Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
After Pete Hegseth’s survival, it feels unbearably credulous to suggest that Republican senators may block any of Donald Trump’s remaining nominees.
Still, the ground seems shakiest under Tulsi Gabbard, the recent Democrat and Bashar al-Assad fangirl, who is improbably gunning to be Director of National Intelligence.
She has no intelligence experience, and a troubling history of regurgitating Kremlin-backed conspiracy theories.
But then, look at Hegseth: accused of sexual assault and habitual alcohol abuse, with a history of catastrophic mismanagement and derisive comments about the members of the military he’ll be tasked with leading. For every Senate Republican except Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the compulsion to please Trump overcame this list of deficiencies.
But Hegseth has something Gabbard doesn’t: unwavering loyalty to the MAGA cause, in the body of the ultimate MAGA avatar.
Gabbard was a Democrat so recently that she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary! When she dropped out, she endorsed Joe Biden (after having been team Bernie in 2016).
This is an era of total political war. Republicans have been booted from Trump’s good graces for crimes much less severe than running alongside “the enemy within.” And while Trump will take late-coming converts — if he only accepted those who were with him from the beginning, it’d be just him and, like, Rudy Giuliani — Gabbard is really late to the party. She was still a “libtard” after Trump’s first glorious term.
Add to her questionable loyalty that she’s (gasp) a woman and (!!!) not a white one. In fact she was the first Samoan-American member of Congress, a nationality Tucker Carlson bizarrely appropriated as an insult when he called Kamala Harris “a Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor” (she is neither Samoan nor Malaysian).
As evidenced by Trump’s anti-DEI push (and his campaign and entire ethos), his administration is overt about the fact that it has an inherent distrust of non-white men. Some members of minority groups willing to prop up his regime will always be allowed in, but they are conspicuously few.
Gabbard, a woman of color, is already suspect. The endangerment of her nomination is unlikely to prompt the right-wing, manosphere war cry Hegseth’s did.
If Senate Republicans vote her down, it’ll be less about her Russian mole-ishness, and more because a movement of and for white men won’t go to bat for one not of its own.
— Kate Riga
Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:
- Josh Kovensky expands on his reporting on the collision of some key TPM storylines this week: Jan. 6 pardons, confusion over Trump’s decision to commute Oath Keepers’ sentences rather than issue blanket pardons and Trump’s acting appointee to run the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.
- Khaya Himmelman provides an update on the latest legal maneuvering in the North Carolina Supreme Court election race, where the state Supreme Court ordered the case move to a lower state court this week, as the Republican candidate persists with his efforts to steal the election from the Democratic incumbent justice.
- Emine Yücel debunks Trump’s more ludicrous lies about the LA fires and the breed of almost-extinct fish he has been repeatedly demonizing.
Keeping Oaths
I spent most of this week focusing on two stories: the January 6 pardons, and Trump’s unfolding plans for the DOJ. For the first, I spoke to several Oath Keeper attorneys whose clients had, for reasons still unclear, received commutations and not pardons. For the second, I looked into Trump’s acting appointee to run the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., one of the most important federal prosecution outposts in the country.
Little did I know, the two would collide on Friday.
The Oath Keeper attorneys told me that they were confused in part about why their clients received commutations but not full pardons; they also claimed to be unsure whether the commutations ended the periods of supervised release that they faced. I emphasize the word “claimed” here: they all noted that previous presidents had specified when they wanted other commutations to apply to a term of supervised release. An independent legal expert told me the same thing: unless otherwise specified, the supervised release term stays in force.
This matters because the terms of supervised release for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and others barred them from consuming extremist media or speaking with other members of extremist groups. The judge in the case, District Judge Amit Mehta, emphasized that Trump had failed to commute the supervised release sentences in a Friday morning order: he barred Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers from going to D.C. or the U.S. Capitol.
In walked Ed Martin, the interim acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. and a former Missouri political operative. Hours after Mehta’s order came down, Martin steamed into court with a motion framed more as a directive to the court than the typical, lawyerly request. The content was less of a surprise than the style: he backed the Oath Keepers.
— Josh Kovensky
NC Supreme Court Election Saga Moved To Lower Court
The seemingly never-ending saga of the North Carolina Supreme Court race continued this week, as the Republican candidate persists with his efforts to steal the election from the Democratic incumbent justice.
The state Supreme Court dismissed GOP state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin’s petition challenging the validity of 60,000 ballots in an attempt to overturn the election results. But this doesn’t mean Griffin’s ongoing attempt to toss out 60,000 ballots and steal the election is going anywhere.
Instead of hearing Griffin’s case on its merits, the state Supreme Court instead ruled that the case must instead be returned to the Wake County Superior Court before the state’s highest court weighs in on Griffin’s voter protests.
“State law allows an aggrieved party to appeal the final decision of the State Board of Elections on an election protest to the Superior Court of Wake County,” the court wrote in a Wednesday order.
“While I agree with the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to dismiss Judge Griffin’s inappropriate request for a writ of prohibition, I am disappointed that the door has been opened to dragging this out for so long,” Riggs said in a statement shared with TPM. “Voters elected me to continue serving on the North Carolina Supreme Court 79 days ago, and my election is the last uncertified race in the country. I will continue to make sure that the more than 65,000 voters who Griffin seeks to disenfranchise have their voices heard. No matter how long it takes, I will not stop doing what is right.”
The case has moved around from court to court.
Riggs, whose victory against Griffin was affirmed by two recounts, has been fighting to keep the case in federal court. Griffin, however, is trying to keep the case in the state Supreme Court — the very same court that Griffin is trying to sit on.
The state Board of Elections in December rejected Griffin’s protest of 60,000 ballots, prompting Griffin to take the case to the state’s highest court. The Board of Elections responded by moving the case to federal court. Then, earlier this month, a federal judge remanded the case back to the state Supreme Court. The state Board of Elections and Riggs appealed this decision. And, now, as of this week, the case has been moved to Wake County Superior Court.
The State Supreme Court has ruled that the Wake County Superior Court must hear all three categories of Griffin’s ballot protests before the state Supreme Court can get involved. The court also said in that same ruling, that its previous January 7 order, which blocks certification of Riggs’ victory, will remain in place until the lower court makes its ruling.
Democratic Justice Anita Earls, however, dissented to part of the court’s order, arguing that by keeping the court’s earlier preliminary injunction in place and blocking certification “the Court prevents the Wake County Superior Court from deciding for itself whether Griffin is likely to succeed on the merits and whether a stay is justified—a decision which state law vests in that court specifically.”
— Khaya Himmelman
Words Of Wisdom
“They wanted to restrict you to 38 gallons of water a day. That sounds like a lot, but it’s not — when you’re a rich person and you like to take a shower, 38 gallons doesn’t last very long. And they have all this water and it’s really good water … and they are restricting it … and it’s to protect the Delta smelt — it’s a fish that’s doing poorly anyway.”
That’s President Donald Trump talking about supposed water restriction in Beverly Hills, California this week while addressing the devastating Los Angeles fires.
Someone rich please let me know how much water you need to shower. Those of us who are not want to know how different it is and live vicariously through you. My inbox is open.
Also some quick fact checking: It’s unclear why Trump hates the Delta smelt so much (he did call them “worthless” not too long ago … very RUDE!) but the almost extinct fish has barely anything to do with the city’s water supply and the fires.
Additionally, Beverly Hills does not restrict or limit indoor water use by residents, it does not restrict how many gallons a household can use or how long/how many times a day someone can shower. Beverly Hills only limits residents’ outdoor watering, keeping it to a maximum of two days a week. That’s a limit that was put in place in an effort to conserve water to help deal with challenges when California is experiencing droughts.
But this is not the first time Trump has claimed people are only allowed to use a set number of gallons of water a day in Beverly Hills.
Last year, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump claimed, “They’re notifying people in Beverly Hills, you can only use 40 gallons of water. They don’t have water … And it’s true: in Beverly Hills, you pay a fortune in taxes, they say you can only brush your teeth once a day.”
This was also incorrect. He was likely referring to a law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 setting a statewide standard of 42 gallons per person per day of residential indoor water use starting in 2030.
But despite what Trump is claiming, that statewide standard would apply to the entities that supply water to residents, not to residents themselves. Meaning, the law won’t force people to spend less time brushing their teeth or showering, but rather water suppliers will have to take steps to meet the standards by doing a better job fixing leaks and offering incentives for residents to use more efficient devices.
— Emine Yücel
