Incoming President Threatens Prison For Jan. 6 Committee Members

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Don’t Blink

While Donald Trump’s vow to jail members of the Congress who investigated his efforts to subvert the 2020 election has been repeated ad nauseam, it remains an unprecedented and extraordinary threat to the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the Constitution.

In his first sit-down interview since the election, President-elect Trump reiterated on Meet the Press his desire for the Jan. 6 committee members to be jailed. In an awkwardly worded exchange, Trump said he wouldn’t order his Justice Department to pursue the Jan. 6 committee members but that he expected his new appointees there to do it on their own. So much for coded speech.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, issued a withering statement in response to Trump’s interview. “There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee – and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct,” Cheney said.

Trump Jan. 6 Pardons Could Come As Soon As Day 1

Trump’s latest promise to pardon Jan. 6 rioters was laden with misinformation, mistruths, and misdirection – but he appears likely to follow through with a blanket pardon as soon as he takes office next month.

The Last Remaining Recourse Against Trump?

  • “Though the criminal cases against him are all but dead, Trump is likely to be fighting eight civil lawsuits — from members of Congress and injured police officers — deep into his second term. They may be the last form of legal redress Trump faces for his role in spurring the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.”–Politico
  • “The cases are not criminal, but if they end up at trial, they could result not only in financial damages imposed on Mr. Trump, but also in the public airing of evidence about Jan. 6 that has not taken place — and may never — in the context of his dismissed or delayed criminal trials.”–NYT

Bracing For Trump II

  • WaPo: Federal employees scramble to insulate themselves from Trump’s purge
  • AP: Military leaders are rattled by a list of ‘woke’ officers that a group urges Hegseth to fire

Hegseth Held On Through The Weekend

I didn’t think Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense would survive through the end of last week. It not only made it through Friday but survived the weekend, too. It’s worth noting that no GOP senators has gone so far as to openly oppose Hegseth. So, while GOP senators have told reporters the votes aren’t there, Hegseth’s demise is not a done deal … yet.

At the same time, some GOP members of Congress are rallying to defend Hegseth against allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking on the job – in the most shameless ways.

Exhibit A:

Chip Roy dismisses the Pete Hegseth rape allegation: "We've all had some indiscretions in our past and things like that."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 6, 2024 at 12:46 PM

Exhibit B:

Meanwhile, Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation and incubator of Project 2025, is pledging to spend $1 million to pressure reluctant GOP senators to support the Hegseth nomination. (That’s not really much money, to be honest.)

More On Hegseth …

  • Politico: Pete Hegseth’s Crusade to Turn the Military into a Christian Weapon
  • CNN: Hegseth’s name has been submitted for FBI background check, weeks after he became presumptive nominee
  • Hegseth is threatening a “civil extortion claim” against his sexual assault accuser if he is not confirmed as defense secretary:

Pete Hegseth's lawyer on CNN threatens Pete Hegseth's sexual assault accuser with a defamation lawsuit if he's not confirmed as secretary of defense

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 5, 2024 at 9:43 PM

IMPORTANT

Beyond Pete Hegseth’s abject unsuitability for the job of defense secretary, there’s a whole nother issue that deserves close scrutiny: His support for limiting VA health care for veterans and for “privatizing” the VA system:

Hegseth, now Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of defense, had been a vocal and persistent advocate for veterans having unfettered access to private health care, rather than having to go through the VA to keep their benefits. He’s also lobbied for policies that would restrict VA care and believes veterans should ask for fewer government benefits.

Trump II Clown Show

  • Trump has named his criminal defense attorney Alina Habba as a White House counselor to the president
  • Fracking CEO Chris Wright, Trump’s pick for energy secretary, preaches the benefits of climate change
  • Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, is on the Hill this week meeting with senators.

Grifters Gonna Grift

The WSJ introduces us to the Trump presumptive nominees personally hawking supplements:

  • Kash Patel for FBI director;
  • Dr. Janette Nesheiwat for surgeon general;
  • Dr. Mehmet Oz for administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is not included on the list, even though he’s expected to champion supplements, because he’s not selling them personally.

Trump Picks ‘America First’ Trio For Top Roles At State

Birthright Citizenship Alert

Despite all the talk of birthright citizenship over the weekend, including Trump’s posturing that he might just try to usurp the 14th Amendment via executive action, reporting from the WSJ suggests the transition team is working on a more modest executive order:

Weeks before he takes office, Trump’s transition team is now considering how far to push the scope of such an order, knowing it would almost immediately be challenged in court, according to a transition official and others familiar with the matter. The eventual order is expected to focus on changing the requirements for documents issued by federal agencies that verify citizenship, such as a passport.

Still potentially damaging and all but certain to be challenged in court, but perhaps less than a full-blown attempt to pretend the 14th Amendment doesn’t exist.

Ya Don’t Say?

The Guardian:

As Donald Trump gathered his supporters, family and friends at Mar-a-Lago on US election day last month to wait for the results to trickle in, a small group of far-right Germans went largely unnoticed.

Among them was the purported semi-professional, one-time porn actor, self-confessed former cocaine user, convicted thief and hard-right candidate for the German parliament Phillipp-Anders Rau. Together with a compact delegation of young political activists and influencers, Rau posed for the cameras with the American president-elect at his invitation, chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in English and German.

A Brutal Denouement For Biden

  • WSJ: Biden Is Ceding Presidential Influence to Trump, and Some Democrats Are Furious
  • Politico: Biden shrinks from view ahead of Trump’s return to Washington

GOOD READ

The NYT’s Adam Liptak with a good primer on a how a 1925 law conveyed to the Supreme Court much of its current power and indluence.

Quote Of The Day

“Our involvement over there had a cost. The cost was Syria.”–Anton Mardasov, a Moscow-based analyst referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

An Observation

Posted on by Josh Marshall

When I look at the video of Trump, Macron and Zelensky today I see something I hadn’t expected — not just in this quick footage but more generally. (Google it.) The first thing is that Trump looks like the least comfortable guy there. But there’s something more general that I have seen globally, in both senses of the word. Round one, no one knew how to deal with Trump. He always had the element of surprise, just by being the freak that he is. Round two, I get the sense that everyone knows exactly how to deal with him. I think he feels that intuitively, and doesn’t necessarily like it.

I’m not saying this is necessarily “good” or bad for Trump. You could see it as the opposite: everyone now accepts that this is how things work and they’re ready to work with him on that basis. But I don’t think it’s totally that either. It’s a pattern or dimension of this story that I’m going to be thinking more about.

With Major Trans Rights And Abortion Decisions On The Horizon, The Culture War Commences

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear a major abortion case Tuesday, the next chapter in a case that the Supreme Court punted last term. 

Continue reading “With Major Trans Rights And Abortion Decisions On The Horizon, The Culture War Commences” →

Use Hegseth as Fly Paper, Say Trumpers

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Very interesting update from MAGA-whisperer Marc Caputo at The Bulwark. Following on Trump’s tweet of support, the idea is that Pete Hegseth has bought himself at least time to continue his nomination fight because Trump likes his fight. But the operative theory is twofold, that even though Hegseth doesn’t currently have 50 votes that they can break the GOP senators’ … well, let’s call it their moonwalk confirmation strategy (I’ll explain that later) and that Hegseth is good to have as a punching bag because maybe that will help RFK Jr. and Kash Patel move through more easily. Caputo quotes a Trumper: “Hegseth is a heatshield. Pete can take the heat, and that’s better for everyone else.”

Continue reading “Use Hegseth as Fly Paper, Say Trumpers” →

Let’s Call It: Trump 2.0 Is Lining Up for Massive Social Security Cuts

Posted on by Josh Marshall

One of the central features of Trumpism is that Trump never wants to deal in pain. Not for people who might vote for him. Or at least, no pain to anyone who might vote for him … that they would blame on him. That’s why, at least in concept, he’s always said he’d never support cuts to Social Security or Medicare. That’s in concept of course. What happens down in the fine print of administrative decisions or omnibus tax bills is another matter. But the position in concept is still important and fairly consistent. But over the last couple weeks things have gone sideways in a pretty big way. And key players in his administration-in-the-making are now proposing massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Continue reading “Let’s Call It: Trump 2.0 Is Lining Up for Massive Social Security Cuts” →

Trump Allies’ Idea Of Citizenship Would Take US Back To The Nineteenth Century

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

As President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to implement sweeping policy changes affecting American immigration and immigrants, one of the issues under scrutiny by his allies appears to be birthright citizenship — the declaration in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen, regardless of their parents’ nationalities or immigration status.

Some prospective members of Trump’s team, including anti-immigration advisers Stephen Miller and Thomas Homan, have said they intend to stop issuing federal identification documents such as Social Security cards and passports to infants born in the U.S. to undocumented migrant parents, according to The New York Times.

This first step down a path to deny citizenship to some individuals born in the United States reflects a conflict that’s been going on for nearly 200 years: who gets to be an American citizen.

Debates in American history over who gets citizenship and what kind of citizenship they get have always involved questions of race and ethnicity, as we have learned through our individual research on the historical status of Native Americans and African Americans and joint research on restricting Chinese immigration.

Nonetheless, even in the highly racialized political environment of the late 19th century, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed an expansive view of birthright citizenship. In an 1898 ruling, the court decreed that the U.S.-born children of immigrants were citizens, regardless of their parents’ ancestry.

That decision set the terms for the current controversy, as various Republican leaders, U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as well as Vice President-elect JD Vance, have claimed that they will possess the power to overturn more than a century of federal constitutional law and policy and deny birthright citizenship.

Citizenship by birth

Dred Scott, around 1857, when he sued seeking freedom from slavery for himself, his wife and their two children. Wikimedia Commons

Most citizens of the U.S. are born, not made. Before the Civil War, the U.S. had generally followed the English practice of granting citizenship to children born in the country.

In 1857, though, the Supreme Court had decided the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, with Chief Justice Roger Taney declaring that people of African descent living in the U.S. – whether free or enslaved, and regardless of where they were born – were not actually U.S. citizens.

After the Civil War, Congress explicitly rejected the Dred Scott decision, first by passing legislation reversing the ruling and then by writing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which specified that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This broad language intentionally included more than just the people who had been freed from slavery at the end of the Civil War: During legislative debate, members of Congress decided that the amendment should cover the children of other nonwhite groups, such as Chinese immigrants and those identified at the time as “Gypsies.”

The Congressional Record shows the House and Senate votes on the 14th Amendment. Edward McPherson, Clerk of the House of Representatives of the United States/Wikimedia Commons

Still barring some people from citizenship

This inclusive view of citizenship, however, still had an area judges hadn’t made clear yet – the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In 1884, the Supreme Court had to interpret those words when deciding the case of a Native American who wanted to be a citizen, had renounced his tribal membership and attempted to register to vote.

The justices ruled that even though John Elk had been born in the U.S., he was born on a reservation as a member of a Native American tribe and was therefore subject to the tribe’s jurisdiction at his birth – not that of the United States. He was, they ruled, not a citizen.

In 1887, Congress did pass a law creating a path to citizenship for at least some Native Americans; it took until 1924 for all Native Americans born on U.S. soil to be recognized as citizens.

A U.S. immigration photo of Wong Kim Ark, taken in 1904. U.S. National Archives

The text of the 14th Amendment also became an issue in the late 19th century, when Congress and the Supreme Court were deciding how to handle immigrants from China. An 1882 law had barred Chinese immigrants living in the U.S. from becoming naturalized citizens. A California circuit court, however, ruled in 1884 that those immigrants’ U.S.-born children were citizens.

In 1898, the Supreme Court took up the question in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ultimately ruling that children born in the U.S. were, in the 14th Amendment’s terms, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, so long as their parents were not serving in some official capacity as representatives of a foreign government and not part of an invading army. Those children were U.S. citizens at birth.

This ruling occurred near the peak of anti-Chinese sentiment that had led Congress to endorse the idea that immigration itself could be illegal. In earlier rulings, the court had affirmed broad powers for Congress to manage immigration and control immigrants.

Yet in the Wong Kim Ark ruling, the court did not mention any distinction between the children of legal immigrants and residents and the children of people who were in the United States without appropriate documentation. All people born in the United States were automatically simply citizens.

The long reach of Wong Kim Ark

John Fitisemanu, born in American Samoa, was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking formal U.S. citizenship. John Fitisemanu/Twitter

Since the Wong Kim Ark ruling, birthright citizenship rules haven’t changed much – but they have remained no less contentious. In 1900 and 1904, leaders of several Pacific islands that make up what is now American Samoa signed treaties granting the U.S. full powers and authority to govern them. These agreements, however, did not grant American Samoans citizenship.

A 1952 federal law and State Department policy designates them as “non-citizen nationals,” which means they can freely live and work in the U.S. but cannot vote in state and federal elections.

In 2018, several plaintiffs from American Samoa sued to be recognized as U.S. citizens, covered by the 14th Amendment’s provision that they were born “within” the U.S. and therefore citizens. The district court found for the plaintiffs, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that Congress would have to act to extend citizenship to territorial residents.

A new debate has ignited over whether Congress has the power to alter birthright citizenship, and even over whether the president, either through an executive order or through directing the State Department not to recognize some individuals as citizens, can change the boundaries around who gets to be a citizen. Efforts to alter birthright citizenship are sure to provoke legal challenges.

Trump is just the latest in a long line of politicians who have objected to the fact that Latin American immigrants who come to the U.S. without legal permission can have babies who are U.S. citizens. Most legal scholars, even those who are quite conservative, see little merit in claims that the established rules can be altered.

At least until now, the courts have continued to uphold the centuries-long history of birthright citizenship, dating back to before the Constitution itself and early American court rulings. But if the Trump administration pursues the policies that key figures have discussed, the question seems likely to reach the Supreme Court again, with the fundamental principle hanging in the balance.

This article includes material previously published on Jan. 15, 2020. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Dems Sound The Alarm On GOP Talk Of Cuts To Federal Safety Net Programs

Posted on by Emine Yücel

Democrats on Capitol Hill are strongly condemning Republicans’ reported interest in making cuts to federal safety net programs in the next Congress, especially ones that low-income families are most reliant on.

“It would be devastating to all the people who rely on these programs — many of them are Trump voters,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) told TPM on her way to a Wednesday floor vote. “There’s even a move to eliminate SNAP completely — which I will oppose — and it’s bad for the children who rely on SNAP but it’s also bad for our farmers. Our (agriculture) sector will suffer significantly if they were to eliminate programs or significantly cut programs like SNAP.”

Continue reading “Dems Sound The Alarm On GOP Talk Of Cuts To Federal Safety Net Programs” →

Hegseth’s Husk Of A Nomination Twists In The Wind

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Will The Hegseth Nomination Survive The Weekend?

Does Pete Hegseth continue to twist in the wind or does Trump pull the plug and let Ron DeSantis or whoever the replacement is jump-start their own confirmation efforts over the weekend?

In a normal transition with a reasonable president-elect, a nomination sitting this low in the water with no prospect of being bailed out would have already been scuttled. But of course if we’re positing a normal scenario, Hegseth would never have been nominated in the first place. The skeletons in his closet have skeletons in their closets.

The Senate is gone today, but before it left town for the weekend it got another dose of Hegseth making the rounds. It did not go well enough to matter. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), herself a possible replacement for Hegseth, said on Fox News that she is not ready to vote for Hegseth. Other reporting quoted GOP senators as signaling the nomination is DOA: “It’s on the death watch,” on Republican senator told The Hill. In another sign the writing is on the wall, Trump is not calling senators on Hegseth’s behalf.

The Trump track record makes it clear that Hegseth was going to come out on the other end of any run as defense secretary without his dignity intact. He’s just lost it sooner than most Trump appointees and looks unlikely to have the resume item to show for it.

Eeesh …

WSJ:

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health wants to take on campus culture at elite universities, wielding the power of tens of billions of dollars in scientific grants.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist, is considering a plan to link a university’s likelihood of receiving research grants to some ranking or measure of academic freedom on campus, people familiar with his thinking said.

LOL

An associate of former Ambassador Ric Grennel approached conservative social media influencers with offers of five-figure contracts to boost Grennel’s prospects for being named secretary of state, Politico reports: “One such contract, obtained by POLITICO and not previously reported, outlined that the influencer would do so during ‘peak posting times,’ that ‘content must appear genuine,’ and it could not ‘appear as an overt advertisement or promotional message.’” Sen. Marco Rubio (R), not Grennel, got Trump’s nod for secretary of state.

For The Record …

I goofed in yesterday’s Morning Memo by not making it clear that in picking former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) to be his nominee for IRS commissioner, Donald Trump is promising to fire the current commissioner before the end of his term.

The IRS commissioner’s five-year term, like the FBI director’s 10-year term, is intended to insulate the position from politicization. Trump is running roughshod over those protections and making it worse by naming a partisan to the post.

GOOD READ

Rick Perlstein: The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

When A Right-Wing Extremist Sits In The White House

“Based on campaign promises and Trump’s first-term record, analysts foresee a rollback of initiatives aimed at curbing violent extremism, especially among right-wing movements. Among the predictions: a slashing of domestic terrorism resources, White House pressure to investigate what Trump terms “the radical left” and cuts to programs aimed at the prevention of radicalization.”–WaPo

Sign Of The Times

The NYT follows up Politico with more reporting on the internal White House discussions about issuing blanket pardons to protect potential targets of Trump II lawlessness:

Among those whose names have been floated are former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who was vice chair of the bipartisan committee that investigated Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former top infectious disease expert for the government whose advice on Covid-19 made him a target of far-right attacks; Jack Smith, the outgoing special counsel who prosecuted Mr. Trump; and Senator-elect Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who was a lead House prosecutor at Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Oligarch Watch

New federal campaign finance filings reveal the full extent of Elon Musk’s 2024 election-related spending:

  • It turns out Musk was behind the mysterious pro-Trump super PAC that invoked Ruth Bader Ginsburg and falsely portrayed Trump the late justice as aligned on abortion. Musk’s $20.5 million contribution came on Oct. 24, which meant it did not have to be reported on filings until after the election.
  • In total, Musk contributed more than $250 million to getting Trump elected, making him probably the largest individual contributor in the 2024 election.

‘A Trans Case Before A Very Not Trans Court’

  • Chris Geidner: From appellants to lawyers to reporters, trans people centered themselves this week at the Supreme Court
  • Casey Parks: L.W., a trans teen from Tennessee, has her day at the Supreme Court
  • M. Gessen:

Shortly before allowing reporters into the main chamber of the Supreme Court for oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a court employee asked us all if we needed to use a bathroom. The men’s room was right next door, the staff member said, and the women’s room down the hall.

“Where should nonbinary people go?” one of the reporters asked.

An uncomfortable back-and-forth followed. The staff person seemed not to understand the question. In the end, there was no answer. It just didn’t seem to compute.

Under Public Pressure, Gorsuch Recuses

“Justice Gorsuch’s recusal is particularly significant for two reasons. During his 2017 confirmation to the Supreme Court, his web of ties to Mr. Anschutz attracted attention, raising questions over whether he would step aside in cases involving the billionaire’s business interests. He appeared to leave that door open, despite having systematically sought to recuse himself from such cases as an appeals court judge.”–Charlie Savage

Mass Deportation Watch

“Immigrants without legal status or in mixed-status families are avoiding going out in public, scrambling to apply for asylum and attending legal workshops ahead of Donald Trump’s return to power, fearful they will be swept up in the president-elect’s promised mass-deportation campaign.–WSJ

House GOP Still Covering For Matt Gaetz

Two new developments Thursday on the House Ethics Committee report on recently resigned Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

  • The House as a whole voted largely along party lines to block a Democratic effort to force the release of the Gaetz report.
  • The House Ethics Committee met but did not divulge whether it took another vote on releasing the Gaetz report. Republicans on the evenly divided committee have so far resisted releasing the report.

The Backdrop To Our Current Politics

“After 2023 ended up the warmest year in human history by far, 2024 is almost certain to be even warmer. Now, some scientists say this could indicate fundamental changes are happening to the global climate that are raising temperatures faster than anticipated.”–WaPo

Makes Me Smile Every Time

Enjoy your weekend!

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Bipartisan Group Officially Introduces Bill To Protect Journalists That Was First Reported By TPM

Posted on by Kate Riga

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Kevin Kiley (R-CA) on Thursday officially introduced federal anti-SLAPP legislation, meant to protect journalists and other critics from frivolous lawsuits, particularly of the sort that are expected under the new Trump regime. 

Continue reading “Bipartisan Group Officially Introduces Bill To Protect Journalists That Was First Reported By TPM” →