Ruth Marcus: At last, a measure of justice for Donald Trump

Harry Litman:How Donald Trump’s abhorrent character made E. Jean Carroll’s case

Laurence H. Tribe: Why I Changed My Mind on the Debt Limit

Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms — and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis — that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.

The president should remind Congress and the nation, “I’m bound by my oath to preserve and protect the Constitution to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts for the first time in our entire history.” Above all, the president should say with clarity, “My duty faithfully to execute the laws extends to all the spending laws Congress has enacted, laws that bind whoever sits in this office — laws that Congress enacted without worrying about the statute capping the amount we can borrow.”

By taking that position, the president would not be usurping Congress’s lawmaking power or its power of the purse. Nor would he be usurping the Supreme Court’s power to “say what the law is,” as Chief Justice John Marshall once put it. Mr. Biden would simply be doing his duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” even if doing so leaves one law — the borrowing limit first enacted in 1917 — temporarily on the cutting room floor.

Ignoring one law in order to uphold every other has compelling historical precedent. It’s precisely what Abraham Lincoln did when he briefly overrode the habeas corpus law in 1861 to save the Union, later saying to Congress, “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”

For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant. And there is no doubt that ignoring the debt ceiling until Congress either raises or abolishes it is a lesser evil than leaving those with lawful claims against the Treasury out in the cold. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/opinion/debt-limit.html

Bess Levin: Fox News Fired Tucker Carlson After Discovering He Wasn’t Just Playing a Racist on TV (Among Other Things)

Maureen Dowd: Supremely Arrogant

The Supreme Court is still great.

It’s the greatest gathering of grievances we’ve ever seen on the high court. The woe-is-me bloc of conservative male justices is obsessed with who has wronged them.

It might be an opportune time to hire a Supreme shrink so these resentful men can get some much-needed therapy and stop working out their issues from the bench.

Neil Gorsuch is settling a score for his mother.

In her memoir, Anne Gorsuch Burford wrote that when she was forced out as Ronald Reagan’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator in 1983, her 15-year-old son, Neil, “was really upset.” He told her: “You should never have resigned. You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered. You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?”

The Times wrote in an editorial back then: “On becoming the head of the E.P.A., Anne Gorsuch inherited one of the most efficient and capable agencies of government. She has turned it into an Augean stable, reeking of cynicism, mismanagement and decay.”

Last year, her son moved to complete her toxic mission. He enthusiastically joined the 6-to-3 vote to severely curtail the E.P.A.’s ability to regulate power plant emissions. The activists who pushed for Gorsuch to be nominated to the court are finally getting to their real goal: the dismantling of their despised administrative state.

The Chevron ruling arose from a challenge to a decision by Gorsuch’s mother to lower automobile emissions standards. He can now vindicate her stance.

Samuel Alito also feels maltreated. In writing the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, this brazenly political justice who doesn’t distinguish between his legal and religious views mercilessly stripped women of the right to make decisions about their bodies. But somehow, he whines that he is the victim.

Last month Alito told The Wall Street Journal that he did not like the way the court’s legitimacy was being questioned. “We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us.”

Funny. That’s how many women feel about this Supreme Court.

Clarence Thomas, who is still bitter over being outed as a porn-loving harasser of women who worked for him — even though Joe Biden did his best to sweep the corroborating evidence under the Senate rug — was slapped with more revelations of ethics derelictions this past week.

ProPublica broke the news that Thomas’s billionaire benefactor for luxury trips and family property, Harlan Crow, had also secretly paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew.

The Washington Post revealed that Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the Federalist Society — the cult that has transformed the courts in its own right-wing image — surreptitiously funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, for “consulting work” a decade ago.

John Roberts cannot accept that these justices are incapable of policing themselves. Despite all the slime around him, he refused to testify before Congress about a court that blithely disdains ethics.

One reason may be, as The Times reported, that the chief justice’s own wife, Jane, has made millions of dollars as a legal recruiter, placing lawyers at firms with business before the Supreme Court.

Even though I’ve been writing since Bush v. Gore that the court is full of hacks and the bloom is off the robes, it is still disorienting to see the murk of this Supreme Court. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/opinion/supremely-arrogant.html

Heather Cox Richardson: Another Week, Another Mass Shooting 

Susan B. Glasser: Will the (Russian) Empire Strike Back?

Nicholas Goldberg: Despite accusations of rape and other crimes, Trump’s up in the polls. How can that be?

Over the years, voters have adopted a less judgmental standard for what’s acceptable in a candidate.

Up to a point, that’s a good thing. Americans were shocked by Nixon’s use of profanity on the White House tapes — until we got used to it. We were shocked when President Clinton admitted smoking marijuana (but not inhaling), which previous candidates hadn’t done — until we got used to that too. Clinton survived sexual misbehavior revelations that would’ve sunk some of his predecessors, but by the end of that scandal, many Americans had decided that whether he cheated on his wife was his own business.

In 2023, we’ve clearly decided as a society that we’re going to treat our candidates’ personal foibles and flawed behavior with a measure of generosity, at least some of the time.

But Republicans, please. There’s got to be a line.

If Trump had a consensual extramarital affair with Stormy Daniels, that’s not admirable, classy or exemplary behavior. But Americans might reasonably decide they don’t care.

Rape, on the other hand, is something else. If he did it, that’s beyond the pale.

Hiding a hush-money payoff through false business records — that’s unacceptable too. But far more egregious than that (and we’ll soon see what the Justice Department and the Georgia prosecutors conclude) were his efforts to subvert the perfectly legitimate 2020 election.

By all means, wait and see where the investigations end up and what the prosecutors decide and what the juries have to say. But sooner or later, Republicans everywhere need to come forward and say that breaking the law and undermining American democracy is simply not OK.

But will they? https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-05-04/e-jean-carroll-donald-trump-rape-hush-money-stormy-daniels

Eugene Robinson: The Proud Boys jury got it right on Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

Three different sets of jurors have concluded that Jan. 6 was no spontaneous riot. It was planned, organized, incited and led by individuals and groups in a conspiracy against our democratically elected government.

Let’s hope that Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating former president Donald Trump’s role in the insurrection, is paying attention.

After all, it was Trump who told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by in 2020 presidential campaign debate with Joe Biden. It was Trump who, after his defeat, summoned disappointed supporters to gather in Washington on the day when Congress would officially certify Biden as president-elect. It was Trump who tweeted, Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

It was Trump who spoke at that morning’s rally on the Ellipse, stoking anger with outrageous and disproven lies about how the election had supposedly been stolen from him. It was Trump who claimed, falsely, that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn Biden’s victory. It was Trump who sent the crowd — by then, an angry mob — off toward the Capitol. And it was Trump who watched television coverage for hours, making no attempt to quell the violence, as the insurrectionists overran police lines, brutally attacked officers, smashed their way into the citadel of American democracy, and menaced members of Congress and his own loyal vice president.

We are still trying to process what happened on that shocking and unprecedented day. The wheels of U.S. justice are designed to grind slowly, and it has been frustrating to see accountability parceled out in dribs and drabs over two long years. The Proud Boys verdict ends the last remaining case involving charges of seditious conspiracy — so far. We do not know what charges, if any, Smith might bring against Trump and members of his inner circle.

Jurors are getting it right. Leaders of the insurrection should face the most serious charges and suffer the most severe punishments. Now we wait to see whether the man without whose incitement Jan. 6 never would have happened — Donald Trump — is made to face his day in court as well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/04/proud-boys-jury-verdict-jan-6-charges/

Charlie Sykes: America’s Lowest Standard

Jonathan Blitzer: The Risky Gamble of Kevin McCarthy’s Debt-Ceiling Strategy

The House Republicans bill to raise the debt ceiling text, according to Politico, was the product of a coördinated campaign by members of the Freedom Caucus which began immediately after McCarthy became Speaker. Knowing that the debt-ceiling fight would be the defining event of McCarthy’s Speakership, they wanted to press their advantage. Their bill would include strict work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps, major slashes to discretionary spending, and the elimination of unused pandemic aid. In exchange for some hundred and thirty billion dollars in cuts to next year’s budget, the Republicans would agree to raise the debt ceiling until March, 2024. The proposals came out of a series of conversations with competing factions inside the House conference known as “the five families.” But the conservatives who’ve given McCarthy the greatest trouble are the ones he seemed to have paid the most attention to. “The leadership just picked up the House Freedom Caucus plan and helped us convert it into the legislative text,” Matt Gaetz, a Freedom Caucus member from Florida, said.

And yet the Freedom Caucus’s demands kept mounting. Eventually, the three-hundred-page bill—the Limit, Save, Grow Act—turned into an attack on the Inflation Reduction Act, arguably Biden’s crowning legislative achievement. The Republican bill would, among other things, gut the I.R.A.’s green-energy tax incentives, endangering at least a hundred thousand jobs, the vast majority of which were bound for Republican districts. This week, McCarthy pared back some of the bill’s measures in response to objections from other members. But the crux of it remained intact.

With a majority as tenuous as McCarthy’s, every member matters, but those who matter most are the ones who are least willing to compromise. During the Speaker’s race, moderate Republicans were frustrated that a relatively small number of extremists could effectively hold everyone hostage.

The White House’s dilemma is real. Some congressional Democrats have already called on Biden to begin talks with McCarthy. There are a few potential areas of compromise: the government could institute modest caps on future spending and it could reform permitting requirements for fossil-fuel and other energy projects, issues that, the former leadership aide told me, “have been bipartisan in the past or are now.” If Biden doesn’t come to the table, the country is at the mercy of an erratic Republican majority that the Speaker himself can barely control. If he does, the Republicans will have got him there through sheer bullying. And then what? No one expects hard-line House Republicans to give any ground. McCarthy would have to be willing to cut a deal that risks his Speakership.  https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-risky-gamble-of-kevin-mccarthys-debt-ceiling-strategy

Sarah Longwell: Republicans Are In a Trap of Their Own Making

 One of the peculiar pathologies of Republican-primary politics is that even Trump’s competition feels unable to criticize him. Case in point: After Trump was indicted, DeSantis called the move ‘un-American,’ Pence called it ‘an outrage,’ and Haley said it was ‘more about revenge than it is about justice.'

They are in a trap of their own making. For eight years, Republican leaders have defended Trump at every turn—from the Access Hollywood tape to ‘very fine people on both sides.’ From the first impeachment to January 6 to the second impeachment.

They thought that by covering for Trump they were tapping into his power, but they were actually giving away their own—mortgaging themselves and their reputations to Trump’s lies and depravities. By defending him then, they have made it impossible to credibly accuse him of anything now. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/trump-desantis-2024-primary-focus-groups/673995/

Philip Bump: Trump’s Fifth Avenue strategy for 2024;

Trump was indicted in Manhattan in April and faces possible criminal charges related to his handling of documents with classification markings and for his efforts to retain power despite that loss. Washington Post-ABC News polling released this week shows that most Americans think Trump should face criminal charges in each of those cases, as well as for his role in fomenting the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

There is a catch, of course: While Democrats overwhelmingly think Trump should face charges, Republicans overwhelmingly don’t.

Incredibly, about 1 in 7 people who think that Trump should be criminally sanctioned for trying to subvert American democracy also say they’d probably vote for him to be president in a contest against Biden.

That’s the Fifth-Avenue crowd, the Trump supporters for whom criminal conduct is no barrier to support. Again, that’s not our saying Trump committed a crime. It’s them saying he should be charged. But also be president instead of Biden. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/09/trump-criminal-charges-2024-election-biden/

Matt Bai: How Joe Biden should solve the Kamala Harris Conundrum

Having publicly promised to choose a woman during his primary campaign with Bernie Sanders, and then wanting to hold his party together during an agonizing summer of racial unrest, Biden determined that his running mate should be a Black woman. It was the right call at the time, morally and politically — although I would argue that by publicly crowing about his criteria, Biden’s campaign did his eventual running mate a disservice, ensuring that whomever he chose would be seen as the best Black female candidate rather than the best candidate, period.

Given the country’s long struggle with inclusivity at the highest levels of politics, however, the list of Black women with obvious credentials wasn’t long, and most of the candidates were untested.

The safest choice, by far, was Harris. She’d been elected statewide in California, and she’d already been introduced to the country as a presidential candidate. With at least as much experience in public life as Barack Obama had when he ran for president, and far more than Donald Trump, Harris was always the most obvious fit.

But 2024 will be a very different election from 2020, and now the bill for Biden’s political calculus may be coming due. Democrats defend Harris or insist that running mates don’t matter in a presidential campaign anyway, and usually that’s true. (I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.) But Biden is four years older now, and with Republicans already harping on the president’s mental fitness, Harris will face more scrutiny than any running mate we can remember. Her favorability ratings have closely tracked Biden’s, but they’re consistently lower and well below those of other recent vice presidents.

Because this is the lot Biden chose, inevitably, when he elevated Harris nearly three years ago. He knew the stakes. He must have believed then that she had the ability to win over voters and lead the nation if it came to that — and it’s hard to believe she could have come this far if she didn’t. There’s really no choice now but to find out.

If I were giving Biden advice he surely doesn’t want, I’d tell him to steer into the storm rather than away from it, and run with Harris almost as if he expected her to take over. I’d make her a constant fixture at Biden’s side in public events and in the kind of extended interviews she’s mostly avoided doing. I’d turn the campaign into what Hollywood calls a “two-hander” — a show with two protagonists.

Because this is the lot Biden chose, inevitably, when he elevated Harris nearly three years ago. He knew the stakes. He must have believed then that she had the ability to win over voters and lead the nation if it came to that — and it’s hard to believe she could have come this far if she didn’t. There’s really no choice now but to find out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/08/kamala-harris-joe-biden-succession-2024-campaign/

Philip Elliot: Dianne Feinstein Is Giving a Master Class in How to Ruin a Legacy

Catherine Rampell: How Fox News and Trump wrote the playbook for their own downfall

What happens when the anti-establishment becomes the establishment or the insurgent becomes the incumbent?

This is the strategic challenge facing major leaders on the right, from Fox News to Donald Trump himself.

The paranoid style in American politics — the conspiratorial fantasy that the Powers That Be Are Out to Get You — has been around for centuries. But nearly 30 years ago, Fox News found an efficient way to monetize it. The network rose to prominence by sowing distrust in traditionally authoritative sources, including, of course, established news outlets. Fox proclaimed itself the upstart, the underdog, the overthrower and underminer of these elites.

Fox was, supposedly, the One True Prophet brave enough to tell you the things that “the mainstream media” would not. And the strategy mostly worked.

Today, Fox News has far and away the largest audience of any cable news network, with about as many viewers as MSNBC and CNN combined. It’s hard to argue with a straight face that this makes Fox anything other than, well, “mainstream” and “elite,” at least among media outlets. What was once counterculture is now, unambiguously, culture.

But the company’s growing dominance has complicated its business model. After all, just as Fox rose to prominence by discrediting incumbents, Fox has now provided other political and media parvenues with a blueprint for how to tear down a now-incumbent Fox, too. Or, at least, how to outflank it.

Fox is now at risk of becoming a victim of the financial strategy it pioneered. New True Prophets on the right have emerged, including One America News and Newsmax as well as myriad podcasts and radio shows. They have worked to chip away, with varying degrees of success, at Fox’s credibility among its loyal audience by claiming they instead now hold the monopoly on truth. Fox’s recently fired anchor, Tucker Carlson, is reportedly plotting his own rival news perch. (He has a shot at success, too; is there a more compelling supervillain origin story than having been canceled by cancel-culture-abhorring Fox News?)

Fox now has two choices. It can either embrace its incumbency and try to hang on to its audience by casting itself as a trusted, established news source among conservatives; or, it can try to out-extreme the extremists. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/09/how-fox-news-trump-wrote-playbook-their-own-downfall/

Bess Levin: Being an Unlikable Jerk Not Working Out So Well for Ron DeSantis

After the 2022 midterm elections, the broad consensus among Republicans and the conservative media was that Donald Trump was finished and Ron DeSantis was the future of the GOP. Fast-forward approximately six months later, though, and the two men—whose respective ascensions to the White House in 2024 would be equally bad for humanity!—appear to have had a complete role reversal, as demonstrated by a recent poll putting DeSantis behind the former guy by a whopping 36 points. How to account for it all? At the moment, the Florida governor’s woes seem to stem from a variety of factors including that:

• He refuses to give up his extremely stupid fight with Walt Disney, which resulted in Mouse-town suing him last month;
• He signed a hugely restrictive six-week abortion ban that has reportedly even given GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin pause;
• He’s obsessed with attacking the LGBTQ+ community;
• He’s literally ruined people’s lives for political purposes;
• No one believes him when he says he’s never eaten pudding using three fingers as a spoon;
• He’s just…kind of an asshole?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/ron-desantis-unlikeable