Comments from Both Sides …

…are welcome. In fact, that’s what The Hustings is about: Reporting/analyzing and putting into context the facts in the center column (with no false equivalencies) and surrounding this with civil pundit and reader comments in this column and that one on the other side of the news/news aggregate. 

We need you to help fill these left and right columns. 

Email editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line. Please note: We do not expect you to follow right/left or red/blue party lines with your comments, which is why we ask you to say whether you are left or right in the subject line. 

You may be a hard-left, Bernie Sanders democratic socialist or a moderate liberal, like Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, or somewhere in-between. You may be a MAGA Republican like, well, President Trump, or a never-Trumper like former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), or our own pundit-at-large, Stephen Macaulay. Or somewhere in-between.

We want to post your comments in the column with which you regularly identify; not necessarily the column that aligns with your comments on a single, particular subject. So help us grow into a news & commentary site that exposes readers to a variety of political thoughts and ideas. 

For more civil political news and discussion, please be sure to visit our Substack page.

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MONDAY 2/17/25

Trump’s New World Order

The US and Russia are negotiating Ukraine's fate without Ukraine or NATO at the table in "peace talks" in Riyadh.

By Todd Lassa

European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris Monday over the future of Ukraine, and indeed, NATO itself, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio flew from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in what The New York Times called a “whistle-stop” tour of the Middle East. Following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks in Brussels and that of Vice President JD Vance and special Ukraine-Russia envoy Gen. Keith Kellog at the Munich Security Conference last week, the European leaders were desperate to exert any sign of leadership and have a role in peace talks, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, that clearly are going to go Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s way.

Trump had “warned” Putin on Truth Social January 23 he would impose “high tariffs and further sanctions” on Russia if the Kremlin resisted US efforts to end the war and he reiterated his plans to negotiate a settlement in a single day. Given the concessions the Trump White House has made to the Kremlin since, this warning seems little more than an effort to simulate distance between the Art of the Deal president and Putin.

Trump reportedly called Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after the call with Putin last week. Zelenskyy Monday was in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, making for a quick trip to Riyadh, though only after the White House and Kremlin spend some time alone together.

As if previewing the sweetheart deal with Putin that Trump discussed in that phone call last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday there would be “no thought of” territorial concessions to Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent reports. Lavrov explicitly named the Crimea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 and Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2022.

In his remarks to European defense ministers at a lunch meeting in Brussels last week, Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary, warned NATO not to try to allow Ukraine into the alliance. This is Putin’s greatest concern in the peace talks, and it looks pretty clear that if NATO does try to grant Ukraine membership after Washington and the Kremlin reach a deal it will be the Trump White House’s cue to withdraw from the organization. (All 32 NATO nations must vote in favor of a new country’s membership, and even if the US leaves there’s still Hungary.)

Prior to last week’s security conference in Munich, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a phone call with Zelenskyy “reaffirmed” the UK’s backing of Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to join NATO (per BBC). This stems from a NATO summit in Washington late last year when then-President Biden pledged support for Ukraine’s membership.

Whether the Trump White House holds back funding from NATO, or ultimately pulls out altogether, it will mark the end of a post-World War II deal in which the US guaranteed security for Western Europe in part by assuring there was no room for an extremist politician or political party to take over a potentially powerful military on the continent. 

Under the Trump administration, the United States becomes an isolationist country again and will not get into the sort of entanglements that bogged use down for two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Along with US isolationism comes an expansionism already on record: Making the Panama Canal America again, capturing Greenland from Denmark by force if necessary and apparently making Canada from the Yukon Territory on-down the 51st state, giving its 41 million citizens two US senators and perhaps 50 congress members. (What are the chances a few of those districts would vote MAGA-Republican?)

Initially not taken very seriously, taking over Canada and Greenland would place a large chunk of the Western Hemisphere north of Mexico, east of Russia and west of NATO-Europe, under Trump’s rule.

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MONDAY 2/17/25

Digging Into the Numbers

By Stephen Macaulay

As Mark Twain allegedly said, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

So Mr. Corbett’s citing a poll that indicates “The President is Doing What People Want” is squishably true.

For example, 70% say that he is doing “what he promised in the campaign.”

Even I agree with that. Doesn’t mean that I want it.

The CBS News/YouGov poll puts his overall job rating at 53% and the disapproval rating at 47%.

Somehow that doesn’t seem like overwhelming support. Yes, a majority, but far from being the sort of “mandate” that Trump and his acolytes talk about.

On the subject of approval, Gallup did a poll, too, which found that Donald Trump’s initial job approval rating is 47%.

That, according to Gallup, places “him below all other elected presidents dating back to 1953.”

There is a president who had a lower initial rating than Trump 47: Trump 45. That was 45%.

But back to the CBS/YouGov poll.

There is one item that seems to be more in the “doing what they want” space that isn’t that. And it is something that he talked about during his campaign.

In the CBS News/YouGov poll there’s this:

“Trumps Focus on Lowering Prices Is. . .”

Wait for it. . . .

  • 66% answer “Not Enough.”
  • 31% said “Right Amount.”

Whoa. That “Not Enough” number is well beyond the ±2.5% margin of error.

After the election Trump said on NBC News’ Meet the Press:

“Very simple word, groceries. Like almost -- you know, who uses the word? I started using the word -- the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. We're going to bring those prices way down.”

Which (a) isn’t happening and (b) isn’t likely to happen any time soon because. . .

. . .there are the tariffs.

While 56% of those surveyed by CBS News/YouGov favor tariffs on goods from China, the opposition to tariffs applied to good from other countries is strong:

                                             Favor                    Oppose

Mexico                                    44%                     56%

Europe                                   40%                     60%

Canada                                   38%                     62%

Clearly there is some dissonance here given that during his campaign Trump said “tariffs” was a “beautiful word” and during his inaugural speech said: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

People evidently don’t like them. After all, an increasing number of people recognize that rather than enriching them, it is going to cost them more out-of-pocket whether they’re buying a Chevy Silverado or some fresh produce. 

And another factor of prices is what is paid at the pump.

Trump said during his campaign: “When I left office .  .. gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. We actually had many months where it was lower than that. But we hit $1.87, which was a perfect place, an absolutely beautiful number.”

What he doesn’t note is the reason that gasoline prices were at $1.87 was because of the consequences of COVID. For a very long time people didn’t go to places where they ordinarily did. Many people began to work from home. There was an excess of gasoline and the oil companies had no alternative than to reduce prices because of reduced demand.

The national average for a gallon of gas is $3.128. 

That’s 66.8% greater than his “beautiful number.”

And if the 10% tariff on petroleum from Canada goes into effect, look for that to go higher.

Trump didn’t say he was going to turn things over to Elon Musk. Trump didn’t say he was going to turn Gaza into a property development. Trump didn’t say that inflation would increase.

Soon people are going to realize that there is more — and less — to what he said he would do.

And odds are they won’t be happy.

-30-

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MONDAY 2/17/25

Comments From This Side

Re: Ukraine Gets the ‘Deal’ Putin Wants

Playing out pretty much as I suspected. Trump echoes his words from the Helsinki Summit – “Russia says that territory is theirs and I trust them on that.”

--Brian Uhrig (Via Substack)

Re: How is Trump Helping Grocery Buyers?

The egg case at my local store is empty. It’s a supply problem according to the store signage. I’ve never seen an empty case before. I know this is minor compared to what else is going on. But you can’t even pay $7.09 for a dozen if you want to (scroll with far-right trackbar for “How Is Trump Helping Grocery Buyers?” by Stephen Macaulay). You do without. I bet the president can have a three-egg omelet anytime he wants. I mean, he won’t because it isn’t a Big Mac.

--Kate McLeod

_____________________________________________

Scroll down with the trackbar on the far right (no pun) to read more comments on our Substack on The Hustings post, “Apparently, We Can’t Keep It,” which discusses evidence that President Trump already has pushed the US into inescapable authoritarianism. 

You’ll find “Always a Snake” and “No Need for House, Senate,” by guest pundit Randall Patnode and contributing pundit Jim McCraw, respectively, in the left column.

In the right column, Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay asks, “How Is Trump Helping Grocery Buyers?”

Scroll further down with that far-right trackbar to read the saga of DOGE’s Marko Elez, who has had either “read only” or “read/access” status with US Treasury payment records. Guest pundit Sharon Lintner comments in the left column and contributing pundit Rich Corbett comments in the right column.

Still further down, “Musk Steals Our Democracy” in the center column is flanked by guest pundit Joel Postman’s “The Great Divide” in the left column and Stephen Macaulay’s “This Is Wrong” in the right. 

Submit your own comments for the left or right columns with an email to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

_____
TUESDAY 2/11/25

Is Ed Dead?

INFLATION RISING -- No wonder Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday the central bank doesn’t “need to be in a hurry” to get back to its interest rate cutting campaign, according to USA Today. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its Consumer Price Index rose 0.5% in January, to an annual rate of 3%. The CPI had dropped to 2.4% last September as the Fed started easing up on its rate, but this is the wrong direction to meet the Fed’s target rate of 2% inflation. Gasoline was up 1.8% in January, and food was up 0.4%.

FRIDAY 2/14/25

USAID Hold on Hold – Late Thursday US District judge for the District of Columbia Carl Nichols extended by one week a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from placing more than 2,000 US Agency for International Development workers on administrative leave and forcing the return of overseas workers, The New York Times reports. 

•••

Reciprocal Tariffs – The Commerce Department and US trade representatives have been directed to deliver reports on steps to take toward achieving reciprocal trade status in a memo President Trump issued Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reports. How to achieve reciprocal trade? 

Glad you asked. Trump wants federal agencies to match duties and certain economic restrictions enforced by other countries against the US. The order does stop short of imposing tariffs immediately, as foreign capitals had feared, according to the report.

•••

HHS Goes MAHA – That’s “Make America Healthy Again,” former Democratic presidential candidate, current anti-vaxxer and now Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health care mantra. The Senate confirmed RFK Jr.’s nomination to the post Thursday by 52-48 vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a polio survivor and the sole Republican joining all 47 Democrats in opposition, according to The New York Times. 

“Individuals, parents and family have a right to push for a healthier nation and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness. But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.”--TL

______________________________________________

THURSDAY 2/13/25

McMahon Up – Senate confirmation hearings for Linda McMahon, the ex-executive of the World Wrestling Federation, to become the Trump administration’s Education secretary begin Thursday. McMahon has very thin experience in education, having served on the Connecticut Board of Education in 2009, but that doesn’t matter, because President Trump has said that if she does her job as intended, the US Education Department is history. 

The Department of Education is one of the smallest in the federal government, according to NPR. K-12 Dive reported last year that the department’s fiscal year 2024 budget had been cut by half a billion dollars, its first cut since 2015, to $79.1 billion. 

•••

Where’s DOGE Now? – The State Department signed a contract with Elon Musk’s Tesla to purchase $400 million worth of armored vehicles beginning in the fourth quarter, NPR reports. But after news of the procurement circulated Wednesday, the procurement document was edited at 9:12 pm and now says the federal contract was worth $400 million of “armored electric vehicles” with the Tesla brand name removed.

MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show broadcasts begin 9 pm Eastern time, and the eponymous host gave the story perhaps its most high-profile coverage.

Musk tweeted on X/Twitter, “Hey @Maddow, why the lie?”

Cybertruck? … Speculation is that Tesla would fulfill the $400 million contract with its Cybertruck pickup, which starts at $82,000 and has been suffering slow sales and plummeting lease residuals. But that base price would not include armored sheetmetal or thick, bulletproof windows, which would add weight and make it necessary to order more powerful Tesla Cybertrucks, which retail for well over $100,000. 

State Department’s award to Tesla was listed December 13, 2024, according to Drop Site News and was targeted to the fourth quarter of this year as a five-year contract.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 2/12/25

UPDATE: President Trump said on Truth Social he had “a lengthy and highly productive call” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin Wednesday, that will start negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, The New York Times reports. Trump reportedly posted the news on his social media site before informing Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Meanwhile … The Senate confirmed by 52-48 vote former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) as Trump’s director of national intelligence. Sen. Mitch McConnell joined all 47 Democrats as the only Republican to vote against Gabbard. 

•••

Ukraine to Get the Deal Putin Wants – Pete Hegseth revealed the nature of the peace deal the Trump White House will negotiate between Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy, in the US defense secretary’s first official overseas trip, meeting with European defense ministers in Brussels Wednesday. In his remarks, Hegseth essentially confirmed worst fears by Ukraine’s US supporters, about President Trump’s promised negotiations between the warring countries. 

“We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” he said, per The Guardian.  

What’s more, Putin will enter negotiations with Trump and Zelenskyy with the understanding that President Trump is ready to pull back US support, maybe even withdraw completely, from NATO.

Hegseth said, in a statement toned down from an advanced briefing to reporters that from now on, Europe will have to provide “the overwhelming share” of future military aid to Kyiv, and that he was “here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”

The US defense secretary’s remarks came after Zelenskyy said in an interview with The Guardian that Ukraine could cede territory it controls in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in exchange for Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories -- a return to the pre-2014 map.

Any questions about which side the Trump White House will favor in negotiations were made clear by the Kremlin’s response to Zelenskyy’s offer to exchange held territories.

“This is impossible,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency, echoing Hegseth’s remarks (per The Kyiv Independent). “Russia has never discussed and will never discuss the topic of exchanging its territory.”

This came the day after teacher Marc Fogel, 63, returned to the US from Russia with special envoy Steve Witkoff. His release is part of an exchange in which Alexander Vinnik, 42, co-founder of BTC-e, a key cybercurrency platform used by cyber criminals for ransomware extortions, identity-theft schemes and narcotics distribution, will return to Russia from three years in a California prison, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Witkoff had spent three years in a Russian jail for allegedly entering the country with medical marijuana and was left behind from high-profile prisoner exchanges under the Biden administration. Malphine Fogel had lobbied Trump before his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania – the one at which a bullet grazed Trump’s right ear – for her son’s release. 

“I feel like the luckiest man on Earth right now,” Witkoff said. “I will be forever indebted to President Trump, to Steve over there.”

Putin might have reason to show some gratitude, especially as Trump pulls back from NATO. But in remarks Tuesday about the prisoner exchange, Trump did not comment on whether he had directly spoken with Putin. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________________

...meanwhile... TUESDAY 2/11/25

Trump v. Jordan – King Abdullah of Jordan was to meet with President Trump at the White House Tuesday to try and talk, or negotiate, through the Gaza Riviera proposal (per The New York Times). That’s Trump’s apparently serious proposal that Palestinians be cleared out, permanently, of the region Israel has bombed to rubble since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on the Gaza Envelop of southern Israel. 

Trump has threatened to end US financial support for Jordan if Abdullah refuses to accept Palestinian refugees, permanently, as the US rebuilds the Gaza Strip into an international vacation destination, likely with at least one or two Trump towers. 

Hamas on Monday night threatened to “derail” its truce with Israel, while Trump threatened “all hell” if Hamas failed to release all remaining hostages from its attack on Israel, by this weekend.

But fear not… Hamas has since softened its response, while Trump added a caveat to suggest his threat was only a negotiating tactic.

•••

Son of Smoot-Hawley Part II – President Trump’s 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from everywhere “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen says, per The Associated Press. So American producers of bourbon, jeans and motorcycles had better watch out. 

The Trump tariffs might not affect steel so much, as the import share here has fallen since 2018 tariffs from the president’s previous term, to about 32%, according to Minnesota Public Radio’s Marketplace. Aluminum is another issue, with the US producing about half of what manufacturers consume, and most the other half coming from Canada. 

Much of this is used for electrical components, appliances and aircraft. Boeing’s 737 is about 90% aluminum, Richard Aboulafia of the AeroDynamic Advisory told Marketplace. But even with so much US capacity, industry fears the tariffs will push up steel prices anyway, especially for building construction.

“There are a lot of worries among contractors,” Brian Turmail of the Association of General Contractors of America told the business radio show.

•••

Bipartisanship Trump-Style – President Trump’s Justice Department has called on federal prosecutors to drop charges in the Southern District of New York’s corruption case against Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, per NPR’s Morning Edition. Adams has called his five-count criminal indictment in which he allegedly received about $100,000 in luxury travel allegedly accepted from Turkish officials in exchange for official New York City Hall acts in their favor “payback” for his speaking out against then-President Biden’s border policy. 

Since the presidential election, Adams has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago and attended his inauguration last month. Charges are to be dropped without prejudice, which means they could be raised again, according to NPR.

About Blagoyevich … Trump in 2020 commuted the sentence of Rod Blagoyevich, who had spent eight years in prison on corruption charges. On Monday, Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for the former Democratic governor of Illinois, The Hill reports. 

“He was set up by a lot of bad people,” Trump told reporters Monday.

Upshot: Like Adams, Blagoyevich has embraced the MAGA GOP, having attended the party’s national convention in Milwaukee last summer. 

Adams is up for re-election this year, and the Democratic primary June 24 is widely considered the election (subway vigilante Curtis Sliwa is expected to run, again, as the Republican candidate). Adams’ chief rival for the Democratic primary, so far, appears to be former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a well-known Trump antagonist who brings his own issues (he stepped down as governor after allegations of sexual harassment in office). 

Blagoyevich certainly will not run again for Illinois governor, but the current holder of that office is another Trump antagonist, Democrat JB Pritzger, who has declared – satirizing Trump’s Gulf of America – that Lake Michigan is hereby renamed “Lake Illinois.”

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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TUESDAY 2/11/25

Trump’s First Three Weeks

The President is Doing What People Want

While the political left complains about President Trump swiftly advancing his campaign promises, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 70%, believe he is doing exactly what he pledged. Trump's current approval rating is 53%. 

According to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll, only 30% of the respondents see the president deviating from his promises. A wide swath of 59% of those polled approve of Trump's deportation efforts while only 41% disapprove.

A surprise to even this conservative Republican, 64% of Americans back the president’s sending military troops to help secure the US-Mexico border, and only 36% disapprove. So if you're bellyaching about Trump working 24/7 to fulfill campaign promises, you're definitely the minority. Trump, unlike most other politicians, is doing exactly what he said he would do. Buckle up. 

--Rich Corbett

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TUESDAY 2/11/25

Have We Lost Our Democracy?

Left-Column Responses to Our Substack Discussion of President Trump’s Anti-Democratic Actions ...

Scroll this trackbar near-right to read more comments ...

Always a Snake

Credit for referencing Spy. Indeed, there were those back then who knew the snake was a snake and were willing to say so. I suspect news operations today stick with mealy-mouthed euphemisms for “lie” in order to maintain their self-imposed fantasy of “objectivity.” One can also imagine the hell-fury that would descend on those outlets that actually call the snake a snake. Even equivocators such as CNN (and soon, it seems, CBS) would rather pay off Trump than give his supporters more reason to call them “fake news.”

--Randall Patnode

via Substack

•••

No Need for House, Senate

I have been calling my senators and my congressman every couple of days, reminding them that they were Americans BEFORE they were Republicans, and before they were elected representives of the people. This week, I will remind them that, if this keeps up, all 535 members of Congress will be rendered surplus to requirements and sent home to their old jobs. The king and his court will rule. Is that what you really want?

--Jim McCraw

via e-mail

_____________________________________________

Submit your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate whether you lean left or right in the subject line.

Other news and issues ripe for your comments include the Trump White House’s new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum and its plans for reciprocal tariffs and the ongoing drama surrounding DOGE chief Elon Musk’s scrutiny of federal departments and agencies. 

And what about Trump naming himself chairman of the Kennedy Center? 

Don’t miss Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary, “How is Trump Helping Grocery Buyers?” in the right column and email your comments, favorable or against, to his comments as well.

Meanwhile, read Substack on The Hustings here.

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MONDAY 2/10/25

Tariffs Redux

"He's not getting anything," President Trump said of DOGE Chief Elon Musk in a Fox News interview with Brett Baier Sunday. "In fact, I don't know how he can devote time to it -- he's into it."

MONDAY 2/10/25

Steel and Aluminum – President Trump promises a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from every trading partner, The Wall Street Journal reports. Canada in particular is a major importer to the US of the metals. Trump also will announce reciprocal tariffs to be detailed Tuesday or Wednesday, and to take effect “almost immediately.”

“Very simply, they charge us, we charge them,” he told reporters on Air Force One on the way from Florida to New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. 

Musk is ‘terrific’ … In an interview with Fox News’ Brett Baier recorded at Mar-a-Lago before he flew off to the Super Bowl, President Trump called a federal court’s temporary halt on the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to Treasury Department records “crazy.” 

“I’ve had great help with Elon Musk, who’s been terrific,” Trump told Baier. 

Trump predicted the Kansas City Chiefs would win Super Bowl LIX. The Chiefs lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 40-22.

•••

CFPB Shuts Down – Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were informed Monday the Washington headquarters will be closed this week and that they must work remotely, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, citing an internal email it obtained. On Saturday night, CFPB employees were instructed by the agency’s new acting director, Trump Office of Management and Budget director and Project 2025 co-author Russell T. Vought, that they should “stop virtually all their work.” 

The White House initially replaced Biden CFPB appointee Rohit Chopra as director with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 2/10/25

How Is Trump Helping Grocery Buyers?

(He Doesn’t Know, Either)

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Near the end of his Super Bowl interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Donald Trump was given a question that he should have had an answer to, as it was the sort of thing that he flogged on the campaign trail when he wasn’t doing a disturbing dance.*

Baier asked him when the American people can expect prices to go down for things like groceries and energy, whether they need to be patient.**

Trump responded: “No, I think we’re gonna become a rich. . .Look, we’re not that rich right now. That’s because we let all these nations take advantage of us.”

Then he noted the trade deficits with Mexico and Canada.

Let’s break this down.

  • He didn’t come near to answering the question. When will it be cheaper to buy a dozen eggs and a tank of gas? He had no answer to that.
  • What does becoming “a rich” have to do with the price of a bag of burgers at McDonalds or the kilowatt hours on a home electric bill?
  • “How is it that “we’re not that rich right now”? America has the highest GDP in the world. The world.
  • And what’s this about letting “nations take advantage of us”? They have things for sale, whether it is petroleum from the Alberta oil sands or avocados from Jalisco, and Americans buy them. Turns out that they have more we want to buy than they want to buy from us. So, are they taking “advance of us” or are we providing an insufficient number of things they want to buy? Econ 101, folks.

The fact that Donald Trump can’t answer a simple question without going into a rant about victimization is something people who thought their lives would be made better by his election need to hear.

==

*Can you imagine the outrage that would have echoed far and wide were Barack Obama, when he was president, spent a fraction of the amount of time dancing on stage that Trump does? If you saw your grandpa on a stage making those moves, wouldn’t you quickly escort him off?

**Remember when Trump made it seem as though on Day One he was going to make magic happen such that we would all be in a Golden Age? While he and Elon Musk have done much to deal with what seems to be substantive issues (and they are substantive to the people who have lost their jobs or who are suffering because we no longer think it is good to help people who are less fortunate), he hasn’t done anything that would help regular Americans. Like this from Trading Economics: “Eggs US increased 1.28 USD/DOZEN or 22.03% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Historically, Eggs US reached an all time high of $7.09 in January of 2025. source: USDA.” On January 17, before he took office, a dozen eggs cost $6.12. On January 24, in office, they were up to $6.55. And by January 30, $7.09. Somehow putting tariffs on goods coming from Canada and Mexico aren’t going to do much to make things more affordable. In fact, lots of things will cost American grocery and gasoline buyers more. Which means they will have less money for eggs that evidently aren’t becoming less expensive.

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MONDAY 2/10/25

This is Not Reality TV 

Commentary by Sharon Lintner

Elon Musk gaining access to US Treasury files is as unbelievable as it is unsettling.

The only question I have is "why?"

Trump is treating the highest office in the land like his TV show. He hires and fires in an attempt to show political muscle, but ends up rattling the cages of his own people, as well as of world leaders. 

This is like an elaborate game for Trump and his wealthy cronies. Unfortunately, the reality is that we have no idea what the implications will be of Musk having access to the nation’s most sensitive and guarded information. It's too early to tell what damage could be done, but whatever its extent, it will more than likely be irreversible.

We are trapped in a surreal moment, or at least I hope it's only a moment. 

_________________________________________________

Your Opinion Here or There

Your civilly stated comments on President Trump’s desire to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-held “Riviera of the Middle East,” the Justice Department’s compiling of a list of FBI agents and officials who investigated the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, latest Senate confirmation of Trump cabinet members, or on Elon Musk’s DOGE-takeover of the Treasury Department’s payment system (see “Downsizing Government Bloat and Spending Transparency” by Rich Corbett, in the right column) are not only welcome, they are encouraged. No echo chambers or false equivalencies here.

Or you may want to comment on recent news or a recent issue we have not sufficiently covered, if at all. 

Whether you agree or disagree with Corbett’s column on the right, we want to hear from you, too. Please submit civil comments to editors@thehustings.news and indicate whether you lean left or right in the subject line, so we can post your remarks in the proper column. NOTE that your comment on a specific issue does not have to align completely with your political leanings – you may be a conservative who disagrees with “Downsizing Government Bloat and Spending Transparency,” for example, or you may be a liberal who does agree with Corbett. We recognize that political philosophies are more complicated than that.

Also, please be sure to read our free Substack on The Hustings.

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WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

DOGE Rehires Elez

DOGE staffer Marko Elez, rehired by Elon Musk after having resigned over racist social media posts was said to have read/access status for Treasury documents, according to WIRED. Scroll down for details.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY 2/8-9/25

UPDATE: Most Trump administration officials, including “special government employee” Elon Musk and his DOGE tech bros are blocked from access to sensitive US Treasury records for at least a week, according to Politico. US District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan issued his “middle of the night” ruling early Saturday on a lawsuit filed by 19 Democratic state attorneys general alleging DOGE’s access as allowed by the Trump administration and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent violates the law, endangers personal information and grants DOGE ability to unconstitutionally slash government spending already approved by Congress. 

Meanwhile … DOGE chief Elon Musk says he will rehire Marko Elez to his team of young tech bros ravishing the US Treasury’s payment system. 

--TL

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FRIDAY 2/7/25

Can We Reconcile? – After a couple of weeks of Elon Musk’s DOGE ravishing the US Treasury and throwing USAID on the federal scrapheap, the Occupational Health & Safety Administration likely next and the Education Department to follow, the question must be asked: Would we notice a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass a budget reconciliation bill by March 14?

Yes, we would, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) told Politico in a brief interview last Tuesday.

“I don’t think anybody thinks a shutdown is a good thing,” Cole said. “But the politics are such that we could certainly stumble into one without meaning to.”

But House Republicans are racing to finish a “massive” budget reconciliation bill Friday, NPR reports. Thursday evening, the House GOP spent three hours in a meeting to push forward the reconciliation bill they’ve been talking about since before President Trump’s inauguration (he attended the meeting for the first hour, telling congressmembers to “get it done”). 

Optimism for reaching a deal doesn’t seem high among the House GOP. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) are ready to miss Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans and work through the weekend, Roll Call reports.

“We are almost there. A couple of final details that we’ve got to work out,” Johnson said.

A major sticking point is how to score the budget. Trump’s top priorities for the budget reconciliation package are a permanent extension of his tax cuts plus new tax breaks and spending. Those priorities would push the budget up by a couple of trillion dollars to nearly $6 trillion, according to the Roll Call report. Republicans have been trying to window-dress that expensive package with revenue from “expected” economic growth, spending cuts from Trump’s executive orders and potential revenue from tariffs. 

The in-party fight is between “unconventional” scoring methods that conflict with Congressional Budget Office scoring, or the budget cuts and economic growth that would cut $2 trillion from the federal debt over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus … continues its push to raise the $36 trillion statutory borrowing cap rather than have to make concessions to Democrats over the next five-plus weeks before a government shutdown. Trump has long called for removing the cap, possibly for his entire four-year term. 

Where is the Senate? … Senate Republicans are preparing their own reconciliation bill for markup next week with Trump priorities immigration and border security, military spending and domestic energy production. 

Where are the Democrats? … Willing to let Republicans fall over each other, apparently. But if and when House and Senate Republicans get their act(s) together, Democrats will not have the vote to stop them.

•••

Treasured No More – Marko Elez, 25, resigned from Elon Musk’s quasi-government Department of Government Efficiency Thursday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Wall Street Journal after the newspaper revealed in a scoop his since-deleted social media account spewed racism and eugenics. 

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” Elez posted in July, according to the WSJ’s review of archived @nullllptr posts.

The WSJ’s report does not specifically name Elez as the DOGE programmer who had “read/access” status – not just ability to read files, but also to write within them -- for the Treasury, which was reported earlier in the week by WIRED and NOTES ON THE CRISIS. Before Elez stepped down, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington signed off on a temporary agreement that allowed Elez and another DOGE operative, Tom Krause, “read only” access to Treasury Department records. 

Most recent @nullllptr post was in December according to the WSJ report, when Elez wrote, “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys.” “LLM” refers to an AI language model. H1Bs are the visas Musk has advocated in opposition to hardcore Trump administration anti-immigration advocates such as Stephen Miller. 

Elez, a Rutgers University graduate who had worked for Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink services, as well as on artificial intelligence for X-Twitter, had earlier posted “Normalize Indian hate” and in November, “You could not pay me to marry outside my ethnicity,” according to the WSJ. Insert quips about how much someone would have to be paid to marry Elez here.

--TL

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Fed 'Resignation Deadline' Deferred -- THURSDAY 2/6/25

UPDATE: US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. granted a request by labor unions to pause until Monday the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer, NPR’s All Things Considered reports. O’Toole will hear arguments of the case 2 p.m. Monday.  

Deadline – More than 40,000 of the nation’s 2 million federal employees, roughly 2%, have accepted the Trump administration’s offer to keep pay and benefits through September 30, if they resign by Thursday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. But also on Thursday, Massachusetts US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, will consider a request from labor unions to issue a temporary restraining order and stay the deadline, in a video hearing set for 1 p.m. Eastern. The lawsuit was filed by the legal group Democracy Forward.

•••

To Access, or Not to Access – Marko Elez, the 25-year-old ex-SpaceX programmer and current member of Elon Musk’s quasi-governmental DOGE, which has taken over US Treasury and much of the rest of federal government, was given access to Treasury online files, WIRED magazine reported on Tuesday. In the day-plus since, the Trump White House has refuted news Elez has “read/access,” and DOGE has access Treasury’s $6 trillion worth of payments in “read-only” mode.

Pertinent terms for reporting purposes are “read only” access and “read/access.” The former means that Elez can only read the Treasury files. Confusingly termed “read/access” means Elez can manipulate the files. 

This is important because newsletter NOTES ON THE CRISIS reported Thursday, “Day Seven of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payment Crisis of 2025,” that Elez did indeed have read/access status since Saturday, February 1, when initially reported Tuesday, and it appears to have been rescinded since for “read only” access. The newsletter, written by an anonymous federal employee, cited “a source familiar with the situation” in reporting Elez’s “read/access.”

Even “read only” access by DOGE and Elez poses “enormous security risks and the ability to exploit extremely, absurdly, sensitive information to the benefit of Elon Musk, Trump and his inner orbit” or anyone else with whom Musk feels like sharing information.

On Wednesday, according to NOTC, Treasury reacted to media and public alarm over the access by revoking Elez’s “read/access” and allowing him “read only” instead. WIRED narrowly scooped the newsletter on Elez’s “read/access” status Tuesday, the newsletter notes. 

Two labor unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and Service Employees Union International, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, filed suit in federal court in Washington Monday to stop DOGE access of any sort, naming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Treasury and the Bureau of Fiscal Service as defendants in the civil action (per Newsweek). 

--TL

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Expanding Expansionism

WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

UPDATE: A block of President Trump’s January 20 executive order preventing the children of migrants without permanent legal status from receiving birthright citizenship in the US was furthered by District Judge Deborah Boardman at a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, Wednesday, The Hill reports. 

Unless Boardman’s ruling is overturned by an appeals court, birthright citizenship will remain intact up to when she can issue a final ruling on the merits of the constitutional case put forth by plaintiffs in the suit against Trump’s EO, which is expected to take months. A federal judge in Seattle had previously put the EO on hold in a ruling that was set to expire Thursday.

•••

Middle Eastern Riviera – There’s Greenland and the Panama Canal, and Canada as our 51st state (does the GOP figure they’re more likely to get one or two US senators out of our neighbors to the north, than from Washington, D.C. or Puerto Rico?). Now you can add the Gaza Strip to the list of foreign lands that interest the otherwise isolationist President Trump, who is floating the idea of taking it over, clearing it from the rubble of the Israel-Hamas war, and developing it, economically, The Hill reports. 

Trump Hotels for all our lands? 

Certainly, a better US investment than continuing to supply arms to Ukraine.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job – whether we’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out,” Trump said in opening remarks of a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – first foreign leader to visit Trump 47. “Create an economic development that will supply untold numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area, do a real job, do something different.”

Trump said it could become the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Certainly without any Palestinians, who would be exiled to a nearby Arabic state. Not a bad or crazy idea from Netanyahu’s point of view.

“You cut to the chase,” Israel’s prime minister said. “You see things others refuse to see.”

Trump saw that something in a year-old YouTube video interview of his son-in-law and former senior advisor Jared Kushner, from the Middle East Initiative of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Kushner, whose private equity firm at the end of Trump’s first term four years ago received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, said February 15, 2024; “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable to, if people could focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. You think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and all the munitions. If that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?” (Kushner’s YouTube comments were first reported by The Guardian last year.)

Did senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri have buyer’s remorse for spending all that cash on fighting Israel by building tunnels in the Gaza Strip and filling them with munitions? 

“We regret Trump’s statements,” Abu Zuhri said about Trump’s interest in turning the Gaza Strip into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ 

“We consider this a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,” he said (per Newsweek).

•••

FBI v. Retribution – The FBI Agents Association and the Center for Employment Justice filed separate lawsuits in a Washington, D.C. federal court Tuesday, to block Justice Department leadership from compiling lists of agents who investigated the January 6thattack on the US Capitol plus criminal investigations of Donald J. Trump (per Politico). The suits argue that the DOJ’s lists of FBI agents are part of a retaliation campaign.

For example, the FBI Agents Association’s lawsuit points to calls by Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, after his pardon by President Trump, for the punishment of the agent who investigated his 1/6 involvement, resulting in his prosecution for seditious conspiracy. Once the Justice Department releases the FBI agent’s name, his or her personal information will be available permanently for anyone who wants to avenge Tarrio’s prosecution, the suit contends.

The Center for Employment Justice’s suit cites screenshots of the Justice Department’s three-page survey the center says is intended to identify thousands of FBI agents who worked on politically sensitive cases. 

Meanwhile… In related news, the Senate Tuesday confirmed by 54-46 vote Pam Bondi, an experienced prosecutor who is nevertheless a Trump loyalist, as attorney general, per Roll Call. All Republican senators plus John Fetterman voted for Bondi while all Democrats, except for Pennsylvania’s senior senator, voted against.

Others … Ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is headed for certain confirmation as Trump’s director of national intelligence after the Intelligence Committee forwarded her nomination, 9-8 along party lines. That confirmation is certain, because Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted against Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary said she supports Gabbard, Roll Call reports. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) also was considered a holdout, but has confirmed his support for Gabbard, who came under mostly Democratic pressure for her support of whistleblower Edward Snowden and a 2017 visit to Syria with then-dictator-leader Bashar al-Assad.

Former Rep. Doug Collins (R-VA) was confirmed 77-23 by the Senate as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

Downsizing Government Bloat

Commentary by Rich Corbett

In a time when government spending often raises concerns about waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiency, Elon Musk and the DOGE team’s use of “read-only” access to Treasury data can be viewed as a proactive step toward enhancing accountability. The fundamental argument rests on the premise that taxpayers deserve transparency regarding how their funds are being used and managed. 

Those concerned about hearing “read-only” access and knowing computer “whiz kids” are even dipping their toes into Treasury computers containing that much personal data and information have reason to be concerned. If I were “dictator” and allowing this kind of access, it would only be copies of the data, on a system not actually used to process payments and to engineers who have security clearances.

Public funds are, by nature, meant for the benefit of all citizens. When government agencies operate with a level of secrecy that conceals mismanagement, external scrutiny becomes a necessary check. Musk’s team, leveraging AI assisted auditing resources and expertise, aim at shining a light on possible fiscal inefficiencies, and holding each government department or agency to a high standard of accountability. 

Actions of DOGE underscores the importance of reviewing public spending, particularly when traditional oversight channels, sorely missing in Congress, prove inadequate no matter which political party is in power.

Elon Musk and the DOGE team’s initiative to scrutinize runaway government spending, when viewed through the lens of public accountability, represents a necessary measure to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not squandered. By shining light on how public funds are being used, Americans clearly recognize Washington, D.C. needs more effective oversight than the business as-usual status quo.

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WEDNESDAY 2/5/25

The Great Divide

Commentary by Joel Postman

These are likely the most politically polarized times of the last 100 years. A popular suggestion is that we need to end the divisiveness and seek common ground. There is, however, a tragic and fatal flaw in this notion. 

The dialogue no longer consists of varying views on a particular policy, legislation or political maneuver. More often than not, the conversation starts with anger, name-calling, an outright lie or the assertion of a morally abhorrent point of view. There are not always good people “on both sides.” 

This is an environment in which common ground cannot be achieved, and in fact, the intent of this approach is to avoid doing so. These are not genuine arguments in the traditional sense. They are not entered into in good faith. Thus, this ends the dialogue in which a reasonable person would engage.

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Your Comments Here and There

Scroll down this page with the trackbar on the far right to read Monday’s column on the Trump tariffs, “Where’s the Deal,” in the right column and Sharon Lintner’s “From Tariffs to Tyranny” in the left column.

In Tuesday’s center column, we are calling out DOGE chief and special government employee Elon Musk’s assault on our democracy. Combine Musk’s takeover of the US Treasury, his accusation with no proof of widespread corruption at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and his slander of anyone who disagrees with him voiced on his personal social media plaything, X-Twitter, and it is evident he is pushing the nation’s tech oligopoly into authoritarian-dictatorship territory without the checks and balances that were put in place by the nation’s Founding Fathers.

In short, we are calling out Musk’s threat to our democracy in the neutral center column. 

Be sure to voice your opinion in an email to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

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TUESDAY 2/4/25

Musk Steals Our Democracy

By Todd Lassa

Trump tariffs of 25% on our USMCA partners Canada and Mexico were front and center as World’s Richest Man Elon Musk took over the payment system of the United States Treasury and accused the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Monday of not cooperating with requests for information on how it spends taxpayer dollars. The Trump White House – or was it Musk himself? – handed control of USAID to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he was flying from Panama, where the administration wants to retake control of the canal, to El Salvador to negotiate over that country taking back undocumented immigrants to our country.

The Alliance for Retired Americans, whose Social Security and Medicare payments are now visible to DOGE, along with the American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO, and Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, have filed suit against Treasury and its secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop the handover to Musk and his group of 19-24-year-old insurgents.

Meanwhile, the White House has named Musk, who was not elected to anything or been subject to confirmation hearings or security clearances but did contribute a quarter-billion-dollars to the Trump campaign a “special government employee,” status that’s good for 130 days, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

In just the 16 days since Trump’s inauguration, the special government employee has granted Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer who has worked for two of Musk’s companies, direct access to the Treasury Department systems “responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government,” WIRED reports, citing two sources.

After Rubio met with Panamanian officials, he said of USAID; “Everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interests and the foreign policy of the United States.”

The Trump White House seeks to retake the Panama Canal because the president says it’s under Chinese control. (It’s not – China operates two ports at the canal.) While tariffs against Canada and Mexico were put on-hold Monday, presumably so Trump could re-negotiate a USMCA treaty that does more to change the North American Free Trade Agreement signed under President Clinton than rearrange countries’ names so that “US” is first, the 10% tariff on Chinese goods has stuck. China responded with targeted tariffs of 10% on coal, crude oil, farm equipment and some SUVs, Minnesota Public Radio’s Marketplace reports. China also has placed export controls on such vital metals as tungsten and is investigating Google as a monopoly.  

Meanwhile, China’s Belt and Road Initiative is gaining power and influence in much of the African continent, which is where USAID has concentrated much of its non-military assistance since it was established in 1961.

This raises the question of whether Musk, who grew up in Apartheid South Africa, thinks he knows what he is doing, whether his financial interests are guiding his work as DOGE chief and special government employee (Forbes reports that USAID spent $1 million on terminals from his satellite Internet provider Starlink last year) or whether he is misinformed because he is listening to President Trump?

For the last half-year at least, anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats have been warning of a technoligopoly and of the danger to our democracy of a second Trump term. 

The technoligopoly took over in the time between the presidential election and the inauguration. It turns out that since the inauguration, we have not been able to keep our democracy.

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TUESDAY 2/4/25

This Is Wrong

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

What Donald Trump is saying about our economic relations with Canada are complete, unmitigated bullshit.

Too bold or strident?

Hardly.

This man, with his evident lack of understanding of how trade works, is going to cause all manner of pain to everyday working Americans, many of whom voted for him, and everyday working Canadians who didn’t.

Truth Social: “We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don’t need anything they have.”

All nonsense.

The billions of dollars in question are related to things that Americans buy from Canada.

Here’s how it works:

Someone makes something you want. There is a price on that. You pay the price.

They get the money. You get the product.

If the U.S. buys more from Canada than it sells to Canada, then that is because Americans want more Canadian products and Canadians want fewer American products.

The situation as it exists isn’t some sort of situation where Canada is dumping products or selling them for less than cost.

It is simply that AMERICANS BUY MORE STUFF FROM CANADA.

This is a choice. They are not, in his words, “ripping us off.”

“We don’t need anything they have.”

While someone might argue that buying a minivan built in a factory in Windsor, Ontario, might not be a necessity, odds are that petroleum that goes into existing minivans is something that we need. Sure, we are producing more oil than any other country — 13.2 million barrels of oil per day (funny Biden didn’t get credit for that, which he deserves, which is good or bad depending on you view of CO2 emissions) — but some of the 5.2 million barrels that Canada pumps is necessary because some US oil refineries are setup to process it. Do the people who work in those US refineries need their jobs? Do people in the Midwest who pump the resultant gas into their tanks need that fuel?

According to Trump’s thinking, no.

He went on: “We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51stState. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!”

This is how a freedom-loving country behaves?

Either you do what we want you or you cease to exist?

This is how a country that gave rise to the Greatest Generation, women and men who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of others simply because it was the right thing to do, treats our closest ally and neighbor?

This is shameful.

In Trump’s response to The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board’s essay titled “The Dumbest Trade War in History,” he writes, in part:

“THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

Yes, there it is, an admission that people visiting Kroger, Walmart, Mobil, and elsewhere are going to feel the pain of rising costs. 

Do he and his billionaire enablers care about an additional 50 cents per gallon at the pump? Do they ever even go into a grocery store?

How do a whole bunch of people who have to scrimp to get by — and I’m not talking about the poor in the country, who seem to be entirely irrelevant to Trump — make America great?

It won’t be long before people, regular people, people who go to work every day in factories and warehouses and supermarkets and doctors’ offices, experience “THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

What is not at all clear is why that price must be paid.

That’s because this is complete, unmitigated bullshit.

Note: Although there has been a 30-day “pause” on the threatened tariffs, the foregoing still stands. The consequences of tariffs on the American people would be bleak. And for those who are concerned about the well-being of friends, it wouldn’t be helpful for people in Canada and Mexico, either.

However, one thing has now been established: America cannot be trusted by other countries in the world. Treaties evidently have no meaning. Working relationships can be dissolved with the stroke of a Sharpie.

The United States has played a pivotal role in the world following World War II largely through its engagement with the rest of the world, politically, economically and militarily.

But what we are seeing now is a destruction of that by a group of people who clearly have no understanding of the way many of the countries have integrated.

In effect, the isolation that Trump is talking about isn’t going to Make America Great Again.

It will make America North Korea.

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TUESDAY 2/4/25