mtutiger

Not gonna argue with your broader point (I'm still paying attention but posting less here)... But with regard to the bolded, I would have agreed a lot more 100 days ago. Much less convinced now.

It's been clear from various statements that he's made from Day 1 that he's pretty checked out in most things that aren't related to tariffs or his own personal vendettas. So yeah, it's absolutely a fair question

Does it even matter in the grand scheme of things? The bigger tell is that it demonstrates that they *know* their tariff policies are wildly unpopular. And the reality is that it probably doesn't matter; people are going to put the pieces together as to why they can't find a toaster on the shelf at Walmart in a few months.

Also, aren't tariffs paid by CHY-NA???

Setting aside Bukele being an absolute ghoul, have to think that the fact that Van Hollen was able to meet with him and that Bukele allowed it says something about how this story is being internalized within the United States and that the narrative has been spinning out of control for the administration.

The whole DOGE thing and involvement of Musk was a curveball, but a lot of this really tied back to stuff he said on the campaign trail.... and even just taking myself back to fall of last year, it was notable how many times I was hearing things like "he won't do all that stuff, he's just campaigning" when it came to things like tariffs, Ukraine, etc. Well, he's doing these things and doing them faster than expected.... I genuinely do believe there is regret out there to some degree (and have seen it personally from a few people in my life), but what frustrates me is that none of it should have been surprising. He said he was going to do a lot of this stuff.

The Jewish Governor of the 5th largest state, and perhaps the most important swing state, experiences a firebombing in the Governor's Mansion... as Passover begins. Scanning the NYT and Washington Post website, this is somehow not the top story right now

Has Trump released a statement on the PA Governor's Mansion getting firebombed yet?

I keep going back to the fact that it is plainly evident at this point that you aren't getting anything out of this guy at this point. It's just a pointless exercise. It makes me question her judgment as a practitioner of politics. But I'm not a current constituent of hers so my mileage might be different from someone who is.

How long does China string him out here?

I know there's a tendency to downplay any bad news for Trump, but I think the damage the tariffs are doing to him politically is being undersold right now... in day-to-day life, it's a lot of what people are talking about, even to the point where car dealerships are running ads mentioning their "tariff free sales".... which gives me "cash for clunkers" vibes

1000%. Pritzker learned this lesson post-COVID, it's sort of mystifying why Gretch didn't.

Mission Accomplished lol

It's difficult because the job requires you to eat a lot of **** from time to time, but even with that, it's really hard to envision what positive or achievable tangible outcome comes from meeting with the guy currently imposing chaos on the state in the first place. Maybe it's the right thing to do, but man it was poorly executed in this case.

This is what was wild about yesterday... The tariffs went from 'catastrophically bad' to 'extremely bad', yet markets + media were acting like everything was going back to square one. Just bonkers ****

I just think a stronger response to Trump is the best way for a Governor to stand up for their states interest in this case.... there's no appeasing this guy, after all these years you'd think people would understand that.

I don't know that I agree totally with this, FWIW.

I will concede she was put in a really tough spot here.... getting put into that position in the Oval Office is the main issue I have, and from what I read, that was preventable. There's no getting around the fact that it was a blunder, and from the expression on her face, she knew it.