u/Yoojine

I don't expect this will become a weekly feature, but it is the second week in a row we've gotten a grimly hilarious story from the Trump administration.

Remember that old Simpsons episode where Lisa is chosen by the government to escape a dying earth, and the official informs her that she can only bring one parent along and has to choose which one? The official expects it will be a difficult choice, but Lisa quickly selects her mom before the official even completes his sentence.

Well, something similar happened on Trump's return from a NATO summit in Turkey. On the day he was scheduled to leave, Israel passed along a warning that Iran was targeting Trump's plane in an assassination attempt. To protect Trump, his security detail had him seen entering Air Force One, and then smuggled him and a few select individuals out to a different plane which he used to slink back to the States. Air Force One meanwhile took off as if everything was normal, with the vast majority of those on board none the wiser to the threat. It wasn't until a month later that reporting by the New York Times revealed the switcheroo and that the passengers had served as unknowing decoys to any Iranian threat- they could of course have easily held AFO on the ground until the president was clear. This caused many who were unwittingly and unwillingly conscripted into the line of fire to complain; it is widely speculated that this revealed threat to her life strongly influenced Kayleigh McEnany's sudden decision to step down.

But I'm not here to talk about any of that. To me it's much more interesting, and of course much funnier, to examine who got to travel with Mr. Trump on the safe plane, and who got stuck playing bait. You see, there was limited space on the catering truck used to exfiltrate Mr. Trump, so he could only select a few individuals to go with him. So what luminaries made the cut? Two names stood out that you might have heard of. The first is Dan Scavino, whose only discernable talent is that he made a good impression on Mr. Trump while serving as his golf caddie, and subsequently used that connection to rise up the ranks at Mar-a-Lago and eventually the White House. He now holds the ultra-important job of manager of POTUS's social media accounts. The second is Natalie Harp, who is better known in politics as the "human printer". She earned the sobriquet because her entire job, as far as anyone can tell, is to carry a portable printer wherever the president goes, which she uses to print out news stories, social media posts, etc. favorable to Mr. Trump for him to read whenever the poor, embattled president needs his spirits lifted- the president famously prefers physical over digital media, as those in charge of the President's Daily Brief quickly discovered. So yup, Team Trump decided that the most critical people to save included Trump's caddie and his personal hype (wo)man, as opposed to say, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who were stuck riding Air Force One.

American intelligence agencies have since been unable to corroborate the threat to Trump and judged the warning as "low confidence", so I guess we can all thank Bibi for a glimpse into who Trump truly values in his inner circle.

Coda with actual politics: you might also vaguely recall that the president already had to switch planes once on that trip, since the golden plane given to him by the Qataris did not carry the full suite of countermeasures featured on regular Air Force One. This is despite us, the taxpayer, spending almost a billion dollars renovating the plane. Oh, and did I mention that this plane, which again our taxes spent nearly a billion dollars renovating, will be kept by Trump when he leaves office? AND let us not forget that when reporters revealed that the golden plane couldn't make the grade, DoJ decided an appropriate response was to subpoena bunch of reporters because it made them look bad, which they then had to drop when a judge questioned their validity. Awesome.

Not the most alluring headline but trust me, this is one of the funnier things that's happened in politics in a while.

DJT likes to talk up his primary endorsement record- some 97% of the candidates he endorses end up winning. There are two caveats to this statistic, first that the number is inflated because he endorses a lot of overdogs, and second that Trump-backed candidates often underperform in the general election, as exemplified by the 2022 midterms where poor-quality candidates flubbed a number of winnable Senate races (Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Dr. Oz, and Herschel Walker). Still, the control he has over the Republican party is legitimately impressive, as Trump has managed to end the political careers of various politicians insufficiently loyal to him (Jon Cornyn, Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massie, etc.). Thus, the candidates who lose despite the endorsement are usually notable cases.

So with that in mind, let's look to the Republican primary in Michigan's 8th Congressional district, where Trump's favored candidate failed to prevail. Was it that the candidate was poor quality? No, as a Navy veteran and a Federal law enforcement officer, he certainly fit the profile for a successful Republican candidate; indeed, he had been highlighted as a potential rising star by the national party. Was the winner an exceptionally canny politico? No, the victor, one Thomas Smith, is a salsa magnate who had actually ended his campaign! Mr. Smith was only still on the ballot because he had failed to meet the deadline to withdraw. So why did the bearer of Trump's vaunted endorsement lose to a dead-in-the-water opponent?

Well, as far as anyone can tell, the main issue for the Trump-backed candidate is that his name is "Amir Hassan". And despite his campaign's best efforts to emphasize that he is actually a Christian, the obviously Arab-sounding name was enough to turn off voters on election day, who went instead with the much more familiar "Tom Smith" despite him exiting the race months ago. Perhaps the Republican establishment should have seen this coming, since Trump's announcement of his support for Mr. Hassan on Truth Social was filled with replies decrying Mr. Trump's selection of an apparent Muslim.

(Pres. Obama: "first time?")

https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/mith-michigan-8th-primary-22379932.php

Although the district voted for Trump in 2024, this year's contest is largely expected to be non-competitive due to candidate quality and the national electoral environment.

Since we do occasionally discuss politics on this suberddit:

As I previously posted, earlier this year the Democrats had to eat poop due to poor candidate quality. Now with election day rapidly approaching, it is the turn of the Republicans.

In North Carolina, Rep. Chuck Edwards decided to end his re-election bid after the House Ethics Committee moved to censure the Congressman for inappropriate behavior toward two of his young female aides. Although the investigation found no evidence of sexual activity or even that Rep. Edwards had directly propositioned them, it uncovered abundant instances of flirtatious behavior that the women and other staffers felt crossed the line; both women eventually resigned due to their discomfort. Rep. Edwards fiercely denied that he acted inappropriately, arguing that the Committee failed to demonstrate that he had explicitly violated an ethics rule. However, under pressure from Republican leadership, he ended his re-election bid days before a state deadline to be replaced on the ballot.

Because of the late drop-out, Edwards will be replaced by the local Republican executive committee in lieu of a primary. The district is red-leaning (my former home state is very heavily gerrymandered), but could be vulnerable to a Democratic takeover in a wave election year. The loss of the incumbency advantage and the less than 100 days the replacement candidate will have to campaign will throw the race into further turmoil.

And then in Ohio we have the much sorrier tale of Rep. Max Miller, who is accused by his ex-wife of domestic abuse of both her and their two-year-old daughter. Rep. Miller vociferously denies the accusation and in a manner that can only be described as "Trumpian" has refused to end his campaign. In a further twist, Rep. Miller’s former wife is the daughter of sitting Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, who pronounced that his former son-in-law is “unfit for office”, and that he regularly fears for the safety of his granddaughter when Rep. Miller has custody. By contrast, prominent Ohio representative Jim Jordan stood by Rep. Miller, calling him a good man. Pres. Trump himself expressed doubts about Miller’s candidacy in a one-on-one meeting, but did not publicly call for him to step down or withdraw his endorsement. This is particularly notable since a member of Pres. Trump’s inner circle, former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, has previously leveled her own accusations of abuse against Rep. Miller, whom she used to date.

Rep. Miller represents a likely swing district, although the race in 2024 was not close due to the presence of a spoiler candidate. He has until the 25th to step aside for Ohio Republicans to be able to replace him on the ballot.

Personally, I hope in 2026 that each party learns sore lessons about nominating candidates with poor morals.