Governing is hard . . . as Trump is about to find out.
By Robert Hubbell
(I encourage you to visit Hubbell’s Substack blog and subscribe.)
I am circling back to events that occurred late last week and over the weekend. Others have discussed these developments fully, especially Donald Trump’s first “sit down” interview as president-elect. See, for example, Jay Kuo on Substack, Status Kuo, The Interview. I recommend Jay Kuo’s article for a detailed analysis of Trump’s lies during his first formal interview as president-elect.
As Kuo describes in his essay, Trump touched on five major topics:
- He vowed to end birthright citizenship under the US Constitution.
- He is still exploring “concepts of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act;
- He acknowledged that his threatened tariffs might contribute to inflation;
- He threatened the January 6 Committee members with imprisonment while pledging to pardon January 6 insurrectionists;
- He threatened to “send them all back,” referring to ten million immigrants whom he believes are subject to immediate detention and deportation.
Trump’s threats outlined above will cause tens of millions of Americans to experience fear and anxiety and will inflict financial and emotional hardship on innocent family members. While that damage must never be minimized, we must also recognize that Trump’s threats–collectively and individually—portend a disastrous start to his second term.
If he is stupid enough to follow through on his threats (and he is), they will provide Democrats, Independents, and shell-shocked Republicans with a common platform to resist and obstruct Trump’s agenda, and punish his party.
Although NBC published a post-interview fact check and Kristen Welker pushed back against many of Trump’s falsehoods, Welker and NBC gave Trump plenty of airtime to repeat his outrageous lies.
Giving Trump that platform is journalistic malpractice—one that the major networks and cable outlets commit again and again. Readers sent me several dozen copies of David Pepper’s criticisms of the NBC interview: See Pepperspectives (on Substack), Platforming Disinformation – by David Pepper.
David Pepper prescribes the only rational approach to interviewing Trump (an approach not followed by Kristen Welker):
I’ll re-make the simple suggestion I made [when NBC interviewed Trump over a year ago]: Never move on from the FIRST lie until Trump acknowledges it’s a lie.
NEVER.
Literally….end the interview rather than moving onto the next topic.
Why does this matter?
Because Trump and other dishonest subjects go into these interviews KNOWING they can get away with endless lying, for two reasons.
First, in many cases, most of the lies are not even fact-checked.
Second, even if they are fact checked, the liar KNOWS that the interviewer’s goal is to get through a long list of questions. That list of questions, more than truth itself, becomes the goal of the interview.
David Pepper is absolutely correct! Unless journalists are willing to do the real work of holding Trump accountable for his lies, they are providing a platform for those lies.
Back to my thesis: Each of Trump’s threats mentioned during the NBC interview will sow the seeds of MAGA’s defeat. For example, Trump wrongly claims that he can “end” birthright citizenship—a right explicitly guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. His proposal has been met with derision and scorn by legal scholars, who have described Trump’s theory as a “lunatic fringe argument” and akin to believing in “unicorns.”
But that won’t stop Trump from issuing an unconstitutional executive order that will immediately cloud the status of legal residency, employment, Social Security benefits, healthcare, and unemployment insurance for tens of millions of Americans. Many millions of those American citizens likely voted for Trump in the mistaken belief that his lunacy would be directed at other people.
Trump intentionally ratcheted up the fear factor by saying that his termination of birthright citizenship should not “break up families.” Instead, Trump proposes to deport everyone in the family in which only some members have birthright citizenship.
Deportation based on “guilt by association” is extraordinarily unlikely to happen, but it did not stop Trump from making the threat during the interview and frightening millions of American families in which some, but not all, of the family members are US citizens by birth.
The same cruelty is embedded in Trump’s massive deportation plan, which he has previously acknowledged will sweep in US citizens or legal residents entitled to remain in the US.
Even Trump knows he went too far in his interview bombast. He was forced to acknowledge during the interview that his tariffs “might” contribute to inflation—a statement that is as close as Trump ever comes to an admission that he is wrong.
Moreover, on Monday, a Trump spokesperson went further in attempting to “walk back” one of Trump’s statements about jailing members of the January 6 Committee. The unusual move by Trump came after some of Trump’s stalwart allies in the legal world blasted Trump for claiming that members of the January 6 Committee should be imprisoned.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington School of Law and a frequent defender of Trump during impeachment hearings, said the following on Fox “news”:
The fact, however, is that there is no viable criminal case to be made against the J6 Committee members for their investigation or report. We need to move beyond the rage rhetoric if this country is going to come together to face the tough challenges ahead.
Trump spokesperson Jason Miller tried to dispute the clear implication of Trump’s threat against the J6 Committee members by saying that Trump only wants “the law to be applied equally to everyone” and that the decision would be left up to law enforcement officials, including Kash Patel.
Of course, Jason Miller did not acknowledge that Kash Patel (nominee for FBI) has a political enemies list that includes every prominent member of the January 6 Committee.
If Trump follows through with his threat to pursue that January 6 Committee, his effort will crash and burn—even if it makes its way to the compromised and corrupt Roberts’ reactionary majority. The work of the January 6 Committee is absolutely protected by the Speech and Debate Clause of the US Constitution.
Finally, Trump’s pledge to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists is a lose-lose proposition for Trump. If he pardons all of them (unlikely) he will pardon dozens of insurrectionists who attacked and inflicted serious injuries on dozens of law enforcement officers. If Trump pardons fewer than all of the insurrectionists, he will be viewed as having broken his promise and betrayed his most violent supporters among the January 6 mob. As I said, lose, lose.
Here’s my point: Trump is in the “talking tough, consequence free” portion of his post-election fantasy tour. As soon as he attempts to act on any of his anti-democratic, “lunatic fringe,” family-busting threats, the consequences of his cruelty will dominate the airwaves non-stop. And that will horrify Americans and weaken Trump politically.
I expect that many readers will disagree with my analysis. But the Trump team has already seen this train coming down the tracks, which is why Jason Miller has started to walk-back some of Trump’s comments and Trump has himself acknowledged that tariffs will raise prices in the US.
I believe that Trump has overplayed his hand. Yes, he will carry through with some of his threats and will inflict pain on millions of Americans. That tragic state of affairs will be our opening to convince the majority of Americans that Trump and his party of enablers are toxic to democracy.