One of Donald Trump’s most impressive political gifts is in choosing enemies.
As president, he often manages to select targets for his power grabs or retribution that are hard to defend. Trump’s prosecution of James Comey, who was a hyperpolitical peacock of an FBI director, makes critics of Trump’s heavy hand with the Justice Department say “Even though Comey …”
Or how about trying to shut down Jimmy Kimmel, who can be relied on for partisanship but not laughs? Friends of the First Amendment on the right felt obliged to say that Kimmel deserved to be canceled, but not at the government’s behest.
Who wants to be seen as the apologist for South American drug cartels by saying that the Fourth Fleet can’t be turned into a death squad? Or that Chicago’s crime rate is a problem, but the military shouldn’t be involved? Or that the post-COVID migration surge was overwhelming but that illegal immigrants deserve due process? Or that the mainstream media is deeply flawed, but that wire services shouldn’t be shut out of the White House press pool?
Trump knows what and who his supporters don’t like and knows well how to pick fights in a way that forces a choice between a president who shows a lot of contempt for the Constitution and opponents who Republicans love to hate.
In his first debate as a presidential candidate, way back in the summer of 2015, Trump was asked a very obvious, and as it would turn out, prescient question about lewd and sexist things he had said about women in his long public life. His response: “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
Blammo.
In three words, Trump asked Republicans if they would stand with him or with the world-famous generator of GOP outrage, a person whose whole brand had been built around being an obnoxious critic of their party. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true that O’Donnell had been the only victim of his piggish barbs; it mattered that it was funny and divisive.
The ongoing federal government shutdown offers the president a great platform for picking enemies.
“For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” the president said of a plan to deny furloughed federal workers back pay. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
Of a plan to shut down some agencies entirely, Trump had a similar thought:
“We’re only cutting Democrat programs, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programs,” he said. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.” Like blue state infrastructure projects, for instance.
With the help of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, Trump is offering Republicans a kind of Strangelovian shutdown in which the right people benefit and everyone else gets nuked.
There is the problem of military pay, which becomes a serious matter on Wednesday when troops are next supposed to get their salaries. There’s also the problem of air travel interruptions, which are bad and about to get a lot worse, as Federal Aviation Administration workers go unpaid. Republicans, after all, fly too.
The president has a solution in mind for how to keep programs he and Republicans like, and you won’t be surprised that the one simple trick is … tariffs. The feds are taking in more than $30 billion a month in taxes paid on U.S. imports. It would cover a fraction of the total cost of operating the government, but it would pay for some favored programs and allow the administration to neglect enemy interests.
The problem, of course, is that it isn’t Trump’s money. Without spending authorization from Congress, the Treasury Department can’t appropriate funds. But you can certainly expect that if the shutdown keeps up, Trump will try to go it alone, as he successfully did in his first term by taking money for his border wall from other funds.
That’s the kind of shutdown a lot of Republicans could really get behind: Trump just picks and chooses what and whom to fund and lets the rest of the government wither on the vine. How much of this is a bluff designed to get Senate Democrats to knuckle under and vote to reopen the government and how much of this is wishcasting by MAGA? Whatever the ratio is now, it will trend more toward Republicans saying they actually want the shutdown to continue. The longer the better, they will say.
But if this really becomes policy instead of a bargaining position, there would be big trouble ahead.
One of the things that MAGA likes about the shutdown is that we haven’t yet seen the official September jobs report, which, based on recent trends and downward revisions, was expected to be unhappy. But numbers put together by the Carlyle Group to help investors gauge what’s happening in the economy suggest that September was the worst month for hiring since the pandemic.
A reasonable explanation for the weakening jobs market would be that the same tariffs that would fund the one-branch government of a Rosie O’Donnell-style shutdown have been crushing the manufacturing sector, which just posted its seventh straight monthly contraction. The administration’s solution for the problem so far seems mostly to be having the government take ownership shares in struggling companies and granting them favorable arrangements against competitors.
It’s not surprising then that consumers are feeling sickly about the economy. A survey for housing lender Fannie Mae “reveals nearly 70% of Americans believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction. An even higher percentage (73%) say it’s a bad time to buy a house.”
This gets at the core problem with a policy predicated on having the right enemies. Political independents and persuadable voters don’t care very much about who loses as long as they and their families are winning. If you’re a Republican watching her or his flight get canceled next week, you might think, “At least Democrats are suffering more.” If you’re an independent, the miseries of Hakeem Jeffries would be of shallow consolation.
Indeed, approval ratings for Trump and the GOP were already tanking with independents before the shutdown. If the direct discomforts pile up or, even worse, the sudden curtailment of federal spending helps sink the already anemic economy, Democrats will certainly feel more pressure to give in. But the pain for the party in power will really start to multiply. That’s when the president will take “Don’t Fear the Reaper” off of the playlist.
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 41.4 percent
Average Disapproval: 56 percent
Net Score: -14.6 points
Change from last week: ↓0.4 points
Change from one month ago: ↓ 2 points
[Average includes: Ipsos/Reuters 40 percent approve – 58 percent disapprove; Pew Research Center 40 percent approve – 58 percent disapprove; NYT/Siena University 43 percent approve – 54 percent disapprove; Marist College 41 percent approve – 53 percent disapprove; Marquette University Law School 43 percent approve – 57 percent disapprove]
Americans souring on sports gambling
The fact that betting on sports is now legal in much of the country is __ for society?
2025; 2022
Bad 43 percent; 34 percent
Good 7 percent; 8 percent
Neither 50 percent; 57 percent
[Pew Research Center survey of 9,916 adults, July 8-Aug. 3]
ON THE SIDE: FOUNDERED FATHERS
The Atlantic: “On the whole, the Founding Fathers, those towering patriarchs, fared poorly when it came to sons. George Washington and James Madison had none. Thomas Jefferson’s only legitimate one died in infancy. Samuel Adams also outlived his. With the exception of John Quincy Adams, no other son of a Founder rose to his father’s stature. The unluckiest of all may have been Benjamin Franklin, who, in the course of a deeply familial contest, lost a cherished son the hardheaded way: to politics. The two were for years each other’s closest confidant. As one associate noted, William Franklin had, by his late 20s, become his father’s ‘friend, his brother, his intimate and easy companion.’ … When finally it came, the confrontation was loud. At William’s stately New Jersey home that summer, the two men quarreled so violently that they roused the neighbors. Franklin warned William that his position would soon prove uncomfortable, as William well knew. As early as June 1775, he anticipated arrest.”
PRIME CUTS
Democrats largely stand behind Jay Jones despite text scandal: The Washington Post: “Top Democrats have condemned the 2022 texts from Jay Jones but declined to join Republicans in calling for Jones to drop out, with early voting already underway in the battleground state. … Some Democratic lawmakers — particularly from the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which Jones belonged to when he served in the state House of Delegates — have begun expressing support for Jones. Other leaders in Virginia and across the country have remained noticeably silent. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger has said she spoke with Jones about her ‘disgust’ with the texts but has not indicated whether he should stay in the race. … No prominent elected Democrat has called on Jones to leave the race. The president of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, Sean Rankin, called Jones’s texts ‘reckless and unacceptable’ but said in a statement that ‘on balance’ he is a better choice than his GOP opponent. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association declined to comment on Jones’s texts.”
Major police group backing Spanberger calls for Jones to ‘decline to serve’ if he wins in November: CNN: “The embattled Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general returned to the campaign trail Wednesday as a major state police group called on him not to take office if he wins in November following the disclosure of violent text messages. … Top Democrats declined to call on him to withdraw with early voting already underway and more than 421,000 Virginians having already cast their ballot, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. But the Virginia Police Benevolent Association, which endorsed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, called on him to decline to take office even if he wins. … ’Even if he were to withdraw, his name would remain, and he could still win the election. Voters now have the full picture of Mr. Jones’ character and must weigh that information carefully as they cast their ballots,’ a statement reads. ‘If he were to win, he should decline to take office. Leaders cannot serve effectively when their own conduct has undermined their credibility.’”
Poll taken before text scandal showed Spanberger way ahead, but attorney general race tightening: WVEC: “Democrat Abigail Spanberger leads Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by 10 points in Virginia’s race for governor, according to a new survey from the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at Christopher Newport University. The poll of likely Virginia voters shows Spanberger with 52% support to Earle-Sears’ 42%, while 6% remain undecided. The report notes that statewide races have tightened slightly since the previous Wason Center survey in mid-September, though the differences remain within the survey’s margin of error. … In the race for attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones holds a six-point advantage over incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, 49% to 43%. This margin represents voter sentiment before the now viral story in which Jones sent text messages to a Virginia lawmaker, describing a desire to shoot former Virginia Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert. ‘I would not expect it to pull Spanberger down, but there is potential to pull Jones down. The caveat is that state races tend to be low-information races for voters; there isn’t a ton of attention on media coverage, but this is an issue elevated to national coverage,’ said Dr. Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director for the Wason Center.”
Candidates clash in final New Jersey gubernatorial debate: The New York Times: “With less than a month before Election Day, the candidates for governor of New Jersey faced off on Wednesday in a final debate that showcased stark differences in how they plan to lead the state, an accusation of culpability in the opioid epidemic and a rare moment of comity on, of all things, self-serve gasoline. The hourlong debate between Representative Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, and the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, also featured flash points over the Trump administration’s release of her military records and its decision to withhold $16 billion for construction of a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River that is vital to New Jersey’s economy. … The testiest exchange of the night centered on a claim by Ms. Sherrill that Mr. Ciattarelli had contributed to opioid deaths by spreading misleading information through a medical publication company, Galen Publishing, he once owned. Mr. Ciattarelli sold it, netting him millions. … The attack seemed to offend Mr. Ciattarelli, who paused and turned to his opponent. ‘Shame on you,’ he said. ‘Shame on you, sir,’ Ms. Sherrill replied. Mr. Ciattarelli then attacked Ms. Sherrill, linking her to the surge of migration that occurred during the Biden administration and calling it among the causes of the opioid crisis. He later defended his business, saying that he was proud of his career and calling Ms. Sherrill’s attacks a lie.”
Sherrill heads into home stretch with cash advantage over Ciattarelli: The Bergen [N.J.] Record: “With early in-person voting already underway and less than a month until Election Day, both candidates in the New Jersey gubernatorial election have filed disclosures about how much money they’ve spent and how much they have left. … [Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill] received about $17.5 million over the course of the campaign and has already spent almost $11 million. The fourth term congresswoman still has $6.5 million available for the last month of the campaign. [Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli], the Republican candidate, received about $16.5 million and has already spent about $12.5 million. The third time gubernatorial candidate has nearly $4 million left in the bank. Both Sherrill and Ciattarelli have received more than $9 million from the state’s public funds program.”
Cuomo says a Mamdani win means a Trump takeover of NYC: ABC News: “Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo [said] it would be a ‘gift’ to President Donald Trump if Zohran Mamdani wins the election in November and becomes New York City’s next mayor. Cuomo said he’s the ‘last person’ Trump wants to see as mayor, citing their relationship while he was governor of New York. ‘We fought on a daily basis,’ Cuomo said. He alleged that a Mamdani win would lead to a federal takeover of New York City and then Trump would use Mamdani as an example during other elections about the dangers of electing a far-left politician.”
Mamdani condemns both sides in Oct. 7 anniversary statement: CNN: “New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani reflected on the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks Tuesday, issuing a statement in memory of Israeli victims and hostages still held by Hamas but also critical of the US and Israeli governments. … Mamdani’s statement drew a sharp rebuke from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which reposted Mamdani’s statement on X and accused him of ‘acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda.’”
Republicans pull ads against California gerrymander initiative: Punchbowl News: “California Republicans have significantly scaled back their TV advertising against Proposition 50 amid increasing pessimism among the GOP that they’ll be able to defeat Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting ballot measure. To date, Newsom’s group boosting Prop 50 has spent nearly $43 million on TV, radio, digital and streaming ads. The two GOP groups opposing Prop 50 have spent a combined $27 million so far. That’s a $16 million gap. No on Prop 50 – Protect Voters First, an anti-Prop 50 group funded by GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., has spent $20.1 million on ads so far. However, the group isn’t airing any TV ads this week, with a little less than one month away from the Nov. 4 election, per AdImpact.”
Vance heads to Indiana as state GOP flinches at gerrymander: Politico: “President Donald Trump’s mid-cycle redistricting push is on the verge of stalling in Indiana, top state Republican officials have warned the White House, and Vice President JD Vance is on his way to the Hoosier state to turn things around. The cautionary note, shared by three Republicans close to the deliberations, prompted Vance’s second trip in three months to the state to mount a ‘hard push,’ one of the people said. The people cited in this story were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.”
SHORT ORDER
Candidates set for Tennessee special House primary as Dems eye December upset — AP
Longtime Tenn. Democratic Rep. Cohen draws progressive primary challenger — Semafor
Shapiro puts clout on the line in judicial election — CNN
Hunt launches Texas Senate bid, upping chances of a GOP runoff — AP
Roy Cooper shatters fundraising record in N.C. Senate run — The Hill
Maine’s Democratic governor reportedly to launch Collins challenge next week — Axios
EMILY’s list picks a side in primary race to replace Durbin — The Hill
New Utah congressional map opens the door for Democrats — AP
Post-wildfire rebuilding may vault LA mayor runner-up Caruso into governorship — Bloomberg
Tommy Thompson, 83, considers another run at Wisconsin governor — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Dems may be locked out of the House after 2028 if SUPCO ends minority district protections — Politico
TABLE TALK: MEATY ISSUES
“C’mon you’re from Wayne, it’s Taylor ham. Who eats pork roll? I think that’s gross.” — Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Democratic nominee for New Jersey, in an interview igniting a firestorm over Garden State residents’ regional preferences for breakfast meats
“I don’t want to have an unhappy experience with you.” — Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, candidate for California governor, as she tries to end an interview with CBS News after questions about her campaign strategy
“It would be a very, very tough one for me to look at.” — Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, on whether he could vote for Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones
MAILBAG
“I miss your writing at The Dispatch, especially the photo caption contest. It was definitely smile worthy!” — Donnie Bishop, New Castle, Va.
Mr. Bishop,
And yet, here we are, together again! I relish my status as a Dispatch contributor and will have other pieces there soon, to say nothing of by podcastery with Brother Goldberg. But we are having a very good time over here at The Hill and have developed a large and loyal readership for Whole Hog Politics. I’m especially having fun with the video version I do with my boss and dear friend Bill Sammon on Fridays. (You can check out past episodes here.)
But you are very right that we need a little more levity of the kind that our Cutline Contest provided in my years doing this note for the Dispatch. I’m thinking all the time about what that might be and am very open to suggestions. Send me any ideas and watch this space for the answers.
All best,
c
You should email us! Write to WHOLEHOGPOLITICS@THEHILL.COM with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — at least first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, Meera Sehgal, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!
FOR DESSERT: SO GLAD, HE CAN’T BEAR IT
The Guardian: “Out on a digital detox in the western U.S. backcountry, scientist Fred Ramsdell was startled when his wife let out a yell. He feared she had spotted a grizzly bear, only to discover a far better surprise – he had won the Nobel prize in medicine. The Nobel committee had been unable to reach the immunologist, whose phone was on airplane mode as he was on a hiking and camping trip, but finally got through to the couple early on Tuesday morning, Swedish time. ‘They were still in the wild and there are plenty of grizzly bears there, so he was quite worried when she let out a yell,’ said Thomas Perlmann, secretary general of the Nobel committee. … Perlmann said Ramsdell and his wife, Laura O’Neill, had been heading back to their hotel when they stopped to fix something on their car. That was the moment Ramsdell’s wife switched on her mobile phone and saw the dozens of congratulatory messages.”
Many thanks to colleagues Anna Sugg and Caleb Parker for their help in crafting this note.
