The End of the Young Guns
Plus: The GOP’s Death Wishes
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TIM MILLER: Those Crazy Plans for Trump 2.0? Take Them Seriously.
MASS FIRINGS. INDICTMENTS OF POLITICAL FOES. Deportations of legal residents. More kids in cages. Detaining “a lot of people” in Gitmo and a D.C. gulag. Pardons for insurrectionists.
This is the stated agenda that Mike Davis, a former high-ranking staffer for Chuck Grassley and Neil Gorsuch, recently laid out for the Justice Department in a second Trump term. Davis has become an influential voice in MAGA media and activist circles—understandably so, given his crossover appeal as someone who combines legitimate bona fides as a GOP staffer with the incendiary, burn-it-all-down rhetoric that the MAGA base laps up.
A.B. STODDARD: When the Donors Are Delirious.
JUST 24 HOURS AFTER last week’s waste-of-time Republican primary debate, GOP donors still hoping to stop former President Donald Trump set out to narrow the field between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, while also plotting to try and draft Glenn Youngkin for a late entry to the race.
These plans are being launched and funded despite what else happened last week: new polls show Trump’s lead is growing, a memo from an anti-Trump PAC reported that no lines of attack against him are working, and a Trump event on Friday showed a roomful of California Republicans laughing and chanting at some of his most incendiary lines, as he remains positioned to bag all of the Golden State’s delegates in its winner-take-all primary on March 5.
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BILL LUEDERS: The GOP’s Death Wishes.
THE OTHER DAY, THE FORMER PRESIDENT of the United States and current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for that job in the 2024 election surprised a grand total of nobody by suggesting that Army Gen. Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be killed.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Tuesday… Or, for those who observe, happy Mean Girls Day. There are reports that Liz Cheney was lobbying Dems to “get rid” of Kevin McCarthy. Sixteen years ago this week, this was the cover story of The Weekly Standard. Obviously, the Young Gun Era died with Trump and Zombie Kevin McCarthy adapted after Ryan cashed out.
What should we call this GOP era? Share your suggestion!
Welcome, for now, interim Speaker Patrick McHenry1. As good a choice as there is, in my view. (Though maybe calm down and don’t try and break the gavel.)
In New York… Trump gets a gag order as the business case is turning into a disinformation circus.
Bike Balmoral! And you might meet the King out for a stroll.
In local news… A Pentagon official was arrested for running a violent dog fighting ring.
The Trevor Bauer saga… Comes to a close. Will any MLB teams take a chance on him?
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