Lame-Fuck President
One GOP senator actually laughed when asked whether he'll give Trump what he wants
Nov. 6: Trump tells Senate GOP to kill the filibuster and gets laughed at … Republican leaders confident that Republican election losses had nothing to do with Republicans … Billionaires who opposed Mamdani kiss Mamdani’s ass because how do you think they got so rich? … Despite promises by other people of Mamdani’s antisemitism, he’s already letting them down …
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The day after Democrats delivered a shocking shellacking at the polls, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) literally laughed when asked whether he would give Pres. Donald Trump what he wants.
Rounds was asked about ending the Senate filibuster, the easiest path for passing Republican-drafted legislation to end the longest government shutdown in federal history and one that Trump pushed for at his Wednesday breakfast with GOP senators. Rounds “laughed out loud,” Politico reported but without specifying whether it was more of a robust “Hardy har har” or a tinkling “Tee hee.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also responded to Trump’s request to declare the filibuster a narco-terrorist so he can kill it. “[I]t’s not happening.”
This was after Trump’s own Election Day post-mortem proclaimed, not super wrongly, that Republicans lost because he wasn’t on the ballot, and because of the shutdown, which is his fault.
By acknowledging his weakness on the shutdown, Trump was shooting himself in the foot, handing Democrats leverage. (I’ll get to the state of the shutdown in a followup post today or tomorrow.)
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proceeded to step on said injured foot Wednesday, announcing that he’s cutting 10% of flights at 40 of the biggest airports, because of the shutdown. Which will increase the pressure by 10% on all of his biggest boss to end the shutdown. That’s right, fascists are botching the one thing people give fascists credit for: They can’t even make the planes run on time.
Trump also shot himself in the other foot — fair and balanced! — by announcing that Republicans can’t win without him next year1, reminding Republicans to start distancing themselves from him. “Oh, yeah, we’re gonna have to run without this guy next year, too.”
So as of now, Trump is a lame-duck president. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask the Beltway media:
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has already decided to retire rather than fight for his swing-district seat. He told Politico that Trump “has zero ability to work across the aisle” and “needs to face reality and learn how to talk to Democrats he can reason with.”
Facing reality, however, would be a stark policy change for the White House.
And Bacon warned that the election results are a “red flag” for the GOP, which remains proudly color blind. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said “I don’t think the loss last night was any reflection about Republicans at all.”
Even some Trump goosesteppers are no longer in lock step with Trump.
The Daily Beast has a savory stew of Trump emotional-support clowns losing their minds and rubber noses and not emotionally supporting Trump after Tuesday’s unexpectedly galloping walloping by Democrats.
Here’s Mike Cernovich: “Trump spent all year on the Middle East, his big donors loved this, the voters did not … Keep listening to Mark Levin, Mr President, and you’ll be back to impeachment trials in 2026.”
Here’s Lara Loomer, not naming Trump, but implying Trump, “How come we haven’t seen any real efforts [by Trump] to secure our elections?”
Here’s Breitbart’s Michael Boyle, also pretending “Republicans” have autonomy and no one knows which mysterious figure might be leading them so poorly: “There’s still time for the Republicans to course correct for the 2026 midterms… The America First movement, when its policies are actually implemented, I think [sic] beats socialism head to head every time.”
DOGE veteran and now Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Republicans, “cut out the identity politics, it doesn’t suit Republicans… We don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion.” He added mentally, “All we ask is that we be allowed to check your genitals.”
It was, obviously, a totally self-serving plea as Ramaswamy is currently being roasted for the color of his skin and his religion by Ohio Republicans because it suits them.
As Dinesh D’Souza said of Indian-Americans: “A very loud group on the Right said, ‘Indians go home,’ and so many of them did—to the Democratic Party.”
Some commentators just admitted not understanding what happened Tuesday. Fox’s Bill Hemmer asked, “What does affordability even mean?” See? It’s a concept that people paid millions of dollars literally can’t understand.
You can almost imagine the exchange. Fox researcher: “Okay, so pretend you want something but it costs more than you have.” Hemmer: “You lost me.”
Trump’s own people are signaling a change in course. White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair crapped on the political performance of the party his boss runs, and praised his rival party’s new star, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Blair said, “People [like my boss who is Trump] talk about communists, they can say all these things [because they are my boss], but the fact is he [Mamdani] was talking about the cost of living.”
Blair added, “Why did Zohran Mamdani do so well last night? He relentlessly focused on affordability.” Okay, but who’s gonna explain that to Bill Hemmer?
So, Blair says, his boss is going to change course (and do what Blair is obviously trying to tell his boss to do). “I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair said, savagely clenching his sphincter with the sheer effort of willing it to be so.
Here’s the rub with that: Anything focused on prices and cost of living2 will entail undoing Trump’s own bullshit.
Also not helping Trump’s party, the wingnut wing’s investment in GOP voter suppression over its favorite conspiracy theories. And not just The Epstein Files™!
Here’s Candace Owens, giving it to Republicans in the neck: “Not voting until we learning the truth about who killed Charlie.”
Well, I’ll never tell!
And it’s not just the blatherers, it’s the people who listen to the blatherers blather. Y’know, voters!
Data-cruncher Philip Bump took a look at the bumps in Trump’s polling, and they all bump downward. It’s not just that America now disapproves of how Trump does literally every individual thing. It’s that even his base is falling out of love.
From February to October, more than one out of six Republicans stopped loving Trump as hard as they can:
Barely half, 51%, of Republicans now strongly approve of Trump’s presidency. Down from 63% in February. And that was before Trump got his gold-lined clock cleaned Tuesday.
Republicans are slowly shifting from “I would do anything for Trump” to “but I won’t do that.”
Those non-white Trump fans who were seen as making a generational shift by voting for him last year also appear to be over it. Here’s a look at the New Jersey results in the governor’s race. Ninety-four percent of Black voters helped make Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) the governor-elect. So did 68% of Hispanic/Latino voters.
Women voted Democratic on Tuesday, young women overwhelmingly so. But even those young men Democrats are so terrified of losing voted Democratic.
More than half of men under 30 voted for Sherrill. Roughly 60% voted for Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) (against, admittedly, a Black woman, so, y’know).
And an under-appreciated aspect of Mamdani’s campaign is that his grassroots model now looks like a fantastic way to get young men out of the house, socializing again, and less toxic. And if they sign up at first to meet girls, so be it: Possibly history’s greatest motivator to grow the fuck up.
The collapse in Trump’s GOP support won’t come suddenly with grand pronouncements. Republican politicians will stick by his side, but more and more are feeling free to disagree. Or laugh at him trying to kill the filibuster, which Republicans know they’re gonna need toot suite when they’re back in the minority.
And, no, it’s not just blue or even purple states, as Trump claims, where they lost. They lost everywhere, including Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and statewide races in Georgia.
As one Newsfucker wrote, Republicans also lost some red redoubts in swing states. Virginia, remember, literally still has a Republican governor.
So here’s Bluesmurf’s look at the redness of Virginia counties in the 2024 presidential election…
…compared to how counties voted for governor on Tuesday:
Along with the grass roots and the politicians and the blatherers, you can add the billionaire donors getting over Trump. They’re also caving, because how do you think they got so rich?
At least 28 billionaires donated at least $100,000 each to feed the hungry during the lapse in food stamps to elect Trump’s candidate in the New York City mayor’s race. Not only were those 28 outnumbered and soundly defeated by 100,000 volunteers for Mamdani, some are already prostrating themselves before him.
Bill Ackman, who helped stoke Trump’s assaults on higher education, spent $1.75 million to stop Mamdani. On Wednesday, Ackman congratulated Mamdani and said, “let me know what I can do.” (How do you think they got so rich?)
Fellow anti-Mamdani billionaire John Catsimatidis reportedly told Trump not to withhold funds from New York and not to send troops in, but withhold troops out and send funds in.
Trump himself said he might “help him [Mamdani] a little bit maybe,” like a strong, decisive tough-guy leader might do a little bit maybe. (Privately, Trump is even said to have praised Mamdani’s political skills.)
Hell, even the Supreme Court was publicly trashing Trump on Wednesday. Multiple justices were skeptical of the government’s top lawyer as he argued that Trump has the right to levy broad tariffs, even justices who were imported into the court with an added cost of 100% Trump stank.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, for instance, a Trump appointee, nailed Solicitor General D. John Sauer3 for implying that Congress could abdicate its war powers. D. John’s argument, in other words, didn’t cut the mustard.
The odds of the Supreme Court killing or cutting back Trump’s tariffs — publicly weakening Trump more/again — are rising the weaker Trump looks and the more the justices see what their legacies look like in a post-Trump future.
For instance, almost a quarter of the way into his term, not a single Supreme Court justice has had the decency to die and let Trump nominate a 28-year-old incel.
Mamdani Already Disappointing His Critics
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is already failing to make good on the promises his critics made about him.
Supporters of the Israeli government warned that Mamdani would force Muslim women to cover up and unleash the intifada against New York’s Jews. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday even unveiled its Mamdani Monitor™ to sort and collate all the many coming instances of Mamdani antisemitism. (Big ups to MSNBC for giving the ADL a platform to do that!)
And yet, Mamdani was already letting them down as soon as his victory speech. “[W]e will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani said disappointingly, “and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.” But they promised!
Mamdani poured non-kosher salt on the wound the very next day. Responding to a posted report of swastika graffiti, Mamdani gratuitously added yet another failure to fulfill predictions of antisemitism:
“This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city. As Mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”
Sometimes it seems like you just can’t trust politicians to fulfill the promises other people made about them.
The Horrors of Domestic Combat in Trump’s War on America
The full horrors of war never reach the people right away. Not immediately. It takes time for the people to grasp the enormity of what has been done in their name and to their warriors. War’s atrocities and brutality emerge slowly, in the stories told afterward by those who fought and died.
One veteran came forward on Wednesday to tell his story. His name is Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer Gregory Lairmore. He took to the SUV-torn streets of Washington, DC, this summer to take up arms against the phantoms that haunt the imagination of his commander.
It was Lairmore, a young father4, who became the face of war in The Battle of the Subway™ Sandwich. While it’s been glorified and sanitized for the public as The Salami Heard Round the World and The Sandwich of Iwo Jima, Lairmore had to live the reality of it.
In the misdemeanor war-crimes trial of his attacker, Sean Dunn, Lairmore testified Wednesday about his trauma, and his post-traumatic Subway™ disorder. While viral video has shown what happened, no one who hasn’t lived it knows the scent of war. But Lairmore knows.
“You could smell the onions and the mustard,” he told the hushed chamber.
It was not in the morning, and it was not the smell of victory. It was the smell of submarine warfare. And they don’t tell you about what you feel in war.
“I could feel it through my ballistic vest,” Lairmore said. The desk jockeys back home never designed Lairmore’s gear for this kind of attack.
First comes impact, as Sub Tzu wrote, then the blast. Lairmore described the moment: “It kind of exploded all over.”
Jury deliberations continue today. As Dunn’s lawyer pointed out during this week’s amusingly short trial for Dunn’s misdemeanor assault charge, despite Lairmore’s graphic testimony, images of the attack show that Dunn’s sandwich fell to the ground intact, still encased in the shell of its Subway™ wrapper.
Unexploded. A dud.
Media Watch
The original headline for Tuesday’s TFN read simply, “Mamdani Is a Terrible Antisemite.” The joke was that he’s so bad at being antisemitic that he got a Jewish leader’s endorsement on Sunday.
Some of you Newsfuckers were not amused.
One of you commented thusly: “Your title is funny but on the last day of voting it’s a bit iffy, and seeing it on its own could turn someone against Mamdani.”
Another Newsfucker strongly seconded that: “I would like to strongly second that, in times like these plus a lot of people only reading the headline and then moving on, this feels icky slash irresponsible to me.”
I responded in part by explaining that “the odds of this one headline from an outlet as small as TFN being misinterpreted … are virtually infinitesimal.” I was right. Also wrong.
My statement didn’t cover the entirety of the situation. Which was brought home to me by an email I got that read simply: “No he’s not FU.” I took a shot at diplomacy and responded:
“My apologies, the headline was intended to be ambiguous, making fun of people calling him antisemitic. I’ve revised it to make clear that I’m saying he’s terrible at being an antisemite because he’s so NOT antisemitic!”
The reader considered my position and wrote back, offering succinctly, “FU.”
Which made me realize my mistake. I didn’t just assume that Newsfuckers are a relatively small group, I failed to factor in casual readers. One-night Newsfuckers, if you will. The premise of the headline was that our tiny happy family would all know where I stand and respond, “Ho ho, you droll bon vivant!”
So I checked, and there are literally thousands of you who subscribe but read TFN very infrequently. And with some of you wild beasts out there subscribing to scores of Substacks, my mistake was in thinking everyone who saw it would understand the TFN context in which to read it.
In other words, even if it won’t influence an election outcome, apparently TFN is now big enough that I’ve lost the luxury of assuming it’s just our tiny happy family gathered around the hearth in our woolens. That’s a good thing!
So is being aware of it. So, thank you. Or TU, if we’re being succinct.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids! The would-be strongman’s a lot weaker today, thanks to us.
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.
Also in 2028, when I know some of you are afraid Trump will be on the ballot, which would be the best thing possible for Democrats and America.
Note to Bill Hemmer: This is affordability.
Hilariously, Gorsuch addressed Sauer as “General,” as if Sauer were in the military. As with Surgeon General, the “general” in Solicitor General is an adjective.
Maybe?
D. John’s argument, in other words, didn’t cut the mustard.
This sentence led to my head bending back to face the ceiling, my eyes closing in a wincing fashion, and my throat uttering a low odd noise. Paired with my coffee, in other words, this sentence fully brought me into full consciousness, ready to face another an average Thursday. Thank you for your cringey cleverness.
Maybe not understanding what affordability means is why FOX always calls the Affordable Care Act …. “Obamacare”