Fighting Trump's Ruinous Economic Agenda, Inhumanity Of Trump/Noem's Treatment Of Migrants Grows, Trump's Decline Is Undeniable

Going live with Brian Tyler Cohen on Thursday, Anderson Clayton Friday

Morning all. Here’s the insidery DC pub Semafor’s lead story this am:

US stocks looked set to fall in early trading while Treasury yields crossed a symbolic threshold as concerns mounted over the health of the world’s biggest economy. S&P 500 futures and the dollar dropped in European trading, and though US bonds rose, the yield on 30-year Treasurys briefly topped 5%. Major figures in finance, meanwhile, voiced caution over the prospects for the American economy: Following last week’s downgrade of US Treasurys by Moody’s, the Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio said that, if anything, “the risks for US government debt are greater than the rating agencies are conveying,” while JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that markets were underpricing geopolitical and inflation risks.

We must keep the pressure on. Even if you have been calling please your Senators and Reps today. We must do everything we can to prevent this rancid reconciliation bill from passing. Those of you with a Republican Rep and Senators have a particularly important role to play today. Call, email, visit however you reach your Reps do it now and plan on doing it every day this week.

Here’s our working script. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.

But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.

Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

Please self-report on your actions today. I know folks have been working hard and these reports of our gritty fight helps lift all of us up every day.

Here’s more background:

• Slower Growth, Higher Prices, A Huge Tax Hike, Explosive Deficits, Credit Downgrades - my latest take on Trump’s ruinous economic agenda

• My interview with Dr. Rob Shapiro, and his new Washington Monthly article, Trump’s Perfect Storm That Could Sink The American Economy

• A great primer on why the reconciliation bill is so terrible from Rep. Tom Suozzi

The simple reality the Rs face now is that Trump’s terrible tariffs have weakened the economy to the point where something like the reconciliation bill with its huge explosion of debt just isn’t possible any more. Passing this bill given current economic conditions would be reckless and dangerous, which is why Moody’s and the markets - and folks like Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon - are sounding the alarm.

It’s why here at Hopium we don’t talk about the tariffs or the reconciliation bill in isolation. It is what they will do together that has the markets so spooked; and why what we are fighting for here is both the killing of the reconciliation bill and the rolling back of the tariffs. They are, on their own, destructive economic policies. Together they are ruinous for America and the American people.

Another reason the markets are getting spooked is that it not clear the Trump team understands what they are doing, or what the risks are. In yesterday’s post we heard the Treasury Secretary - the f—ing Treasury Secretary - say “who cares” about the US getting our most consequential credit downgrade since 1919. Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary denied the reconciliation bill would add to our debt. This was one of those Orwellian “sky is red not blue” moments from Trump world that cause foreign governments and global markets to lose faith in this terrible team. Watch:

Job one today, all week, all summer is to stop the ongoing Trumpian sabotage, and do everything we can to minimize the damage he is causing. We need to fight this ongoing betrayal of the country with everything we got.

This White House Is Not Covering Up Trump’s Decline. It Is All Out There For Us To See - Everyday now we are getting jawdropping moments of Trump, the oldest man ever elected to the Presidency, having no idea what he is saying, where he is, or just inventing crazy shit. The latest disturbing incident, though, came in a deeply consequential meeting with European and Ukrainian leaders yesterday:

President Volodymyr Zelensky had to remind U.S. President Donald Trump that negotiations with Russia are already underway after Trump announced to EU leaders the Kremlin's readiness for talks, Axios reported on May 20, citing sources present at the call.

The exchange reportedly took place during a phone call involving Trump, Zelensky, and the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Finland, and the European Commission. It followed Trump's earlier call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian leader provided vague assurances about peace efforts but again rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Trump told the leaders that Putin agreed to start direct negotiations on a ceasefire immediately, which led to a few seconds of "puzzled silence" during the call, Axios' source said.

Zelensky then reminded Trump that Putin had previously agreed to this, and the first round of direct talks had already taken place on May 16 in Istanbul, marking the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022. Trump did not directly respond, the sources said.

The Ukrainian president and other leaders also pointed out to Trump that it had been his idea to start the peace talks with an immediate 30-day ceasefire, according to Axios.

While in the Capitol this morning our leader repeated delusional untruth after untruth but will spare you from having to watch any of it. Yes, we should be talking about the decline of an American President. The current one, of course, not the one no longer in office.

Events This Week - got a few good ones on tap this week:

• Wed, 8pm ET - Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together. Note this week’s time. Register here.

• Thur, 455pm ET - I sit down with the great Brian Tyler Cohen for a livestreamed discussion for Field Team 6’s “Register Democrats Summit.” Learn more, register here.

• Fri, 1215pm ET - North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton joins us for a live discussion. Our good friend will be reviewing the big wins NC Dems have had at the ballot box and in the courts in recent months, and offer an early look at 2026 in one of our most important battleground states. Excited to welcome Anderson back this Friday! (will send link tomorrow)

A reminder to check our Events page for our latest schedule of events and links to register. You can find recordings of our Live events and other recorded conversations on the Podcast link on the Hopium site and now on YouTube and Spotify too.

Trump and Noem In Overdrive To Deport Millions Of Migrants Here Legally To Unsafe Places - Trump is stepping up policies that drew the ire of now Pope Leo XIV - the incredibly inhumane treatment of migrants here in the US. Yesterday the CATO Institute published a report that at least 50 of the men sent to CECOT were here in the US legally and never violated immigration law. Trump has revoked TPS (temporary protected status) for over 500,000 Venezuelans and Cubans, a policy now signed off on by the Supreme Court.

Now the Washington Post is reporting that Trump is developing plans to send over 700,000 people back to war-torn places, including Ukraine (!!!!), using illegally commandeered USAID funds:

The Trump administration has devised plans to spend up to $250 million earmarked for foreign assistance to fund instead the removal and return of people from active conflict zones, including 700,000 Ukrainian and Haitian migrants who fled to the United States amid extreme, ongoing violence back home, according to draft internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

……..

While prior administrations have supported using taxpayer funds for the voluntary repatriation of migrants, the proposal developed under President Donald Trump is unusual because it includes people who escaped from some of the most dangerous parts of the world and appears intended to bypass the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a U.N.-affiliated body that typically aids in returning migrants to their homes. It coincides also with the administration’s polarizing bid to drastically slash foreign aid, most notably by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and terminating 80 percent of its programs, including those that served Ukraine, Haiti and other troubled countries.

In addition to Ukrainians and Haitians, the draft documents also mention Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans, Sudanese, Syrians and Yemenis, saying they, too, could be targeted as part of the voluntary deportation program. The U.N.-affiliated migration office does not support the return of people to any of those places, the draft documents say. The IOM did not respond to a request for comment.

This morning the Secretary of Homeland Security, the one disappearing and deporting all these people, was asked by Senator Maggie Hassan if she knew what habeas corpus was. Watch her answer, below. It is shocking, disqualifying and folks need to be calling on her to resign for what she says here for it’s so fucking insane:

Perhaps this answer explains why they are also just now arresting and charging black elected Democrats for sport. For when you are famous, our leader once told us, they let you do anything including, it appears, sending brown, black and “those people” to prison without cause or even knowing what habeas corpus is.

Right before the 2020 election I published an essay in Letras Libres, a Mexican-based intellectual journal, on what I hoped for if Joe Biden won. Here was my final wish:

Of all the big things we have to do in the coming years there is one more – to honor and build on the work of FDR American leaders should forcefully denounce white supremacy in all of its forms. We have to make clear that American, Western, liberal, Four Freedom values are universal values, values of all people everywhere, regardless of race, religion or country of origin. They belong to all of us. White supremacy is not just a malicious legacy belief system from our racist and colonial past, it’s also profoundly anti-modern; for who could, after seeing the advances and potential of the people all over the world over these past fifty years ever believe that any race or religion or culture was somehow not capable of extraordinary things, and the people of all nations not deserving of the opportunities and freedoms we cherish. Trump’s white supremacy must be returned, aggressively, to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

In addition to making our calls and contacting these offices, we have two more projects I hope you will consider supporting:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……

To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, released yesterday. We have now raised over $105,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all. If you want to volunteer for her race head over to her campaign website today. We can do this people!

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, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $83,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Friends, this is a big week and we need to leave it all out there on the playing field, together - Simon