Introducing: A New Sunday Mailbag Feature!
Answering your questions on Daylight Savings, DOGE, tariffs, and more.
Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you all “sprung forward” without too much trouble.
As I previewed earlier this week, today’s paid subscribers post is taking a different format: I asked for questions from you all on Wednesday, and you responded with more than 120 (!) questions. You guys are thinking about a lot of different, important topics, which I love to see.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll tackle questions about:
Whether congressional Republicans will stand up to Trump
How Trump’s foreign policy approach compares to previous presidents
Why Trump can impose tariffs unilaterally
Whether a system without political parties would be possible in the U.S.
How DOGE is funded
and Didn’t Congress pass a bill ending the twice-yearly clock switches?
If your question wasn’t answered this week: fear not! My plan will be to put out another call for questions on Wednesday and send another mailbag issue next Sunday, as long as you all like this weekly mailbag thing. (Let me know in the comments!) I had a lot of fun reading and thinking about your questions — if you’ve been wondering about some of the topics listed above (or even if you haven’t!) I hope you’ll find my answers helpful and informative.
OK, let’s do this!
Q: Do you think the Republicans in Congress have a red line anymore, and if so, what do you think it is? In other words, at what point would they ever push back against Trump? My wife still thinks there is a red line, but I say that ever since January 6th, what could it possibly be?
Well, an important thing to note in the context of this question is that January 6th was a red line for Republicans, in that Trump’s attempts to overturn the election were blocked because of Republican-appointed judges, Republican state officials, Republican lawmakers, and a Republican vice president. January 6th proves the existence of a red line, not its absence.1
But I digress. What could cause that sort of Republican pushback now? I guess that depends what you’re looking for. If you’re waiting for a prominent Trump-aligned Republican lawmaker to stand on the floor of Congress and decry a presidential action, you might be waiting a long time. (But who knows, stranger things have happened!)
But if you’re looking for actions Republicans will try to discourage Trump from pursuing, well, that’s happening all around us, just largely in private.