Month: February 2026

So what if the Court said that the Constitution gives the power to Congress? He’s going to find whatever work-arounds he needs to keep doing it himself.

Meanwhile, his tariff scheme is a dismal failure and will continue to be one as he attempts to use it as a weapon and political took for his own, obscure purposes. Daniel Dale at CNN:

Two new pieces of economic data, one released Thursday and one released Friday, blew another hole in President Donald Trump’s triumphant narrative about the effects of his tariffs.

The figures released early Thursday showed Trump had wildly overstated the impact of the tariffs on the trade deficit. The figures released early Friday showed he also had wildly exaggerated economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2025.

[…]

Trump has for years highlighted the trade deficit – the difference between the value of US imports and exports – as a supposed example of how the US is being “ripped off” by other countries. (Many economists disagree with his characterization.) On Wednesday evening, he posted a celebratory message on social media.

“THE UNITED STATES TRADE DEFICIT HAS BEEN REDUCED BY 78% BECAUSE OF THE TARIFFS BEING CHARGED TO OTHER COMPANIES AND COUNTRIES,” the all-caps post began.

The next morning, though, the Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed the actual 2025 trade deficit in goods and services. It was nearly identical to the 2024 deficit, down just 0.2% — nowhere close to Trump’s professed “78%” decline. And the trade deficit in goods, the items subject to Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, was up 2.1% compared to 2024.

Th 78% number was for an anomaly for the one month of October, the result of some dramatic fluctuations in gold and pharmaceuticals. It’s a meaningless statistic. I would hope that businesses and Wall St. understand by now that his numbers are fantasies. And needless to say, the tariffs are not paid by foreign countries. They are paid by American companies and consumers.

5. A visual look at analyses of the impact of tariffs.

— How To Read This Chart (@howtoreadthisch.art) 2026-02-17T16:04:10.649Z

Economic growth?

Trump told the World Economic Forum in late January that “fourth-quarter growth is projected to be 5.4%, far greater than anybody other than myself and a few others had predicted.” He specified in a Cabinet meeting and a Wall Street Journal op-ed later in January that he was referring to a projection for the fourth quarter of 2025 from a model run by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Then, in an early-February interview with NBC, he made it sound like 5.6% growth had already been achieved, saying, “I’m very proud of it: 5.6%. You know, we have a GDP of 5.6 despite a shutdown.”

By the time of the op-ed, the Cabinet meeting and the interview, though, the Atlanta Fed’s model was down to a projection of 4.2% fourth-quarter 2025 growth. Various other forecasts were even lower than that. And contrary to Trump’s comment to NBC, forecasts aren’t reality.

The figures released Friday show just how far from reality his “5.6%” claim was. The economy actually grew at an annualized rate of just 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, much slower than the 4.4% growth in the third quarter of 2025.

Aaaand:

The US economy grew at just 2.2% in 2025, new full-year figures showed — lower than in every year of the Biden administration and every year of the first Trump administration other than 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The economy was on the rebound when Biden was in office. Trump made it worse. That’s the bottom line. And he plans to continue doing so.

“All of these things I know so well.”

I kept rewatching Donald Trump read from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent yesterday in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. _ (2026) for the laughs. We witnessed Trump in real time attempt to spin a crushing defeat into a stunning victory.

"We have learned what happened in the room when Trump found out about the SCOTUS tariff ruling. He became enraged, called the ruling a 'disgrace, these effing (actual expletive deleted) courts.' This could not be a bigger loss for him." pic.twitter.com/zofHKx9zi0

— Lesley Abravanel 🪩 (@lesleyabravanel) February 20, 2026

Trump — who is very good at reading language (just ask him) — quoted Kavanaugh (in italics):

Our country is the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. And it was a dead country one and a half years ago under an incompetent president. Now I’m going to go in a different direction. Probably the direction I should have gone the first time. But I read the language. I’m very good at reading langauge. And it went our way 100 percent. And now I will go the direction should have gone originally, which is even stronger than our original choice.

As Justice Kavanugh — his stock has gone so up, you have to see, I’m so proud of him — he wrote in his dissent,

Although I firmly disagree with the Court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President’s ability to order tariffs going forward.…

So, think of that.

the decision might not substantially constrain….

And it doesn’t. He is right. In fact, I could charge much more than I was charging.

Although I firmly disagree with the Court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President’s ability to order tariffs going forward. That is because numerous other federal statutes….

Which is so true.

authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs issued in this case ….

Even more tariffs, actually.

Those statutes include….

Think of that.

Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232)

All of these things I know so well.

[Pause for riotous laughter.]

This idiot perpetually sounds like a kid trying to bluff his way through an oral report on a book he didn’t read.

Take a laugh break

Flex your sense of humor. You’re gonna need it. Also: Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I tell people who see me dancing on street corners or on an expressway overpass, it’s an attention economy. Get some or go home. Friday, I wore a pressed, salmon-colored oxford shirt and a white, Nike golf hat. I told a cluster of skateboarders it was hippie camouflage.

The Oregonian:

At least eight members of the amphibious group, which gained fame after wearing inflatable frog suits to ICE protests last fall, will be heading to Washington, D.C., to be among the headliners for the State of the Swamp, an alternative event to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

Organizers are calling the State of the Swamp event “The Rebuttal to the State of the Union,” with the Portland Frog Brigade tweaking that to “The Ribbital.”

[…]

Dozens of celebrities, politicians and activists are lined up to speak or appear, from Robert De Niro and Mark Ruffalo to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The event, set for 4 p.m. Tuesday at the National Press Club, can be live streamed at Defiance.org.

“Boycott Trump’s speech,” a banner on that group’s website says. “Join our party.”

Anat Shenker-Osorio regularly advises that if you want people to join your party, throw a better party. Working on that.

On the whole James Talarico/Colbert/Christianity thing pic.twitter.com/SIn4dXNqXq

— Trae Crowder (@traecrowder) February 18, 2026

Bit from my last special about Texas politics (this could be the year tho!!) pic.twitter.com/JvKvP5cOw1

— Trae Crowder (@traecrowder) February 20, 2026

The Portland Frogs who drove Trump crazy (the costume-clad protesters he called “insurrectionists”) are coming to DC for his State of the Union. pic.twitter.com/UneQos7jZu

— Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) February 19, 2026

My Olympic hero!!!

Nazgul started the day as just another Italian dog. He'll end it as a #WinterOlympics legend. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/50H3OWpa8q

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 18, 2026

I’m with AV Club here. Give that Very Good Boy a medal!

In what simply has to be the best Nazgul news to hit the public since the dread black riders first rode forth from their dark citadel of Minas Morgul, a Czechoslovakian wolfdog of that name managed to break into the Olympics earlier today, appearing on a ski track during a qualification event for women’s cross-country skiing. And, at the risk of editorializing, we here at The A.V. Club would like to go on the record and suggest that this dog should now be given an Olympic medal—possibly taken from one of his faster but less adorable competitors, if need be.

We’re not saying Nazgul—who apparently lives at a nearby bed and breakfast, and is owned by people “related to an event official,” per NPR—should be given a gold medal, necessarily. But certainly a bronze; he did, after all, complete the event, with Omega, the company whose cameras do finish-line imaging for the Games, releasing a picture of Nazgul crossing the threshhold with absolutely majestic form. Also, listen to this description of the “stubborn but sweet” Olympian from his owners, whose identities are being kept anonymous so as not to have the entire laser-like focus of Dog Internet beamed at their faces: “He was crying this morning more than normal because he was seeing us leaving—and I think he just wanted to follow us. He always looks for people.” He always looks for people, folks! Give the dog silver, at least. (We just looked it up, licking bronze might not be good for dogs.)

Mark Joseph Stern at Slate is normally anything but positive about Chief Justice John Roberts. But he gives him some props for the tariff decision today:

Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the court sends the blunt message that Trump should not expect SCOTUS to rubber-stamp all of his expansions of executive power, no matter how much political pressure he puts on the justices. This rejoinder may be surprising given the Republican-appointed supermajority’s previous tolerance for the president’s assertions of king-like authority. But as Roberts’ crisp, confident opinion explains, allowing the president to impose taxes unilaterally—at least without clear congressional authority—is an existential threat to the very “existence and prosperity” of the nation.

[…]

Should we be shocked that this court—which has, for 13 months, enabled Trump’s abuses of office over the shadow docket—smacked down Trump’s marquee economic policy so emphatically? Not really. For one thing, this case is pretty easy: As Roberts explained, no sensible reading of IEEPA would hand over unlimited tariff authority to the president. Moreover, the business community does not like these tariffs; even the Chamber of Commerce urged the justices to strike them down. The conservative justices are sympathetic toward corporate interests, and did them a favor by ending Trump’s whim-based tariff regime. These justices are also economically literate and must understand that tariffs are bad for the economy. As with Trump’s efforts to fire members of the Federal Reserve, this case gave the conservatives an opportunity to flaunt their independence while delivering a victory to corporate America. From that angle, it’s a pure win-win.

But we should not be entirely cynical about Friday’s ruling. It does take courage for the justices to stand up to the president this way, especially when he has tried to bully them into ruling in his favor. Since Trump returned to the White House, we have wondered whether the Supreme Court could muster enough independence to save our constitutional system from his efforts to consolidate all power in the Oval Office. Too often, SCOTUS has shirked this duty. But there are still some lines it won’t let Trump cross. As Roberts wrote, the Framers viewed taxation as “the one great power upon which the whole national fabric is based.” And in the end, he and his colleagues felt obliged to protect this thread of our national fabric from the man who would unravel it

Yes, it turns out that they don’t like taxes. Surprise. They’re clearly worried that a Democratic president will start unilaterally taxing them. Nonetheless, in protecting the prerogatives of the Congress, they are breaking from their Unitary Executive obsession and it’s just possible that they are finally seeing the wisdom of upholding the checks and balances. They’ve staked some ground with this one and it will be very interesting to see if they continue to relearn the lesson of 250 years ago that it’s a mistake to endow a Mad King with unlimited power.

.@POTUS: “If our new head of the Fed, who I think is going to be great … but if he does the job that he is capable, we can grow at 15% [GDP]. I think more than that.” pic.twitter.com/CLNd1GNWIH

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) February 10, 2026

That’s not going to happen. With all the hoopla around the tariff decision this news has slid under the radar:

U.S. growth slowed more than expected near the end of 2025 as the government shutdown impacted spending and investment, while a key inflation metric showed high prices are still a factor for the economy, according to data released Friday.

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of just 1.4%, according to the Commerce Department, well below the Dow Jones estimate for a 2.5% gain.

Consumer spending increased at a slower pace for the period while government spending tumbled sharply in a quarter marked by the record-length shutdown. The department estimated that the shutdown subtracted about 1 percentage point from growth, though it added that the exact impacts “cannot be quantified.”

For the full year in 2025, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.2% pace, down from the 2.8% increase in 2024.

Trump’s saying that the GDP numbers would be massively better if it weren’t for the shutdown but, of course, he could have done something about that himself and chose to concentrate on his Nobel ambitions and destroying the East Wing instead. And he’s wrong. It may have caused caused some of it but the YUGE growth Trump predicted when he came into office would have off set it if it had actually happened.

Trump’s in a very bad mood after the tariff decisions which means it’s probably more likely he will go ahead and order strikes on Iran. He’s ordered a massive military build-up in the region and they are all just waiting for the go-ahead.

The NY Times’ David Sanger (gift link) reports :

When President George W. Bush began preparing the country for the invasion of Iraq, he traveled the country making the case that Saddam Hussein’s government, and its weapons, posed an unacceptable threat to the United States.

Speaking in Cincinnati’s Union Terminal one October night in 2002, he warned that Iraq could attack the United States “on any given day” with chemical or biological weapons. He compared the urgency of the moment to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, declaring doing nothing was “the riskiest of all options.”

Most of Mr. Bush’s arguments turned out to be fanciful, based on selective intelligence and in some cases outright false claims. The war that followed is now considered by many historians as one of the gravest American strategic errors of modern times.

But if Mr. Bush made a false case, President Trump, facing a decision about whether to unleash a second major military assault on Iran in less than a year, has made almost no case at all.

He’s said it’s about the nuclear program which he previously claimed was “obliterated.” Then he said that he wanted to support the protesters. He’s doing it on behalf of Israel and for oil prices. he’s all over the place.

Mr. Trump has never consistently described his goals, and when he talks about them it is usually in a haze of brief, offhand comments. The president has given no speeches preparing the American public for a strike on a country of about 90 million people, and sought no approval from Congress. He has not explained why he has chosen this moment to confront Iran instead of, for example, North Korea, which in the years after Mr. Trump’s failed negotiations in the first term has expanded its nuclear arsenal to 60 or more warheads, by U.S. intelligence estimates, and is working to demonstrate they can reach the United States.

Mr. Trump’s national security strategy did not mention North Korea once.

And when pressed on Iran, Mr. Trump regularly deflects questions about whether regime change is his true goal, leaving unclear what kind of end-state he seeks — other than an Iran that can never obtain nuclear weapons.

I think he believes that he can topple the regime and claim the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m quite sure Bibi, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the Iran hawks have been feeding him this for months if not years. The problem is that Trump is essentially a coward and on some level he knows that this could hurtle out of control and he could be stuck in a major war which frightens him.

But right now he’s pissed and since he is driven entirely by emotion I think he might just pull the trigger in a fit of pique. (He might have done it anyway, of course.)

I’m not a big fan of the “distraction” theory but if there’s any truth to it, this would certainly be the mother of all distractions.

Read the whole article. This thing is crazy.

I like Greg Sargent’s take:

The Supreme Court’s stunning decision invalidating Donald Trump’s tariffs isn’t just a major legal setback, though it certainly is that. The loss before the high court is also another sign that the pillars of Trump’s right-wing nationalist agenda are crumbling in a much broader and deeper sense—so much so that they’re posing a serious threat to the long-term durability of the ideology known as Trumpism.

If you had to name the two most essential pillars of Trumpian populist nationalism, you’d probably single out his sweeping tariffs and his campaign to deport all undocumented immigrants. The tariffs are supposed to unleash a domestic manufacturing renaissance, and the mass expulsions are designed to ethnically and culturally purify the nation. Together they make up much of the foundation of Trumpism’s fantasy version of nationalist renewal.

Both of those are now in crisis. The tariffs have been broadly invalidated. And in the aftermath of ICE’s invasion of Minneapolis, the deportations of noncriminal undocumented immigrants—while still proceeding—have been widely discredited in the minds of all but the molten MAGA core and face determined resistance all across American culture and society.

I hope this is true. I still worry that it’s all about the egg prices and if costs stabilize and the immigration push leaves the news cycle, people will go back to enjoying the show.

But for today, I’ll take this. I do think that people are seeing him more clearly than they have since January 6th and they don’t like what they see. With Trump promising to continue the tariffs by hook or by crook it’s hard to see how the economy materially improves. (If we have a war with Iran, we can be sure that oil prices are going to spike so it will almost certainly get worse.) The immigration policy is unlikely to change — there just too much money involved now what with the huge detention centers and the billions going to hire misfits to put on a mask and camo to terrify the public. (If you build it they will use it.) So there’s a good chance that people aren’t going to snap back. I hope not.

He will no longer be able to (easily) destroy the economy with his daft tariffs and the Supremes are helping the GOP with the affordability crisis. We knew they would, right?

President Donald Trump paid a price for going it alone on tariffs — with the Supreme Court on Friday delivering a rare rebuke by ruling he lacked the power to declare an economic emergency and launch sweeping new taxes on imports.

Trump had made tariffs the bedrock of his economic pitch to voters going into the midterm elections, even describing tariffs as his “favorite word in the dictionary.” He promised that factories would relocate from overseas and bring jobs with them, and he warned that losing the tariffs could plunge the U.S. into a deep recession.

But Friday’s ruling will most likely prolong political and economic chaos over international trade through the election year.

Trump called the decision “a disgrace” after he was handed a note informing him of the Supreme Court decision during a private meeting with several governors, according to two people with knowledge of the president’s reaction who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Another person, who was briefed on the conversation, disclosed that Trump said he has “to do something about these courts.”

Lol. He practically birthed this entire Court.

They knew this was probably coming and they’re prepared to use some other authorities so he’s not going to give up easily. He loves his tariffs. They are his One Big Economic Idea and he doesn’t really know what else to use as a threat, his only method of negotiation. (Well, there IS the military…. looks like Iran will be the new paradigm for that technique.)

Stay tuned. This should get interesting.

Update: He’s very upset and whining like a little bitch:

Trump: “I didn't want to do anything that would affect the decision of the court…I want to be a good boy." pic.twitter.com/7HpKkKrE0P

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) February 20, 2026

Waaaah!!! Now the gloves are off!

Trump: "I am allowed to cut off any and all trade…I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country, I'm even allowed to impose a foreign country destroying embargo…I can do anything I want to do to them…I'm allowed to destroy the country, but I can't charge a little fee." pic.twitter.com/LZQLJQueuI

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) February 20, 2026

Trump calls "the Democrats on the Court" a "disgrace to our nation" pic.twitter.com/piQbJzspKY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 20, 2026

He said “The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.” That would include two of the ones he appointed, Gorsuch and Barrett.

They did him a favor.His tariff scheme is an epic failure. If he’s just take the L, he’d be a lot better off. But he won’t. He’s determined to add on a bunch of new tariffs under different authorities and throw the economy into further chaos.

This is the problem with someone who can’t ever admit he was wrong.

Update II:

You cannot make this shit up:

Q: "What did you mean a moment ago when you said the Supreme Court was swayed by foreign influence?"

Trump: "I think that foreign interests are represented by people that I believe have undue influence, they have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court." pic.twitter.com/YDlcIXD2mN

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) February 20, 2026

One banana short of a republic

Like Henry Hill’s fondness for gangsters, Donald Trump always wanted to be a dictator. He’s as desperate to be one as he is for a Nobel Peace Prize. The problem is that Trump wants to join a club that wouldn’t have someone like him for a member. So instead he’s gathered other lowlifes and formed his own club:

The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department’s headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them, according to people familiar with the decision and a police report obtained by The New York Times.

The women said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, had touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building on Constitution Avenue. One of the incidents, during working hours on the morning of Dec. 18, was recorded on office security cameras, the people said. The video showed Dr. DeRemer giving one of the women an extended embrace, and was reviewed as part of a criminal investigation, one of the people said.

Okay, so he’s just the husband of a Trump employee. How much of that reflects the character of Secretary Chavez-DeRemer?

Well:

The inspector general’s office is investigating a formal complaint that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate — a member of her security detail — and abusing her office by taking staff to strip clubs, drinking alcohol on the job and taking personal trips at taxpayer expense. Her lawyer has denied the allegations.

Innocent until proven a member of Trump’s cabinet, I say.

During her tenure as labor secretary, thousands of department employees have been pushed out of the federal service. Her department has also broadcast social media messages that echoed those used by white nationalists.

It’s quite a club he’s assembled.