Week 31 - Trump Manufactures a Crisis to Change the Subject

The Weekly List

This week the country finds itself on the brink of the biggest crisis of Trump’s presidency, as he deployed both the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city of Los Angeles, amid anti-ICE protests. As protests also start to pop up in other cities across the country, the question becomes whether Trump will take things one step further and invoke the Insurrection Act or declare Martial Law. The protests come after federal immigration enforcement ramped up mass arrests, a week after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller excoriated senior ICE officials (see Week 30), and demanded a sharp increase in arrests and new tactics.

It was the perfect excuse for Trump to manufacture a crisis (I wrote more about it here) to distract from what was an ugly break up with Musk; his failures on foreign policy; the lack of a single signed deal 63 days into his 90 day tariff pause; and most importantly, his failure on the main issue he ran on both times, immigration! Ironically, the week started with Trump losing or backtracking on a series of immigration cases, including returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. (read more here). This crisis is the shiny coin Trump desperately needed, and could only have dreamed of.

There are also important stories this week about the continuing incompetence and outright negligence of federal agencies. HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disbanded a panel of experts on immunizations, the EPA is gutted, and Trump said an unprepared FEMA would be shuttered after hurricane season, all while his regime tries to rehire federal workers who had been haphazardly cut by DOGE. With Musk out of the government, it is also unclear what role, if any, DOGE will play going forward. As we end this week, the country stares into a perilous abyss on so many fronts.