The Friday Night Massacre

Some massacres occur on a Saturday night (e.g., Richard Nixon trying to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, which prompted AG Elliot Richardson and his deputy to resign). But if you are in a hurry and can't wait until Saturday then, in a pinch, you can do it on a Friday. Donald Trump chose that option Friday ult. and fired (at least) 17 inspectors general. Surprisingly, so far, DoJ IG Michael Horowitz has escaped the axe, but Trump is not a detail guy. There is always tomorrow. Was this legal? No, but in Trump v2.0, laws are for suckers.

Let's start with a simple question: What is an inspector general? Many (federal) departments and agencies have an internal office led by a person called the inspector general, whose mission is to ferret out wrongdoing within their particular part of the bureaucracy. This includes misconduct, fraud, theft, embezzlement, waste and other outright illegal activity. Over 70 federal agencies (and departments) have an inspector general. They are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Nevertheless, they are not considered partisan and usually continue across administrations. By law, the president can fire an IG, but only after giving both chambers of Congress warning 30 days in advance and specifying the reasons for the upcoming termination. Trump has not complied with the law and is likely to lose the resulting lawsuits. Of course, once they are over, he can give Congress 30 days' notice and then do it again.

Trump fired the IGs by sending them e-mails announcing that they were fired immediately. One of them, Cardell Richardson Sr., who is the State Dept. IG, said his firing was illegal, so he planned to show up in the office Monday to continue his investigations. Diana Shaw, a former acting IG, said: "If legal, and I think that's an open question under the law requiring 30-day congressional notification prior to the firing of an IG, it risks changing forever what we have historically valued most about IGs—their independence, objectivity, and non-partisanship."

Why would Trump want to get rid of some IGs? Could it be that he wouldn't mind a little (or a lot of) lawbreaking in some departments or agencies and doesn't want any gumshoes nosing around trying to sniff it out? He didn't say. In fact, he didn't even announce it. Some of the IGs went to the media. When word got out and reporters asked Trump about it, he lied, saying "It's a very common thing to do." That's a baldfaced lie. It is very rare. Joe Biden fired just one, the IG of the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, after an investigation showed that he had created a hostile work environment. In his whole first term, even Trump fired only five IGs. What is somewhat ironic is that most of Friday's firees were appointed by Trump in his first term. They were not Democratic appointees. Yup, he will definitely surround himself with the best people, as he promised. These firings are sure to end up in court, probably the Supreme Court, given that Trump clearly violated the law. If a Democratic president had done this while there was a Republican House, there would undoubtedly have been members who moved to start impeachment proceedings for a clear violation of a law Congress passed to prevent precisely what Trump just did—and secretly in the middle of the night, no less.

Could this be another power play, to beat Congress into submission and make it realize how toothless it really is? Kind of like shoving a Fox News host down the Senate's throat as Secretary of Defense to make them eat dirt and then say "Yummy, dirt! Thank you so much Your Majesty!" It's certainly within the realm of possibility.

Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was perturbed by the firings and said: "There may be good reason the IGs were fired. I'd like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress." So Grassley is clearly aware that Trump broke the law. The big question is: What is he going to do about it? On the other hand, Sen. Tommy Tuberville sucked up to Trump with: "We need to clean house. I mean, if they're not for this country to move on down the road." We greatly doubt that Tuberville has any idea at all what an IG does or why the position exists or what the law says. A legal scholar he is not. Heck, even his comment is barely comprehensible. Democrats were livid. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called Trump's action "a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night. President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption."

In the end, Trump's goals (which exist over a 4-year timeframe, and that's it) and the goals of many Congressional Republicans (who hope to keep their jobs for decades) are substantially in conflict. We wonder if the legislature will eventually draw a line in the sand. Will that be this week? This month? This year? We'll see. But don't hold your breath. (V & Z)

Monaco, Here We Come!

Or is it Miami Beach East? Donald Trump once said: "[Gaza] could be better than Monaco. It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything." This was a follow up on Jared Kushner's remark that Gaza is waterfront property and "very valuable." He urged Israel to remove the civilians and clean it up. Of course, this violates international law, but who cares about trifling things like that?

Both of these comments come from people who see Gaza as a piece of land that could be filled with chic expensive condos and hotels, like Monaco or, more modestly, Miami Beach. It could be a massive windfall to developers like... oh, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. The only problem is that it is full of people who are blocking their plans. Those people are poor Arabs, however, who don't count for much in their view. If they could just get those people to go somewhere else, voluntarily or otherwise, the coast would be clear. Literally.

Trump hasn't given up on his dream of "cleaning out" Gaza and developing it. He'd probably even be willing to cut the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, MBS, in on the deal since he seems to be such a modern, forward-looking guy who doesn't give a camel's ass about the Palestinians. On Saturday, Trump reiterated his dream to reporters, saying: "You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, 'You know, it's over.'" Invoking his inner real estate developer, he referred to Gaza as a "demolition site."

Of course, there is the problem of what to do with the Gazans. Trump wants to remove them, but he has a solution: Move them to Jordan. Temporarily or long term. In fact, he has already talked to King Abdullah II of Jordan to pitch the idea. He wants Abdullah to build more housing for the Gazans in Jordan. The kingdom has already taken in 2.4 million Palestinian refugees. The king is not keen on taking in another million or two.

Trump also said he would like Egypt to take in more Gazans. After all, the Sinai Peninsula is 23,000 square miles and has only 600,000 people. Sinai is about the size of West Virginia, which has a population of 1.8 million, so obviously there is plenty of room in the Sinai desert for more people. If Trump could just get Jordan and Egypt to accept all the Gazans, he and young Jared could develop Gaza into a really primo resort.

Trump's new comments haven't surprised people who live in the Middle East. There have been demonstrations all over the area protesting the war in Gaza for some time, with especially large ones in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and the West Bank on Friday. The people there don't seem to like Trump's dream much. Neither do the leaders of any of those countries.

We checked the Dearborn newspapers to see how they are covering the story, but so far no items. Trump's plans will no doubt be of interest to the many (normally Democratic) voters there who voted for Trump to teach Joe Biden a lesson. Maybe the real lesson will be to the voters: If the lesser of two evils is 1000x better than the greater of two evils, go with the lesser. (V)

Some of Trump's Early Actions Are Popular, Some Are Not

In the first 3 days of Trump v2.0, Donald Trump signed 26 XOs, 12 legally binding memoranda, and four presidential proclamations. That breaks the record of nine actions, taken by Joe Biden. It is also more than Trump issued in the first three months of Trump v1.0.

An important question is: How popular are these policies with the public? Fortunately, there has been recent polling on many of the issues (although not all of it this month). Let's take a look:

Popular Actions

• Detaining Immigrants: The majority of Americans want to detain and later deport any undocumented immigrant who has been accused of a crime, even before the trial. Almost 60% of voters want to deport any immigrant charged with a crime. 30% want to deport all "illegal" immigrants, even if their only crime is entering the country illegally. The Laken Riley Act, which Congress just passed, allows the government to detain undocumented immigrants charged with even misdemeanors.
  
  
• Building the Wall: This XO instructs DHS to continue building a wall on the Mexican border. Polling shows that 53% approve of the wall (including 41% who strongly approve of the wall) against 44% who don't approve. This proposal has gained popularity over time. In 2016, 62% opposed it.
  
  
• Declaring an Emergency: By declaring an emergency at the border, Trump opened up new powers to crack down on illegal immigration. A clear majority (55%) approve of the emergency declaration, while 39% oppose it.
  
  
• Using the Military at the Border: As a consequence of declaring the border situation to be an emergency, Trump can now send federal troops there. He is planning to send 10,000 of them to reinforce the 19,000 Border Patrol agents. About 60% of Americans like this idea and only 24% oppose it.
  
  
• Reducing the Cost of Living: Almost everyone wants to ban inflation and lower the cost of living. A full 85% of likely voters in 2024 said this was a top priority for them. Now that the XO has been signed, everything is suddenly "cheaper." Good going, Mr. President.
  
  
• Declaring There Are Two Sexes: The two-gender XO is popular, with 65% agreeing and 34% disagreeing and saying there are more than two genders. When asked if taxpayer money should be used to fund gender reassignment surgery, people were against using taxpayer money, 59% to 30%. Note that the latter poll was by McLaughlin, a Republican pollster working for a Republican sponsor. But the first one was by a neutral pollster.
  

Mixed Actions

• Drill, Baby, Drill: Trump wants to produce more fossil fuel. This wish may or may not be related to the $450 million the fossil fuel companies donated to his campaign. The public is divided. In one poll, Americans oppose more drilling 48%-46% and in another one they oppose it on federal lands 39%-35%
  
  
• Eliminating Electric Vehicle Subsidies: During the Biden administration, there were subsidies available for people buying electric cars. Trump scrapped those and is planning to make it legal for gasoline-powered cars to pollute the air more. In a June 2023 poll, 52% of registered voters favored subsidizing electric cars and 48% oppose that. In July 2024, a small majority wanted to keep the subsidies or increase them. We didn't see any crosstabs that indicate how billionaire CEOs of electric car companies feel about the matter.
  
  
• Killing DEI Programs: One of the XOs directs government agencies and federal contractors to end all DEI programs. This is consistent with a Supreme Court ruling that race-conscious affirmative action is, in fact, discrimination against disfavored races and is thus unconstitutional. This XO goes much further though, applying it to the entire government. How people feel about this depends on the wording. In a poll earlier this month, when asked if government hiring should stop being based on race and return to merit, 59% wanted to go back to a merit-only system and 41% wanted to use race. However, in a poll from October ult. 52% said that a focus on increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion at work is a good thing and 21% said it is a bad thing. This spotlights something we have long known and discussed: The actual wording of poll questions is extremely important.
  

Unpopular Actions

• Banning Birthright Citizenship: Trump's XO to ban birthright citizenship is not only unconstitutional, it is also unpopular. A poll earlier in January shows that 55% want to follow the Constitution and have everyone (except diplomats' children) born on American soil automatically become an American. Meanwhile, 41% oppose the Fourteenth Amendment. As far as we know, no pollster has asked how many people oppose the Thirteenth Amendment, but we guess the number is substantial.
  
  
• The Pardons: Trump's blanket pardon of 1,500 people who have been indicted for crimes at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (about 80% of whom had already been convicted) is not popular. In one recent poll, 57% opposed it and in another 62% opposed it. Trump's base largely supports the pardons, but Democrats and independents do not.
  
  
• Schedule F: In his first term, Trump basically repealed the 1883 Pendleton Act, which created a merit-based civil service to replace Andrew Jackson's spoils system. Under the spoils system, the president gave civil service jobs to his supporters. Joe Biden canceled Trump's XO. Now Trump has reinstated it and plans to fire up to 50,000 civil servants and replace them with his flunkies. This is not popular, with 49% of Americans opposing replacing a merit-based civil service with one staffed by presidential appointees and 28% supporting a patronage system. Another poll showed that over 60% of Americans do not want the president to fire civil servants who disagree with the president's policies or belong to the other party.
  
  
• Leaving the Paris Accord: In his first term, Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord. Joe Biden joined again. Now Trump has withdrawn again. This action was not popular, with 52% opposed to withdrawal and only 21% in favor. When Trump withdrew the first time, 62% of Americans opposed the withdrawal. Trump clearly does not care what Americans want on this front. We doubt that Trump really understands what is in the Accord, but he knows that withdrawing from it makes Democrats' blood boil and that is good enough.
  
  
• Saving TikTok: Congress passed a law banning TikTok if it didn't sell its American operations to an American company by Jan. 19. It didn't. There was a provision in the law stating that the president could give an extension if there was real progress on a sale. There has been no progress at all, but Trump extended the deadline anyway, which violates the law. By a 2-to-1 margin (44% to 22%), people do not approve of the extension, but many people are undecided or don't understand the matter at all. Americans over 45 want to ban TikTok but those 18-29 oppose the ban 43%-27%.
  
  
• Gulf of America: In an XO, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico, which has been called that for 400 years, as the Gulf of America. That was a typo, of course, since he was thinking of the Golf of America. It was not a popular move, with 72% opposing the name change and 28% supporting it.
  

All in all, most XOs relating to immigration are popular, but most of the others are mixed or unpopular. When pollsters start breaking down popular/unpopular by partisanship, we are likely to see that almost everything Trump has done is popular or mixed among his supporters with almost none of them unpopular. (V)

Trump Issues Quota to ICE Officers

Small one-horse towns in the South have a reputation for posting tiny 20 MPH signs on major roads through town and then giving police officers quotas of speeding tickets to give out, to finance the town. Donald Trump is taking that concept to a whole new level. On Saturday, he ordered ICE to increase the number of arrests from a few hundred a day to at least 1,200—preferably 1,500—a day because his million-person deportation project is off to a slow start. Each ICE field office is now required to make 75 arrests a day, and managers will be held accountable for missing the target. In other words, if some office falls below 75 arrests/day for too long, the manager will be fired. That certainly gives the manager an incentive to tell the field officers to arrest anyone who looks like they might be an illegal immigrant—for example, if they have brown skin and speak Spanish—without too much regard for whether they happen to be a U.S. citizen or not. Border Czar Tom Homan told ABC News yesterday that this is only the beginning.

Trump is known for having little patience with excuses, like "there just weren't 75 undocumented immigrants in our district yesterday." His goal is to scare management and officers into rounding up people to arrest and deport without a lot of regard to whether they were legally in the country or not. If this gets too aggressive, though, and deports too many American citizens who then sue, the backlash could be severe. Trump doesn't care—the base wants blood and blood they will get. (V)

Mexico Is Going to Build a Wall

OK, not literally, but the people migrating from the U.S. to Mexico—under the close supervision of ICE—are not all welcome in Mexico. In particular, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum doesn't want migrants who are not Mexicans. This could be a problem. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) thinks he has a solution, though: Just raise tariffs as high as necessary to get Mexico to buckle under Trump's rule. That might not be quite as easy as Scott thinks, because many American companies have factories (maquiladoras) in Northern Mexico and the products they make could be priced out of the market by high tariffs. That would lead to those companies letting Donald Trump know what they think about the plan—in great detail. Of course, exceptions might be available to companies that paid Trump enough in $TRUMP coins.

One of the XOs Trump signed on Day 1 of Trump v2.0 revived his "Remain in Mexico" order from Trump v1.0. This means asylum-seekers have to stay there until a judge has time to review their case. There is a massive backlog and it can take years for a case to make it to some immigration judge's docket. All that time, the would-be immigrant has to remain in Mexico. If that person is a Mexican citizen, Mexico has no problem with that, but it has a big problem housing people who are not Mexicans, often for years. They can't always be sent back to their country of origin because many countries don't want them back. These include Bangladesh, China, Cuba, India, Iran, and Venezuela. If they made it to Mexico, Mexico does not want them, and neither does their home country, where do they go?

Trump is going to have to figure this out sooner or later, probably sooner. Increasingly migrants from outside Latin America are flying to Mexico and then trying to sneak across the porous U.S. border. Trump may not have gotten the word yet, but some senators have. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said: "These are folks that are coming in from Tajikistan and other areas the Mexicans are not going to take back. These are recalcitrant countries that are not accepting folks back."

The numbers are substantial. The Border Patrol has said that in fiscal 2024, 38,000 undocumented Chinese people crossed into the U.S. Dumping them in Mexico is not going to work since Mexico does not want them and neither does China. Now what?

Another aspect of this problem is that the migrants nobody wants have become sitting ducks for (drug) cartels. Even if a migrant can get space in a Mexican shelter, it is not safe for them to go outside if they haven't paid off the cartel. Otherwise they could be robbed, raped or kidnapped. One potential policy that Mexico may adopt, possibly under pressure, is to require anyone flying into Mexico to show a return ticket and a hotel reservation for the duration of their stay to get past Mexican immigration in the first place. Anyone lacking those things would be sent back at the airline's expense. This will force the airlines to vet everyone before they get on a flight to Mexico.

This would not solve the problem entirely, but it would force would-be migrants to buy round-trip tickets and make hotel reservations. The next step would be to insist on only nonrefundable tickets and reservations. For legitimate tourists and people traveling for business, this would be a nuisance, but not a huge hardship. For would-be migrants it would greatly raise the barrier. (V)

Trump Declares (Trade) War on Colombia

Elections have consequences. The country was still less than a week into the second presidency of Donald Trump, and yet got illustrations of what could (and probably will) happen when the rubber of two of his signature policies meets the road.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration conducted its first roundups of (alleged) undocumented immigrants, focusing on Chicago, as expected. Then, these folks were put on planes to be "returned" to their home countries. As we note above, and as we've written previously, there is absolutely no guarantee that these countries will accept planefuls (planesful?) of people who left there, and who might not have ever lived there in the first place.

As it turns out, we (and countless others) were right. Two of the deportation flights this weekend carried a group of (alleged) Colombians, who were to be dumped in Bogotá. Except that, before the dumping could take place, Colombian president Gustavo Petro said that he would not accept deported Colombians until the U.S. starts treating them with respect, and so denied access to the two planes.

This infuriated Trump, of course. He does not like to be told "no," especially by someone with brown skin. So, the White House announced that if the Colombian government did not fall into line, it would be hit with heavy-duty tariffs. On his boutique social media platform, he implied the tariffs would commence immediately, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that they would only happen if Colombia did not yield promptly. Who knows which is correct. In any event, the tariffs, when and if they are imposed, will start at 25% for all goods in Week 1, and will increase to 50% for all goods in Week 2. There will also be a bunch of other punitive measures, like a travel ban on trips between Colombia and the United States.

Will Petro back down? It's certainly possible. The Trump administration has many ways to put pressure on him and his administration. Further, Petro's declaration was not "we will accept no returnees," it was "we won't accept them unless they are treated with dignity." That's pretty squishy, and leaves the Colombian President a lot of room to back down while still saving face. It is also the case that both Mexico and Guatemala have already refused to accept planes full of returnees, and then ended up backing down. Even if they might balk when the numbers of people are in the thousands (or more), they decided not to die on the hill of "less than 200 people." The flights to Colombia carried a similar number of people (about 160).

All of this said, there are also indicators that Petro might hold firm. His tone has been pretty defiant so far; most notably, he warned Trump that Colombia is "not anyone's colony." We are hardly experts in Colombian politics, but we suspect that going toe-to-toe with the leader of the most powerful nation in the world will not be a bad thing for Petro's approval ratings. He has also ordered retaliatory tariffs, equal to whatever tariffs are imposed by the United States. And Colombia is a far-from-ideal opponent in a trade war. It receives more goods from the United States than it sends, such that the Colombian tariffs will hurt American businesses more than the American tariffs will hurt Colombian businesses. On top of that, while Colombia does not send all that much product to the United States, it does send a couple of things where higher prices would be noticeable: a sizable chunk of America's coffee, and a sizable chunk of America's cut flowers (Valentine's Day is coming up!). Would America go to war over hot caffeinated beverages? There is some precedent on this, albeit from 1773.

Whatever happens with Colombia (and late yesterday Petro backed down and agreed to accept the flights), it remains the case that Trump v2.0 was not even a week old, and: (1) the practical problems of his deportation plans were being laid bare, and (2) everyone got a reminder that tariffs and trade wars are messy, and are not the "simple" fix that he portrayed them to be on the campaign trail. Governing is hard! (Z)

Chip Roy and Trump Are on a Collision Course

Donald Trump and Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy (R-TX) are not exactly buddy-buddy. After the Jan. 6 coup attempt, Roy stated that Trump had engaged in "clearly impeachable conduct." During the primaries, he opposed Trump and endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), which made Trump even angrier with Roy. With the House so closely divided, Trump can't afford to lose Roy's vote, so they have sorta, kinda made up. But Trump did (jokingly?) call Roy a "nasty son of a bitch" recently.

Why the bad blood? Well, Trump wanted Congress to raise the debt ceiling before he took office so he could cut taxes without the painful task of cutting spending and without banging his head on the debt ceiling. Roy blocked that plan. Trump then changed his tune and called Roy "another ambitious guy with no talent engaging in some cheap publicity for himself." Maybe that wasn't so smart, since Roy has not caved at all and is probably capable of bringing multiple other FC members along when he opposes Trump's plans. Unlike Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who squeals a lot but knows nothing about governing, Roy does. He was formerly a staffer for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and knows the ins-and-outs of congressional procedure well and knows where the pressure points are. He also speaks the language that conservatives love to hear, so he has his own base.

Roy knows what he wants: Shrink the federal government. That is not Trump's agenda at all. Trump wants to change the government more than shrink it. He doesn't want to abolish many departments. He just wants them to carry out his policies there. Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about the deficit. Roy gives the whole rat.

Trump has crushed previous conservatives, like former representative Bob Good, but Roy has beaten MAGA primary opponents before and he can't be bullied easily. He also doesn't like making deals with the Democrats, so if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is forced to do that, Roy and friends could make a motion to vacate the chair. In particular, he is against a multi-thousand-page bill that includes tax cuts, immigration, energy, and whatever it takes to get enough Democrats on board to bypass the Freedom Caucus.

In principle, Trump is in favor of cutting spending, which will make Roy happy, but the devil is in the details. No matter what Trump tries to cut, there will be opposition, often from Republicans. With such a small majority, Trump is going to have to master the legislative process if he wants to get anything done. There could be a steep learning curve there. (V)

Kennedy Is Debating How Extreme to Get about Banning Vaccines

Now that Pete Hegseth has been narrowly confirmed as secretary of defense, anything is possible when Robert Kennedy Jr. comes up for confirmation. Our best guess is that the two women with the firmest spines in the Senate and the Turtle (who had polio as a child and understands the need for vaccinations quite well) will be "no" votes on Kennedy. Is there a fourth one? Maybe, who knows?

In an attempt to take RFK Jr. down before the next generation gets to learn what iron lungs are for, more than 80 organizations are actively campaigning against his confirmation. But for different reasons. Most of them are worried about him replacing Typhoid Mary as the new symbol of someone who damaged public health in a big way and didn’t care about it one whit. However, an organization Mike Pence founded is against him because Kennedy is pro-choice. Telling red-state senators that they could be primaried for supporting an abortionist might actually be able to get the fourth vote.

Despite the opposition, Kennedy is expecting to be confirmed and is already making plans about what he will do as secretary of HHS. A Politico reporter found five people who know what Kennedy is thinking and leaked it. Were they proud of what Kennedy wants to do or were they trying to sabotage him? We dunno. One of the sources said "The people he really trusts are people that obviously are trying to execute a plan to totally take away vaccines."

At the very least, if Kennedy tells everyone that vaccines are harmful, that will undermine many people's view of vaccines and may cause epidemics of numerous diseases long under control. Measles is something of a joke now, but it is exceedingly infectious and can be fatal.

Options that Kennedy is considering include disbanding the main panel of experts that advise the government on vaccine effectiveness and safety. It also recommends which vaccinations children should have. Its decisions determine whether vaccinations are covered by insurance. Another thing Kennedy could do is recategorize some vaccinations as "shared clinical decision-making." This is bureaucratspeak for "You can get a vaccination only after consulting a doctor." This will undoubtedly deter some people, especially people without a regular physician or people who have to pay the doctor for the consultation.

One thing that Kennedy is certain to do is change the wording on the HHS website about vaccinations. Here is an excerpt from what it says now on the subject.

The message is: Vaccinations are good. They protect us from serious diseases. Imagine that it were soon to read: "Some people think vaccinations are healthful, but many doctors and scientists think they are harmful and cause serious health problems." That alone will cause the stock of medical equipment companies that make (or could soon make) iron lungs to go through the roof. It would do massive damage and all it would take is for Kennedy to order the unit that manages the HHS website to change the message. In 1 minute, he could be responsible for thousands of children dying from diseases that could easily have been prevented.

Kennedy's confirmation hearing is Wednesday inst. Expect him to downplay his decades-long opposition to vaccines (and lucrative business in anti-vaxx books and products), his decades-long support for abortion, and the personal products company his wife co-owns. Instead he will talk about how he wants to make America healthy again by convincing people to eat more veggies and fewer fries. We will be interested in seeing if any Democrats are clever enough to congratulate him for his long-time support for a woman's right to an abortion when she wants one, possibly quoting some of the times he has said that. That will certainly make him squirm and inform any senators who don't already know that. A vote against him on abortion counts just as much as a vote against him on vaccines.

The truly ironic thing about all this is that if Kennedy had cut and pasted his father's 1968 platform (minus the stuff about the Vietnam War) and run for president as a clone of his father, he might well have beaten Joe Biden in the primaries and later been elected president. Then he could have offered Trump the job of secretary of HHS instead of vice-versa.

What Donald Trump probably doesn't understand is that most Americans love all their kids. Trump probably loves 20% of his kids (and not necessarily in a fatherly way), is neutral on 40%, thinks 20% are stupid and 20% are fat. If Kennedy really tries to undermine vaccines and get rid of mandates many states have requiring children to be vaccinated before starting kindergarten, that could ignite a firestorm, with many people demanding that he fire Kennedy immediately. In the end, Kennedy could become a real liability for Trump. (V)

House Republicans Are Starting to Work on Abortion Bills

Anti-abortion Republicans sense that this is their moment. They think there is so much going on that they can get abortion measures through Congress and signed into law with no one noticing, given all the other stuff going on. They also noticed that despite massive Democratic attention to abortion during the 2024 campaign, it kind of fizzled and really wasn't the killer issue the Democrats hoped for.

As a consequence, Republicans are not afraid to talk about anti-abortion bills openly and loudly. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said: "The gloves are off." Rep, Mike Kelly (R-PA) said: "They [the Democrats] think that's an issue and it's like, you guys don't get it, you know, people don't listen to you anymore."

Abortion opponents are going to start with the low-hanging fruit and work their way up. Last week, House Republicans passed a bill requiring that infants who survived a botched abortion are entitled to full medical care. This is just grandstanding because current law already requires this. All this bill does is increase the penalties for noncompliance. It also specifically penalizes killing a child born alive. That is called homicide (infanticide) and is already a felony in every state.

Some Republicans want to introduce a "reasonable" bill that bans abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy. That could probably pass the House. If it does, then next year they pass a bill that changes the "24" to "23." Will anyone even notice? Rinse and repeat. Of course, the Senate is a problem, but maybe Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) could be persuaded to pursue an abortion carve-out on the filibuster. There aren't 60 votes for the anti-choice bills, but there may be 50, plus J.D. Vance's tiebreaker.

There are a few House Republicans from battleground districts who were heavily targeted on abortion and won anyway. These include Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and Derrick Van Orden (R-WI). They are no longer afraid of the big bad abortion boogeyman. In the past, they might be counted on to torpedo anti-abortion bills, but no longer. (V)

Multiple Pro-Trump Firebrands Are Running for Governor

2026 will be a big gubernatorial year, with 36 contests, 15 of them open seats due to term limits. Pro-Trump Republican firebrands think this could be their year, and a number of them are about to announce their gubernatorial runs. Those running in deep-red states need only clear the primary, but some of the others are running in states that do elect Democrats from time to time and where "candidate quality" could be an issue. Also, midterms tend to be bad for the president's party, so it might not be a great year for Republican extremists. But, hope springs eternal.

As a general rule, while firebrands can get elected to the Senate, that doesn't usually work as well for governors. Senators can get away with merely bloviating and not getting anything actually done (see: Cruz, Sen. Ted). Governors actually have to get stuff done, not just make speeches. Most governors, even in deep-blue and deep-red states, are largely focused on managing their state well, not grandstanding. Thus it will be challenging for real firebrands to convince people that they are actually capable of the boring work of governing their state. It happens occasionally, as in Florida, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida are both preparing to run for governor of Florida to succeed the term-limited Ron DeSantis. That could be quite a battle, with each one trying to outflank the other on the right. Imagine one saying "I oppose all abortions after 6 weeks" and then the other saying "Big deal. I oppose all abortions after 5 weeks!" The problem with a Donalds-Gaetz anti-abortathon is that it could move both of them so far to the right that moderate Republican voters might go for the Democrat—assuming the blue team can find one.

Ohio could be a real dilly, if former DOGEy Vivek Ramaswamy jumps in this week, as expected. He has a ton of money and could flood the airwaves. He might even get Donald Trump's endorsement, despite (or maybe on account of) being a truly obnoxious and arrogant person. If all that happened, Ramaswamy might just be able to beat AG Dave Yost (R), who is already in, and SoS Frank LaRose (R), who would love to be governor, and maybe a few others in the primary. If Ramaswamy got the nomination, the right Democrat could possibly win this. Democrats are hoping that Sherrod Brown does not jump in. They want him to challenge appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in the 2026 special election because Husted is not that well known and appointed senators don't have a good track record. Brown is the best-known Democrat in Ohio and winning a Senate seat is far more important than winning a governor's mansion.

In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said she is seriously considering running for governor. She knows that South Carolinians are willing to elect a woman as governor. They elected Nikki Haley twice, after all. Mace is a real firebrand, which is a bit unusual for a woman, but she was the one who introduced a measure banning transgender women from using the women's restroom in the Capitol, knowing that one of the members of the House, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), is a transgender woman. Nothing like picking on one of your colleagues to get attention. Mace may decide to go for governor instead of for a fourth term because her Charleston-area district is R+7, and in a blue wave, she could drown.

Finally, we get to a state that, unlike the above three races, is not an open seat. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has already jumped in to challenge Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ). Biggs was once an LDS missionary to Japan (good luck with that) who later entered a sweepstakes and won $10 million. This allowed him to retire and decide to run for Congress. Once there, he joined the Freedom Caucus and later become chairman of it. He is about as firebrandy as they come, and running against a sitting governor in a purple state in what might be a good year for the Democrats could be tough on account of that nasty old "candidate quality" problem.

As an aside, we update our governor's page whenever we see relevant news, so check it from time to time. It is on the menu to the left of the map. (V)

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