Trump Got Played
Intentionally or not, Trump also played his MAGA tariff fans
Feb. 4: Mexico and Canada smuggle documented bullshit over the White House border … Trump releasing detained undocumented immigrants back on the streets (where they work and raise families) … Democrats lock in, vowing no more Mr. Nice They … Rubio caves on U.S. foreign aid agency …
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You might not realize it from the breathless coverage, but Pres. Donald Trump’s supposed victories over Mexico and Canada weren’t as advertised. Shocking, I know.
The beautiful tariffs he had promised to his MAGA voters were supposed to go into effect today against Mexico and Canada. But Trump blinked, and delayed them for 30 days.
Y’know, to enhance global economic stability.
And it’s not clear whether Trump got took or was happy to scam his MAGA followers again. Here’s the deal that most of the media coverage omitted (except, obviously, what I’m about to link to) in its flood of awe at Trump’s masterful triumphs. Because you can’t spell “triumph” without “Trump.” And also “I.” And “H.”
This is a dance we’ve been through before, and while your patience-advocating TFN typically advises patience about believing breathless media narratives about Trump “victories,” we’ve also been able to debunk at least elements of some of them in real time.
And, sure enough, when we learned yesterday that Trump won a major concession from Mexican Pres. Claudia Sheinbaum — the deployment of 10,000 troops to the border — TFN immediately cautioned that “what we don’t (yet) know is how bullshit that is, how well she played Trump. Were those soldiers all already scheduled for border duty? Who knows (yet).” (Why 10,000? So everyone can see from its roundness that it’s a bullshit number with no relevance to actual metrics.)
As we also noted, Trump apparently made at least some vague concession about the U.S. guns fueling Mexico’s gang violence, which most media utterly ignored. (The New York Times finally mentioned it, deep in their coverage.)
Well, as soon as Vice President JD Vance bragged about those 10,000 troops yesterday, he got the smackdown Newsfuckers knew was coming.
Turns out, Mexico’s agreed to this before. In 2019. Under Trump. Without the tariffantrum. (Tantrumff?)
Oh, and also in 2021. Under Pres. Joe Biden. Also without a tantrum.
And without tanking the stock market and causing billions of dollars in losses.
And Canada?
Trump was so masterful that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau not only agreed to a $1.3 billion border plan, Trudeau went back in time and pre-agreed to it in December. That’s right, Canada sold Trump a brand-new used car.
And those 10,000 new Canadian border troops, eh? Here’s the Times not-high-enough-in-the-story again: “It was not clear how many officials are already operating across the vast Canada-United States border.” Meaning, hilariously, that the U.S. didn’t even ask.
This is why freaking out over Trump doesn’t help (except by helping him) — it reinforces the notion that he’s doing something when all we know is that it looks like he’s doing something and/or that he says he’s doing something. Very different things.
As your brilliant TFN brilliantly labeled Trump the other day, he’s now becoming The Boy Who Cried Wolf of Wall Street. Meaning that Trump’s threats are already losing their potency — which he hates to lose due to his manliness.
China now apparently recognizes Trump’s full-of-shititude and playability. They announced retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. products — but not the kind likely to tank our economy. And here’s the takeaway quote from the AP’s coverage: Beijing University of International Business and Economics Professor John Gong told the AP, “They [China] see this example from Canada and Mexico and probably they are hoping for the same thing.”
Namely, China expects to scam Trump, or play along just enough to help Trump scam his remaining base.
Speaking of MAGing Fools Out of MAGA…
Remember how now-re-President Donald Trump slammed then-Pres. Joe Biden for “catch and release” of detained undocumented immigrants? For apprehending people not authorized to be here and then releasing them in the naive, namby-pamby Democratic hope that they’ll show up for their appointed court date (which they overwhelmingly did)?
Well, guess who’s catching and releasing now with nary a whisper of outrage from right-wing media almost as if they never really loved the angel Laken Riley.
According to the first bill that Trump signed, The Laken Riley Never Let an Angel Get Killed By a Latino Act of 2025, undocumented immigrants are all supposed to get locked up forever until they’re deported forever. (I know I’m overstating the law. Trumpetic license.)
And yet, NBC News just revealed that Trump is doing catch and release, making the angel Laken Riley cry in Heaven!
NBC’s Julia Ainsley got five sources to rat out their boss and confirm that Trump is putting detained undocumented immigrants back on the streets with their Hunter Biden-esque penchant for murder and mass murder.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed it to Ainsley: “In some cases, ICE is required to release certain arrested aliens from custody.” They didn’t say how many “aliens,” but some appear to have criminal records:
Anyway, the crisis (which Democrats validated) was bullshit, the criticisms of Biden were bullshit, the plans to fix it were bullshit, and the execution of said plans is bullshit.
Yes, Democrats Are Fighting Back
Autocracy’s ostensible advantage is that assholes lacking impulse control are free to act without waiting for approval from non-them people. This is fantastic for scratching the itch of privileged rich dudes to act out their fantasies of infallibility.
It has, however, never in all of human history worked and has always been ended by the non-them people. This — fun fact — is how America was founded. But resistance takes time. Conversations. Getting buy-in from non-you people. Researching and writing legal briefs. Locating plaintiffs for the lawsuits.
These developments are nowhere near as surprising or dramatic as the world’s richest man-child buffaloing his way through agencies, norms, people’s careers, and federal funding on which real people rely. Which means it’s not treated as equally newsworthy.
Editors will hear that Democrats or non-governmental organizations are suing and shrug, “Well, of course they’re suing. We knew they would sue.” Booooring.
Which is why it doesn’t get more play in the news. Except here, The Fucking News. And only here.
Okay, not just here.
I went to the American Prospect to see what they were reporting, and sure enough, they were on it.
Emma Janssen writes up some of the pushback. Sure, some of it is performative — there’s a bill Democrats are working on that says you can’t break the law. Color me cynical, but I was almost sure that breaking the law was already against the law.
However, a new lawsuit filed yesterday — by two unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union, along with the advocacy group The Alliance for Retired Americans — asks the court to end the access to sensitive Treasury Dept. information that Pres. Donald Trump gave to Elon Musk and his absolutely un(authorized/qualified) team.
Federal law prescribes tight controls for access to all of that our data. The Privacy Act of 1974 and statutory IRS rules do not have carve-outs for South African billionaires or their ketamined minions.
(Obviously, every judge in the country will have to recuse themselves since we’re talking about their private info, too.)
The illegal actions mean that, by granting Musk access, new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already broken the laws — the Administrative Procedure Act, maybe the Federal Information Security Modernization Act — controlling the process for access. In case the Democratic committees wanna start drawing up those 2027 impeachment bills.
More betterly, Democrats are announcing they’ll use the power they have where they have it, regardless of whether it’s relevant (y’know, the way Trump used tariffs to “fight” drug-smuggling).
Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) say they’re going to roadblock every single Trump nominee until the attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development ends. (That, too, is illegal, since USAID was created by an executive order pursuant to federal law and explicitly codified into law in 1998. Not to mention funded by subsequent laws.)
Even some Republicans, however meekly, are going on record — names and everything! — defending the basic premise of U.S. foreign aid, which is to save lives and reduce human suffering preserve the American soft power that helps U.S. corporations colonize other countries.
As Janssen writes, “The more concrete threat of withholding nominations and grinding the business of the Senate to a halt, especially with a government shutdown looming next month and the nation’s borrowing limit just after that, marks a change in the party’s willingness to play hardball to defend the government from Musk.”
That includes putting Republicans on notice that the next budget bill has to undo/protect against Trump’s funding cuts. Republicans likely need Democratic votes to authorize new funding and prevent a government shutdown on March 14.
At this point, it seems like Musk is aiming to shut down government on his own before March 14. But already his political base is showing signs of strain.
Trump Reminds Media That He Is Also President
Pres. Donald Trump is hedging on the bull in a china shop who also has extensive business dealings with China.
Trump said yesterday that Elon Musk isn’t getting access to everything, and can’t do anything he wants. “[H]e’s got access only to letting people go1 that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him, and it’s only if we agree with him.”
Earlier, Trump said, “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go.”
He ramped up that message on Monday:
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t.
“If there’s a conflict, then we won’t let him get near it.”
And not all of Trump’s appointees are going along with the Muskification of government.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday that “Any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed and approved by Congress.”
Rubio — a senator just a month ago — agreed (one possible dividend from Democrats voting to confirm him). His response:
“This letter provides notice and advises you of our intent to initiate consultations with you… [about this] review and potential reorganization … consistent with applicable law.”
The reason we’re not hearing about all this as loudly as we’re hearing about Delonald Trmumpsk’s flailing is that it’s not as interesting to media people more fascinated by spectacle than by substance.
But as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said yesterday, “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk and that’s going to become real clear.”
TAKING ACTION If you’re in Washington, the “Nobody Elected Elon Rally” is being held today at 5pm eastern time at whatever’s left of the Treasury Dept.
(More) Lawyers to the Rescue
There’s a viral quote from Mr. Rogers about how in times of crisis, we look to the helpers. Well, in the case of the Trump2.0 presidency, we look to the lawyers.
California legislators yesterday voted to approve $50 million in funding for lawyers. (An allocation of that size could cover as much as one whole week of billable hours.)
The funding is to cover legal aid for immigrants and alleged immigrants, as well as to pay for legal challenges to Trump policies, especially those that might strip California of federal funding that the law says it can have.
The state has an estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants and is better off thanks to them.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas called California’s undocumented residents “People who pay about $8.5 billion in state and local taxes every single year.” He said, “They raise families, and they contribute to our communities. These law-abiding immigrants, they are Californians — they are not criminals.”
ICYMI
A stupid story TFN broke back in November is getting traction today. For the wrong media outlet.
The Daily Mail — in an EXCLUSIVE! — got video of new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy dancing au naturel back when he was a reality TV star.
This is, yes, the same video and story that TFN broke — and was embarrassed about breaking! — back in November, before Duffy was confirmed. Y’know, when it mattered!
Anyway, it’s a stupid story and none of this matters, but who gets my venting more than you Newsfuckers?
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids. Especially you lawyer kids.
Letting people go is not a thing you can access, but we know what Trump means, I guess?
I love your style, which is why I follow you. Sadly, I live on a very limited budget and can only afford to support you by following you. Fight the good fight! Canada and the rest of the sane world needs you.
“Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) say they’re going to roadblock every single Trump nominee until the attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development ends.” What a novel goddamn idea! But why limit it to USAID?