An American Pope, This Trump Thing Just Ain't Working - His Losses Mount And His Desperation Grows

Katie Phang Joins Us Live At 1pm ET/Welcome New Subscribers!

Happy Friday all. Am American Pope. A White Sox and Bulls fan, a Villanova grad, a missionary, a public Twitter critic of Trump and Vance - just stunning, extraordinary on so many levels. To use our terminology here, the circle of defiance challenging Trump just got a whole lot bigger and more powerful yesterday.

We will have time in coming days to go more deeply into the decision by the Bishops to choose this man, at this time. But there can be no mistaking that they knew by doing so they were taking a stance against Trump and Vance. The Twitter feed of Robert Prevost, Bob, Pope Leo XIV is still live and active. Do yourself a favor this morning and head over there.

There are Tweets about Pope Francis, his passing and his legacy. There is a retweet of a post attacking Trump’s and Bukele’s rancid treatment of migrants. There is this Tweet promoting an article in a US based Jesuit journal that explores Pope Francis’ February letter to US Catholic Bishops challenging Trump and Vance directly on immigration and Vance’s interpretation of Catholic teachings:

Then there is this Tweet that has gotten so much attention, from February 3rd of this year:

Even as I write this I am stunned by what has taken place. As others have noted Trump’s historic awfulness has in recent weeks thrown elections to liberals in Wisconsin, Canada, Australia and now even the Vatican.

The response from the American right has been predictably hysterical:

As remarkable, even breathtaking, as this all is, we wake this morning to learn of another element of this improbable story - the maternal side of Pope Leo’s family are descended from New Orleans Creoles (gift link, must read!):

Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born cardinal selected on Thursday as the new pope, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans.

The pope’s maternal grandparents, both of whom are described as Black or mulatto in various historical records, lived in the city’s Seventh Ward, an area that is traditionally Catholic and a melting pot of people with African, Caribbean and European roots.

The grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, eventually moved to Chicago in the early 20th century and had a daughter: Mildred Martinez, the pope’s mother.

The discovery means that Leo XIV, as the pope will be known, is not only breaking ground as the first U.S.-born pontiff. He also comes from a family that reflects the many threads that make up the complicated and rich fabric of the American story.

The NYT story includes this image of a Chicago gravesite that includes his mother’s family:

More…..

Mr. Honora also found records from the 1900 Census that list Mr. Martinez as “Black,” his place of birth as “Hayti,” and his occupation as “cigar maker.” Mr. Martinez’s details appear on the sixth line of a page of the census that Mr. Honora shared with The Times.

“Both Joseph Norval Martinez and Louise Baquié were people of color, no doubt about it,” Mr. Honora said.

This all feels like an alternative script to the movie “Conclave” that was released last year, a movie, by the way, that is well worth viewing. But it is not a script, it is real, and Pope Leo XIV, a Twitter critic of Trump and Vance, a Villanova grad, descended from what appear to be Haitian immigrants to New Orleans, is now the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. It’s a remarkable and encouraging event for America, and the world.

In my talk this week - Trump is failing and far weaker now - I argue that Trump’s wild and pathetic performances in the past 10 days reflect a growing understanding inside the White House that this Trump 2.0 thing just isn’t working. As his losses, failures and rejections mount, as the circle of defiance grows, he has become more desperate, impulsive, unhinged and importantly - ridiculous. Let’s drill down on a bit more evidence we have for this thesis from just the past few days.

His Clownshow Court - His terrible Cabinet picks have bombed on Capitol Hill this week. His pick for US Attorney in DC crashed and was replaced by bat shit crazy Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. His pick for Surgeon General crashed and was replaced by a woman so clearly bonkers that close Trump lover/ally Laura Loomer called her a witch on Twitter:

Listen to this short clip of the 37 year old witch who Trump has picked to be Surgeon General. It is literally hard to believe what you are hearing as among other things she calls science a “beautiful art.” Just listen to this gobbledygook:

More stories about Hegseth, his biggest embarrassment, keep rolling out this week - more signal chats, that he made the call to cut military aid to Ukraine by himself and had it reversed, his helos keep disrupting air traffic control systems around Reagan National Airport and his fighter planes keep falling off our carriers.

Desperate “Truces” and Trade “Deals” - let’s start with story that has not gotten a lot of attention this week - the Administration's ending of its campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. It was sold as a cease fire. What it really is was America just desperately running away perhaps because our mad leader had grown tired of it all:

PARIS, France — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have emerged bruised but defiant from a blistering US bombing campaign, cementing their role as one of the Middle East’s most powerful non-state actors after a truce with Washington.

US President Donald Trump said the rebels had “capitulated” after the intense, seven-week campaign that came in response to Houthi threats to renew attacks on Red Sea shipping over Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

Rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi slammed Trump’s remarks on Thursday, calling on supporters to celebrate “America’s great failure” during Friday demonstrations and labelling their campaign on the key shipping route a “total success.”

More:

“We’re basically back to where we were four months ago, just with many lives lost in Yemen and after considerable expenses to the US taxpayer,” argued Wolf-Christian Paes, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The Houthis will use this as an opportunity to regroup and rearm, while the US is further weakened.”

“The ceasefire’s artificial separation between the October 7 war and the Red Sea means that the Houthis will be able to rest, refit and attack Israel,” said Brian Carter of the American Enterprise Institute. “All while implementing the lessons they learned fighting the US Navy and preparing for new escalation against the United States and its allies that could begin at any time and for any reason.”

As I like to say our leader is both a fuck up and a lame duck.

Here is how historian Brad DeLong characterized whatever it was that was announced in the Oval Office yesterday in a new post, A Fake Trade “Deal”:

What we have here is less an economic accord than a theatrical stunt. It changes very little on the actual ground—some beef here, a tariff off ethanol there. The broader signal it sends is one of instability and caprice. With Trump, exporting to the U.S. becomes a risky gamble. The real cost to the U.S. flows from Trump’s blowing-up of all rational belief and trust in the stability of U.S. trade policy. Looking at Trump the chaos-monkey in broad perspective, American producers suffer a widespread loss in global market access, while British producers’ losses remain mostly confined to the U.S. This asymmetry makes the deal a serious strategic own goal for the United States, diluting its trade reliability while gaining little in return.

The Yemen “truce” made us look weak and feckless to the Middle East. The UK trade “deal” made us look weak and feckless to the entire world. My point is that all of these acts - Pirro, the witch, Yemen, the trade “deal,” Alcatraz, NFL draft - all have an air of desperation around them, half-baked, impulsive and ridiculous acts by a leader feeling his power ebb.

And then there is the reconciliation bill. As someone who has been here for a long time I am not sure I have seen a legislative process on something so important be so based on crazy. As I discussed with Rep. Tom Suozzi and economist Rob Shapiro earlier this week, this bill is a moral and fiscal monstrosity - enormous tax cuts for billionaires, cutting health care for close to 100m Americans, budget-busting deficits that could literally bankrupt the country. Insidery DC Punchbowl News as an incredible story this morning about the struggle Congress is having now to make this Banana Republican bill make sense, including now Trump appearing to want a completely different bill:

It’s the end of a hugely important week in Hill Republicans’ quest to craft a massive reconciliation package. Next week, a trio of House panels will mark up the most important pieces of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda — cuts to social safety net programs and an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

But here’s what’s striking to us: So much about this reconciliation package is still undecided even though the GOP leadership says they’ve been working on it for more than six months. Let’s get into it.

You can read the whole analysis here. It’s a fucking clown show out there people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These are not serious people and they are doing incredible harm to the country.

Now, let’s get to work everyone….

Our next live event is today at 1pm with legal analyst and independent journalist Katie Phang. You can learn more how to join us live here, with the easiest way to just click on this link at 1pm ET and you will join the party! Live links can always be found on our Events page.

I’m in the process of reworking our “actions” that we take together, and want to focus on these three in the coming weeks and perhaps a few more:

• We link his terrible tariffs with his even more terrible reconciliation bill, and work to undermine both of them, together.

• We keep fighting to get Dems to more aggressively open up that Second Front, pen a Letter to America, introduce and debate state and local “articles of condemnation” and commit to owning July 4th this year. We have to firmly cement our identity as patriots and theirs as betrayers.

• We develop and lean in hard to a big comprehensive argument against their multi-pronged and barbaric assault on our health, our public health system, science, research and academic freedom. I am calling this our Third Front.

Keep self-reporting all. So much going on across the country - thank you!!!! Have two more projects hope you will support today:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.

We’ve raised more than $91,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum and Tom Suozzi and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page.

We’ve already raised over $73,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

And finally, while Trump is increasing costs (pay more, get less!!!!) for you and your family, Hopium is lowering them - an annual paid subscription here is now 10% off through the end of May.

Keep working hard all. Some times the wheels on the bus go round and round. And some times they come flying off - Simon