Trump launched his first week back in office signaling to loyal followers that they are free to break the law on his behalf, while telling political opponents—including John Bolton and Mike Pompeo—that he'll put their lives at risk. Meanwhile, an office full of white faces is not evidence of a meritocracy, a shortage of VA nurses or prosecutors at the DOJ is not government efficiency, and Putin is different from the man he was during Trump's first term. Plus, the dangers of the word "invasion" in the immigration context. David French joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: John Mulaney's 'horse in the hospital' skit Tweet from Dan Crenshaw that Tim referenced David's latest newsletter (gifted) Tim's playlist
Chapter 1: What concerns does David French have about Trump's presidency?
He had been able to accomplish a lot in Syria without huge military investments. And so that Putin kind of considered himself a deft manipulator of world affairs. And they were saying, this Putin is now three years into a war where three quarters of a million people have been killed or maimed.
He is a brutish, straight ahead, power politics Putin, and that he believes he has the advantage on the battlefield right now. And that Trump is going to find him to be pretty intransigent. There's a lot of blood that has been spilled, Russian blood that's been spilled, and that Trump's going to find a different Vladimir Putin than that first term Putin.
And if one side is trying to manipulate Trump and appeal to Trump and stroke Trump's ego, and the other one is saying, nope. It's just war, man. We're just going to war. How will this play out on Trump? We'll see. But it is interesting. Look, Tim, by threatening to impose tariffs on Russia, he's trading Russia almost as badly as he's treating Canada. And so he's getting serious.
Almost. It is true. I'm surprised that Vlad isn't kind of a dealmaker. Trump was planning on dealmaker Vlad. They were going to come back. They were going to go to the boardroom. They were going to have cameras there. Gary Busey would be there. They'd just hash it all out. Art of the deal still.
I do think just going forward, there will be at some point if Ukraine is able to continue to resist as effectively as it has. I mean, in the last year, it inflicted just extraordinary casualties on the Russian army. It lost ground, but it inflicted extraordinary casualties. There may well come a time in the next year or so where there will be some bargaining.
The Russian economy is a lot of the sanctions that were initially implemented. The RFX are really starting to take hold. Inflation, interest rates, things like this are in a crisis state in Russia. So Russia isn't a vulnerable state. There might be an ability to achieve some kind of deal.
I'm not writing that off as a possibility, but I'll tell you this, how we posture our support for Ukraine between now and whenever that moment comes is gonna be absolutely critical to determining the outcome of those negotiations. We've got clown Congress stuff to get to really quick.
Your friend, your congressman, probably not your actual congressman, but Andy Ogles there in Tennessee. I know Andy. I know Andy. He introduced a resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment to allow President Donald Trump to seek a third term. Notably, his amendment only allows for non-consecutive terms, which would prevent Trump from having to run against scary Barack Obama in 2028.
You know, obviously this is just nonsense, but I do think there is going to be a lot of this to try to protect Trump from lame duckism. Well, my concern is that there is kind of strategic clownishness to try to play the media, to try to give Trump a veneer of maybe he's not a lame duck. That happens from now until 2027. And then I worry a little bit, just a little bit, about 81-year-old Trump.
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Chapter 2: How are Trump's pardons affecting the rule of law?
Boys behaving badly in the House as well, not just Andy Ogles. Not to accuse Andy Ogles of being the anonymous person in this case, but some House members in the Republican conference are concerned that their texts to Cassidy Hutchinson, which are allegedly inappropriate, lecherous, creepy, would get revealed. If she was subpoenaed.
And so in the Congress's effort, Brady Loudermilk's effort to relook at the January 6th investigation to investigate the investigators, a Washington Post story by Jackie Alameda yesterday says that their desire to subpoena Cassidy Hutchison has run into some some concerns. Internal concerns.
They are thinking, hmm, maybe not a great idea to subpoena somebody if it might reveal that multiple Republicans in Congress sent her inappropriate texts.
How gross are these guys, Tim? Like, you know, it's funny, Gates... Gates, who's sort of like, if you're going to talk about the Avengers, he's like the Thor of grossness, arguably the most powerful, the most gross of the gross ones. But he always said, hey, I'm the tip of the iceberg.
And some of these guys who've been really identified as being truly creepy have indicated, well, I'm not the only one. You saw that, was it Mark Wayne Mullen saying, who wants to hear about all the adulterers? So there's this kind of tip of the iceberg feeling that we have that some folks like a Matt Gaetz have been outed, but there's a whole bunch of stuff lurking under the surface.
And one of my first thoughts when I heard that story was, well, Cassidy released the text. And then I realized, well, they might've been sent to her on a government phone that she no longer has, right? So maybe she can't.
And also, by the way, just on the Gates thing, if it was just Gates, I don't think that would be limiting their investigation of Cassidy Hutchinson. There's not a lot of love lost for old Matt Gates. If they were just worried about Matt Gates, I think they would be full barrel ahead on Cassidy Hutchinson.
Because to me, the interesting thing about all this is I had been hearing scuttle in New York. earlier this week from people who are reporting on this stuff in the know that Cassidy was really in their sights because she was not part of the group that was preemptively pardoned. And there's a lot of personal animus because she was a turncoat. They were seriously looking at her.
And so I thought it was interesting that I was hearing that around inauguration time. Then a couple of days later, you have this Washington Post story that comes up that's like, oh, maybe not Cassidy, actually. Maybe we should turn our sights on Deborah Birx. I don't know.
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