Dear Weekend Jolter,
A new scandal is roiling the Trump administration. President Trump is systematically targeting female cabinet members for dismissal, while letting misbehaving men off the hook.
At least, that’s the amusing story being told in coverage of the staff turnover and by administration critics on Capitol Hill. It relies on a selective reading of events in Trump’s second term.
The female ex-cabinet members, for those keeping track, are: Pam Bondi (Justice), Kristi Noem (Homeland Security), and Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor).
What’s amusing is that critics of these moves don’t really attempt to defend the ousted officials, whose departures were, if anything, overdetermined: Chavez-DeRemer left under a cloud of misconduct allegations; Noem was under fire for everything from the ICE fiasco in Minnesota to exorbitant ad spending; Bondi evidently lost Trump’s support over her handling of the Epstein files and what he considered insufficient prosecutions of his political enemies (though she should have resigned for having entertained his lawfare demands at all).
No, the complaint is more that problematic men such as Pete Hegseth aren’t also being shown the door.
“I see a theme. He will throw the incompetent women under the bus a lot faster than the incompetent men,” Jasmine Crockett tweeted last month.
“They all have something in common. They are all women,” CNN’s Dana Bash noted, while acknowledging the complaints against all three were “a lot.”
The Guardian amplified accusations of misogyny after just two of the three departures. After the third, Chavez-DeRemer’s, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a sympathetic reporter, “Trump only seems to have the capability to fire female secretaries.”
The tidy hit on Trump glosses over a few things. First, the complaints tend to note that even when Trump ousted Mike Waltz as national security adviser following Signalgate, he was reassigned to the United Nations. This ignores that Noem, too, was transferred, albeit to the seemingly contrived and MCU-adjacent post of special envoy for the Shield of the Americas. Her press shop was even allowed to describe Noem as “the most successful DHS Secretary in history.” Also, as Dana Bash did acknowledge, women remain in prominent roles in the Trump administration, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. And you can’t say Trump is sacking only female officials when the administration just ousted the Army chief of staff and Navy secretary, both men. Meanwhile, Politico reported late last month on speculation that FBI Director Kash Patel, also not a woman, could be next, amid unflattering stories about him in the press.
But most important of all, Jim Geraghty predicted all of this. His January 30 Morning Jolt identified five cabinet officials who were not serving Trump well, providing substantive reasons for their inclusion on the list. Lest anyone call him sexist, Jim mentioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as the three who have since been canned — and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
If Gabbard is next, the ouster will secure the legitimacy of the scandal in the eyes of the media and perhaps lend these women the Strange New Respect that Marjorie Taylor Greene now enjoys. Either way, we are eager to see whether Jim goes five for five.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
Don’t panic: In Defense of Data Centers
On the political signals out of Maine, and beyond: Are Democrats Having a Tea Party Moment?
This would be . . . an overreaction: Don’t Pull Out of Germany
Hope for blue-city governance: Good News on Urban Crime
ARTICLES
Jeffrey Blehar: The Virginia Supreme Court Rescues Republicans from Outer Darkness
Charles C. W. Cooke: Elizabeth Warren’s Jaw-Dropping Dishonesty on Spirit Airlines
Paul McNulty & John G. Malcolm: The Attorney General Is Not the President’s Fixer
Noah Rothman: The Torching of Los Angeles Was Anti-Capitalist Vigilantism
Dan McLaughlin: Justice Gorsuch on 1776, His Court Colleagues, and the Patriotic-Education Gap: Transcript
Dan McLaughlin: Trump’s Trickle-Down Tariff Problem
Daniel J. Flynn: Damaging Activism Returns to Cornell
Brittany Bernstein: Trump-Backed Primary Challengers Handily Defeat Most Anti-Redistricting Indiana Republicans
Jianli Yang: The Trump–Xi Summit Will Be About Much More Than Taiwan
Mark Goldfeder: Mamdani’s Shameful Condemnation of a Manhattan Synagogue
Michael R. Strain: Marco Rubio’s Hope for America
Christian Schneider: I’m Not a Pundit, I Just Play One on TV
Caroline Downey: Call Her Daddy Is Setting Women Back
Alexandra DeSanctis: Brandon Gill’s Master Class in Exposing Abortion Euphemism
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen dons his fashion police cap and goes to work — but ends up handing out few citations after encountering “pure, timeless grace and elegance”: Met Gala-Goers Pick Classic Looks in 2026’s Fashion Feast
Armond White finds out that not all film versions of this Orwellian classic are equal: Reading Animal Farm Backward
EXCERPTS: TAKE ’EM AT YOUR OWN PACE
NR’s editorial on data centers patiently addresses the various lines of attack on a national project that should not be derailed by them:
All of a sudden, “data center” has become a dirty word. The environmentalists say that they use too much water. The Luddites point to short-term shifts in electricity prices as a reason to turn back the clock. The NIMBYs say that they hum, vibrate, and cause unspecified psychic damage to animals and humans alike. In consequence, some states have even gone so far as to try to ban data centers completely — without explaining, of course, why the more than 5,000 installations that already exist in this country are exempt from their newfound opprobrium.
To halt the AI project would be a profound mistake — not least because most of the opposition to data centers is born of superstition, short-termism, and, in some quarters, good old-fashioned mendacity.
It is true that AI data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, and that this can lead to brief spikes in the cost of that electricity. It is not true, however, that this problem tends to last for a long time. Historically, electricity markets have responded to sustained and predictable demand by expanding generation and transmission capacity, improving efficiency, and, ultimately, lowering prices for everyone. We saw such a pattern accompany earlier waves of industrial expansion — including electrification, suburbanization, air conditioning, telecommunications, and the growth of the internet — and there is no reason to assume that it will not obtain here.
It is not true that AI data centers consume enormous amounts of water. . . .
Since at least the outset of the Cold War, the United States has maintained an unparalleled technological advantage over its geopolitical rivals that, in conjunction with its unique constitutional system, has helped turn it into the world’s preeminent economic and military power. Information technology is the currency of the future, and, if it wishes to control that future, the United States must stay ahead of the pack. To paraphrase Mrs. Thatcher, this is not the time to go wobbly.
Paul McNulty & John G. Malcolm appeal to the president to give up the self-destructive lawfare:
In September 2025, Trump sent a message directly to Attorney General Pam Bondi via a Truth Social post (which he deleted shortly after it was posted, apparently believing he was sending her a private message), saying that he had reviewed dozens of her statements and posts and that she was “all talk, no action.” He continued: “Nothing is being done. What about [former FBI Director Jim] Comey, [U.S. Senator] Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, [N.Y. Attorney General] Leticia [sic] [James]??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Shortly thereafter, Comey and James were, in fact, indicted, although both indictments were dismissed. Trump took to Truth Social to call former Special Counsel Jack Smith “deranged” and a “thug” who “should be brought to justice, NOW!!!” He has accused former FBI Directors Comey and Chris Wray, as well as former CIA Director John Brennan, of having committed perjury and claimed to have “irrefutable proof” that Obama, Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Brennan committed treason, which is punishable by death. The Justice Department is now investigating Cassidy Hutchison, a former White House aide who testified before the one-sided J6 Committee, and the president has called on the Justice Department to investigate CNN for running a story that said Iran claimed victory when the two-week cease-fire was announced. Recently, the president fired Bondi, ostensibly for failing to respond quickly enough to his demands by seeking additional charges against individuals the president has pilloried online. And unsurprisingly, Comey has now been indicted again — this time, under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — over an allegedly threatening photo he posted of seashells displaying “86 47” on Instagram last May.
The point is not whether these individuals or CNN actually committed a crime, although we are skeptical about some of these cases (despite harboring little doubt about their anti-Trump motives). The point is that the president should not be directing the Justice Department to initiate investigations and then threatening to fire (or actually firing) prosecutors who fail to seek indictments in those cases. . . .
The president’s expectations seemingly ignore some basic realities that are beyond the control of even the most aggressive attorney general. First, DOJ regulations prohibit prosecutors from bringing charges “that he/she cannot reasonably expect to prove beyond a reasonable doubt by legally sufficient and admissible evidence at trial.” Career prosecutors are trained not to seek indictments from grand juries in weak cases. Second, an army of experienced defense lawyers are ready to exploit every weakness in a case. This certainly worked in the president’s favor when his lawyers successfully attacked the appointment of Jack Smith as the special prosecutor. And third, as we have repeatedly seen over the past year, federal judges are fully prepared to dismiss charges for a host of reasons. Simply put, the next attorney general should think twice before promising to deliver on the president’s demands.
In an oft-repeated statement from R v. Sussex Justices (1924), Lord Chief Justice Gordon Hewart wrote, “It is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. . . . Nothing is to be done which creates even a suspicion that there has been an improper interference with the course of justice.” These are wise words that have guided generations of federal and state prosecutors.
If the president truly wants to end weaponization at the Justice Department, he should stop egging on federal prosecutors to indict his enemies. And he should insist that criminal investigations and prosecutions be governed by the facts and the law — and should never be about politics.
President Trump has the opportunity for a major reset by ending the cycle of weaponization, which threatens to escalate the next time a Democrat is in the White House. If he takes advantage of that opportunity, the future for the rule of law and his legacy will look brighter, and the public will thank him for it.
ICYMI, Dan McLaughlin sat down with Justice Neil Gorsuch for a substantive, wide-ranging interview. You can watch it here, and work your way through the transcript here. A taste:
McLaughlin: Now you’re on a Court with a lot of strong personalities, with strong opinions about big things. The justices — you and your colleagues sometimes disagree, and quarrel even with the people you usually agree with, even with the people who agree with you that day. You attracted some attention in the tariff case with your concurring opinion, and we’ve seen other concurring opinions like that that are taking to task kind of everybody else, the people on your side today, the people on your side on other days. Does that give you — that experience of sitting on the Court — does that give you some more sympathy or insight into those men in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, hammering out the declaration, quarreling over what should be in, what should be out, what our — what is our next step?
Gorsuch: Boy, that was a very clever bridge from present day back to 1776. Let me take both halves of that.
So today you guys give us 70 of the hardest cases in the country every year and you are a litigious bunch. You all file about 50 million lawsuits every year in this country. Think about that. I’m not counting your traffic tickets over there, all right? They’re real lawsuits and you give us the ones where lower court judges have disagreed. I mean that that’s what this Court does. It resolves disagreements over the meaning of federal law that have split the circuits. You know that as a lawyer. That’s — so you’re giving us stuff that’s hard, and you’re asking nine people from across the country, appointed by five different presidents over the course of 30 years, to work together to resolve those cases. Can you guys agree on where to go to lunch? None of you? Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, right, exactly, all right.
And I actually think it’s kind of magical, our rule of law in this country, because first of all there are only about 60 or 70 cases a year in which the lower courts seriously disagree over the meaning of federal law. One could argue there’s a few more, a few fewer or whatever, but it’s not that many. It’s kind of incredible. You can — you know your rights and duties in this country under the law, much more so than almost any place on the planet or in the history of the world. Okay, fine. Of those 60–70 cases, the nine of us are unanimous about 40 percent of the time. Think about that. Think about what it takes. Am I ever gonna convince Sonia Sotomayor to become an originalist? I kind of doubt it, right? Is she ever gonna—
McLaughlin: Hope springs eternal.
Gorsuch: It does, it does. Ideas tend to win out over time, but I, you know, I understand that she has a different way of approaching law than I do, and she appreciates that I do, too. We know that. We don’t get angry over that. We get on with it, okay? And we start by saying, where — if I listen to you talk — we sit around a room in a conference room. I just got out of there, okay? And we sit around and we listen. We don’t interrupt. There are no raised voices in the conference room ever, right? And I listen. They listen. We find where we can agree, and we’re able to become unanimous in cases the lower courts have disagreed on about 40 percent of the time.
Now, I know what’s going through your head. You’re thinking, well, what about those 5–4s, and 6–3s? Okay, fine. That’s about a third of our docket, all right? But only about half of that third of the 5–4s, and 6–3s you might imagine, and the rest of them are scrambled every which way. All right, now those two figures, that 40 percent and that third, same as they were more or less in 1945 when Franklin Roosevelt had appointed eight of the nine justices of the Supreme Court. So, the one thing I know about the Supreme Court is very little changes, right?
We have different philosophies on how we approach the law, but I sit across from the table with people I know love this country. Love the Declaration of Independence. Love our Constitution as much as I do.
CODA
Ellington can play us out today, with a true classic: “Mood Indigo,” full-length. Enjoy.
Catch you later, and thanks for reading.