Today in Politics, Bulletin 103. 4/1/25

… Gen. Dan Caine testified that Trump lied when he claimed that Caine told him that he would kill for him, and put on a MAGA hat while serving on active duty in Iraq. Trump has told this ‘Sir’ story hundreds of times, including at CPAC just one month ago. But Trump’s nominee for Chair of Joint Chiefs said it didn’t happen.

… Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI): Trump tells a story about speaking to you while you were serving in Iraq, and you said that you loved him and 'I'll kill for you, sir.' He said you then put on a MAGA hat. Gen. Caine, is any of this story true? Caine: “I’ve never worn any political merchandise or said anything to that effect.”

… I watched all the confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees. I will say I found Caine the most normal out of all of them. He repeatedly insisted he would not hesitate to tell Trump and Hegseth when he disagrees with them. He emphasized how important NATO is to the US and that our allies need to be respected. Unlike the other nominees, he came across to me as honest and sincere. Trump remembered this guy from his trip to Iraq and nominated him because he liked his nickname, ‘Raisin Cain’. Maybe we will get lucky on this one - time will tell.

… Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) took to the floor late last night to begin a marathon speech that lasted 25 hours. He made the speech to call attention to the damage Trump and Musk are doing to our country. Some also believe this was his opening statement on a move to ultimately unseat Chuck Schumer as Minority Leader by doing something that Schumer can’t.

… Booker: “I know so many Americans who are not powerful, they’re not rich, and they live in fear every day that one thing will happen to them that will destabilize their well-being. Now those millions of Americans, because of a president and a man named Musk driving fear into them. What is this? It is not normal. What kind of man is in the WH who makes fun of the disabled? Who lies so much that the fact checkers lose count?”

… Booker in his 20th straight hour of speaking: "I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I've been inadequate to the moment. I've confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that gave a lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say 'we will do better.'"

… Booker in hour 21: "I don't want a Disney vacation of our history! I don't a whitewashed history, I don't want a homogenized history. Tell me the wretched truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness."

… CNN’s Haley Talbot during hour 21: “When the House started their work week/ voting yesterday, Cory Booker was just beginning his speech. The House is now being sent home without accomplishing much, and Booker is still speaking.”

… Fox congressional reporter Chad Pergram: “The Democratic base has howled for weeks at congressional Dems to ‘fight’ and stand up to Trump. What you are also seeing is a proxy battle for the eventual fight to succeed Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer isn’t going to be ousted anytime soon. But moves like this by Booker are ways that senators with high aspirations make a mark and win support of their colleagues.”

… Booker broke the all-time record for longest Senate speech in American history. He was not able to sit down or go to the bathroom the entire time as he went past the previous record of 24 hours, 18 minutes set by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), who was opposing a civil rights bill.

… Chad Pergram: “However, (Thurmond) had been on the floor all night until the next day. He left the floor to use the restroom. Get a sandwich. Allowed Sen. Maj. Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) to pass bills by unanimous consent and swear-in a new senator. But because watchful eyes weren’t on the Senate, no one called Thurmond on this.”

… So he cheated. And Booker beat him anyway.

… Punchbowl at noon: “The House is done voting for the week. It's Tuesday. They'll be back Monday. This is a choice, of course. They can bring up the SAVE Act at any time without a rule. They can go back to rules. It's only Tuesday!! But they're done for the week after Anna Paulina Luna beat Speaker Johnson on that rule vote over proxy voting for parents.”

… Another productive week for MAGA Mike.

… Johnson then threw a hissy fit: “A handful of Republicans just joined every House Democrat to take down a rule. This means we can’t take any further action on President Trump’s agenda this week: No SAVE Act. No vote to address rogue judges attacking Trump. No votes to repeal Biden regulations.”

… Luna then angrily responded: “I am 100% supportive of Trump and his America First agenda. It is disingenuous for Speaker Johnson to lie about me. And Steve Scalise and Speaker Johnson did not have to send us home.”

… So funny that Luna took him down because Mike tried to block her rule change to allow proxy voting for 6 weeks after women give birth. He’s taking his ball and going home for the week.

… At Luna’s JFK assassination hearing, Rep. Lauren Boebert asked movie director and conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone (who Luna subpoenaed to testify) about his book theorizing that LBJ had Kennedy killed. Except Roger Stone wrote a book that said that, not Oliver Stone. Oliver got confused, so another witness interrupted: “I think you’re confusing Oliver Stone with Roger Stone.”

… Boebert: “Oh, I may have misinterpreted that. Sorry.”

… She was reading her prepared, written questions.

… Politico reported that many people in the White House are tired of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has been the main proponent of Trump imposing massive tariffs. These sources think tariffs are going to wreck the economy, and intend to use it to try and oust Lutnick: “I think people would take special pleasure in blaming him.”

… The source says Lutnick is constantly hanging around the Oval Office in Trump’s ear hyping tariffs: “He’s giving him bad advice — pushing more aggressive tariffs.”

… Another WH source said that Lutnick is “a new voice at the table pushing crazy shit. I don’t know anyone that isn’t pissed off at him.”

… But they said Trump loves the chaos his tariffs are causing: He “likes the shock and awe. Each country needs to panic and call. Trump wants to hear you grovel and say you’ll cut a deal. Some will cut a deal before and some just won’t get it and will get pounded. And then we’ll see how fast they start dealing.”

… Mike Johnson sounds like he is trying to insulate his members from any responsibility when tariffs wreck the economy: "He's made very clear that he's doing this in the executive branch under his executive authority, and it doesn't involve Congress in that way. Look, you have to trust the president’s instincts on the economy."

… Sen. Tommy Tuberville to Daily Caller on tariffs: "We built China - the American taxpayers. We built the Middle East. We built Europe. So now it’s time they help us build back our country after we’ve helped them so much, and that happens to be with tariffs.”

… Tuberville to Fox: “Everybody's a little concerned. We all are, but at the end of the day, we got to have faith in our leadership. We've got to get manufacturing back to the country. People back to work. Better way to do that is tariffs. So let's give it a shot and see what happens.”

… What could go wrong?

… Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the tariffs won’t affect Americans: “A tariff will be a tax on these foreign nations — these foreign companies. And if they want to be absolved of that tariff, then they can come here to the US to do business, bring their jobs here.”

… Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) was asked on CNN if Trump’s tariffs are going to hurt people in his state: “There's absolutely going to be short-term pain. I mean, if you're going to remodel your house to make it better in the end, it's gonna be really annoying in the short-term.”

… WaPo’s Jeff Stein: “I don’t know for sure what the admin is going to do tomorrow, but one concern with the country by country reciprocal approach that I’ve heard pretty widely from Trump and Trump-adjacent people is that it creates opportunities for evasion via transshipment. For example, if you imposed a 20% tariff on everything from China and a 10% tariff on everything from Vietnam — you’d create a huge incentive to reroute Chinese goods through Vietnam. Applying same rate to both deals with that problem, at least in theory. But Trump last night again reiterated his desire to do the eye-for-an-eye tariff, suggesting a country-specific tariff approach.”

… While it is very unlikely that Democrat Josh Weil is going to win the special election tonight in a FL district Trump won by 30 points, keeping it fairly close could help energize Democrats and rattle Republicans. Weil to CNN: “The person running on the Republican side has shown no interest in attempting to reach out, communicate with the district, talk to people, or say that he'll serve them. He is adamant over and over again that he is going to serve only one person and that person doesn't live in District 6.”

… But all eyes tonight are on Wisconsin, where Trump, Musk and the entire MAGA machine has gone all in for Republican Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel. WI Sen. Ron Johnson was asked about Musk getting so heavily involved, spending at least $20 million and holding a rally: "He may be the difference when it's all said and done."

… Musk on Fox: “Losing this judge race has good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. You lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings and subpoenas.”

… Politico reported that some House Repubs are actually hoping that Dems keep the FL House races fairly close with Schimel losing in WI, because they think Musk is toxic and that may convince Trump to sideline him. One House Repub said it would be “a beautiful thing” if they struggle tonight because it would give a wakeup call to his colleagues in swing districts to distance themselves from Musk: “There will be 26 or so people watching Tues, and they’ll decide how they want to be part of the team going forward.”

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If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can read it here.

… The Journal News reported that Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) bragged right before the election about securing $33 million in federal earmarks for local projects, then after the election he voted against the bill that was supposed to fund the projects.

… What makes it even worse is that he never told Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who has been waiting for the $7.1 million he was promised by Lawler: “I put in a grant application and was told we were selected to receive the funding. I’ve been waiting to hear back from the congressman on how to proceed. I was never told that