In a wild rally in Ohio and Fox News sit-down interview, Donald Trump continued to demonstrate this weekend how utterly unfit for any public office he is, how disastrous a second term would be, and how much pain and suffering he would inflict on actual people.
Trump casually engaged in dehumanizing rhetoric, threats of violence, vows of retribution, and unhinged commentary. Nothing new, you say? Perhaps. But at this point if you can no longer register alarm for the country or for yourself, muster it for those who are and will be direct targets of Trump’s fantasies of revenge and systemic violence. In the meantime, what are we left to do if not document day by day, step by step the rapid descent into madness that Trump promises in a second term?
The “J6 anthem” is now routine at Trump events, coupled with Trump assurances that he will immediately pardon what he calls the Jan. 6 “hostages”:
Donald Trump doubled down on his description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that echoes Hitler, the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “We can be nice about it, we can talk about, ‘Oh, I want to be politically correct.’ But we have people coming in from prisons and jails, long-term murderers, people with sentences that the rest of their lives they’re going to spend in some jail in some country that many people have never even heard of. They’re all being released into our country.”
He went on: “These are people at the highest level of crime, and then you have mental institutions and insane asylums — I always say the difference is one is ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ you know, it’s a mental institution on steroids, OK? — and those mental institutions and insane asylums are being emptied out into the United States, and then you have terrorists pouring in at levels we have never seen before.”
Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the members of the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 Capitol insurrection should be jailed.
Dan Pfeiffer: “From a purely political perspective, Trump’s decision to support the rioters is insane. A January 2024 CBS News poll found that nearly 80% of voters disapprove of the actions of the people who entered the Capitol on January 6th. Even a majority of self-identified MAGA Republicans disapprove.”
“Think about that for a second. Donald Trump is saluting while being serenaded by people who even a majority of his base dislikes…”
“Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous for democracy, but also provides a big opportunity for Democrats, especially with the voters Trump needs to win in November. A Data for Progress poll found that 57% of Independents are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports the January 6th attack.”
Playbook: “Watching this morning’s Sunday shows, we can’t help but notice that we’re back to every Republican interview being about something Donald Trump has said — causing the interview subject to squirm while generally either avoiding criticizing Trump and/or reiterating their support for him anyway.”
A new Politico/Ipsos poll finds that more than a third of independent voters said a Donald Trump guilty verdict in the “hush money” criminal case would make them less likely to support his candidacy.
In a close race, that might matter.
Also interesting: 59% of respondents said that Trump should stand trial in the Justice Department’s 2020 election subversion case before Election Day.
“President Vladimir Putin on Sunday extended his rule over Russia until 2030, using a heavily stage-managed presidential election with no real competition to portray overwhelming public support for his domestic dominance and his invasion of Ukraine,” the New York Times reports.
“Some Russians tried to turn the undemocratic vote into a protest, forming long lines at polling stations at a predetermined time — noon — to register their discontent. At the same time, Ukraine sought to cast its own vote of sorts by firing a volley of exploding drones at Moscow and other targets.”
“But the Kremlin brushed those challenges aside and released results after the polls closed claiming that Mr. Putin had won 87 percent of the vote — an even higher number than in the four previous elections he participated in.”
Wall Street Journal: Putin wins election that had only one possible outcome.
Nahal Toosi: “Yulia Navalanaya deserves credit for pursuing the dream of a true post-Putin Russian democracy. But count me among the pessimists on whether she’ll achieve her goal.”
“The ugly truth is that opposition movements fighting dictatorships — especially those forced into exile — have rarely succeeded in the post-Cold War era. The regimes they wish to oust have become more technologically sophisticated, better coordinated and less susceptible to international pressure.”
“Israel has raided Gaza’s largest hospital, triggering gun battles around the medical complex where thousands of people have taken refuge as Israeli forces seek to prevent Hamas fighters regrouping in the besieged strip’s north,” the Financial Times reports.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday gave a sharp response to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for a new government and ‘course corrections’ by Israel,” Politico reports.
Said Netanyahu: “I think what he said is totally inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something the Israeli public does on its own.”
Tom Friedman: “Israel today is in grave danger. With enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran, Israel should be enjoying the sympathy of much of the world. But it is not. Because of the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition have been conducting the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, Israel is becoming radioactive and diaspora Jewish communities everywhere increasingly insecure.”
“I fear it is about to get worse.”
NBC News: “For months, Democrats have watched the 2024 campaign unfold with rising alarm as the sitting president struggles to gain ground against his defeated predecessor. Frustrations rippling through the party have reached the top, with Biden at times second-guessing travel decisions and communications strategies that have left much of the electorate clueless about his record, interviews with nearly 20 lawmakers, present and past administration officials and Biden allies show.”
“The starting gun for the general election campaign fired last week as Biden wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Yet he is still searching for ways to impress upon voters that he deserves a second term by dint of policy achievements that eluded past presidents…”
“Surrounded by protective aides who want to minimize the chances of a flub, the 81-year-old president has chafed at restraints that he sees as counter to his natural instincts as a retail politician… He has felt cocooned at times and has been eager to get out more, meet voters face-to-face and take the fight directly to Trump.”
Lawyers for Donald Trump said in a court filing on Monday it is “impossible” for them to secure a $464 million bond to appeal New York’s fraud case against him, Axios reports.
Trump’s attorneys said he has approached 30 underwriters to back the bond, due end of the month, but none will agree.
If Trump can’t secure the bond as required by New York law, they may be unable to appeal the damages and interest they were ordered to pay.
Trump knew this judgment was coming, and his inability to obtain a bond suggests he is much less wealthy than he claims to be.
With the judge’s order Friday excoriating District Attorney Fani Willis and Nathan Wade’s subsequent withdrawal as special prosecutor in the case, the big question is whether the judge’s ruling can be appealed immediately – and the delays that will inevitably result.
The state judge overseeing Trump’s hush money trial in New York delayed the trial at least 30 days, did not set a new trial date, and (angrily) ordered Trump and District Attorney Alvin Bragg to submit detailed timelines of their efforts to obtain relevant materials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York ahead of a new hearing set for March 25 in which he will try to get to the bottom of what happened that caused the trial delay and who, if anyone, is to blame for it.
Josh Barro: “If Sotomayor does not retire this year, we don’t know when she will next be able to retire with a likely liberal replacement. It’s possible that Democrats will retain the presidency and the Senate in this year’s elections, in which case the insurance created by a Sotomayor retirement won’t have been necessary. But if Democrats lose the presidency or the Senate this fall—or both—she’ll need to stay on the bench until the party once again controls them.”
“That could be just a few years, or it could be longer. Democrats have previously had to wait as long as 14 years (1995 to 2009). In other words, if Sotomayor doesn’t retire this year, she’ll be making a bet that she will remain fit to serve until possibly age 78 or even 82 or 84—and she’ll be forcing the whole Democratic Party to make that high-stakes bet with her.”
“If Democrats lose the bet, the Court’s 6–3 conservative majority will turn into a 7–2 majority at some point within the next decade. If they win the bet, what do they win? They win the opportunity to read dissents written by Sotomayor instead of some other liberal justice. This is obviously an insane trade.”
Wall Street Journal: “The Supreme Court this week will consider whether the Biden administration’s anti-misinformation zeal crossed a constitutional line, the latest in a series of cases this year that could set important ground rules for digital free speech and content moderation.”
“The case, with arguments scheduled for Monday, centers on a 2022 lawsuit led by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, which alleges that the federal government engaged in censorship.”
Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as a new book coming out and sat for an interview with the NYT where he warns: “Something important is going on. The court has taken a wrong turn, he said, and it is not too late to turn back.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden’s “divisive” speech, Axios reports.
Said Emmer: “That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get.”
He added: “He’s not going to be there next year — it’ll be a different president. But I think you’ve got to rethink issuing invitations for a State of the Union if it’s not going to be a State of the Union, and that was not. That was a campaign speech.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Monday that a malicious “flood” of disinformation was threatening the world’s democracies, fueled in part by the swift rise of artificial intelligence, which he says sows “suspicion, cynicism and instability” around the globe, the New York Times reports.
“A dispute over border security funding threatens to force a shutdown of vast swaths of the federal government in less than a week, as Congress and the White House struggled Sunday to reach a deal on long-term spending legislation,” the Washington Post reports.
“Funding for roughly 70 percent of the federal government — including the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security as well as the IRS and Transportation Security Administration — will lapse at 12:01 a.m. Saturday unless Congress acts before then.”
Punchbowl News: “The White House clearly thinks it has the upper hand here due to Republicans killing the bipartisan Senate border deal recently.”
New York Times: “A variety of data — about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 — has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.”
“While poverty and other factors also played a role, remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic, research shows — a finding that held true across income levels.”
Donald Trump said Sunday that he will decide “pretty soon” on whether to back a national abortion ban, The Hill reports. Said Trump: “We’re going to find out. Pretty soon, I’m gonna be making a decision. I would like to see if we could make both sides happy.”
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