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Trump Is Wagging All The Dogs He Can Find (Video), Hawley On Trump's Budget Bill: “It’s very bad policy, and it hurts poor people”

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Simon Rosenberg and Adam Klasfeld

Jun 18

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Morning all. Sharing a recording (above) of a great discussion I had yesterday with journalist Adam Klasfeld for his Substack, All Rise News. We spent the bulk of the conversation talking about the argument I’ve been advancing that Trump is failing, weak and increasingly unpopular; a big blubbery baby man and anything but a strong man. In our talk Adam referenced yesterday’s Double TACO post, and two more from last week (here, here) that go deeper into the argument. It’s a very meaty and intense dive into our current moment. Get to it when you can, and paid subscribers should sign up for our Thursday night event here.

A quick summary - other than breaking a lot of things and enriching himself Trump has very few wins he can point to right now. His economic strategy is slowing the global and US economies, has caused our credit rating to be downgraded, threatens the fiscal integrity of the United States, raises prices on everyone and does not cutting them, and will cause tens of millions to lose their health insurance, tens of millions more will see their health care costs rise and the overall health care system will be dramatically weakened. He promised to end the Ukraine war, bring peace to the Middle East, end the Gaza conflict, 90 trade deals in 90 days, rip Greenland from Europe, make Canada the 51st state - none of that has happened, global leaders are not bending the knee and some are even mocking him to his face while visiting the Oval Office. He keeps losing in court again and again, badly, and judges are growing far more ambitious in their rulings. He had to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. His bestie Elon tore into him, trashed his terrible budget bill and called on him to be replaced as President. No one came to his birthday parade. Rs keep losing and underperforming in elections. His cowardice and indecision has become a global meme - TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). His budget bill is wildly unpopular, and struggling to get through Congress. What may be the largest protest movement in American history has formed gainst him. It has become impossible to hide the buffoonery of his Star Wars bar cabinet. He looks terrible. His ties are longer, his pants higher and his Truths more unhinged. He fled the G7 on Monday. Respected elected officials in America are getting arrested, charged, assaulted and assisniated. Marines are on the streets of an American city. Everything he is doing appears designed to make China and Russia - not America - great again.

The circle of defiance to Trump’s agenda of sabotage, plunder and betrayal keeps growing and growing. The world, the American people and reality itself just aren’t bending the knee. Our democracy is proving more resisilient and our people more patriotic than he expected. This thing simply isn’t working as this delusional, vainglorious, sundowning old man thought it would. We, all of us, clearly do not understand how STRONG AND MIGHTY he is.

Two weeks ago Elon launched his multi-day attack on Trump and I think it shook an already struggling White House. The dramatic and completely over the top escalation in Los Angeles came shortly afterwards. Public opinion immediately turned against both the escalation and him. Last week polling on immigration and deportations turned sharply negative. His overall standing came down after weeks of modest recovery. His parade was a bust and millions marched, peacefully, joyfully, powerfully. The polls we’ve received this week confirm this downward trend and he is now polling at the lowest point of his second term. Look at the erosion he’s seen in the groups critical to his election victory:

Their first effort to wag the dog - change the subject - immigration enforcement escalation in Los Angeles and across the country - has so far backfired on Trump. The arrests, assaults and assassinations of Democrats may make them feel STRONG AND MIGHTY but the public is rejecting all this. His numbers keep dropping. He chickened out on his tough enforcement due to complaints from his supporters over the weekend, but then on Monday he chickened out on his first chickening out and reinstated broad indiscriminate enforcement (a Double TACO!!!!). The complains from his supporters, Ag and business interests these last few days have been loud and intense:

“If we don’t watch out in this country, we’re going to start losing a lot more of our farmers,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia). “It will become a crisis like you can’t imagine, because we owe so much to the American family farm.”

The emerging Senate version of his budget bill - already incredibly unpopular - is somehow worse than the terrible House bill. Here’s the Hill this morning, Senate GOP leader faces after members blindsided by Trump bill, writing about growing concerns in the Senate about this ugly monstrosity:

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is facing strong pushback from members of the GOP conference over the Finance Committee’s piece of President Trump’s tax and spending bill, which largely ignores GOP senators’ concerns about Medicaid cuts and the quick phaseout of clean-energy tax credits.
Senate Republicans who raised red flags over Medicaid spending cuts the House passed say they were blindsided by the Senate’s version of the bill, which would cut Medicaid by several hundred billion dollars beyond what the House proposed.
They are warning that the Finance Committee’s language will cause dozens of rural hospitals to close in their home states, require lower-income Americans to pay more for medical procedures and shift costs onto the states.
“I had no idea that they were going to completely scrap the House framework like this. This totally caught me by surprise. And I’ve talked to other senators, and that’s what I’ve heard consistently from everybody I’ve talked to,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has repeatedly warned about the impact of Medicaid cuts on his constituents and rural hospitals.
“No one was expecting this entirely new framework,” he said.
Hawley and other Republicans have complained for weeks that the House cuts to Medicaid went too far and called for changes, but those warnings appeared to have little impact on Thune or Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).
Instead, Thune and Crapo sided with conservatives, such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who called for deeper spending cuts than what the House passed.
……..
Hawley on Tuesday warned that nearly half of Missouri’s rural hospitals would face closure if the Senate bill passes without major changes.
“It’s very bad policy, and it hurts poor people,” he said. “It’s not just the right thing to do to shut down a bunch of rural hospitals to pay for tax cuts, or in this case, it’s tax subsidies in the form of Green New Deal subsidies that go to private equity and hedge funds.”

Here’s a portion of Politico’s home page right now (failure, outrage):

Here’s a portion of the NYT home page (chaos, outrage):

Here’s The Washington Post: (chaos, outrage, double TACO!!!!)

Here’s video of Trump’s homage to Monty Python on Monday, full of dropped papers and a close with his being thankful for this “agreement with the European Union” standing next to the leader of a country, the UK, that fled the European Union. Just watch.

So, here we are. Trump’s got his hand on the Iranian tail, and is being tempted now to wag it big time for his Presidency is going to shit. And if he doesn’t do this, expect him to desperately searching for more dogs to wag in the coming weeks as he tries to salvage his failing Presidency.

As I wrote yesterday….

In recent days we’ve all been reminded sometimes the wheels on the bus go round and round, and sometimes they come flying off. Trump has always been a ridiculous and cartoonish figure. The Emperor never had any clothes. He was always the old man behind the curtain and never the Wizard. And I just get the sense now that the buffoonish, dangerous, sundowning man we all see is now being seen by far more people. A door is opening, people are waking up to the awful reality of Trump and not the right wing noise machine roided version of him. You never know in politics what is the trigger that causes things to change, for new understands to emerge. I have always believed that there was a limit to how fast some of his weak supporters would have buyer’s remorse, and come to realize they got played. In fact I’ve been surprised how quickly and consequentially his numbers have come down. Down, however they are, even on what was his greatest strength - immigration.
Which is why we need to keep working as hard as we can people. He is stumbling, failing, getting panicky, looking weak and pathetic. An opportunity is emerging for us and we need to seize it.

So, now, let’s get to work.

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Stop The Reconciliation Bill - Job One for us this summer remains fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play in the coming weeks.

Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us.

Own The Fourth, The Flag And Patriotism - To keep our momentum going after this weekend’s No Kings events I encourage to explore ways of Owning The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly one for our mad wannabe king. We heard from Hopium community member Deborah Potter last week about her work advancing “resolutions of disapproval” in New Mexico. Will have more on that for you in the coming days.

Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today.

Note that we did get a great court ruling restoring the NIH grants the Bethesda Declaration calls for. Here’s an how one medical journal characterized the ruling:

District Judge William Young, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, blasted the Trump administration’s NIH cuts as discriminatory and “bearing down on people of color because of their color.”
A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s sweeping terminations of NIH research contracts are not only illegal, but are also a clear manifestation of the government’s “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”
In a speech after delivering his verdict on Monday, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts called the administration’s move to cut federal funding for certain research grants “arbitrary and capricious,” going against established government standards, as per the Associated Press. Young blasted the Trump administration, which he said was “bearing down on people of color because of their color,” NBC News reported. “The Constitution will not permit that.”

Here’s a possible script to use to fight the reconciliation bill and tariffs. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.
But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.
Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Grow Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day and we’ve launched a new referral awards program too. So you can earn months towards a paid subscription by bringing in new subscribers to the Hopium community!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon