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Column: Has Trump just repeated the P.R. disaster that cost Herbert Hoover his reelection?

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Column: Has Trump just repeated the P.R. disaster that cost Herbert Hoover his reelection?

“Well, Felix, this elects me.”

The speaker was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was at home in Albany with his friend and advisor Felix Frankfurter, monitoring radio reports of a political disaster unfolding in Herbert Hoover’s Washington.

It was 1932. Hoover had dispatched the military to break up a camp of World War I veterans who had massed to demand immediate payment of a bonus they had been promised for serving. News of the cavalry’s gassing and trampling of civilians — the slain including an infant born during the nationwide march of the so-called Bonus Army — would dominate the front pages and tar Hoover’s public image through the presidential campaign.

Flash forward 92-plus years to Donald Trump’s rally Sunday at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a bleak, lurid festival of racist hate and profane vituperation so vile that even fellow Republicans, who have turned a blind eye to Trump’s character for years, are distancing themselves from the event.

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Their fear may be that with this heavily promoted event, the fundamental loathsomeness of Trump’s political persona and behavior may break through to the undecided voters he needs to win reelection.

The occasion evokes the line sometimes attributed (perhaps apocryphally) to Mark Twain that “History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” For the attack on the Bonus Army and the Madison Square Garden rally share features that could bind them together as campaign turning points.

As Twain might have acknowledged, the comparison isn’t perfect — among other differences, the Bonus Army attack occurred on July 28, 1932, in the middle of the presidential campaign, while the Trump rally came only 10 days before election day and after early voting by mail and in person has already started in many states. Trump threatens to turning the military on American citizens to quell demonstrations; Hoover actually did so.

But the events do rhyme. Let’s take a look.

Start with the main characters. Hoover and Trump became president after winning their first campaigns for elective office, and both entered the White House as wealthy men. The similarities end there, however.

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Hoover had made a name for himself in public service. During World War I he had served as chair of the Belgian Relief Commission, which shipped food to that German-occupied nation, and subsequently as head of the U.S. Food Administration, which aimed to keep food prices stable while the U.S. participated in the war. After war’s end, he became director of the American Relief Commission, which provided food relief to the war-torn countries of Europe.

Hoover served as Commerce Secretary for Warren Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge — in which role he oversaw the interstate negotiations that would clear the way for construction of the great dam that would bear his name. Trump’s public service prior to his election as president was nonexistent.

Well, Felix, this elects me.

— Franklin Roosevelt to Felix Frankfurter, upon hearing of Hoover’s attack on the Bonus Army

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The two came to their wealth by different paths. Hoover was a self-made man, having earned a degree in engineering as a member of the first graduating class of Stanford University and making a fortune as a mining engineer. Trump inherited his wealth from his father, a real estate developer.

Hoover, like Trump, saw himself as a savior of the nation. “He has wrapped himself in the belief,” his secretary of state, Henry Stimson, wrote in his diary, “that the state of the country really depended on his reelection.” Trump often claims to be the only person who can save America from war and economic depression. Neither, obviously, saw themselves clearly.

On the Democratic side, Roosevelt and Kamala Harris were scorned by critics as intellectual lightweights, despite having had successful careers in government — Roosevelt as a New York state senator, assistant Navy secretary under Woodrow Wilson, and governor of New York; Harris as San Francisco district attorney, attorney general of California, U.S. senator and vice president.

Despite that, FDR was disdained by former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. as having “a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.” Walter Lippmann, the reigning public intellectual of his era, deprecated FDR as “a highly impressionable person, without a firm grasp of public affairs. … A pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.”

Trump and his cohorts incessantly demean Harris as — to quote the ever-fading Tucker Carlson at the Sunday Trump rally — a “low-IQ former California prosecutor.”

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The Republican Parties of 1932 and 2024 were fragmented entities when they nominated their presidential candidates.

Hoover had proven during his term to be a technocrat utterly without political skills. GOP insurgents (led by Harold Ickes, who would go on to serve FDR as interior secretary) had mounted a “dump Hoover” movement at their national convention; it collapsed for lack of a candidate to take up the colors.

Trump prevailed at the 2024 GOP convention, though not without challenges from candidates fearful of his lack of appeal outside a core right-wing base — former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley collected a strong 40% of the vote in a series of primaries, but not enough to carry her to the nomination.

That brings us to what might be the turning points in both Republican campaigns.

For Hoover, it was his response to the Bonus Army. This was a national movement for early payment of a stipend Congress had voted for veterans of the war at a cost of up to $4 billion — but which was not scheduled to be redeemed until 1945. Veterans could borrow from the government against their bonus certifications, but only at a high rate of interest.

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As the Depression tightened its grip on the nation in 1931 and amid soaring unemployment and the spread of shantytowns of dispossessed Americans known as “Hoovervilles,” veterans began to gather in Washington, uncorking fears of civil disorder.

Among their targets was Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who was steadfast against early redemption. (Among Mellon’s grandchildren is Timothy Mellon, who is the largest individual contributor to the Trump campaign and other Republicans in this election cycle.)

The Bonus Expeditionary Force, as the Bonus marchers called themselves, originated in Portland, Ore., with an unemployed ex-sergeant named Walter W. Waters as its commander. They started to move east — “hundreds of thousands of men, women, children, and babies … walking, hitchhiking, hopping freights,” as Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen reported in their 2004 book about the Bonus Army.

Most of the marchers fell away en route, but by the end of June a Hooverville-like camp housing as many as 15,000 bedraggled men and their families had sprung up in the desolate, muddy Anacostia Flats area of Washington. They were fed with donated food, treated at a medical clinic set up on the grounds, and mounted a series of marches to Capitol Hill, where a bill to accelerate the bonus payments to the present day was being debated. (It passed the House but was defeated in the Senate.)

Hoover and his aides became progressively more fretful about the settlement at Anacostia Flats, especially when its organizers began to talk about making it permanent. There was talk about its having been infiltrated by Communists and rumors of planned violence. Hoover decided early in July to have the marchers evicted and placed the responsibility in the hands of the Army chief of staff, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

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MacArthur assumed the task of deploying tanks, bayonets and tear gas on fellow citizens enthusiastically, calling the camp residents “insurrectionists.” The prospect appalled MacArthur’s adjutant, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who claimed later that he tried to convince his superior that the job was beneath someone of his rank. MacArthur rebuffed him.

On July 28, the attack began, including cavalry troops under the command of Major George S. Patton. Two veterans were killed in the operation and 55 injured. A 12-week-old baby died after being tear-gassed. The tent camp in Anacostia was burned to the ground.

The following day, Hoover issued a statement explaining that he had acted to prevent the government from being “coerced by mob rule.” He kept petulantly defending his actions to the end of his life. In his memoirs he accused the Democrats of distorting the event, implying “that I had murdered veterans on the streets of Washington.” He charged that the Bonus march had been largely “organized and promoted by the Communists and included a large number of hoodlums and ex-convicts.”

As it happened, Roosevelt as president was no more willing to pay the bonus early than Hoover and Mellon had been. In 1936, Congress overwhelmingly passed a measure to pay the bonus immediately — over FDR’s veto.

The ramifications of the Bonus Army attack live on. It set the stage for the creation of a vast administrative infrastructure of aid for service members and veterans, starting with enactment of the GI Bill, which paid for tuition, textbooks and supplies (and $50 a month for living expenses) to grant returning veterans a college education, making American society into a meritocracy.

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The bill was signed by Franklin Roosevelt in June 1944, a couple of weeks after allied troops cross the English channel on D-Day.

It also stands as a warning for Trump that taking military action against civilians will inspire a massive public backlash, which in that case contributed — no one can say how much — to Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide defeat of Hoover just over three months later. Roosevelt’s presidency established a new principle in American politics through the New Deal, that government exists to succor all its people, not just the wealthy.

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Video: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows

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Video: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows

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Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota abandoned his re-election bid to focus on handling a scandal over fraud in social service programs that grew under his administration.

“I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.” “All right, so this is Quality Learing Center — meant to say Quality ‘Learning’ Center.” “Right now we have around 56 kids enrolled. If the children are not here, we mark absence.”

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Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota abandoned his re-election bid to focus on handling a scandal over fraud in social service programs that grew under his administration.

By Shawn Paik

January 6, 2026

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Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu

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Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu

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A San Francisco Democrat demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump, accusing him of carrying out a “coup” against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

California state Sen. Scott Wiener, seen as the likely congressional successor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wiener has frequently drawn national attention for his progressive positions, including his legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom designating California as a “refuge” for transgender children and remarks at a San Francisco Pride Month event referring to California children as “our kids.”

In a lengthy public statement following the Trump administration’s arrest and extradition of Maduro to New York, Wiener said the move shows the president only cares about “enriching his public donors” and “cares nothing for the human or economic cost of conquering another country.”

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KAMALA HARRIS BLASTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELA’S MADURO AS ‘UNLAWFUL AND UNWISE’

California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a rally. (John Sciulli/Getty Images)

“This lawless coup is an invitation for China to invade Taiwan, for Russia to escalate its conquest in Ukraine, and for Netanyahu to expand the destruction of Gaza and annex the West Bank,” said Wiener, who originally hails from South Jersey.

He suggested that the Maduro operation was meant to distract from purportedly slumping poll numbers, the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, and to essentially seize another country’s oil reserves.

“Trump is a total failure,” Wiener said. “By engaging in this reckless act, Trump is also making the entire world less safe … Trump is making clear yet again that, under this regime, there are no rules, there are no laws, there are no norms – there is only whatever Trump thinks is best for himself and his cronies at a given moment in time.”

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GREENE HITS TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES, ARGUES ACTION ‘DOESN’T SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’

In response, the White House said the administration’s actions against Maduro were “lawfully executed” and included a federal arrest warrant.”

“While Democrats take twisted stands in support of indicted drug smugglers, President Trump will always stand with victims and families who can finally receive closure thanks to this historic action,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

Supporters of the operation have pushed back on claims of “regime change” – an accusation Wiener also made – pointing to actions by Maduro-aligned courts that barred top opposition leader María Corina Machado from running, even as publicly reported results indicated her proxy, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the vote.

“Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela isn’t about drugs, and it isn’t about helping the people of Venezuela or restoring Venezuelan democracy,” Wiener added. “Yes, Maduro is awful, but that’s not what the invasion is about. It’s all about oil and Trump’s collapsing support at home.”

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EX-ESPN STAR KEITH OLBERMANN CALLS FOR IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES THAT CAPTURED MADURO

Around the country, a handful of other Democrats referenced impeachment or impeachable offenses, but did not go as far as Wiener in demanding such proceedings.

Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., who represents otherwise conservative “Mountain Maryland” in the state’s panhandle, said Monday that Democrats should “imminently consider impeachment proceedings,” according to TIME.

McClain-Delaney said Trump acted without constitutionally-prescribed congressional authorization and wrongly voiced “intention to ‘run’ the country.”

SCHUMER BLASTED TRUMP FOR FAILING TO OUST MADURO — NOW WARNS ARREST COULD LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’

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One frequent Trump foil, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., cited in a statement that she has called for Trump’s impeachment in the past; blaming Republicans for letting the president “escape accountability.”

“Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality. I am reconsidering that view,” Waters said. 

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“What we are witnessing is an unprecedented escalation of an unlawful invasion, the detention of foreign leaders, and a president openly asserting power far beyond what the Constitution allows,” she said, while appearing to agree with Trump that Maduro was involved in drug trafficking and “collaborat[ion] with… terrorists.”

Wiener’s upcoming primary is considered the deciding election in the D+36 district, while a handful of other lesser-known candidates have reportedly either filed FEC paperwork or declared their candidacy, including San Francisco Councilwoman Connie Chan.

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California Congressman Doug LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP margin in Congress

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California Congressman Doug LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP margin in Congress

California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.

“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”

LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.

Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.

An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.

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LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.

LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.

One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.

In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.

The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”

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In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”

“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”

“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.

Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.

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Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.

LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.

Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.

President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.

“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”

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“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.

A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.

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