A Daily Reid: The Wimpy Ever Trumpers

Eight Senators will gladly let Trump and Republicans gut Obamacare on Tuesday, for a hamburger, today

What we have in Donald Trump is a president whose main goals are to enrich himself beyond any fantasy he ever had, to accumulate the absolute powers of a dictator, and in doing so, to rewrite his own history, such that he will be remembered as having truly been denied his rightful re-election in 2020, and committed no crimes; never trying to overthrow the government and stealing no classified documents; sexually abusing no one and living a life as clean and pure as the fantasies we were taught as kids about George Washington never telling a lie — and finally, to obliterate the memory of every other president. In Trump’s fantasy world, there has only ever been Trump. There will only every be Trump. And therefore he has the freedom to physically destroy any part of the White House built by his predecessors; to “terminate Obamacare” and maybe even Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, since he didn’t create them; to rename the Kennedy Center, name the Commanders NFL team the Commanders’ stadium after himself, and build an Arc du Trump on the National Mall, and maybe even to remove the edifices honoring every other previous president, such that they no longer exist.

Republicans, who are no longer a political party but rather a Russian Duma, have psychologically agreed to all of this. There is nothing that he orders them to do that they will not debase themselves and their offices to do. And sadly, the institutional Democratic Party has effectively agreed to the deal with the devil as well; with its centrist core having apparently decided that fighting the Russofication of the United States is not worth the disruption. These men and women prefer a calm descent into fascism, to the chaos of fighting to stop it.

And that is where we are on this Monday.

On the 40th day of the longest government shutdown in history, with federal workers struggling to find second jobs and going without pay, and lining up at food banks — including crucial air traffic controllers and TSA agents, leaving flying a hot mess and travelers stranded and frightened … and with Trump’s regime appealing all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid paying SNAP benefits out of the emergency fund designed specifically for that purpose, and Speaker Johnson refusing to even bring his caucus back to Washington to negotiate — effectively conspiring with Trump to dissolve the U.S. congress, as Rep. Adam Smith explained, to starve Americans into letting Republicans jack up our healthcare costs for the sake of gutting Obamacare — a core group of Senate moderates laid waste to more than a month of cross-party solidarity, which saw millions of Americans marching, protesting, and taking the Democrats’ side in the shutdown, as they appeared to finally stand up to Trump — and voted to capitulate in full. Even Trump understood how bad things were for his side before last night — well, when he wasn’t throwing lavish parties at his gaudy Palm Beach estate while tens of thousands of Americans went hungry.

With Obamacare subsidies set to lapse on New Year’s Eve, seven Democrats and one Independent voted to give Republicans the votes they needed to end the shutdown, in exchange for almost nothing in return. Thus, they gave Republicans — who were decisively losing the messaging war — everything they could have possibly imagined and more — including fully funding federal agencies like Agriculture (and military construction — hello Epstein bunker…) for a full year, and setting up another potential showdown on January 30 when the continuing resolution runs out.

The capitulators did get language in the bill preventing more mass firings of federal workers, but that provision is written to last only until January 30 and remains wholly unenforceable, since Trump and his Project 2025 and doge buddies just fire whoever they want anyway and wait for John Roberts and friends to affirm it. More on what the capitulators got:

The agreement also included a larger funding package, bundled with the continuing resolution, that includes three full-year appropriations bills that would fund military construction, veterans’ affairs, the legislative branch, and the Department of Agriculture till Sept. 30, 2026. As part of that, the bill will reinstate funding for health care for veterans; the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) federal assistance program; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which the Trump Administration had ordered states to undo full payments of.

Included in that package is $204 million to fund enhanced security for Congressmembers and $852 million for U.S. Capitol Police, as well as $812 million for the Government Accountability Office—the same as last fiscal year—which House Republicans had sought to significantly cut down.

Oh cool. They funded enhanced security … for themselves. As you can see from that clip or by reading the full article or any other summarizing the “deal” today, Democrats did not get their one core demand: which has animated the public for the entire shutdown: the extension of the premium support subsidies for Obamacare. Those are left to a promise from Republicans that Democrats can put a bill on the floor on that matter sometime in December — which one Senate Democrat appropriately described off the record as: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today…”

Happy fucking holidays, Wimpy.

The Seven Ever Trumpers who voted to hand our would-be King, his nemesis Obamacare on a bloody platter were the ones you should at this point expect:

• Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA)

• Senator Jeane Shaheen (D-NH)

• Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)

• Senator Angus King (I-VA)

• Senator John Fetterman (MAGA-PA)

• Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH)

• Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)

• Senator Jackie Rosen (D-NV)

And while Schumer voted no on the bill and called it insufficient to addressing the healthcare concerns of the American people, sources inside the process say Schumer was all too happy to let these seven — none of whom is up for re-election anytime soon (and Durbin who is retiring) carry the ball on exactly the policy he prefers: capitulation. Schumer doesn’t believe in shutdowns anymore than he believes he should always endorse the Democrat running for mayor of New York, even if they believe Palestinians are humans who deserve the state the U.N. promised them, as people who have lived in the Levant for centuries. No one who is serious believes this isn’t the outcome Schumer wanted anyway, which is why he is getting dragged by his colleagues and Democrats nationwide.

Sources also tell me the Ever Trumper capitulators never believed in the shutdown/Obamacare premiums demand strategy in the first place, either; so they wound up exactly where they have always been (Fetterman has always made clear he opposed the shutdown and is basically a MAGA who is a “Democrat” in name only.) Perhaps all of that explains why Schumer, the purported leader of the Senate Democrats, had no actual strategy to take the fight to the finish line; and why he and they had no plan to ameliorate the suffering that Americans were facing under the whip hand of a president and his political party who clearly don’t care whether Americans — even those who voted for them — live or die; lose their health coverage, or literally starve.

When you are fighting with people who have so firmly embraced the Devil, you can’t win if you’re not willing to call the Devil by his name.

And this is where we find ourselves: trapped between a nihilistic party that gives not one warm shit about their fellow Americans literal survival and another that cares more about order than about justice.

And the only winners in this mess are the insurance companies, which continue to rake in record profits and stuff their CEOs pockets with astronomical amounts of cash, and Donald Trump, who once again gets to cosplay as the Russian president while on the public payroll. Did I mention he had fellow autocrat Viktor Orban over to the partially demolished crib? Today is the Syrian president’s turn.

The rest of us lose. Again.

And if you truly believe that Republicans and Trump, who will never get over their rage that the Black president signed into law a comprehensive healthcare bill that Republicans named after him and then it became popular, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Trump has repeatedly ordered Republicans to “terminate Obamacare” and replace it with “Trumpcare” — for which he has “concepts of a plan…” and Republicans have voted more than 60 times to eliminate Obamacare since it was enacted in 2010. Republicans fundamentally do not believe that healthcare premiums should be subsidized by the federal government — which they believe should only subsidize tax cuts to high income earners and businesses. Read this by the CATO Institute if you are confused. And CATO makes one good point: the premium supports, even if renewed, would go to the same greedy insurance companies that are gouging us already.

Subsidizes insurance companies, not patients. Unlike other tax credits that individuals claim on their tax returns at the end of the year, most premium tax credits are paid in advance, directly to insurance companies, to lower the monthly premium bill. These direct subsidies allow the insurance industry to shift the vast majority of rising premiums onto taxpayers. Paragon Health Institute notes that these subsidies have been largely incorporated into insurance company profits. Since the premium subsidies were created in the Affordable Care Act, along with other industry-favorable spending increases, health insurer stock prices have increased more than 1,000 percent (compared with 251 percent growth for the S&P 500).

If Democrats were smart — and there is no indication that their leadership in the Senate is … they would propose their own fix to Obamacare by shifting those premiums directly to Americans as tax credits or cash. That would force Republicans to publicly demonstrate whether they actually believe in Americans having access to affordable healthcare at all (they doln’t) or if all of their talk is just their hatred for the Black president and their love for moneyed interests like Big Insurance showing.

Put that in the bill and make Thune either stick to his hollow “promise” to put it on the floor or shut the government down in January … oh wait, I forgot … The Hated Eight believe only in capitulation and appeasement.

Trump, between bragging that Democrats are “cracking like dogs” (he really hates dogs…) also again ordered his Duma to terminate the filibuster, which from what I and others have heard, was dangled over Senate Democrats’ heads as a threat if they didn’t relent and give Republicans the votes to re-open the government. But anyone who doesn’t understand that having been so ordered, Republicans will eventually end the filibuster anyway, hasn’t been paying attention.

Republicans are not a political party. They are a cult. And their so-called leaders in congress are mere high priests of that cult. They do only what Donald Trump tells them to do, and nothing more, including when he orders them to hand him their constitutional powers.

They will inevitably terminate the filibuster and ram through all manner of anti-democratic garbage regardless of how many times Democrats, that MAGA asshole from Pennsylvania, and that other independent from Vermont, bend the knee. I wish I lived in a country with a political party that would dare Republicans to end the filibuster and promise to make Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. full states and pass universal voter registration at age 18 and Medicare for All the moment the majority is back in their hands.

Instead, I live in a party where eight fools who think Trump is just a bit more colorful politics as usual bent the knee to healthcare hijackers and SNAP thieves in high places, in exchange for nothing, while millions of people they supposedly care about suffered, as it turns out, for no reason at all.

The Devil in the White House

Remember that time on the campaign trail when Donald Trump told the story of “the snake?”

Well I think it’s clear who the snake is and has always been.

Donald Trump issued pardons to a bunch of his unindicted co-conspirators in his attempt to overthrow the government after he lost the 2020 election … because it wasn’t enough to just pardon the violent insurrectionists.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows and others accused of backing the Republican’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The “full, complete, and unconditional” pardon applies only to federal crimes, and none of the dozens of Trump allies named in the proclamation were ever charged federally over the bid to subvert the election won by Democrat Joe Biden. It doesn’t impact state charges, though state prosecutions stemming from the 2020 election have hit a dead end or are just limping along.

The move, however, underscores Trump’s continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him even though courts around the country and U.S. officials found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. It follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.

Among those also pardoned were Sidney Powell, an attorney who promoted baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election, John Eastman, another lawyer who pushed a plan to keep Trump in power, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who championed Trump’s efforts to challenge his election loss. Also named were Republicans who acted as fake electors for Trump and were charged in state cases accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Biden’s victory in those states.

The proclamation, posted online late Sunday by pardon attorney Ed Martin, explicitly says the pardon does not apply to the president himself.

The pardon described efforts to prosecute the Trump allies as “a grave national injustice perpetrated on the American people” and said the pardons were designed to continue “the process of national reconciliation.” Giuliani and others have denied any wrongdoing, arguing they were simply challenging an election they believed was tainted by fraud.

“These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement.

Those pardoned were not prosecuted by the Biden administration, however. They were charged only by state prosecutors who operate separately from the Justice Department.

Trump himself was indicted on federal felony charges accusing him of working overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith was abandoned in November after Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris because of the department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Giuliani, Powell, Eastman and Clark were alleged co-conspirators in the federal case brought against Trump but were never charged with federal crimes.

Giuliani, Meadows and others named in the proclamation had been charged by prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin over the 2020 election, but the cases have repeatedly hit roadblocks or have been dismissed. A judge in September dismissed the Michigan case against 15 Republicans accused of attempting to falsely certify Trump as the winner of the election in that battleground state.

Can’t wait til Trump orders the House and Senate to pass a bill ordaining January 6th as Trump Day — a new federal holiday, to replace President’s Day, MLK Day, and Juneteenth, all of which are to be rescinded.

I’ll have more to say on all of this on tonight’s The Joy Reid Show.

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