Looking at all the Stupid coming from the Naked Emperor in the past couple of days, one hardly knows where to start. But let’s start with his latest prescription drug declaration.
What does this tell us? One, that he has paid absolutely no attention to what’s been going on in Congress with prescription drug prices for about a quarter century now. And all those other countries have NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLANS that include strict price controls on all prescription drugs. Republicans (and “centrist” Democrats) for all these years have refused to allow such things in the U.S.
Two, he tried to pull this same stunt in his first term, but a judge stopped it. Like most of what Trump tries to change through executive orders, this sort of thing really needs to go through Congress. I expect the drug companies will tell Trump to go pound sand.
Third, central planning of the economy, anybody? Isn’t that something like Original Sin for Republicans? I guess the worship of the Free Market is out of favor, suddenly.
Fourth, Joe Biden pushed through some legislation that really did set prescription drug prices to go down. although much of that law hasn’t fully gone into effect. I expect Trump to take credit as various provisions do go into effect. President Biden also issued some of his own executive orders requesting changes in drug policies to lower cost, but Trump rescinded those as soon as he took office.
Now, let’s move on to the Qatar $400 million 747 jumbo jet boondoggle. David Kurtz at TPM covers that pretty well. The story is that the government of Qatar offered to give the U.S. Department of Defense a Boeing 747-8 jet, with the understanding that it would be for Trump’s use as president, to replace Air Force One. Technically, this gift will only be temporary, so that once Trump is out of office Qatar can transfer the jet to Trump’s presidential library so that he can still use it.
There are several problems with this plan, even beyond the emoluments clause. The first is that yesterday Qatar said the plans to “transfer” the jet to the U.S. DoD were not finalized. Maybe Qatar would send over a jet, and maybe not. It sounds like Trump may have announced the transaction prematurely.
Second, even if the jet does materialize, it would present a security nightmare. “The (US Air Force) would have to tear it apart looking for surveillance equipment and inspect the integrity of the plane,” it says here.
Third, as David Kurtz explains, retrofitting even a very nice luxury jet to have the same essential capabilities as the current Air Force One may not be possible, and even if possible could take years. Trump expects to be able to use his shiny new jet by this fall. There’s no way that’s going to happen.
So what’s wrong with the current Air Force One, besides being 40 years old? Trump had put Boeing to work on a new Air Force One in his first term, and Boeing is still working on it. I take it the plane wasn’t a big priority to Joe Biden. Trump apparently can’t deal with having a shabby forty-year-old jet at his disposal; he wants a newer one. As Kurtz writes,
While the apparent lawlessness of such an arrangement is alarming, there’s an emperor has no clothes aspect to the whole thing. Trump wants what he wants, and no one wants to tell him no. And so everyone pretends it’s possible, even to the point of entertaining wildly corrupt scenarios to make it happen. But in the end, the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
On to tariffs. This morning there were headlines about a “major breakthrough,” as China and the U.S. have agreed to lower tariffs for 90 days while negotiations are ongoing. The Trump Administration is calling this a win; most commenters say it’s a cave. Per Paul Krugman, “This wasn’t a case of both sides backing down. China only imposed its tariffs as a response to Trump’s gambit, and has reduced them only because he retreated. And retreat he did. This was basically Trump running away from the killer rabbit.”
Krugman also points out there is still a 30 percent tariff on Chinese imports, which is still way too high and probably coming to late to avoid big price hikes and empty shelves. And nobody knows what will happen when the 90 days are up.
And the House Republicans are still planning to throw millions of people off Medicaid, even if they deny that’s what they are doing.
The flying palace from Qatar has me confused on several fronts. It is intended as a bribe, a gift to Trump personally that won't quite be registered in Trump's name. But Trump will have control of it til the wings fall off. Playing games with the title of the plane doesn't disguise that the gift is intended to curry favor from Donald Trump, exactly what the founders were guarding against with the emoluments clause.
No, I'm not confident the USSC will uphold the Constitution but my question is who can bring a suit against this open bribe against DJT that will make it to the USSC? The issue is "standing." We're all injured by corruption – that's been my mantra for over a decade but who has the power to sue?
BTW, it can be made legal and taken from the courts if Congress approves the gift. This also provides the USSC an exit – it's up to Congress to decide, something Trump is trying to avoid by having DOJ bless the gift as perfectly legal. (Some of you may be more confident than DJT seems to be, considering that Trump is NOT offering to put the matter before them.)
There's a long list of valuable gifts that have been presented to modern US presidents. The SOP is to accept the gift and turn it over to some agency or National Museum where it's catalogued and sometimes displayed as a gift from xyz to president ABC on the occasion of lmno and p.
As to whether the plane will be disassembled and inspected for spy devices… don't make me laugh. DJT took down the magnetic detectors on J6 that were discovering weapons (including guns) on the insurrectionists. Trump's reaction was that they were not there to shoot Trump so the weapons are OK. And they were directed to the Capitol. If anybody wants to spy on the US with a 400 million dollar flying bribe to DJT personally, they have purchased assess to that information and can sell it to the highest bidder. That plane will be flying as AF1 this summer, spy devices and all.
Highest prices on prescriptions was a feature of expanding Medicare to include drugs, bought and paid for by the Rx industry at the time. The Tea Party in the House wanted to reverse that and got shot down by the establishment wing of the GOP. Trump is willing to stick it to Big Pharma to create space for tax cuts but Johnson is staying bought on that. The GOP in the House will not do it. Trump will want the Budget Office to score his decree as law, as it regards to computing the "waste, fraud, and abuse" the administration has eliminated. According to the fiction Trump and Musk are writing.
No matter how much it actually costs or who gets harmed, Trump wants the tax cuts permanent and Trump wants the money for stuff that is NOT in the budget that he can't do until it IS in the budget.
I still say shelves will go bare of some "essentials" next month. When the do return, they will cost 30% more because retailers are not gonna eat the price hikes. (Ford is doing price hikes of up to $2000 on some models from Mexico.) I'd bet that Trump will try to cook the books on inflation and cry "fake news" on honest reporting. So let Trump claim victory a few weeks before reality starts to bite. I still say the American consumer will know and won't be happy.
I'm making plans to be in DC for Trump's birthday parade. There's a concentration of federal workers in Maryland and Virginia to draw from in protests. I don't think I will be alone. The question is how Trump and Miller react when they get estimates of how many people will show up to rain on his parade.