Jonathan Lemire is onto something: The second Trump term is starting to feel like a rerun, only this time the picture is smaller and the volume is cranked up way too loud. It is Trump 1.0 again — but stripped of the shock value and novelty that defined his frantic first term.
In the early months of his return to the Oval Office, Donald Trump seemed to be in control, Democrats were thrown into a retreat, and fear muted critics in every corner of government.
Now courts brush aside clunky lawfare tactics meant to criminalize critics.
Now the president is lunging at a man who has spent his life in service to America in ways that Republicans once revered.
Now the party sits by quietly while its president suggests United States lawmakers could be executed for simply telling soldiers that they don’t have to break the law.
In a more normal political moment, the first question would be “Who is advising the president?”
No one asks that now — because we know the turbulence is being caused by the guy in the cockpit; there is no experienced hand on the controls and no one up there who dares to say no.
And still, America moves through its Thanksgiving week, as it always does, with too much food, travel delays, great football games and our annual, stubborn determination to look forward with hope.
Mara Gay writes below about how, through the years, this holiday season has had a way of bringing together a bewildered nation and helping us believe that even in dark times, we can taste “the brighter days to come.”
If Trump’s trying to intimidate me, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.
‘If I Say Do It, They’re Gonna Do It’: Sen. Mark Kelly’s Case for Taking Trump’s Words Seriously
Sen. Mark Kelly described his reminder that service members should not follow illegal orders as “simple and noncontroversial.”
Kelly told Rachel Maddow last night that Donald Trump responded by suggesting the senator should be “prosecuted,” “hanged” and “executed.”
“He even went on and said something about ‘go get them,’ I guess sending a mob to round me and the other folks up,” Kelly continued.
“I think it says a lot more about him than it says about me.”
Yes, it does.
Kelly gave three examples of why Americans should be alarmed by Trump’s willingness to issue illegal orders:
- Trump made that clear in March 2016, when a debate moderator noted that the actions he was proposing would be illegal. Trump brushed it off: “If I say do it, they’re gonna do it. That’s what leadership is all about … They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.”
- Then there was his suggestion that Washington should use “dangerous” American cities as military training grounds, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
- And, as reported by former senior officials, Trump urged his secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “just shoot” migrants in their legs.
It is a pattern that’s impossible to ignore. Kelly’s warning does not deal in hypotheticals. Rather, it is his blunt recognition that this president has shown disdain for legal boundaries while possessing unwavering confidence that subordinates will execute his every command.
Kelly’s point is simple: When a politician with that much power tells you who they are — and what they’re willing to do — you should believe them.
TRUMP’S TAWDRY LAWFARE SCHEMES TOSSED FROM COURT
Alexander Hamilton warned in Federalist No. 78 that an independent judiciary is “an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, the citadel of the public justice and the public security.” That principle was on full display this week as federal judges sent Donald Trump’s legal team packing — rejecting its latest effort to prosecute perceived political enemies in the name of presidential revenge.
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie didn’t just dismiss Trump’s show trials, she declared the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James an unlawful power grab by the White House, driving a stake through Trump’s delusional belief that he should enjoy presidential immunity from judicial scrutiny.
The federal judge called the Justice Department’s indictments “unlawful exercises of executive power” and determined that the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed. The order made reference to James’ charge that government lawyers had been “transformed into the president’s personal agents of revenge.”
For Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the legal losses keep piling up. One federal judge after another has wielded Hamilton’s “citadel” of independence, pushing back on illegal indictments, National Guard deployments to American cities and bogus gerrymandering schemes. Bondi’s Justice Department isn’t just losing cases. It’s losing whatever credibility it ever claimed it had.
A TASTE OF BRIGHTER DAYS AHEAD
A guest essay by Mara Gay, MS NOW analyst and opinion writer at The New York Times
Berries are a summer fruit, but I make a berry pie every Thanksgiving anyway. I suppose this is because I am a summer person, the kind who chases the sun and swims in the ocean well into September.
My best friend, Anna, who is always around our table, scoffs. Some guests ask for pumpkin pie or pecan pie instead. But by November, when the days have long since grown short and dark, I long for a juicy bite of the seasons ahead.
It’s a silly tradition that feels important this Thanksgiving, when my family will be gathering to mark the end of a year that, for the people I love, was filled with grief and tragedy: both losses of the personal kind and the betrayal we feel as democracy-loving Americans.
We will celebrate anyway, because even in this terrible year, there were beautiful things. I found them in new babies and new loves, in my first spoonful of shaved ice on the beaches of Waikiki, and in quiet walks with my dog through the city I love.
And though the days are growing shorter, we know a new season is coming. We can feel it. We saw it in the millions of Americans who marched at the No Kings protests. We see it in the voters who seem hungry for something new, something better than what has brought us to this hard place. We feel the pull of a new year. We gather in the darkness and give thanks to one another. We taste the brighter days to come.
ONE LAST BITE
CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE
SPILL IT!
The “Morning Joe” family is gearing up for Thanksgiving! We want to know: What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?
Let us know here — and we’ll feature the winning dishes (the dinner winner, if you will) in an upcoming edition! 🦃
Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., is co-host of MS NOW's "Morning Joe" alongside Mika Brzezinski — a show that Time magazine calls "revolutionary." In addition to his career in television, Joe is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. His most recent book is "The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics — and Can Again."