Of Course We Want to Release the Files, and... Hey! Look Over There!

Another news cycle, another day of life for the EpsteinYZ Affair. Fun fact: 95.6% of people who enter graduate school, regardless of discipline, do so hoping they will one day have an excuse to write 20,000+ words on a dead sex offender. So, we're just living the dream at Electoral-Vote.com these days.

Last week, the Trump administration's main strategy for coping with the story was to lean hard on right-wing media to peddle the "nothing to see here" narrative. That was an abject failure, and so this week's strategy is to create a distraction. Here's a rundown of the various efforts on that front:

• See You in Court: We already covered this yesterday, but there have been new developments. Donald Trump apparently bought into the narrative, promulgated by Steve Bannon in particular, that the MAGA troops would rally behind the President if facing a common enemy, like The Wall Street Journal. So, Trump acted on his instincts, and sued the Journal, demanding eleventy bajillion dollars in damages (note to editor: double-check that figure).
  
  A judge has been assigned to the case, and it's not the sort of judge Trump was hoping for. In fact, you might describe it as judicial déjà vu. The jurist selected is Darrin Gayles, who is gay, Black, and an appointee of Barack Obama. The déjà vu is that Gayles has overseen a Trump case before, namely Trump's attempt to silence former fixer Michael Cohen with a claim for $50 million in damages. Trump eventually dropped the Cohen suit, the day before discovery was set to begin.
  
  It is a very good guess that Trump will drop the WSJ suit on the same timeline, for the same reason. For now, however, the White House is doing everything it can to scapegoat the newspaper. For example, the President will be in the U.K. this weekend, where he is not likely to get a warm welcome from anyone not named Nigel Farage. The Wall Street Journal had a reporter, Tarini Parti, who was going to be part of the press pool for that trip. Now, Parti's credential has been revoked, despite the fact that she had nothing to do with the Epstein story.
  
  
• But, Barack Obama!: We also noted this yesterday, but just to make sure our list is thorough, DNI Tulsi Gabbard tried to shift the narrative to Barack Obama and his administration by sending a "criminal referral" to the Department of Justice related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the investigations therein. Trump jumped all over this over the weekend, using his much-smaller-than-Elon's social media platform to post all sorts of Obama-related memes, including an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested and sent to prison, to the tune of "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People.
  
  To say that this is unserious would be underselling how ridiculous the whole thing is. First, as Trump has done much to establish, government employees—particularly presidents—have very broad leeway when it comes to actions undertaken in their official capacity.
  
  Second, Gabbard neglected to identify any actual crime, referring only vaguely to "a years-long coup against President Trump." This would be the same President Trump who was not in office in 2016, and who was duly sworn in on January 20, 2017. It would seem that Gabbard is not clear on what "coup" means.
  
  Third, and finally, there is such a thing as a statute of limitations, something that has worked substantially to the advantage of one Donald J. Trump. Some federal crimes cannot be charged after 3 years, for most it's 5 years. Even terrorist acts have a limitation of 8 years. So unless the administration is arguing that Obama and his administration committed a capital offense, or tax fraud, or that they violated immigration law, or that Obama, et al., have been running from the law as fugitives, the statute has run.
  
  Gabbard apparently realizes that the attack on Obama went nowhere, and so she tried a different approach yesterday (keep reading).
  
  
• But, Joe Biden!: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), by contrast, prefers a more recent subject for his distractions. So, he posted a video to eX-Twitter yesterday that features various clips of Democrats defending Joe Biden's mental acuity. In case the Speaker's point was not crystal clear, he helpfully pointed out that this was "the largest political cover-up in U.S. history." Bigger than the Epstein cover-up, it would seem.
  
  
• But, Adam Schiff!: Trump also took aim at Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), latching onto a claim that Schiff misrepresented his house in Maryland as his primary residence so as to get a more favorable mortgage rate, and declaring that Schiff should therefore be sent to prison.
  
  Inasmuch as Schiff knows he's under a very powerful microscope at all times, we very much doubt that there was anything untoward about the transaction, and we believe that Schiff is telling the truth when he says that he hired a lawyer to review everything, and the lawyer said it was all OK. Let us also recall that the interest charged on a mortgage is (largely) a reflection of the risk that the lender is assuming, and if push somehow comes to shove, it is rather easier to get money out of a United States senator as opposed to John Q. Public. In other words, a low mortgage rate appears to be justifiable on multiple bases here. Oh, and let's not fail to note the irony of Donald John Trump kvetching about someone abusing the process by which money is borrowed in order to purchase real estate.
  
  In any case, as a distraction, the Schiff story has not caught on. This is not a surprise. First, Schiff is a huge bugaboo for Trump, because it was Schiff who was a lead manager of the first impeachment. However, the Senator does not make the Top 25 bugaboos for the base. Maybe not even the Top 50. On top of that, a squabble about mortgage rates is just a little too abstruse to be effective as red meat.
  
  
• Enemies at the Gate: Mortgage rates may not get the base's blood boiling, but brown-skinned immigrants sure do. It would seem that the administration has gotten as much mileage as it can out of Los Angeles, and so half of the National Guard troops were discharged over the weekend, and yesterday, orders were issued to withdraw all 700 of the Marines that had been deployed.
  
  However, despite the fact that the Battle of Los Angeles does not appear to have paid much in the way of political dividends, the administration is not giving up. In fact, there will be a new target, namely New York City. The plan, over the next few days, is to "flood the zone" with ICE Agents.
  
  Is New York City somehow a better target than Los Angeles? On one hand, there are considerably fewer Latinos there than there are in L.A. On top of that, a lot of the Latinos who ARE there are Puerto Rican, and so are U.S. citizens. That could lead to an increased number of false arrests, which is bad P.R. for the administration, even if Tom Homan, et al. pretend otherwise.
  
  On the other hand, NYC is not L.A., and so picking a "fresh" target might generate a new round of news coverage. Meanwhile, unlike L.A., New York has a pliant mayor in Eric Adams, who is not going to use all of his powers to push back against the administration, the way that Karen Bass has done.
  
  So, it could go either way. We guess that when you're desperate, and "desperate" appears to be an increasingly on-point descriptor of Donald Trump, you rolls the dice and you takes your chances.
  
  
• The Culture Wars: If we had to choose, we would probably say that this was the most desperate, and most transparent, attempt to create a distraction. As part of his social-media meltdown this weekend, Trump also re-opened a culture wars battle that was theoretically over, and demanded that the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and the Washington Commanders football team, revert to their previous names:

  The Washington "Whatever's" should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!

  Trump did not give a source for his claims. Presumably he talked to "people."
  
  Anyhow, the ownership of the Cleveland Guardians quickly made clear that their position is "Thanks, but no thanks." The brand-new leadership of the Washington Commanders also appears to be uninterested, but has to tread a bit more lightly, because they are working on a stadium deal right now, and Trump could torpedo it if he really tried.
  
  Incidentally, many social media users took note of a tweet from 12 years ago, in which an aspiring politician declared: "President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name—our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense." That aspiring politician, of course, was Donald Trump.
  
  
• Ok, We Will Release the Files: Once Gabbard realized she had failed with her Obama Gambit—which is not a chess move, but totally should be—she bowed to reality and announced that OK, she has decided to release the files. Not the Epstein files, mind you. No, 230,000 pages of files related to the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.
  
  King is dead, so he's a little bit more similar to Epstein than Obama, we suppose. We guess that next up will be the FBI's files on Sammy Davis Jr., who is both dead AND Jewish. In any case, how delusional do you have to be to think that anyone will be distracted by the release of information that is nearly 60 years old, and that approximately nobody was clamoring for? Incidentally, here is how Bernice King, who is the civil rights leader's last living daughter, and who did not want the files released, responded on social media:
  
  
  
  We suppose Gabbard might just be pandering for Trump's benefit, and doesn't actually expect that her sleight-of-hand will accomplish anything beyond pleasing the boss. But if that is NOT the case, and she has really persuaded herself that she can change the narrative, it's yet another good reason to conclude she's not fit to serve, and should be removed from her post.

That is quite a long list of distractions. And, by all indications... none of it is working. The folks who track right-wing podcasts and right-wing talk radio report that it's wall-to-wall Epstein. Although even if you didn't know that, the amount of energy being expended on trying to change the narrative tells you that the White House is really worried here.

Meanwhile, Mike Johnson's kowtowing to Trump is not limited only to posting Joe Biden videos. In an extremely predictable outcome (indeed, we warned of this possibility on Friday), the Speaker announced that dad gum it, there just isn't going to be time to vote on releasing the Epstein files before the recess, which means that the earliest he could possibly bring the matter to the floor of the House is September. Darn the luck!

There are a couple of problems with this approach. The first is that many Republican members WANT a vote, because they don't want to spend the next month dealing with constant Epstein-related questions and complaints from constituents. The second is that Democrats are not bound by Johnson's choices, nor are mavericks like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). So, these folks have made clear they intend to force votes on the matter by proposing "release the files" amendments to every matter that comes up for a vote this week.

If you're not going to hold a floor vote on the matter AND you don't want to compel members to be stuck voting on these damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't amendments, that leaves only one option: conduct no business. And so, it looks like the House will basically twiddle its thumbs this week, before fleeing Washington for 39 days (from this Friday through Monday, September 1).

That is going to make things extra-fun when the members get back to town. They may have to deal with the Epstein situation, assuming it has not dropped off the radar. Meanwhile, the recent budget fight was over the 2024-25 budget. If the Congress does not adopt a budget, or at least a continuing resolution, by October 1, then the government will shut down. Why does anyone ever run for Congress, again? (Z)

Republicans Want to Kill U.S. Tourist Industry

The U.S. generates almost $2.4 trillion in tourist revenue each year. It would seem that Donald Trump and the Republicans don't want that money, for some reason.

It's not a secret that the "annex Canada" and "buy Greenland" talk have already soured quite a few travelers on visiting the United States. The various trade wars, even if they have not yet been consummated, have not helped, either. Then there's the fact that anyone who looks to be Latino, African or Muslim could easily find themselves detained, and possibly shipped off to a prison in god-knows-where. People who might have Donald Trump- or J.D. Vance-critical memes on their phones are similarly at risk.

And now there is more. This weekend, the White House announced that it was getting ready to exercise authority conveyed by the BBB, and to impose a $250 "visa integrity fee" on top of existing visa costs. And it could be more, since $250 is a floor, and the exact fee is at the discretion of the Department of Homeland Security, which is currently run by a crazy person.

As we try to make sense of this new policy, there are a few things worth noting. First, people from countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program (mostly European countries) don't have to get a visa at all if they are staying for less than 90 days, and so would not be subject to the fee. Beyond that, even those who have to pay the fee can get a refund, assuming they leave before their visa expires, and assuming that they jump through whatever (currently unspecified) hoops are laid out by the Trump administration.

So, what is the administration trying to achieve, exactly? We have pondered it for about a day, and we've come up with four ideas. First, the purpose may be to discourage (mostly) non-European people from coming to the United States. That would certainly be par for this administration. Second, the administration may want an additional opportunity/excuse to collect information on people coming from (mostly) non-European countries. That would also be par for the course. Third, the goal may be to discourage people from overstaying their visas, which is the primary cause/source of undocumented immigrants. If so, well, we are hardly experts, but we doubt that if someone really wants to stay for whatever reason, $250 will be enough to cause them to abandon that goal. Fourth, this may be a way to try to fatten the government's coffers a bit, in the hopes that some meaningful number of people will forfeit their visa fees (perhaps because it's too onerous to secure a refund).

Whatever is going on, remember that number: $2.4 trillion. That's a big chunk of change. And while about half of that is domestic, that still leaves well over $1 trillion in foreign tourism. Maybe someone told Trump that the hated state of California earns more money from tourism than any other, and that doing everything possible to discourage visitors to the United States would be a swell way to own the libs. It is certainly true that the Golden State is the tourism king, but it's also true that the Top 10 list includes three red states (#2 Florida, #4 Texas and #10 Tennessee) and three purple states (#5 Nevada, #8 Georgia and #9 Pennsylvania). Maybe we're missing something, but it looks like yet another example of this administration implementing policies that will badly hurt the same people who voted it into office. (Z)

Lots of Bad Polls for Trump

Pop quiz: What are the three policies that are most central to Trump v2.0? We'll give you our answer in short order, but for now, it's a useful question to consider.

Anyhow, every day, there are reminders for Trump that it's very easy to make big promises, but it's very hard to actually govern. One problem is that it's impossible to deliver on everything you commit to, particularly if you are in the habit of making big, reckless promises. A second problem is that the things voters support in the abstract often turn out to be things they don't like in actuality.

Let's start with overall approval. The Economist/YouGov are unusual right now, in that they poll Trump's approval about once a week. Here is a rundown, in chronological order, of the seven polls they've done since the start of June:

Timespan	Approve	Disapprove	No Opinion	Net
July 11-14	41%	55%	4%	-14%
July 4-7	43%	54%	3%	-11%
June 27-30	45%	53%	2%	-8%
June 20-23	43%	54%	3%	-11%
June 13-16	44%	53%	3%	-9%
June 6-9	45%	53%	2%	-8%
May 30-Jun 2	46%	51%	2%	-5%

You don't need us to tell you that a basically consistent downward march from 5 points underwater to 14 points underwater, and in just 6 weeks, is not good news for a sitting president.

Now, let's take a look at where the aggregators, which average multiple approval-rating polls, have Trump:

Aggregator	Approve Avg.	Disapprove Avg.	No Opinion Avg.	Net
Strength in Numbers	42.5%	54.3%	3.2%	-11.8%
Silver Bulletin	43.7%	53.5%	2.8%	-9.8%
The New York Times	44%	54%	2%	-10%
Race to the White House	43.9%	53.4%	2.7%	-9.5%
VoteHub	43.7%	52.6%	3.7%	-8.9%
Decision Desk	41.1%	53.3%	5.6%	-12.2%

It would appear that the results from The Economist/YouGov are a bit on the bearish side, but only a bit. Trump is pretty clearly either double-digits underwater, or on the cusp of being so.

And now, our answer to the question we opened with. We would say that Trump's signature policies, in order, are: (1) immigration crackdowns, (2) tariffs, and (3) the BBB. Readers might quibble with our ranking, but we struggle to see how any other policy could make the top three. And, as you might guess, the President is not polling well on any of the three.

We'll start with #3, primarily because we've already talked a fair bit about that polling. As we have noted, public opinion runs just a bit shy of 2-to-1 against the bill. And the latest news on that front is that... there's no news. That is to say, public opinion doesn't seem to be moving much. The latest BBB poll was conducted by CNN/SSRS, and says that 61% of Americans disapprove of the bill, whereas 39% approve. That's not very good.

And, by the way, the CBO released its final scoring of the bill yesterday, projecting it will add $3.4 trillion in deficit spending over 10 years, which will increase the national debt by some number considerably larger than $3.4 trillion (it depends on interest rates). The CBO also says the bill will cause roughly 10 million people to lose their health insurance.

Historically, American voters do not cast their votes based on deficits and on the national debt. There is often much talk about this issue, but that talk is rarely backed with actual voting (though voters might vote based on the effects of deficits, like higher inflation). On the other hand, while the human brain is not well suited to really making sense of comic-book numbers in the tens of trillions, it's very well suited to understanding "I had health insurance, and now I don't have health insurance." So, that's the problem area for the Republicans (though the full impact of the bill may not be felt until after the midterms).

Moving on to #2, the tariffs are roughly as unpopular as the BBB. In the latest from CBS/YouGov, 60% of respondents oppose the tariffs, while 40% support them. The same poll found that 64% of respondents think Trump is not doing enough to combat inflation, while 62% think his actions have already made prices higher. The latest from Marist had nearly the same numbers, including identical 60% disapproval and 40% approval for the tariffs.

Politico/Public First also took a look at the tariffs, focusing in particular on breaking down responses by party. Of course the people who voted for Kamala Harris do not approve of the tariffs; 86% of them think they are hurting the U.S., while only 7% think they are helping. But even Trump's own voters are... soft on the tariffs, let's say. Specifically, 63% think they are helping the U.S., while 27% think they are hurting. Yes, he's still above water with Republicans. However, he's also not too far removed from dropping below 50% with his own voters on a policy that was a core part of his platform.

And finally, #1 immigration, where the numbers are the most interesting, we would say. There have been two major polls on this subject in the last week. The first of those is the CBS/YouGov poll that also covered the tariffs. On immigration, they find that 44% of respondents approve of the administration's immigration policy, whereas 56% disapprove. Just a month ago, it was an even split, 50%/50%. And in March, it was 54% approve and 46% disapprove. So, in this poll, Trump has gone from being 8 points above water to 12 points underwater since March. That's a 20-point swing in about 4 months.

The other big poll here is the newest from Gallup. Gallup asks different questions than CBS/YouGov, but their results paint a similar picture. In 2024, during the presidential campaign, 55% of respondents said that they wanted to see immigration decreased. That number is down to 30%. Since Democrats and independents tend to be pretty pro-immigrant (either they want more immigration, or they want current levels to remain steady), this change is driven mostly by Republican voters. In 2024, 88% of Republicans wanted immigration to be reduced. Now, it's 48%. That's right, a 40-point drop.

The other interesting (and very related) result from Gallup involves responses to the question: "On the whole, do you think immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today?" Gallup has been asking that question since the start of this century. In 2001, 62% of respondents said it's a good thing; in 2002 that dropped to 55%, presumably due to the 9/11 attacks and the wave of xenophobia they unleashed. Since then, the total has generally crept upward, excepting fairly big dips in 2014 (63%) and 2024 (64%). This year, the number is the highest it's been since Gallup started polling this question: 79%.

What, exactly, is going on here? We would guess it's two things. First, voters were unhappy with Joe Biden and the Democrats in general, and we suspect that for many of them "What is your opinion on immigrants/immigration?" was effectively "What is your opinion on Biden/the Democrats?" Second, policies often sound great in the abstract, but become considerably less appealing once they are put into effect. We certainly hope that at least some people, once they saw what an aggressive, Stephen-Miller-and-Tom-Homan-led immigration policy looks like, decided that "secure our borders" is not all it's cracked up to be.

There was a headline on CNN last week, "Trump's angry, erratic behavior explains his lowball poll numbers." We'd actually say that's in the wrong order, and that his bad poll numbers explain his angry, erratic behavior. In any case, what it amounts to is that Democrats continue to hate him, independents are largely opposed, and there's even some slippage (albeit not a lot, as yet) among Republicans. It's not a great picture for Trump, and all of this is before the effects of the tariffs and BBB, not to mention the ongoing Epstein scandal, have had time to fully manifest. So, things can, and probably will, get worse for him. (Z)

Mark Green Makes It Official

It has been about 6 weeks since Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) said that he was going to quit to pursue some vague opportunity apparently related to Guyana, and that he was just waiting until the BBB became law.

Well, the BBB is now law, and so Green has made good on his threat/promise, and has quit the House. Once Green's formal letter of resignation reaches Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN), Lee will set the dates for the primary and the general. The Governor's office has tentatively announced October 7 as the date for the former, and December 2 as the date for the latter, but it's not official until a writ of election is filed.

The now-vacant (or soon-to-be-vacant) district, TN-07, is R+10. The Daily Kos, which looks at everything through blue-colored glasses, argues that if the Republican candidate underperforms Donald Trump as much as Republican candidates did in the two special elections in Florida, the Democrats could pick off the seat. We don't love that use (abuse?) of numbers, but we will say that special elections are always wonky, and Donald Trump has gotten pretty unpopular (see above). Our baseline for "How big an upset is really possible in these circumstances?" is Conor Lamb's win in PA-18 in March 2018, when anti-Trump sentiments allowed him to eke out a very narrow win (49.9% to 49.5%) over a weak opponent, in a district that was then... R+11.

In other words, an R+10 district is a pretty steep hill for a Democrat to climb, but it's not impossible. Thus far, six Republicans, including state Reps. Jody Barrett and Lee Reeves, former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services Matt Van Epps and Montgomery County Commissioner Jason Knight, have jumped in, with more to follow. On the Democratic side, there are already three state Reps.—Aftyn Behn, Vincent Dixie and Bo Mitchell—who are in.

This race could provide the Democrats with a very interesting opportunity to test out their 2026 messaging, particularly as regards Jeffrey Epstein and also the BBB. For the record, 110,000 people in Tennessee are expected to lose their insurance; that works out to about 12,000 people per district. Of course, most of them won't actually lose their insurance until sometime after the special election; the outcome may turn on how effectively the Democratic nominee is able to convince voters of the looming issue.

Meanwhile, when the House returns on September 2, and begins to wrestle with the budget and with a potential "release the files" resolution, Mike Johnson will be working with a 219-212 majority, assuming no other members depart between now and then. That means he can afford up to 3 defections on votes. Or, to be more precise, he can afford Thomas Massie and two other defections. (Z)

Never Forget: Flying Fox

Today, we hear from J.E. in Manhattan, NY:

My grandfather, Jack J. Fox, served in a bomber wing during World War II. He flew missions over Europe, stationed in England. I am unsure what rank he started with, but he was evidently promoted to navigator during his tenure. Prior to the war, he studied biochemistry, graduating in 1938, and he returned to that afterwards, becoming co-chairman of the developmental therapy and clinical investigation program at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, where he invented a cancer drug still in use today.

Jack was born in Brooklyn, and raised in a strict orthodox Jewish family, but he broke away from that when he entered left-wing politics and became an organizer for the United Cannery, Agricultural and Packing House Workers of America while at the University of Colorado. It was not uncommon in those days for people like him, who did not come from money, to work while in school.

In 1939 he married a Japanese-American woman, Ruth Inabu (born in Utah, I might add). His family's reaction was to sit shiva for him, and I only met his sister at my grandmother's funeral in 1998. I might well have any number of cousins scattered around the tri-state area; I haven't looked. His wife was also a fierce believer in social justice, and she was a leader in the efforts to desegregate local businesses as a member of the Ethical Culture Society.

(Their marriage, by the way, was illegal in several states, Utah among them. Colorado was rather more lenient, but only in certain regions of the state).

Both grandparents were very involved in raising money and later volunteered to fight the fascists in Spain. (I submit that if the French and U.S. governments had not stopped what supplies the USSR was sending to them at the Pyrenees, the outcome of the Spanish Civil War might have been different, and there would have been one less, possibly two less, fascist governments to disfigure the face of Europe after the war).

I bring up this background because during my grandfather's service he was brought up before one of his superior officers. As related to me, the conversation was:

Officer: I understand, Fox, that your wife is Japanese.

Jack: No sir, my wife is an American citizen of Japanese extraction. Why is this relevant, sir?

Officer: We are investigating the depth of loyalty of our crews.

My grandfather was very much angered by this, as it was calling into question his loyalty to the United States based on his wife's ethnicity. Rightly, he felt it uncalled for. As I understood it, he came as close as a junior officer could to telling off his superior given the dangerous nature of the missions he had been flying and what would happen to him as a Jewish serviceman were he shot down and captured.

He was disallowed from flying later sorties in the Pacific, though by the time the matter would have became urgent the war ended. But this incident marked him, and my grandmother. The only reason she wasn't thrown into a prison camp was because of her marriage to Jack. Both continued to be active in movements for civil rights up until their old age.

We can get very smug in the United States about the strength and longevity of our democratic institutions, but our status as a democracy for all our citizens is only about as old as many former British and French colonies.

My grandfather was proud of his service. But he never forgot—and always impressed on us—that one should never have to prove one's loyalty based on one's parentage.

Thanks, J.E. (Z)

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