Some House Republicans appear to be making a semi-serious effort to make Trump the next Speaker. This is mostly about burnishing MAGA bona fides, I’m sure. Observers point out that (a) between Trump’s many trials and his campaign, he’d never have time for the job, which he wouldn’t know how to do anyway; and (b) there’s a GOP conference rule that says any leadership member indicted for a felony that carries a sentence of at least two years “shall step aside.” And nobody knows if Trump would accept the position, anyway. If he did, though, President Biden and Vice President Harris would need double security. The Speaker is next in line, you know.

Plus there is always the possibility that if a Trump speakership came up to a vote, Trump would lose. There must be a few Republicans in swing seats whose re-election chances require not being tied to Trump.

The eight Republicans who voted with the Democrats to oust McCarthy are pretty much all hard-right wackadoos from safe districts, I understand.

I have learned that everybody hates Matt Gaetz. There are headlines declaring such. And yesterday so many Republicans were fed up with Gaetz and his grandstanding they wouldn’t let him use the microphones on the Republican side of the room. Newt Gingrich, of all people, is calling for Gaetz to be expelled. Gingrich is from a time when the power of movement conservatism came from all Republicans dutifully marching in lockstep reciting the party’s approved talking points. Those days are mostly gone, although not quite gone enough for my taste.

Josh Marshall writes that Republicans in Congress are livid with Democrats for ousting McCarthy. So sure McCarthy went back on his word who knows how many times, allowed a bogus impeachment inquiry to go forward against President Biden, and lied in a Face the Nation interview that it was Democrats who were trying to shut down the government. The Dems shoulda helped out and voted to keep McCarthy so Republicans wouldn’t look bad, or something. Right. “McCarthy sought Democratic votes to save him from his own refractory members, and in return he offered nothing. Not even politeness,” David Frum writes at The Atlantic. Frum continued,

The only way to produce a stable majority in the House is for the next Republican leader to reach a working agreement with the Democrats to bypass the nihilists in the GOP caucus. But that agreement will have to be unspoken and even denied—because making agreements that show any respect for the other side will be seen by Republican partisans as betrayal. The price of GOP leadership is delivering delusions and fantasies: the delusion and fantasy that Trump won in 2020, the delusion and fantasy that the Republicans did not lose in 2022.

The bottom line is that neither party has a working majority. The Republicans could have such a majority with effective leadership and responsible members. Ain’t gonna happen.

Republicans are so angry about McCarthy that the little neofascist pissant acting as temp speaker, Patrick McHenry, ordered Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi to give up her current hideaway office by today. Even though she’s been in San Francisco attending Dianne Feinstein’s funeral and didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s vote.

Whoever they end up with won’t be an improvement, of course. Right now I understand the most serious contenders are Gym Jordan and Steve Scalise. Barf.

The best analysis I’ve seen about yesterday’s fiasco is by David Kurtz at TPM. Recommended.

In other news: I doubt you will be surprised to learn that Trump is fundraising off his gag order.

It appears Kevin McCarthy’s speakership is about to go to speakership heaven. But we’ll see.

Okay, they’re starting the vote … and he’s out!

Judge Arthur Engoron, who is in charge of Trump’s real estate fraud trial in New York, has issue a gag order for Trump! Finally!

In a Truth Social post that went up while Trump was sitting in the courtroom Tuesday, Trump targeted Engoron’s principal law clerk — who was sitting just a few feet away — calling her “Schumer’s girlfriend,” that reposted a picture of her alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New York Democrat.

It is unclear what connection, if any, Schumer has with the clerk. Schumer’s office has not responded to a request for comment from The Hill.

Trump’s campaign on Tuesday also sent out an email shortly after the Truth Social post while the court was on a lunch break that lambasted the judge himself. …

… Judge Arthur Engoron issued the gag order barring Trump and any party in the case from posting or speaking publicly about members of his staff after Trump released personally-identifying information about his principal clerk on Truth Social while the hearing was underway.

The trial judge, without naming Trump, addressed the court on the matter, saying “one of the defendants” posted a “disparaging, untrue and personally-identifying post” about his staff, and though the judge ordered it deleted, it had been emailed out to “millions of other recipients.”

“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are not appropriate and I will not tolerate it under any circumstance,” Engoron said.

He added that he warned counsel off the record about the former president’s comments yesterday, but the warning went unheeded.

See also Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Claim That He Reversed Himself on Statute of Limitations. Apparently Trump misunderstood something that happened yesterday and left the courtroom thinking that the judge had agreed most of the case against him was past the statute of limitations. This morning he learned otherwise. I bet he’s in a bigger snit now than he was yesterday. Heh.

And I think Engoron would be a great name for a super villain. Just sayin’.

In the J6 federal trial, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan shut down some crap coming from Trump’s lawyers.

A D.C. federal judge called out the latest bid at endless delay from attorneys for Donald Trump.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that deadlines in his D.C. election reversal case should be delayed because of issues relating to classified material.

It was an obviously bogus excuse to further push the proceedings down the calendar from the start, but federal prosecutors with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office made it clearer in a Monday filing. Trump attorney John Lauro hadn’t even submitted his paperwork for a security clearance yet, they said, while another, Todd Blanche, had done so more than one month ago. Attorneys in cases involving classified material need a provisional security clearance to review records.

So, Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan essentially called the lawyers’ bluff: She ordered Trump attorneys to “initiate and complete all security clearance tasks” by Oct. 10. And she wants proof of compliance by Oct. 11. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 16.

The Washington Post and New York Times are both running articles about the shocking decline in life expectancy in the U.S., which is not happening in other prosperous countries. Just here.  These are all without a paywall:

Washington Post, An Epidemic of Chronic Illness Is Killing Us Too Soon

Washington Post, How Red-State Politics Are Shaving Years Off American Lives

New York Times, Without a College Degree, Life in America Is Staggeringly Shorter

This was Trump’s face while sitting in the New York courtroom today.

Clearly, he’s about to explode. I so wish someone would have snuck up behind him and popped a balloon. And then during a break Trump found some television cameras and declared that Judge Engoron should be disbarred. “This is a judge that should be out of office,” he said. “This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he’s doing.” Yeah, insulting the judge always helps you at trial.

I take it from this CNBC news story that Trump’s lawyers will say the banks who loaned the money made a profit, so there was no fraud. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve been visiting my family in Brooklyn all weekend and got behind. So Congress managed to put off the shutdown until November. Matt “Son of Chucky” Gaetz immediately began a coup against Kevin McCarthy. But today Josh Marshall wrote,

There are already almost certainly fanciful threats circulating in right-wing media that Republicans will try to expel Gaetz from Congress if the long-simmering ethics investigation into his druggie, teen-dating past finds evidence of wrongdoing. This report started at Fox and got picked up in the New York Post, Daily Mail, et. al. More significant, very few of the hardliners Gaetz will need are coming to his banner. As far as I can tell only Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona has suggested he might be on board.

Don’t hold your breath thinking that Republicans are going to expel Matt Gaetz. That’s BS fed to pliant press. But the attack articles in the right-wing press confirms what is true, which is that a lot of Republicans are seriously pissed at Gaetz for his central role in their latest highwire debacle.

Lots of people have lots of advice about what House Democrats ought to do if McCarthy’s speakership comes up for another vote. I am not one of those people. But if you have any good ideas, trot ’em out.

Margorie Taylor Greene is bragging that she, personally, took Ukraine funding out of the CR.

70% of our budget is passed in our appropriations bills, and we had a BIG win in our defense bill last week.

I was able to get all of the aid to Ukraine taken out so that we can focus on OUR military, our borders, and put America First.

A majority of the majority voted AGAINST… pic.twitter.com/N4GQcDU9Wa

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) October 2, 2023

Max Boot at WaPo is beside himself and calling for a Ukraine funding bill be brought to the House floor immediately.  I have no idea what the chances are that will happen.

Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, president of EMILY’S List, to fill Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat for the remainder of the term. Butler is known as being a powerhouse fundraiser who also has long-standing ties to organized labor.

Senator Feinstein’s death leaves an open seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. And it’s possible Senate Republicans will block anyone from filling that seat, this Politico article says. Although they may not. The Dems need 60 votes to confirm her replacement, it says. If the seat is left open it’s going to be really hard to get judges confirmed.

See also Kate Riga at TPM about who might be appointed to fill Feinstein’s seat.

Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark described the first House impeachment inquiry hearing: “The charitable view is that the first hearing was a dumpster fire inside a clown car wrapped in a fiasco.”  There are many reports that Republicans are furious with James Comer for his obvious incompetence. Instead of presenting evidence that might tie President Biden to some criminal activity, the first hearing apparently was about establishing a rationale for an impeachment inquiry. The results were, apparently, inconclusive. The witnesses all suspected Joe Biden could maybe be connected to something nefarious through his wayward son, Hunter, but they couldn’t say for certain what that might be and had no actual evidence of anything. Perhaps the committee should have worked out their rationale before holding public hearings.

Meanwhile, the Democrats on the Committee were on a roll. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).

Amen.

Update: From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, First Trump co-defendant pleads guilty in Fulton election case.

Bail bondsman Scott Hall on Friday became the first defendant in the Fulton County election interference case to take a plea agreement with prosecutors.
During an impromptu hearing before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Read more about Scott Hall here.

She died last night, family says. Just announced.

First off, let me say that nobody is better than Chris Hayes when he’s really wound up about something. This is from last night. Just watch.

Gen. Mark Milley will be retired as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this Sunday. I’m hoping he will have a lot to say once he’s no longer active military.

On to Trump in Michigan. As expected, reporters found that people waiving “union members for Trump” and “auto workers for Trump” were neither union members nor auto workers.  They were just people who showed up (on invitation) and handed the signs by Trump’s staff. The fact that Trump spoke at a non-union plant at the invitation of the owner appears to have been well publicized throughout Michigan and everywhere in the Detroit media market, at least.

Some of the more bizarre Trump statements are drawing attention.

Trump says electric motors in boats won’t work because if it sinks everyone will get electrocuted. pic.twitter.com/02seLyAny6

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 28, 2023

But the gist of the speech was that auto workers should just ignore their union and trust him instead. He refused to answer a question about whether he supported the 40 percent raise the UAW was seeking (they’ve just cut it to 30 percent, according to Bloomberg). Matt Steib at New York magazine:

Throughout the rally, Trump tried to frame himself as the pro-union candidate for killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership that had the potential to take auto-manufacturing jobs abroad. But the candidate who has railed against union protections for years wasn’t exactly supportive of the UAW’s demands to increase wages and improve benefits. Prior to his speech, he did not respond to a reporter’s questions about whether or not he backed the 40 percent raise the UAW is demanding.

At one point during a long diatribe against electric vehicles, he said, “I don’t care what you get in the next two weeks, or three weeks, or five weeks,” referring to the length of the strike. (According to Trump, it wouldn’t matter due to the Biden administration’s support of electric vehicles and the potential for the growing industry to undercut union jobs.) “I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing,” he added.

And what would be the right thing? He practically begged his audience to get UAW leaders to endorse him. That ain’t gonna happen.  Trip Gabriel at the New York Times:

In other words, just trust Trump.

UAW leaders were all over the media trash-talking Trump yesterday. The Biden Administration also pushed back against Trump’s phony “concern” for workers, in television ads and in many statements released to the press. I think the best Trump can hope for from this visit is that maybe he didn’t lose too many voters. The people fool enough to believe in him still do. I can’t imagine he gained any support, though.  See also Josh Marshall.

As far as last night’s GOP debate was concerned, I did not watch. See Aaron Rupar, My expectations for the debate were low, but holy crap.

I’m thinking that Trump’s “I [heart] auto workers” stunt, planned for this evening, could end up being a big miscalculation on his part. Here’s how the Biden/Trump visit to auto workers is being covered in Detroit local television news:

This is a good look for Biden, and Shawn Fain is all over Michigan media being quoted that Trump “serves the billionaire class” and that UAW officials will not be meeting with him. That Trump’s “rally” will be at a non-union facility also speaks volumes. I fully expect Trump to blast the unions and blame the UAW for the workers’ grievances. And that’s not a message that’s going to win him any new voters. It may be that the old ones are still so besotted with him that there’s nothing he could do to lose them, but if he doesn’t expand his base he can’t win in the rust belt the way he did in 2016.

It isn’t clear to me who Trump’s audience will be tonight. It’s a non-union plant. I am reading that there will be UAW members or former UAW members in the audience, but we’ll see.

And now I see the Biden campaign is following up with a television ad that I believe already is running in Michigan:

Meanwhile, Trump’s visit to Michigan is giving a lot of news outlets an excuse to review Trump’s 2016 promises versus what he actually did in his one term, but how much of that will reach the standard low-information voter is hard to know.

Even so, Trump should be nicely wound up after yesterday’s judgment against him in New York. In today’s New York Times, by Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer:

But a ruling on Tuesday by a New York State judge that Mr. Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career.

By effectively branding him a cheat, the decision in the civil proceeding by Justice Arthur F. Engoron undermined Mr. Trump’s relentlessly promoted narrative of himself as a master of the business world, the persona that he used to enmesh himself in the fabric of popular culture and that eventually gave him the stature and resources to reach the White House.

Then the story reviews Trump’s current other criminal and civil cases and notes that his poll numbers and donations continue to go up.

Whether the effect of Justice Engoron’s ruling is any different remains to be seen. But his finding imperils both Mr. Trump’s public image and his business empire. The former president now faces not only the prospect of having to pay $250 million in damages, but he could also lose properties like Trump Tower that are inextricably linked to his brand.

Of course, he and his lawyers will just bluster and say the judge is crooked. And the true believers will accept this. But he’s going to Michigan today with this on his mind, and he’s not famous for being chill in the face of adversity. If he ever totally blows a campaign event, it’s likely going to be this evening.

See also Amanda Marcotte in Salon, President Drink Bleach says what? Trump now claims he beat George W. Bush and Barack Obama. There may be signs that Trump’s limited cognitive abilities are imploding. She points to this episode —

a confused Trump seems to think Jeb Bush was president when the US invaded Iraq pic.twitter.com/je7U1EaPLx

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 25, 2023

— in which Trump clearly is confusing Jeb Bush with George W. Bush. He also recently claimed to have “beaten” Barack Obama in some election, somewhere. Of course, if Joe Biden had made a gaffe on that scale the right-wing media would be screaming about it from the rooftops, and soon the mainstream press would be writing more headlines about how everyone is concerned about Biden’s age. With Trump, everyone politely looks the other way. The mainstream press isn’t even covering many of his speeches and rallies.

But tonight’s speech will get some attention.

In other news: Same old same old. We’re still hurtling toward a shutdown, and I don’t see any way out of it.

Trump just lost in court again. The AP reports,

A judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House.

Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general, found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

Engoron ordered that some of Trump’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York, and said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee the Trump Organization’s operations.

That’s going to wind up the old fart nicely. Next he’ll be calling for an investigation of all the courts, followed by firing squads.

Update: More from the New York Times.

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

The decision could terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan and his golf club in Westchester.

The order will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s company, which is a collection of hundreds of entities, but the decision could nonetheless have a sweeping impact on the heart of its New York operations. If Justice Engoron’s decision is not reversed by an appeals court, it could shut down an entity that employs hundreds of people working for him in New York, effectively crushing the company. …

… Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard, effectively deciding that the trial was not necessary to find that Mr. Trump was liable and that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many of the claims against the former president. …

…The judge also ordered sanctions against Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500.

Now, on to Biden in Michigan:

Short but sweet. The UAW hasn’t formally endorsed Biden, but today Biden and UAW President Shawn Fain were clearly on the same page. Trump is almost certainly going to slam the Union leadership tomorrow. Given his current behavior, he may call for executions.

The New York Times is reporting that Biden was pressured into going to Michigan by the UAW and by other Democrats more than by Trump’s plans.

And speaking of other Democrats, Democratic senators are now stepping up and calling for Bob Menendez to resign.

In last night’s piece, I noted that while Bob Menendez’s D.C. dam was mostly holding, the story was dramatically different in New Jersey where virtually everyone in the state party establishment had already called on him to resign. Just in the last couple hours the D.C. dam appears to be giving way. Sens. Warren and Rosen and, most importantly, his New Jersey colleague Cory Booker have now each called on Menendez to step down. I’d be surprised if half his senate colleagues hadn’t followed suit by the end of the day.

As I wrote last night, at this point it almost doesn’t matter whether Menendez resigns. New Jersey is a machine politics state. You can win an election if you don’t come from the machine — either because you can spread around a lot of money (as former Gov. and Sen. Jon Corzine did) or because you have some unique political gifts. But if you’re a machine type politician who lacks a ride-or-die mass constituency and the machine abandons you, I think you’re toast. A primary challenge can likely drive Menendez from office. The only question is whether state Democrats can coalesce around a single challenger.

My concern is that if the New Jersey Dems don’t get their act together the seat could go to a Republican next year. That shouldn’t happen, but it could.

I did watch Rachel Maddow‘s interview of Cassidy Hutchinson last night. It was interesting, although I can’t think of anything she said that surprised me. The closest was that Matt Gaetz responded to something said about him by claiming that he and Hutchinson dated for a time. She said that wasn’t true. I tend to believe her. Gaetz is so weird.

Today we seem to be in a waiting mode. Lots of things are about to happen. I’m looking forward to what happens with President Biden on the UAW picket line tomorrow. This could be a real turning point for the 2024 campaign, and maybe for the Democratic Party. It would be great if it could become an unabashedly pro-union party again, which it hasn’t been for more than fifty years, IMO. See also Biden is presiding over a labor renaissance.

And let me just say I’m really tired of the way media are covering Biden. If you cruise around looking at headlines and news roundups, over and over it’s People are concerned about Biden’s age; Democrats are worried about Biden’s poor poll numbers; “Biden World” is worried about Biden’s re-election chances for one reason or another; Maybe Biden shouldn’t run. Etc. It’s no wonder people who aren’t news/politics junkies think they should be concerned about Biden’s age and think he really isn’t doing much. I have been pleasantly surprised by Joe Biden as President. There have been some things that could have been done better, but on the whole he’s been more progressive than I thought he’d be.

Trump, on the other hand, may be descending into new depths of crazy. His thing right now is to accuse everybody he doesn’t like of treason. This was him over the weekend:

Late Friday night, the former president of the United States—and a leading candidate to be the next president—insinuated that America’s top general deserves to be put to death.

That extraordinary sentence would be unthinkable in any other rich democracy. But Donald Trump, on his social-media network, Truth Social, wrote that Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” (The phone call was, in fact, explicitly authorized by Trump-administration officials.) Trump’s threats against Milley came after The Atlantic’s publication of a profile of Milley, by this magazine’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who detailed the ways in which Milley attempted to protect the Constitution from Trump.

Here’s the kicker:

And yet, none of the nation’s front pages blared “Trump Suggests That Top General Deserves Execution” or “Former President Accuses General of Treason.” Instead, the post barely made the news. Most Americans who don’t follow Trump on social media probably don’t even know it happened.

Of course not. The news needs to fill up with more headlines about how everyone is worried about Joe Biden’s age. When Trump is a meaningless three years younger and no doubt in worse health.

And then this happened:

Former President Donald Trump spent his Sunday night threatening Comcast and NBC, saying if he gets a second term in the White House he would investigate the independent media outlets for “treason” and make them “pay a big price.”  

“Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason,’” Trump wrote on his favorite bootleg social media platform Truth Social. 

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Trump added. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” 

Trump going after members of the media is nothing new for the man who thinks he coined the term “fake news,” but campaigning on targeted threats of retribution takes things to a more alarming level. 

You’d think media would be more proactive in bringing this to people’s attention. They’re the ones he’s going to target if he gets back in the White House, and there will be nothing to stop him. Especially after he’s purged the civil service of everyone who questions his views.

Until then, though, l’État n’est pas Trump.

The good news is that Sen. Bob Menendez is up for re-election next year. He made a statement this morning in which he said the many other Democrats calling for him to step down were just taking advantage of a “political opportunity.” He was, I think, supposed to declare he is definitely running for re-election, and I’m not sure he did. But he’s not resigning, either.

The latest from President Biden:

Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create.

It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 22, 2023

This is good. A couple of days ago, Paul Waldman wrote at MSNBC that to stop Trump’s “union stunt” in its tracks, that’s just what the President should do. Trump, you probably heard, is planning to address the strikers on Wednesday during the second Republican Party presidential debate.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain had asked the President to come and stand with the workers on the picket line earlier today.  (Fain is a French surname, but every time I hear his name i think of Sinn Féin, the Irish political party, pronounced Shin Fain. But I guess he’s not Irish.) Politico:

The announcement of his trip was seen as a seismic moment within certain segments of the labor community. “Pretty hard-core,” said one union adviser, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump’s plans for Wednesday seem a bit vague, but I understand he will speak to a “room” of auto workers. Some news stories call it a “rally.” He has no plans to visit the picket lines at this time. And he was not invited to do so by Shawn Fain.

Shawn Fain, the UAW president who has previously said that a second Trump presidency would be a “disaster,” seemed to argue against Trump’s efforts.

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said in a statement issued Tuesday. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”

Dave Green, a UAW regional director in Ohio and Indiana, said the former president’s actions during his time in office give him “zero credibility” with organized labor now, adding that he doesn’t see a way the UAW would ever endorse Trump.

“His only intention here is to try and get votes for himself. And also divide our members against each other using political rhetoric,” Green told The AP on Monday.

The first thing Trump said about the strike is that “The autoworkers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump.” This is the leadership the union members elected. Trump’s argument is that the auto workers will soon all lose their jobs because electric cars will be made in China. I hope Biden explains why that’s not going to happen.

See also Trump’s Anti-Worker Record; Trump says he always had autoworkers’ backs. Union leaders say his first-term record shows otherwise; and (from 2020) The Trump administration’s attacks on workplace union voting rights forewarned of the broader threats to voting rights in the upcoming election.

Other Republicans aren’t exactly meeting the moment, either.

“I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me,” Scott said at the Iowa event. “To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely.”

The UAW has filed a labor complaint against Scott. Nikki Haley, meanwhile, went out of her way to call herself a “union buster.”

The strike will soon expand to 38 locations in 20 states.

In other news: There are some things you can count on to happen regularly. Flowers bloom in the spring. The Old Faithful geyser keeps doing its geyser thing. Beer sales spike before the Super Bowl. Dogs bark at squirrels.

And Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey is suspected of corruption. This seems to happen regularly. There’s always somethng with Menendez. But I think they’ve got him this time. The governor of New Jersey, also a Democrat, wants Menendez to resign. Chuck Schuner does not, for some reason. I’d rather he were out of the Senate, frankly.