GOP Turning on Trump
Congressional Republicans are rejecting Trump's shutdown story, and that's not all
Sept. 25: Trump, Johnson, and Thune can’t get on the same page about their shutdown … Thune also breaks from Trump on Tylenol and Kimmel … Really new federal prosecutor racing to indict James Comey on Trump’s orders … Former Biden aides agree with Gaza critics now that it’s too late and doesn’t matter and won’t save lives …
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On a growing range of issues, a growing number of congressional Republicans are publicly breaking with Pres. Donald Trump, who’s publicly breaking.
Congressional leadership is offering differing narratives or flat-out disagreeing with Trump on everything from next week’s looming government shutdown to the Tylenol™ they’ll want to take for next week’s looming government shutdown.
The shutdown will hit Sept. 30, unless some form of funding authorization passes Congress and gets Trump’s now-unavoidably-pubic-looking signature in time. Republicans are afraid they’ll be unfairly blamed, just because they’ve campaigned for 45 years on killing the government.
And also, as Politico revealed last night, because Trump isn’t planning to mitigate a shutdown if the government runs out of money; he’s planning to make it worse.
I know, it’s weird to have him plan to make things worse for once. Strange new times.
Typically, government workers are placed on furlough during a shutdown. But Trump’s going furlower than that. The White House is telling agencies to prepare for mass layoffs.
An unnamed ashamed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official told Politico that some government functions will be operating during the shutdown: Of course, anything involving government violence to impose social order and/or round up people who look or speak or work or use buses like suspected immigrants; but also Social Security; Medicare; veterans benefits; the military; and air-traffic control. Look at that, they’re planning on giving air-traffic control a shot. Neat!
(Turns out, the Invisible Hand was responsible for that outage grounding hundreds of flights last week.)
Hilariously, even last night’s official-sounding memo from the OMB directing these layoff plans can only manage to stay official-sounding for one (1) paragraph. In paragraph 2 we get this: “[C]ongressional Democrats are signaling that they intend to … shut down the government in the coming days over a series of insane demands, including $1 trillion in new spending.”
Of course, that insane new spending is actually a life-saving continuation of spending that’s happening right now, spending to continue government healthcare relief for predominantly poor people who didn’t get an insane $1 trillion tax cut.
Politico argues that Trump’s plans vindicate Democratic leadership preventing a shutdown back in March. The reasoning at the time was that Trump wanted the powers he gets in a shutdown; presidential discretion determines a lot about what actually gets shut down.
But as your wise TFN wisely pointed out at the time, if Trump wanted a shutdown in March, he could’ve just vetoed the spending bill. He doesn’t want the blame for a shutdown, so he signed it.
To his credit, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) last night finally acknowledged that Trump’s gonna Trump regardless of a shutdown. Schumer called the memo an “attempt at intimidation.”
Just like in March, Trump doesn’t want the blame for a shutdown. That’s why he’s now threatening permanent cuts (and maybe the reason someone leaked them): To scare Dems into voting for new funding. Because Republicans know they’ll get blamed for it because they’re bad at not getting blamed for things they do.
TO WIT Republicans are all over the map trying to blame Democrats.
Congressional Republicans are finally exerting some independence from the White House, the way well-behaved checks and balances are supposed to. Not on what to do, though, but on their messaging for it. As of last night, the two chambers and the White House are offering at least three (3) competing narratives for blaming a shutdown on Democrats.
In case you’re tracking the competing GOP shutdown Rashomon narratives:
Senate GOP: Democrats won’t even agree to extend current funding for just seven weeks to strike a deal (that already could’ve been struck).
House GOP: Democrats want to let undocumented immigrants get public services, which the House GOP thinks is a slam-dunk because they don’t understand that individual public services serve the entire public.
And, bringin’ in the crazy, Trump: Democrats are trying to “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors.” And also, “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.” So 2024!
Point being, Republicans can’t agree why it’s Democrats’ fault, but it definitely is. But by making their argument a complaint (or three complaints) about what Democrats want, Republicans are tacitly admitting that it’s them, the GOP, who won’t compromise.
And Politico reports that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate GOP Leader John Thune (R-SD) privately opposed Trump’s planned negotiations with Democratic leaders. They warned it would undercut the Republican negotiating position. So Trump canceled it, which has now undercut the Republican negotiating position by making it clear Trump won’t negotiate.
Now, why would Johnson and Thune tell Trump that negotiating would undercut their position, when canceling undercut it even more? According to Politico, Johnson and Thune were afraid negotiations would lead to, in this order:
Them being left out.
Trump agreeing to something they hate.
Them having to suck it.
Even Republicans now admit (privately, duhr) that they’re screwing this up. “There have been some unforced errors, clearly,” one senior House GOP aide told Politico, but not clearly enough to use their name.
And remember that shutdown memo from the OMB? The one we just told you about? That’s a fuck-up, too, according to, yes, the GOP. One unnamed Hill Republican told Politico that the OMB memo just handed Democrats “an excuse” to vote against the stopgap extension.
And the shutdown isn’t the only crack in the GOP’s paramilitary armor…
Trump’s Headaches Have Senate GOP Reaching for the Tylenol
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is breaking with Pres. Donald Trump. On only some of Trump’s illegal and irrational behavior, but, y’know, baby steps.
Thune told CNN that, um, shhhh…
…tylenol™ doesn’t cause autism.
In fact, Thune said he’s “very concerned” that people might believe Trump’s claim that it does. He said that, “Science [not Trump] ought to guide these discussions [not Trump].”
Thune wasn’t the first Republican to break with Trump on Tylenol™. And he also wasn’t the first to break with Trump over Jimmy Kimmel, which Thune also did yesterday.
Referring to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threat to punish Disney for airing Kimmel, Thune came out against “coercive use of government,” in direct opposition to Trump’s love of coercive use of government.
And over in the House, Republicans are at war with each other over Jeffrey Epstein. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said Wednesday that Johnson and other DC “powers that be” are in “full panic” over the coming vote to release The Epstein Files™.
Massie says the three other Republican supporters of releasing the files have been threatened, “politically,” by Republican leadership. Which is so weird, since Johnson could try massaging them, instead. On the other hand, johnson massaging is how they got here in the first place.
OH, RIGHT, WAR CRIMES Oh, and then there’s Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and others questioning Trump’s illegal use of the military to murder people in boats. Point being, the cracks in your dam start to show when you flood the zone with bullshit.
Speaking of Kimmel
Yes, Jimmy Kimmel continued making fun of Pres. Donald Trump on Wednesday night, his second night back on the air. And, yes, Tuesday night’s airing of Jimmy Kimmel Live — his first after being suspended for remarks about the response to Charlie Kirk dead — got its highest ratings ever.
Including online views, it’s estimated that tens of millions of people have watched at least some of Kimmel’s remarks in defense of free speech.
Even FEMA Couldn’t Find FEMA Director During Texas Flood
Federal emergency workers were unable to contact the Trump administration’s top emergency-management official for more than 24 hours after the July 4 Texas flood hit, the Washington Post reports.
The flood hit early on July 4. On the afternoon of July 5, workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were readying their response: Equipment and search-and-rescue crews.
But they needed the sign-off of FEMA Director David Richardson. Who was on vacation. And not picking up his phone. Or answering emails.
(Normally in an emergency, OOO! is what you say when you see a wall of water coming at you, not the subject heading for the Out Of Office autoreply from the head of FEMA.)
At the time, lying Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) lied to cover up for Pres. Donald Trump’s inept management of the Federal Emergency [redacted] Agency, saying the state got everything it needed. But the Post now has internal emails showing that, in fact, the state was secretly asking FEMA for help, including additional assets. OOO!
Richardson testified before Congress that he was in constant communication with FEMA while on vacation. So that’s grounds for impeachment. Or even indictment, apparently…
Trump Cramming to Indict Comey
Pres. Donald Trump wants revenge on former FBI Director James Comey for daring to investigate his corrupt-ass campaign’s corrupt ass. That means using the pre-politicized Justice Department to gin up charges against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress.
Last week, U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert resigned because he doesn’t like gin. Reportedly, Siebert found no grounds to indict Comey (or other Trump enemy New York State District Attorney Letitia James).
So Trump on Monday installed his own federal prosecutor, one with zero (0) experience federally prosecuting. Or any prosecuting. Here’s where it gets really fun.
Trump’s new really new federal prosecutor is acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. And Halligan only has until Tuesday to indict Comey. Because that’s when the statute of limitations runs out for allegedly lying to Congress.
(Comey testified before Congress that he didn’t authorize a leak about the DOJ investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails — which no one alive today can imagine why it mattered at the time — but then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says Comey did. That’s it. That’s the case: A classic He Said, Deputy-Director-He Said.)
Reportedly, prosecutors in Halligan’s office have already presented her with a memo explaining that “there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause,” let alone win a conviction.
It gets better. Halligan has five days to cram for her indictment deadline. She was the most junior attorney on Trump’s personal legal team. And she has spent her career not as a prosecutor, not even in criminal law, not even in federal law, but as…
…a Florida state insurance lawyer. Effectively, Trump is trying to take down the former head of the FBI with a general who got her combat experience in battle against AFLAC and Geico.
How is she with deadlines? Once, as a Trump lawyer, when Halligan had to file a request with the court, it turned out she didn’t even have a PACER account set up, so she had to drive to file it in person. Newsfuckers, she got stuck in traffic.
Anyway, even if Halligan does Frankenstein together some simulacrum of an indictment by Tuesday, it will be hilarious. There’s a good chance it’ll fail to convince a grand jury — which wouldn’t even indict a guy caught on camera for throwing a salami Subway™.
And even if they do get an indictment, Comey’s acquittal would be assured thanks to lack of evidence and Trump publicly announcing that this is politicized wrongful prosecution.
TFN hereby goes on record demanding that the hijinks-filled behind-the-scenes escapades in this scramble be made into a movie by Adam McCay. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Biden Aides Now Agree with Biden Critics on Gaza
In yet another classic, deadly case of the left being too right too soon, a growing army of former aides to Pres. Joe Biden are starting to acknowledge how maybe they screwed the pooch and/or Gaza.
Former State Department official Andrew Miller: “[W]e persuaded ourselves that there was little we could do to move our regional ally, Israel.”
Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer: The U.S. “did far too little, far too late.”
Vice Pres. Kamala Harris’s National Security Adviser Philip Gordon: “It was a policy failure. You can’t conclude anything else.”
As Gordon and Finer write in a new opinion piece this morning:
“…it is long past time for more decisive U.S. action to try to end the war. And that includes the most meaningful and material step the United States could take — arguably the only one of consequence — which is to finally leverage the billions of dollars it provides to Israel annually for security assistance.”
Stop arming Israel? Who are these crazy pro-Hamas terrorists?!?
Media Watch
A New York Times headline this morning reads, “After Dallas Shooting, a Rush to Score Political Points Before the Facts Are In.” The subheadline reads, “In the aftermath of a violent episode, political figures quickly engaged with one another on social media.”
So, Republicans and Democrats are both making political claims about Wednesday’s shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, right? Newsfucker, prepare to shriek soundlessly into the void.
On the one hand, Vice President JD Vance immediately seized on the shooting to label the dead gunman a “violent left-wing extremist,” claiming to have secret government evidence that the shooter “was politically motivated.”
And what, according to the Times, did Democratic leaders say that was anywhere near the equivalent of this? Here’s a hint: Here are the photos for this story:
So who’s that on the right, the Democratic equivalent of the sitting vice president? Why, it’s former Vice President Kamala Harris, obviously! Or maybe at least a junior member of the House of Representatives? A governor? Lieutenant governor?
Nope. It’s a podcaster, Jon Favreau, who last worked in government as Pres. Barack Obama’s speechwriter in March 2013 — more than two Trumps ago. And what did Favreau say to justify the Times’ false headline-equivalence and photo-equivalence?
“[T]he vice president is not a reliable source of information.”
God damn it, sir, this is not the time for such wild, inflammatory rhetoric!
Anyway, this is the kind of infuriating bullshit that drove me to create The Fucking News. Thanks for being here.
Recommended Reading
Didja miss the new obituary for Brett James, the writer of “Jesus, Take the Wheel”?
It’s by award-winning writer Jim Earl, formerly of The Daily Show and Air America Radio, and it is deeply, deeply wrong. If you like that kind of thing.
TCB
SUPPORTING TFN I’ve got another mid-stream pitch for subscription upgrades up top today — despite hating them — because yesterday was another soft day. Interestingly, the only Newsfuckers who upgraded to paid were podcast listeners! So, thank you, those of you reading this with your ears.
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RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! Republicans are in disarray…!
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
It is always fun to get the news from you. I'm horrified but laughing.
Didn't the U.S. used to intercept drug runners and inspect them for illegal contraband? I like a good murder as well as the next fellow but this administration isn't renowned for their accuracy and attention to detail.