The Confrontation: On Trump's Weaknesses
Some notes and thoughts
Good Evening:
Today on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Alicia Wanless brought on the estimable Jussi Toivanen to tell us about Finland, its language, culture, politics, and more. The estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher and I listened spellbound. Why do we talk about Finland so much on #DogShirtTV? Because.
Documents
A U.S. District Court Judge in Vermont has ordered the release of Mohshen Mahdawi, one of the Columbia students in the United States legally whose lawful permanent resident status the Trump administration has revoked because of his protest activity.
In the district court here in Washington, Senior Judge Royce Lamberth has ordered the government to immediately disburse more than $12 million to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to cover its costs in April.
Today On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Caroline Cornett
Border Militarization Blurs the Distinction Between ‘Policing’ Immigration and ‘Combating’ Immigrants
Dan Maurer explores the ramifications of a presidential memorandum empowering the military to build and operate military installations at the United States-Mexico border, including the use of lethal force against those crossing into U.S. territory and violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts military involvement in domestic law enforcement:
By regulating the military’s use of force to prevent “trespassing” on this property according to the RUF rather than guidelines approved by the attorney general according to 10 U.S.C. § 2672(i)—the president has militarized the border in ways that reflect his political view that illegal immigration constitutes a national security threat and does it in a way that circumvents the Posse Comitatus Act without having to invoke the Insurrection Act. The SRUF is not law, even if it attempts in good faith to be consistent with the Fourth Amendment; § 2672 is—along with the protections for Fourth Amendment rights that bind law enforcement use of force all over this country. The NSPM-4’s juxtaposition of § 2672(i) and the RUF obscures whether soldiers and Defense Department civilians engaged in “law enforcement” on this new military installation are to use force as de facto CBP officers, as ordinary military police on an ordinary military installation, or more permissibly under the SRUF. But legally, the line is critical for distinguishing the amount of armed force that may be used without violating constitutional rights and statutory prohibitions. As a general rule, no provision for the use of force by government agents should be handicapped by preventable ambiguity.
Can the U.S. Government Compel States to Enforce Immigration Law?
Bertina Kudrin, Megan Thomas, and Niharika Vattikonda examine the tension between the anti-commandeering doctrine established by the Supreme Court and the Trump administration’s attempts—both in his first and second term—to use mandates and funding conditions to force states to comply with federal immigration law. They further discuss voluntary collaboration through 287(g) and the broader battle of federalism:
While voluntary cooperation between the federal government and state law enforcement is a well-established practice, efforts by the Trump administration to compel state law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law is a contentious legal issue. At the core of this issue is the anti-commandeering doctrine, a principle established by the Supreme Court that prohibits the federal government from compelling states to administer federal programs. In New York v. United States, the Court ruled that Congress cannot require states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. This principle was reaffirmed in Printz v. United States, which struck down a federal law mandating local law enforcement to conduct background checks on gun buyers. These cases have served as the foundation for legal challenges against federal efforts to force state compliance with immigration enforcement.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Kevin Frazier sits down with Andrew Bakaj to discuss a declaration by National Labor Relations Board employee Daniel Berulis that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) facilitated the exfiltration of potentially sensitive information to external sources, and the merits of whistleblower protections:
On Rational Security, Molly E. Reynolds and James Pearce join Scott R. Anderson to talk through the week’s big national security news, including President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, Trump’s frequent turn to the appellate courts, and reports that Elon Musk could avoid billions in regulatory costs through his involvement with DOGE:
Tell Me Something Interesting
On #DogShirtTV today, Benjamin Wittes complained about the lack of Finnish-English cognates. This is not the first I (EJ Wittes) have heard on this subject. He has been moaning incessantly about it for the last month or so.
I’ve decided to find him some cognates, if only in order to shut him up. Here is a representative sample of my discoveries:
Stool is cognate to the Finnish word “tuoli” which means “chair.” The shared root is the Proto-Germanic “stola,” meaning “seat.”
Gate is cognate to the Finnish word “katu” which means “street.” The shared root is the Proto-Germanic “gatan,” meaning “opening” or “passage.”
Over is cognate to the Finnish word “eversti” which means “colonel.” The shared root is the Proto-Germanic “uberi,” meaning “above.”
Eerie is cognate to the Finnish word “arka” which means “embarrassed” or “timid.” The shared root is the Proto-Germanic “argaz,” meaning “cowardly” or “effeminate.”
To be clear, my method to find these cognates was to open random entries from this list of over 2000 Finnish borrowings from Swedish, look at the Germanic etymology of the Swedish word, and check for English descendants from that root. I found a cognate from about every third word. This rough methodology suggests to me that there are likely many hundreds of Finnish-English cognates through Swedish, and I haven’t even touched Finnish words borrowed from Latin, or Russian, or German, many of which would also be cognate with English words.
In conclusion, my father should stop whining.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is this lizard, which earns the title for really going all in on its threat display:
In honor of today’s Beast, put the “fight” in “fight-or-flight.”
The Confrontation: Notes on Trump’s Weaknesses
On Monday, I noted some of the strengths Donald Trump brings to his battle with the Old Regime. Today, let’s focus on his weaknesses. Like his strengths, they are considerable.
The first and most important is that Trump is undisciplined. While he tends to fixate on things—tariffs, revenge against his enemies, affixing blame on others and avoiding it himself, to name a few—he does not maintain focus well and isn’t always clear about what he is trying to achieve. He has instincts. He has enemies. He has broad directions in which wants to go. But he’s not good with details, and he tends to get distracted.
This is a problem when it comes to tearing down a firmly entrenched democracy. The reason is that democratic government is held together by thousands of detail-oriented systems that have to be deconstructed in order to stop working. This actually takes work, and it takes focus.
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