Trump keeps trying to play the hero. Don't be fooled.
He's the chief obstacle to sensible policy and functioning democracy. Just the way he planned it.
I’m holding a bunch of ideas in my head right now that can’t be reconciled. For instance: I’m very glad that after more than a month without pay, money is finally flowing to the Transportation Safety Administration employees who staff airport security lines. I’m also livid that their paychecks have resumed because Donald Trump—after refusing to negotiate with either party in Congress—now comes to save the day, as it were, via executive action.
Why? For one thing, and not for the first time, he’s diverting money from its intended purpose in order to cover TSA paychecks—which appears illegal on its face. Congress holds the constitutional power of the purse. When Trump ignores congressional appropriations and instead spends or withholds federal money based on his personal whims, he very likely violates the law. Even more maddening, he’s trying to look like a hero—when in truth he’s been the chief obstacle to progress.
In exchange for funding the Department of Homeland Security, Democrats want to rein in ICE and border patrol agents by taking steps like banning masks and requiring judicial warrants to enter homes. Sounds reasonable, given the abuses some agents have committed, right up to killing people. But, as House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries put it March 10 on MS NOW, “House and Senate Republicans haven’t been given the green light from Donald Trump—that’s their boss. That’s who they work for, unfortunately, not the American people—to actually sit down and negotiate in good faith.”
Trump also said no when the Republican-run Senate finally reached a bipartisan deal to fund DHS (TSA included) and punt for now on ICE and the border patrol, which are already flush with money from last year’s giant spending bill and getting paid despite the department-wide shutdown. The Republican House passed a different bill that included ICE and border patrol, and Congress left town for a two-week recess with DHS still closed.
Suddenly, lo and behold, a savior appears, with Trump offering deliverance for the poor TSA workers quitting, calling in sick, unable to pay for gas or child care to even get to their jobs. He declared an emergency, as he is wont to do, and ordered that they be paid. And then there was light, “thanks to President Donald J. Trump’s decisive leadership.” At least according to his White House, which also opined that “President Trump took action where Democrats would not.”
Alternatively, you might say a dictatorial, overstepping president took unilateral action he wasn’t legally entitled to take, after he himself blocked other paths and solutions. Another alt-interpretation: Democrats prefer federal agents who don’t shoot and sometimes kill people, storm their homes, or drag them out of courts and immigration offices—due process be damned—and were negotiating to achieve those outcomes.
Congressional negotiations are slow and exasperating, and that’s by design. Same with the Constitution assigning taxing and spending authority to Congress. Can you imagine if all presidents used the federal budget as a gigantic slush fund to spend at will?
I’m glad airline passengers are no longer inconvenienced by hours-long lines at airport security checkpoints. And I’m relieved that by taking a circuitous route, my husband and I managed to get to Reagan National Airport promptly last Saturday, even as No Kings protestors amassed by the thousands on the National Mall near our usual drive there. In fact we arrived so promptly, and TSA pre-check was so speedy, that we ended up with a four-hour wait for my flight. We’ve got another cross-country flight this weekend and I’m grateful that this time, the TSA agents on duty will be collecting paychecks.
Just don’t get the idea that Trump is making any headway on his “I alone can fix it” delusion. He said that at the 2016 convention—his dreams of a kingly, divine-right-of-me presidency obvious even then—and he’s been making things worse ever since.
What you may have missed since my last History Keeps Happening newsletter:
March 26: DOGE Targets Nuclear Safety, Triggers Memories of Three Mile Island
I was asked a few years ago to name the biggest story I’d ever covered as a journalist. “You’d think Three Mile Island would have been the major story of my career, but history has just kept happening,” I replied.
Yet even after the deadlocked 2000 election, the inauguration of the first black U.S. president, the rise of Donald Trump, and so many other huge stories, that nuclear power plant accident on March 28, 1979, is still in the running for number one. And as I periodically rediscover, it still has the power to haunt.
March 22: Cornered GOP Grows More Unpopular, More Desperate
It’s SAVE America Act month, and I can’t stop thinking about dog food.
As in, Republicans have a dog-food problem. They’re serving up food that dogs won’t eat. The obvious solution is to change the recipe, but no way. They’re desperate to win and hold power, yet that’s the last thing they’ll consider.
March 12: Paxton vs. Cornyn: MAGA With a Side of Corruption, Or Not
That escalated quickly—eight days from an inconclusive primary to a Ten Commandments runoff attack ad.
It seemed like Donald Trump was going to make it easy for Texas Sen. John Cornyn by endorsing him promptly and making clear to state Attorney General Ken Paxton that he needs to drop out. But so far, Trump hasn’t done anything, and Democrats are enjoying a political cage match that could last until the May 26 runoff.
Well done.
Trumperwocky