A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
New Jingoism Same as the Old Jingoism
The last 30 years or so have been a relative retreat from more than a century of jingoistic U.S. interference in Latin America, but it increasingly appears that the Trump administration is eager to resurrect the old U.S. playbook. If history is any guide, it’ll be a return to paternalistic interference in internal affairs, destabilizing existing regimes, and generally creating a political, economic, and social mess before washing its hands of it all and walking away … before repeating the cycle.
While the recent lawless U.S. attacks on alleged drug-running boats on the high seas have serious legal implications, I’m afraid it’s part of a larger more important story of trying to turn Venezuela into a villain country in which Trump (not unlike many American leaders before him) fancies himself as savior, local sheriff, and bad ’80s movie tough guy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a Trump administration push to turn Venezuela into a pariah state, including amping up military pressure to try to force out President Nicolás Maduro, the NYT reports:
The U.S. military has been planning potential military operations targeting drug trafficking suspects in Venezuela itself as a next phase, although the White House has not yet approved such a step, current and former officials say.
Those operations would be aimed at interfering with drug production and trafficking in Venezuela as well as tightening a vise around Mr. Maduro.
Two senior figures in the Venezuelan opposition movement claim there have already been talks with the Trump administration about a post-Maduro future.
Semantic games are already being played to tout the operation not as regime change but as a “counternarcotics operation.”
“The U.S. is engaged in a counterdrug-cartel operation, and any claim that we are coordinating with anyone on anything other than this targeted effort is completely false,” a State Department spokesperson told the NYT.
Not How the Chain of Command Is Supposed to Work
White House deputy chief Stephen Miller has taken a leading role in the directing the unlawful U.S. attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats off Venezuela, The Guardian reports.
The strikes have been orchestrated through the White House homeland security council. which Miller leads, according to the report.
Are Military Lawyers Being Sidelined?
Former Army JAG Dan Maurer, now a law professor, writes that the unprecedented U.S. attacks on alleged drug-running boats “raise serious questions about the availability and effectiveness of government lawyers throughout the chain of command who would have—or should have—raised red flags before this operation commenced.”
Trump Sending National Guard to Illinois Over Objections
A small contingent of 100 National Guard troops has been called up in Illinois by the federal government over the objections of Gov. JB Pritzker (D).
How Fox News Used Old Portland Footage to Snooker Trump
The proximate catalyst for President Trump’s announcement that he was deploying National Guard troops to Portland appears to have been Fox News segments the day before that used B-roll footage of civil unrest there in the summer of 2020.
Good Read
TPM’s Josh Kovensky: DHS Had a Program to Stop Political Violence. Trump Largely Abandoned It.
DOJ Purge Totals Start To Add Up
At least a third of senior career leaders have left the Justice Department since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, at least 107 out of roughly 320 career leadership positions, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.
Trump DOJ Ratchets Up Project To Snag State Voter Rolls
TPM’s Khaya Himmelman takes a closer look at the Trump DOJ’s lawsuit against eight states seeking to force them to cough up their voter rolls.
Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed: Still Gunning for Harvard
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on the Trump attacks on higher education. I regret to inform you that the performative assaults, structural dismantling, and anticipatory obedience continue apace:
- Harvard: The Department of Health and Human Services has informed Harvard University that it has initiated the process of “debarring” the school from receiving federal grants over the trumped up claims that it abetted anti-semitism on campus. “Debarment is the government’s formal way of blacklisting contractors,” the NYT notes.
- “The White House is developing a plan that could change how universities are awarded research grants, giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters,” the WaPo reports.
- Texas Tech: Faculty were informed Friday that they “must comply” with President Trump’s executive order recognizing only male and female genders
Painful to Read
WaPo: Children died while waiting for life-saving drugs due to Trump’s suspension of USAID foreign aid.
Trump Moves to Further Defang Inspectors General
Last week a federal judge in D.C. declined to reinstate the eight inspector generals fired by President Trump earlier this year even though she agreed the terminations were unlawful.
This week comes word that the Trump OMB is cutting off funding as of tomorrow for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the umbrella organization for the government’s 72 inspectors general.
Judge Rips Into Kari Lake
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth temporarily blocked the layoffs of more than 500 employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, most of them from Voice of America, while warning that the Trump administration’s defiance of his orders could have been sanctionable.
Lamberth ultimately declined to pursue contempt against officials, but he ripped Kari Lake, a senior official at USAGM, writing that “her brazen disinterest in the unambiguous statutory obligations implicates her competence to implement the President’s directives in a manner consistent with fundamental tenets of administrative law.”
YouTube Kisses Trump’s Ring
YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle Donald Trump lawsuit against it for suspending his account after the 2021 coup attempt that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump’s $22 million share of the settlement will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall for the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House, the WSJ reports.
Better or Worse Than You Expected?
As a thought experiment, Jonathan V. Last compares how bad he was expecting things to get back in November with how bad things have actually gotten in the first eight months of the Trump II presidency. His conclusion: We are in the worst-case scenario.
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