Trump’s Strong Speech

by Jim Talent

Here’s my take on the State of the Union address.

I thought it was a very strong effort, both substantively and emotionally powerful.

The White House had a plan, and the president executed it. President Trump wanted to convey optimism about the country and a sense of his achievements thus far, based primarily on the performance of the economy. It’s no accident that the speech began with the good news about job and wage growth and a celebration of the tax-cut legislation. That part of the speech was, in all candor, a no-brainer; the economy is growing, and the tax bill is part of the reason.

The remarkable and immediate response of so many American companies to the tax cuts — the bonuses, wage increases, and plans to invest in the United States — are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It looks like Larry Kudlow was right.

Many conservatives are criticizing the Democrats for not applauding at the economic good news that the president cited. But the Democrats were in a box on this one. If they applauded, it would look like they agreed with what the president was saying — and remember that six weeks ago they not only voted against the tax bill but predicted doom if it passed. On the other hand, not applauding made them look churlish. They might have compromised by applauding perfunctorily, but there’s a good chance that would have pleased no one.

It was a tough position to be in, but that’s what happens when the facts on the ground prove you so wrong so quickly, and your political opponents have a high-profile occasion to take advantage of it.

The president did a good job of reaching out to the other side of the aisle while at the same time giving his own supporters plenty to cheer about. The speech was at its most substantive when the president laid out the “four pillars” of his immigration proposal. It was a welcome sign that the White House is prepared to fight out the immigration issue on the merits; I think it will force the Democrats to debate the substance as well. The phrase “Americans are dreamers too” was both a memorable line and a good argument; it emphasized Trump’s main point, which was that immigration policy, like all federal policy, should have as its object advancing the interests of the people of the United States.

I was very pleased when the president called for the end of the defense sequester. I would have liked to see him develop the point — it would have been a perfect addition to the economic pitch at the beginning of the speech, because defense spending is so good for manufacturing and innovation — but at least he went on the record with what he wants.

I was a big infrastructure senator, and I liked the emphasis in the speech on that issue. It will be difficult to come up with the financing that the president called for, but he was right to highlight the importance of reducing the regulations and delays that increase costs.

The speech was lengthy, but didn’t seem as long as it was. Maybe that’s because there were so many powerful individual stories of suffering and sacrifice. I thought the president handled all of those well. For all Trump’s toughness, I get the sense that he really does empathize with the people he introduced tonight, and others like them.

The story of Ji Seong-ho was the right way to wrap up the speech. Telling the truth about North Korea hits the regime at one of its most vulnerable points. It also signaled Trump’s understanding of the hope America represents to the world. The picture of Seong-ho holding up his crutches is one Americans will remember.

It’s been a good week for the Trump administration. With two strong speeches — at Davos and now in the House chamber — Trump has gone a long way towards pulling together the parts of his unruly coalition, reaching out to non-aligned Americans, and putting the Democrats on the defensive. If he continues in this vein, his political opponents are going to have to begin engaging on the issues. Given the good news about the economy, and with a substantive debate on immigration, infrastructure, and defense just beginning, Resistance alone isn’t going to be enough to get the Democrats to November.

The (Tea) Party Is Over

by Jonah Goldberg

I thought President Trump gave a politically effective speech. I don’t think it was particularly bipartisan. Which is not that notable save for the fact that the White House billed it all day as a bridge-building, nationally unifying speech. And it really wasn’t. It wasn’t intensely partisan either. It just felt a little like a bait-and-switch given all the messaging today.

While way too long, the first — and most important — 20 minutes on the economy were particularly good. The story Trump has to tell on that front is a good one, and he has as much right to brag as any president does at these things, and on some fronts more than most. (How much credit presidents deserve for the economy is a subject for another day.) The Democrats certainly did themselves no favors by refusing to applaud job growth and higher wages.

I thought the lowest point was the long digression on MS-13 as a pressing domestic enemy. While I have no problem with any effort to degrade and destroy that gang — many of whose members were born here — I thought that portion hyperbolic and exploitative. While I have no doubt he was sincere, it was also clearly an attempt to throw some red meat to the base before he laid out his immigration plan,m which is decidedly not aimed at the base.

But the most striking thing about the speech was how much it fell into an almost Trumpian version of compassionate conservatism — as if the tea parties had never existed. This was for the most part a conservative speech culturally and thematically. But except for some laudable bits about streamlining the bureaucracy and improving FDA policy, there wasn’t a hint of fiscal conservatism to it. Trump wants a huge increase in infrastructure spending and an end to the sequester for military spending, but he never mentioned the debt or deficit. Well, there was one mention of the word “deficit” — the “infrastructure deficit.” And he endorsed a new entitlement — paid family leave — while failing to mention any effort to reform the existing entitlements.

I’m not sure it matters politically. But I’m pretty sure it does economically and philosophically.

Donald Trump’s Powerful Pro-Life Moment

by David French

At one level it’s hardly worth analyzing a State of the Union speech. They’re highly scripted, the policy proposals are typically known well in advance, and few presidents truly botch the delivery. With Trump, we also — for good reason — suspect that before the end of the week he’ll impulsively waste much of the goodwill he gained tonight with an ill-considered tweet (or ten). 

But, still, there are still two things worth noting.

First, from a policy standpoint, the SOTU reaffirmed the temporary triumph of the Republican establishment in the GOP civil war. It wasn’t a populist speech. It wasn’t a tea party speech. It was a big-government conservative speech in the mold of George W. Bush. Tax cuts. New programs (infrastructure, paid leave). Good judges. A strong national defense. Even the harsh language on immigration was tempered by an offer of compromise. For mostly good (and some ill), it was a speech Mitch McConnell could love. 

Second — and more memorably — Trump’s speech featured one of the most powerful pro-life moments I’ve seen in a presidential address. It occurred when Trump honored Albuquerque, New Mexico, police officer Ryan Holets and his wife Rebecca. He intervened to stop a pregnant homeless woman from injecting heroin and then later adopted the child, naming her Hope. You can see the moment here:

That’s the heart of adoption in America — parents who live their faith, preserve life, and love their new children. Spend any time with adoptive families, and you’ll hear stories every bit as inspiring as Ryan and Rebecca’s. Their story is wonderful, but it’s not as extraordinary as you might think. I’m consistently in awe of the adoptive moms and dads that I meet, and I’m grateful that the president chose to highlight one of those families tonight.

It’s easy to get cynical about the practice of honoring heroes and recognizing families who’ve suffered loss — especially if the recognition is transparently in service of a defined, contentious policy goal — but these moments do serve a larger purpose. In angry and polarized times, we too often forget about virtue and courage. The Holets and others Trump chose to honor tonight — including men like North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho and Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck — deserved their moment in the national spotlight. I’m grateful we heard their stories. 

The State of the Union Is . . . Unifying

by Rich Lowry

I agree with most everyone else that it was a good performance. This point has been made over and over, but if Trump tried to strike this kind of tone all the time, he’d probably be at 47 percent and the party would be in much better shape heading into November. The content of the speech was pretty conservative and the exceptions — infrastructure, prescription drugs — were quite vague. The passages on MS-13 will drive the Left insane, and the general treatment of immigration, with its strong emphasis on the border, seemed to indicate he thinks he needs to shore up his right after his compromise proposal last week. I’m generally not a fan of recognizing people in the balcony, and Trump has taken it to another level. But given how he’s not a natural at projecting warmth, the recognition of ordinary heroes is helpful to him and there were a number of very moving stories. The ending hit utterly unobjectionable unifying notes. It was a night when we got a glimpse at what could be a boosterish, presidential Trump who might appeal to fence-sitters. But tomorrow is another day.

Egad, Ginger Baby Kennedy Was Terrible

by Kyle Smith

I’d never watched Joe Kennedy III before. Apparently a couple of his speeches have gone viral, and the Democrats thought he was just the rising star they needed to respond to Trump’s first State of the Union.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. No. Ginger Baby Kennedy looks like the most boring nerd in middle school, and he spoke as if he were running for Student Council president. He had moisture at the corners of his mouth. He seemed nervous. He was emotional to the point where he seemed like he might start to cry. He spoke what I’m told is terrible Spanish in an effort to be ingratiating. As my pal Joe Simonson of The Daily Caller pointed out on Twitter, a Kennedy is not the person to make the case against elites sucking up all the wealth, nor is he the one to align himself with sexually mistreated women under the #MeToo rubric. Kennedy seemed like the kid who gets jammed into a locker in a high-school comedy — and the crowd laughs with the bullies who do this to him. America is not a nerd-loving nation. Go ask Mike Dukakis about that. Moreover, his weepy downer of a speech was way too pessimistic. This isn’t 1932.

If Joe Kennedy III is the future of the Democratic party, the Democratic party has no future. 

 

 

The Void in Trump’s Speech

by Ramesh Ponnuru

In his State of the Union address, President Trump was much better at describing his past accomplishments than his future agenda. He took credit for a strong economy—more than truly merited, but that’s something all presidents with a good economy do—and explained that almost everyone is going to be paying lower taxes starting next month. This was politically necessary, if very predictable, work, made more powerful by the Democrats’ refusal to cheer for any of it. And he mentioned the judicial appointments and deregulation, among other policies for which conservatives are grateful.

But there was almost nothing of substance about 2018. The great exception is immigration, where he laid out a relatively detailed proposal in a way that will strike people without strong views on the subject as fair and sensible. Long stretches of the speech were, however, simply vacuous, as when Trump endorsed higher infrastructure investment and lower opioid addiction rates without saying a word about how these goods would be achieved. These were goals, not policies.

One reason the speech was so heavy on shout-outs to heroes and victims in the audience was that the policy cupboard is pretty bare. Congressional Republicans don’t appear to have any more specific idea of what to do now than Trump does. The speech did nothing to fill the vaccuum.

Yet I think the speech is a modest political victory anyway. It will strike those Americans who aren’t die-hard lovers or haters of Trump—and these people do exist—as reasonable. The problem is that the impression Trump gave tonight will fade quickly, and not just because he might tweet something incendiary tomorrow but because the speech was not designed for any follow-through. Republicans seem to be limping along to the midterm elections.

The State of Our Union Wants To Be Normal

by Dan McLaughlin

President Trump’s State of the Union speech tonight was subdued, emotional, Trumpy in some identifiable ways (like his focus on gang violence and skills-based immigration restrictions), but also normal: a speech that in tone could have been given by a conventional politician. That doesn’t excuse or erase the ways in which Trump is not a normal president (or degrade from them, if you’re the sort of person who likes not-normal-for-Washington), but just as hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, Trump’s periodic efforts to speak in the language of normal American politics is a reminder of why normal American politics remains a thing of value worth preserving. Many Republicans, like me, who are not comfortable with Trump would have been a lot easier to convert if the Trump of tonight’s speech was the every day Trump.

For the most part, the speech was good because it was not a typical Trump speech, although it sought to put a lot of human faces on the causes Trump champions. Trump leaned heavily on stories of inspirational people in the gallery, a dolorous and saccharine tradition begun by Ronald Reagan. Used sparingly, such stories can be powerful, and many of tonight’s were, but it’s a sign of weakness that he had to rely so much on them to wring emotion and applause from the audience. But then, for a populist, Trump is particularly vulnerable to charges of being callous towards ordinary people, so maybe that was necessary. And the litany, from Steve Scalise to the “Cajun Navy” to the Border Patrol to the horrors of North Korea, reminded us of what a difficult year this has been, and what a perilous world we still live in. 

Of the five things I suggested Trump do tonight, he basically hit all five, at least to some extent – maybe a bit light on healthcare besides trumpeting the death of the Obamacare individual mandate, but otherwise, he touted the concrete benefits of business tax cuts, the breaking of ISIS’ hold over territory, the benefits of bipartisan compromise on immigration, and America’s sympathy with Iranian protestors against tyranny.

It’s unlikely that tonight’s speech will turn anyone’s opinion of Trump around, but for tonight, he did what he needed to do.

State of the Union: For Trump, Boring Is Good

by Kyle Smith

President Trump did a lot of good for himself tonight. For at least this evening, he managed to project an image opposed to the (justified) caricature of him as arrogant, boorish, poorly-informed, needlessly divisive, erratic and unstable. He certainly didn’t come across as a 25th Amendment case, a buffoon, or a guy who can’t be trusted to be Commander in Chief. The best aspects were his low-key voice and calm demeanor on the one hand and his many shout-outs to the American heroes he brought along to put a human face on talking points such as the ongoing war with ISIS and the dangers of illegal-immigrant gangs. Most of the points he made were reasonable, normal, center-right policy ideas, and Democratic efforts to paint them as extreme will come across as petty and unconvincing. Trump’s references to illegal immigrants will both drive Democrats crazy and score points with a lot of centrist voters in the purple-to-red parts of the country. 

Betting on Trump to successfully pivot to a more polished and presidential style has been a sucker’s bet for the entire first year of his presidency. But he has been much less abrasive on Twitter the last week or two, with a few questionable exceptions. Notably, he failed to take the bait after Hillary Clinton and others went after him in the Grammys broadcast on Sunday. It may be that someone has impressed on him that if the GOP loses the House in November, that will be the effective end of his ability to pass any legislation and more or less the end of his presidency, although he could still shape the judiciary to his advantage. If he could change the subject from his personality (and the Russia business, which I remain convinced would fade away if he would just let it) to how well the economy is doing, he could retain the House and even pick up a Senate seat or two. All he really has to do in order to make that happen is to be as dull and normal as he was tonight. 

Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen either. But stranger things have happened. 

 

 

‘Futile Care’ Coercion Bill in Virginia

by Wesley J. Smith

Futile care theory (as I call it) or medical futility allows doctors to unilaterally refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment based on the physician’s values–even if the patient has requested that the care continue, even if it vetoes a patient’s advance medical directive.

The worst such law in the USA is in Texas. And now, Senate Bill 222, authored by Democrat John Edwards- D Roanoke, would bring this form of medical coercion to Virginia with even fewer patient protections than exist in Texas.

The bill requires hospitals to establish conflict mechanisms for disputes over wanted life-sustaining treatment that a physician does not wish to provide based on his or her values. If the conflict cannot be resolved thereby, the patient can be pushed out of wanted treatment if no other doctor can be found to take the case. From the bill (my emphasis):

If, at the end of the 14-day period, the conflict remains unresolved despite compliance with the hospital’s written policy established pursuant to subdivision B 21 of § 32.1-127 and the physician has been unable to identify another physician or facility willing to provide the care requested by the patient, the terms of the advance directive, or the decision of the agent or person authorized to make decisions pursuant to § 54.1-2986 to which to transfer the patient despite reasonable efforts, the physician may cease to provide the treatment that the physician has determined to be medically or ethically inappropriate.

Realize that under futile care theory, the treatment isn’t stopped because it has ceased working, e.g., it no longer is maintaining life. Rather, it is being stopped precisely because the intervention is keeping the patient alive when that is not what the doctor wants, whether based on a view of the quality of the patient’s life, or lurking beneath the surface, the costs of care. 

The bill would also give greater protection to the doctor who stops care from the consequences of malpractice, than would be received by the doctor who provided continuing treatment in accord with the patient’s desires:

A health care provider who complies with the requirements of this section shall be presumed to have complied with the standard of care set forth in § 8.01-581.20, absent clear and convincing evidence of gross negligence or willful misconduct, and shall not be subject to criminal prosecution or disciplinary action related to actions taken or not taken in accordance with this section, absent gross negligence or willful misconduct. 

That is almost a complete legal privilege against liability. While this bill does not authorize assisted suicide, like laws legalizing that act always provide, it means that doctors who take actions to help cause death are held to a lower legal standard of accountability than doctors who seek to maintain it.

Futile care is well meaning, but ultimately authoritarian–and this bill especially so since would seem to give ultimate say to a doctor, not even to a more bioethics committee where different perspective might prevail. That is wrong.

If the continued treatment of a patient is so egregiously against the patient’s interests, the life or death dispute belongs in court, with an open process, with the right of due process of law, cross examination, and appeal. Doctors should not be allowed to paternalistically impose their values on disagreeing patients and their families with no real protection for patient rights.

 

The Proud, Bipartisan Tradition of Prewritten Responses to the State of the Union Address

by Jim Geraghty

One note to add to Kevin’s thorough denunciation of the tradition of the State of the Union Address: all of them are really predictable.

Just how predictable? If you read the print version of a newspaper on the Eastern time zone, and the newspaper’s coverage of the State of the Union in the following morning’s edition featured a quote from your senator or Congressman reacting to the speech, there is an excellent chance that the congressman issued the statement before the speech was delivered.

Television news media may love the State of the Union Address, but for daily newspapers it’s a pain. The speech isn’t given until 9 p.m. Eastern, and it doesn’t wrap up until 10 p.m., and sometimes much later, like if Bill Clinton is speaking. (In 1995, President Clinton spoke for one hour and twenty-four minutes.) The final deadlines for most newspapers on the East Coast are either right before then, right around then, or right after then.

The White House always releases some excerpts early, so the Washington correspondents can usually string together a basic, generic, bare-bones version of “the President declared that the state of the country is strong before assembled lawmakers in the U.S. Capitol Tuesday night.”

Back in my wire service days, one of my jobs on State of the Union day was to write the “Local Members of Congress Respond to the President’s Address” article, and the deadline for a piece like that was closer to 5 or 6 p.m. in the evening — hours before the speech was delivered. Most Congressional offices completely understood the deadlines and would either send over a pre-written statement or, in a couple cases, get the Congressman on the phone for a few minutes to give a “response” – using past tense – to a speech that hadn’t been delivered yet.

This was silly, but it wasn’t a scandal; waiting until after the speech was delivered would mean that the response from members of Congress would run in Thursday’s newspaper and by then readers didn’t care. The question “what did you think of the president’s speech?” was always just another way of asking, “what do you think of the president?” My wire service days were in George W. Bush’s first term, and so the Republicans I covered always liked the president’s remarks and the Democrats were always “concerned” or “disappointed.”

I never had a single lawmaker frantically call, wishing to take back or alter their pre-issued statements.

The State of the Union: A Few Thoughts

by Veronique de Rugy

I am no fan of the State of the Union address. It’s a show I wish we would do away with, from the clapping and standing ovations to the talking points to please the base and the ones to please the Washington insiders. Most of the new policies introduced during a State of the Union never see the light of day (which is often a good thing), so it seems to be more about signaling than anything else. And, yet, here we are again.

We are told that the speech will be about unity rather than division. Here are some issues that I expect President Trump will cover.

Tax Reform: The president is expected to take a victory lap about the passage of the tax reform. In fact, I think he should spend most of his time tonight selling his tax cuts. If he doesn’t, he will have wasted an important opportunity, because the level of misinformation about the tax cuts is still high. This would be a perfect opportunity to learn from President Reagan’s way of communicating and explaining misunderstood policy ideas.

Explaining how tax reform impacts the economy and wage growth is important, where it is correct. President Reagan was a master of this form. However, I worry that, instead, President Trump will explain how the tax cuts are good for the economy because they put money in people’s pockets, money that Americans can then spend on U.S. goods, which get a new lease on life and grow the economy. That’s a Keynesian explanation, and it’s not how it works. Consumption follows economic growth, not the reverse.

We are also going to hear a lot about those bonuses and pay increases. I think those are great but I don’t think they are as much the product of the tax reform as much as they are the result of a tighter labor market. It’s not a bad thing, and we should cheer them no matter what.

However, I hope the president will take some time to explain how lowering marginal tax rates on investment gives companies an incentive to earn more taxable income leading them to invest in other businesses and the expansion of their factories. This in turn raises workers’ productivity, and ultimately leads to higher wages. In other words, he should talk about how that there is more growth wage coming. He can point to the increase in capital expenditures as evidence that things are happening.

Low corporate rates make American companies more competitive. We know this not only from theory, but also because other countries have complained that they fear losing capital to the U.S. now.

Regulations: The president has delivered on his promise to tackle deregulation. He deserves real credit for this and I assume he will talk about what he has done and what else he wants to do. For instance, the end of net neutrality and the move undertaken by the FDA to lighten up its approval process will boost investments for sure. The president has effectively slowed down the growth of the regulatory state, which is great. However, more needs to be done to truly deregulate.

Infrastructure: Based on a Trump infrastructure plan leaked a few days ago, we can expect more calls for state and local government involvement in infrastructure — that’s good — but also an addition $200 billion over ten years for its infrastructure plan. The hope is that this spending will in turn unleash billions of dollars in private infrastructure spending. This part of the speech will be a crowd pleaser, I suspect.

Now, $200 billion in new spending is better than $400 billion or $1 trillion. However, as I have written before, the call for more federal investment in infrastructure is a bad idea. In that I agree with Chris Edwards at Cato:

The proposals generally move in the wrong direction. New federal subsidies are not needed. Any state wanting to improve its infrastructure can do so with its own funding. States have huge revenue-raising power through income, sales, property, and gas taxes. They can issue debt for infrastructure, and charge user fees. They can also privatize infrastructure — such as airports and seaports — and end subsidies.

Federal infrastructure spending is often counter-productive. Last year, the CBO reported that a 1 percent increase in “public physical capital” — such as highways or airports — leads to 0.06 percent economic growth. If the leaked plan is our guide, that’s where most of the money will go. However, there are reasons to believe that this number overstates the returns on federal spending on infrastructure. Indeed, there is a large body of research showing how federal investment in transportation is often misallocated because of political pressure, is used inefficiently because the supply and demand are not guided by market prices, and suffers from costly systemic overruns. These problems, in addition to the fact that federal investments often give priority to union labor and follow inefficient requirements, mean that federal investments often have a negative return, not just a lower return.

The most productive infrastructure spending is done by the private sector to fund projects that are actually needed. That often means spending money where the economy is growing as opposed to spending it in low-growth areas in hopes of jump-starting the economy. A lack of jobs, not a lack of roads is the problem in such places.

Keep reading this post . . .

Trump’s Waiver of Russia Sanctions Is Proper and Prudent, for Now

by David French

Yesterday Twitter erupted briefly with news that the Trump administration was allegedly defying the will of the people by refusing to impose sanctions that both houses of Congress passed overwhelmingly last July. The reason? The administration informed Congress Monday that it was waiving sanctions for now on buyers of Russian arms. The context, however, matters, and the administration’s actions were, I believe, entirely prudent. Here’s what happened and why.

The law at issue (you can read the text here) gave the president 180 days to impose sanctions on a person who knowingly, on or after the date of the law, “engage[d] in a significant transaction with a person that is part of, or operates for or on behalf of, the defense or intelligence sectors of the Government of the Russian Federation.” Trump, however, had the statutory discretion to waive imposition of the sanctions if, among other things, he determined that a waiver “is in the vital national security interests of the United States” or if a person is “substantially reducing” the number of significant relevant transactions with Russia.

Moreover, it’s important to understand that there are a number of U.S. allies, like India, who’ve purchased Russian arms or are considering future defense deals. For example, India has long considered a substantial purchase of Russia’s still-in-development fifth-generation fighter, the Su-57. If, in fact, the new sanctions regime is deterring these deals (we don’t yet have details), then the United States has an incentive not to sanction friends who may well be in the process of voluntary compliance.

Indeed, a state department spokesperson said as much yesterday:

Given the long time frames generally associated with major defense deals, the results of this effort are only beginning to become apparent. From that perspective, if the law is working, sanctions on specific entities or individuals will not need to be imposed because the legislation is, in fact, serving as a deterrent.”

It’s also important to note that at the same time that the administration waived sanctions on arms buyers, it complied with a separate requirement to identify “Senior foreign political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation” — an action that angered Vladimir Putin:

This is definitely an unfriendly act,” President Vladimir V. Putin said when asked about the Treasury Department list during a campaign event in advance of Russia’s own presidential election in March. “It is complicating Russian-American relations, where the situation is already hard, and is definitely harming international relations in general.”

Mr. Putin said Moscow had pondered virtually breaking ties with Washington over what is known in Russia as the “Kremlin report,” but decided against it. “We were prepared to undertake retaliatory steps, and quite serious ones too, which would cut our relations to zero,” he said. “But we will refrain from such steps for the time being.”

Of course one can’t divorce the administration’s actions from the larger context of Trump’s history of pro-Putin statements and the atmosphere of distrust flowing from ongoing Russian election meddling and the ongoing Mueller probe. But we also have to recall that the Trump administration decided to send lethal aid to Ukraine, agreed to provide Patriot missiles to Poland, imposed its own sanctions against Russians and struck Russia ally Syria after Assad’s use of chemical weapons. These are not the actions of an administration that’s “soft” on Russia.

With virtually any other administration yesterday’s report would barely cause a ripple of controversy. But this isn’t any other administration. For now, however, I’m with Tennessee Republican Bob Corker (hardly a Trump apologist). “On the whole,” he said, “it is clear the administration is working in good faith.” That seems to be true, but Congress must remain vigilant. Prudence today is no guarantee of prudence tomorrow. 

 

Don’t Medicalize or Criminalize Donald Trump

by Rich Lowry

A few weeks ago the press and the Left were in a fever about the president allegedly having dementia, and now they are in a fever about his allegedly having committed obstruction of justice. I think these are both misconceived attempts to medicalize or criminalize Donald Trump. Does Trump have personality traits — lack of attention span, lack of interest in details, etc. — that hamper his presidency? Of course. It doesn’t mean that he is literally sick such that the 25th Amendment would or should be invoked. Does Trump, at bottom, have a view of what the Justice Department should be — namely, a fiefdom loyal to him personally — that is disturbing and should be resisted by his advisors? Yes. It doesn’t mean that he’s committed criminal obstruction of justice such that he’s going to be indicted and thrown in jail.

The root of the effort to medicalize or criminalize Trump is the same: A fantasy that he can somehow be leveraged out of office before the 2020 election. Trump’s temperament and view of DOJ are obviously legitimate matters for the opposition to take up against him and to use as fuel for all the normal means to oppose a president — obstruction in Congress, protest marches, attempts to defeat Republican candidates, etc., etc. But the Left is vested in abnormal means to oppose Trump, which explains the feverish attempts to rule him out of bounds on medical or criminal grounds.

Kirsten Gillibrand Exposes Her Political Opportunism on the #MeToo Movement

by Alexandra DeSanctis

In an interview on The View yesterday, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand exposed just how shallow her support for the #MeToo movement really is . . . about as shallow as the rest of her opportunistic political positions.

When co-host Joy Behar lobbed the Democratic senator a softball about sexual-assault allegations against Steve Wynn, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, Gillibrand demanded a zero-tolerance policy, insisting that Republicans should return all of Wynn’s past donations.

“The near-silence is deafening, coming from the Republicans,” she intoned. “I really believe this should not be about any one party. It should not be partisan. . . . They need to send the money back and hold their own accountable. . . . I don’t think these issues should be political.”

Behar then noted the sexual-misconduct allegations against President Trump over the years, to which Gillibrand replied, “He should resign because of that. . . . I’ve not heard that from any Republicans. . . . Again, it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

When Behar mentioned Minnesota Democrat Al Franken — who resigned from the Senate late last year in the wake of sexual-abuse allegations against him — Gillibrand softened, but insisted that, despite being her friend, Franken was not entitled to her silence. She neatly side-stepped, of course, the fact that she spent several weeks equivocating over the Franken accusations, repeatedly avoiding media questions and saying it was “his decision” as to whether he ought to resign.

But it wasn’t until View co-host Meghan McCain spoke up that Gillibrand had to really contort herself. McCain noted recent claims that Hillary Clinton covered for a top campaign adviser accused of sexual harassment, refusing to fire him, before he went on to harass other subordinates. “You’re a long-time supporter of the Clintons and consider her a mentor. Do you think her response this weekend was appropriate?” McCain asked.

“You need transparency and accountability, and no one is above criticism. But, in that case, I don’t know all the details,” Gillibrand hedged, before quickly pivoting to pontificate on the generic evils of workplace harassment.

McCain pushed back, and Gillibrand’s rhetoric grew even more muddled. Here’s the rest of their exchange:

McCain: Senator, you have dedicated your political career to this fight, obviously. That’s why a lot of people were really surprised that it took you 20 years to say that Bill Clinton should’ve resigned over the Lewinsky scandal. So what do you say to that?

Gillibrand: I think this moment of time we’re in is very different. I don’t think we had the same conversation back then, the same lens. We didn’t hold people accountable in the same way that this moment is demanding today. And I think all of us, many of us, did not have that same lens, myself included. But today, we are having a very different conversation, and there is a moment in time where we can actually do the right thing or fixate on one president.

McCain: Can I ask you, do you regret campaigning with him, though?

Gillibrand: It’s not about any one president, and it’s not about any one industry. And if we reduce it to that, we are missing the opportunity to allow women to be heard, to allow women to have accountability and transparency, and to allow women to have justice. [Applause]

All it took was a few pointed questions for Gillibrand to collapse like a house of cards, retreating behind empty rhetoric about transparency and completely ignoring the fact that her own political allies have been credibly accused of both committing and covering up sexual abuse. To answer McCain’s questions, of course, the senator would have to either excuse the intentional obfuscation of sexual misconduct or speak ill of her friends the Clintons. Faced with that Sophie’s choice, Gillibrand immediately forgot her previous insistence on a non-partisan approach to sexual violence and refused to answer.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Over her entire career, Gillibrand has continually proven herself to be a hollowed-out vessel for whatever view will best help her climb the political ladder. This is why, for example, she earned a 100 percent rating from the NRA when she was a congresswoman from upstate New York, but quickly and intentionally tanked her rating as soon as she decided to run for Senate. Additional examples abound.

Sexual-abuse survivors preyed on by Gillibrand’s political allies are simply the latest victims.

Here’s the full video of the exchange on The View:

No, Devin Nunes Is Not a Russian Agent

by Theodore Kupfer

Twice now, MSNBC contributor John Heilemann has asked sitting congressmen whether representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) has been “compromised” by Russia. “Is it possible that we actually have a Russian agent running the House Intel Committee on the Republican side?” Heilemann asked senator Chris Murphy last night.

There are a lot of fair criticisms you could level against Nunes’s recent actions. You might point out that Nunes has not seen the intelligence the memo summarizes. You might argue that the memo controversy is thus a cynical P.R. stunt. You might conclude that its release is a transparent ploy to paint the FBI in a bad light and undermine the special counsel’s investigation. But you can say all of this without making the absurd, irresponsible suggestion that Nunes is a Russian agent.

This is part of a larger pattern with the Russia investigation: Partisans have eagerly chosen to push outlandish conspiracy theories, which crowds out more-sober criticisms. The investigation has uncovered several pieces of disturbing information: that hiring Paul Manafort as campaign manager and appointing Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser were serious errors in judgment on Trump’s part; that Trump’s son was enthusiastic when he heard that the Kremlin wanted to help his father win. But Trump’s opponents have decided to fantasize about a grand narrative of criminal conspiracy between Trump and Putin that is not supported by the available evidence. As Jason Willick has argued, these critics’ “bloodthirstiness has undermined their ability to adequately prosecute the actual fruits of this investigation.”

Just so with Heilemann and the memo controversy. It would be bad enough if Devin Nunes cared more about demonstrating his obeisance to the president than discovering actual wrongdoing. But he is not a Russian agent, and to say that he might be is to add to the noise.

State of The Union: Five Things Trump Should Say Tonight

by Dan McLaughlin

President Trump will give his first official State of the Union address tonight (technically, a new president’s speech to a joint session of Congress is not the “Information of the State of the Union” message required by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution). Moreso than most presidents this early in their terms, Trump’s speech is unlikely to change very many minds; most people have already dug in their views of Trump by now, and a nicely-written and temperately-delivered speech may not do much besides buy him a good 24-48 hours of news cycle, even assuming that doesn’t get stomped on by events or Trump’s own itchy Twitter finger.

That said, it’s always worth trying to communicate. Here are five suggestions for the White House:

1. Keep selling the tax cut. Trump’s and the GOP’s approval ratings and poll standing have improved slightly since passing the tax cut package in December. That’s mostly, I suspect, winning back frustrated Republicans who at least see something getting accomplished. But the bill remains widely misunderstood. Trump ought to take some time to lay out the projection that 80% of Americans will see a tax cut, explain when it’s coming and why people should look for the difference in withholding from their paychecks, and reel off examples of companies handing out bonuses, raising wages, making new investments and creating new jobs.

2. Explain the defeat of ISIS. Most Americans know we are at war with ISIS. Many don’t know how thoroughly it’s been defeated – probably not permanently, given the nature of terrorist organizations and insurgencies, but it’s lost over 95% of the territory it once held, half of that since Trump took office. The president shouldn’t oversell this as a “Mission Accomplished”/”junior varsity” moment or promise a timetable we can’t meet, but it is a huge and tangible milestone, and the American people should hear that explained, not just in a soundbite but with some detail and perspective. As with the tax cuts, that level of cool, fact-based communication isn’t Trump’s forte, but it will work if he tries it.

3. An olive branch on immigration.  After the self-inflicted wound of his “s***hole” comment, Trump has actually played the immigration debate with a fairly deft touch, loudly signaling his willingness to cut a deal on “Dreamers” and putting Chuck Schumer in the position of being the holdout. Trump has a strong hand to play with his base (which trusts him on this issue more than Schumer’s trusts his); there’s a deep well of distrust of Trump on immigration from much of the rest of the country, but many Americans don’t really trust the extremism of the Democrats, either, and want a deal made. Trump should press the advantage he has to emphasize his willingness to make a deal.

4. Don’t forget health care. Republicans failed badly last year not only in legislating a replacement for Obamacare, but in selling it to the voters. The solution may be to go smaller and more incremental, but whatever is to be done, the president should get started in telling the voters why the system still needs to change, and how it can be made better.

5. Send hope and support to Iran. The State of the Union isn’t just for talking to America and Congress – the president’s foreign policy message is also heard around the world. The protests against Iran’s regime that erupted in December have receded a bit from view of late, but tonight offers a large megaphone for the president to remind people at home and abroad that the Iranian people have legitimate grievances with their tyrannical, corrupt, and incompetent government, and that America stands with the Iranian people. That doesn’t have to be a combative message – but it needs to be said.

Can Trump keep the focus on issues, and off his own combustible personality? Can he avoid sounding like Twitter Trump for the night? If so, he might squeeze the maximum benefit out of that one news cycle.

National Review Summer Internship

by NR Staff

National Review is accepting applications for its summer internship. The intern will work in our New York office, receive a modest stipend, participate in every part of the editorial process, and have some opportunities to write. The ideal candidate will have an excellent academic record and some experience in student or professional journalism. If you wish to apply, please send a cover letter, your résumé, and two of your best writing samples (no more, please) to editorial.applications (at) nationalreview.com.

Donald Trump’s Impure Thoughts

A Few Thoughts on #ReleaseTheMemo

by Jonah Goldberg

Let me say upfront that I’m inclined to think this whole thing has been more of a cynical P.R. stunt — and an impressive one at that — than a serious exercise on the merits. That is not to say that there aren’t real abuses alluded to in the Nunes memo (by every account, the memo doesn’t actually document anything; it just summarizes things, from a highly subjective vantage point) — I just think that ultimately the steak won’t live up to the sizzle. If that turns out to be the case, it may not matter how effective the hype was at the beginning. You can have a great series of trailers building up excitement for a movie, but if the movie truly stinks, few will remember the pre-release marketing, and some will even resent it.

Here’s one example of what I mean. Sebastian Gorka says that the abuses recounted in the memo are — wait for it — 100 times greater than the abuses by Britain that warranted the American Revolution. Not “almost as bad.” Not even “as bad,” but 10,000 percent as bad. Even accounting for hyperbole, that is at least 9,999 percent stupid — particularly when you realize Gorka hasn’t read the memo. My own suspicion is that some of the abuses alleged in the memo will be serious but will nonetheless fall short of warranting armed insurrection against a tyrannical government by something close to a gazillion miles.

Oh, and then there’s Carter Page. As I understand it, one of the central allegations of the memo is that the Obama administration used the Steele dossier to get a warrant from a FISA court to spy on Carter Page. I think the effort to turn the Steele dossier into a piece of concentrated evil the likes of which blew up Kevin’s parents in Time Bandits to be wildly overdone. But let’s assume, again for argument’s sake, that the Obama administration knew the dossier was garbage and used it anyway to get a warrant. Let’s also assume they had no other evidence to bring to the court. That would be very bad indeed.

But here’s the thing: That scenario is very unlikely. First of all, Page was under FISA surveillance since 2014, long before Donald Trump announced his candidacy. When asked by Congress to testify under oath, Page invoked the Fifth Amendment. The White House has been trying to insist for nearly a year that Page was a nobody and that he doesn’t matter.

And yet . . . the GOP wants to make Carter Page a martyr? Leave aside the fact that, other than eunuchs who carry their manhood in a convenient “stomping sack,” few people have shown greater ease at stepping on their own Johnsons than Carter Page. Elevating his stature strikes me as a terrible idea for the White House.

Finally, a word about the process and the press. I find the widespread media freakout about Congress going through the proper procedures to declassify and release a document rather bizarre.

Let’s imagine for argument’s sake that the New York Times or the Washington Post had gotten their hands on the Nunes memo. Is there any doubt that they would report on its contents? Would Buzzfeed hesitate to publish a PDF of the whole thing? That’s instantaneous declassification with pretty much no oversight. I get being offended by so much of the gaslighting and hysteria going on. But the constant harping from MSNBC and elsewhere on the “recklessness” of this is a bit hard to take. There’s an interesting debate to be had on the extent to which the press has a right to publish classified information. There really is no debate on whether Congress and the executive branch have the authority to do this. They can.

It seems like the press thinks declassifying sensitive information to fuel a partisan narrative is their job and no one else’s.

What Our Words Say

by Michael Brendan Dougherty
On the depressing trend of conspiracy theories

Whatever we are to make of the Republican memo on the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and his campaign, I can’t help but be depressed by this artifact of our time. 

The problems with Chuck Schumer’s allegation are easy to see. In fact, it  is almost an invitation. Now anything that Russian actors even pretend to push across social media will be taken to “say something,” about Schumer’s partisan opponents. If partisan passions encourage us to make this level of suspicion a matter of routine in our political life, it dramatically lowers the price of psy ops, against this country. Vladimir Putin could just take a lesson from the Donald and tweet us into even deeper divisions. 

This is the rhetorical mode of a second rate power.  I don’t care how it started. But it leaves me feeling like we’ve been imported into the Ukrainian Rada.