One of the big developments of the Trump years is the increasingly central role of a California outfit called the Claremont Institute as a kind of house think tank of Trumpism. If you haven’t had a chance yet to see our big exclusive from over the weekend (thank you, members!) you’ll want to get reading. Our Josh Kovensky got a trove of documents from the secret society planning and recruiting for a white, male, Christian government that will take over after the fall of the American “regime.” And a central player in that group is none other than the head of the Claremont Institute. Check our exclusive report out here.
Another Rising GOP Star Succumbs To Their Own Buffoonery
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt’s epic flop of a State of the Union response had something that the previous pratfalls of Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio couldn’t match: It was built around a whopper of a lie.
By the following day, former AP foreign correspondent Jonathan M. Katz had unpacked the essential falsity of Britt’s human trafficking anecdote that she used to blast Biden’s border policy. In a TikTok video that now has more than 2 million views, Katz showed how Britt twisted and misused the underlying episode, which actually happened in Mexico, nearly 20 years ago, when George W. Bush was president:
@katzonearth This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp ♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz
Britt’s star-crossed turn in the national spotlight went so poorly that she had to go on Fox News over the weekend to try to clean it up, and even there she got pushed.
Perhaps the most amusing aspect of this entire mini-scandal is the inept preening by the other Alabama senator, Tommy Tuberville, who for at least one news cycle wasn’t his state’s worst senator.
Scarlett Johansson Was On Fire
A SNL performance for the ages:
Can’t Get Enough Katie Britt?
Me either! Here ya go:
- Fact checked: Katie Britt’s false linkage of a sex-trafficking case to Joe Biden
- Harsh but fair: Katie Britt wasn’t speaking in a baby voice but in the more particular “Fundie Baby Voice,” Jess Piper argues.
- Stunned into silence: The reaction of the hosts of this right-wing show was the pièce de résistance (start at the 2:26 mark):
An Absolute Must Read
TPM’s Josh Kovensky with a big new piece on a far-right secret society with connections to the pro-Trump Claremont Institute that envisions a future Christian-run government after a cataclysmic “national divorce.” It’s only for men and certain kinds of “trinitarian” Christians. Women, Jews, Muslims, and Mormons need not apply.
What sets the group apart from a lot of what we see on the far-right fringe is these seem to be people of means, with social capital and political connections. A Knights Templar of the country club, if you will.
For a bit more about the story behind the story, including the clever public records requests that Josh used to pull it together, I have you covered.
Trump Posts Appeal Bond In E. Jean Carroll Case
Donald Trump managed to come up with an appeal bond to cover E. Jean Carroll’s $83.3 million defamation judgment against him. Carroll has until 11 a.m. ET today to oppose the bond. In light of some of the reaction to this news (a mix of disappointment and suspicion), a few cautionary notes:
- An appeal bond is good news for Carroll, and she celebrated it.
- The insurer that provided Trump with the bond is owned by the multinational insurance giant Chubb, a legit company that is unlikely to be doing Trump a favor that puts it at a financial disadvantage. Yes, it does business in Russia, but it also does business in dozens of other countries and has no special or unique Russia connection.
- Trump pays the insurer a fee for the bond and posts collateral to secure his obligation to pay the insurer if it is forced to pay Carroll. It’s a fair and reasonable question whether some other person or entity posted collateral or promised in some way to cover Trump’s obligation, but Trump does have significant assets so it’s not a sure thing that he was forced to rely on a third party to bail him out.
The more interesting question is how Trump comes up with the appeal bond in the New York civil fraud case, where the judgment against him is a whopping $454.2 million.
Trump Accountability Miscellany
- New book: Trump campaign insider recounts failed hunt for 2020 fraud
- Ilya Somin: What the Supreme Court Got Wrong in the Trump Disqualification Clause Case
Trump Calls Journalists ‘Criminals’
How is Trump taking Biden’s State of the Union tour de force? In the usual fashion:
The NYT summarizes the Rome, Georgia speech well:
Over nearly two hours, Mr. Trump lobbed sharp personal attacks at Mr. Biden’s mental and physical health and revived a litany of grievances against political opponents, prosecutors and television executives. He used inflammatory language to stoke fears about immigration, called the press “criminals” and repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
On top of all that, Trump continued to defame E. Jean Carroll.
Trump Praises Orbán
Trump continues to delight in strongman-ism:
2024 Ephemera
- Biden slams Trump-Orbán meeting.
- Semafor: How ‘Project 2025’ became the Biden campaign’s favorite target
- Biden says he regrets having referred to an undocumented immigrant as an “illegal” in his State of the Union address.
- Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) re-ups his pledge not to support Donald Trump for president.
- Cameron Joseph: How do you cover a candidate everyone knows—and no one remembers?
Eating Their Own
Not even Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) is wingnut enough for the MAGA hordes, who claim they will submit the required signatures today to force a recall vote against Vos for not being sufficiently onboard with the 2020 Big Lie.
How Senate GOP Leadership Races Stack Up
As things stand now, the contests for the GOP leadership are shaping up as:
- Leader: John Thune (SD) v. John Cornyn (TX)
- Whip: John Barrasso (WY)
- Conference Chair: Joni Ernst (IA) v. Tom Cotton (AR)
- Republican Policy Committee chair: TBD
Thune is the current whip, Barrasso is the current conference chair, and Ernst is the current Republican Policy Committee chair.
Status Check: Hunter Biden
- Special Counsel David Weiss says Hunter Biden invented “a conspiracy theory” to try to get the tax case in California dismissed.
- WaPo: FBI informant accused of smearing Bidens had past credibility issues
Not Our Best Or Brightest
A State of the Union anecdote that offers a telling glimpse into the House GOP Crazy Caucus:
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Check Out This New Exclusive from TPM
I hope you have a chance to check out our new exclusive from TPM’s Josh Kovensky. Josh got access to a trove of documents from a secret society of right-wing Christian men who are on a crusade to build a Christian government-in-waiting for after the right achieves “regime change” in the United States, either through a civil war or a “national divorce.” The group goes by a fairly anodyne name, the Society for American Civic Renewal. But that belies the extremism of the program.
Of course you and your three weirdo pals can call yourself a secret society. And we’ve seen examples of militia groups or boogaloo boys saying some of the same things. What’s different here though is that these aren’t people on the fringe. They are people who present as respectable business leaders, academics, think tankers. Indeed, one of their number is the President of the Claremont Institute, which, in recent years, has functioned as a kind of brain trust of Trump campaign intellectuals. It’s fascinating, disturbing and important story and your memberships made it possible. You can read it here.
UAW’s Southern Strategy: Union Revs Up Drive To Get Workers Employed By Foreign Automakers To Join Its Ranks
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
Persuading Southern autoworkers to join a union remains one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the United Auto Workers union to organize this workforce.
To be sure, the UAW does have members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi.
However, the UAW has tried and largely failed to organize workers at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan in Southern states, where about 30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located.
But after the UAW pulled off its most successful strike in a generation against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023, the union is trying again to win over Southern autoworkers.
The UAW has pledged to spend $40 million through 2026 to expand its ranks to include more auto and electric battery workers, including many employed in the South, where the industry is quickly gaining ground.
Based on my five decades of experience as a union organizer and labor historian, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face stiff resistance from Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and the other big foreign automakers that operate in the South. The pushback is also coming from Southern politicians, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development.
Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’
After the region’s formerly robust textile industry imploded in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers.
The strategy of those leaders reflects what the Business Council of Alabama has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”
The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has lured the likes of Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.
Although many of those companies negotiate constructively with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.
As journalist Harold Meyerson has noted, these foreign automakers embraced the opportunity to “slum” in America and “do things they would never think of doing at home.”
The absence of union representation is a major reason why.
Less than 5% of workers in six Southern states are union members, and only Alabama and Mississippi approach union membership levels above 7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s below the national average, which slid to 10% in 2023.
Blaming unions for bad job prospects
One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by portraying them as outdated institutions whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.
Automotive leaders in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that provides management with flexibility, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives.
Southern automakers also draw on another powerful resource in resisting the UAW: public intervention by top elected officials.
In 2014, when the UAW attempted to organize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Bob Corker, Tennessee’s junior U.S. senator and a former mayor of Chattanooga, weighed in as voting commenced.
Corker claimed he had received a pledge from Volkswagen’s management to expand production in Chattanooga if workers voted against the union.
Three years later, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant similarly urged Nissan workers to reject the UAW.
“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” Bryant said in 2017.
A majority of the autoworkers heeded their conservative leaders’ advice in both cases and voted against joining the UAW.
Making dire warnings
With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.
“The Alabama model for economic success is under attack,” warned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
She then asked workers: “Do you want continued opportunity and success the Alabama way? Or do you want out-of-state special interests telling Alabama how to do business?”
Unions “have crippled and distorted the progress and prosperity of industries and cities in other states,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared in his Jan. 24, 2024, State of the State address. He then issued an ominous call: “We will fight” the UAW’s labor organizers “all the way to the gates of hell. And we will win.”
The UAW counters that union membership means workers will get predictable raises, better benefits and improved workplace policies.
Changing context
Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.
The UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility.
Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW — including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants — responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “UAW bump.”
The UAW will presumably cite these pay hikes in its outreach to workers at Tesla and other nonunion companies involved in electric vehicle and battery production in which the industry is investing heavily.
“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,” the UAW’s recruiting website warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”
The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”
Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been expressing concerns over scheduling, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.
It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make.
Revving up
The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up.
In accordance with its “30-50-70” strategy, the union is announcing the share of workers who have signed union cards in stages. Once it hits 30% at a factory, the UAW will announce publicly that an organizing campaign is underway. At the 50% mark, it will hold a public rally for workers that includes their neighbors and families, as well as UAW President Shawn Fain.
Once it gains support from 70% of a plant’s workers, the UAW says it will seek voluntary recognition by management.
A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to recognize the union’s request, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.
To win, unions need a majority of those voting. Under the new rule, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be required to bargain with the union.
So far, the UAW has announced that it has obtained the support of more than half the workers at factories belonging to two of the 13 nonunion automakers it’s targeting: a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a Mercedes-Benz factory near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It has also obtained 30% support at a Hyundai plant in Alabama and a Toyota engine factory in Missouri.
I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.
As D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Inside A Secret Society Of Prominent Right-Wing Christian Men Prepping For A ‘National Divorce’
A secret, men-only right-wing society with members in influential positions around the country is on a crusade: to recruit a Christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the United States, potentially via a “national divorce.”
Continue reading “Inside A Secret Society Of Prominent Right-Wing Christian Men Prepping For A ‘National Divorce’”How Did Biden Do in the SOTU?
With a day’s reflection my thoughts on last night’s State of the Union are pretty similar to what they were right afterwards. As I was telling my sons this morning, there are all sorts of objective standards about what counts as a good speech, good communication, good organization, etc. But those aren’t usually that relevant in a political context. It’s better to be a good public speaker than not, of course. But what’s good or not good really only has any meaning in a specific political context and as it relates to trying to achieve a certain goal.
Continue reading “How Did Biden Do in the SOTU?”GOP Stunned To Discover It’s Not Running Against A Cadaver In 2024
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Careful About Believing Your Own Rhetoric
Republicans who have turned Joseph R. Biden into a caricature of falling-down dementia and drooling incontinence have set the bar so low that anything above a flatline EKG from the president knocks them back on their heels.
They were left spluttering that Biden’s State of the Union was too loud and too campaign-y. They couldn’t maintain a basic level of decorum in the chamber, giving Biden the chance to knock them around with ad libs and direct call outs, directly facing the GOP side of the chamber. He turned the call and response of the Black church into whack-a-MTG.
The weird media expectations-setting and gamesmanship of American politics set the stage for this kind of performance, a Monty Python-esque “I’m not dead yet.” But Biden still had to pull it off, and he did, in rousing fashion.
The stakes of this election are so high and the historic moment so great that Biden has to show a willingness to fight by actually fighting. Otherwise, the content of the message falls flat. If it really is this important, you have to act like it, not just say it. He did that, too.
State Of The Union Highlights
Our blow-by-blow is here, and the full transcript is here:
My Favorite Moment
State Of The Union Coverage
- Semafor: President Biden savages ‘my predecessor’ in State of the Union
- Punchbowl: A feisty Biden blasts GOP foes
- Axios: Fired up Biden challenges GOP on immigration and abortion
- Politico: Biden chooses a hammer over an olive branch
State Of The Union Reaction
- TPM’s Josh Marshall:
As he had the confidence to dwell on towards the end of the speech, Biden is an old man. He’s over 80 years old. But I think people who’ve had these doubts, Democrats who have been worried … I think they will see this speech and think, “Ok, I think we can do this.”
But with Trump unvanquished, and hook-or-crook desperate to return to office, it’s essential that the public not forget his disastrous presidency or the danger he poses to freedom in the U.S. and around the world. And to the extent voters have forgotten they need to be reminded. … At the top of the speech, when viewership is highest and reporters form first impressions, {Biden] delivered a damning recitation of Trump’s record, the Republican agenda, their joint assault on reproductive rights, and their ongoing effort to sabotage the U.S. and the world order.
I’ve been a pessimist about Joe Biden’s chances to get re-elected this November. His tired appearance, his shuffling gait, his gaffes—the intense media attention on all of this was dragging him down and setting the stage for the unthinkable return of Donald Trump. Thursday night’s State of the Union address has gone a great distance to cure me of my pessimism. Biden’s performance was electrifying. Watching it, you can’t help but think: He can win.
The Choice To Put Her In A Kitchen Was … Interesting
Your Reading Assignment For Today
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a flurry of responses Thursday to Donald Trump’s motions to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago indictment. I’ll note once again the high quality of the briefing from Smith’s team. This is the best of the best of what DOJ can do.
It’s not easy when you’re audience is both a very inexperienced trial judge whom you need to try to educate and an appeals courts that will inevitably be reviewing core constitutional arguments. On top of that, Trump’s arguments are inane and so along with patient education and solid historical/structural arguments, prosecutors have to convey a certain level of incredulousness to let U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon know these are preposterous assertions by Trump. I think Smith’s team mostly pulls it off.
- Immunity: The key Trump motion to dismiss in the case is the immunity one because it could produce an extended delay while he appeals a loss, as it has in the Jan. 6 case. So Smith make a strong argument that seeking immunity for conduct by a former president after leaving office is frivolous and only intended to cause delay and wants Cannon to certify as much so that Trump cannot immediately appeal this issue. This will be key to having any chance of trying the case this year.
- Presidential Records Act: Trump has comically trotted out the Presidential Records Act as a shield to the Mar-a-Lago charges, an argument no one buys and that turns the PRA on its head. It was a post-Watergate law to ensure that presidential records remain the property of the public. Trump is using it to argue the opposite. Smith swats that argument away cleanly.
- Selective and Vindictive Prosecution: The Hur report on President Biden’s improper retention of classified information gets a lot of attention from Trump and from Smith, but there’s a whole list of prominent people Trump claims were treated differently than him, and Smith systematically dismantles the argument for each one: Biden, Mike Pence, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, David Petraeus, Sandy Berger, John Deutch, and Deborah Birx.
Will Candidate Trump Get Traditional Intel Briefings?
The question of whether the decades-long tradition of providing classified intelligence briefings to the opposition party presidential nominee has come to the fore, with Donald Trump facing criminal charges of mishandling national security information. A new report from Politico suggests that, all things considered, the intel community is leaning toward continuing the tradition, even though that plays into Trump’s hands in the Mar-a-Lago case (“If what he did is so bad, why is the Biden administration trusting him with classified information now?”). Reading between the lines, it sounds like this is as much about the intel community protecting its institutional prerogatives, like protecting its nonpartisan status and hedging its bets about Trump being re-elected, as it is maintaining continuity.
Sign Of The Times
TPM: Election Officials Prep For An Ugly 2024 With Mental Health And Stress Trainings For Staff
The George Santos Comeback Attempt
Expelled Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who remains under federal criminal indictment, filed paperwork to run for Congress again this year, switching from the NY-03 seat he previously held to the NY-01 seat currently held by Rep. Nick LaLota (R).
FFS
Reading this adulatory WSJ profile of Lara Trump – “Meet the Other Trump Who’s About to Lead the GOP: Incoming RNC co-chair Lara Trump is Donald Trump’s ‘secret weapon’ and says she will improve fundraising” – rekindled my fantasy of shipping American political reporters overseas and replacing them with our cadre of foreign reporters who are accustomed to covering corruption and nepotism with vigor and without euphemism.
2024 Ephemera
- NJ-Sen: Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) will not run for re-election this year, a source tells the NY Post.
- MD-Sen: Larry Hogan (R) won’t commit to codifying Roe v. Wade or IVF protections at the federal level.
- CA-Sen: Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) is facing a fierce Democratic backlash after calling the California Senate primary rigged.
O Captain! My Captain!
The Navy quietly demoted Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) from rear admiral to captain in July 2022 after a Pentagon inspector general’s report on his misconduct while serving as Trump White House physician, the Washington Post first reported Thursday. Jackson has since continued to refer to himself as a rear admiral despite the reduction in rank.
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Biden Delivers High-Pressure State Of The Union To Kick Off General Election
President Joe Biden has delivered his most important State of the Union yet. The theme seemed to be, loosely: History is watching as we stare down threats at home and abroad.
Continue reading “Biden Delivers High-Pressure State Of The Union To Kick Off General Election”First Thoughts on the SOTU
I thought this was a strong speech. Strong on a few different fronts. Biden got into it a few times with House Republicans which he and his advisors clearly wanted to happen. He also got some good applause lines and clippable moments where he called out things like Republicans killing the border bill. He hit a number of policy points where Biden’s policies are just much more popular than Republican ones. State of the Unions can play a big role because they allow a President to make a key point that maybe just hasn’t broken through before. Here everyone’s watching. So a President can force the matter. There are probably ten other boxes they checked more or less well.
But a political speech is only really good or bad judged against a specific, contextual need. Bill Clinton’s SOTUs were often plodding and, for political insiders, boring. But they usually accomplished his specific political goals. In this case, Democrats have been worried. Worried about the stakes of this election. Worried about the poll numbers. They’ve been worried about whether Biden has the energy and whatever else to really do this. Can he be vigorous? Can he show up and deliver? Does he have the energy to get this done? Answering that question in the affirmative was in many ways the first, second and third goal of this speech. And on that measure he did very well.
As he had the confidence to dwell on towards the end of the speech, Biden is an old man. He’s over 80 years old. But I think people who’ve had these doubts, Democrats who have been worried … I think they will see this speech and think, “Ok, I think we can do this.”
Let’s Do This!
10:26 PM: So far, so good.
9:47 PM: In the pre-Trump era I might have thought, hey we shouldn’t have political slogans on a State of the Union night. But, that’s a bygone era. We’re in a call and response era now.
9:34 PM: Johnson’s facial expressions through the J6 stuff was remarkable. He didn’t know how to play it. He ended up shaking his head through a lot of it.
9:30 PM: Biden is clearly going to use this speech in part to try to taunt Republicas to have outbursts at completely uncontroversial things.
See our Live Blog over to the right (if you’re on the desktop site). I’ll be sharing my thoughts here in the Ed Blog.