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WASHINGTON When Representative Jim Jordan made his appeal to donors at a recent fund-raiser for the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, he pointed to his clash with Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan prosecutor who has criminally charged former President Donald J. Trump, as the kind of pursuit their money was helping support.

The district attorney in Manhattan used federal funds to indict the former president for no crime, and then when we start our investigation, they take us to court,Mr. Jordan, the chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, told the donors at a private event in Tennessee last week, according to audio of the event obtained by The New York Times. Thats how crazy its gotten. So we say thank you for the hard-earned money.

It was the latest example of how Mr. Jordan, the right-wing Ohio Republican, has propelled his rise in Congress, where he has made a name for himself with bare-knuckled partisan tactics and a penchant for picking fights with his adversaries, then used his higher profile to raise campaign funds and amass power.

When a sexual abuse scandal at Ohio State University threatened to derail his political career, Mr. Jordan punched back in characteristic fashion, details of which have not been previously reported, calling a wrestlers aging parents and asking them to persuade their son to back off the charge that Mr. Jordan knew about the abuse and did nothing, according to interviews conducted for this article.

When a Republican speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, wasnt conservative enough for his liking, Mr. Jordan, who co-founded the Freedom Caucus, led the band of hard-right lawmakers who pressured him to resign. Mr. Boehner referred to Mr. Jordan as a legislative and political terrorist.

I didnt try to be a thorn in the side, Mr. Jordan said in an interview. I just tried to go do what we told the voters we were going to do. It seemed like that wasnt happening as it should have with the previous Republican leaders.

When Mr. Trump needed a band of loyal foot soldiers to question and undermine faith in the 2020 election results, Mr. Jordan led the charge in Congress in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on the Capitol.

Now Mr. Jordan, 59, is using his perch on the judiciary panel to defend his most important political patron, Mr. Trump, and to attack his adversaries, including the Biden administration, Democrats and Mr. Bragg, who has brought 34 criminal charges against the former president.

On Monday, Mr. Jordan will convene his panel in New York to battle Mr. Bragg on his own turf, in a hearing that aims to spotlight crime in the city on his watch. Mr. Jordan has accused Mr. Bragg of advancing radical pro-crime, anti-victim policies while pursuing a case against Mr. Trump that he claims constitutes interference in the 2024 presidential race. It is the sort of theatrical maneuver for which Mr. Jordan, who almost always eschews a suit jacket and speaks in a rapid, auctioneer-like cadence, has come to be known.

Over eight terms in the House, Mr. Jordan, who served for a decade in Ohios Statehouse before winning election to Congress, has not been the lead sponsor of a single bill that became law, earning him a perennial ranking from the Center for Effective Lawmaking as among the least effective members of Congress. (Mr. Jordans aides argue he influences bills in committee without putting his name on them.)

Mr. Jordan is also the chairman of a powerful new subcommittee created at the insistence of right-wing Republicans to scrutinize what they call the weaponization of government against conservatives, which has yet to produce any new bombshell revelations. That is despite weeks of investigation, a budget of nearly $20 million and scores of staff aides working to uncover wrongdoing.

But he measures success in other ways. No single member of Congress has done more to push House Republicans to the right, forcing more mainstream and establishment figures in the party to cede ground to the archconservative wing.

He has reserved his most ruthless tactics for Democrats, fighting them at every turn as they pursued investigations of Mr. Trump. These days, his hearings include a level of partisanship and hostility that is notable even by todays hyper-polarized standards.

At the weaponization subcommittees last session, Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, the top Democrat, rose from her seat and threw a piece of paper back at a Republican who had handed it to her to prove a point.

Ms. Plaskett later said Mr. Jordans approach had created a melodramatic, grievance-riddled, wannabe-daytime-drama atmosphere.

Those same tactics have earned him hero status among rank-and-file members of the House G.O.P., particularly those on the far right, many of whom speak of Mr. Jordan with reverence.

Hes probably one of the most universally respected members, said Representative Mike Johnson, the Republican of Louisiana whom Mr. Jordan supported in his run for Congress and who became an architect of the Electoral College objections. He can appeal to all members of the conference, but particularly the most conservative among us.

Jim helped me build my confidence, Ms. Stefanik said.

Mr. Jordan has used his cachet with the hard right to build his own influence. During Speaker Kevin McCarthys prolonged battle in January to entice far-right lawmakers to support him, Mr. McCarthy agreed to a number of demands that further empowered Mr. Jordan, including promising to form the weaponization panel and give it heightened powers and the same amount of funding as the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Mr. Jordan has a budget of $19 million, a significant increase from the $7.6 million Democrats spent last year on the Judiciary Committee, and is pursuing 237 witnesses, 88 of whom work in the government, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. He expanded his committee staff to more than 60 members from about 20 in recent weeks, including hiring at least two former F.B.I. agents whom Mr. Jordan believes will provide a road map for how to investigate the agency.

He has quietly sent out 163 letters and issued 22 subpoenas, many of which have not been announced but were obtained by The Times. Among those receiving the records demands are technology companies, nonprofit groups and university-affiliated researchers.

The committee has obtained nearly 115,000 pages of documents.

The goal, Mr. Jordan says, is to put so many facts on the table that the need to pass legislation to overhaul the Justice Department and the F.B.I. will become overwhelmingly apparent. And if the agencies dont change, Mr. Jordan says, it will be time to consider cutting funding for federal law enforcement agencies.

Any Republican-led impeachment would also run through Mr. Jordans committee. Asked whether Republicans should seek to try President Biden for high crimes, Mr. Jordan demurred, saying, Thats a question for the entire conference.

But Mr. Jordan has also acknowledged there is another goal at work, telling a conservative audience last year the investigations would help frame up the 2024 race in a way that benefits Mr. Trump.

Some on the right who had initially been concerned that Mr. Jordan was not producing any fresh revelations say his confrontation with Mr. Bragg has changed their minds.

Jim Jordan got off to a slow, bumpy start, but he is now firing on all cylinders, said Mike Davis, a former top Republican staff member on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the founder of the conservative Article III Project. He praised Mr. Jordans effort to go after Mr. Bragg as critical and very effective.

Mr. Jordan attributes his competitiveness to his father Mr. Jordans hero who coached the Little League Baseball and wrestling teams and instilled in his son a love of conservative values. Mr. Jordan threw himself into the sport of wrestling with a single-minded focus, posting a high school record of 150-1. He still remembers his lone loss vividly, and he says it continues to eat at him.

Competing for the University of Wisconsin, he won two N.C.A.A. wrestling titles, including one over John Smith, arguably Americas greatest wrestler. Mr. Jordan says he applies the lessons he learned from wrestling to his current role.

He practices for all his public hearings, going over talking points again and again, as he used to drill wrestling moves, so he can deploy them quickly and to maximum effect.

I look at it like a wrestling match, Mr. Jordan says. Im going to try to get as a ready as I can. You cant just wing it.

It is that fighting instinct that Mr. Jordan most values in Mr. Trump. Traveling through his deep-red district recently, he was asked by Republican supporters whether Mr. Trump was still electable or if it was time to move away from Mr. Trump and get behind a different presidential candidate for 2024. Each time, he said to stick by the former president.

Im 100 percent for President Trump, Mr. Jordan told one local businessman at a gathering in his office in Mansfield, Ohio. I just like the way he fights.

An early and exceedingly loyal devotee to the former president, Mr. Jordan has capitalized on Mr. Trumps backing to acquire considerable power. After Mr. Jordan unsuccessfully challenged Mr. McCarthy in 2018 for the position of minority leader, Mr. Trump privately intervened and persuaded Mr. McCarthy to give Mr. Jordan a top committee post.

Mr. Jordan was working out at the House gym when he got the call from Mr. McCarthy offering him the ranking Republican spot on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, forming a mutually beneficial partnership that has held to this day.

Former Representative Mick Mulvaney, who was a House Freedom Caucus member with Mr. Jordan before becoming Mr. Trumps budget director, said Mr. Jordans rise is a reflection of how Republicans have shifted to the right.

The party is now more interested in the things that Jim has been interested in from the very beginning, Mr. Mulvaney said. The party has sort of come to him.

Mr. Jordan credits the former president.

Because of President Trump, we are now a populist party, rooted in conservative principles, which is frankly where we always should have been, he said.

Mr. Jordan likes to refer to himself as just a country boy, and unlike many members of Congress, his financial disclosure forms show he is not particularly wealthy. His income comes mostly from his $174,000 congressional salary, and he and his wife, Polly, live in a house built in 1837 on eight acres where Mr. Jordan does the mowing and the yard work.

But his close ties with Mr. Trump propelled Mr. Jordan to superstar status among conservative media outlets, including Fox News, and his political operation has reaped the financial benefits, recording a 20-fold increase in fund-raising. In 2016, Mr. Jordans campaign brought in about $732,000; during the last election cycle, it took in $14 million.

Still, the abuse scandal that came to light in 2018, concerning Mr. Jordans time as a young assistant coach at Ohio State University, threatened to sink his career.

Five former wrestlers, including Mark Coleman, a former U.F.C. champion, said Mr. Jordan was aware of the abuse by a team doctor, Richard Strauss, who was accused of abusing 177 male student athletes over two decades, but did nothing to stop it, an allegation Mr. Jordan has consistently denied.

A conservative public relations firm aligned with Mr. Jordan pushed back, circulating statements of support defending Mr. Jordan and claiming that the accusers were seeing dollar signs.

Mr. Coleman soon walked back his statement and released a second one saying he had merely been referring to how widely known Dr. Strausss predatory behavior had been around the university. He clarified that he had no knowledge of anyone reporting a specific abuse claim to Mr. Jordan.

In an interview, Mr. Coleman said he stood by both statements but had made the second only after Mr. Jordan spoke by phone with Mr. Colemans aging parents in an effort to get him to change his story. A lawyer who worked on Mr. Jordans behalf during the scandal did not dispute the account but said the conversation happened after the parents approached the congressman at an event and expressed a desire to clarify what their son had said.

Mr. Coleman said allies of Mr. Jordan also reached out to him directly, including a lawyer who helped prepare his second statement.

In the interview, Mr. Coleman said Dr. Strauss routinely took 45-minute showers to ogle the athletes, including Mr. Jordan.

Jim got stared at; I got stared at. Unless he has Alzheimers, Jim Jordan knew, Mr. Coleman said. But I have no knowledge of anyone being abused reporting it to Jim Jordan, and I have no problem with Jim Jordan. He was a fantastic coach. Hes a good man a good, churchgoing family man.

At the height of the scandal, Mr. Trump defended Mr. Jordan.

I dont believe them at all; I believe him, Mr. Trump said then. Jim Jordan is one of the most outstanding people Ive met since Ive been in Washington.

As he has risen in the G.O.P., Mr. Jordan has repeatedly proved himself to Mr. Trump.

During the darkest weekend for Mr. Trumps 2016 campaign, after he was caught on tape boasting about grabbing women, Mr. Jordan and his wife, Polly, publicly doubled down on the Trump candidacy. As other Republicans rushed to distance themselves, Mrs. Jordan flew to North Carolina to join a Women For Trump bus tour.

Mr. Jordan was also there for Mr. Trump after he lost the 2020 election and began searching for ways to cling to power. The Ohio Republican helped devise a communications strategy to undermine public confidence in the election results and became a key planner of the congressional objections to Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory.

On Jan. 5, 2021 a day before rioters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Jordan forwarded to his friend Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, a text message he had received from a former Pentagon inspector general outlining a legal strategy to overturn Mr. Trumps election loss.

White House calls logs show Mr. Trump reached out on the morning of Jan. 6 to Mr. Jordan, who had been organizing objections to Mr. Bidens election on the House floor, and spoke with him for 10 minutes.

Later that day, with the Capitol under siege, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, angrily singled out Mr. Jordan for blame amid the mayhem.

In an interview, Mr. Jordan defended his actions.

The terrible things that happened that day didnt change the fact that several states the best example being Pennsylvania changed their laws in an unconstitutional fashion, Mr. Jordan says. I actually felt like we werent doing our duty if we didnt object.

The House Jan. 6 committee issued a subpoena to Mr. Jordan, which he resisted, creating a precedent that has complicated his efforts to compel Mr. Bragg and other would-be witnesses to cooperate with his panel now.

Five days after the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Jordan and his family attended a private ceremony at the White House. The National Guard was still posted at the Capitol, a seven-foot fence had been installed around its perimeter, and lawmakers were working on a second impeachment of Mr. Trump.

But as Mr. Jordans mother and mother-in-law posed for a photo with Ivanka Trump, Mr. Jordan made an emotional speech extolling Mr. Trump.

No president in my lifetime has done more of what they said they would do, he said.

Then Mr. Trump put the Presidential Medal of Freedom the highest civilian honor an American can receive around Mr. Jordans neck.

Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting.

Read more from the original source:
How Jim Jordan, a Fighter Aligned With Trump, Wrestled His Way to ... - The New York Times

Donald Trump had been raising roughly $168,000 per day from Jan. 1 until when charges were filed against him on March 30. | Darron Cummings/AP Photo

Former President Donald Trumps 2024 fundraising has been turbocharged by his indictment, according to new figures provided by his campaign.

Trump raised a combined $18.8 million in the first quarter through his joint fundraising committee and his campaign, the latter of which is required to report its first-quarter financial activity on Saturday.

But the campaign also says it brought in nearly the same amount in the two weeks after the charges were filed against the former president $15.4 million underscoring just how much the charges against Trump have animated his backers. In another indication that the indictment has helped Trump to grow his fundraising base, nearly a quarter of those who contributed to Trump during that period had never given to him before.

The figures provide a snapshot of how Trumps arrest has, at least for the time being, shaped the Republican primary. While the former presidents indictment along with potential future charges in several ongoing investigations puts him in serious legal jeopardy, it has helped to solidify his standing with his supporters and grow his campaign war chest.

In general, any time a candidates name is all over the media and dominating attention, its good for fundraising, said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. The wall-to-wall coverage just put him top of mind for donors.

Whether Trumps torrid fundraising pace persists or gradually returns to its slower, pre-indictment level is uncertain. Trump had been raising roughly $168,000 per day from Jan. 1 until when charges were filed against him on March 30, according to the figures his team provided. In the 24 hours that followed, he raised over $4 million. (The first quarter ended on March 31, the day after Trumps indictment was first confirmed, meaning only a small segment of Trumps post-indictment fundraising is reflected in the first-quarter figures.)

Trump has been raising money into a pair of political vehicles since launching his campaign last November: his leadership political action committee, Save America, and his presidential campaign. According to the figures provided by his campaign, Trumps filing with the Federal Election Commission will show that the campaign collected $14.5 million during the first quarter, nearly all of which came from a transfer by the joint fundraising committee. The campaign will also report that it spent $3.5 million and had $13.9 million in cash on hand as of the end of March.

Trump representatives did not disclose stand-alone financial specifics for Save America, such as how much it spent and what it had in cash on hand. That group is not required to disclose its activity with the Federal Election Commission until July.

The former president has turned his legal battles into the centerpiece of his digital fundraising push, regularly sending out appeals to supporters portraying himself as a victim and pleading with them for campaign cash.

With the witch hunts heating up like never before, please make a contribution to stand with me in the fight to SAVE AMERICA, read one such Trump campaign email.

The appeals have helped Trump raise money from donors who are giving in small increments. According to the figures provided by his team, more than 97 percent of those who contributed to Trumps joint fundraising committee and his campaign in the two weeks following the indictment did so in increments of less than $200. Trump received more than 312,000 donations, with an average contribution of $49, between the accounts in the two-week period following the indictment, his campaign said.

While Trumps fundraising performance is a fraction of what he raised when he was president he brought in $30.3 million during the first three months of 2019, during his reelection run he is almost certain to be a top performer in the current election given his substantial base of support and because he has accelerated his fundraising since the indictment. His numbers top that of another announced candidate, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has announced raising more than $11 million between her Feb. 15 campaign launch and the end of the first quarter. Haley has $7.8 million on hand.

But Trump faces a formidable force on the fundraising front in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Since winning reelection last November, DeSantis has been continuing to draw large- and small-sized donations into a state-based political account that he would likely look to transfer toward a presidential bid, should he choose to run. According to filings released earlier this week, the organization reported having $85 million available. Since last November, DeSantis has drawn seven-figure contributions from prominent conservative donors, including Pennsylvania options trader Jeff Yass, investor John Childs and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts.

A pro-DeSantis super PAC, meanwhile, recently announced that it has raised $30 million. The organization, Never Back Down, on Friday placed $3.5 million in television buys for one-week, national cable and early-state broadcast ad blitz beginning next Tuesday promoting DeSantis, who has been winning backing from Republican Party donors who wish to move on from Trump.

Trumps campaign has been taking steps to bolster its fundraising. It has brought aboard GOP fundraiser Meredith ORourke to oversee its finance efforts, a role that had previously been unfilled. ORourke has also been since October working for Make America Great Again, Inc., the principal pro-Trump super PAC. The group ended last year with $54 million on hand, and over the last few weeks has been airing TV ads targeting DeSantis.

The campaign has also tapped Parks Bennett, the owner of the Republican digital firm Campaign Inbox, to spearhead its online fundraising. The firm was also involved in Trumps 2016 campaign.

Here is the original post:
Indictment turbocharges Trump's fundraising - POLITICO - POLITICO

Donald J. Trumps presidential campaign took in $14.4 million in the first three months of 2023, part of an $18.8 million haul across his two campaign committees this quarter a modest sum that captures only the beginning of a fund-raising bonanza set off by his indictment in late March.

In the weeks since then, Mr. Trump has raised more than $15 million, his campaign said Saturday ahead of its quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission including at least $4 million in the 24 hours after The Times reported his indictment on March 30.

A more thorough accounting of Mr. Trumps post-indictment fund-raising will not be available for months, when the next quarterly filing is due. Still, the latest numbers show that the case against Mr. Trump gave a jolt of energy to his efforts to raise campaign funds, which had been sluggish out of the gate, drawing more than 300,000 individual donations, a vast majority of which were under $200, his campaign said.

Mr. Trump had a head start in fund-raising against his current and potential rivals for the Republican nomination, but perhaps more significant is the way his base has rallied around the former president after his indictment, which many of his supporters see as politically motivated.

Steve Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump has raised most of his money through his Save America Joint Fundraising Committee $14 million of the campaigns recorded haul in the first quarter was transferred from the committee. The campaign said the total raised by the two committees was $18.8 million.

Mr. Trumps campaign reported $13.9 million cash on hand as of March 31.

The Trump campaign has used his joint fund-raising committee not merely as an umbrella group to disburse funds, but also to pay some campaign expenses, according to that committees most recent filings, in January. The committee has also transferred funds to a separate committee, called Save America, that has supported Mr. Trumps political activities.

The overlapping patchwork of committees that has become standard for presidential candidates can at times cloud a campaigns financial picture. This was the case Saturday with the presidential campaign of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador.

Ms. Haleys campaign had said it raised $11 million in the first six weeks of her presidential run. But when three committees tied to her campaign filed their disclosures on Saturday night, it appeared that number may have double-counted funds transferred between them.

Her joint fund-raising committee, Team Stand for America, took in $4.4 million and transferred $1.8 million to her campaign committee, Nikki Haley for President, which reported an additional $3.3 million in contributions. Team Stand for America also transferred $886,000 to her leadership PAC, which itself raised $600,000 more.

The campaign appears to have double-counted those two transfers, a total of $2.7 million, making the actual haul about $8.3 million. A super PAC backing Ms. Haley does not have to file a report until July the PAC reported $2 million on hand at the end of 2022.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Haleys campaign said Saturday night that the campaign had followed the precedent set by other candidates in their filings. A representative for the F.E.C. did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Haleys campaign is not the first to count funds transferred between committees as part of an overall haul: Mr. Trumps campaign did it in 2021.

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Trump's Fund-Raising: From Sluggish to Surging After Indictment - The New York Times

April 17, 2023 by Chris Young and filed under Elections, News and Public Affairs.

Listen:

A new poll shows Governor Ron DeSantis leading former President Donald Trump in two battleground states. This comes as both politicians are starting to air attack ads.

The poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, shows a majority of voters in these swing states- 56% in Pennsylvania and 55% in Arizona say they are unlikely to vote for Trump next year.

Thats compared to 45% in Pennsylvania and 44% in Arizona who say they arent too likely to vote for DeSantis.

This comes as Trump released a new ad attacking DeSantiss stance on social security. The ad pokes fun at rumors that DeSantis once ate pudding with his hands.

Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they dont belong. And were not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements like cutting Medicare, slashing social security, even raising our retirement age

Governor Ron DeSantis fired back with a commercial calling the social security claims lies.

Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump?

DeSantis has yet to announce his official run for president.

Tags: Donald Trump, election, poll, Republican, Ron DeSantis

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Governor DeSantis leads Donald Trump in battleground states, new ... - WMNF

Amid the sordid crimes of the American Empire, running from the Mexican-American War under Polk to the Forever Wars that have marked the 21st century, there have been a few brave souls who have stood as the nations conscience. These dissidents have repeatedly mounted principled opposition to plunder, torture, and conquest. The roll call of anti-imperialist heroes includes Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, W.E.B. Du Bois, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders, and Barbara Lee.1

Does former president Donald Trump deserve a place in this pantheon?2

This might seem like an absurd suggestion, but as Trump runs for the Republican nomination he is playing up the idea that his foreign policy record is more pacific than that of Establishment figures like Joe Biden. In a February speech, Trump warned about a hawkish Establishment made up of Washingtons generals, bureaucrats, and the so-called diplomats who only know how to get us into conflict butdont know how to get us out. Trump offered himself as an alternative to this Establishmentwhich he insisted was in danger of provoking a Third World War with Russia.3

This celebration of Donald the Dove has lately been echoed not just by MAGA Republicans but also by some ostensibly left-wing thinkers. In February, Glenn Greenwald interviewed Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and the two found common ground on Greenwalds insistence that the energy behind opposing American interventionismAmerican warsis much more on the populist right than the populist left. Greene cited Trumps opposition to never-ending wars as an example.4

The most detailed and thoughtful argument for this position came in a recent article by Marxist scholar Christian Parenti in Compacta magazine that has tried to cultivate an alliance between the MAGA right and disaffected leftists. Parentis contention is that Trumps recent arrest for falsifying business records was actually a political witch hunt on the part of the Establishment, motivated by a hatred of Trumps anti-imperial foreign policy. Parenti also refers to Trumps anti-militarist policy. According to Parenti, To the frustration of those who benefit from it, Trump worked to unwind the American empire. Indeed, he has done more to restrain the US imperium than any politician in 75 years.5

In support of his argument, Parenti notes that Trump didnt start any new wars, that he ordered the withdrawal of one-third of all US military personnel from Germany and ordered the Pentagon to explore withdrawing troops from South Korea.6

The South Korean withdrawal Trump urged on never happened, which raises one major problem with Parentis thesis. Trumps foreign policy, like his presidency in general, had a lot of bluster and shouting (including threats to unleash nuclear weapons on North Korea). But Trump, unschooled in policy-making, had less control over his administration than almost any modern president. He was unusually beholden to both the permanent bureaucracy and the conventional Republicans hawks (like Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, and John Bolton) who staffed his administration. Which meant that Trumps chest-thumping about withdrawing from NATO and other moves away from empire amounted to little more than hot air.7

Parentis own account of Trumps actions gives the lie to the idea of Trump as anti-imperialist. As Parenti reports,8

By early summer 2017, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had become so worried that they held a meeting with Trump at the Pentagon at which they attempted to explain how Americas informal empire functions. Trump didnt dig the presentation. Calling his generals dopes and babies and losers, he demanded to know why the United States wasnt receiving free oil from the Middle East.9

In his anger, Trump reportedly said, We spent $7 trillion; theyre ripping us off. Where is the fucking oil? Its a strange anti-imperialism that wants to, in Trumps phrasing, take the oil.10

Thats because the battle between Trump and the Establishment was not actually between anti-imperialism and imperialism. Rather it was a contest between two rival forms of imperialism. Trump wanted raw imperial plunderas practiced in its classic form by European nations during the 19th and early 20th century, and by the United States in its relationship with Central and South America. This is an imperialism of naked territorial conquest, resource plunder, and alliances with local comprador autocrats.11

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The Joint Chiefs of Stafflike the larger American Establishmenthas little appetite for this naked policy of looting in the name of enrichment. Rather, in a manner that goes back to the creation of the national security state under Harry Truman and Dean Acheson at the dawn of the Cold War in the late 1940s, the Establishment prefers that American global hegemony wear the decent drapery of internationalism and institutionalism. Instead of selfish appeals to America First, global hegemony is secured by claiming the form of support for an international liberal orderone maintained by alliances like NATO and SEATO as well as through agreements like NAFTA. This is imperialism in the name of international law, human rights, and free trade.12

Trump came to power fueled by popular dissatisfaction with that bipartisan liberal internationalism whose claims to be improving the world were discredited by both the Forever Wars and the global economic meltdown of 2008. But Trumps alternative of nationalist unilateralism was neither anti-war nor anti-imperialist. It should be rejected not just because it was ineptly and haphazardly implemented. It should also be rejected because it legitimizes militarism just as muchif not morethan mainstream liberal internationalism.13

Trumps foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, where he formed a close personal alliance with Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, was one of more rubble, less trouble. The idea was to unleash the Pentagon by getting rid of restrictions on military violence against civilians and abandoning hypocritical rhetoric about human rights. The results were an intensification of the War on Terror.14

In a response to Christian Parenti, Zack Beauchamp of Vox notes:15

In 2017, Trump became the first US president to order an attack on the Syrian government, bombing an airfield in retaliation for chemical weapons strikes, something Obama famously refused to do. In 2018, he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and bombed Syrian government positions again. In 2019, Trump approved airstrikes on Iranian soil, only to call the planes back literally while they were in the air. And in 2020, he had General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Irans elite Quds force, assassinated while the Iranian leader was near the Baghdad airport.16

Its true that Trump didnt launch full-scale wars the way George W. Bush didbut that wasnt for lack of trying. In addition to the Middle East, Trump repeatedly threatened violence against countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, and North Korea. (He is still interested in launching an attack on Mexico under the pretext of fighting the drug cartels.) As Beauchamp points out, Trumps pardoning of American soldiers guilty of war crimes also has to be factored in his foreign policy legacy. Its likely to encourage US soldiers to be even more indifferent to civilian life.17

Whats striking, however, given Trumps record of belligerence, is that he rarely gets called out for his reckless warmongering by Democrats. This relative silence has helped feed the myth of the anti-war Trump. Democrats, going back to Hillary Clintons ill-fated campaign of 2016, have tried to win the support of Republican hawks by arguing that Trump is weak on Russia. Clinton even claimed in 2016 that Trump was likely to be too supportive of Palestinians in their negotiations with Israel (which turned out to be the opposite of the truth).18

Parenti is right about one thing. He complains that the arrest of the former president has led to a Trump-centric media feeding frenzy. There has long been a too-personalized attack on Trumpone that focuses on his allegedly unique transgressions. The focus on Russiagate and the impeachment of Trump over Ukraine policy were clearly efforts to mark him as a foreign policy heretic with the goal of creating a bipartisan consensus against him. If Trump was, in Hillary Clintons words, Putins puppetthen Republicans and Democrats could unite against him. But Trump was never really Putins puppet. Rather, he was, and is, a belligerent nationalist trying to achieve normal goals of US hegemonybut unilaterally and not through traditional alliances.19

The pursuit of a bipartisan consensus in defense of the foreign policy status quo has come at a steep cost. Trump has been allowed to recast himself as an anti-war president because Democrats still havent made any effort to describe what his foreign policy really was.20

See the article here:
The Surprisingly Durable Myth of Donald Trump, Anti-Imperialist - The Nation