Hubbell: Some New Signs of Hope in the Anti-Trump Universe
It should not be cause for overconfidence, but Trump is on a big losing streak: losing in public opinion, in the courts and in Congress. So: keep up the pressure.
By Robert B. Hubbell /Today’s Edition
It feels as though we are living in a split-screen reality: Trump is moving largely unchecked in a foreign policy campaign based on blowing things up to help Pete Hegseth overcome his well-deserved inferiority complex. Trump has attacked or is threatening Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Iran, Greenland, and NATO.
On the domestic front, Trump is on a historic losing streak.
He is losing in the courts, in Congress, at the ballot box, and in the streets. Worse, his uncanny ability to ferret out winning issues based on grievance and bias is failing him, big time. The public sentiment is against ICE and on the side of Renee Nicole Good, immigrants, and peaceful protesters in the streets. Trump’s response is to double down by slandering and investigating Renee Good’s political affiliations while refusing to investigate her killer.
The split screen is deliberate: As Trump’s political fortunes nosedive in the U.S., he is attempting to divert attention to an arena where the US military advantage is obscene. (The U.S. spends more on defense that the next nine largest militaries in the world, combined.)
Sadly, it is easy to remotely destroy targets with missiles and generate video-game quality images that satisfy the blood lust of some in the MAGA base. As Trump’s domestic political fortunes decline, he will likely ratchet up the belligerence and recklessness of his foreign policy.
The strategy of blowing things up is not working. Trump is bumping up against the limits of his political power in the US and is on the defensive everywhere.
Losses piling up. For example, he is becoming increasingly agitated because it appears he is preparing for a Supreme Court loss on the legality of his “global reciprocal tariffs.” Indeed, if the past is prologue, Trump has been tipped off by a conservative justice (or their clerks) to prepare for a loss. He posted on Monday that the U.S. is “screwed” if he loses the challenge to his tariffs, as USA Today reported.
While it appears that the FBI is investigating Renee Nicole Good’s political affiliations, the DOJ has apparently refused to investigate the ICE officer who killed Good, Jonathan Ross. The refusal to investigate Ross led at least four senior DOJ attorneys to resign on Monday evening. Rumors of additional resignations are swirling, pointing to a crisis of credibility and confidence in a DOJ that has already been decimated by Trump.
In a similar development, an assistant US Attorney brought in to prosecute James Comey in the Eastern District of Virginia was fired for refusing to oversee the Comey investigation while remaining the U.S. Attorney in Kentucky. The fired prosecutor was brought in after a federal judge ruled that Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.
The state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis sued the Trump administration to withdraw ICE from that state—suits that have broad support in Minnesota and America. See: the massive protests over the weekend.
Mark Kelly sued Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, seeking an order terminating Hegseth’s administrative proceeding to retroactively demote Kelly from his rank of Captain at the time of his discharge from the Navy. A cursory analysis suggests that Kelly will kick Hegseth’s *** in court. A federal judge has ordered Hegseth to file a response by Thursday of this week to show cause why the court should not issue a temporary restraining order. It is possible that a federal judge will shut down Hegseth’s administrative proceeding against Mark Kelly this week.
As congressional Republicans desperately search for a way to extend healthcare subsidies without looking like they caved to Democratic pressure, Trump is threatening a veto of any bill that extends subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums. At a time when affordability is dominating domestic politics, Trump is doing everything to remind people that he is rich and they are not.
A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Trump administration from cutting off day care subsidies to five states (California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York). The administration did so because it said it “had reason to believe” that some of the payments to day care centers were fraudulent. Of course, the federal government has an entire agency that exists to identify and prosecute fraud—the DOJ. Trump’s decision was based on political retribution and will be overturned.
The scandal over the US military’s killing of two survivors clinging to an alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela has become disturbingly worse. The killing of the two survivors seems like a clear violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and international criminal laws banning war crimes. But on Monday, the media reported that the aircraft that fired the missiles was disguised as a civilian plane. Such tactics are war crimes. Per the NYTimes:
“The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs . . . . [¶]
“The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels. [¶]
“But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called ‘perfidy.’”
There’s always the Epstein Files. And, of course, the DOJ is lagging seriously behind in complying with the obligations imposed by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Indeed, the DOJ has “gone quiet” in its production efforts, hoping that the media and the people have forgotten about the ongoing efforts by the administration to conceal Epstein’s crimes and the identity of the co-conspirators. The failure to produce the Epstein files is a political liability that will not age well for Trump. He thinks that time (and delay) is his friend; it is, instead, his enemy. The documents will eventually be disclosed, and the long delay is seen as evidence of guilt.
And for all Pam Bondi’s corrupt loyalty to Trump, he is getting ready to dump his private attorney masquerading as Attorney General, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
Per the Journal, Trump has increasingly complained to aids about Bondi’s inability to quickly prosecute and lock up his political enemies:
“Chief among his grievances is what he sees as Bondi’s failure to quickly and effectively prosecute the investigators who had pursued him for years, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, the officials and others familiar with his complaints said. [¶]
“Trump has also complained frequently that Bondi’s handling of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has created months of political and personal headaches for him . . . “
Finally, Trump’s obsessive focus on immigration is turning his supporters away in droves, including young men in the 16-to-29 year-old range, according to an MSNow piece on a new survey. “The new poll showed that 25% of young men who voted for Trump in 2024 now say that if they had to do it over again, they wouldn’t cast their ballot for him.,” their report said.
There is more, but you get the point . . . . Trump can proclaim himself “Acting President of Venezuela,” (that is NOT a joke), but it won’t do anything to repair his cratering favorability ratings in the US.
Bottom line. So, should we ease up? Absolutely not!!! Indeed, the Trump administration’s response to the killing of Renee Good has been to ramp up the Gestapo-like tactics employed by ICE agents, who have begun “house-to-house searches” that violate the most basic precepts of the Fourth Amendment.
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