On the menu today: The editors of National Review reject one of the arguments put forth defending the president; a preview of this year’s winter meeting of the powerful political network that would prefer to not be called “the Koch network” any longer; and a pair of book recommendations.
Once Again, It’s Time to Make Almost Everybody Mad by Telling the Truth
Part of life at National Review is being denounced as a spineless lickspittle toady to President Trump and being denounced as an unhinged RINO globalist elitist NeverTrump Hillary-lover, often in the same day and sometimes, it feels, from the same people depending upon their particular mood that day. (I’m fairly certain Joe Walsh passed us during his transition.) The most recent conclusion of the editors, disputing and dispelling the argument that presidents cannot be impeached for any abuse of power unless that abuse took the form of a criminal violation of a statute, is probably going to generate another round of this. Trump fans will hate that the NR editors* are rejecting an argument being put forth to defend the president; Trump foes will hate that this assessment does not overrule and nullify the previous conclusion that “not every presidential abuse is worthy of impeachment and removal.”
It is not hard to imagine a scenario where a president does something that is legal but still generates a widespread sense that he is no longer fit for office. If a president suddenly announced he was converting to Satanism, he would probably be tossed out quickly, despite religious-liberty arguments and the fact that there’s nothing illegal about holding those beliefs. Or imagine that George H. W. Bush, who joked about disliking broccoli, announced he was refocusing his presidency to use all of the executive branch’s resources and the presidential bully pulpit to counter the culinary menace of broccoli. Some might argue that these situations would be better suited for the 25th Amendment, but you would probably have a very intense fight about whether the president is genuinely “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” A president could be psychologically rational and still make catastrophically bad decisions that stir Congress to conclude he’s got to go. This is another example of why the Founding Fathers made impeachment a political process, not a strictly legal one.
*While I’m a regular on The Editors, I’m not one of the editors involved in deciding and crafting the editorials that speak for the magazine as a whole. Unsurprisingly, I agree with them often.
What to Expect at This Year’s Winter Meeting of the Koch-Affiliated Network
I’m off to Palm Springs again, to cover the winter meeting of . . . what is commonly called “the Koch network,” except the people involved would really rather it be referred to as “Stand Together,” and they would really prefer that people stop referring it as “the Koch Brothers,” as David Koch passed away last year. Last year they were the “Koch Seminar Network.” This network includes groups you have probably heard of — Americans for Prosperity, the Libre Initiative, Concerned Veterans for America — and some you probably haven’t, such as the original Stand Together, which was focused on building social capital.
I’ve covered these meetings for three years, and they’re always fascinating, and I find the organization poorly covered by those who aren’t at the meetings. The network is usually labeled conservative, but the overarching philosophy of the group is more libertarian. But you don’t hear much discussion about traditional libertarian issues such as gun rights, abortion, or marijuana, outside of the context of criminal-justice reform. I’d describe the network’s outlook as “communitarian libertarian,” if that makes sense: This network wants government out of the way, sure. But it also wants to maximize the ability of private groups, community organizations, and charities to step in, to help those who need it, and ensure that everyone is rising in life.
Most years you get almost little or no discussion of foreign policy, but I expect this year will be different, as Charles Koch and his allies are getting more outspoken on this front. But last week, Concerned Veterans for America announced the launch of a $1.5 million national ad campaign “aimed at bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and setting the stage for leaders in Washington to reassess how our country handles its foreign policy.” You can see the ad here; in it, a variety of veterans speak to the camera:
“For 18 years, we’ve been at war.” “Our brothers and sisters in uniform, sons and husbands wives and daughters, fighting a mismanaged war in Afghanistan that our leaders haven’t told the truth about.” “We’ve lost over 2,000 American troops.” “Spent over a trillion of your tax dollars.” “When will it end?” “Over 60 percent of veterans like me think it’s time to get out of Afghanistan. Tell Washington it’s time to bring our troops home.”
Separately, Charles Koch helped establish a joint venture between Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Project on Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft, focusing on reducing America’s military footprint around the world. Apparently, the only hawks you’ll see at these meetings are the ones involved in pest control.
The result is that the Koch-Seminar-Stand-Together network gets denounced as an ally of President Trump and denounced as foes of Trump and the current priorities of the GOP grassroots, depending upon who’s speaking. The more accurate assessment is that the Koch group backs the administration when they think they’re right, and opposes them when they think it’s wrong. They hate the tariffs and trade wars, fume about the runaway spending, and they want a deal to extend legal protections to Dreamers so much that they’ve contemplated supporting Democrats. But they also were a big force behind the criminal-justice reform Trump signed and are big fans of the tax cuts, deregulation, and a variety of lesser-noticed moves like the administration’s push for states to adopt occupational licensing reform.
The group’s relationship with Trump himself is complicated at best. Charles Koch makes clear he finds Trump morally abhorrent. Trump repeatedly lambastes the Kochs as “globalists.” The Kochs and their network sat out the 2016 election, but this doesn’t stop some folks from contending that the Kochs “laid the path for Trump.” This is the kind of argument you make when you’re on the left and all figures on the right look alike to you.
Despite an election cycle featuring Trump up against some Democrat even further to the left than Hillary Clinton, Americans for Prosperity and the rest are planning for an extremely active 2020 down ballot: nearly 200 federal and state races. Americans for Prosperity Action has already announced they’re backing senators Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas, Steve Daines of Montana, and David Perdue of Georgia, and representatives Ted Budd of North Carolina, Steve Chabot of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, and state senator Tom Tiffany, who is running in a special election for Wisconsin’s seventh congressional district.
The network isn’t willing to say the overall sum they’ll spend, and so I suspect I’ll spend much of next three days with other political reporters repeatedly trying to get Koch network officials to give some sense of just how much. Whatever the exact number is, to quote K2SO, “it’s high. It’s very high.”
While the network as a whole won’t get formally involved in the presidential race, the donors may; the network consists of, at last count, more than 600 donors who have committed to giving at least $100,000 annually to their efforts. Some of these donors occasionally come out and talk to the reporters, and generally speaking, they sound more pro-Trump than the network’s leadership is.
Perhaps the most interesting question heading into this year’s winter meeting is whether this network is advancing its goals nationally or swimming against the tide. The network can point to a lot of successes over the years, from helping elect their preferred candidates and getting their priorities passed, to founding and helping charitable efforts and community groups. But the overall tone of politics in the country is just about the opposite of what Charles Koch would prefer: Both parties are to a degree consumed by an embrace of big government, neither party seriously worries about the debt, and the president was elected, at least in part, because of his wariness and suspicion of immigrants. The Koch network prides itself on working with anyone to advance a goal; last year’s conference spotlighted their work with former Obama administration official and CNN commentator Van Jones. These are not people motivated to “own the libs” and who must be wondering just what they can do in an era of exploding populism and hyper-partisan nastiness.
Are they winning the battle but losing the war, or vice versa? Is this just a temporary fever, or is there a fear that the United States has taken some sort of significant and lasting step away from a pro-liberty, pro-responsibility, pro-civil-society direction and philosophy?
ADDENDA: David Bahnsen, longtime friend of National Review, has a new book coming out entitled, Elizabeth Warren: How Her Presidency Would Destroy the Middle Class and the American Dream. In normal circumstances, an author might secretly hope that the figure he’s just thoroughly researched, debunked, and denounced stuck around a while and didn’t, say, doesn’t flame out and disappear after two fourth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. David’s different. He runs a wealth-management firm and my understanding is that he’s doing okay. David didn’t write this book for the money; he wrote this book because he genuinely believes every word and thinks people need to hear it before the 2020 cycle seriously begins. If Warren’s campaign quickly implodes and his book gets less exposure, he’ll be fine with it. (Even if Warren implodes, the ideas that carried her campaign this far are likely to keep percolating in American politics for a long time.) Buy a copy and send one to your Democratic cousin who lives in Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada.
Another good friend of National Review, former White House staffer and historian Tevi Troy, has written Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, which will hit stores and your Kindle February 11. Fight House looks juicy as all hell:
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was surprised to find that his campaign friendship with Steve Bannon was no longer operational once they had opposing policy views in the White House. Unhappy to be on the receiving end of a series of Bannon leaks, Kushner was supposed to have asked, “What’s up with Steve? I don’t understand. We were so close.” [] Scaramucci’s eventful eleven days in the Trump White House taught him a similar lesson, which he expressed afterwards in the unique style of “The Mooch.” When one gets to the White House, he said, “the first pill you take is the ‘anti-friendship’ pill. You can be my friend for 30 years, but I’m gonna stab your eyeball out with an icepick if it gets me more power.” Even here, though, this kind of distasteful behavior has been witnessed before, as Cy Vance and Zbig Brzezinski had dinner together on the night of Carter’s election and talked excitedly about the prospects of working together, only to be at each other’s throats throughout the Carter administration. On Day One in the Carter White House, Brzezinski was already demanding that the direct line between the secretary of state and national security advisor be cut because he worked for the president, not Vance.
Every time Greg and I make a reference to Die Hard on the Three Martini Lunch podcast, Tevi notices. My only criticism of Fight House is that I see no references to the disagreements within the White House right before Christmas 1990, during the extradition of General Ramon Esperanza, dictator of the Republic of Val Verde, from his home country to Dulles International Airport. While many people have forgotten this chapter of the war on drugs, the events at Dulles Airport that night are a key part of what got Fred Thompson elected to the Senate in 1994.