Here’s one thing that’s hardly been discussed as far as I can tell. We know about the Trump “deals” with various law firms. We know about the “deal” with Columbia University, which the administration has now violated to the extent it was ever actually a deal. But where are these deals? What are they exactly? I mean, have these agreements been committed to paper? In every one of these that I have seen each side has a general description of what’s been agreed to but there’s no document that you would have in the real world — or the real non-corrupt world — when two parties agree to something.

Another important question: Who are the parties to the agreements? Are they with the government of the United States or Donald Trump? I think it must be the latter since I’m not sure how you would legally structure such agreements. But that’s another matter. Where are the agreements? Why can’t we see them?

I reported early this week that DOGE/DHS was poised to close down the Department’s domestic WMD preparedness office. I’m hearing that there may now be some hesitation on pulling that trigger. It’s impossible to know in the DOGE era. They could be reconsidering the decision or one of the DOGE boys could just be on a streak on Fortnight and momentarily distracted. There’s an opinion piece on it today in The Hill too. Of the many things DHS does, preparedness against terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction seems like one of the more meritorious. And as I explained in my initial post, it’s a classic DOGE move. The decision appears to be driven not by the substance or effectiveness of what the office does but rather a quirk of its legislative history that make the legal or constitutional impediments to shutting it down a little simpler. Even if you accept the general need to streamline, consolidate, downsize or cost-cut, it should be obvious on its face that that’s not the way to do it.

I’ve now seen a couple articles claiming that Democrats are missing an opportunity with Trump’s tariff catastrophe or generally trying to thread some moron needle over whether they’re good or bad. Jon Chait did it here. Now Lauren Egan has written a similar piece in The Bulwark. Both these pieces seem vastly overstated to me. I’m pretty immersed in Democratic voices and almost everything I hear is that Trump tariffs are a catastrophe. But to the extent there is some hedging from a few Democrats, I don’t think there’s even any real issue here to hedge, not over anything actually recognizable as trade policy. Joe Biden embraced what used to be the anathema of industrial policy. He also employed targeted tariffs. In fact he had a pretty all-policy, holistic focus on re-shoring specific industries that are either particularly high-value in economic terms or are tied to critical technologies with national security dependencies. Those policies were very broadly embraced by Democrats.

Most of what happened today is obvious. And I’m no expert on macro- or international economics. But allow me a few observations. Start with the obvious: Trump rolled out an absurd policy which on its own terms would need to be held to for years to have any hope of success. After repeated pledges never to relent, he caved after one week. He now looks like an even bigger fool and menace on the international stage than he already did which is a feat of some magnitude. I also doubt he undid the damage he’s done to himself domestically as a custodian of the nation’s prosperity. Perhaps most of all he looks weak, reckless and stupid.

DOGE is on the verge of shuttering the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the Department of Homeland Security. This is the office charged with preventing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons inside the United States. This is through a mix of intelligence, technology, preparedness, liaising with state and local policy, etc. (There’s more details on it here.) It’s an office with just over 250 federal employees and about twice that number of contractors.

This isn’t ripe yet. But it’s important to watch. Senators Cantwell and Grassley have a bill that would significantly reduce the president’s unilateral ability to impose tariffs. So far they have seven Republican co-sponsors. Axios has a piece up reporting that the White House has now issued a veto threat over the bill. That’s hardly surprising. The bill would radically, though not completely, scale back Trump’s power on what he is making the centerpiece of his presidency.