Biden goes on offense.
January 27, 2024
Friday was bursting with news. Although I generally try to publish shorter newsletters on Friday to ease into the weekend, there is a lot to discuss. None of it can’t wait until Monday, so feel free to come back after the weekend. But if you can’t wait until Monday, let’s go!
President Biden continues to play offense.
I know, I know. Everyone wants to talk about Trump's meltdown and subsequent $83 million damages verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case, but President Biden has continued the serious business of governing a great nation. Four items deserve attention.
1. Biden administration moves to stop price gouging in food and agricultural markets.
It is common for businesses to use inflation as an “excuse” to raise retail prices much faster than inflation impacts their cost of goods sold. On Friday, the Biden administration announced a historic partnership between the federal government and two dozen bipartisan State Attorneys General to crack down on price-gouging and other anticompetitive practices in food and agricultural markets. See WhiteHouse.gov, Fact Sheet: White House Competition Council Announces New Actions to Lower Costs.
A common response to good news about increasing GDP and decreasing inflation and unemployment is, “But the price of groceries is still high.” Although no president can control retail prices (absent imposition of price controls), Biden is doing the next best thing: He is bringing down the full force of the US government on producers, growers, and distributors engaging in price gouging. Tell a friend!
2. Biden administration pauses decision on exports of liquefied natural gas.
In response to input from climate activists, the Biden administration announced on Friday that it was putting a hold on approval of new liquefied natural gas terminals pending further review of the impact of LNG on the climate crisis. See WhiteHouse.gov, Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Temporary Pause on Pending Approvals of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports.
The surprise decision was hailed by environmental groups. The Sierra Club issued a statement that said, in part,
The Biden administration announced that it is pausing decisions on all new LNG export terminals until the US Department of Energy updates its analysis of the projects to include their climate-warming emissions and economic impacts.
“We will heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using their voices to demand action from those with the power to act,” said President Biden in a statement.
“Today, we have an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG, and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet,” the White House expanded.
See also the video statement by President Biden posted to Twitter: President Biden’s statement on LNG pause.
3. President Biden issues statement on efforts to address border crisis.
As Republicans continue their bad-faith effort to perpetuate the border crisis, President Biden posted a statement on Twitter that said the following:
For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it: Statement from President Joe Biden On the Bipartisan Senate Border Security Negotiations | The White House.
The statement describes the negotiations in Congress over the last two months and states:
What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.
It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law. [¶¶]
Securing the border through these negotiations is a win for America.
For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it.
If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.
The GOP’s “blame Biden” approach is fooling no one. Even the leading Trump cheerleader—the Wall Street Journal editorial board—warned Republicans against tanking the border deal. See post on Twitter, "Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Rebukes Trump for Trying to Kill Border Deal, Warns Americans Will Blame GOP.” The WSJ editorial board wrote,
President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. Voter anger may over time move from Mr. Biden to the GOP, and the public will have a point. Cynical is the only word that fits Republicans panning a border deal whose details aren’t even known.
4. Biden campaign aggressively challenges Trump's miscues.
The Biden campaign has been responding to Trump's miscues on a real-time basis. According to reports (on Fox News), the tactic is getting under Trump's skin, causing him to lose his composure (even more than usual!). In a one-two punch, the Biden-Harris campaign and Joe Biden Twitter accounts posted the following tweets:
Biden-Harris HQ: A person close to Trump says that he is rattled by President Biden and his campaign’s efforts to get under his skin. Biden campaign aides have said the taunting will keep up.
Joe Biden retweeted the above and said simply: Be Best.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Nikki Haley piled on, noting that Trump released a Truth Social post at 12:28 a.m. on Friday morning, in which Trump appeared to mix up E. Jean Carroll and Nikki Haley!! See Haley’s post on Twitter, which references Trump's early morning video and bizarre statement confusing Haley and E. Jean Carroll:
Wait a second, did Trump just say the person suing him is "running for office?” Is he confused again? I was not in a New York City courtroom yesterday, any more than I was in charge of security at the Capitol on January 6. I was in South Carolina meeting with voters. They’d like to see a debate between me and Trump.
While recounting battles on social media is generally a fool’s errand, Trump is dissolving into incoherence on social media—and is getting pounded for doing so, by both President Biden and Nikki Haley. As I noted in yesterday’s concluding thoughts, it is good to see Biden on offense after months of taking incoming with little response.
Jury awards E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages against Trump for defamation.
A federal jury in Manhattan awarded E. Jean Carroll a total of $83.3 million in damages for defamatory statements made by Trump while he was president. There are so many dimensions of the verdict worthy of discussion, it is difficult to know where to start. I will include my initial reactions tonight and come back to this story on Monday.
First, we must not forget that this verdict represents the real damage to E. Jean Carroll’s reputation inflicted by Trump. It is small recompense for having the most powerful person in the world slander your reputation, appearance, intelligence, and veracity. More importantly, E. Jean Carroll demonstrated tenacity and courage in pursuing Trump in the face of a MAGA onslaught. Like Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, she stood up to one of the most powerful people in the world and prevailed.
Second, Trump exhibited the emotional control of a four-year-old during trial—a fact that should send shivers down the (missing) spines of his lawyers. He cannot control himself—even when it serves his vital interest to do so. He managed to anger the most sympathetic jury he will face—predominantly white males with working-class backgrounds. (The nine-person jury included only two women and one person of color.)
Third, Trump's disrespect toward the judge and jury hurt him—a lot. Trump griped about Judge Kaplan’s rulings in a stage whisper that everyone in the courtroom could hear. He stormed out of the courtroom during closing arguments as E. Jean Carroll’s attorney was saying that Trump did not respect juries. In his two-minute / three-question appearance on the witness stand, Trump could not restrain himself and violated Judge Kaplan’s rulings three times—resulting in most of his testimony being stricken. The jury noticed. See Robert Katzberg in Slate, After $80 million E. Jean verdict, Trump has a criminal jury problem.
Fourth, Trump's attorneys hurt him—through incompetence, lack of client control, and disrespect toward the judge. It is difficult to convey how incompetent Alina Habba was in her defense of Trump. Her incompetence forced Judge Kaplan to repeatedly provide remedial guidance in the rules of evidence and courtroom procedure—something that jurors noticed. Rightly or wrongly, jurors tend to attribute mistakes by lawyers to their clients. As one of Trump's former lawyers—Tim Parlatore—said, Habba essentially left Trump "undefended.” (Parlatore is a real lawyer with a good reputation, despite being an annoying political commentator.)
Fifth, Judge Kaplan showed other judges how to prevent Trump from turning a trial into a circus or political rally. Good for Judge Kaplan, bad for Trump. Very bad.
Finally, things get worse when Trump shows up. As Robert Katzberg noted in his Slate article, Trump lost $5 million in his first trial when he stayed away, but lost $83 million when he showed up and took the stand. True, the second trial occurred after Trump flouted the first damages award, but this “second” trial related to Trump's first set of defamatory statements against E. Jean Carroll. Logically, the second set of statements (at the first trial) should have resulted in the larger damage award. But Trump didn’t show at the first trial—and the damages were substantially smaller. Any sensible person would conclude that Trump's presence at trial is a negative factor—a big one.
All the above suggests that when Trump is tried in any of his four criminal trials, his presence will not be a positive factor—and jurors will be able to deliver a just verdict. That is a good sign for everyone yearning for accountability for Trump—a day that seems elusive. But in the interim, we have 83 million reasons to feel good about the increasing odds that Trump will eventually be held to account.
Opportunity for reader engagement.
I previously mentioned guides.vote, which produces non-partisan voter guides. I received positive feedback from readers about guides.vote, so I am happy to promote an upcoming event next week. See the note below:
Conversation with Paul Loeb, Founder of Guides.Vote, on Zoom
On Tuesday, January 30, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern, six NYC-based groups invite you to hear from founder (and bestselling author of Soul of a Citizen) Paul Loeb describe how voter guides can increase voter engagement and participation.
The guides.vote nonpartisan candidate voter guides:
Increase turnout among reluctant voters by highlighting differences among candidates and the stakes of showing up.
Serve as an antidote to political misinformation, overload, and cynicism.
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Guides.vote distributed over 400,000 guides in just six races this year and will create guides for at least 45 races in 2024. Check out the Executive Summary overview, the 2020 Presidential guide, the 2023 Virginia Legislative guide and some of the wonderful partner comments. We hope you can join us Tuesday but if you can’t make it but would like to support the work of guides.vote, here’s a donation link to make a c3 contribution. Thank you!
Concluding Thoughts.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and 25 other Republican governors are trying to turn the crisis at the border into an excuse for an insurrection. There is a lot to be said about the developments, but the most important point is that Abbott is engaged in performative cruelty to bait the president. Joe Biden should decline the invitation.
I don’t know how this situation will turn out or what Biden will do, but I am certain that summoning hundreds of armed white nationalists to patrol the southern border will not work out well for a Republican Party that is attempting to woo Hispanic voters. I mean, what could go wrong—other than a Neo-Nazi shooting a mother and her children attempting to cross the border?
President Biden needs to proceed with caution and rely on the Courts—for example, by seeking an order holding Abbott in contempt for refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s order requiring removal of the razor wire.
Just as Biden should ignore Abbott’s provocation, so should you. If Abbott wants to own the crisis at the border, he will rue the day he made that decision. As the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal warned Trump, voters will figure out who is to blame if Republicans maintain and inflame a crisis for political advantage.
Talk to you on Monday!
I'd like to see President Biden do more than issue a statement about the border situation. I'd like him to do a major speech on it. There's a lot he can say that we haven't heard much about. For instance, I just learned, from Heather Cox Richardson's post today, that while the Quadefendant promised that he was going to build a wall that Mexico was going to pay for, and for which we received not one peso, President Biden has gotten Mexico to invest $1.5 Billion to increase border security from their side.
p.s. After reading Robert's comments in this thread, I didn't mean to suggest that a published statement is unhelpful. I just feel that for something of this import, at this time, in this arena, there's an opportunity and dare I say a need to hear our president say this, forcefully and on camera, to the American people. Those of us here in this great community don't need to hear it, but half of America does.
I’m reading in a room by myself and suddenly laughing out loud at Biden’s Be Best smackdown.