Trump and Congress

And other scattered points, including Trump's indifference to national security.

I spent too much time at the dentist today and I’m not up to putting together a proper argument right now. Yup, that means bullet points. And for today I’m mostly not talking about the radical policies and undemocratic procedures coming out of the White House (see my item Tuesday and David’s yesterday). Instead I’m sticking mostly to the Senate, but also about Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and…I better get to it. Hope this style works for y’all.

• A lot of Democrats are bashing Democrats in Congress right now for not fighting back hard enough against Trump, noting that quite a few Democrats voted for the “Laken Riley” anti-immigration bill; I’ve also seen complaints about the Senate’s unanimous vote to confirm Marco Rubio for Secretary of State — comparing both unfavorably to how congressional Republicans opposed Barack Obama.

• If you think the immigration bill is awful, by all means bash those who voted for it. But also remember that Members of Congress make their own decisions, and the party doesn’t dictate to them what to do.

• And as far as the comparison to 2009 is concerned? Note that five Senate Republicans voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and three voted for the big economic stimulus plan that followed. Meanwhile, a lot of Obama’s cabinet sailed through the Senate easily, with plenty of Republican support or even on voice votes. The Democrats this time are already quite a bit tougher on nominations.

• Granted, Obama’s cabinet was full of normal, well-qualified choices, none of whom were well-known drunks. And there are other reasons Democrats are, after the quick Rubio confirmation, slow-walking even the reasonable picks. But still: It took a while for Republicans to settle on knee-jerk opposition to Obama, and it’s going to be quicker for Democrats in 2025.

• Besides: When it comes to nominations, Republicans have the votes if they stay united.

• But they shouldn’t! They should understand that confirming the worst of Trump’s nominees is bad for them, bad for the party, and probably bad for Trump as well. Yes, there’s some risk to those who break with him…but they figured out how to do it with Matt Gaetz, and they could still do it with Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and perhaps others.

• What’s more, there’s safety in numbers, both in how many oppose any nomination and in how many nominations they oppose. There’s simply no point in being a United States Senator if you’re going to spend six years being scared of doing anything that could possibly lead to a primary challenge. The Senators who think Hegseth et al. are poor choices should do something about it.

• And by the way, I do think that voting for well-qualified nominees is fine. Neither public nor elite opinion will be affected at all — not one tiny bit — because Democrats supported Rubio.

• On the other hand, if Democrats think that voting for Rubio will make their votes against other nominees seem stronger by contrast…yeah that’s not true either.

• Mostly, however, what Democrats do is mostly irrelevant. Especially on nominations.

• Meanwhile, the entire Hegseth saga does confirm one thing: Donald Trump just does not care about national security. It’s hard for people to grasp that; there’s never been another president I’d say that about. Hell, I wouldn’t even say it about Hegseth. He’s not qualified for the job and a lot of his ideas are, in my view, odious, but I’m willing to assume that he thinks he has the best interests of the nation in mind — just as I believe George W. Bush did with the Iraq invasion and Lyndon Johnson did in Vietnam.

• More generally, I’m on the side of those who say not to question the motives of political actors.

• But in Trump’s case, I’m not so much questioning his motives as I am removing the normal assumption that he is motivated, among other things, by a sincere desire to keep the nation safe. Removing that assumption makes his actions a lot more understandably, whether it’s nominating Hegseth and Gabbard or leaving classified documents lying around where anyone could get at them or not bothering with initial background checks before handing out security clearances.

• Of course every president has competing motives, including re-election, that sometimes can threaten national security priorities. That’s perfectly fine. Trump, however, just doesn’t seem to give any weight at all to it. Oh, I forgot — he doesn’t pay attention during his security briefings, either.

• Back to the Senate: One problem Democrats are coping with is the solid chance of majority-imposed filibuster reform. That is, Republicans may effectively end the legislative filibuster, and remove the chance for the 47 Democrats to defeat bills that way. As they did for now at least with an abortion bill on Wednesday.

• There’s no clear correct play for Senate Democrats here. Fail to use the filibuster, and there’s no point in saving it. They will almost certainly continue as both parties have since 2009: Filibustering everything if they have the votes to do it, but sometimes being open to negotiating deals that produce compromise bills that have the 60 votes needed to win anyway.

• My guess is that will only be enough to save the filibuster if Republicans find it isn’t really stopping their priorities from becoming law. We’ll see.

• Meanwhile, there is one majority-imposed change I still favor: The majority should find innovative procedures to bundle together mid- and lower-level, relatively non-controversial nominations so that they can be approved more rapidly on the Senate floor.

• The situation right now makes no sense. The minority party can’t stop any single nomination (assuming majority party support). But there isn’t enough floor time to confirm everyone if the minority party maximizes foot dragging, which means (1) the Senate spends tons of time on nominations, and (2) since the majority determines the order in which they are considered, the ones that are defeated by this group filibuster are the low priority (but still important) ones.

• Seriously: Republicans in Congress who think Trump and Trumpism are bad for the nation and the party — and yes, there pretty clearly are some, albeit fewer than there were in 2017 — should stop being afraid of their shadows. No, I don’t expect this to happen any time soon. But a whole lot depends on it.