By Jeffrey Blehar
Monday, May 05, 2025
Donald Trump spent the weekend making news in
approximately seven different ways simultaneously, about which I promise you much
more tomorrow. I have long believed this to be a conscious strategy of his, but the nagging thought also
occurs to me: How would we even know if Trump did start to lose it
mentally? Given the standard he has already established for himself in the
first months of his second term, can anyone say with certainty that they would
immediately know the difference between “wacky Trump” and “crazy Trump”?
But to briefly summarize something I’ll expand upon in
the Carnival of Fools, Trump just announced that he’s bringing “liberation day”
to Hollywood like the Catholic Church brought the Inquisition to the Spanish Conversos.
Beyond that, Trump also warned casually that Christmas may be downsized for
America’s families this year due to his tariffs, but it’s no big deal because
two choices of doll are every bit as good as 30. (He is correct about how
little this world needs pencils, though perhaps I speak as a traumatized
left-hander who sported a graphite smudge on the pinky side of his hand all
through my teenage years.) To top it all off, we’re apparently going to reopen
Alcatraz as a federal Supermax prison, which is a great idea because if there’s
anywhere you want to house America’s most heinous criminals, it’s within the
jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
But one other interesting piece of news also slipped out
of Trump’s mouth over the weekend, less commented upon yet more interesting
than the headline-garnering plays: Trump
openly acknowledged how much power his aide Stephen Miller wields within the
White House. Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reports
that, when asked about the possibility of Miller taking the recently cashiered
Mike Waltz’s place as national security adviser, Trump answered: “Stephen
Miller is at the top of the totem pole. I mean, I think he sort of indirectly
already has that job, because he has a lot to say about a lot of things. He’s a
very valued person in the administration.”
For those who have paid close attention to the doings of
this administration since January 20, this is hardly a surprise. (It has in
fact been a running theme of my coverage here for quite some time.) For
those who wonder whether Marco Rubio — who has at present acquired more formal titles than a Politburo member who survived the
Great Patriotic War — is actually making any of the State Department decisions
he announces weekly, turn your attention to Miller instead if you wish to
assign either credit or blame. For the president, it is a remarkable admission
of confidence in his man.
And for the poor palooka who ends up taking the position
— unless it’s Miller himself — it’s fair warning about who really calls the
shots in this administration.
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