No Kings: What Republicans Taught Me

I am not your stereotypical No Kings protester. I’m a pro-life, Christian conservative who hates Hamas with a fury. I rolled my eyes at what little of Bernie’s speech I heard: the usual pro-abortion, class warfare talking points that had nothing to do with the point of a “No Kings” protest.

I attended the protest because of what Republicans taught me. 

And just so we’re clear: they taught me well. Politics were discussed in my home as far back as I can remember. As a little girl, I knew that Jimmy Carter had been a good man but a terrible president. I knew that Ronald Reagan was a hero who had stood up to communists and won. I looked forward to listening to Rush Limbaugh after school; I read his books, and chose one of them to write a book report on in 8th grade. I doodled cartoons mocking Bill Clinton for his lies and adultery when I got bored in class. I swelled with patriotic pride when George W. Bush threw out that beautiful opening pitch at Yankee Stadium after 9/11. I hated the overwhelming bias in media coverage of Barack Obama, the fawning adoration that led to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for reasons that are still unclear to me, and the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), whose ramifications are still negatively affecting my family’s finances to this day. 

Republicans taught me that the Constitution is sacred, second only to the Bible. That the foundational American value of freedom sets us apart from the rest of the world. That liberty is worth dying for. That the federal government has grown too large and too powerful, and states’ rights are being infringed. That our government serves the American people; it derives its power from the consent of the governed. That our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian values. That free markets are the bedrock on which a thriving economy is built. That America is a melting pot, Reagan’s shining city on a hill, whose doors are open to anyone who has the will and the heart to get here, “a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.” 

That’s what Republicans taught me.

Last week, elected Republicans went hard with their agreed-upon talking points: No Kings protesters hate America; they’re violent; they’re paid. (All of which were comically, embarrassingly wrong.) But I’ve seen many regular Republicans respond to No Kings protesters like me with pats on the head: “Sillies! We have a president, not a king. He isn’t a king and he doesn’t want to be a king.”

Meanwhile, the president and his administration:


I know my Republican friends will say all these memes—including the video he posted on No Kings day of himself in a crown, flying a jet emblazoned “King Trump,” dumping diarrhea on Americans—are just Trump being Trump, trolling. Setting aside the humiliation he’s inflicting on the entire nation with this crass, juvenile behavior utterly unworthy of the office, he is doing more than trolling.

He means it. He sees the presidency as kingship.

“Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” -Donald Trump, July 23, 2019

“I have the ultimate authority…When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s gotta be. It’s total.” -Donald Trump, April 13, 2020

“More importantly, Article II allows me to do whatever I want.” -Donald Trump, June 16, 2019

“I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the President of the United States.” -Donald Trump, August 26, 2025

My friends on the right, just take a moment to imagine how you’d have reacted if Barack Obama had said any of this. Be honest, if you can.

If you can’t, I’ll tell you how you’d have reacted: with rage. You’d have been the ones marching in the streets, decrying the wannabe tyrant in the White House. And you’d have been completely justified, because obviously the president can’t just do whatever he wants. Of course the Constitution doesn’t give one man total authority. We all know this. You taught me this.

But if his authoritarianism stopped with words, we wouldn’t have seen 2% of the entire population of the country take to the streets this weekend to protest.

This man publicly called for terminating the Constitution to overturn an election and put himself back in power.

Republicans, you raised me. You are the reason I am a passionate supporter of the US Constitution.

When I watched so many of you excuse this, it blew my mind and broke my heart. Never could I have believed anyone who called themselves conservative would support a man who put himself above the Constitution.

If you excuse this, you are not a conservative. You can still be a Republican today, thanks to the way the party has twisted itself, but you are not a conservative. You’re certainly not a patriot. I know this because you taught me.

In case you think I’m still making a big deal out of nothing but words, this president has repeatedly usurped powers explicitly invested in the legislative branch by the Constitution. He has withheld Congressionally-approved funds in violation of the law, drawing bipartisan criticism and numerous lawsuits.

He signed an executive order (currently blocked nationwide by federal courts) attempting to end birthright citizenship. In other words, he thought he could singlehandedly cancel part of the Constitution.

He thought he could singlehandedly cancel part of the United States Constitution.

He thought he could singlehandedly cancel part of the United States Constitution.

He has openly defied federal court rulings, including the Supreme Court. Republicans, you taught me about our magnificent and time-tested system of checks and balances—you, and Schoolhouse Rock. I remember. Do you?

This president declared a non-existent emergency to usurp Congress’s explicit power to regulate foreign trade so he could tax Americans with heavy, damaging tariffs on imports, all while lying that foreign countries pay them. All because, incidentally, he believes “Trade is bad.”

You taught me that free markets are one of the pillars of conservatism. But more importantly, he’s usurping power the Constitution does not give to the president. Republicans, you would not put up with this from a Democrat. You wouldn’t.

But these all pale in comparison to sending armed military into American cities over the objections of those states’ governors. This is every small-government conservative’s worst nightmare. This is what you told me we needed the Second Amendment to prevent. If Obama had done this, you would have lost your minds. You would have demanded his immediate impeachment and removal from office. You would have been gearing up for civil war. Because it’s unthinkable. It’s un-American. It’s tyrannical. It’s illegal. I cannot believe the Republican Party that raised me has fallen so far, into servile submission to authoritarianism, just because it’s directed at Americans they disagree with.

At least I’m not completely alone:

“I don’t know how any limited government conservative can reconcile supporting that [deploying the National Guard to deal with local crime] with a limited government ideology.” -Senator Thom Tillis (R)

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, chair of the National Governors Association (R) on Trump sending National Guard troops across state lines: “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

This last one doesn’t really count, since Noem is now the Secretary of Homeland Security for Trump, and it turns out she’s actually a big fan of federalizing the National Guard in direct attacks on states’ rights, as long as the President is a Republican, and he’s siccing troops on blue states. But it’s useful because it so neatly illustrates the utter hypocrisy of my former party.

Republicans, I proudly participated in the No Kings protests because this President is acting like a king. He’s not even trying to hide it; he’s proud of it. I protested him because of everything you taught me.

You raised me right.

We are remembering two different Charlie Kirks

The way we see Charlie Kirk, his life and death, and indeed, nearly everything, is determined less by the facts than by our personal paradigms. Less by the truth than by our algorithms.

This past week showed me how the media environments we’ve built for ourselves shape our realities. It’s no wonder we’ve become so polarized: we live in different worlds. 

My Christian friends and my Republican friends are grieving deeply. The Charlie Kirk they remember was a uniter: someone committed to reaching across the political aisle and engaging those who disagreed with him with great civility. He was a lion of the faith, boldly proclaiming the gospel in an arena where it is rarely heard. He was a loving and committed husband and father who regularly encouraged other young men to follow this highest calling. He was a good Christian man, and now he is a modern-day martyr.

My progressive friends and my atheist friends have, without exception, expressed horror over his murder. They have unequivocally condemned political violence. They’ve shared how much sadness they feel for his wife and little children. But the Charlie Kirk they remember was not any of the things I listed above. He was a man with a long and unapologetic history of spreading his racist and sexist views, one more prominent Christian whose attitudes toward his fellow human beings seemed to be shaped more by Donald Trump than Jesus Christ. 

So, who is right? 

To some extent, both. 

Depending on how you’ve trained your algorithm, you may not have seen Kirk with Bill Maher, a famously strident atheist. He and Charlie had a really interesting, thoughtful discussion about faith vs. skepticism—though Maher was, in his typical fashion, more caustic. The two displayed mutual respect and kindness, and Charlie was completely unruffled by Bill’s occasional inflammatory comments. 

Can you see how moments like these elevated Charlie Kirk in the opinions of many people, especially believers?  

At his appearance on the Jubilee debate forum, Charlie Kirk faced Dean Withers, a young liberal TikToker with a huge following. Due to the format, their interaction was brief, but completely polite despite the topic: abortion. During their debate, Charlie told Dean he’d made a good point, and when Dean stood to return to his seat, Charlie grinned and shook his hand, telling him he’d been the best debater so far. 

Dean Withers wept openly when Charlie Kirk died. 

My friends on the left, can you see how moments like these endeared Charlie Kirk to even some of his most dedicated ideological opponents? 

At one of his events he was approached by a young person who described themselves as a transgender male who was uncertain about medical interventions, and asked Charlie for his advice. He first asked for more of their story. The advice he gave and the tone in which he gave it might surprise those whose algorithms paint him as a transphobic monster. He advised seeking a diagnosis first, and caution about medical intervention. But what is most striking about the interaction is his kindness, and the apparent care he has toward this young stranger. 

Can you see why people whose algorithms show them moments like these believe the man has been unjustly smeared as a bigot?

That is the Charlie Kirk half of America is mourning. 

They are, quite understandably, deeply offended by those saying critical things about him. After all, they’ve seen no evidence of any wrongdoing, only of kindness and good-faith debate. 

They might be surprised to learn that Joe Biden published a statement on the day Charlie died: “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.” They might be more surprised to learn that he released this statement despite the fact that Charlie Kirk publicly called for Joe Biden’s execution. In fact, he called for executions in general to be “quick” and “televised,” and pondered what age would be best for children to begin watching them. 

My Christian friends, can you see how these statements have given others a very different picture of Charlie Kirk than the one you’ve seen?

Kirk fully embraced the white nationalist “Great Replacement Theory.” “The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different,” he said. “They [Democrats] hate those of you that live in rural and small America…and they have a plan to try and get rid of you.” He compared Democrats to Stalin and warned, “You believe in God, country, family, faith, and freedom, and they won’t stop until you and your children and your children’s children are eliminated.”

Can you see how these accusations do not align with a man who was supposedly a uniter? Can you see how hearing him described as civilly reaching across the political aisle rings hollow to those who’ve heard him talk this way?

Kirk was a vocal opponent of DEI initiatives. His supporters saw this as commonsense advocacy for merit-based hiring. After all, who wants a pilot or surgeon who wasn’t held to the same rigorous standards as their white counterparts? They may not have heard the type of language he used over the years on this topic, though. “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?” When speaking about prominent black women such as Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, he said, “…you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.” 

Can you see how comments like these, which are not isolated but part of a long pattern, led an awful lot of people to believe he was a racist? 

In 2020, FOX News producer Blake Neff resigned when FOX learned of his “horrendous and deeply offensive” racist posts online. Charlie Kirk didn’t seem to have a problem with the racist posts; he hired him. Neff would go on to help Kirk produce content about how Martin Luther King, Jr. was actually a terrible person and passing the Civil Rights Act was a big mistake.

Do you see how accusations of racism against Kirk are not all baseless smears? Does knowing these things help you see others’ perspectives with more understanding?

He told a 14-year-old girl there is “an argument to bring back the MRS degree,” and to “be clear, that’s why you’re going to college, right? Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t, like, ‘Ah, I’m going, I’m studying sociology.’ No you’re not. We know why you’re here.” In a long rant about Taylor Swift, he claimed she “doesn’t mean it” if she doesn’t take her husband’s last name. 

Can you see how comments like these are why many people see him as a misogynist?

Standing at a pulpit in a church, Kirk loudly said of controversial trans swimmer, Lia Thomas, “You hear that, William Thomas? You’re an abomination to God!” to cheers from the audience.

My Christian brothers and sisters, I ask you, are these the actions of a man who sees other human beings—all of them—as image-bearers? As people like himself whom Christ died to save? Even if you agree and believe he’s simply interpreting Scripture in good faith, can you see how words like these strike others as deeply offensive and hateful?

Speaking about Democrats, Kirk said, “Like, we’re dealing with maggots, vermin, and swine here.” He said, “They’re parasites. The left are cockroaches.” 

My friends on the right, can you understand why people whose algorithms have been showing them this side of Charlie Kirk are skeptical of the flowery descriptions of him as a thoughtful, cross-aisle engager?

A man was killed on camera. In broad daylight, with scores of witnesses. The video of his murder was everywhere. No one’s family should have to see that. It shocks the consciences of all decent people that anyone could see such a crime and then go use their online platform to say of the murdered man, “He’s a scumbag.” “He shouldn’t be celebrated.” Surely, we can all agree on that?

Can we still agree if I tell you I’m not talking about Charlie Kirk? I’m talking about George Floyd, and the direct quotes of Charlie Kirk about the murdered man—although Kirk never even accepted that Floyd was murdered, despite the conclusions of two separate autopsies and a jury of the murderer’s peers. On the last show he recorded, posted on the same day he died, Kirk addressed the left: “You guys…changed the entire fiber and action of the entire civilization all around a lie because George Floyd overdosed on the side of the street.”

A personal note: that shocked me. I gasped aloud when I heard it. Especially after the hours I’ve spent in the past days searching videos and tributes of Charlie Kirk and seeing the side of him his supporters have seen all these years. The kind man, the man who reached out. The good Christian. Contrasted with the callousness of those words, the harshness of his voice, the willful disregard for the truth…they don’t seem like the same man. 

And so we’re left with these two Charlie Kirks. They both existed. We have the proof. 

What do we do with this?

We can purpose to seek and to see the humanity in those with whom we disagree. For those of us who are believers in Christ, we can remind ourselves, over and over, that every single human being is an image-bearer, loved by God. While we may give bad, ignorant, and immoral ideas no mercy, we can try, always, to remember that the people who espouse them are people, just like us. Imperfect, complicated, and subject to all the weaknesses and biases common to humanity. 

We can especially try to remain aware that our algorithm fundamentally shapes our understanding of reality, and there may be things we’re missing. 

We can admire the good aspects of Charlie Kirk and emulate them. We can fairly judge the bad aspects and strive to overcome them in our own lives. 

Most importantly, we can choose to see one another, even those with whom we vehemently disagree, as human beings, created equal, endowed by our Creator with an unalienable right to life. This fundamental American doctrine is the wide, firm foundation where we can all find common ground. 

Putting a conspiracy theorist in charge: what could go wrong?

My mom was 49 years old when she found out she had cancer. In six months, that thief stole one piece of her after another, until it finally took her life. My husband’s family has suffered for generations from early-onset Alzheimer’s, and he now participates in groundbreaking research that is helping provide treatments proven to delay the disease. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t lost someone they knew to COVID-19. 

I’m only one of tens of millions of Americans whose lives have been affected by these diseases and others. Americans overwhelmingly want ongoing research and real advancements in treatments. That’s why we all need to know what is happening at the highest levels in public health right now. 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the current Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). This department is massive, overseeing multiple crucial agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Kennedy was nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate along partisan lines—Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to vote against him, along with every Democrat. 

I learned a lot about Kennedy during the days leading up to his confirmation hearing: mainly that he is a deeply weird dude. His daughter says he once chainsawed the head off a beached whale carcass, strapped it to the roof of their minivan, and drove it 5 hours back to their home, while “whale juice would pour into the windows.” (Kennedy has declined to either confirm or deny this.) Kennedy himself has told the story of the time he pulled over to retrieve the carcass of a bear from the road, intending to skin and eat it, but later decided to leave the dead bear in Central Park as a prank. And Kennedy has also publicly admitted to suffering from cognitive difficulties, which doctors first suspected were caused by a tumor, but later discovered were the result of a pork tapeworm larva in his brain, which, in his own words, “ate a portion of it [his brain] and then died.” (Infections of this type can best be prevented by proper handwashing and cooking meat to safe temperatures.)

He has blithely recounted how he “did very, very poorly in school, until I started doing narcotics.” Regarding heroin, he said, “It worked for me. And if it still worked, I’d still be doing it.”

More revealing of his character were the audio recordings he secretly taped of conversations with his second wife during their acrimonious divorce, including one in which he told her it was her fault he had cheated on her dozens of times. (She had previously found the diary in which he recorded 37 instances of his adultery with various women.)

Kennedy’s nomination came as a shock to many; the fact that he is an attorney with no medical training whatsoever is not unprecedented; several former HHS heads have been lawyers. And the Kennedy name helps to overshadow a lot of personal shortcomings and eccentricities. But no other HHS Secretary has ever been an antivaccine activist. 

RFK Jr. has made a name for himself over the years with his antivax rhetoric and activism. He is a personal friend of Andrew Wakefield, the former doctor whose false claims started the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism, and whose “research” was so fraudulent and unethical that he was drummed out of medicine in Britain. But Kennedy says, “In any just society, we would be building statues to Andy Wakefield.” 

The Prime Minister of Samoa holds Kennedy responsible for exacerbating the damage of a measles outbreak in 2019. Infant MMR vaccination rates had dropped to 31% after the tragic deaths of two babies when nurses erroneously mixed the vaccine with expired muscle relaxant. Kennedy visited the country and helped spread misinformation and fear among parents, and later, during the outbreak, sent a letter to the prime minister, absurdly suggesting that the vaccine itself may have caused the outbreak. Ultimately, 5,700 people were sickened, and at least 83 died—mostly small children and babies. The small nation ran out of child-sized coffins.

Putting an antivaxxer in charge of the department that oversees vaccinations was unthinkable before 2025, and is why McConnell and Democrats voted against him. “I’m a survivor of childhood polio,” the Republican Senator writes. “In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures…” He goes on to say Kennedy has “a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories.”

As one example among hundreds, in 2020, RFK Jr. ranted that government efforts to combat COVID-19 were “a pharmaceutical-driven, biosecurity agenda that will enslave the entire human race and plunge us into a dystopian nightmare.” 

More than 15,000 doctors, along with the nation’s largest nurses’ union, urged the Senate to reject RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary. 

But all of this was before his confirmation. Perhaps Kennedy would grow into the role? Learn from the world-class experts at the agencies he would lead? After all, during his confirmation hearing, he told concerned Senators, “I am not anti-vaccine,” and “my job is to empower the scientists, if I am privileged to be confirmed.”

So, how has that been going? 

He mass-fired 10,000 employees across HHS agencies. 

He affirmed the long-debunked chemtrail conspiracy theory and said, “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it.”

We’ve had the worst measles outbreak in 33 years, and have suffered our first death from measles in a decade—that of an unvaccinated child in Texas—thanks to dropping vaccination rates spurred by antivax rhetoric from people like RFK Jr. The CDC’s new leadership buried a report by its own scientists, which found (unsurprisingly) that the risk of measles infection is high in outbreak areas with low vaccination rates.

During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy promised “radical transparency.” But in May, he said he may bar HHS scientists from publishing in top medical journals. And in April, he fired the entire FOIA office at CDC: the office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests—which government agencies are required by law to fulfill. He fired two-thirds of the FOIA department at the FDA. 

Massive cuts are threatening huge repositories of critical research data gleaned over years of study, now marked for deletion—including cancer and Alzheimer’s data—and this research will likely be lost forever if no one (Congress) stops it. 

PRAMS, a decades-old program dedicated to monitoring infant and maternal health from pregnancy through postpartum, apparently didn’t seem worthwhile to this allegedly pro-life administration. Every single employee was fired in April.  

Dr. Peter Marks, HHS’s top vaccine regulator, was told to “turn over data on cases of brain swelling and deaths caused by the measles vaccine.” He was unable to comply because no such data exists. He was given the option of resigning or being fired. He resigned. 

During his confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. promised a concerned Republican Senator that he would not make any changes to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the committee. 

In April, Kennedy announced that “by September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,” a promise no scientist would ever dream of making. He has hired David Geier to investigate the supposed link between vaccines and autism, which has already been disproven countless times. Geier has pushed these debunked claims for many years. He’s also been charged and fined by the State of Maryland for practicing medicine without a license—he administered Lupron, a puberty-blocking drug, as an autism treatment to children despite having no medical training.

RFK Jr. canceled $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development, claiming these therapies “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” (The Secretary seems unaware that from 2020-2022, these vaccines saved 3.2 million American lives and prevented 18.5 million hospitalizations, saving the country $1.15 trillion.) He said his team “reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted.” But the recently resigned CDC head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases says Kennedy has never been briefed by anyone from his department on any of these topics, despite their repeated offers. “He’s getting information from somewhere,” Dr. Daskalakis says, but it’s not from the experts. 

His war on mRNA vaccine research threatens some of our most promising cancer studies as well. Recent mRNA studies treating two of the most feared cancers—prostate and glioblastoma—have seen unprecedented success. Kennedy’s bias against this therapy may cost untold lives if these studies are shut down or delayed. 

The National Cancer Institute, the world’s premier cancer research center, has been thrown into chaos by budget cuts and firings. Things are so bad that one lab director who’s worked there for three decades says, “If we survive, I will be somewhat surprised.”

Kennedy fired the director of the CDC, Dr. Susan Monarez, less than a month into her tenure. Almost immediately afterward, we saw a dramatic exodus of CDC leadership as four other top officials publicly resigned. Monarez says she was fired because she would not comply with “unscientific, reckless directives.” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis says in his resignation letter, “I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end…” Of the people now in charge of vaccine policy, he says, “Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.”

Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who also resigned, says he had been asked to “review and change studies that have been settled in the past,” which have shaped vaccination guidelines. 

A lunatic angry about the COVID-19 vaccines—doubtless thanks to the sort of false claims spread about it by people like RFK Jr., who absurdly and recklessly called them “the deadliest vaccines in history”—fired 500 rounds from one or more of 5 guns at CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, killing a police officer. 

More than 750 current and former employees of HHS signed a letter they sent to both RFK Jr. and Congress after the shooting, accusing him of “dismantling America’s public health infrastructure,” “repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,” “wasting taxpayer money,” and “misusing data,” among other charges.  

Nine former directors and acting directors of the CDC, who have served under every president dating back to the Carter administration, have written an op-ed for the New York Times, saying what Kennedy has done is “unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” and calling it “unacceptable.” Kennedy’s demands of the recently-fired director, Dr. Susan Monarez, were “not typical requests from a health secretary to a CDC director. Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary’s demands…”

Despite his repeated promises of “gold-standard” science, Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) report in May, which cast doubt on current vaccine recommendations, cited three studies whose findings are not what MAHA claims they are, and at least four different studies that do not exist. These AI “hallucinations” are a well-known phenomenon in which AI models will make something up if they can’t find what they’re asked to, “especially if prompted to support a specific point.” In other words, at Kennedy’s behest, the geniuses on his team told an AI to find evidence that vaccine recommendations are suspect; it couldn’t find any good studies that said what they wanted, so it made some up. And they published them as fact and used them in official government guidance. 

That scandal alone should have been enough to prompt Kennedy to resign in shame. Alas, this administration seems unfamiliar with the concept. It would have resulted in an undergrad being disciplined or expelled, but it hasn’t earned the Secretary of Health and Human Services so much as a reprimand from the President. 

The full scale of the damage to our public health institutions, medical research, and inevitably, our own health, is difficult to calculate—but we shouldn’t let that overwhelm us to the point of inaction. As Dr. Daskalakis warns us, “The CDC you knew is over. Unless someone takes radical action, there is nothing there that can be salvaged.”

What we can do: Cabinet Secretaries can be impeached. We should all—especially those with Republican representatives—be telling our Congressional reps we want Kennedy gone before he can do any more damage. (Don’t bother contacting your Senator yet; impeachment proceedings must begin in the House.) Democrats should at least try to force a vote, then if Republicans choose to keep him in power, they will even more obviously own the devastating effects of his tenure. 

Epstein controversy proves that it is possible for Donald Trump to lose supporters

For years now, releasing the Epstein files has been one of the top goals of Trump’s MAGA base. I’ll try to briefly explain why:

Roughly ⅓ of Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are QAnon believers. QAnon is the far-right conspiracy movement which holds that a cabal of Satanic, pedophilic, child-sex-trafficking elites—made up mostly of Democrats and celebrities—rules the world and the “Deep State,” and that Donald Trump is secretly fighting to defeat them and bring them to justice. In Jeffrey Epstein, believers had proof that ultra-wealthy, well-connected child sex traffickers do exist—at least one of them. 

Epstein died in prison in August of 2019. His death was ruled a suicide, but Americans across the political spectrum were skeptical, declaring, “Epstein didn’t kill himself!”

Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted at the end of 2022 for multiple felonies involving aiding Epstein in trafficking and sexually abusing minors. (While she was in jail, Donald Trump wished her well repeatedly.) 

Maxwell’s conviction and Epstein’s death only served to whet the appetite of the MAGA faithful. They wanted anyone and everyone Epstein may have trafficked young girls to to be exposed and punished. (To be fair, this is an honorable desire. Who wouldn’t want pedophiles, especially rich and powerful ones, brought to justice?)

Epstein’s “little black book” of contacts was published back in 2015 by Gawker, and revealed a lot of famous names, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Alec Baldwin, and Rupert Murdoch, among others. None of the people listed in his contact book have been charged with crimes related to Epstein. As I write this, it’s unclear to me whether there is any solid evidence of Epstein trafficking girls to third parties. Some of the victims have claimed he did, but my understanding is that investigations have not turned up good evidence. 

But my conclusions aren’t important. MAGA world—the voters, the politicians, the influencers— all agreed that Epstein trafficked minors to other powerful men, he had a list of their names, and bringing them to light was imperative. The following is only a tiny sampling of direct quotes from prominent Republicans made after Epstein’s death and before the 2024 election:

 “What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can’t get the list?…Put on your big boy pants, and let us know who the pedophiles are.” -Kash Patel (now director of the FBI), Dec 2023

Trump’s win in 2024 turbocharged his base’s (and his own administration members’) excitement about finally uncovering the truth, hidden for so long by the dastardly Democrats. 

In February of 2025, Senator Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, reminding him that he’d promised to work with her to release the Epstein files, and telling him, “…it is paramount that the FBI provide full transparency to the American people and immediately release the complete, unredacted records in this case.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi sent shockwaves of excitement through MAGA in February of this year when she claimed Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now.” 

Later that month, 15 right-wing influencers were invited to the White House and given binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” in a meeting attended by President Trump, Vice President Vance, and FBI Director Patel. Their excitement soon fizzled, however, when the binders turned out to contain almost entirely old information that was already public. 

Next major event on the timeline: June 6, 2025. Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s bromance came to a fiery and very public end, climaxing with this jaw-dropping tweet from Musk:

(Musk has since deleted the tweet.) 

One month later, the Department of Justice released an undated, unsigned memo which claims they’ve done a thorough review of all the Epstein evidence and come to the following conclusions:

  1. No third parties are guilty of any wrongdoing.
  2. There is no client list. 
  3. Epstein didn’t blackmail anyone.
  4. Epstein committed suicide.
  5. No further disclosures are forthcoming.

The memo ends by giving a link where they say the “full raw” video feed from Epstein’s cell on the night of his death can be seen. 

This memo sent shockwaves of a very different sort through MAGA world. For once, they were not going to simply accept and parrot whatever the administration said. 

The day after the DOJ released their memo, a reporter asked Pam Bondi to clarify some questions about Epstein. Before she could answer, Trump jumped in and berated the reporter for asking about Jeffrey Epstein.

As if that reaction wasn’t insulting enough to the MAGA faithful, four days later Trump made a lengthy post on his Truth Social site, addressed to his supporters, in which he defended Pam Bondi and complained about the continued focus on Epstein. He blames “selfish people” for trying to hurt his “PERFECT” administration over Epstein—”somebody that nobody cares about.” He goes on to bizarrely claim that the Epstein files were “written by” his greatest enemies list: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Biden administration. 

On the same day, his FBI Director, Kash Patel—after years of very publicly insisting that there is an Epstein client list and that it wasn’t being released because of the powerful men on it—posted this tweet:

Q: How do you get people to let go of a conspiracy you’ve spent years convincing them is true?

A: It’s too late. You can’t. 

Adding even more fuel to the conspiracy flames, WIRED magazine revealed on July 15 that the “full raw” footage of Epstein’s prison video released by the DOJ was in fact missing about 2 minutes and 53 seconds, and consisted of “two stitched-together clips.”

The Attorney General and the Justice Department getting caught in multiple lies, combined with the President’s demands that everyone stop talking about the case has piqued the interest of folks who, until now, took this story at face value. 

THEN, on Monday of this week, Democrats on the House Rules Committee added an amendment that would have forced Pam Bondi to make the Epstein files public—the very thing Republicans have been demanding for years! Republicans voted against the measure, blocking it. The next day, Tuesday the 16th, Democrats again tried to force the release of the Epstein files, this time in the full House. Republicans blocked their release again: the measure failed by a vote of 211-210. Not one Republican voted in favor. 

So, to recap: 

  • The current Attorney General, FBI Director, FBI Deputy Director, Republican Members of Congress, and the President’s son have loudly insisted for years that Democrats were hiding the Epstein files—specifically his client list—and that justice and the American people demanded they be made public.
  • The Attorney General affirmed she had the client list on her desk. 
  • The White House handed out “Epstein Files: Phase 1” binders to right-wing influencers, clearly implying that more information would be forthcoming. 
  • The world’s richest man, one of Trump’s closest advisors and the head of Trump’s newly created federal agency, who’d had unprecedented access to the computer systems of the federal government for the past five months, Elon Musk, said the reason the Epstein files had not yet been released was because Trump is in them. 
  • DOJ abruptly says there is no client list, Epstein killed himself, and they won’t be releasing any further information. Case closed. 
  • Trump angrily demands people stop talking about the Epstein files, bizarrely claims they were written by Obama, Hillary, and Biden (all people who were out to get him), and says only “bad people,” “weaklings,” and his “PAST supporters” will continue talking about Epstein. 
  • House Republicans blocked the release of the Epstein files twice in two days.

This leaves MAGA caught between two (and only two) very uncomfortable possibilities: Either Trump, his entire Cabinet, and every Republican in DC are all engaged in a massive coverup to protect pedophiles, or those same people have been lying to them for years. 

I, myself, am agnostic on the issue. Before Trump’s recent, ongoing, angry tantrum about the case, I figured most of the rumors swirling around the whole Epstein saga were right-wing fabrications. But the President is giving off major “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” vibes, and behaving exactly as I imagine he’d behave if he knew that he appears in the Epstein files in an incriminating fashion. Short of real evidence, though, we have only circumstantial observations to go by.  

“I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.” – Jeffrey Epstein, in recorded interview

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” – Donald Trump 

What we can do: I think we should all follow the advice of Trump’s Deputy Director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, from back in 2023: “Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal, please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this.” 

Be Careful What You Wish For

When it comes to immigration, some folks on the right will never be moved by emotional appeals. Mothers being torn from sobbing children, terrified refugees being sent back to the countries where they face certain persecution…for some Americans, stories like these will only ever elicit one response: “They shouldn’t have come here illegally.” 

This article is for them. No sob stories, no guilt trips. Just numbers, facts, and logic.  

The minority of Americans who favor mass deportation have, in my experience, a few main misunderstandings that inform their stance. I used to believe some of these, and learning how misinformed I’d been—how I’d been lied to—changed my perspective. Maybe it will change yours, too.  

“Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes.”

This is simply false. In 2023, unauthorized immigrants in the US paid between $55.8 and $66 billion dollars in federal taxes alone. Many immigrants who lack social security numbers use ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers) issued by the IRS to pay their taxes. They pay these taxes despite being ineligible for most federal programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. Contrary to the impression some Americans have been given, the “lazy” immigrants they rail against are in effect subsidizing Social Security and Medicare for American citizens.  

“Illegal immigrants are destroying Social Security and Medicare.”

Before the election, Trump claimed that Democrats were “killing Social Security and Medicare by allowing the invasion of the migrants.”

It is possible for an immigrant to earn lawful status and pay into the system long enough to become eligible for Social Security, but immigrants without lawful status are ineligible. Only lawfully present immigrants who meet certain work and residency requirements can qualify for Medicare. Those here illegally are ineligible no matter how long they’ve lived here or how much they’ve paid into the system. Trump’s claims that immigrants are harming these programs are the opposite of reality: “Immigration, in general, has a very positive role,” says the chairman of the American Academy of Actuaries’ Social Security committee. 

As for immigrants fraudulently receiving benefits, it can and does happen, but is complicated and difficult to pull off, and therefore happens in small numbers. Andrew Biggs, former principal deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration, says “This is not a problem that I’ve heard specifically that, as [Vance] says, is widespread.”

“They’re sending their rapists; they’re sending their murderers.”

Setting aside the fact that “they” are not “sending” anyone, almost all of us agree that violent criminal aliens should be deported. But let’s address this assumption that immigrants are more likely to be criminals than the rest of us: once again, it’s not only false; it’s the opposite of the truth. 

Multiple large-scale studies have found that immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—are less likely to commit crimes than US-born citizens. This holds true for violent and non-violent crimes, across local, state, and national levels. US citizens are ten times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for weapons-related offenses, five times more likely for violent offenses, more than twice as likely for property crimes, and nearly twice as likely for drug crimes. Overall, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than US citizens. If you’re concerned about crime, you’re statistically much better off having immigrants as neighbors than American citizens. 

“We have to deport them all, then let people come back legally.”

Large majorities of Americans do not want to “deport them all.” But for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the president can snap his fingers Thanos-style and instantly remove every undocumented immigrant from US soil. What would the effect on our economy be?

To put it simply: Apocalyptic. 

First, since he can’t actually Thanos-snap people away, there is the mind-boggling cost of the deportations themselves. Six months into Trump’s second term, ICE is already $1 billion over budget. If the so-called “big, beautiful bill” passes, ICE will be funded at $75 billion over the next five years—nearly triple its current budget. 

But on top of the astronomical expenditure to remove these people from the country, we have to consider the effects their absence would wreak. What do you think happens to a nation’s food supply when you kick out roughly half of crop farmworkers? Crops rot in the fields and we face severe shortages, obviously. What happens to real estate prices and supply when 17% of the construction workforce vanishes? Nothing good. What happens when one of every five janitors, groundskeepers, and maintenance workers is gone? When more than one in ten food service employees stop showing up? What happens to budgets across the country when almost $100 billion in tax revenue dries up?

You may be thinking that Americans will simply step into those jobs, but you’d be mistaken. For every 1 million unauthorized workers removed from the country, about 88,000 citizens will lose their jobs. That’s what happens when the economy shrinks. 

Just try to imagine the devastation in California, Texas, and Florida, which would each lose one in every twenty residents. What would that do to communities? Businesses? Schools? 

Removing every illegally present immigrant in America would shrink the economy by 4.2%-6.8%. For comparison, the devastating Great Recession of 2007-09 caused GDP to shrink 4.3%. 

In a nutshell: Great Recession-level wealth losses and unemployment are the best-case scenario if mass deportations succeed. 

Even if you don’t care about the suffering of non-citizens; if you’re in the “They shouldn’t have come here illegally” camp, you can at least appreciate the damage to Americans if we continue on this course—the harm you, your family, and your community will likely suffer if you insist on getting rid of “illegals.” 

Be careful what you wish for. 

If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Illegally Try to Fix it and Break it in the Process

Last night the President announced the immediate authorization of 100% tariffs on “Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” He claimed the American movie industry is dying, other countries are “stealing the movie-making capabilities” from us, and that films made outside the US are “messaging and propaganda.” 

Let’s set aside the chilling and not-so-vaguely communist “messaging and propaganda” accusation and its obvious conflict with the First Amendment. We have plenty to cover here with just the hard facts. 

The American movie industry will be surprised to hear it is “DYING a very fast death” considering its most recent economic report proudly listed $22.6 billion in annual exports, with $15.3 billion in trade surplus. The movie industry trade surplus is larger than that of our telecommunications or health services industries. 

Nevertheless, for some unknown reason, the President has decided this booming business is actually on its deathbed and needs him to rescue it. Enter his favorite cure-all: tariffs! Tariffing films “produced in Foreign Lands” will save the day. 

The President could not have foreseen that his tariff announcement would have the same result as every other tariff announcement: an immediate drop in the stock market. Specifically, hits to the value of major American television and film companies. Disney, Paramount, Netflix, Lionsgate, and Warner Brothers shares all fell this morning. 

Trump will probably insist this is simply short-term pain for long-term gain. It isn’t. It’s short-term pain for absolutely nothing—worse than nothing, because it never should have happened in the first place. 

These tariffs will never be implemented because they are illegal. The law he is using to declare a national emergency and levy all the tariffs he’s enacted so far explicitly prohibits him from regulating the importation of films. The relevant law is 50 U.S. Code § 1702 – Presidential authorities, if you’d like to read it yourself. It’s perfectly clear. “The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit…the importation from any country…of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to…films…” 

This illegal attempt to levy tariffs on films will inevitably be challenged in court, where DOJ time and taxpayer dollars will be spent in a futile attempt to defend the President’s illegal actions. And in the meantime, he has once again harmed American businesses and erased American wealth. 

It all seems awfully wasteful. Someone should alert DOGE.

What we can do:

Sometimes all you can do is laugh. Monty Python and the Holy Grail—a foreign film—was re-released in theaters yesterday. Maybe go to the movies?

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Clear back in 1992, while advising Bill Clinton on his ultimately successful White House run, James Carville coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.” It has attained political immortality, still invoked virtually every election season more than thirty years later—and for good reason. 

Americans may disagree about a lot of things—most things, if I’m being honest—but we are united when it comes to wanting a strong economy. Rich or poor, no one is happy with higher prices, rising unemployment, recession, or inflation. (The last one was one of the big reasons Trump won the election; inflation under Joe Biden was a global problem sparked by the pandemic, and Americans felt it. The US recovered from it without a recession, and our economy was strong and outperforming most other developed nations by the end of his term, but no one has ever accused American voters of an excess of attention to detail.)

Recent polls—gruesome for Trump, who is the first President in history to have an underwater approval rating in the first quarter of a term, and whose rating on the economy is an abysmal 38%, both from a FOX News poll and in line with other big pollsters—indicate that a lot of people already regret their vote for him. Unfortunately for all of us, that demographic is almost certainly going to swell in ranks, and quite soon. 

The first 48 hours after Trump announced his across-the-board tariffs saw $5 trillion in American wealth go poof. But most Americans don’t feel it when the Dow plummets—not right away. The real results of these tariffs, and the chaos his on-again, off-again, now-it’s-145%-on-China whims have inflicted on the global economy, have taken time to take effect. And those effects are now looming. 

After consistent economic growth for nearly three years, we now know that the US economy actually shrank in this first quarter of 2025. It didn’t plateau, it didn’t slow: someone slammed on the brakes and threw it into reverse. Job creation in April was 46% lower than expected, and was down 58% from the previous month. The dollar’s value is deteriorating to the point that major GOP donor Ken Griffin says “the US has become 20 percent poorer in four weeks.” 

All these may still seem too abstract to some readers. Here are some not-so-abstract developments already here, or on the near horizon:

We are already seeing a precipitous decline in container ships arriving in our ports, particularly from China, formerly our third-largest trading partner. These canceled shipments will have a cascade of negative effects, from higher prices to product shortages, not to mention the sharp dropoff in work for truckers, most of whom are self-employed owner-operators. 

UPS has announced it will cut 20,000 jobs this year due to the tariffs’ expected effect on shipping. 

American farmers, who overwhelmingly supported Trump in the election, are already hurting. The President’s shutdown of USAID has ended $2 billion in annual purchases from farmers. And his trade war with China has caused a massive hit to American soybean, cotton, and pork exports, which are down 50%, 50%, and 72% respectively. The Administration has already indicated it may bail out farmers damaged by the trade war, just as Trump did in his first term, when his first (but smaller) trade war with China harmed them. And of course, any bailout, like the tariffs, will be paid by American taxpayers. 

Supply chain researchers, shipping industry insiders, and logistics specialists agree that Americans can expect higher prices and goods shortages. The founder and CEO of supply chain logistics platform Flexport, Ryan Petersen, says that if Trump continues on his current course, we are certain to see extreme shortages, “Probably worse than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.” Nick Vyas, founding director of USC Marshall’s Randall R. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute, says “If we ratchet up the continued pressure on China, we create the huge destruction of the global economy, to the point that it’s as bad as the Great Depression of 1928 or something even bigger than that.”

JP Morgan projects the probability that we are heading into a recession at 60%. Some experts fear we face an even worse fate: stagflation. 


Uncertainty is a killer for business development, and right now America is steeped in uncertainty thanks to the President’s haphazard tariff actions. One thing we can be certain of though: he will never accept responsibility for the consequences of those actions. 

So, the economy that was booming under Biden was actually Trump’s doing, and the economy that has been crippled in the first 100 days of Trump’s administration by his unprecedented single-handed manipulation of global trade is actually Biden’s doing. Got it. 

We can also be certain that he will do anything in his power to keep us from seeing his tariffs’ direct consequences to us. After reports surfaced that Amazon was planning to list the cost of tariffs right alongside the prices of products affected by tariffs, Trump placed an angry call to Jeff Bezos, who apparently assured the President that Amazon will not implement that plan. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the plan was a “hostile and political act” by Amazon. (The President cannot stop Chinese retailer Temu from doing the same, however, which Temu shoppers are now learning.)

Tariffs and trade wars have consequences, and Americans of all political persuasions are going to learn this the hard way, and soon. 

What we can do:

As I’ve said before, POTUS only has the power to levy tariffs because Congress delegated it to him. They can take it away. Republicans in Congress are allowing this slow-motion train wreck, and we should let them know how we feel about it. 

But more personally: donate to your local food pantry. The poorest Americans will be hit hardest and soonest, and they will need our help. 

And if you like to cook Asian cuisine at home, stock up on fish sauce now. 

This is a Constitutional Crisis

During each of Donald Trump’s terms in office, we’ve heard that the government could be headed for a constitutional crisis: a situation in which the government faces a conflict its fundamental laws are not able to resolve. In this case, it’s because one branch of government is openly defying another, in direct violation of the Constitution. 

The federal government consists of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Our system of checks and balances ensures that one branch cannot exert unchecked power. (This is Schoolhouse Rock-level civics; please stop reading and go sign up for a Social Studies class if any of this is unfamiliar.) The executive can veto bills passed by the legislature; the legislature can override vetoes or even impeach and remove the executive; the executive appoints judges and justices to federal courts; the legislature confirms (or blocks) those judges and justices. And federal judges can declare laws unconstitutional or countermand unlawful executive actions. 

This system is the bedrock of our democracy. This is not a partisan claim. All Americans know this—or should.

And so all Americans need to know what is happening right now. 

There is a lot going on right now with deportations and disappearings, and you’ll be hearing more from me about that topic in the near future. But today I’m going to focus on just one case. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is from El Salvador. He entered the United States illegally as a teenager, and now has lived here for over a decade; he is married to an American citizen, and is father to an American citizen child and stepfather to two more. In 2019, a legal protective order from a federal immigration judge granted him permission to remain in the United States. The order specifically prohibits his deportation to El Salvador, due to the likelihood he would be in danger from gangs there. (In his sworn testimony, Abrego Garcia said he fled El Salvador to escape MS-13, which was extorting his family and pressuring him to join the gang.) ICE did not appeal the ruling. 

Since then, Abrego Garcia has spent six years making regular check-ins with immigration officials. He has never been charged with a crime. 

Then, on March 12 of this year, he was pulled over by ICE officers and told that his immigration status had changed. (It had not.) He was arrested in front of his young son and put into an ICE vehicle. By the next day, he had been moved out of state. On March 15, he told his wife he was being sent to the Terrorist Confinement Prison (CECOT) in El Salvador. That was the last time anyone has spoken to him—although his wife did recognize him in a photo from the El Salvadorean prison: his head shaved, handcuffed, being forced through a hallway, bent double, his head shoved downward by two guards in full ski masks. 

How could this happen, you may be asking? How can a man who has been checking in routinely with immigration officials, who has never been charged with a crime, and whom the government is explicitly prohibited from sending to El Salvador, now be in El Salvador at our government’s behest? And not only in El Salvador, but in a nightmarish prison intended to hold the most heinous criminals?

I’ll let this court filing made by the government answer for itself: “On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error (emphasis mine).” 

So, the government acknowledges that he should not have been sent to El Salvador. They made an “error.” To be fair, most people think of an “administrative error” as accidentally writing yesterday’s date on a document, not arresting an innocent man and within 72 hours throwing him into a brutal prison in the one country on earth you’re specifically not allowed to send him to. But I digress. 

What’s important is that as soon as the Trump Administration realized they had inadvertently committed this colossal injustice, they explained the mistake to El Salvador and made certain Mr. Abrego Garcia was on the next plane home to Maryland. 

Except, of course, that is not what has happened at all. The Administration claimed in the same court filing that their hands are tied—and so are the court’s—because now he’s in El Salvador’s jurisdiction. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Abrego Garcia “was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang.” Apart from there being no evidence of this at all, one has to wonder, if there is any truth to this allegation, why ICE met with him this January for his routine check-in, and then sent him on his merry way? 

Vice President JD Vance tweeted that Abrego Garcia was “a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here,” despite the man never having been charged with a crime, much less convicted, found to be in danger from MS-13, not a member, and with every legal right to be here. A dizzying pile-on of falsehoods in such a short space. 

A quick recap: the government wrongly deported a man and had him imprisoned without charge or trial, then said there was nothing they could do about it, then slandered and libeled him. 

Next, four days after the Administration admitted in court that they had wrongly deported him, federal judge Paula Xinis ordered the Administration to return Abrego Garcia to the US within three days. 

Rather than follow this objectively legal, moral, and ethical order, the adminstration appealed the following day, requesting an emergency stay. On April 7, the deadline by which they were ordered to have returned him, the Administration leapfrogged the appeals court, which hadn’t even yet ruled on their appeal, and asked the Supreme Court for an administrative stay, which would allow them to leave Abrego Garcia rotting in CECOT until the Supremes could rule on the case. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed—fortunately for the Administration, because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals did reject the government’s appeal. 

Last week, on April 10, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the lower court’s ruling, requiring the Administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return and then handle his case as though he had never been deported. Their decision acknowledged that Judge Xinis’s deadline had passed and was therefore now null, and they did not set a new one. They also instructed Judge Xinis to have “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” They told the government to “be prepared to share” what steps it has taken to follow their ruling, and remanded the case back to Judge Xinis for further clarification and instruction. 

The following day, April 11, Judge Xinis ordered the Administration to “take all available steps to facilitate the return” of the man they had wrongly deported and imprisoned. She also ordered them to provide her with an update on his location, as well as daily updates about what steps they are taking to bring him back. Government lawyers asked for more time. In subsequent filings they confirmed his location, but flatly refused to communicate what steps they were taking to bring him home—in direct defiance of both Judge Xinis and the Supreme Court. 

Another day later, April 12, Trump posted on his Truth Social site regarding the men he has had sent to El Salvador: “These barbarians are now in the sole custody of El Salvador, a proud and sovereign Nation, and their future is up to President B [Bukele] and his Government.” 

And now, yesterday, April 14, President Trump hosted President Bukele of El Salvador at the White House. Bukele, who has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator,” was asked by a reporter whether he planned to return Abrego Garcia. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he mused. “Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”  

Trump followed up with, “They’d love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people.”

At that same meeting with Bukele, President Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller both claimed, incredibly, that the Supreme Court had ruled 9-0 in their favor. 

Yesterday, for its required daily update to Judge Xinis, the government submitted this filing, which not only failed to declare what steps it is taking to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, but suggested he should not and will not be returned. It also quoted Bukele’s refusal to send him back, and again claimed it has no authority to “forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”

Trump has said repeatedly that he is going to make Canada our 51st state. He says he is going to take Greenland away from the sovereign nation of Denmark “one way or another.” He says he is going to take back the Panama Canal from Panama. His Administration helped make sure Andrew Tate—an outspoken Trump supporter—was permitted to come back to America from Romania, where he is charged with rape and sex trafficking. 

But suddenly, El Salvador’s sovereignty is an insurmountable obstacle. It’s simply impossible for the President of the United States ask a favor of—let alone exert any form of pressure on—the man who sat chummily beside him in the White House, and whom we are paying $6 million to house the men Trump has had imprisoned in CECOT. 

It’s a preposterous lie.

Trump is openly defying a ruling of the Supreme Court—and his oath of office.

The constitutional solution to this problem is impeachment, conviction, and removal from office. But the framers intended Congress to be filled with people of honor who would uphold their oath to the Constitution above any party loyalty. The Republicans in this Congress have proved they have no higher loyalty than fealty to Donald Trump. 

This is a constitutional crisis. 

I don’t know what will happen next. I don’t know what Judge Xinis will do, or even what she can do in the face of this unprecedented lawlessness perpetrated by the executive, whose entire purpose is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” I don’t know if the majority-Republican-nominated Supreme Court will step in with a more forceful ruling, or how he’ll react if they do. In the absence of a Congress with the spine and moral compass to carry out their constitutionally-prescribed duty, we are adrift. 

All I know is that all of this is wrong. (I haven’t even touched on the dangerous, probably unconstitutional policy of deporting people without due process, let alone sending them straight to prison for the rest of their lives without a trial.) The foundations of our constitutional system are crumbling before our eyes. By setting himself above the judicial branch, including even the Supreme Court, Donald Trump is showing open contempt for the Constitution he swore to uphold. Our foundations are crumbling because he is taking a jackhammer to them. Every single person who claims to love America should be appalled.

If this is allowed to stand, the American experiment will be over. Our constitutional republic will have ceased to exist. Whatever government we have afterward will be something else. 

Update, April 17:

On April 12, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed a motion pointing out President Trump’s own words from the previous day, that if “the Supreme Court said bring somebody back I would do that.”

And yet, on April 14, rather than complying with orders from both Juge Xinis and the Supreme Court, the DOJ again appealed Judge Xinis’s ruling, arguing that the courts have no right to order the executive branch to bring Abrego Garcia home. 

On April 15, Judge Xinis, apparently fed up with the defendants’ noncompliance, ordered expedited discovery, a process in which relevant parties will be deposed under oath. This process must be completed within two weeks. 

In the meantime, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a resident, has traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to see him, verify his well-being, and hopefully facilitate his release. The Senator met with the Vice President of El Salvador (the president was not in the country), who refused to allow him to enter the prison or even speak to Abrego Garcia on the phone. When asked, the Vice President admitted his country has no evidence Abrego Garcia has committed any crime. The Senator asked why then they wouldn’t release him. “His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT,” Van Hollen said. 

I want to note that this United States Senator was not permitted to enter the prison, even though multiple Republican members of the House of Representatives have toured the prison and posted photos of themselves standing in front of crowded cells full of men. 

The Administration has continued to slander Abrego Garcia, even when it backfires on them. On April 16, Attorney General Pam Bondi tweeted a link, saying, “We are releasing additional information on Kilmar Abrego Garcia.” I’ve taken the liberty of including a screenshot from the linked documents here:

The allegations made against Abrego Garcia in these documents (including the accusation that he was part of a gang that operates in a state where he has never lived) were on a form filled out by a cop who, weeks later, would be suspended, indicted, and enter a guilty plea for revealing confidential information about a case to a prostitute. The allegations are so flimsy (and dismissed years ago by the judge who ruled he could not be sent to El Salvador) that in an earlier appeal for this case, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote: “If the Government wanted to prove to the district court that Abrego Garcia was a ‘prominent’ member of MS-13, it has had ample opportunity to do so but has not—nor has it even bothered to try.” 

Most crucially, just today, April 17, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the Trump Administration’s appeal, asking them to block Judge Xinis’s order for them to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 

I want to highlight some of the words of Judge Wilkinson, who wrote the opinion for the panel. (Judge Wilkinson is a Reagan appointee.) These are directly from today’s ruling (all emphases mine):

“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. 

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

He writes that if the Administration were to continue on this course of refusing to “make what was wrong, right,” it “would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”

And most poignantly, in his final words before denying the government’s motion, Judge Wilkinson writes, “We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

What we can do:

No member of the House of Representatives should know a moment’s peace until either the President complies with court orders or articles of impeachment are filed. Forget emailing. Call your representative, especially if they are a Republican, and politely demand they do their duty and restrain this lawless president. Demand impeachment. Call every day. https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Understanding Trump and his Tariffs

Trying to narrow down this topic into a single, coherent article has been a massive challenge, but I’ve done my best. Here are the keys to understanding what the president believes, what he’s doing, and why he’s wrong. 

“America is getting ripped off.”

Trump has believed this for decades. In 1987 he took out full-page ads in various newspapers to complain about Japan and what he viewed as their unfair trade practices. He has long claimed that NAFTA was bad for America, so he killed it in his first term, replacing it with his own trade deal, USMCA (which he violated in February when he imposed broad 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.) 

The simplest and clearest explanation of the president’s views on international trade comes from 2018, when he was returning from the G20 summit, editing a speech. He scribbled three words on the page: “Trade is bad.” 

That view is so manifestly incorrect that I won’t waste any space in this article to contradict it. 

Here is the most crucial key to understanding his stance: He believes any trade deficit is evidence that we’re being ripped off. 

I’ll explain this more soon, but first I want to be sure you understand what a trade deficit is—because let’s be honest: it sounds like a bad thing. It’s very simple: if we buy more from another country than they buy from us, we have a trade deficit with them. For example, I have a massive trade deficit with my grocery store. I’ve bought thousands of dollars’ worth of products from them over the years, and they have bought absolutely nothing from me. But does it follow that I’m being treated unfairly? Of course not. 

More relevantly: we import lots and lots of stuff from Vietnam—Americans like buying affordable things made by people who earn $290 per month. Vietnam buys stuff from us too, but they buy less from us than we do from them, understandably. But apparently not understandably if you’re Donald Trump; he believes they’re treating us unfairly. More on this later. 

“Foreign countries pay the tariffs.” 

Trump has insisted this over and over for years, and he is just as wrong today as he was in his first term. Tariffs are import taxes paid by the importer. My kids learned this in 6th grade social studies. A conservative legal group believes he’s so wrong they are suing him. He is just plain wrong.

Or is he lying? In a conference call in March, the president warned US automakers not to raise prices in response to his upcoming tariffs. But why did he feel it was necessary to issue such a warning? If foreign countries pay the tariffs as he claims, why would American car manufacturers need to raise prices? (Read the linked article if you need more proof that his tariffs will force them to raise prices significantly.) 

As far as understanding why the President of the United States would stubbornly and publicly cling to such a demonstrably false idea despite being told hundreds of times that he’s wrong, I’m afraid there’s really only one explanation that makes any sense: he has textbook narcissistic personality disorder, and when a narcissist is proven wrong, they double down. If anyone has a better explanation, I’m all ears. 

“These are reciprocal tariffs.”

This one is a doozy, and if you want a really thorough explanation of how the administration came up with the “reciprocal tariff” rates unveiled on April 2, here is a very good resource. 

In a nutshell, here’s what to understand about Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs announced last week:

The poster’s title of “Reciprocal Tariffs” and the column heading “Tariffs Charged to the USA” are simply false. Even the fine print, “Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers” is false. Economists figured out, and the White House confirmed, that the “Tariffs Charged to the USA” figures were calculated not by calculating tariff rates plus trade barriers as claimed, but by dividing our trade deficit with that country by that country’s exports to us. For countries whose calculated rates were under 10%, he set the rate at 10% across the board. 

So, these “reciprocal tariffs” have absolutely no relation to tariffs imposed on us. They are a completely made-up measure of “cheating” as declared by Donald Trump. 

This is how he ends up claiming that Vietnam, a country which spends 3% of its GDP buying goods from America, actually charges 90% tariffs on the US: because although we spend only 0.49% of our GDP on goods from Vietnam, the dollar amount is less and therefore, they are cheating us. His chart shows that he really believes a nation less than one-third of our population and 64 times poorer ought to be buying every bit as much from us as we buy from them. And because they haven’t been, he will now punish them. (That’s his intention; but recall that the tariffs will in fact be paid by Americans.)

“It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is,” one columnist writes. “You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticise it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought.” When you consider that his “Liberation Day” announcement also levied tariffs on islands solely inhabited by penguins and an island that’s home only to a joint military base populated entirely by US and British troops with no exports to speak of, it’s hard to argue. 

We’ve been “looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered…”

In his now-infamous Rose Garden address, he claimed this is what’s been done to the United States by “friend and foe alike.” 

It’s an interesting way to describe the richest nation in the history of the world. If we’re so oppressed, how have we managed to consistently have the largest GDP of any country on the planet? A country so impressively dominant that there’s not a close second? (Our GDP is 64% larger than second-place China.) If we’ve been constantly “pillaged” by our trade partners, why is the value of our goods and services 50% higher than every country in the European Union combined? 

If American companies have been “plundered” by other nations, then why is it that WalMart—which is only the tenth most valuable company in the US—would be the 22nd richest nation in the world if it were a country? If we have been “raped” by the rest of the world, then why could dozens of countries combine their worth and still not rival the value of Apple? Why is Illinois as valuable as the entire nation of Turkey?

As pillagers go, they seem pretty incompetent. 

“This will be the Golden Age of America.”

He says his tariffs will bring the Golden Age of America, but markets, economists, history, and high-profile Republicans beg to differ. 

America has spent decades dismantling trade protectionism, ever since the failed Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930. And those decades have seen the largest number of people lifted out of poverty in all of human history. With his tariff announcements on April 2, Trump did an abrupt 180 on American trade policy.

Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, says the new tariffs could bring in anywhere between $300-$600 billion in the next year. Even if they perform to his highest estimates, in one year the tariffs will recoup 12% of the market value wiped out in 48 hours by Trump’s tariff pronouncement. It’s hard to see how the Golden Age of America can be commenced by vaporizing $5 trillion of American wealth in two days. 

It’s unclear how driving South Korea and Japan directly into China’s arms will aid America. No one has explained how angering and alienating virtually every ally we have will improve America’s standing in the world. 

JP Morgan’s Chief Global Strategist says, “The trouble with tariffs, to be succinct, is that they raise prices, slow economic growth, cut profits, increase unemployment, worsen inequality, diminish productivity and increase global tensions. Other than that, they’re fine.”

The Economist says, “Donald Trump has committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said—on history, economics and the technicalities of trade—was utterly deluded.”

While the stock market line plummets, the likelihood of global recession line is climbing steeply—now as high as 60% thanks to these tariffs. 

JD Vance tweeted in 2017: “Can’t be repeated enough: if you’re worried about America’s economic interest, focus more on automation/education than trade protectionism.”

Mike Pence tweeted on April 2: “The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history…and will cost American families over $3,500 per year.”

Bill Ackman, billionaire and diehard Trump supporter, tweeted on April 6 that if Trump follows through on implementing these tariffs, he will be launching “economic nuclear war on every country in the world,” and “destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner.” He says that small businesses and low-income Americans will suffer the most as a result, and that the consequences for our country will be “severely negative.”

Ronald Reagan, a year after Donald Trump took out those full-page ads calling for trade protectionism, had words for men like him: “Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag.”

What we can do:

The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to regulate foreign commerce. In 1977 Congress passed a law that allows the President special powers to levy tariffs during a national emergency. Trump used this law to declare a national emergency and impose his tariffs—the first President ever to do so. 

Congress delegated this power to the President, and they can revoke it. Congress can reclaim its Constitutionally-bestowed power and put a stop to these tariffs at any time. 

Let’s make sure our representatives know we want them to take their power back and fix this, now.  

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

This Time It’s Personal

The day after the presidential election, I wrote an article entitled Why He Won. I was reeling from his victory, in disbelief that so many Americans wanted to give him power again. I had thought that January 6 was enough on its own to make him electorally toxic. I had forgotten, again, that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters. 

I dealt with my bitter disappointment by writing about some of the ways Democrats need to change if they want to stop losing winnable elections. It helped me that day—writing through the pain—and I stand by my suggestions. 

Afterward, I resolved to ignore politics as much as possible, for my own sanity. For my own enjoyment of life. I resented how many hours of my time this man had dominated. I just wanted to put my head down and focus on friends, family, and daily life. And for the most part, I succeeded. 

Until the final week of February. 

On Tuesday, February 25, we learned that the clinical trial that is part of our family’s fight against Alzheimer’s disease is in danger due to the ordered cuts at NIH, specifically the freeze on grant reviews. This freeze is—as the name suggests—having a chilling effect on research. Long-scheduled grant review meetings have been canceled, rescheduled, and canceled again. Without them, our funding can’t be released.

I’ll be honest: that news was terrifying. More than that, it was infuriating. We’ve been part of this community for fifteen years, fighting alongside brilliant doctors and researchers who’ve devoted their careers to stopping Alzheimer’s disease. We’ve wept and prayed alongside other families like ours that have been ravaged for generations by this cruel sickness. They, along with my husband, have given their blood, sweat, tears, and spinal fluid trying to defeat this disease—not only for themselves, but for everyone, everywhere. 

And for many years, my country has supported us. Americans overwhelmingly want scientific research on our deadliest diseases to continue, which is why Congress has approved and appropriated billions of dollars for Alzheimer’s research (though it’s a fraction of what the government spends on care for Alzheimer’s patients.) This money is already set aside in the budget. These funds were already provisionally approved for our trial.

And now, because of this man, whom I’ve spent the past ten years begging people to realize is unfit to lead us, we may lose the prevention for Alzheimer’s disease. He is poised to throw away fifteen years of steady momentum up to this moment, when we are on the cusp of beating one of the most feared illnesses in the world. 

My husband, whom I love more than my own life, and who has courageously fought for himself, for his children, and for the world against this disease, may sicken and die from early-onset Alzheimer’s rather than being its first survivor—as a direct result of Donald Trump’s reckless and myopic actions. 

It’s been a lot. 

And it has forced me to consider whether speaking out publicly against him is a good strategy, considering that we need all the public support we can get to try and spur action from our representatives. (I want to offer my thanks here to the family and friends who support this president and yet took action on our behalf, reaching out to the White House and their representatives, asking them to right this wrong.)

Three days after that phone call, the world watched the Oval Office ambush of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by Donald Trump and JD Vance. It made me feel physically sick. Watching America’s leaders berate and belittle the leader of a valiant country that’s been invaded and bombed for three solid years by a murderous, war-crime-committing dictator—a country which gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for our promise to protect it—left me shocked. I long ago lost the ability to be surprised by this man, but I can still be shocked. 

I messaged a friend that evening: “In all the shock and horror and disbelief of the past 10 years, nothing comes close to the rage and despair I feel today. Pax Americana is over. We’ve switched sides. Today the whole world watched America spit on everything she used to stand for. I really believe we can’t come back from this, no matter who wins the next election. The world knows that America and Americans can’t be trusted.”

I wanted nothing more than to again write through the pain, to try to convey to people whose chosen sources of information will always and only praise whatever Donald Trump does, just how cataclysmic that spectacle was and will be for America and the world. 

But I’d just learned that my husband’s life and the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease were at stake, and I didn’t want to risk angering people whose help I needed. So, I bit my tongue.

Since then, I’ve nearly bitten my tongue clean off. Almost daily there has been another impeachable offense, another outrage against democracy, another middle finger to the Constitution. The scale and scope of the corruption, cruelty, and destruction feel overwhelming—which is by design. It’s Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy: a relentless onslaught that’s nearly impossible to keep up with, let alone counter with any meaningful resistance. So far, it’s been extremely successful. 

Two hundred and thirty-eight years ago at the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin whether they had created a republic or a monarchy. He famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

For the first time in my life, I am afraid we may not keep it. 

I know this will sound hysterical to my friends on the right who only hear how wonderfully the first 100 days of this term are going. In the coming weeks, I hope to show you why I don’t believe it’s hysterical at all. 

It’s why I’m not going to keep quiet anymore. I don’t have delusions of grandeur; I know that writing my little blog is not going to topple this administration and save our democracy. But I believe we are at a crossroads; this country I love is in severe danger, and she is worth fighting for. So I will fight. With whatever gifts I have and whatever influence I possess. 

I know I can’t fight alone, so at the end of each article, I will include a concrete action we can each take to stand up for the republic. 

This isn’t the first time Americans have found themselves living under a despot who elevated himself above the law. We didn’t lie down and submit then, and we won’t now. That’s not what Americans do. 

I’m sorry for lying down for the past few months. I’m standing up now. Stand with me. 

What we can do:
Nationwide protests are happening in all 50 states this Saturday, April 5. It will be by far the biggest show of public disapproval of Trump’s and Musk’s destructive policies so far. For you, it may be the mass firings of civil servants, the carelessness with national security, the detentions and deportations, the devastating tariffs, or something else. For me, it’s all of the above, but especially Alzheimer’s research. Marty and I will be at the one in Denver. Find one near you and stand up with us! https://handsoff2025.com/