The Trump administration is genuinely committed to finding as many sources of leverage as possible and using it to coerce various actors — mostly state and local governments but others too — into cooperating with the immigration crackdown.
Part of this is substantial. Part of it is also atmospherics: the White House is trying to instill fear in undocumented migrants to persuade them to leave on their own. (In some cases, it’s even paying them off to do just that.)
There’s no greater tool to accomplish this than the military. The specter of American troops detaining undocumented immigrants conjures up both the intimidation implicit in the sheer power of the U.S. armed forces, and also signals that the White House remains willing to smash through various constitutional barriers in its quest to detain and deport.
And while the prospect of U.S. troops enforcing immigration law raises a host of perfectly valid civil liberties concerns, for now, let’s keep in mind that much of this is for show.
Take a CNN report from Tuesday about the administration’s plans to ramp up immigration raids in the interior of the country this summer. Per the story, some governors are expected to activate their National Guard contingents in a supporting role for federal immigration enforcement. They will not make arrests, per the report. Rather, they will provide “force protection.”
I appreciate “force protection” for the sheer theater of it: it sounds tough, for sure. At the same time, it’s far too easy to imagine national guard members standing around doing nothing as ICE makes arrests in the background. Maybe DHS Secretary Kristi Noem will cameo as a National Guard member providing “force protection” to an ICE raid. If you’re an ICE officer and find yourself in need of “force protection,” please contact TPM at talk@talkingpointsmemo.com.
— Josh Kovensky
Retribution: Tulsi Edition
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two National Intelligence Council officials just a few weeks after the council put out a report that concluded that the government of Venezuela appeared to not be controlling the activities of Tren de Aragua, the Washington Post reported. It also found that the Venezuelan officials were not directing the gang’s activities within the United States. The council is apolitical and used for examining intelligence and giving classified evaluations of the intelligence to the President or lawmakers.
The report, of course, contradicts the Trump administration’s legal rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and deporting undocumented Venezuelans suspected of having ties to Tren de Aragua. Suspected is doing a lot of work here, as Trump administration officials have been relying on deeply flimsy “evidence” to accuse migrants of ties to the gang. Gabbard, according to the Post, fired acting chair of the council Michael Collins and his deputy Maria Langan-Riekhof. It’s not the first time she has enacted retribution on officials who are not perceived as sufficiently supportive of Trump’s agenda. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee gave the Post the following statement, articulating well the heart of the issue:
“I am concerned about the apparent removal of senior leadership at the National Intelligence Council without any explanation except vague accusations made in the media,” said Rep. Jim Himes (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “Absent evidence to justify the firings, the workforce can only conclude that their jobs are contingent on producing analysis that is aligned with the President’s agenda, rather than truthful and apolitical.”
— Nicole Lafond
Trump Admin Official’s Ties To Nick Fuentes
NPR’s Tom Dreisbach reports on an irony at the heart of the Trump administration — that for all its talk of cracking down on antisemitism, it is itself stocked with figures who have ties to antisemites.
Take the case of Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, who, Dreisbach writes, “has ties to multiple figures widely known for promoting antisemitism.” Among them is Nick Fuentes, the young, Holocaust-denying white nationalist who enjoys a massive following online. Dreisbach spoke with Amanda Moore, a chronicler of the far right, who noticed Ingrassia at a Fuentes rally in June 2024 and wrote about it for The Intercept.
At this rally, the crowd chanted “Down with Israel!”
“I don’t know about you,” Fuentes told his supporters at another point, “but calling Donald Trump a racist only makes me like him more.”
Ingrassia stayed for 20 minutes, per Moore.
The grim irony, of course, is that this same administration justifies some of its most high-profile deportation attempts and attacks on universities by describing them as efforts to root out antisemitism.
Its also an example of what, in January of this year, the writer John Ganz described as the “Groyperfication” of the young right, using the term — Groyper — that Fuentes’ supporters self-apply. Ganz:
Here’s the thing to understand: every single person under say, the age of 40 on the right is exposed to extremely high levels of groyper content every day in group chats, on their social media timelines, in discord chats, etc. Groyperism totally suffuses the cultural environment of the right. While mainstream media is still chasing after master figures and hidden intellectuals shaping elite consensus, the real story is that young righties look at the opinions and trends among the groypers as being far more interesting and important than respectable intellectuals. Many young righties in staff and media positions are essentially groypers or seek to emulate them as much as possible. For the right, they are both the avant garde and the masses.
— John Light
At Least He’s Right On One Thing
RFK Jr. acknowledged during a House Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday what we’ve all been thinking for some time. Per NBC News:
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday sidestepped a question about vaccines and whether he would choose to vaccinate his children today against a number of diseases, saying, “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”
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White House eased China tariffs after warnings of harm to ‘Trump’s people’
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She’s got that crazy eye! And first, here’s Peanut!
You know our troops will follow 5 Deferment Don into Hell.
Knowing he was the hero of the Vietnam War.
“…for all its talk of cracking down on antisemitism, it is itself stocked with figures who have ties to antisemites.”
Of course the regime is not opposed to antisemitism. It’s just that, currently, they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews. Unless of course said Muslims are the wealthy hereditary rulers of Middle Eastern countries, especiailly the ones who generously fund terrorism or make liberal use of bone saws, rather than Muslims who are, say, Palestinian infants in Gaza or the West Bank getting their limbs blown off…
It’s confusing, but it’s kind of like how the regime really really hates refugees unless they’re white Afrikaners from South Africa who are faking being refugees so they can come and make more money in the United States…
Bottom line, you just can’t tell the players without a scorecard. Or even then.
Does throw considerable doubt on whether it ever makes any sense at all to hate certain people because of their religion or ethnicity or what not, however. If you want what you do to make sense, that is. But this regime (nor humans in general, maybe) clearly does not want to.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday sidestepped a question about vaccines and whether he would choose to vaccinate his children today against a number of diseases, saying, “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”
Well, that’s odd, since he keeps giving medical advice and has been doing that on a regular basis for decades…and because he keeps making changes to the whole country’s health care setup that are highly correlated with medical advice he tends to give …
I just follow his advice on where to go swimming in DC.