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Opinion: Donald Trump and the mystery of the disappearing checks and balances

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Opinion: Donald Trump and the mystery of the disappearing checks and balances

If ever a U.S. president needed the checks and balances that the founders established, it’s law-breaking, oath-violating Donald Trump.

Yet those checks by Congress and the Supreme Court will hardly be a check at all once Trump is back in power. The former and future president has shaped each of those institutions in his image.

Opinion Columnist

Jackie Calmes

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

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He’s already benefited. The Supreme Court, where Trump’s first-term appointees are half of its six-member far-right supermajority, ruled in July that presidents are virtually immune from criminal prosecution for official acts. The court’s dilatory deliberations and then its stunning decision had the effect of delaying past the 2024 election any federal trial for Trump’s alleged first-term crimes: plotting to overthrow Joe Biden’s election and then high-tailing it to Mar-a-Lago with government secrets.

Now that he’s headed back to the White House, those cases will be dropped. It remains to be seen whether Trump, as president, will exploit the license for wrongdoing that the court gave him. If past is prologue, the odds are good. Even better are the chances that the receptive court will rule in Trump’s favor when opponents’ challenges to his future presidential acts inevitably reach it.

But it’s Congress where Trump will have real pull — at least for the two years until the 2026 midterm elections.

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Just as at the start of his earlier term, both the Senate and House likely will be under Republicans’ control, if only narrowly, thanks to Trump’s coattails. (The House majority won’t be officially determined until perhaps later this week, but Republicans are favored.) Their tie to Trump is stronger than it was in 2017-18. Republicans then were deferential; come January, they’ll be obsequious. The founders will spin in their graves at the bowing and scraping we’re about to see from the supposedly independent Congress.

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, House speaker in 2017 and 2018, broke with Trump in 2016 over the “grab ’em by the pussy” tape, but became accommodating enough once Trump was president. But contrast Ryan’s ambivalence with the zealotry of current Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who’s sure to be chosen as the Republicans’ leader again when they meet this week. Dubbed MAGA Mike by approving right-wingers when he got the speakership last year, Johnson has since made repeated pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago, campaigned with Trump and at every chance stood like a bespectacled bobblehead beside him.

As Punchbowl News reported: “Now Trump gets a congressional leader who will back his agenda — for better or worse.” Worse, I’ll wager.

In Ryan’s time, a novice President Trump didn’t have much of an agenda or even “concepts of a plan” beyond talk of building a wall, banning Muslims and repealing Obamacare; he didn’t fully realize any of those goals. Credit Ryan and other Republicans for the 2017 tax cuts law that’s counted as first-term Trump’s singular legislative achievement — if you can count a budget-busting giveaway to the richest Americans and corporations as an achievement.

Next year they’ll do it again. The House will extend the Trump tax cuts at a cost of about $1 trillion annually in debt, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and add to those breaks, including with the promises Trump made on the campaign trail: “Just plow it through,” as a Republican lobbyist said.

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But this time Trump has a sprawling agenda beyond tax cuts: Project 2025, compiled by scores of his most far-right first-term advisors with his public blessing, but so unpopular that he disavowed it during the campaign. No surprise: That disavowal was just one lie among many.

“Now that the election is over, I think we can finally say that, yeah, actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol,” conservative podcaster Matt Walsh cynically tweeted last week. To which Trump whisperer Steve Bannon, fresh out of prison for contempt of Congress, responded on his podcast: “Fabulous!”

Look for Trump to issue executive orders and seek legislation from Congress to do much that’s in Project 2025: Blow up the civil service and reestablish a 19th-century-style spoils system. Make the Justice Department his vengeful law firm. End the federal role in education and mount culture wars. Abandon clean energy efforts, though that Trump promise could run up against the reality that Biden’s historic climate investments have brought good jobs, mostly to Republican districts.) Support for Ukraine is all but doomed, just as Trump desires.

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is stepping aside after a record run as party leader, leaving either Sen. John Thune of South Dakota or Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to become leader of the new majority. Each has had differences with Trump, but neither will likely defy him going forward, especially now that the Senate will include more Trump toadies.

Don’t look for much Senate resistance to Trump’s nominees for his Cabinet, other high posts and federal judgeships, as there was on occasion in his first term.

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With Republicans likely to have a slightly larger Senate majority than in 2017-18, relatively moderate Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska won’t be the decisive naysayers they sometimes were before. Apparently, even anti-vax conspiracist and brain-worm carrier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t off-limits as a Cabinet possibility: “I think the Senate is going to give great deference to a president that just won a stunning … landslide,” Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said when asked about the likes of Kennedy getting a role in the administration.

Here’s a silver lining: Trump, a dictator wannabe with a pliant Congress, will all but certainly overreach. We know that much of his agenda is unpopular. But with Republicans controlling all the levers in Washington, they can nonetheless impose it — and own the result.

The reckoning will come in two years. Midterm elections for almost a century have nearly always gone against the party holding the presidency. May 2026 be no different.

@jackiekcalmes

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Biden supports bringing adversarial nations into new UN cyber crime alliance

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Biden supports bringing adversarial nations into new UN cyber crime alliance

The Biden administration will support a U.N. treaty this week that will create a new cybercrime convention that includes China and Russia — which has not sat well with some lawmakers and critics. 

Since 2001, the global governance around cybercrime has largely been coordinated by the Budapest Convention, a product of the Council of Europe that includes 76 countries. It does not include Russia or China. However, under the U.N.’s new cybercrime convention, these two adversarial nations will be welcomed into the global cybercrime governance fold.  

The move, confirmed by top officials familiar with the issue, has been met with concern from those who fear that a new global alliance on cybersecurity involving two of the nation’s most adversarial nations could spell trouble.

CYBER-ATTACKS AGAINST AMERICANS AT ALL TIME HIGH OVER PAST TWO YEARS

Delegates attend the U.N. Security Council meeting on the current North Korean military escalation in Russia and Ukraine at the United Nations Headquarters on Oct. 30, 2024 in New York City.

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“We recognize that defending human rights and core principles of internet freedom is not easy,” a group of Democratic lawmakers on the Hill wrote last week to top officials in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Jake Sullivan. “Russia, China and other regimes opposed to democratic freedoms are always working to create international legitimacy for their actions and worldview … Unfortunately, these efforts – while laudable – are insufficient to fix fundamental flaws in the convention.”

IRAN TRIED TO INFLUENCE ELECTION BY SENDING STOLEN MATERIAL FROM TRUMP CAMPAIGN TO BIDEN’S CAMP

The decision to support the new treaty came after months of deliberations between the Biden administration and others, including hundreds of nongovernmental entities involved in human rights and other relevant issues. According to a senior administration official, the U.S. “decided to remain with consensus,” arguing the U.S.’s sway on global “rights-respecting” cybersecurity policy will be greater under the new convention.

Putin Xi BRICS

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, Oct. 22, 2024. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS)

To help address concerns that have been raised about the convention, the Biden administration plans to develop a risk management plan and will engage with nongovernmental stakeholders to help refine it. 

A “consensus proceeding” took place Monday, and the resolution was approved without a vote. According to Politico, it is expected to be adopted by the General Assembly later this year. 

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A person tries to log into a laptop.

A person tries to log into a laptop.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would be nominating New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik to be the next U.N. ambassador in his administration.

The White House declined to comment on the record for this story.

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Chloe Fineman confirms that 'rude' Elon Musk was the 'SNL' host who made her cry

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Chloe Fineman confirms that 'rude' Elon Musk was the 'SNL' host who made her cry

Comedian Chloe Fineman says Space X owner Elon Musk made her cry when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2021.

Fineman recalled working with the tech billionaire in a since-deleted TikTok, months after fellow cast member and writer Bowen Yang alluded to the behind-the-scenes drama during an appearance on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live!” Yang cryptically revealed in August that a host brought several staffers to tears because “he hated the ideas” they had. Speculation abounded and Fineman confirmed her part in it Monday.

The “SNL” star broke her silence after blowing up the Tesla chief executive’s “butt hurt” reaction to “SNL” alumnus Dana Carvey’s impression of him in Saturday’s post-election episode. (Carvey returned to Studio 8H as a bouncy, fist-pumping version of the “Dark MAGA”-boasting Musk in the cold open, claiming he would run the country after former President Trump’s re-election last week. Fineman said that world’s richest man and Trump loyalist is “clearly watching the show” despite his barrage of “rude” criticism on his X platform.

“I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry, and he’s the host that made someone cry,” Fineman said in her video. “Maybe there’s others.”

“Guess what, you made I, Chloe Fineman, burst into tears,” she continued, “because I stayed up all night writing this sketch. I was so excited. I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like ‘It’s not funny.’”

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The “Megalopolis” and “Despicable Me 4” star said she waited for Musk to say he was just kidding, but he did not. Then she accused him of “pawing” through her script and — while mimicking his South African accent — claimed he didn’t laugh at the sketch a single time. She did not name the sketch; however, she and Musk appeared together in “The Ooli Show” sketch of the May 2021 episode on which she received a writing credit. Fineman played an Icelandic talk-show host and Musk played her smitten producer.

She conceded that the sketch that made it into the episode “was fine” and that she “actually had a really good time” doing it. She also admitted that Musk was “really funny in it.

“But, you know, have a little manners here, sir,” she concluded.

Although Fineman deleted the video, it was saved and re-posted on X where Musk replied to it Monday and explained his assessment of the work.

“Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs,” Musk said. “I was worried. I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so f— unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!! But then it worked out in the end”

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Musk did not apologize or mention making any cast members cry.

Representatives for Fineman and “Saturday Night Live” did not immediately respond Tuesday to The Times’ requests for comment.

Before Fineman posted her TikTok, Musk ranted about the most recent episode on X.

“Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” Musk tweeted in response to a clip from the cold open, adding in another tweet that, “They are so mad that @realDonaldTrump won.”

He also claimed that the long-running, Emmy-winning sketch series “has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality.” Musk, who is expected to be an influential voice in Trump’s incoming administration, also accused the show of a “last-ditch effort to cheat the equal airtime requirements” when Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in the Nov. 2 episode, before the election, claiming that it “only helped sink her campaign further.”

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Trump tells world leader election gives him a 'very big mandate'

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Trump tells world leader election gives him a 'very big mandate'

President-elect Donald Trump said his election victory “gives me a very big mandate to do things properly” in a newly released video by Indonesia’s president. 

Prabowo Subianto could be heard congratulating Trump, adding, “Wherever you are, I am willing to fly to, to congratulate you personally sir.” 

“We had a great election in the U.S…. Amazing what happened, we had tremendous success. The most successful in over 100 years they say. It’s a great honor and so it gives me a very big mandate to do things properly,” Trump told him at one point in the conversation. 

Subianto also told Trump, “We were all shocked when they tried to assassinate you, but we are very happy that the almighty protected you sir.” 

TRUMP EXPECTED TO NAME SEN. MARCO RUBIO AS SECRETARY OF STATE 

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Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto released a video of his conversation with President-elect Donald Trump.

“Yes, I got very lucky. I just happened to be in the right place in the right direction otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” Trump responded. “I got quite lucky actually, somebody was protecting me I guess.” 

Subianto, a former Indonesian military general and defense minister, was sworn in as the country’s eighth president on Oct. 20. 

TRUMP LIKELY TO MAKE SEVERAL BORDER SECURITY MOVES ON FIRST DAY, SAYS EXPERT 

Donald Trump in a bluue suit and red tie pumps his fist in the air and looks up

Former President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum on Sept.18 in Uniondale, N.Y.  (AP/Alex Brandon)

“Whenever you are around you let me know and I’d like to also get to your country sometime, it’s incredible, the job that you are doing is incredible,” Trump told Subianto during the call. “You’re a very respected person and I give you credit for that, it’s not easy.” 

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“Please send the people of Indonesia my regards,” he added. 

Prabowo Subianto and Xi Jinping

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto shake hands during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, on Saturday, Nov. 9.  (Florence Lo/Pool Photo via AP)

 

In a statement on X alongside the video, Subianto said, “I am looking forward to enhance the collaboration between our two great nations and to more productive discussions in the future.”

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