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New documents underscore why the Supreme Court must let Jack Smith’s Trump case move forward

Salon – Opinion

New documents underscore why the Supreme Court must let Jack Smith’s Trump case move forward

Amanda Marcotte – February 14, 2024

Jack Smith; US Supreme Court Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Despite taking their own sweet time to render what should have been a five-minute decision ruling that Donald Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals did do Americans one big favor: They removed most of Trump’s avenues to continue delaying what has become known as the “January 6” criminal case against him. I’ll spare readers the tedium of recounting the legal maneuvering that was avoided, and sum it up as this: The court gave Trump a Monday deadline to appeal to the Supreme Court. He, as usual, put it off until the last minute but did indeed make that appeal by the end of the day.

Now there is only one question: Will the six Republican justices on the court sabotage the case brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith?

Almost no legal experts think that the justices, despite being partisan hacks, will humiliate themselves by upholding Trump’s asinine claims of total license to commit as many crimes as he wishes. But, as Ian Millhiser at Vox explains, “the Court could simply sit on his request for a very long time without taking any action on it.” Doing so would destroy the chance that Trump’s criminal trial for his attempted coup would occur this year. If he wins the election, it would destroy the case completely. There is no doubt that Trump would appoint a corrupt crony to head the Justice Department, and that stooge would kill the case.

On the same day that Trump filed his appeal, Talking Points Memo released a blockbuster report that underscores what a devastating blow to democracy it would be if the Supreme Court derailed this criminal case against Trump. As Josh Kovensky writes, Kenneth Chesebro, one of the unindicted (so far) co-conspirators in Smith’s D.C. case, provided “a trove of documents” to Michigan prosecutors as part of a cooperation agreement to avoid charges of efforts to steal the election in that state. (Chesebro has already pled guilty in a similar case in Georgia.) The documents show how Trump and his conspirators hatched a plan to steal the election by interrupting, delaying, filibustering or otherwise blocking the congressional certification of electoral votes. The idea was to sow chaos for days, if not weeks, in hopes the Supreme Court would step in and simply nullify the election, declaring Trump president.

The full plan never came to fruition, in large part because the conspirators didn’t get enough buy-in from then-Vice President Mike Pence and other key Republican leaders to pull it off. But the documents are a chilling reminder that the violence of the Capitol insurrection was just a small part of what was a vast, sweeping conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden and the voters who elected him. This matters, because “January 6” has become a shorthand for an attempted coup that, in actuality, lasted for two months and across multiple states. No doubt, the Capitol riot was the flashiest part of this effort. But there’s a real danger that the violence that day is eclipsing the public’s understanding of all the events — and crimes — that led up to QAnon idiots storming the Capitol.

Worse, focusing on the Capitol riot at the expense of talking about Trump’s larger attempted coup allows Republicans to gaslight voters about how serious Trump’s efforts to overthrow democracy really were. One of the favorite tactics of Republicans is to pretend the riot was just a protest that got “out of hand” and deny that Trump was deliberately instigating it with his “fight like hell” speech.

That lie is harder to pull off when one looks at the larger context. Trump and his conspirators had been plotting for months to derail the electoral vote count, creating what they hoped would be a pretext to nullify the election. The attack on the Capitol was part of this larger plan. That’s why it’s ridiculous to pretend Trump didn’t deliberately instigate the riot. Taken together with all his other actions to derail the electoral vote-counting, it’s clear that the riot was part of the larger scheme to keep the election from being certified.

It’s worth revisiting the indictments that Smith filed against Trump last summer. While journalists tend to call this the “January 6” case, the indicting document refers to a conspiracy that stretched from “November 14, 2020 through on or about January 20, 2021.” The evidence is extensive, but only a fraction of it involves the efforts to bring followers to the Capitol to be foot soldiers in the insurrection. Mostly it’s about the various efforts to persuade officials on all levels of government to certify fraudulent electors in the place of the real ones, or to fabricate enough votes for Trump to throw the election, or to get the Justice Department to declare the election fraudulent as a pretext to throw out the results. It’s only when all that failed that Trump turned to violence to create the chaos that Chesebro and his associates thought could be used as cover to declare Trump the victor.

It’s crucial that Smith get to present this evidence to a jury — and to the nation — before the election, and ideally, before the official party nominations are secured at the conventions this summer. Republican voters will probably pick Trump as their nominee anyway, but it’s only fair that they have a chance to be reminded of how central he was to his own coup before they decide to move forward. Trump is more than a guy who gave an ill-advised speech on a single day. He spent every day for weeks scheming to overthrow democracy. Voters really are owed a full accounting of the attempted coup, and not this reductive view that it was just one bad day at the Capitol on January 6.

The new Chesebro documents are a strong reminder that the plot to steal the election really hinged on whether the Supreme Court would, as Trump hoped, use the Trump-created chaos as an excuse to simply declare the election null and claim Trump can retain power indefinitely. There’s some reason to believe the justices, like Pence, wouldn’t have played along it if came to that, because they knocked down Trump’s other lawsuits asking for the courts to nullify the election.

But if they slow-walk this case so that Smith doesn’t get to try it before this year, the court has proved themselves just as corrupt as Trump believed them to be when he asked them to steal an election for him. The case presented to them is a lay-up. There’s no legitimate cause to argue that Trump gets forever immunity for his crimes. All they need to do is put out a one-sentence response upholding the D.C. opinion. That can be done this week. Frankly, that could have been done within minutes of Trump filing his appeal. It’s rare that matters of law are as black-and-white as this, but here we are. If the Supreme Court slow-walks this, the only reason would be to help a man who tried to overthrow the government get away with his crimes.

The Trauma of the Trump Years Is Being Rewritten

The New York Times – Opinion

The Trauma of the Trump Years Is Being Rewritten

By Charles M. Blow – February 14, 2024

Donald Trump with his face partially obscured in a blur of colored light. — Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Americans rehabilitate ex-presidents all the time.

It was fascinating to see the rebranding of George W. Bush — the man who took us into the disastrous Iraq war and horribly bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina — into a charming amateur artist who played buddies with and passed candy to Michelle Obama.

And it didn’t just happen for him. The Monica Lewinsky scandal faded in our consideration of Bill Clinton. Barack Obama’s reliance on drone strikes and his moniker “deporter in chief” rarely receive mention now.

This is because our political memories aren’t fixed, but are constantly being adjusted. Politicians’ negatives are often diminished and their positives inflated. As Gallup noted in 2013, “Americans tend to be more charitable in their evaluations of past presidents than they are when the presidents are in office.”

Without a doubt, Donald Trump benefits from this phenomenon. The difference is that other presidents’ shortcomings pale in comparison with his and his benefit isn’t passive: He’s seeking the office again and, as part of that, working to rewrite the history of his presidency. His desperate attempts, first to cling to power, then to regain it, include denying the 2020 election result and embracing the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that his denials helped fuel.

His revisionism has worked remarkably well, particularly among Republicans. A Washington Post/University of Maryland poll conducted in December found that Republicans “are now less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were ‘mostly violent,’ less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack and are slightly less likely to view Joe Biden’s election as legitimate” than they were in 2021.

This is one of the truly remarkable aspects of the current presidential cycle: the degree to which our collective memory of Trump’s litany of transgressions has become less of a political problem for him than might otherwise be expected. Even the multiple legal charges he now faces are almost all about things that happened years ago and, to many citizens, involve things that the country should put in the rearview mirror.

Indeed, in the same poll, 43 percent of Americans and 80 percent of 2020 Trump voters said they believed that the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol was an event that the country needed to move on from.

Many Americans experienced the Trump years as traumatic, and one of the most bewildering aspects of this year’s presidential race is the way that so many other Americans are disregarding or downgrading that trauma.

In 2021 a study was published about how we remember political events, specifically examining recollections about two watershed moments, one being Trump’s election in 2016. The study’s lead author, Linda J. Levine, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, wrote, “People exaggerated when remembering how angry they had felt about the political events but underestimated their feelings of happiness and fear.”

This is part of what she describes as “memory reconstruction,” the updating of our memories of the past to reflect our current feelings and beliefs. And what it says to me is that many of us have a clearer recollection of our indignation from 2016 but have developed a hazier recollection of the sense of foreboding that hung in the air during the years that followed.

I’m not sure that people — not just Republicans — are fully remembering what it felt like, just a few years ago, to wake up every morning having to brace themselves before checking the news because they didn’t know what fresh outrage awaited them.

I’m not sure that people are fully remembering the constant chaos or the disorienting feeling of the stream of lies flowing from the Trump White House.

I’m not sure that people are remembering the family separation policy, the “very fine people” refrain or the tossing of rolls of paper towels in Puerto Rico after a hurricane ravaged the island.

Too many people have settled into a hagiographic view of Trump’s presidency, even though you can make a solid case that today’s economy is stronger than the one Trump left behind and that Trump did — and still does — gush over the world’s dictators and agitate America’s allies.

D. Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, told me this week that “voters are usually only responding to fairly recent memories and fairly recent messaging.” As he put it, “Candidates can fairly easily put their past behind them.”

This electoral quirk is an outgrowth of human nature. Staying in moments of apprehension is so emotionally expensive and consumes so much energy that we often allow ourselves to grow numb to them or diminish them.

But the threat that Trump poses to our country hasn’t diminished. It has increased. He keeps saying things — he won’t be a dictator “except for Day 1” — that demonstrate he is not only a danger to the country but also to the world order.

And in the end, that is the most important issue in this election, not Biden’s memory or disagreements over his foreign policy or migrants at the border or economic anxiety. You can’t make the country better without saving it first.

Those fighting to save our democracy can never lose sight of that, particularly since many of those supporting Trump now see his multifarious sins through rose-tinted glasses.

Charles M. Blow is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times, writing about national politics, public opinion and social justice, with a focus on racial equality and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.

Biden accuses Trump of bowing to Putin by encouraging Russia to invade NATO allies that don’t meet their obligations

CNN

Biden accuses Trump of bowing to Putin by encouraging Russia to invade NATO allies that don’t meet their obligations

Kevin Liptak and Michael Williams – February 13, 2024

President Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed Donald Trump after the former president said he would encourage Russia to invade countries that don’t meet their NATO obligations, saying such comments amount to bowing down to Vladimir Putin.

The remarks – Biden’s latest criticism of Trump from the White House – are some of his harshest criticism of his likely rival on foreign policy to date.

Speaking Saturday at a rally in South Carolina, Trump said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense. Biden said those comments sent a “dangerous and shocking” signal.

“Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that?” Biden asked incredulously from the State Dining Room. “The whole world heard it. The worst thing is he means it.”

Biden began his speech by encouraging the House of Representatives to “immediately” hold a vote on the Senate-passed, $95 billion supplemental aid package that would provide assistance to Ukraine, Israel and US partners in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

More than $60 billion from the Senate package would have been allocated to Ukraine, as the country prepares to mark the second anniversary of its full-scale invasion by Russia. Previous attempts to pass an aid package – combined with a border security bill – were scuttled after Trump came out in opposition.

Trump’s comment drew immediate consternation, not only from the American foreign policy establishment but from NATO allies, who have watched warily as Russia proceeds with its invasion of Ukraine.

For Biden, who has spent much of his career working on issues related to transatlantic security, the remark was particularly galling. When he heard about the remarks afterward, the president was aghast, according to a person familiar with the matter. He later issued a statement through his campaign decrying the sentiment.

The White House criticized Trump’s comments shortly after they were made.

“Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement on Saturday.

Former President Donald Trump arrives on stage during a Get Out The Vote rally at Coastal Carolina University on February 10 in Conway, South Carolina. - Win McNamee/Getty Images — Former President Donald Trump arrives on stage during a Get Out The Vote rally at Coastal Carolina University on February 10 in Conway, South Carolina. – Win McNamee/Getty Images

But Biden’s criticism of Trump from the White House went a step further. In a speech that mentioned Trump by name at least a half-dozen times, Biden sought to forcefully rebut questions about American commitment to its allies.

“No other president in our history has bowed down to a Russian dictator,” Biden went on. “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I never will. For God’s sake, it’s dumb. It’s shameful. It’s dangerous. It’s un-American.”

On Tuesday, Biden spent a significant portion of his speech on Ukraine aid going after Trump for the remark, which he said undercut longstanding US values.

“When America gives its word, it means something. When we make a commitment, we keep it and NATO is a sacred commitment,” Biden said.

“Donald Trump looks at this as if it’s a burden,” he added.

He said Trump viewed the defense alliance as a “protection racket” and didn’t understand its role in protecting freedom and security.

“For Trump, principles never matter. Everything is transactional,” Biden said.

He said American adversaries “all cheered” when they heard Trump’s comments. “I will not walk away. I can’t imagine any other president walking away,” Biden said.

“Trump is not an option—they are done with him”: Are “persuadable” Republicans the new #NeverTrump?

Salon

“Trump is not an option—they are done with him”: Are “persuadable” Republicans the new #NeverTrump?

Chauncey DeVega – February 13, 2024

Donald Trump Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

Like a mob boss running an extortion racket, in a speech on Saturday Donald Trump signaled to Vladimir Putin that if Russia invaded Western Europe and attacked the NATO alliance, the U.S. under Trump’s leadership would do nothing to stop it.

“You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

Trump continues to show that he is manifestly unfit for the presidency, boasting again over the weekend that he is going to unleash his own Nazi-like Gestapo force on “day one” of his presidency (what some have described as “Trump’s Kristallnacht”) in 2025 to invade “blue” parts of the country to forcibly detain and deport hundreds of thousands of black and brown undocumented residents. To accomplish such a goal will require gross violations of the law, the Constitution, and civil and human rights. The Trump regime’s reign of terror will also be an act of massive violence and civil disorder – which Dictator Trump and his agents likely desire as a pretext to invoke martial law.

By the conventional wisdom any of these (and the many other) examples of such perfidy and betrayals of American democracy, and the country’s interests and well-being more generally should disqualify Trump from public office. In total, all of them should have resulted in Trump being exiled from American public life.

Meanwhile, the American economy is extremely robust because of the Biden administration’s stewardship and leadership. The stock market is at historic highs. The labor market is strong. By political measures, such as the Democratic Party’s wins in midterm elections as well as on the state and local level, Biden should be trouncing Trump. Instead, high-quality public opinion polls consistently find Trump and Biden in a virtual tie.

The Trumpocene has broken these old norms and expectations. Of course, so-called conventional wisdom ceased to apply more than seven years ago with Trump’s victory in 2016. The American mainstream news media and political class have mostly refused to adapt to this new world and the end of normal politics.

In an attempt to gain some clarity about this increasingly bewildering “longest election ever,” what the early public opinion polls mean and how many political observers are deeply concerned that the 2024 election is increasingly feeling like a repeat of the disastrous 2016 election, I recently asked a range of experts for their thoughts and suggestions.

Cheri Jacobus is a political strategist, writer, ex-Republican, and host of the podcast “Politics With Cheri Jacobus.”

We are in for a roller coaster ride between now and November. That we are still in this uncharted territory regarding Trump is frightening, and an indication that our institutions are weaker than we suspected in even our darkest moments. The Pollyannas among us should be summarily silenced at this late stage in the game.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has let us down, allowing Trump and the worst of his crew to skate, placing us in this untenable position where Trump is to be the GOP nominee for president. Our “trust” in a Trump-corrupted Supreme Court indicates we still don’t want to accept that our highest court has been co-opted and corrupted, as Clarence Thomas is still there while his wife escapes justice as Garland looks the other way. Our media still enables Trump for clicks and ratings, and those getting rich and/or TV famous in that cottage industry that “fighting” Trump has built, are very much OK with it all; Trump is still good for business.

The good news is that Joe Biden’s team, while in an uphill struggle against these forces they should never have to face, are inching ahead. He defies conventional wisdom fairly regularly, most recently in South Carolina where he outpaced polling by 30+ points, winning 98% instead of coming in with 60-something percent the polling predicted.

I still believe there are more persuadable voters out there than conventional wisdom suggests. We saw some anecdotal evidence of this in New Hampshire where some GOP primary voters indicated if Nikki Haley were not the GOP nominee, they would vote for President Biden, or simply not vote for president at all in November. But Donald Trump is not an option — they are done with him.

Every traditional method and manner of building a Biden win, predicting a Biden win is heavily in his favor, including and especially his stellar record of results, but the persistent knocking down of the guardrails of any and all protections of our democracy continues. I fear we are becoming numb and even accustomed to this, rather than properly alarmed. I fear Vladimir Putin long ago identified the cracks, fissures, and weakness in our various institutions that comprise those guardrails, and is consistently several steps ahead of us while we are repeatedly whiplashed. Media. Supreme Court, Federal bench. Post office. Twitter. Ukraine (that 2016 RNC platform language forced by Trump/Putin team). Putin-friendly Mike Johnson as Speaker. So many things that in retrospect truly seem like connected dots, and should make us concerned that we are not willing or able to connect the dots in advance and get ahead of this.

Are we, as a country, still in denial? We are the frog being boiled slowly.

David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, and former elected official. His new book is “Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual for Every American”.

I’ve always believed it would be Trump versus Biden. And that’s what it will clearly be.

It won’t only be the longest election of all time, but viewed differently—it’s the longest attempted insurrection of all time. At the outset, the clear motivation for Trump to run again was to avoid the accountability he would otherwise face for his actions around January 6, and other alleged cases and crimes. Running has helped him pay the legal bills to defend it all. Winning, he thinks, gets him immunity and the pardon power. He doesn’t even hide lately that that’s what he craves. And now an entire party is all-in on that cause, including potential vice presidential choices, making clear they would have done the opposite of Mike Pence on January 6.

The most consistent data point has been the overperformance of Democrats since the middle of 2022, largely due to a more energized turnout and the far-right careening into extremism. From Kansas in August ’22 (the special election over abortion access), to November 2022 (not just federal races, but Democrats flipping several statehouses and election deniers losing Secretary of State and Governor races in numerous states), to the big victories in Ohio in August and November 2023, to the Virginia Statehouse in 2023, Democrats have built up a winning streak all across the country, and at multiple levels. Heck, even Moms of Liberty candidates losing 70% of their races in 2023 was a part of this trend. Remember, these are the years where Democrats are supposed to be losing—because they are in the White House. Those statehouse slips defied a half-century of precedent. These aren’t just polls; they are actual outcomes. And the consistency of these results tells us something is happening beneath the surface that is largely being lost as we ogle a faux-GOP primary and polls that are all over the map.

I don’t think anyone knows what will happen. This is indeed an unprecedented time—a battle royale for democracy at all levels. No one who cares about democracy should take it—or anything—for granted. They should count on Trump and anti-democracy forces in states to have studied where they fell short in 2020 and 2022, learning from it, and yes, doing anything to win beyond even what they’ve done before.

But they should also take note of the winning streak I described above. It is real, and it defies history. And it’s a result of tireless work by grassroots activists and candidates at all levels, and a realization by a broad swath of voters that the current far right is too extreme for America and their community. Similar, tireless work and effective messaging will be needed to protect democracy in 2024.

Mark Jacob, former Chicago Tribune metro editor and current author of the Stop the Presses newsletter at stopthepresses.news.

Most people who will vote in November are not paying that much attention to politics right now. It’s time for people who care – and who know that the risk of us losing democracy are real – to get active, support candidates, get on volunteer lists, and hone their arguments for when they will matter most this fall.

I’d advise everyone to protect their mental health by ignoring the polls. I think it’s going to be a close election, probably closer than in 2020. My best guess now is that Trump will go down again, but there’s no cause for overconfidence.

We should be worried about what will happen and if this could be a repeat of 2016 — and we should use that worry as motivation.

Hundreds of things that could affect the presidential race will happen before Election Day. There’s no predicting those. The overriding message that Americans of good will need to keep focusing on is that one candidate believes in democratic principles and the other one threatens to tear down our system to feed his cult of personality. Our children’s and grandchildren’s lives will be greatly affected by the actions we take this year.

Rick Wilson is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a former leading Republican strategist, and author of two books, “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and “Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump – and Democrats from Themselves”.

I’d rather be in President Biden’s position than Trump’s. President Biden is climbing in the polls, the economy is doing well, Biden has passed some of the most consequential legislation in history, and Trump is – of course – facing prison over 91 criminal counts. Democrats need to celebrate the successes of Biden’s term and stop the bed-wetting.

This will be a long election simply because we know who the candidates are in February. Trump’s congressional cult members are going to screw with the budget process and the border in order to help Trump’s chances.

We have months and months of attacks and recriminations to come from a desperate Trump and his MAGA hordes who know the only way they can win is to make this election about something – anything – other than Biden’s success as president. Democrats need to buckle up and stay engaged and not get frustrated. President Biden will win this election if everyone comes out to vote and gets their friends and family to do the same.

The economic indicators show the excellent job President Biden has done to turn the nation around after Trump absolutely destroyed the economy with his mishandling of COVID. We consistently see solid job numbers month over month, oil production is at the highest it’s ever been by any nation in history, and manufacturing is opening up across the country due to the CHIPS Act. These are the numbers that matter to voters when it comes time to vote.

Trump’s trials are all signal – from now through the election they will remain a constant reminder of his culpability in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

The age issue is nothing but noise by prognosticators who are trying to obtain cable news contracts. The reality is that Trump is showing signs of impairment with his erratic behavior and inability to remember details. The ultimate decision point is how they each handled the job. Every single indicator shows that President Biden has been one of the most successful presidents in history.

Let’s make no mistake, this will be a close election and will come down to several key swing states. But again, I’d rather be Biden than Trump. The economy is going in the right direction and people are starting to be appropriately terrified of what a second Trump term could look like. No matter the outcome, Trump is an unpopular figure who will not win the majority of the vote nationwide.

It’s up to Biden and the Democrats to show the distinction between the two: Another Biden term that continues building on its economic and foreign success, or a rage-filled Trump administration that will rip away individual rights, punish people who disagree and empower our enemies by wrecking America’s standing in the world.

Trump Is Losing It

The New York Times – Opinion

Trump Is Losing It

Jamelle Bouie – February 13, 2024

A group of Trump supporters in Nevada, many wearing red MAGA hats and taking photos, crowds around the former president, who has his right fist raised. — Credit…Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

It is unclear whether Donald Trump has forgotten the precise nature of NATO or whether he ever fully grasped it in the first place.

What is clear, however, is that Trump — who ostensibly spent four years as president of the United States — has little clue about what NATO is or what NATO does. And when he spoke on the subject at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, what he said was less a cogent discussion of foreign policy than it was gibberish — the kind of outrageous nonsense that flows without interruption from an empty and unreflective mind.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said, recalling an implausible conversation with an unnamed, presumably European head of state. “‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted responding. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

The former president’s message was clear: If NATO members do not pay up, then he will leave them to the mercy of a continental aggressor who has already plunged one European country into death, destruction and devastation.

Except NATO isn’t a mafia protection racket. NATO, in case anyone needs to be reminded, is a mutual defense organization, formed by treaty in 1949 as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union hardened into conflict. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” states Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

According to the terms of an agreement reached last year, member states will work to spend at least 2 percent of national G.D.P. on military investment.

But let’s set this bit of fact-checking aside for a moment and look at the big picture.

It is not just that Trump is ignorant on this and other vital questions; it is that he is incoherent.

Consider his remarks at a recent gathering of the National Rifle Association in Harrisburg, Pa. “We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania,” Trump said.

Who, exactly, is going to change the name of Pennsylvania? And to what? I don’t know. I doubt Trump does either.

Or consider the time, last November, when Trump confused China and North Korea, telling an audience of supporters in Florida that “Kim Jong Un leads 1.4 billion people, and there is no doubt about who the boss is. And they want me to say he’s not an intelligent man.”

There was also the time that Trump mistook Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, for Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House.

“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people,” Trump said, repeating his false claim that Pelosi was responsible for the failure of Capitol security on Jan. 6.

If you would like, you can also try to make sense of the former president’s recent attempt to describe a missile defense system:

“I will build an Iron Dome over our country, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield made in the U.S.A.,” Trump said, before taking an unusual detour. “These are not muscle guys here, they’re muscle guys up here, right,” he continued, gesturing to his arms and his head to emphasize, I guess, that the people responsible for building such systems are capable and intelligent.

“And they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom,” he added.

I assume Trump is describing the pressure of actually manning a missile defense system. Even so, one would think that a former president — currently vying to be the next president — would at least try to be a little more articulate.

But this gets to one of the oddest things about this election cycle so far. There is no shortage of coverage of President Biden’s age, even if there’s no evidence that his age has been an obstacle to his ability to perform his duties. Indeed, it is plainly true that Biden has been an unusually successful president in areas, like legislative negotiations, that require skill and mental acuity.

Coverage of Biden’s age, in other words, has more to do with the vibes of an “elderly” president — he isn’t as outwardly vigorous and robust as we would like — than it does with any particular issue with his performance.

In contrast to the obsessive coverage of Biden’s age, there is comparatively little coverage of Trump’s obvious deficiencies in that department. If we are going to use public comments as the measure of mental fitness, then the former president is clearly at a disadvantage.

Unfortunately for Biden, Trump benefits from something akin to the soft bigotry of low expectations. Because no one expected Trump, in the 2016 election, to speak and behave like a normal candidate, he was held to a lower effective standard than his rivals in both parties. Because no one expected him, during his presidency, to be orderly and responsible, his endless scandals were framed as business as usual. And because no one now expects him to be a responsible political figure with a coherent vision for the country, it’s as if no one blinks an eye when he rants and raves on the campaign trail.

It’s not that there aren’t legitimate reasons to be concerned about Biden’s age. He is already the oldest person to serve in the Oval Office. The issue here is one of proportion and consequence. Biden may be unable to do the job at some point in the future; Trump, it seems to me, already is.

One of those is a lot more concerning than the other.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington.

Senate passes $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after rare all-night session

WFLA

Senate passes $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after rare all-night session

Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves, AP – February 13, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate early Tuesday passed a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, pushing ahead after months of difficult negotiations and amid growing political divisions in the Republican Party over the role of the United States abroad.

The vote came after a small group of Republicans opposed to the $60 billion for Ukraine held the Senate floor through the night, using the final hours of debate to argue that the U.S. should focus on its own problems before sending more money overseas. But more than a dozen Republicans voted with almost all Democrats to pass the package 70-29, with supporters arguing that abandoning Ukraine could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and threaten national security across the globe.

“It’s been years, perhaps decades, since the Senate has passed a bill that so greatly impacts not just our national security, not just the security of our allies, but also the security of western democracy,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who worked closely with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on the legislation.

The bill’s passage through the Senate was a welcome sign for Ukraine amid critical shortages on the battlefield. The final vote gained 22 Republicans supporting its passage, while two Democrats, Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Peter Welch of Vermont, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, voted against it. Progressive lawmakers have objected to sending offensive weaponry to Israel.

Yet the package faces a deeply uncertain future in the House, where hardline Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump — the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, and a critic of support for Ukraine — oppose the legislation.

Speaker Mike Johnson cast new doubt on the package in a statement Monday evening, making clear that it could be weeks or months before Congress sends the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk — if at all.

Still, the vote was a win for both Senate leaders. Schumer noted the strong bipartisan support and projected that if the House speaker brings it forward it would have the same strong support in that chamber. McConnell has made Ukraine his top priority in recent months, and was resolute in the face of considerable pushback from his own GOP conference.

Speaking directly to his detractors in a floor speech on Sunday, McConnell said that “the eyes of the world” were on the U.S. Senate.

“Will we give those who wish us harm more reason to question our resolve, or will we recommit to exercising American strength?” McConnell asked.

Dollars provided by the legislation would purchase U.S.-made defense equipment, including munitions and air defense systems that authorities say are desperately needed as Russia batters the country. It also includes $8 billion for the government in Kyiv and other assistance.

In addition, the legislation would provide $14 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas, $8 billion for Taiwan and partners in the Indo-Pacific to counter China, and $9.2 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

The bill’s passage followed almost five months of torturous negotiations over an expansive bill that would have paired the foreign aid with an overhaul of border and asylum policies. Republicans demanded the trade-off, saying the surge of migration into the United States had to be addressed alongside the security of allies.

But a bipartisan deal on border security struck by Republican Sen. James Lankford fell apart just days after its unveiling, a head-spinning development that left negotiators deeply frustrated. Republicans declared the bill insufficient and blocked it on the Senate floor.

After the border bill collapsed, the two leaders abandoned the border provisions and pushed forward with passing the foreign aid package alone — as Democrats had originally intended.

While the slimmed-down foreign aid bill eventually won enough Republican support to pass, several GOP senators who had previously expressed support for Ukraine voted against it. The episode further exposed divisions in the party, made more public as Trump dug in and a handful of lawmakers openly called for McConnell to step down.

Sen. J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, argued that the U.S. should step back from the conflict and help broker an end to it with Russia’s Putin. He questioned the wisdom of continuing to fuel Ukraine’s defense when Putin appears committed to fighting for years.

“I think it deals with the reality that we’re living in, which is they’re a more powerful country, and it’s their region of the world,” he said.

Vance, along with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and other opponents, spent several hours on the floor railing against the aid and complaining about Senate process. They dug in their heels to delay a final vote, speaking on the floor until daybreak.

Supporters of the aid pushed back, warning that bowing to Russia would be a historic mistake with devastating consequences. In an unusually raw back-and-forth, GOP senators who support the aid challenged some of the opponents directly on the floor.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis angrily rebutted some of their arguments, noting that the money would only help Ukraine for less than a year and that much of it would go to replenishing U.S. military stocks.

“Why am I so focused on this vote?” Tillis said. “Because I don’t want to be on the pages of history that we will regret if we walk away. You will see the alliance that is supporting Ukraine crumble. You will ultimately see China become emboldened. And I am not going to be on that page of history.”

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., became emotional as he talked about the drudgery of the Senate and spending time away from his family to get little done. “But every so often there are issues that come before us that seem to be the ones that explain why we are here,” he said, his voice cracking.

Moran conceded that the cost of the package was heavy for him, but pointed out that if Putin were to attack a NATO member in Europe, the U.S. would be bound by treaty to become directly involved in the conflict — a commitment that Trump has called into question as he seeks another term in the White House.

At a rally Saturday, Trump said that he had once told a NATO ally he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to members that are “delinquent” in their financial and military commitments to the alliance. The former president has led his party away from the foreign policy doctrines of aggressive American involvement overseas and toward an “America First” isolationism.

Evoking the slogan, Moran said, “I believe in America first, but unfortunately America first means we have to engage in the world.”

While the vast majority of House Republicans have opposed the aid and are unlikely to cross Trump, a handful of GOP lawmakers have signaled they will push to get it passed.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, traveled to Ukraine last week with a bipartisan delegation and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Turner posted on X, formerly Twitter, after the trip that “I reiterated America’s commitment to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.”

But Speaker Johnson is in a tough position. A majority of his conference opposes the aid, and he is trying to lead the narrowest of majorities and avoid the fate of his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted in October.

Johnson, R-La., said in a statement Monday that because the foreign aid package lacks border security provisions, it is “silent on the most pressing issue facing our country.” It was the latest — and potentially most consequential — sign of opposition to the Ukraine aid from House GOP leadership, who had rejected the bipartisan border plan as a “non-starter,” contributing to its rapid demise.

“Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Johnson said. “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, traveled to Kyiv last week with Turner and other House members. She said the trip underscored to her how Ukraine is still in a fight for its very existence.

As the group traveled through Kyiv in armored vehicles, she said, they witnessed signs of an active war, from sandbagged shelters to burned-out cars and memorials to those killed. During the meeting with Zelenskyy, she said the U.S. lawmakers tried to offer assurances that the American people still stand with his country.

“He was clear that our continued support is critical to their ability to win the war,” Spanberger said. “It’s critical to their own freedom. And importantly, it’s critical to U.S. national security interests.”

Utah senators split on passed $95 billion defense spending bill

KTVX

Utah senators split on passed $95 billion defense spending bill

Derick Fox – February 13, 2024

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Early Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate voted to pass a $95 billion emergency defense spending bill, which has left Utah’s senate delegation split.

The bill included $60 billion in funding for Ukraine as well as $14 billion in security assistance to Israel. The bill passed through the Democratic-controlled Senate on a 70-29 vote. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) were on opposite ends of the resolution.

Lee, alongside Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), led the opposition to the bill, saying he had done everything he possibly could do to stop it.

“This didn’t have to happen. It is unfortunate we had Senate Republicans turn on the commitment they made to each other and to their voters and to our Republican colleagues down the hall,” said Lee.

During his speech on the Senate floor, Lee said the bill in its current form only serves to empower drug cartels and dissolve the U.S. southern border – a point of contention between the Biden Administration and GOP officials across the country. Lee said the bill, instead, spends an “insane amount” of money on foreign countries without properly addressing the U.S. southern border.

Romney, however, countered by warning of the “dire consequences” that would come by not continuing support for Ukraine. He claimed that by not helping Ukraine defend itself, the door would open for Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade NATO and allow China to spread fear to Taiwan that the U.S. will not help its allies.

He further said America would “cease to be the arsenal of democracy” and a global leader.

Cox sends Utah National Guard, UHP troopers to US southern border

“What sending weapons to Ukraine does do is help discourage further Russian and Chinese invasions which could draw us in, it helps preserve NATO, it allows America to remain the leader of the free world, and it shows that we honor our word to our friends and allies,” said Romney.

Romney further criticized some of his Republican colleagues by saying if their position is cheered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is “time to reconsider your position.”

Twenty-one Republican senators joined Romney in voting to pass the bill while two Democrats voted against it, citing deep concerns for supporting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza, per The Hill. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also voted no for the same reason.

The package now goes to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where Lee has indicated Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pronounced the bill “dead on arrival.”

Elon Musk opposes aid to Ukraine, says Putin can’t lose – Bloomberg

Ukrayinska Pravda

Elon Musk opposes aid to Ukraine, says Putin can’t lose – Bloomberg

Ukrainska Pravda – February 13, 2024

Elon Musk believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot lose in the war. He has also opposed the approval of assistance to Ukraine.

Source: Elon Musk to US Republican senators during a discussion on X Spaces; Bloomberg

The discussion was joined by opponents of the draft law on further assistance to Ukraine to combat the full-scale Russian invasion.

Elon Musk said that “there is no way in hell” Vladimir Putin could lose the war in Ukraine. He said this in response to the words of one of the speakers, who said that people who expect victory in Ukraine are “living in a fantasy world”.

Commenting on the assistance to Ukraine from the United States, the billionaire said that it is ineffective.

“This spending does not help Ukraine. Prolonging the war does not help Ukraine,” Elon Musk said about the bill which provides further assistance to Ukraine.

Elon Musk also drew attention to the fact that he is often accused of defending the Russian president. However, in his opinion, this accusation is “absurd”. In this context, the billionaire added that his companies “have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything”. This, of course, is not true because, in addition to activating the Starlink satellite and transferring a limited number of terminals at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the contribution of Musk’s companies to the “undermining” of Russia is minimal. After all, neither Tesla, with its electric vehicles, nor SpaceX, did not cause problems for the Russian raw material economy.

The billionaire also believes that Vladimir Putin is being pressured to bring the war to an end because “if he were to back off, he would be assassinated”.

The businessman noted that his interest is to stop the death of people on both sides. However, he expressed doubt that seeking to remove Vladimir Putin is a wise decision.

“For those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin, and is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not,” Elon Musk said.

In his opinion, such a person will likely be “even more hardcore than Putin”.

Background: Last year, a scandal broke out due to Elon Musk’s unilateral decision to not activate Starlink near Crimea. The incident occurred in 2022 and became known from an excerpt out of a biographical book about the billionaire.

Chief justice gives Jack Smith one week to respond to Trump’s bid to stave off trial

Politico

Chief justice gives Jack Smith one week to respond to Trump’s bid to stave off trial

Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney – February 13, 2024

Chief Justice John Roberts is giving prosecutors a week to respond to former President Donald Trump’s request to keep his federal criminal election-subversion trial on hold while he tries to persuade the Supreme Court to scuttle it entirely on the grounds of presidential immunity.

A brief docket entry from the court Tuesday morning said special counsel Jack Smith has until next Tuesday at 4 p.m. to address the emergency application Trump’s lawyers filed at the high court Monday.

Last week, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected Trump’s sweeping immunity claim. However, the judges agreed not to return the case to a lower court for trial until the Supreme Court acts on Trump’s request for emergency relief.

Smith has already urged the courts to resolve the immunity dispute quickly so that Trump’s Washington, D.C. trial, originally set for March 4, can begin later this year.

In December, the special counsel asked the Supreme Court to take up the immunity issue even before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed it, in order to reach an expedited conclusion, but the justices denied the attempt.

“This Court’s immediate review of that question is the only way to achieve its timely and definitive resolution,” Smith wrote in the December filing. “The Nation has a compelling interest in a decision on [Trump’s] claim of immunity from these charges — and if they are to be tried, a resolution by conviction or acquittal, without undue delay.”

Smith is expected to oppose Trump’s request to keep the proceedings in the trial court on hold while Trump pursues further relief from both the Supreme Court and the full, 11-judge bench of the D.C. Circuit. He is hoping those courts rule that former presidents are immune from prosecution on conduct arguably related to the presidency unless they have been impeached and convicted by Congress.

Smith does not have to wait until next Tuesday to respond to Trump’s latest high court filing, which was widely anticipated and largely repeats arguments his attorneys have raised previously.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated the time of day when the special counsel’s response is due.

Former RNC Chair Comes Up With Damning New Way To Describe Trump Supporters

HuffPost

Former RNC Chair Comes Up With Damning New Way To Describe Trump Supporters

Lee Moran – February 12, 2024

Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, on Sunday, ripped Donald Trump supporters as “MAGA zombies” as he expressed his frustration with those who don’t appear to believe the former president will likely attempt to deliver on his increasingly wild threats if he wins back the White House.

Four-times-indicted Trump on Saturday said he’d urge Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to member countries of the NATO military alliance if said country hadn’t paid its way. It’s amid fears Trump will be unleashed in a second administration stocked with acolytes rather than serious policy appointees.

“Why don’t they see that he’s trying to build a sycophantic army of, I’m calling them zombies, MAGA zombies, to do as he’s instructing them to do?” Steele, while guest hosting on MSNBC, asked former Trump White House national security adviser John Bolton.

“What is the disconnect that people don’t seem to get?” Steele added.

“I think people really don’t believe it could be as bad as it might be,” Bolton, now a fierce critic of his former boss, Trump, replied.

“I think a Trump victory risks continuing constitutional crisis,” he continued. “I think we’ll survive it. I don’t think democracy is threatened, but I think we could suffer a lot of damage, and many others have tried in different ways to convince, especially Republicans, that this is serious. But as you say, we have not been successful so far.”

Watch the video here: