A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Stay Focused On The Real Power Dynamic
Accretion of power is the core goal of Trump’s Project 2025 opening blitz. Since power in the tripartite federal government is finite, the accrual of power by the executive branch necessarily comes at the expense of the legislative and/or judicial branches. But that highfalutin constitutional framework doesn’t quite capture the petty transactional nature of what Trump is up to.
The WaPo has a story out this morning that begins to capture this new dynamic: Members of Congress going hat in hand to the Trump administration asking for special dispensation from the latest degradations, purges, shutdowns, and freezes.
Trump II’s opening month blitzkrieg has wreaked all manner of damage and destruction – some of that undoubtedly for the pure sake of doing it – but the real power dynamic is in converting the vast array of government goods and services into a political currency that Trump can exchange for favors, leverage, control, and obedience.
What were democratically agreed upon government programs now become baubles to be awarded friends and denied foes. Congress is reduced to a supplicant trying to secure exceptions, carveouts, and special treatment for themselves and their constituents. Even if Trump succeeds ultimately in wrecking only a portion of the federal government, he will have accrued vast new power not just by stripping it from Congress but apportioning the spoils back to individual members at the time, place, and manner of his choosing, on his terms, however corrupt they may be.
Tracking The Purges
- DOD is next.
- U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of DC has reinstated Cathy Harris as chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board after she was fired by the Trump administration.
IMPORTANT
President Trump issued a new executive order purporting to rein in independent agencies and expand White House power and control over, among others, the FTC, SEC, and FCC.
Keep An Eye On This Case
President Trump’s attempted removal of Hampton Dellinger as U.S. special counsel is the first Trump II case to make it to the Supreme Court. A federal district judge last week ordered Dellinger reinstated, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals over the weekend denied the Trump administration’s request for relief. The administration immediately sought Supreme Court intervention, and the high court out the case on a quick schedule. Dellinger has already filed his brief with the court. Steve Vladeck explains why this case is unique and not representative of the other coming battles over independent agencies and executive power.
DOGE Watch
On the same day that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled there was an insufficient legal basis to issue a temporary restraining order against DOGE,
- Elon Musk’s role and what DOGE is actually doing remain clouded in secrecy and government misdirection.
- DOGE’s access to Americans’ personal data now includes the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- D’OH! DOGE claimed $8 billion in savings on a cancelled contract that was actually worth only $8 million.
- The GSA’s lead engineer for a government text-messaging service resigned Tuesday after DOGE requested access to sensitive data, including personal identifying information, the WaPo reported.
What Elon Musk Is Really About
Cruel But Also Dumb
Errors, mistakes, screwups, and boneheadedness are part and parcel of the Trump II reign of terror:
- The Trump administration was considering destroying a stockpile of free-to-the-public COVID tests but reversed itself after the WaPo came asking questions.
- The Trump administration “accidentally” fired officials working on bird flu, and the USDA is now scrambling to try to rehire them.
An Awkward Day In Court For DOJ
The Justice Department will for the first time have to defend to a federal judge its corrupt bargain to drop criminal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. U.S. District Judge Dale Ho set a hearing for 2 p.m. ET this afternoon on the government’s motion to dismiss that prompted an unprecedented wave of DOJ resignations. TPM’s Josh Kovensky will be in courthouse and file his report late this afternoon.
Harmonic Convergence: DOJ, Project Veritas, EPA
DOJ politicization collided with Trump’s impoundment effort thanks to a bogus Project Veritas video. It led to the forced resignation of a senior prosecutor in the DC U.S. Attorney’s Office who could not abide using criminal process to try to claw back $20 billion appropriated to the EPA and already sent out the door to Citibank.
Jeffrey Clark Is Back
Jeffrey Clark, the Trump I DOJ official who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump and a one-time co-defendant of Trump’s in the Georgia RICO case has popped up as a senior adviser to Mark Paoletta in his role as the CFPB’s new chief legal officer. Paoletta is also the OMB general counsel. Both OMB and CFPB are currently being run by Russell Vought.
Thread Of The Day
Great Read
Come for Jamison Foser’s Drive-By Truckers lede and stay for the political analysis:
We aren’t in a situation in which we can pick only the “right” fights; only fights we can clearly win. Things are so much worse than that, and will be for a very long time. The cold hard truth is there aren’t very many fights we can have a high degree of confidence we can win; there’s too much stacked against us. We have to be willing to pick some fights we will probably lose, because those are pretty much the only kinds of fights we have.
Trump Shits On Ukraine As He Walks Away From It
The painful abandonment of Ukraine by the Trump administration began in earnest with Russia-U.S. talks sans Ukraine producing a process to end the war that also sidelines the victim of Russian aggression.
As if that capitulation weren’t grim enough, President Trump took the occasion to blame Ukraine for being invaded. “You should have never started it,” Trump said, lashing out at Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in comments that also sought to undermine him politically at home. At a press conference in his office in Kyiv, Zelensky responded: “I would like to have more truth with the Trump team.”
As Farah Stockman notes, “Europeans are waking up to the fact that they are entirely dependent on a foreign power that is no longer acting like itself. America, which once championed the liberal democratic world order, is now turning against it in ways that are shocking to its allies.”
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Is there any reason to believe TSF is doing any more here than admiring his own signature?
ETA: Oh, Frist!
Cloud leopard here to help out with the faces.
Well, TSF warned us all - Trump 2.0 is all about the grift and retribution.
Not really OT:
re: muskrat
If it walks like a nazi, talks like a nazi, and salutes like a nazi, it’s a fucking nazi.
Nope. I’m pretty sure he has next to no understanding of most of what he signs. He is exactly what Grover Norquist, Leonard Leo and their oligarch patrons wanted - a human autopen.
The Trump Family Brand.