Is that "disparaging"?

I'd have a lot more good stuff to say about Trump if he started doing more things right

A reader named Rick wrote a comment that I’d like to take a few minutes to respond to. I include first Rick’s comment in its entirety so he (or anyone else) can’t say I took something out of context:

Ross, I enjoy your show and writings. And I agree that this “get out of jail” card is truly wrong. That said, you think this is the worst thing from the government possibly in your lifetime?? Really?? Me thinks you do suffer at least mildly from TDS.

Where then might you rank:

- Iran- Contra

- Bush’s WMD BS

- 2008 regulatory failures and bailouts

- Fast and Furious

- IRS targeting of Tea Party and more

- Crossfire Hurricane / Russiagate investigation

- Hunter Biden and family influence peddling

I’ll stop there, but you get the point.

As I said, I agree with the point you made. But, although you don’t like to admit it, you disparage Trump every chance you can.

Maybe you’d have done this with others had Substack existed in the past. I’m thinking not.

Rick,

I tried to make an explicit point in my prior note that what makes this not unique but unusual is that it’s both utterly corrupt AND overt. Almost all of the things you mention were understood to be wrong and so were kept hidden. Crossfire Hurricane was terrible but not made public while it was going on. The 2008 bailouts were wrong and set a bad precedent but I wouldn’t say they were products of corruption so I don’t think they belong on the list. (I did publicly oppose them on the radio at the time.)

This new controversy is a document from our own Justice Department laying out an illegal (unconstitutional) appropriation of money primarily to benefit friends of the president despite claims to the contrary and ending criminal or civil claims against the president and others for crimes/violations such as tax fraud or at least unallowable tax losses. The brazenness of it is unmatched.

By the way, I saw Rep Byron Donalds (running for governor of Florida) on Fox News Sunday over the weekend and he offered at least two big lies in defense of Trump: First was that Trump won a lawsuit against the IRS and was owed money and simply redirected it toward the fund. No, Trump didn’t win anything and almost certainly wouldn’t have won anything. His claim was likely beyond the statute of limitations and the perpetrator of the release of the tax files was a contractor not an employee. Second was that there was a very similar action during the Obama administration. That also is not true. There was a settlement fund created for a specific kind of claimant under Obama which, I note, Republicans correctly opposed at the time, but even that was much more justifiable than this.

If you’re interested in the various legalities of the current proposal, this is a great listen: All the Things Wrong with Trum… - Advisory Opinions - Apple Podcasts

The problem with the current action that differentiates it somewhat from everything else you note is that it sets a precedent that massively undermines our republic, with a new all-out assault separation of powers though unethical and unconstitutional accumulation of power in the executive in a way that any future president could use. And it immunizes the president, his family, and “affiliated” people and businesses for crimes or violations they have committed. It’s many steps further than Biden pardoning his son.

I certainly do NOT disparage Trump at every opportunity but I do disparage him a fair bit because there are innumerable opportunities lately. It’s not as if that’s fun for me. I want the country to succeed. I want him to succeed. I do give him credit/praise when it’s due. But he’s making one mistake after another. He’s driving away voters and (to a lesser degree, because they’re mostly still afraid of him) Republicans in Congress with things like this slush fund and what amounts to a pre-emptive pardon for tax (and maybe other) crimes for himself and his family and others, and asking for public money for “the ballroom” (albeit for “security” aspects of it) after stating probably 100 times that it will be privately funded, and the insane narcissism of a massive arch between Arlington Cemetery and DC (after stacking the body that has to approve such things with his own supporters), and picking a fight with the pope, and doing the worst possible communications job around the war with Iran (a war which I supported and has said should have been engaged in years ago), and raising people’s cost of living with tariffs, and selling crypto shitcoins ($TRUMP is at a new all-time low as I write this) and watches and shoes and generally looking like the biggest grifter of all time.

There are rumors that the deal he’s negotiating with Iran will have Iran come out of the war stronger than going in, but so far it’s just rumors and we’ll have to see. Meanwhile, he clearly went into this war believing it would be not much more difficult than Midnight Hammer and the mission to capture Nicolas Maduro. The fact that the US is unable to exclude Iranian effective control (i.e. ability to shut down) the Strait of Hormuz is unbelievable and rather humiliating. And then Trump pulls troops out of Germany — which by itself is not a terrible policy consideration — because the chancellor of Germany notes that obvious fact? Endorsing Ken Paxton — a man who has cheated on his wife and in business and politics, so I guess Trump seems himself in Paxton — was also a really bad move. The man is driven by ego, which is not new information but seems worse than ever. (As I heard someone on TV say, he’s acting like a guy who doesn’t just want to be remembered as a good president; he’s acting like a guy who wants to be on Mount Rushmore.) Reminds me a little of the psychologically fragile and ragingly narcissistic Homelander character in The Boys, a highly entertaining series that somewhat satirizes MAGA and is definitely not for everyone due to LOTS of foul language and exploding bodies.

What has Trump done right in his second term? Making the tax cuts from his first term permanent. Slashing DEI in government. Overturning the EPA “Endangerment Finding” about CO2. Installing a rational pro-energy Sec of Energy and boosting domestic energy production while cutting subsidies for solar and wind. I suspect that Kevin Warsh is a great pick for the Fed; certainly my first choice among the people we thought were in the running. (Of course we’ll have to see how that plays out.) Getting many NATO countries to spend more on their own defense (though he likely didn’t need to alienate our allies as much as he did to make that happen.) Getting control of the border is a big one as well.

I have praised the president and his administration on all of these things on my radio show and, to a lesser degree because some of them happened before I started this Substack, on these pages.

It’s rather frustrating to be accused of having “TDS” (which you did not accuse me of) because, as I say frequently, I’m rather ambivalent about Trump. Voted for him once (in 2020, because, as I told listeners, “Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as a running mate means that a Biden administration will be further left and more incompetent than anyone is imagining.” Obviously Trump lost that election...and my thought process turned out to be exactly right). I did not consider voting for Trump in 2024 because of his lies about the 2020 election, lies that led to the storming of the Capitol on 1/6/21 in a truly shameful day for our nation while Trump just watched it on TV and did not, despite calls from his friends and family, do anything to stop the chaos and violence. (Yeah, he went on TV with a half-hearted request for people to go home AFTER the worst of the chaos had happened already. He was enjoying it.)

TDS means one can’t ever give Trump credit for doing something good/right. That doesn’t describe me and never has. AND, calling him out for failures and corruption is not TDS. Rabid Trump supporters use claims of “TDS” to try to silence critics; Homey don’t play dat. Unfortunately, that’s all he’s given us for months now and, frankly, for much of his second term other than the few good things I mentioned above. Show me a good move, an honorable move, turning down an opportunity to enrich himself and his family, and I will, as always, give him credit for it.

Obviously, I have approximately zero influence on national public opinion. In fact, even the people with the biggest media presence probably have no measurable influence even though we call them influencers. They can move the opinion of a modest fraction of their viewers/listeners but can equally be a reflection of those viewers/listeners.

My point is that there’s a reason that Trump’s approval/favorability numbers have been in a nearly straight line down since the beginning of his second term, and it’s not because scribblers like me are turning the public against him.

President Trump Job Approval | RealClearPolling

His own communications shop has infinitely more reach than I (and other honest analysts) will ever have. Fox News is boosting him at every turn and the liberal media goes after him at every turn but for much of Trump’s first term his approval numbers were stable (albeit at net-negative levels). His favorability collapse is his own doing.

So, Rick, I stand by my contention that as an overt and official act of government, this is about as bad a thing as I’ve seen. It’s so bad that even Republicans in the Senate like Trump sycophant Ted Cruz is saying that the agreement will need to be “modified” (it should be thrown out entirely, of course) or Trump will have a Republican “revolt” on his hands (at least in the Senate).

Ted Cruz says senators were ‘screaming’ at Todd Blanche during ‘anti-weaponization’ fund briefing

I realize this is MSDNC but it’s still a good compilation:

Meanwhile, Trump has now made enemies of Senators Thom Tillis, John Cornyn (see Paxton comment above), and Bill Cassidy. Add that to the handful of Republican moderates who have long been willing to go against Trump but who haven’t been enough by themselves to stop anything, and Trump is turning himself into a very lame duck. In fact, Trump’s behavior is so bad that Republicans now could lose the Senate (although a lot would have to go right for Dems. Six months ago, betting odds had Republicans about 75% likely to keep the Senate. Now it’s about 52%.) I mean, Trump is even going after Lauren Boebert, one of his most loyal supporters. Senator Ron Johnson, also a big-time Trump ally, called the “anti-weaponization fund” a “galactic blunder.” I’d say that it’s the biggest of Trump’s blunders recently but far from the only one.

And, again, it gives me no pleasure to say that because I fear and loathe today’s Democrats. That party has moved toward overt socialism and anti-Semitism and they’re very dangerous. We need a strong and principled GOP to stop them (and I say that as an unaffiliated voter), and Trump is making the party weak and unprincipled (which, I think, describes him as a person, which is why he’s always trying to act strong and why he thinks that describing someone — usually a foreign dictator — as “strong” is the biggest compliment he can give…but I digress.)

So, Rick, I don’t disparage Trump “every chance I can” because there would be a lot more disparaging going on lately. I hope, but do not expect, that he’ll become thoughtful and honest and not be driven by ego (all of which is different from being correct, which is somewhat less important than being honest.) But even as you read that I’m sure you understand that such a change will not happen. Even if Trump thought he was making mistakes, which I doubt, his ego has never let him admit a mistake and he won’t start now.

There’s nothing I’d love more than to spend the next two years writing about all the good and great things Trump does. I promise, if he does, I will. Until then, I’ll just keep writing my honest opinion about whatever he does do. It’s all I can do.