Sticking it to Stefanik  🇮🇱🇺🇦😱😱💩💩

Tea Leaves:  Yesterday, Trump pulled Elise Stefanik’s nomination to serve as the US Ambassador to the UN, not because he thought she wouldn’t be confirmed by the Senate, but because he needs her vote in the House. It appears that the Republicans’ recent loss of a Pennsylvania state senate seat in a district that Trump won by 15 points has Republican leadership running scared. They are particularly concerned about the outcome of Florida’s April first special election for the seats vacated by Signalgate’s Mike Waltz and Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz.  Both seats are located in heavily Republican districts where Trump won by more than 30 points but the Democratic challengers have raised significantly more money than their Republican opponents. While money doesn’t necessarily mean that the Democrats will win, if polls are to be believed, Josh Weil, the Democrat running against Republican Randy Fine for the 6th District seat vacated by Waltz appears to have closed most, if not all, of what should have been an insurmountable gap. Guy Valimont, the Democrat running for Matt Gaetz’s old seat also appears to be doing better than expected against his Republican opponent Jimmy Patronis though he’s not expected to close the wider gap in the district that repeatedly elected Gaetz. Nevertheless, Republicans are nervous and Trump was concerned enough to pull Stefanik’s nomination. Worth noting, while Stefanik’s upstate district is red and went for Trump by 20 points, it’s not as red as the two Florida district so while a Republican would likely have replaced her, there were no guarantees one would. Though she’s putting on a good face about having her UN dream job pulled out from under her, Stefanik has got to be steaming. She was already participating in foreign policy meetings, had let go of her House staff, and had given up her House leadership role. Trump has promised her something bigly in the future and who knows, after the budget vote, maybe there will be some openings at the Pentagon or in National Security. She’s not qualified but then again neither are Hegseth or Waltz who in addition to including Atlantic journalist Goldberg on the Signalgate chat, appears to have outed an on the ground Israeli intelligence source when he boasted about the “target walking into his girlfriend’s building,” as it was bombed to smithereens.

Legal Quagmire:  Judge Boasberg, who Trump continues to attack and wants removed, has ordered all the participants in the Signalgate chat to preserve their records which is a disappointment to them because one of the reasons for using Signal is to violate document retention rules. By the way AG Pam Bondi who has no interest in even pretending to do her job but loves appearing on Fox, has no plans to investigate Signalgate and  sees nothing wrong with using the app despite warnings that it’s not really as secure as advertised. Another District court judge has slammed Trump’s ban of transgender soldiers saying that the government has no credible evidence that their presence in the military is bad for morale or anything else. The judge seemed particularly upset about a requirement that soldiers provide annual notice of any feelings of body dysmorphia. What’s next asking women soldiers to report those days when they feel fat? The ninth circuit court of appeals refused to pause an earlier ruling which requires the administration to reinstate 17,000 probationary workers.  And, in another hugely concerning, as in kill all the lawyers move, Trump is now targeting Robert Mueller’s former firm WilmerHale. So far they are holding strong and refusing to be intimidated or extorted but Skadden Arps not so much. They appear close to following Paul Weiss into a sink hole of complicity. 

More Awful: Trump is now targeting the Smithsonian and federal unions. Apparently the Smithsonian has gotten too woke and he wants everything not white banned from their corridors. And federal unions, he wants them cancelled asap.

#BringThemAllHomeNow