Month: March 2024

What’s so witty about Trump, mockery, and “Birdbrain”?

Michael Kruse examines how Donald “91 Counts” Trump uses humor “to maintain the useful reputation as a politically incorrect outsider despite his obvious insider status as the leader of the GOP.”

“Hilarious, “super funny,” some say. Kruse isn’t joking. He has quotes. Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, “had the same twisted sense of humor,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen.” It’s a part of Trump’s bonding with his audience.

“It’s such a huge part of his movement,” Alexander Reid Ross, the author of Against the Fascist Creep and a member of the executive committee of the Far Right Analysis Network, told me. “It is a way of inverting and reversing assumptions in a carnivalesque kind of way. It’s a way of upending morality,” he said. “It’s a thing that gives him permission to go on the attack in really hostile ways while saving face as just sort of an old satirist or something.”

Fintan O’Toole posted a New York Review of Books essay Kruse cites:

“This comic-authoritarian politics has some advantages over the older dictatorial style. It allows a threat to democracy to appear as at worst a tasteless prank,” O’Toole wrote. “Trump’s audiences, in other words, are not passive. This comedy is a joint enterprise of performer and listener. It gives those listeners the opportunity for consent and collusion.”

Trump’s lame jokes allow him to “normalize the abnormal, lessen the monstrous and offer audiences a sinister kind of license.”

There’s more praise for Trump “comedy.”

I get what Kruse and others are trying to convey. Trump is setting up an “in-group” and “out-group” dynamic, making it clear who to laugh at. I’m no expert on stand-up. But tasteless, as O’Toole put it, is what best describes Trump’s act, with “no line between entertainment and violence.” What passes for Trump rally humor is juvenile name-calling, fourth-rate pantomime, tall tales, outrageous boasts, and exhortations to mayhem frosted with a kind of Coulteresque “just joking” (for plausible deniability). I guess it’s not for everyone.

Once, after some pizza and beer, a friend and I attended the local Monday night “wrasslin'” just for the hell of it. This was long before the business became a pyrotechnic-fueled, chest-thumping spectacle under Vince McMahon. Remember, Trump was once part of that world too. It’s theater, of a sort, if you like that kind of theater. It’s “The Drunkard” with tights and piledrivers. The only reason Trump doesn’t appear with monster trucks is they require too much arena space that could be filled with adoring supplicants. Trump loves to brag about his crowd size.

“Bloodbath.” Just a metaphor! Ann Coulter would roll her eyes, toss her hair, and sigh, “It was only a joke.” (Trump doesn’t dare toss his hair.)

Right. And if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore? Also a metaphor. Like the insurrection that followed. Hilarious!

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MAGA Republicans can dish it out but they can’t take it

President Biden’s fiery SOTU hurt MAGA feelings. Axios has it:

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden‘s “divisive” speech.

Why it matters: Emmer argued Biden’s remarks were a “hyper-partisan” campaign speech, telling Axios the president should not be invited to address Congress next year if he’s elected to a second term.

What they’re saying: The Minnesota Republican said he’s bullish on former President Trump‘s odds of defeating Biden in November, but felt Biden’s speech should have had a more unifying tone.

• “That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get,” Emmer said during an interview at the House GOP retreat.
• “He’s not going to be there next year — it’ll be a different president. But I think you’ve got to rethink issuing invitations for a State of the Union if it’s not going to be a State of the Union, and that was not. That was a campaign speech,” he added.

They’re aborting the State of the Union?

Emmer’s demand came after Biden’s March 7 speech. Others in his caucus wanted to abort it.

Axios reminds readers. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced a bill in late February to keep Biden from being invited to address the Congress if his budget and national security strategy is late to arrive.

Ernst: Because of that, we want to stop him from actually delivering the state of the union. pic.twitter.com/7mVhb10brp

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 4, 2024

On Super Tuesday, MSNBC reported:

Rep. Scott Perry raised the specter of rescinding Biden’s invitation. “He comes at the invitation of Congress, and Republicans are in control of the House,” the Pennsylvania Republican told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo. “There’s no reason that we need to invite him to get more propaganda.”

Glass jaws on that side of the aisle. Decorum for thee but not for me. Democrats laughed at the Georgia Peach Queen of decorum last May when she called for it after her past heckling of Biden’s SOTU.

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The WSJ:

Influential economic advisers to Donald Trump presented the former president with a shortlist of potential candidates to lead the Federal Reserve during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last week, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the Thursday meeting, Steve Moore and Arthur Laffer, who have long advised Trump on economic issues, recommended three candidates: Kevin Warsh, an economic-policy adviser to President George W. Bush who later served on the Fed’s board of governors; Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, and Laffer himself. Laffer, an economic adviser to former President Ronald Reagan, is one of the founding theorists of supply-side economics and a champion of the 2017 tax cuts Trump signed into law.

I’m not familiar with Warsh but he sounds like the most normal of the three. Hasset is a Trump loyalist and Laffer is a full-blown crank.

I wrote about his so-called economic success for Salon a bit ago. Laffer and Moore are heavily involved in the conomic side of Project 2025. It’s not good:

Trump’s determination to lower taxes for the rich is a given. Everything he does is first and foremost for himself and he won’t even try to rationalize it. It’s unlikely that the rest of the party can get away with that, so they’ll no doubt return to their perennial excuse — the federal budget deficit as a reason to lower taxes, even though that makes no sense. 

That tired old saw goes back to the Reagan administration which popularized a quack theory called “supply side economics” championed by economist Arthur Laffer. He claimed that the more you cut taxes the greater the revenue to the government. Even then everyone knew it was ridiculous. Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, actually spilled the beans to journalist William Greider, telling him, “It’s kind of hard to sell ‘trickle down, so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really ‘trickle down.’ Supply-side is ‘trickle-down’ theory.” Trump gave Arthur Laffer the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.

Today another supply side guru, Stephen Moore, formerly of the Club for Growth, has co-authored the Project 2025 economic plan to completely “reform” the U.S. Treasury. He’s pushing to privatize Social Security which Trump has never explicitly ruled out and told The Guardian, “Yes, I am strongly in favor of cutting tax rates to make [the] American economy No 1.” And this would presumably be in addition to extending the Trump tax cuts from 2017 which are up for renewal next year. 

Just this week, we’ve received some important data on the effect of those tax cuts and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that they did not pay for themselves or deliver the thousands of dollars in increased wages to workers as promised. The New York Times reports:

Instead, they are adding more than $100 billion a year to America’s $34 trillion-and-growing national debt, according to the quartet of researchers from Princeton University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University and the Treasury Department.

The researchers found the cuts delivered wage gains that were “an order of magnitude below” what Trump officials predicted: about $750 per worker per year on average over the long run, compared to promises of $4,000 to $9,000 per worker.

The new paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, examines 18 developed countries — from Australia to the United States — over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015. The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn’t, and then examined their economic outcomes. 

Per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn’t, the study found. 

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

This is nothing but a giveaway to their rich benefactors. It’s a con that’s been working beautifully for 50 years. 

Don the Con will surely keep that going. It’s what he does.

The GOPers want to cancel Joe Biden’s Stare of the Union speeches because he’s so divisive. You really can’t make this stuff up:

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden‘s “divisive” speech.

 Emmer argued Biden’s remarks were a “hyper-partisan” campaign speech, telling Axios the president should not be invited to address Congress next year if he’s elected to a second term.

The Minnesota Republican said he’s bullish on former President Trump‘s odds of defeating Biden in November, but felt Biden’s speech should have had a more unifying tone.

“That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get,” Emmer said during an interview at the House GOP retreat.

“He’s not going to be there next year — it’ll be a different president. But I think you’ve got to rethink issuing invitations for a State of the Union if it’s not going to be a State of the Union, and that was not. That was a campaign speech,” he added.

Emmer is not the first Republican to float blocking Biden from giving the annual speech, with multiple members having sought to prevent the president from speaking this year.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced a bill aimed at barring Biden from delivering the speech unless he submitted his budget and national security proposal on time.

Former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) called for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to rescind his invitation unless Biden took stronger action to address securing the border.

As political polarization has grown, the State of the Union has become an increasingly tense and partisan affair — with Republicans heckling Biden each of the last two years.

This silly “I know you are but what am I” trolling is so, so tiresome. These people are juvenile hooligans but it’s Biden’s fault because he made them do it. And this includes leaders like Tom Emmer who was reputed to be a mature adult in the room.

Many of the remaining semi-normal Republicans have had enough. Colorado right winger ken Buck announced last year that he wouldn’t run for re-election and just last week announced that he wasn’t even going to stay for the rest of the term. Kevin McCarthy checked out early too:

In the House, several Republicans who’ve announced retirements or resignations are longtime lawmakers like Buck known for adhering to congressional norms and traditions rather than the more disruptive tactics of the far right. Some of the GOP retirees in both chambers have expressed concerns about the increasingly Trump-centric and partisan direction their party is taking. And multiple lawmakers who are retiring have cited general congressional dysfunction, from difficulty passing major legislation to petty infighting, as a central reason for their departure.

“I’m sure the leadership chaos on the Republican side is not helping keep members in Congress,” Kyle Kondik, a political analyst and managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia, told Vox in December. “Overall, though, the House just does not seem like a very pleasant place to be.”

No it certainly doesn’t seem like a pleasant place to be.

The Trump campaign has urged people to consider the full context of his “bloodbath” comments…

So we did: pic.twitter.com/mzj6W5EX7b

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) March 17, 2024

Dan Pfeiffer makes this observation about Trump’s grotesque behavior:

The man who tried to violently overturn the election promising a “bloodbath” if he loses sparked alarm across the political spectrum. Trump supporters argued that the former President was speaking specifically about the auto industry. Some pundits chastised Democrats — including the Biden campaign — for taking Trump out of context.

This is overly pedantic idiocy.

Following the logic of any Trump speech is nearly impossible. The comment came during a section about Chinese competition in car manufacturing, so maybe he was taken out of context. But that’s so far beyond the point. Much like his legal strategy, Trump is trying to get off on a technicality. The bloodbath comment is not new nor is it out of character. If you are arguing that Trump didn’t really mean bloodbath, you lost the forest for the trees a long time ago. He has threatened violence if he gets convicted or loses the election. Just a few weeks ago, Trump warned there would be a “civil war” in the U.S. if he lost.

Either way, Trump has political violence on the brain. At the rally, Trump saluted as an alternative version of the national anthem. This anthem was originally performed by criminals convicted of assaulting the Capitol on January 6th and recorded by phone from prison. That sentence is almost too ridiculous to be true, but it sadly is. The anthem from the J6 Choir played after the announcement urged the audience to “please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated Jan. 6 hostages.”

There’s nothing new in Trump’s bloodbath comment. We know what he meant. Any sentient being gets it. It’s a threat.

In 2016, Trump’s campaign consultant Roger Stone said Trump should warn of “widespread civil disobedience,” a “bloodbath,” and that “the government will be shut down” if Trump lost the election. pic.twitter.com/khRgRi91ER

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) March 17, 2024

That wasn’t the only twisted thing Trump did at his rally last weekend, though. Here’s one memorable moment:

Trump salutes while playing an alternative national anthem at his rally, featuring violent January 6 insurrectionists: Please rise for the unfairly treated January 6 hostages pic.twitter.com/dbpCHTE6OU

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 16, 2024

What Trump is doing is very dangerous. Sure, a President pardoning people who committed crimes on his behalf is bad for democracy and the rule of law. However, the real danger of promising pardons to people who commit political violence is that it will beget more violence. Trump is promising a “get out of jail free” card to people who act violently on his behalf. Imagine how someone hopped up on Right Wing propaganda and conspiracy theories might act if they have no fear of legal accountability and the hope of being hailed a hero by Trump.

Ultimately, this is how we should frame Trump’s pardon promise and dangerous rhetoric around future political violence. A Navigator Research poll found that more than 80% of Americans are concerned about political violence today and in the future. Voters also see Republicans — and Trump — as more prone to political violence. Independents say Republicans are more prone to political violence than Democrats by a 15-point margin.

The best argument is not that Trump was responsible for January 6th, but that he is actively encouraging similar political violence.

CBS News poll found that nearly 80% of voters disapprove of the actions of the people who entered the Capitol on January 6th.

He points out that the January 6th rioters are very unpopular with a majority of Americans. Even a MAGA majority disapproves so while he gets big cheers from his ecstatic cult followers at his rallies, most Republicans don’t see them as heroes.

On the other hand, according to a CBS poll only one third of his coalition explicitly doesn’t want them pardoned but I guess those are the voters he keeps saying he doesn’t need.

How to Make Trump Pay

Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous for democracy, but also provides a big opportunity for Democrats, especially with the voters Trump needs to win in November. A Data for Progress poll found that 57% of Independents are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports the January 6th attack.

Here are some quick thoughts on how make the case:

Trump’s Support of Violence is an Example of His Extremism: Pardoning and saluting people who commit political violence is evidence of a dangerous level of extremism. These are candidates who will ban abortion, contraception, and IVF and cut Social Security and Medicare. January 6th and democracy are not top of mind for every voter, but Trump’s position on those issues can open the door to other arguments about the dangers of his extremism.

Trump is Focused on Himself: I haven’t seen any polling about Trump pardoning January 6th rioters on day one, but I am 100% positive that it would be incredibly unpopular. One of the best arguments against Trump is that he is only running for President to help himself, reward his friends and punish his enemies. Trump’s pledge to pardon violent criminals before helping the rest of us really helps tell that story.

Be Detailed About January 6th: Late last year, Bryan Bennett of Navigator Research outlined some advice on how to talk about January 6th. Here are the most resonating statements:

More than 2,000 rioters ultimately broke into the Capitol, many of whom vandalized and looted parts of the building (69 percent true, 72 percent concerning);

Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted by rioters (64 percent true, 71 percent concerning);

Five people died as a result of the events on January 6th, including Capitol police officers (60 percent true, 75 percent concerning); and,

More than a thousand people have been arrested for their actions on January 6th (62 percent true, 66 percent concerning).

He also says that they should highlight the pledge to pardon them on Day 1 which shows that he puts a greater priority on that than the issues most of them care about.

Focusing on the January 6th stuff sounds right to me. I happened to be in a room with some civilians (non-political types) when that footage of the January 6th national anthem intro came on with Trump saluting the insurrectionist choir and when I drew their attention to it they were gobsmacked. A lot of people really are not aware of just how radical he’s become on this subject. They need to know.

Also, in case you are wondering if Trump means it when he says he wants to be a dictator.

Caught on hot mic — Trump: "[Kim Jung Un] speaks and his people sit-up in attention. I want my people to do the same”pic.twitter.com/8QTPM7VXzG

— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) March 17, 2024

This has made very clear what he wants and this time he believes he’s going to get it.

He just can’t quit January 6th

Trump salutes while playing an alternative national anthem at his rally, featuring violent January 6 insurrectionists: Please rise for the unfairly treated January 6 hostages pic.twitter.com/dbpCHTE6OU

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 16, 2024

The loss of the 2020 election was such a blow to Trump’s fragile psyche that he perpetuated the Big Lie and tried to overturn the election culminating in his incitement to insurrection on January 6th. He can’t let it go even though it constantly reminds the nation of the worst day of his presidency:

The rallies start with a recording of January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. Campaign staff hand out pre-made “Too Big to Rig” signs to supporters. When the candidate takes the stage, he calls the rioters “people who love our country” and “hostages unfairly imprisoned for long periods of time.”

There is nothing subtle about how central Donald Trump has made January 6, 2021, to his campaign. More than just continuing to feed denialism and conspiracies about the 2020 election, he is constantly distorting the reality of what happened that day, preaching vindication to his base of voters.

In ways big and small – but often overlooked because they have become so commonplace at his events –  the former president glosses over the violence. He promises pardons for the people who committed it.

On this, Trump and President Joe Biden agree: January 6 itself is a central issue of the 2024 campaign and will be even if Trump’s trials on related indictments get delayed past Election Day.

It’s Biden’s campaign aides who have been surprised how much that’s true.

“People know what happened on January 6,” said Mike Donilon, one of Biden’s closest advisers. “I think most of the country is going to say, ‘We don’t embrace political violence. We do embrace democracy. We do embrace the rule of law. We’re not interested in pardoning people who ransacked the Capitol, and we’re going to have a real problem supporting someone who embraces all that.’”

Though Donilon and a few others — including Vice President Kamala Harris, in private conversations to CNN — had been adamant for three years that January 6 would continue reverberating, Biden aides use words like “stunning” to describe the way Trump has not just kept January 6 present, but burrowed ever deeper into conspiracy theories that are embraced in the right-wing echo chamber but push away more mainstream voters.

And while Biden aides in the Wilmington reelection office have been closely monitoring Trump’s rallies, stockpiling clips for future use to likely pair with the many disturbing videos of the mob breaking down the doors and attacking police, they don’t need to go further than keeping an eye on Trump’s Truth Social account.

“My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” he wrote.

Some Biden aides say they were shocked that January 6 keeps coming up in every focus group, to the point that Democratic operatives these days tend to use words like “indelible image” or “scar tissue” to describe how the memories still hit.

“We were all surprised,” acknowledged one senior Democrat involved with the reelection effort, asking not to be named to describe private strategy development.

“Anyone who is being honest was surprised Jan. 6 continues to be this resonant,” the person added. “But in hindsight, when you combine extreme rhetoric, extreme policy and lasting imagery, that ends up being a pretty powerful memory.”

He thinks a majority of the country is represented by the adoring worshipers at his rallies. He’s wrong.

And I’m not surprised that it’s still resonant and not just because Trump won’t shut up about it. It’s because it was a shocking, unprecedented event that most of us will never forget. Those pictures of people scaling the walls of the capital, beating police and the QAnon Shaman standing at the podium in the US Senate were indelibly imprinted on our minds. Srue, some people remember it fondly as a great day. But most people don’t and Trump is foolish for reminding them of it all the time.

The problem is that most people aren’t paying enough attention to any of this to even know about it. It’s important that we tell them.

In the last months of his presidency he pardoned a bunch of them.

Following up on the post below, here’s an example of how Trump dealt with the “waste, fraud and abuse” which he now says is his actual plan to cut Social Security and Medicare:

In an attempt to clean up comments he made this week about “cutting” entitlement programs, former president Donald Trump has vowed in recent days that he would reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare by targeting waste and fraud in those programs.

However, a review of Trump’s record shows that, in the closing months of his presidency, he used his clemency powers to help several people convicted in major Medicare fraud cases, including commuting the sentence of a man the Justice Department had described as having “orchestrated one of the largest health care fraud schemes in U.S. history.”

In his last year in office, Trump commuted the sentences of at least five people who collectively filednearly $1.6 billion in fraudulent claims through Medicare or Medicaid.

Among them was Judith Negron, the former owner of a Miami-area mental health company who was sentenced in 2011 to 35 years in prison for her role in filing $205 million in fraudulent Medicare claims and ordered to pay more than $87 million in restitution. Trump commuted her sentence in February 2020.

Trump also granted clemency that year to Daniela Gozes-Wagner, a Houston woman who was sentenced in 2019 to 20 years in prison for helping falsely bill more than $28 million in claims to Medicare and Medicaid for medical tests that either never happened or were unnecessary. Those tests supposedly took place at 28 testing facilities that turned out to be empty offices — and prosecutors said Gozes-Wagner went so far as to hire “seat warmers” at those offices who were instructed to notify her if Medicare investigators arrived.

In December 2020, Trump commuted the sentence of Philip Esformes, who had been convicted in 2019 “for his role in the largest health care fraud scheme ever charged by the Justice Department, involving over $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were not provided, were not medically necessary or were procured through the payment of kickbacks,”the department said.

Esformes was sentenced to 20 years in prison — but was freed after serving about 4½ years, after Trump granted him clemency. The White House noted at the time that, while in prison, Esformes was “devoted to prayer” and “in declining health.” Esformes was photographed hosting and dancing at his daughter’s lavish wedding days later.

Last month, Esformes pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud again after being retried on unsettled charges that were not included in Trump’s clemency order. As part of a plea agreement, Esformes was sentenced to the time he had already served.

In the final days of his presidency, Trump granted clemency to Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor who had been sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted for his role in defrauding Medicare out of $42 million; and to John Estin Davis, a Tennessee health-care executive who had been sentenced the year before to 42 months in prison after being convicted for his role in filing over$4.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.

They bought their pardons by hiring Trump cronies to go to bat for them and since Trump completely bypassed the DOJ pardon office vetting process it was easy peasey. And I’m pretty sure Trump would have gotten a taste for himself. He doesn’t do anything for free. The pardon process under Trump was completely corrupt.

Any promises he makes to “protect” Social Security and medicare by “reforming” it means he’s going to cut benefits and/or privatize it for the benefit of the rich guys on Wall Street he needs to help bankroll his campaign.

What did Trump actually do when he was president?

It was so much worse than you remember pic.twitter.com/HlSzUcrMnR

— Luke Zaleski (@ZaleskiLuke) March 17, 2024

This grotesque hagiography of Trump’s allegedly historically successful presidency is beyond parody. Even beyond the horror of his pandemic response was the endless chaos, the terrorist attacks, the massive foreign policy embarrassments, the rampant corruption. It was a shitshow from start to finish.

But apparently people have forgotten what it was like and see him as some sort of benign caretaker at worst which is stunning. He did things. And they weren’t good.

In the wake of his startling announcement that he planned to cut SS and medicare Jonathan Cohn took a look at his actual record:

Instead of imagining how he might govern, you can look at what he actually did — especially on three issues that matter a lot to most Americans.

Trump’s History On Abortion And Obamacare

One of those issues is reproductive rights, which my colleague Alanna Vagianos has covered in depth.

The issue has proved politically toxic for Republicans ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, ending the federal guarantee of abortion rights. In 2022 and 2023, anger over that decision helped save the Democrats from big losses; in 2024, it could help Biden keep his job.

Trump has promised to find a position on reproductive rights that will “make people happy,” as he put it on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But in that same interview, he also said that could mean a federal ban of “a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it.” And according to The New York Times, he has privately told advisers that he thinks a 16-week ban makes sense. Such a ban would apply even in those states that have acted through legislation or constitutional amendment to keep abortion legal.

If you are trying to figure out how Trump would actually approach reproductive rights in a second term, you can try to extrapolate from those statements. Or you could look at what he actually did the last time he was in office: He filled the executive branch and judiciary with conservatives opposed to abortion rights, including the three Supreme Court justices who made the Dobbs majority possible.

“[For] 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it,” Trump said in January at a Fox News “town hall” event. “And I’m proud to have done it.”

A second issue is the future of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Republican attempts to repeal the program in 2017 sparked a furious backlash, and were perhaps the single biggest reason that Democrats took back the House in 2018.

Since then, the program has become more entrenched, with the number of Americans signing up for coverage on its marketplaces at a record level and Medicaid expansion now operating in all but 10 states. Approval of the program has never been higher, according to polling.

Obamacare was a fixture of Trump’s 2016 campaign rhetoric, and was frequently the first thing he mentioned in speeches. He has been less vocal about it this time around, though he has also said that Republicans should “never give up” on repeal and that he’s currently “looking at alternatives” to the existing program.

Here, too, you can try to discern a position or commitment in these statements. Or you can look at what Trump actually did when he was in office, when he spent nearly his first full year trying to wipe the program off the books.

Those repeal bills that provoked all the public anger? They had his full support. And despite his promises of “great health care” with “insurance for everybody,” the actual legislation he tried desperately to push through Congress would have likely left millions more uninsured and dramatically rolled back protections for people with preexisting conditions.

Trump’s History On Prescription Drug Prices

A common element between the abortion and Obamacare issues has been Trump’s deference to Republican leaders and their allies, whether it was letting the right-wing Federalist Society hand-pick court nominees or turning the details of ACA repeal over to anti-government, pro-market crusaders like then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

That’s not quite the case for a third issue: prescription drug prices.

Trump has demonstrated a real willingness to break with conservatives — and conservative orthodoxy — by attacking the drug industry. As president, he put forward a series of executive actions that many analysts thought might reduce drug prices at the margins. (His administration rushed them through the regulatory process and courts ended up blocking several.)

But Trump had a chance to do a lot more. In 2020, Democrats used their control of the House to pass a sweeping bill that would have given the federal government far more power to set drug prices. Over in the Senate, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) put together bipartisan legislation that, although weaker than the House version, could have been the basis for a House-Senate compromise on lowering prices for millions.

Their bill never got to the Senate floor, because Republicans controlled the chamber and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader from Kentucky, wouldn’t allow it. Trump could have pressured GOP leadership in the Senate to relent. He didn’t. He also backed off earlier, campaign-era promises to endorse the kinds of reforms that were in the House bill.

That wasn’t the end of the story for prescription drug reform. When Biden became president and Democrats got full control of Congress for two years, they passed a version of the 2020 House bill. And it has started to take effect. The federal government is negotiating with drug manufacturers over what Medicare will pay for 10 high-cost pharmaceuticals, while seniors for the first time have protections against catastrophic out-of-pocket costs.

Biden has proposed building on those reforms — for example, by making more drugs subject to direct price negotiations. Prominent Republicans want to go in the opposite direction and are already talking about repealing the negotiation provision. They are also talking about national abortion bans, as well as changes to Medicaid and private insurance regulation that look a lot like Obamacare repeal, even if they aren’t using that name.

That’s what he did (or didn’t do) during his first term, the golden MAGA years everyone is so anxious to repeat. And they ended with a disastrous response to the once in a century threat of the COVID pandemic. Don’t forget what really happened.

By the way, guess who was totally on top of the pandemic threat?

Don’t you wish that guy had been in charge when COVID hit?

Q: Do you think a national abortion ban could be politically acceptable?

Trump: We're going to find out pic.twitter.com/x8gPoQvliF

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 17, 2024

Trump: We did a lot of things by killing Roe

Fox reporter: Your justices to the Supreme Court made that possible

Trump: They did. They did something that is extremely good pic.twitter.com/fe187QY0eb

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 17, 2024

This is serious. From last month in the NY Times:

Former President Donald J. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations.

Mr. Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the middle of 2022, galvanizing Democrats ahead of the midterm elections that year. He has said in private that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest is over to publicly discuss his views, because he doesn’t want to risk alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination, the two people said.

Mr. Trump has approached abortion transactionally since becoming a candidate in 2015, and his current private discussions reflect that same approach.

One thing Mr. Trump likes about a 16-week federal ban on abortions is that it’s a round number. “Know what I like about 16?” Mr. Trump told one of these people, who was given anonymity to describe a private conversation. “It’s even. It’s four months.”

He tries to twist himself into a pretzel on this but there’s no way out. He did it and he wants to take credit for it but he doesn’t want the blame for the political fallout. But there’s nothing he can do.

Even if they aren’t wearing a red hat or waving a giant Trump flag

A good rule of thumb from Never Trumper Mike Madrid:

Let me offer some advice when you’re talking to Republican friends, family & neighbors about not voting for Trump. This is how you can tell who is and isn’t voting for Trump.

If someone says “I really don’t like the way he handles himself and his offensive tweets but I like his policies” that person is a Trump voter.

This person knows what they’re doing is wrong but they’re rationalizing the behavior they know is wrong. 

If someone says “I don’t like Trump or his policies but no way I’d ever vote for Biden” this person is a Trump voter.

This person doesn’t care, even enjoys doing the wrong thing and won’t be bothered by being forced to answer for it or think about it. 

If someone says “January 6th was the breaking point for me” or “Trump is mentally unfit” or “He’s dangerous”

This voter has broken the fever swamp. Expect 1 in 10 Republicans to respond this way.

They’re there but don’t be fooled by the first two. They’re Trumpers. 

Among the first two are virtually all GOP officials. Well, except for most of Trump’s former cabinet. The people who know him best. They’re in the third category.