IS TRUMP ABOUT TO CHICKEN OUT ON ANTI-IMMIGRANT RACISM?

I didn't see this coming, though I suppose I should have:

Yes, he really posted this at Truth Social. He actually acknowledged that undocumented workers are hard to replace (though I'm sure he made up the bit about criminals applying for the jobs) and said it would be better to focus on rounding up immigrants who've committed crimes.

This shouldn't be completely surprising because Trump has always listened intently to other old rich white guys, especially old rich white guys who, like him, are in real estate and hospitality, or are in industries familiar to Trump from the world of New York business. An April 2017 New York Times story about the people Trump turned to for advice listed quite a few people in this category: Carl Icahn, a famous New York real estate developer; Steve Roth, head of the New York real estate firm Vornado; Richard LeFrak, the son of a famous New York real estate developer; Stephen Schwarzmann, the CEO of the Blackstone Group; and so on. We should have realized that hospitality moguls would complain to Trump, as would agribusiness moguls, and he'd take the complaints seriously.

We also should have realized that Trump is so ignorant he didn't realize he'd be upsetting these corporate chieftains when he greenlighted Stephen Miller's "arrest them at work" strategy.

I believe Trump is also too ignorant to realize that the vast majority of immigrants he's targeted are hard workers rather than criminals -- Fox News has persuaded the rubes that nearly all of them are criminals, and Trump is one of those rubes. If Trump wants his administration to concentrate on rounding up murderers and gangbangers, he may learn, to his surprise, that locating dangerous criminals and building cases against them is difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming. He won't get his quick daily fix of arrests and deportations if his administration focuses on criminals.

So the administration will probably go right back to accusing every young male immigrant with a tattoo of being a gangbanger psychokiller. That seems the most likely direction in which the administration's policy will go, if there are real changes.

Trump might also be looking at polls showing his numbers dropping on immigration -- he's at 37% approval, 52% disapproval on immigration in a recent Washington Post survey, and he's at 43%/54% in a new Quinnipiac poll.

If we survive the Trump era and his presidency is generally seen as a failure, I warn you that right-wing propagandists will eventually tell us that Trumpian conservatism didn't fail -- Trump failed conservatism. During Elon Musk's anti-Trump temper tantrum, he lamented that the Trump/GOP Big Beautiful Bill would lead America "into debt slavery"; in the future, if Trump really does rein Stephen Miller in, we can expect immigration hard-liners to say that Trump wasn't tough enough on the undocumented, just as he wasn't tough enough on the debt. (Heaven forbid the GOP should raise taxes on rich people.)

Everyone on the right believes that right-wing radicalism can never fail -- it can only be failed. It's possible that Trump will go down in right-wing history as a president who failed the True Cause.

TRUMP CAME INTO OFFICE WISHING A MF'ER WOULD

Two commentators I respect, Anne Applebaum and Jamelle Bouie, believe that Donald Trump is militarizing Los Angeles out of weakness. I don't think that's true.

Under the headline "This Is What Trump Does When His Revolution Sputters," Applebaum writes:

Revolutions have a logic. The revolutionaries start with a big, transformative, impossible goal. They want to remake society, smash existing institutions, replace them with something different....

Inevitably, a crisis appears....

[Trump's] revolutionary project is now running into reality. More than 200 times, courts have questioned the legality of Trump’s decisions.... Judges have ordered the administration to rehire people who were illegally fired. DOGE is slowly being revealed as a failure, maybe even a hoax....

Now Trump faces the same choice as his revolutionary predecessors: Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence. Like his revolutionary predecessors, Trump has chosen radicalization and polarization, and he is openly seeking to provoke violence....

The logic of revolution often traps revolutionaries: They start out thinking that the task will be swift and easy. The people will support them. Their cause is just. But as their project falters, their vision narrows. At each obstacle, after each catastrophe, the turn to violence becomes that much swifter, the harsh decisions that much easier. If not stopped, by Congress or the courts, the Trump revolution will follow that logic too.

Bouie's latest column bears the headline "Trump Wants to Be a Strongman, but He’s Actually a Weak Man." He writes:

The White House clearly believes its actions are a show of strength, but ... they are not. The immediate recourse to repressive force; the inability to handle even modest opposition to its plans; the threats, bullying and overheated rhetoric — it betrays a sense of brittleness and insecurity.

Power, real power, rests on legitimacy and consent. A regime that has to deploy force at the first sign of dissent is a regime that does not actually believe it can wield power short of coercion and open threats of violence....

Americans are not enamored of his signature legislative package, the Big Beautiful Bill. They don’t like his tariffs, nor do they like the actual implementation of his deportation plans. Overall, more Americans say that Trump is fighting against them than say that he is on their side....

The White House wants us to think that Los Angeles is an advance, a forward march for its agenda. But there is the strong possibility that it is actually a tactical retreat to safe ground in the face of a poor strategic landscape.

I don't agree with Bouie that the troop deployment is a response to Trump's poll numbers (which, overall, aren't all that bad). I also don't believe it's a response to frustrations in enacting his agenda, as Applebaum believes. I think Trump would be doing this even if he were at 80% approval. I think he'd be doing it even if his administration's actions were being upheld by every federal court.

Trump reentered the White House like a guy walking into a bar looking for a fight. He's just been waiting for an excuse, because that's how this particular form of toxic masculinity works.

What's the favorite Greek phrase of every right-winger in America, particularly the gun owners?

It's "Molon Labe," translated as "Come and Take It." In recent years, laws in most of America have become more and more accommodating of gun owners, and the Supreme Court has invented an individual constitutional right to gun ownership -- but the gun community preemptively threatens critics if they dare to grab guns. (No one is grabbing guns.) The gun community wants a fight.

That's how this mindset works. It's the mindset that led to the hit country song "Try That in a Small Town":

Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough

Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
'Round here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town

"I recommend you don't"? Bullshit. You're begging someone to do this. You're looking for someone to intimidate.

The (somewhat dated) hip-hop version of this is "I wish a motherfucker would" (sometimes expressed as "I wish a n***a would"). The 1980s right-wing-backlash version is Clint Eastwood's most famous movie line, "Go ahead, make my day." In every case, the message is the same: I'd kill you if you tried to fight me, and that would be fun. So come at me, bro. I'm begging you.

Trump would have been disappointed if his political opponents hadn't given him an excuse to deploy troops. He wants everyone to see him as America's alpha male, which is why he scheduled this coming weekend's military parade weeks ago. This isn't desperation. Trump is in his happy place.

GOSH, IF ONLY THERE WERE A WAY TO TEST THE PREMISE THAT THE L.A. PROTESTS ARE AN "80-20 ISSUE" FAVORING REPUBLICANS

It will not surprise you to learn that Republicans are working the refs, trying to spin President Trump's response to the Los Angeles immigration protests as a smashing success for the White House. It will also not surprise you that many Democrats -- as usual -- are refusing to take their own side in an argument.

Politico Playbook tells us:

Whatever your take on Donald Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard — plus, as of last night, 700 Marines — to help quell anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, the view from those close to the president is clear: This is a huge political opportunity, they believe, and Trump has seized it with both hands.

“We couldn’t script this any better,” one gleeful person close to the White House tells my Playbook colleague Dasha Burns. “Democrats are again on the ‘20’ side of an 80-20 issue. ... It’s the same thing that won [Trump] the election.”

In the eyes of the White House, Trump already had a clear mandate from voters for the mass deportation effort that was driving those ICE raids in LA. And aides believe the chaotic scenes that followed — masked protesters pelting police with rocks, setting fire to cars and waving Mexican flags on abandoned freeways — will only bolster public support for Trump’s hard-line approach. Indeed, every time a Dem speaks out against the president’s actions in LA, the White House is happier still.

And guess who’s the ultimate foil? Enter California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Newsom is playing the part,” the same gleeful person tells Dasha. An administration official separately made the same point, highlighting the “jarring contrast” between Trump’s approach and the “Dem posture on immigration,” and claiming that the party is “fine with [protesters] burning the city down.”

I assume that the "gleeful person" is either Steve Bannon or Newt Gingrich, but the identity of this anonymous interviewee doesn't matter -- someone from the GOP is out there providing solidly pro-GOP spin, and there's no Democrat to offer a counterargument. I know you'll say that Politico is a right-wing rag and of course it would publish pro-GOP spin, but I've read Politico enough to know that an equally cocksure argument from the other side would have made its way into this piece if any Democrat could have manged to provide one. But of course no Democrat did. (The piece offers "balance" by pointing out that Newsom has, in fact, condemned violence, and that his target audience is California voters and 2028 Democratic primary voters.)

What infuriates me is the unchallenged assertion that this is an "80-20 issue" favoring Republicans, because we already know it isn't.

YouGov has been polling this, and while the public appears to disapprove of the protests, the numbers are underwhelming:

A small plurality opposes the protests. But does that mean Trump's approach to immigration has 80% approval? Hell no:

Does it mean Americans want Trump to seize control? Absolutely not:

And does the public see the protests as riots? Nope:

A CBS poll taken last week, just before the protests began making headlines, finds general support for deportations, but a lot of nuance. Here's a key result:

In the CBS poll, 54% of respondents said they supported the deportation program, but only 42% said that it's making Americans safer (30% said it's making us less safe), and 39% said it's making the economy weaker (32% said it's making the economy stronger). And this is a key finding:

Nothing Trump is doing -- on immigration or any other subject -- is favored by 80% of the public. And much of it is highly unpopular.

Does any Democrat say this? Newsom's anti-Trump pushback has been impressive.

But then there's this:

And these messages were posted by a liberal history professor and a long-time Republican who's anti-Trump:

Why? Why do this? When Trump allies speak, their messaging is 100% pro-Trump. Why can't Trump critics be advocates for their own side? Why must they echo right-wing critiques of the protest movement? Given the way most Americans consume news these days, I'm guessing that it might not register on many voters that the protestors are waving Mexican flags (and that they should see this as a moral outrage) until they start hearing about the flags from both sides. (Compare this to the war on "woke" language: I'm sure most voters have now heard the word "Latinx" far more often from cenrist Democratic language police than they have from actual "woke" Democrats.)

I'll say it again: If your critique of Democrats/liberals/progressives echoes right-wing critiques, shut up. You're just an extra megaphone for the right, which doesn't need any help getting its messages out.

And with all the fretting about Democrats' inability to win over young male podcast listeners, I have to ask: Don't you think those guys might see some of these protesters as badass?

Yeah, this guy too -- maybe this guy especially:

Hand-wringing Trump critics think America won't vote for a candidate who's linked to controversial protests, and they cling to this belief even though America just elected the guy who did January 6.

And if you think Republicans can get away with this and Democrats can't, remember what Rebecca Traister wrote a few months ago:

In 2020, millions protested racist police violence, sparking a reckoning in which people lost jobs for racist infractions from their past and present. A few Democratic lawmakers did join calls to “defund the police,” and more signaled that they understood the need for criminal-justice reform. Democrats not only won back the White House, but they did so by turning Arizona and Georgia blue and in the process securing two crucial Georgia Senate seats.

It didn't matter how many burning dumpsters in Portland were put on an infinite loop on Fox News every night -- Biden won, and he won by getting more votes than either candidate got in 2024. So please stop the tone policing and stick up for your own side.

A FEW DISORGANIZED THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CURRENT JACKBOOTED THUGGERY

Is what we're seeing in California all about suspending democracy? Seth Abramson thinks so.

Do I believe that Democratic midterm victories "would effectively end" the second Trump presidency? No -- Trump will just keep issuing executive orders and use the right-wing media to discredit any Democratic investigations, while he relies on the fact that Democrats will never be able to get 67 Senate votes to convict him if he's impeached.

Do I believe that President Trump is prepared to cancel elections in 2026 and/or 2028? Sure, if he thinks the result will make him look like a loser.

However, I don't believe he's already given up on winning them legitimately. Trump is a lifelong believer in the Power of Positive Thinking. And while a recent poll from AtlasIntel shows Democrats with a nine-point lead in 2026 congressional elections, other polls see the race very differently -- John McLaughlin, one of Trump's pollsters, has Republicans leading by 4.

Deploying the National Guard and/or the military is simply what Trump believes presidents should do -- like an eight-year-old boy, he thinks being in charge of the U.S. means you can and should use all your toy soldiers to vanquish your enemies all the time. The idea of doing this delights him so much that he even recommended it last October as a response to hypothetical unrest on Election Day, when Joe Biden would still be president. CNN reported:

Former President Donald Trump suggested using the military to handle what he called “the enemy from within” on Election Day, saying that he isn’t worried about chaos from his supporters or foreign actors, but instead from “radical left lunatics.”

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics,” Trump said told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he added.

If you believe that what's taking place now was done to prepare America for martial law in November 2026, the question that follows is: Why so early? And why prepare Americans for anything? Shock and awe has been Trump's M.O. since Inauguration Day. He doesn't lay groundwork. He just acts.

It seems far more likely to me that Stephen Miller was simply frustrated by what he saw as the slow pace of anti-immigrant cruelty, and he decided to up the ante by ordering his goons to be more aggressive and provocative. Trump was on board because immigration is his best issue, according to polls, and he hates brown people, too, though I don't think he dines on hate the way Miller does. (ABC's Terry Moran is right about that.) It's also possible that Miller is frustrated because his wife has followed Elon Musk back to Texas, where she's working as his PR flack.

In any case, Miller's decision to make the raids more intrusive and provocative could have happened at any time, and I believe Trump would have responded the same way. If he decides to cancel elections in 2026, he'll just do it, with no advance warning.

*****

Here's a series of posts that reveal a major divide in America:

What Miller and Mike Cernovich are saying here is what Trump says every time he asserts that a crackdown on immigrants is necessary because otherwise "we won't have a country."

To the GOP's exurban and rural base, America is a white Christian heterosexual monoculture -- anyone who doesn't fit the mold threatens our national identity. As a New York City resident for nearly half a century, and a Bostonian before that, I find this preposterous. I'm sure the Angelenos who are facing down Miller's stormtroopers feel the same way.

It's often said that snooty urban elitist Democrats don't understand Republican voters' culture views, and while there may be some truth to that, they don't understand ours either. From our perspective, America has a strong and enduring culture that isn't threatened by immigration -- we like burgers, we like football, we like guns, we invented rock music and R&B and jazz and hip-hop and Hollywood. And our cities have strong identities, too. Being multi-ethnic is a big part of that identity. There's nothing more New York than drunk Wall Streeters stumbling out of club and ordering chicken over rice with white sauce and hot sauce from a halal cart. If you're from L.A., plug in your own equivalent.

Republicans voters think America is the greatest country in the world -- and also believe it's so fragile that a few immigrant landscapers can completely dismantle it. But some of us realize that it's not a national emergency to pass a person on the street who's not speaking English, just as it's not a national emergency to share the country with people who are trans or Muslim, or members of some other group to which we don't belong. Twenty years ago, Republicans would warn that Muslims want to force everyone in America to practice "Sharia law"; now, they warn that schools are forcing children to be trans. Monoculture-dwelling Republicans want to force the rest of us to be cis, straight, and Christian, so they think we want a similar level of conformity. But we don't agree with them that the country will die unless everyone is the same.

*****

A Bluesky user noticed this:

It's true -- and Musk's olive branch is a series of tweets and retweets on immigration:

We know that Musk has deleted some tweets critical of Trump, and that aides to both men spoke on Friday. Musk clearly wants Daddy to love him again (or at least not to withdraw federal contracts from his companies). Whatever is going on, it's clear that Musk doesn't believe he has the upper hand and is suing for peace, hypocritically using immigrant-phobia to try to get back on Trump's good side. We'll see if it works.

TRUMP'S SECOND TERM AS SEEN BY HIS BASE: THE WORSE, THE BETTER

At a moment when President Trump is deploying National Guard troops in California over the governor's objections, in order to contain a "rebellion" against the administration's sadistic immigration crackdown that's really just a normal series of protests, it's odd to read this Axios story about Trump's economic policies:

President Trump's second term has been a payday for the powerful, exposing a disconnect in his promise to deliver for "the forgotten man" of America's working class.

Why it matters: The populist paradox at the heart of MAGA — a movement fueled by economic grievance and championed by a New York billionaire — has never been more pronounced.

* Trump's blue-collar base remains fiercely loyal, energized by his hardline stances on immigration, trade and culture — and patient that his economic "Golden Age" will materialize.

* But so far, the clearest financial rewards of Trump's tenure are flowing upward — to wealthy donors, family members, insiders and the president himself.

But does Trump even want the economy to get better for ordinary people? Does he want the streets to be peaceful as Stephen Miller's goons round up immigrant workers?

Trump has completely reversed the decline in his approval rating that resulted from his announcement of the "Liberation Day" tariffs. When he partly suspended those tariffs, he appeared to be solving a problem, even though it was a problem of his own creation. Right now, his stormtroopers are deliberately provoking pro-immigrant protesters, which means that his administration is creating the unrest that his call-up of National Guard troops is meant to quell. Whether it was all planned this way or not, that's the formula that's working for Trump economically, and possibly in other areas: he stirs fears, then rides to the rescue, appearing to clean up a mess he made.

That's similar to the formula of Fox News: terrify viewers with scary talk about urban crime, or immigrant crime, or drag queen story hours, or a trans woman spiking a ball too hard in a volleyball match. Offer a remedy (and always the same remedy: incessant lib-owning and the election of more Republicans). Voilà: Fox viewers feel their lives are improving when there appears to be a solution to problems they weren't even thinking about until Fox started scaring them.

The Leninist slogan was "The worse, the better." The second Trump term has begun to operate on that principle. America isn't great again, and shows no signs of becoming great again, but the awfulness of current conditions appear to be why Trump's voters approve of what he's doing. See how hard he's fighting in the midst of all the chaos? He must really love us! But it's his chaos.

THE RETURN OF KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA ISN'T THE BIG WIN IT APPEARS TO BE

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is headed back to the U.S., and The New Republic's headline reads:

Trump Brings Kilmar Abrego-Garcia Back, Completely Caving

That's wrong. If Trump were completely caving, he'd be returning every renditioned immigrant imprisoned in El Salvador and other countries without due process. Instead, the message of this is: Okay, you sick liberal freaks, you wanted this one depraved gangbanger brought back to America to face charges? Well, just to get you to stop whining, we brought him back -- and boy, do we have charges for him to face.

The charges:

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ... told reporters that a federal grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia on May 21 in Tennessee over allegations he conspired to transport thousands of migrants without legal status from Texas across the U.S. between 2016-2025. The two-count indictment accuses Abrego Garcia "of conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain" and "unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain." ...

The 10-page criminal indictment unsealed today alleges that Abrego Garcia is "a member and associate of the transnational criminal organization, La Mara Salvatrucha, otherwise known... as MS-13." The indictment also details that he participated in more than 100 trips smuggling individuals from Texas to Maryland, including unaccompanied minors and alleged members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.

The government is claiming that Abrego Garcia transported thousands of migrants? We previously knew that there was one incident that appeared suspicious. As The New York Times reported early last month,

According to records released last month by the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Abrego Garcia notified immigration officials in late October 2022 that he wanted to move to Houston to be closer to his parents. Just five weeks later, he was driving back to Maryland — with eight passengers — when a highway patrol officer in Tennessee pulled him over for speeding.

In Homeland Security’s version of the trooper’s account, Mr. Abrego Garcia explained that he had left Houston three days earlier and was transporting people in his boss’s car to work in construction in Maryland. But there was no luggage, and the passengers all gave Mr. Abrego Garcia’s home address as their own — leading one officer to suspect the possibility of human trafficking.

In the end, Mr. Abrego Garcia was let off with a warning citation for driving with an expired license.

The indictment says that Abrego Garcia transported immigrants, and sometimes guns, or a regular basis. Why didn't we know about this before? The Times now tells us,

Two people familiar with the investigation said it made a significant leap forward when an imprisoned man recently came forward offering information about Mr. Abrego Garcia....

Does anyone else find this suspicious? A prisoner steps forward, and suddenly there's evidence that Abrego Garcia is a professional trafficker working with six co-conspirators, according to the indictment. Who is this prisoner, and what, if anything, did the prisoner get in return for making these accusations? The Times notes:

... there was concern and disagreement among prosecutors about how to proceed. In recent weeks, a supervisor in the federal prosecutor’s office in Nashville resigned over how the case was handled, these people said.

ABC concurs:

The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader's decision told ABC News. Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said.

This reminds me of the Bush administration's pursuit of the so-called War on Terror. Recall that false accounts from informants like the pseudonymous "Curveball" were used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of massive destruction; later, when Americans were torturing prisoners of war, the result was misinformation rather than usable intelligence:

A seasoned counterterrorism agent reportedly told Vanity Fair that following false leads generated through torture has caused waste and exhaustion and consumed "[a]t least 30 percent of the F.B.I.'s time, maybe 50 percent, in counterterrorism." According to another former intelligence official "[w]e spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms" because of the CIA's insistence that coercive interrogation techniques be used against Abu Zubaydah.

But Bush got himself reelected in 2004, and while he left office a pariah in 2009, anger about the torture program was limited to non-Republicans apart from John McCain, and it's never been politically possible to empty the prison at Guantanamo. That's why I'm skeptical that this will blow up in Trump and Bondi's faces.

I assume that Abrego Garcia's traffic stop will be sufficient to lead to a conviction at least on one charge, and the administration will blame Democratic messaging if the other charges don't stick (assuming they aren't quietly dropped between now and the trial). The return of Abrego Garcia will be sold as an act of extraordinary magnanimity, and our side will be partly to blame for that -- we haven't vividly made the case that every removed person deserves due process, that it's reasonable to demand due process for all of them, and that the allegations against other renditioned immigrants are as flimsy as those against Abrego Garcia, or even flimsier. Regrettably, there's been only one Chris Van Hollen, a senator persistent enough to get a meeting with Abrego Garcia. We needed more meetings and more efforts to humanize the disappeared. To the average American, it will appear as if the Trump administration gave critics everything they asked for. Congressional critics should have pushed harder and demanded more.

THE TRUMP-MUSK WAR IS ALREADY OVER, AND TRUMP (AND THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL) WON

The feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump has gone on for about a week, and Musk already wants to kiss and make up:

You’re not wrong

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025

Trump is telling the media that he's not interested:

Speaking on a phone call Friday morning shortly before 7 a.m., ABC News asked him about reports he had a call scheduled with Musk for later in the day.

"You mean the man who has lost his mind?" he asked, saying he was "not particularly" interested in talking to him right now.

He said Musk wants to talk to him, but he's not ready to talk to Musk.

However:

People close to Trump have described him as more sad than angry at Musk. One adviser who was with Trump on Thursday night said he seemed "bummed" about the breakup. And that's the way he sounded on Friday morning.

I wouldn't rule out a private conversation over the weekend, followed by a reconciliation. When have you known Trump to "more sad than angry at" someone who defied him this way? Maybe he feels that way about Putin -- but that gives you an idea of how Trump looks at Musk. He doesn't see him as a subordinate from whom he expects absolute loyalty. He clearly sees him as a big mover and shaker (and sees himself as an even bigger man because Musk does his bidding, or used to do it, which is also how Trump wants to see Putin).

But Musk has lost this war already, and I'm somewhat surprised. If you go to Musk's feed on X, you see that most of his tweets and retweets are about the fact that the Big Beautiful Bill will increase the national debt.

I super agree with this guy 👇 https://t.co/KMSXVsWuOO

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

Congress is spending America into bankruptcy! https://t.co/71oPOWwC06

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

If America goes broke, nothing else matters https://t.co/oKABYH2YZn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025

Many congressional Republicans have been saying the same thing. A large segment of the congressional GOP wants -- and has always wanted -- to cut more, more, more. GOP voters feel the same way, at least in the abstract. (Polls show that GOP voters don't want Medicaid cut, for instance.) But congressional Republicans are rallying around Trump, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

Rep. Troy Nehls (R., Texas), a vocal President Trump defender, stared into television cameras that circled him outside the Capitol steps and addressed Elon Musk: “You’ve lost your damn mind.”

“Enough is enough. Stop this,” he said....

In the fight between the Republican titans, most GOP lawmakers sided with Trump. Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.) said Musk is “going off the deep end” with his call for Trump’s impeachment and suggested Musk is losing his sway with the MAGA crowd....

It appears that Musk has made it less likely that the "cut more" crowd will prevail:

Musk’s attacks had raised the possibility that conservatives could extract more cuts from such programs as Medicaid, but that new push appeared to stall as Musk’s fight with Trump stretched deeper into Thursday.

“He hasn’t moved a vote,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) of Musk.

White House aides argued Musk’s broadsides would weaken the position of Republican critics of the megabill, who had initially viewed Musk’s spotlight on deficits as helpful to their cause.

Republicans are angry at Musk for bringing this up:

Time to drop the really big bomb:@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.

Have a nice day, DJT!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

Fox News reports:

House GOP lawmakers are accusing Elon Musk of going "too far" after he suggested President Donald Trump was "in the Epstein files."

"Hopefully we never have to answer questions about tweets like that from Elon again," said Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, calling Musk's comments "not helpful."

"Elon crossed the line today," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital....

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said Musk had "gone too far."

"There's just no need for this," Nehls said. "Those conversations should be taking place behind closed doors."

But can't Musk just take his money and start a third party that will destroy the GOP? Well, sure, he's thinking about it, as is at least one Techworld billionaire.

But Republican voters will overwhelmingly side with Trump:

If you had to choose with whom would you side

🟤 Neither 52%
🔴 Trump 28%
🟠 Musk 8%

🔴 Republicans - Trump +65
🟡 Independents - Trump +10
🔵 Democrats - Musk +7

YouGov - 3812 A - 6/5

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) June 6, 2025

Poll results here. I think it's possible that this party could draw as many disaffected Democrats (and apolitical voters who always or sometimes lean Democratic) as it does Republicans.

In the modern GOP, either you're a Trumper in good standing or a you're a traitor to America, Christianity, and common decency. There's no middle ground. Trump is God. I was thinking about calling this post "You Come at God, You'd Best Not Miss," but God is God -- in the GOP, it's unthinkable that Trump is capable of meaningful error. There's no way Musk could come out of a fight with God looking like the good guy.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS, MEET CAROL HUI

Matthew Yglesias believes that it's a mistake for Democrats to talk about immigration. G. Elliott Morris, the liberal poll nerd who ran FiveThirtyEight after Nate Silver's departure, disagrees. Yglesias made his case at the left-centrist Welcomefest yesterday. Morris quotes from Yglesias's speech:

I was talking to people who said, "You know, everybody knows that immigration is kinda Trump's strongest issue, why do you have so many people making bad press on this?" Well, you know, these guys are from safe seats, you know, so they do it, and people like it.

Morris writes:

When Yglesias delivered the quote above, he showed on screen a clipping of a PBS headline that read "More Democratic lawmakers visit El Salvador to see Abrego Garcia." The story is about four U.S. House Democrats who traveled to the country to try to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland dad wrongly deported to El Salvador in violation of a U.S. court order in April.

(The phrase "bad groups" in Yglesias's image refers to left-leaning activist organizations, whom left-centrists call "the Groups" -- a disparaging term because left-centrists believe that "the Groups" push Democrats too far left for the public's taste.)

Morris continues:

The claim Yglesias is making is that focusing on — or, to use his words, "raising the salience of" — immigration shifts public opinion (both on this issue and in general) toward Republicans. And in particular, he is arguing that Democrats "making headlines" about Kilmar Abrego Garcia hurt the party.

But as Morris notes, when some Democrats were talking about Abrego Garcia, Trump's poll numbers on immigration went down:

Morris says,

Trump's approval rating on immigration fell precipitously the day after media attention to the Abrego Garcia case peaked, on April 20. Then, as that attention fell, Trump's approval rating recovered.

I'd put it this way: Democrats in Congress were urged by party leaders to stop making an issue of Abrego Garcia and other detainees who've been renditioned and incarcerated without due process, and have largely backed away from the issue, and -- who could have foreseen this? -- Trump's immigration numbers have risen again.

There are two lessons to be learned from this. Here's one of them, from a Morris post on this subject written when Trump's immigration numbers were dropping:

Public opinion can change based on new information and engagement from party leaders! Trump's approval on immigration policy in general has fallen from about +10 last month to +5 today.

The other lesson is this: For many Americans, anecdotes are more important than data. Anecdotes are how millions of Americans form opinions.

Republicans know this. That's why they personalize issues whenever possible. Trans women in sports? Here's Riley Gaines, who was beaten tied (for fifth) with a trans swimmer in a collegiate match and has not only turned the outcome of that match into a career (speaking fee: $20,000 to $30,000) but has apparently made being a victim of the alleged trans menace her entire personality.

On the subject of immigration, Republicans have, among others, Laken Riley, who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant. She's talked about on Fox News incessantly; Republicans named a bill after her and got it through Congress. To millions of Americans, she's the reason that it's good to crack down on immigration.

But Americans -- even Trump voters -- have a different response when they think about immigrants who just want to work and live quiet lives. Yesterday, an immigrant named Carol Hui was released, to the great relief of her neighbors in Kennett, Missouri, a town Trump won in a landslide. Until her arrest, Hui worked as a waitress there.

The staff of John’s Waffle and Pancake House was elated. The diner, a morning mainstay in Kennett, rallied the community to bring attention to her story. Her co-workers organized a “Carol Day” fund-raiser, put petitions to free her on every table and swapped out the servers’ shirts with black-and-yellow T-shirts that read, “Bring Carol Home.”

... The public outrage and backlash to Ms. Hui’s arrest was remarkable in a town like Kennett, the seat of a rural county where 80 percent of voters supported Mr. Trump last November, and where many voters said they had supported his promises of mass deportations.

Or maybe the public outrage and backlash aren't so remarkable, because this keeps happening. It happened in Sackets Harbor, New York:

Three students will return to Sackets Harbor Central School after their community in northern New York called for authorities to release the family, arrested by federal agents in late March.

When the three children come back to Sackets Harbor Central School, they'll find signs and decorations celebrating their return — and the end of an ordeal that started in late March.

... Hundreds of people — kids, parents, teachers and neighbors — have called for federal authorities to bring the students and their mother back. And now, their call has been heeded.

... The children and their mother weren't charged with a crime; they were swept up during an operation to arrest a South African man accused of using his cell phone to share child pornography.

... local officials led calls to bring the family back home.

...The town is part of New York's 24th congressional district — rated by the Cook Partisan Voting Index as the most reliably Republican district in the state.

Near Tampa, Florida, community members rallied around a detained pastor named Maurilio Ambrocio. Among Ambrocio's supporters is his next-door neighbor, Greg Johns:

His eyes water as he recalls when Hurricane Milton hit last year. Ambrocio checked in on him immediately. “Do you need propane?” he asked. “Do you need water? What do you need? That’s the type of neighbor [he is]. This man is a part of the neighborhood.” Like many in this small rural community, Johns voted for President Trump last November. In fact, he did so at Ambrocio’s church, which doubles as a polling station. “I did.” He hesitates. “Because I was not happy with the direction the country was going.” He says he was hoping migrants in the country without papers and with criminal records would be targeted. But he says he never expected a pillar of the community like Maurilio Ambrocio would be taken away.

Why shouldn't Democrats talk about these people -- and then expand from the specific to the general, perhaps citing the Washington Examiner story in which ICE officials say that Stephen Miller explicitly told them to prioritize arrests of working immigrants over arrests of crimninals?

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official recited.

One of the [ICE] officials in attendance stood up and stated that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had publicly messaged about targeting criminal illegal immigrants, and therefore, ICE was targeting them, and not the general illegal immigration population.

“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ ..."

As for detainees who have been accused of being criminals with little or no evidence presented, Democrats could ask, "If these people are criminals, where are guns? Where are the drugs? Where's the money?" (I say this as a lifelong city dweller who's seen dozens of news stories about cops breaking up criminal gangs. There's invariably a press conference where the cops, and maybe the mayor, display seized guns, piles of cash, and bricks of heroin. Where are those stories now? Did Miller's agents find any guns or drugs when they arrested Abrego Garcia, or Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist detained in March? If so, can we see the contraband?)

Yes, talk about this. Make it personal. Make it vivid. Question Trump's honesty. Ask why so many decent, hardworking immigrants are being rounded up. On immigration, public opinion is not firmly on Trump's side.

UPDATE: Riley Gaines story corrected.

WE'RE AT THE "I HATE MY DAD!" ADOLESCENT PART OF THE TRUMP-MUSK RELATIONSHIP

Is this total war? Is it a serious blow to Republicans as they try to pass the Big Beautiful Bill? I have my doubts, as I explain below:

Elon Musk continued his rampage against Donald Trump’s spending bill on Tuesday night, setting the stage for an ugly showdown with the president’s faithful.

“Mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America!” he wrote, sharing a graphic depicting rising national debt over the past three decades. “ENOUGH,” he added.

He also responded with a “100″ emoji to an X user who wrote that Musk had “reminded everyone: It’s not about Right vs. Left. It’s about the Establishment vs the People.”

He then posted an American flag emoji under a post from conservative satire site The Babylon Bee, highlighting a story titled, “The Lord Strengthens Elon One Last Time To Push Pillars Of Congress Over And Bring Government Crashing Down.”

Earlier Tuesday, the billionaire unleashed hellfire on Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill, lambasting the president’s flagship legislative package as “outrageous,” “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination.”

We think of Trump as someone who demands complete loyalty. That's true ... for most of his allies. Trump seems to treat Musk differently.

I said this in November and I'm sticking with it:

... I think it's noteworthy that Trump is the same age as Musk's father.

A couple of weeks later, I wrote:

And Trump might be looking for a son. He seems disappointed in his three biological sons....

That's how I think their relationship works: Trump is the father, and Musk is the rich, successful businessman son he never had. I'm sure Trump believes his genes should have created someone with Musk's wealth and status, but it never happened.

This was never just a boss-subordinate relationship. Remember this?

I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

And remember this from last week's Wall Street Journal story about the end of Musk's time in Washington?

Trump has described Musk to aides as “50% genius, 50% boy,” according to White House staffers who heard his comments. Another White House aide said they heard Trump call Musk “90% genius, 10% boy.”

"Boy" isn't a word Trump uses very often. It's weirdly paternal.

Many super-rich men throughout American history have seen themselves as equal in power to the president of the United States, or even superior. Musk clearly doesn't feel that way. He wants Trump's love -- and, of course, government contracts and the termination of all government investigations of his companies. He clearly believes he's not putting his empire at risk by lashing out at the bill -- he's really just lashing out the way a normal teenager would at a parent with whom he doesn't have any serious conflicts -- and Trump's failure to lash out at him, at Truth Social or anywhere else, suggests that their peculiar relationship will survive this. (We knew this wasn't a normal Trumpworld falling-out when Trump invited Musk to that press conference in the Oval Office last Friday, as a farewell. Trump usually kicks people to the curb abruptly and completely. There are very few soft landings.)

What's more important to understand is that Musk's attacks on the bill won't doom it. They won't give Senate Republicans cover to vote against it. The bill seems to be in trouble now, but this is a familiar pattern, and the endgame is always the same: Trump twists arms and critics fall in line. It will happen again. No one will be emnboldened by Musk's criticism because everyone in the GOP, including Elon Musk, knows which of the two, Trump or Musk, is the Daddy in the party.

DEMOCRATS AREN'T DOOMED, THOUGH THEY SHOULD BE LESS DOOMED

In The New York Times today, poll guy Nate Cohn asks this question, in effect: Yes, the 2024 presidential election was very close in practice. But was it a Republican blowout in theory? I'm serious. Here's his headline:

Should Republicans Have Won in a Landslide?

The question of whether Donald Trump cost conservatives a more decisive victory is a useful one to consider.

Cohn writes:

Should Republicans have won the 2024 election by a much wider margin?

While the history books will rightfully dwell on whether Democrats could have forestalled another Trump presidency, the question of whether Mr. Trump cost conservatives a more decisive victory might be the more useful one to understand American politics today.

Voters wanted change, badly. They were repelled not just by Mr. Biden’s faltering condition, but also by rising prices and perceived failures of Democratic governance on everything from immigration to energy. While it didn’t yield a more decisive Republican victory, the backlash against pandemic-era restrictions, rising prices and “woke” all help explain why a close election felt like a conservative “vibe shift.”

The "vibe shift" was an invention of pundits, because the voters who turned out in increasing numbers for Republicans (men of all ethnicities) were considered zeitgeisty and the voters who turned out in large numbers for Democrats (mostly women, especially women of color) were considered not cool at all.

Cohn makes much of the fact that early polling revealed Democratic vulnerabilities. He cites a November 2023 Times poll of six battleground states. In this poll, Nikki Haley was beating Biden 46%-38%, while Ron DeSantis was in an effective tie with Biden, leading him 44%-43%. (Biden led Donald Trump 48%-40%; Trump led Kamala Harris 47%-44%.)

Haley probably would have been the strongest candidate against either Biden or Harris. But the actually existing Republican Party would never have nominated Haley, because she wasn't perceived as a Fox News culture warrior and bombthrower. Similarly, polls in early 2016 showed John Kasich with a large lead over Hillary Clinton -- 7.4 points, according to Real Clear Politics. I think Kasich might have won a far more decisive victory than Trump, but like Haley, he had a reputation (deserved or otherwise) for moderation and conciliation, so there wasn't a chance in hell that his party would nominate him.

The Republican Party has nominated an extremist presidential candidate three times in a row, and pushed somewhat less extreme candidates to the right in the two previous election cycles. (Surely you recall John McCain repudiating his own immigration bill and Mitt Romney rejecting the healthcare law he signed as governor of Massachusetts.)

Meanwhile, CNN is selling a new poll as more bad news for the Democrats:

There’s new evidence that the Democratic Party’s reputation is in a bad place.

... a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS provides insights into the party’s problems.

... Perhaps most striking was that people were more likely to view the Republicans than Democrats as the party with strong leaders (40% to 16%) and even the “party of change” (32% to 25%).

... The “strong leaders” question might be the most troublesome finding for Democrats. Only about 1 in 6 Americans said Democrats have stronger leaders than Republicans. As remarkably, only 39% of Democrats said that.

Well, obviously we feel this way -- our leaders aren't strong. But that may not say anything about future voting intent, as I'll explain soon.

In an additional CNN write-up of this poll, it becomes clear that there's disenchantment with both parties.

Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party has consolidated a majority of the public behind its approach, with more than 4 in 10 saying that neither party can get things done or has strong leadership, a new CNN survey conducted by SSRS finds.

Asked to choose which of the parties they see as the “party that can get things done,” “the party with strong leaders” or the “party of change,” the lion’s share of the public – more than 4 in 10 – say that neither party fits the bill.

... True independents, those who don’t lean toward either party, are particularly grim in their views of the parties on these issues: 76% say neither party has strong leaders or can get things done, and 72% that they view neither as the party of change.

... While the public as a whole sees the GOP as relatively effective, they also say, 41% to 30%, that it’s better described as the party of extremism.

... Americans are closely split on which party represents the middle class, with a third saying neither does.

Republicans are seen as having strong leaders and the ability to effect change, but Americans don't seem thrilled with the change they're getting.

And where does this leave Democrats, assuming there are future elections? According to Brendan Higgins at The Smoke Filled Room, it leaves them on track to win a 231-204 House majority. That's based on polling showing Democrats with an average 4-point lead on the "generic ballot" question. That average is skewed by one poll showing Democrats up by more than 9 points, but the poll is from AtlasIntel, one of two firms given an A+ rating by Nate Silver.

I think there are many voters who want to vote for a Democratic Party that isn't ground down by GOP attacks, media contempt, and its own timidity. In elections, or at least non-presidential elections, Democratic candidates stick up for themselves, advance good ideas, and denounce Republican policies -- and often they win, or at least exceed expectations. Even as we're seeing the Democrats-are-doomed messaging in the media, we're also seeing poll results like this:

This poll was conducted before Ernst's "We are all going to die" remark and obnoxious follow-up.

Take it with a grain of salt -- it's from a liberal polling firm working for Sage, and the big caveat is that Sage took the lead only after biographies of the candidates were read. Click to enlarge this if you want to see what respondents were told about Ernst, Sage, and other Democrats who might challenge Ernst (one, J.D. Scholten, just entered the race):

The Ernst bio is positive, but the two versions of Sage's bio are very appealing. One says:

Born and raised in a trailer park in Mason City, Sage enlisted in the Marines, served two tours in Iraq, then re-enlisted in the Army and served a third tour in Iraq. Back home, he put himself through college with the GI Bill and worked as a mechanic, a sports radio host, and eventually became Director at an Iowa radio station, working closely with local businesses. He's now the director of his local Chamber of Commerce as a voice for Iowa small businesses and working people.

The other says he "actually cares about working people" and describes him as "a patriot, not a politician."

But in a real campaign, Democrats can't control the messaging, which is why, in a red state, it'll be a struggle for Sage or any other Democrat to win. But a Democrat who could be perceived this way throughout a campaign could appeal to committed Democrats as well as swing voters. There's an opening.

However, Democrats need to a better job of defining themselves positively and counteracting the negative impression created by Republicans, the media, and some fellow Democrats. The country hasn't moved to the right -- Republicans have simply done a better job of ensuring that the media environment downplays their flaws and allows them to claim virtues. And that might be breaking down as the reality of GOP rule becomes more obvious. So Democrats aren't doomed -- but they need to define themselves before their enemies can define them. And they need to do a better job of persuading swing voters that Republicans aren't on their side.

STEPHEN MILLER WAS ALREADY TRYING TO MEMEIFY THE COLORADO ATTACK JUST HOURS AFTER IT HAPPENED

Israel's brutality in Gaza is no justification for this:

Eight people calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza were injured at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colorado, by a man who police say used a makeshift flamethrower and hurled an incendiary device into a crowd. The FBI immediately described the violence as a “targeted terror attack.”

The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled “Free Palestine” during the Sunday attack on the group of demonstrators, said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office....

The injuries authorities found were consistent with reports of people being set on fire, Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said....

The right-wing media is eager to inform us that the suspect entered this country unlawfully.

BREAKING: Three senior DHS sources tell @FoxNews that the Boulder terror suspect is an Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally as a visa overstay who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration. I’m told Mohamed Sabry Soliman arrived at LAX on 8/27/22 on a B1/B2 nonimmigrant…

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 2, 2025

I think Stephen Miller is the happiest man in America right now. I'm sure he feels entirely vindicated in all of his life choices.

The incident took place yesterday afternoon. In the evening, Miller posted this:

A terror attack was committed in Boulder, Colorado by an illegal alien. He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit.

Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 2, 2025

You know that he's trying to make the phrase "suicidal migration" happen, because he's used it before:

Suicidal migration. https://t.co/Z9m4GDCVgd

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) April 25, 2025

The right has accused the U.S. and European countries of having "suicidal migration policies" for years, but Miller seems to want a tighter, punchier, meme-ier phrase, one that leaves the dull word "policies" out and gives the listener just two words, equally weighted: "suicidal" (with its echo of the early-twentieth century eugenicist idea of "race suicide") and "migration." He's saying that the act of allowing more liberal immigration policies has been suicidal for America, but he's wants our brains to associate national suicide with migration, period.

Apparently it's working.

Suicidal migration is a powerful term

— Brian Baumann (@brian_e_baumann) June 2, 2025

"Suicidal migration" is a term we should use more https://t.co/dnvXCXR1oK

— Angst Cranker (@fairwayfare) June 2, 2025

Expect to hear this phrase repeatedly in the near future -- from Kristi Noem, from prominent elected Republicans, and from everyone on Fox.

TRUMP PROBABLY DOESN'T BELIEVE BIDEN WAS KILLED (BUT HE WANTS TO KILL BIDEN'S PRESIDENCY)

Last night at Truth Social, President Trump "re-truthed" a post that claimed Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by a clone. Does he really believe this?

I don't think Trump believes this. Trump sometimes posts conspiratorial ideas that he doesn't express himself -- for instance, he's retransmitted and amplified QAnon messages over the year without ever fully embracing QAnon. It's a way to stay connected to his craziest supporters -- and it's a way to own the libs.

What Trump does believe is that Biden wasn't in charge of his own presidency. Last weekend, I told you about this Truth Social post:

Trump's own theory is that there were "people that knew [Biden] was cognitively impaired, and that took over the Autopen." Biden was alive, in Trump's view, long after 2020 -- he just wasn't the real president.

Then on Friday, in his joint press conference with Elon Musk, Trump said this:

The headline was Trump attacking Biden after Biden's cancer diagnosis (which suggests that Trump knows Biden is alive) -- but again, if you watch a longer version of the clip, you see Trump questioning who was really president the last four years:

TRUMP: One thing I can't figure out is what would an administration -- what were they thinking when they allowed millions of people from prisons all over the world -- not just from South America, Venezuela, all over the world, from the Congo in Africa, hundreds of people, thousands of people from the Congo, rough, rough prisoners, from Asia, from Europe, rough parts of Europe -- why would they allow them to come into our country? Why would they do that? It's the one thing I can't figure out.

And I don't believe it was Joe Biden. I really don't. I mean, look, he's been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime -- not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say. If you feel sorry for him, don't feel so sorry, 'cause he's vicious. What he did with his political opponent, and all of the people that he hurt -- he hurt a lot of people, Biden. And so I really don't feel sorry for him. But he wasn't a person that would allow murderers to come into our country. He wasn't a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it, take kids out of families, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just don't understand why, why a thing like this, how a thing like this, could have been allowed to happen. Very sad. It's very, it's very sad, very sad for our country.

Again, Trump clearly believes that there is a living Joe Biden who doesn't deserve our sympathy, but who also wasn't involved in his own admini stration's policy-making.

As I told you last weekend, Trump really, really wants to prosecute political enemies who were pardoned by President Biden at the end of his term, and he also presumably wants to invalidate bills and executive orders that were signed by Biden. So Trump is pushing the "Biden was too mentally checked out to function as president and subordinates controlled the autopen" conspiracy theory.

I also told you that fossil fuel interests are pushing the autopen theory -- and now here's a Fox News story from a couple of days ago:

A pro-energy group is renewing its call for an investigation into over half a dozen Biden administration executive actions related to climate that it believes should be deemed null and void due to them being signed by an autopen without any public comment from former President Joe Biden confirming his knowledge of them.

Power the Future, a nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs, reviewed eight Biden executive orders that it says were significant shifts in domestic energy policy and said it found no evidence of the president speaking about any of them publicly, raising concerns that the orders were signed by autopen and that he was not aware of them....

The executive orders reviewed by Power the Future include an Arctic drilling ban in 2023, a 2021 executive order committing the federal government to net-zero emissions by 2050, an executive order mandating "clean energy" AI centers and an offshore drilling ban executive order shortly before leaving office in 2025.

Finding no evidence of Biden publicly speaking about the executive orders on climate, Power the Future sent letters this week to the DOJ, EPA, DOI, DOE, along with the House and Senate Oversight Committees, calling for an investigation to determine who made the decisions, drafted the executive orders and ultimately signed them.

"In light of the growing evidence that actions purportedly taken by the former president may not have been approved or signed by him, but instead promulgated by a small coterie of advisers in his name without his knowledge or over his signature using an ‘autopen,’ the need for congressional access to information has grown in importance with these revelations," the letter to GOP House Oversight Chair James Comer states.

Here's some information about Power the Future:

Power the Future is an energy advocacy organization with a “mission of offering truth, facts, and research that will enrich the national conversation on energy.”

Power the Future was launched in February 2018 by Daniel Turner, a former Republican communications staffer and alumni of the Charles Koch Institute. Turner also worked for Generation Opportunity, a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization that is funded by Freedom Partners, a multimillion dollar Koch-tied funding vehicle.

And before you get too mushy and sentimental about Josh Hawley because he's positioned himself as a defender of Medicaid, remember that he's still a bog-standard Republican in most ways. Here he is peddling anonymous gossip about Biden to Fox News -- and, of course, invoking the autopen:

... a Republican senator has made an explosive new claim: that Biden would sometimes get lost in a closet inside the White House while serving as commander-in-chief.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., made the stunning claim on "Hannity" Friday, citing an unnamed Secret Service whistleblower who Hawley said was assigned to Biden.

"He [Secret Service member] told me that Biden used to get lost in his closet in the mornings in the White House," Hawley said. "I mean, the guy literally stumbling around in the White House residence couldn't find his way out of his own closet. The president of the United States. I mean, this is outrageous. We were lied to."

... Hawley said the brewing scandal about the Biden administration’s use of an autopen to sign executive orders amounts to "one of the worst constitutional crises of our country’s history."

"We need to find out who actually signed off, so to speak, on all those autopen signatures and all of those pardons and all of those clemencies."

"It’s a rogue’s gallery of crooks and criminals and terrible people, rapists and others, I mean who actually was doing that, we know it wasn’t Biden, he didn’t know anything about it. "we’ve got to figure out who was actually in charge cos it sure as heck wasn’t Joe Biden."

Can they go mainstream with this? As I said last weekend, I think they'll try.