A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Trump’s Military-Fantasy Complex
In a series of three posts over the past month, TPM’s Josh Kovensky has been unpacking the many disturbing elements of the emerging Trump II plan to harness the military for its own political ends in ways that are outside the bounds of American tradition and may be outside the law.
The series emerged organically as his reporting and that of other news outlets gradually helped to bring the issue into sharper focus. But that means we haven’t promoted it as strongly or consistently as we might have otherwise. So I wanted to walk you through the major themes because if Trump wins in November, then in about six weeks’ time, things will start moving very quickly and I don’t want this potential threat flying under your radar.
The overarching theme of Josh’s reporting is that Trump is drawn to using the military because it appeals to a series of fantasies he has:
- The military is all powerful.
- The military can augment his own power as president, particularly in areas where federalism and the law make the president inherently weaker.
- Unlike other components of the federal government, the president can use the military free of congressional strings and oversight.
None of these fantasies is actually true, though they contain wisps and fragments of truth.
We’ve long known about Trump’s attraction to the military, or at least to the trappings he perceives it to have: strength, power, loyalty. His obsession with “my generals” in his first term led him to surround himself with flag officers, most of whom came to despise and disrespect him.
What’s new in Josh’s reporting is how MAGA adherents want to co-opt the military for its own political ends, including: mass deportations, cracking down on domestic protests, and simply to project political strength.
Civilian rule over the military is a core American value. Keeping the military as an institution, non-partisan and out of politics remains a bedrock tradition. Not using the military for domestic purposes except in extreme cases is also a foundational value.
Trump’s child-like fascination with the military as a way to shore up his own insecurities ignores all of that history and tradition and the laws that help preserve them. He would come into office perturbed that he hadn’t made full use of the military his first time round and determined not to be thwarted from doing so this time.
It’s a particular flavor of the Trump threat that we haven’t encountered before in our history and which we may not be sufficiently prepared for: It threatens the military as we know it and civilian life. Because there’s no precedent for it, predicting how it will unfold is difficult. But we’ll be on it when and if it does.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams Indicted
Federal law enforcement was reported to be searching Gracie Mansion this morning after news broke Wednesday night that NYC Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal criminal charges. The specifics of the charges are not yet public, but the indictment is expected to be unsealed today. Adams rebuffed calls to resign and vowed to fight the unspecified charges.
Jack Smith Immunity Brief In Jan. 6 Case Due Today
Special Counsel Jack Smith faces a deadline of today to file his expected 180-page brief on the legal and factual reasons that Supreme-Court-bestowed presidential immunity does not preclude the superseding indictment against Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 case.
The brief – which could include never-before-seen evidence against Trump – will be filed under seal, and it is not clear when a redacted version will be released to the public. That will be up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and could take days – or longer depending on Trump’s objections to its release and how hard he fights to keep it from becoming public before the election.
Death By A Thousand Delays
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz will not release his long-awaited report on the department’s handling of the Jan. 6 attack and the run-up to it until after the November election. The IG’s work was paused for an extended period due to ongoing criminal investigations, which is a legitimate basis for delay. But the notion that an examination of DOJ’s role in preventing an auto-coup in 2020 will not be done in time for the very next election is another example of the institutional molasses in which so much of the democracy-defense effort is mired.
UPDATE: Trump Assassination Attempts
- Trump and Harris are both now getting unprecedented levels of Secret Service protection following the two assassination attempts against Trump.
- Trump is now claiming – without evidence – possible Iranian involvement in the two assassination attempts against him.
- Trump continues to sow distrust and fear in the same vein as his Deep State conspiracizing by making baseless claims that the FBI is slow-rolling the investigations into his two would-be assassins.
Senator Targeted In Deep Fake Operation
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-MD) wound up on a Zoom call with someone purporting to be a top Ukrainian official in what is being investigated by the FBI as a sophisticated deep fake operation, Punchbowl News first reported. The person with whom Cardin spoke looked and sounded like Dmytro Kuleba, who was until recently Ukraine’s foreign minister.
2024 Ephemera
- In a wide-ranging economic policy speech, Kamala Harris pledged $100 billion in tax credits for U.S. manufacturing.
- WSJ: A State-by-State Guide to Early Voting
- TPM’s Nicole Lafond: Now Mike Johnson Is Hedging On Whether The Election Will Be Certified
Good Reads
- Rick Perlstein: Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?
- Brian Beutler: Republicans Have A Nazi Problem
- Garrett Epps: The Chaos of the Supreme Court’s Last Term—and What May Be Coming This Time
Woman Sentenced In Neo-Nazi Plot Against Power Grid
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiring to attack the power grid around Baltimore in a white-supremacist plot to accelerate social and political collapse.
How Is This Any Different From What Trump Is Saying?
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said the not-so-quiet part a little louder in a now-deleted tweet that mirrored the Trump-Vance attacks on Haitian immigrants in Ohio:
GOP Rep. Clay Higgins has now deleted this tweet after he was confronted by CBC Chair Steven Horsford on the House floor, and asked to take it down, multiple sources tell me & @heatherscope >> pic.twitter.com/10c8e5SZEP
— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) September 25, 2024
Higgins deleted it after being confronted on the House by some Black members of Congress, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus called for the Ethics Committee to look into the tweet and for a reprimand of Higgins by the House.
On CNN last night, Higgins remained defiant: “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.”
The irony in all of this is that Trump-Vance ticket is invoking the same racist stereotypes, playing to the same racist fears, and engaging in the same demagoguery as Higgins, albeit slightly less explicitly. Slightly.
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