The Conversation -- July 15, 2025

Here's a site that will lead you to making some good trouble on Thursday, July 17, the five-year anniversary of the death of civil rights leaders John Lewis. Thank you to RAS for the link.

Erica Green of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said he would help Europe speed more weapons to Ukraine and warned Russia that if it did not agree to a peace deal within 50 days, he would impose a new round of punishing sanctions. Speaking from the Oval Office, where he met with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte​, Mr. Trump said the weapons would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield.” He also threatened to impose secondary sanctions, which are penalties imposed on other countries or parties that trade with nations under sanctions. 'I’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there,” Mr. Trump said.”  (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s new plan to send weapons to Ukraine and his simultaneous threat of harsh penalties on Russia’s trading partners reflect a dramatic shift in his position on the war, but his proposals leave key details unclear.... Experts doubted the credibility of Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on Russia’s trading partners if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not agree to a cease-fire within 50 days. The scale of China’s mutual trade with Russia — nearly $250 billion per year, including huge oil imports — means that delivering on the threat would throw Mr. Trump into a showdown with Beijing. Analysts said it was unlikely that Mr. Trump would risk a renewed confrontation with the world’s second-largest economy over Ukraine, a country whose fate he has long said is not vital to the United States. Mr. Trump is also notorious for setting deadlines that he does not enforce....” ~~~

~~~ Martin Fornusek of the Kyiv Independent: "... Donald Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether Ukraine could strike Moscow if provided with long-range U.S. weapons, the Financial Times reported on July 15, citing two undisclosed sources familiar with the discussion. The Washington Post also reported that, according to its source, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader why he had not struck the Russian capital. Zelensky allegedly replied that such an attack would be possible if the U.S. supplied the necessary weapons. 'Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?' Trump said, according to the Financial Times, reportedly encouraging the strategy so that Russia can 'feel the pain' and agree to negotiations." ~~~

     ~~~ David Ignatius of the Washington Post: “Trump’s determination to squeeze Putin was conveyed in a conversation last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a source told me. Trump asked Zelensky why he didn’t hit Moscow. 'We can if you give us the weapons,' Zelensky said. Trump said Ukraine needed to put more pressure on Putin, not just Moscow but St. Petersburg, too.”

Tomato Tax. (You Say Tariff; I Say Tax. Let's Call the Whole Thing Off.) Dee-Ann Durbin of the AP: “The U.S. government said Monday it is immediately placing a 17% duty on most fresh Mexican tomatoes after negotiations ended without an agreement to avert the tariff. Proponents said the import tax will help rebuild the shrinking U.S. tomato industry and ensure that produce eaten in the U.S. is also grown there. Mexico currently supplies around 70% of the U.S. tomato market, up from 30% two decades ago, according to the Florida Tomato Exchange. Robert Guenther, the trade group’s executive vice president, said the duty was 'an enormous victory for American tomato farmers and American agriculture.' But opponents said the import tax will make tomatoes more expensive for U.S. consumers.”

Trump Begs Influencers to Stop Carping about the Epstein Files. Justin Baragona of the Independent: Over the weekend, Donald Trump “reportedly called up influential right-wing media personalities and asked them to pull back on their criticism of Pam Bondi amid the continued uproar over the Epstein memo..., and some of [his] most loyal foot soldiers in the MAGA media ecosystem are already dutifully falling in line.” ~~~

~~~ Matt Gertz of Media Matters: “Just months ago, Trump allies claimed the deep state hid the 'Epstein Files.' Trump now claims that they were fabricated all along.” Gertz also notes in a July 14 update: “So far, Fox appears to be following Trump's marching orders. On Monday as of noon ET, the network had mentioned Epstein zero times, according to a search of the Kinetiq database of closed-captioning transcripts.” ~~~

~~~ Katie Hawkinson of the Independent: “FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s relationship with the White House is reportedly in ruins as rumors of his departure from the agency mount.” ~~~

~~~ And it does look as if Trump's pleas have worked on some of his Congressional lemmings: ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Solender of Axios: "House Republicans on Monday night voted against attaching a Democratic amendment to landmark cryptocurrency legislation that would force the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files....  The House Rules Committee, which prepares legislation for votes on the House floor, voted 5 to 6 against attaching [Rep. Ro] Khanna's [D-Calif.] amendment to a procedural measure related to the GENIUS Act and a defense funding bill. The measure would have forced Attorney General Pam Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein on a 'publicly accessible website' within 30 days of procedural measure being enacted.... In a rare move, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) crossed over and voted with the panel's four Democrats in favor of attaching the amendment."

Katie Hawkinson of the Independent: “... Donald Trump revealed that FIFA officials gave him the Club World Cup trophy ahead of Chelsea’s win in inaugural competition’s final.... FIFA President Gianni Infantino visited the White House, along with the trophy, in March. 'They said, “Could you hold this trophy for a little while?” We put it in the Oval Office,' Trump said. 'And then I said, “When are you going to pick up the trophy?” He says, “We're never going to pick it up. You can have it forever in the Oval Office. We're making a new one.”’... This meant that, despite upsetting the odds with their triumph over European champions Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea had to make do with the replica trophy.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. MB: The trophy, which is bright, shiny, gold-colored, is perfect for the new Trump-approved Oval Office decar. As RAS suggested, Infantino is very much the infantino Trumpo: corrupt (allegedly!), self-aggrandizing and fond of autocrats.

Peter Baker in the New York Times: “It should come as no surprise that Mr. Trump would try to undo much of what President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did over the past four years. What is so striking in Mr. Trump’s second term is how much he is trying to undo changes that happened years and even decades before that. At times, it seems as if he is trying to repeal much of the 20th century. On matters big and small, Mr. Trump has hit the rewind button. At the broadest level, he has endeavored to reverse the globalization and internationalism that have defined U.S. leadership around the globe since World War II, under presidents of both parties. But even at a more prosaic level, it has become evident that Mr. Trump, 79, the oldest president ever inaugurated, simply prefers things the way he remembers them from his youth, or even before that.” Baker cites many, many examples of Trump's turn-back-the-clock "agenda." This is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: I don't think Trump's preference for "the good old days" is primarily an exercise in conservatism or even in nostalgia for a false memory of a country that never existed. While it's certainly steeped in racism & misogyny & wealth-elitism, that's not really the half of it. Rather, what we're looking at is senility. The poor old duffer wants to go back to the days when a sporty car's dashboard was loaded with mechanial instruments, and it was not true that "Everything's computer!"

Marie: I have been thinking for some time that Donald Trump is not The Most Powerful Man in the World. Like every leader of a Western democracy, he ultimately must answer to the people. It's just not the "normal" people -- the MOR lazy voters -- to whom Trump answers. Rather, it's the ignorant, bigoted, paranoid, conspiracy-loving MAGA crowd. This explains Trump's brand of "populism." He adheres to it to maintain power to get things he wants: adulation & the spoils of office and legal and tax systems that work to his advantage. When Trump runs into unexpected trouble -- like with his support for Covid vaccines -- he adapts. Release of the Epstein files, of course, is a particularly tetchy condundrum, because hedonist/misogynist Don could mess up things for President* Don. Here's Amanda Marcotte explaining aspects of the Trump theory of governance: ~~~

~~~ Amanda Marcotte of Salon, in an article that looks at Kristi Noem's lust for cruelty (gosh, remember the puppy and the goat? she didn't stop there) and plans to kill FEMA: “... this is a White House that feels beholden to loony far-right conspiracy theorists, and not ordinary Americans. That’s why they’re embracing fringe ideas, from mass deportations to taking away vaccines, that most people reject. Killing FEMA has been a long-time goal of the crank right, especially those with white nationalist leanings.... The history of conspiracy theories about FEMA goes back to the agency’s founding under President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Far-right groups immediately started circulating rumors that FEMA’s disaster relief mission was a cover story for the true goal: Rounding up white Christians into concentration camps, so the 'globalists' (read: Jews, people of color, feminists, queer people) could impose the 'New World Order.' As usual with racist conspiracists, the psychological motivation is a combination of sublimated shame and defensiveness, manifesting in a victim complex.... The racist subtext is never hard to spot. Militia groups that promote 'FEMA camps' conspiracies will often spin yarns about how 'urban gangs' will be recruited to round up 'patriots' — their code word for white conservative Christians — into camps.” Thanks to RAS for the link.

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: “Having nurtured conspiracy theories for his entire political career, Trump suddenly seems in danger of being consumed by one[: the Jeffrey Epstein case].... For some in Trump’s movement, this setback is simply proof that they’re up against a conspiracy more powerful than they’d ever imagined. 'What we just learned is that dealing with the Epstein Operation is above the President’s pay grade,' posted Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist and podcaster. An important question, going forward, is who they decide is pulling the strings.... The Epstein files were supposed to show the world, once and for all, the scale of the evil system that Trump’s voters believe he is fighting.... Among those on the right who believe there’s an Epstein cover-up, few seem to be entertaining the idea that Trump is protecting himself.... I’m worried, however, about people blaming Jews for the strange and unresolvable parts of his sordid story. Scroll through X, and you’ll see they already are.”

While we're in the mode of trying to figure out crazy, Trumpy things, here's Joshua Tait, writing for the Bulwark, on crazy right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin who seems to have invented DOGE: “... since as early as 2008, Yarvin has been arguing for the forced retirement of federal employees — not to save money but to effect a regime change, or, in tech parlance, a hard reset. He wrote, 'if you gave the entire civil service an opportunity to retire tomorrow on full pay, nine out of ten would take it, and lick your hand like golden retrievers for the offer.' This argument gave rise to a Moldbug shibboleth: R.A.G.E., or Retire All Government Employees.... [Yarvin] seems like a Rosetta Stone for the remade right wing.... As is the case for virtually all would-be intellectuals, Yarvin’s influence is indirect.... Yarvin provides permission structures [i.e., justifications] in at least three places: first, in rejecting mainstream norms about information; second, in his calls for DOGE-like cuts to the government; and third, in legitimizing Donald Trump’s autocratic tendencies.” Thanks to laura h. for the link.

Lock 'em Up. Maria Sacchetti & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. In a July 8 memo, Todd M. Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told officers that such immigrants should be detained 'for the duration of their removal proceedings,' which can take months or years. Lawyers say the policy will apply to millions of immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border over the past few decades, including under the Biden administration. In the past, immigrants residing in the U.S. interior generally have been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge.” MB: As we know, cruelty is the point.

Linda Greenouse of the New York Times: “People of a certain age might remember the songwriter Jimmy Webb’s weirdly compelling 'MacArthur Park,' with its refrain that begins, 'MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark.' Growing up in the east, I had never heard of MacArthur Park when the song hit the charts in 1968, and I wasn’t sure it was a real place. All these years later, something real is melting for sure. It is the glue that holds civil society together.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

AND, as Ken W. suggests, Heather Cox Richardson has a good summary of Congress's attempts over the past century or so to control immigration through legislation. 

⭐Andrew Goudsward of Reuters: "The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters. Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.... 'Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,' said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump's second term. 'How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?'" Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ That explains why recently we have been reading of judges blowing up at DOJ lawyers: they're green, they're incompetent, they're insolent, and they mislead the court with specious arguments. But it does not explain the following: ~~~

⭐Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court agreed on Monday that the Trump administration can proceed with dismantling the Education Department by firing more than a thousand workers.... The move by the justices represents an expansion of presidential power, allowing Mr. Trump to dismantle the inner workings of a government department created by Congress without legislators’ input.... The order by the court was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as is typical in such emergency applications. No vote count was given, which is usual for emergency orders, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The three argued that Mr. Trump had overstepped his authority with his 'unilateral efforts to eliminate a cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago.'... The order is a significant victory for the administration and could ease ... [Donald] Trump’s efforts to sharply curtail the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools....

“The Trump administration has announced plans to fire more than 1,300 workers, a move that would effectively gut the department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools. The Education Department began the year with more than 4,000 employees. The administration also fired some probationary workers and offered employees the ability to resign. Altogether, after the terminations, the Education Department will have a work force of about half the size it did before Mr. Trump returned to office.” The AP's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: “The only rule when it comes to the Trump administration requesting stays from the Supreme Court is 'if Donald Trump is prevented doing anything he wants to do, no matter how transparently illegal, it is an emergency.' Today’s order, featuring no legal reasoning at all from the Court’s Republicans, allows for Linda McMahon to proceed with the unilateral destruction of the Department of Education.... The idea that the balance of equities here favors the administration is farcical. A stay would not cause “irreparable harm” to the administration, but lifting the stay certainly means irreparable harm to countless students, teachers, administrators, and other school employees.... When a lawless administration is backed up by a lawless court, none of it matters.” Be sure to take a look at Steve Vladeck's embedded BlueSky skeet near the bottom of the post. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's Steve Vladeck in a post on the ruling: "The contrast between how the same justices handled President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program and how they’re handling another case about the Department of Education in a very similar procedural posture is not only striking, but it provides yet further fodder for an argument I’ve made before: To avoid the appearance that the justices are just voting their partisan policy preferences, it is absolutely imperative that the Court explain itself — especially in contexts, like this one, where its behavior appears to be inconsistent.... [In Biden's student loan case,]  the Court kept a controversial Department of Education policy initiative paused for 6.5 months while it sorted out whether anyone had standing to challenge it. [The Court eventually ruled that one plaintiff did have standing.]" ~~~

~~~ Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times: “A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Monday over $6.8 billion in education funding that the administration has withheld a few weeks before the start of the school year. The withheld money includes about 14 percent of all federal funding for elementary and secondary education across the country. It helps pay for free or low-cost after-school programs that give students a place to go while their parents work. It also covers training to improve the effectiveness of teachers and help for children learning English. Attorneys general from 22 states signed onto the lawsuit, along with the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky. All are Democrats.”

Do-Nothing Judges' Gift to Trump. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “In April, a federal appeals court in Washington took what seemed to be a fairly normal step: It temporarily put on hold a trial judge’s plan to begin contempt proceedings against the Trump administration to determine whether officials had violated his order stopping flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. The move ... was supposed to have been an incremental measure intended to buy [the appeals court] time as it considered a more substantial type of stay — one designed to pause the case as the court dug into the merits of the contempt proposal laid out by the trial judge, James E. Boasberg. But three months later, the three-judge panel ... has done nothing at all to push the case forward, allowing it to languish in a kind of legal limbo.... [As [the panel] has sat on the case, new evidence has emerged that the Trump administration may have disobeyed Judge Boasberg’s order. 'It’s very unusual,' said Stephen I. Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor. 'An appeals court may need hours or days to figure out an administrative stay, but it doesn’t need weeks and certainly not months.'... Both of the judges who approved the stay — Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao — were appointed by Mr. Trump.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs have informed the appeals panel that a whistleblower has accused a top DOJ official -- Emil Bove -- of ignoring Judge Boasberg's order, and in general, to consider ignoring court orders. The panel did nothing.

NASA: To Hell with You People. Rebecca Dzombak of the New York Times: “NASA said on Monday that it would not host on its website the National Climate Assessments — reports mandated by Congress that detail the ways climate change is affecting every part of the country and how communities can respond. Earlier this month, the Trump administration took down the webpage, globalchange.gov, that provided the reports, which have been regularly published since 2000. A spokeswoman for NASA said at the time, 'All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.' But in a reversal on Monday, the same spokeswoman, Bethany Stevens, said that NASA would not host the archived reports. 'The USGCRP met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress,' she said, referring to the United States Global Change Research Program. 'NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov’s data.' She added: 'To clarify, globalchange.gov is not a NASA domain. We never did and will not host the data.'... State and local policymakers, researchers and private industry use the reports, and the shuttered website had also been one of the main federal sources of information on climate change.... Two scientific associations, the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union, previously announced that they would publish work originally intended for the sixth assessment.”

Deadbeat Congressman. Leo Sands of the Washington Post: “The landlord of a Republican congressman from Florida is seeking to evict him from his D.C. apartment, alleging that he owes over $85,000 in unpaid rent, according to a complaint filed last week. Rep. Cory Mills owes rent from March to July on an apartment on Maryland Avenue SW, said the complaint filed by Parcel 47F LLC and Bozzuto Management Company.... Mills [has] suggested that he was unable to pay rent because of a technical problem with a processing platform.” The NBC News story is here.

Santul Nerkar of the New York Times: “In a rare move, the judges of the [federal] Northern District of New York have declined to appoint [John] Sarcone [III] to lead the [U.S. attorney's] office permanently. The judges did not offer a rationale for declining to appoint Mr. Sarcone, whom ... [Donald] Trump named in March to serve as interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. The announcement could mean the end of Mr. Sarcone’s fractious tenure in Albany, though Mr. Trump could reappoint him on an interim basis. (Mr. Trump has not formally nominated Mr. Sarcone for Senate confirmation.) Last week, Mr. Sarcone told the television station WNYT that his tenure had been extended by the district’s judges. Hours later, the judges issued a statement saying they had not made any such decision. By Monday, they had decided — but not in his favor.”

Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “In private remarks to party donors on Friday night, [former President Barack] Obama scolded Democrats for failing to speak out against ... [Donald] Trump and his policies, suggesting they were shrinking from the challenge out of fear of retribution. 'It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,' Mr. Obama said at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee at the home of Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey.... Mr. Obama’s remarks were circulated by his office on Monday.... Mr. Obama ... has scarcely been at the tip of the Democratic spear in resisting Mr. Trump. He has issued few public statements opposing Trump administration actions and has yet to appear this year at a rally, town hall or other public event staged by opponents of Mr. Trump.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So apparently Obama thinks that as an ex-president, he should stand above the fray; that is, he should follow the pre-Trumpity tradition of not criticizing successor presidents*. But he wants other Democrats to take up the slack, to get down and dirty and sling the mud Trump has coming. Maybe Obama should have a brief navel-gazing session himself, then come out swinging. I don't think "traditional protocol" is an option anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~

New York. Jeffery Mayes & Emma Fitzsimmons in the New York Times: “Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has decided to run in the general election for mayor [of New York City], urged on by supporters anxious that his withdrawal would nearly guarantee Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s victory and put New York City in the hands of the far left.The decision by Mr. Cuomo, who had been questioning whether to run after his crushing Democratic primary defeat by Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and a democratic socialist, was announced Monday afternoon in a 90-second video.”

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

Heather Cox provides a good primer on immigration policy over the years:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-14-2025

[Patrick]

I wonder if Michelle O'Bama has not laid down the law to Barack O'B, that he is not to become a focal point for the armed and dangerous MAGAts. Alma Powell had such a prohibition for Colin P, that under no circumstances would she allow him to be a presidential candidate. These ladies know the proclivities of some of their fellow citizens, from their girlhoods on.