antitrust case “extreme” even for him, the WSJ reports. The settlement in March while the trial was underway came after Live Nation hired new lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell, the NYC firm that represents Trump personally.

Roberts Allows Ballroom Project For Now

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay of lower court orders that would have halted construction of Trump’s White House ballroom on Saturday. Instead, construction will continue for now as the Supreme Court considers how to proceed on Trump’s emergency appeal.

In related news: The White House already has a nuclear-proof facility buried deep underground that was completed in secret during the Obama presidency which undercuts Trump’s claims in his ballroom lawsuit, the Washington Post reports.

The Purges: Stars and Stripes

The publisher of Stars and Stripes (who had already announced his retirement), along with the military newspaper’s editor in chief and a reporter, were all fired by Pentagon, which has tried to assert control over the venerable publication that has long had editorial independence.

Trump Threatens to Sue Think Tank

President Trump is absurdly threatening the Center for American Progress with a $5 billion defamation lawsuit unless it retracts a report it published last month titled: “The Trump Administration’s $1.7 Billion National Guard Deployments Fail To Reduce Urban Crime.” CAP called the threatened lawsuit “baseless” and “a transparent attempt to silence us.”

Completely Normal

TPM’s Hunter Walker: Colorado GOP Gov Nominee Claims to Have Battled ‘Demons’ With ‘Reptilian’ Eyes

History Repeats Itself With a Vengeance

With Alternative for Germany poised to become next month the first far-right party to come to power in a German state since World War II, it has been targeting the Bauhaus in strikingly similar ways to the Nazis nearly 100 years ago, the WSJ reports.

Quote of the Day

“Whether and how things intensify, or whether it turns out like in 1932, no one knows.”—Barbara Steiner, the Austrian-born director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

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