Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge. Did you know that the Jan. 6 pinball game is actually based on a real-life story?
This week, we do not even discuss the South Carolina primary that is occurring on the day this newsletter is published, it’s just been that exciting of a primary cycle. We do, however, discuss a dog. The Alabama Supreme Court, meanwhile, has handed Republicans an issue that is both electorally untenable and impossible for them to comprehensibly denounce. And the Trump family could have a dynamic new plan for what to do with the Republican National Committee’s money (take it).
Let us begin, though, with a most unfortunate development in Republicans’ investigation of the Biden family.
By Jim Newell
The Surge does not pay close attention to congressional investigations into Joe Biden’s business dealings—we didn’t pay close attention to the ones about Trump either; we’re bipartisan in finding this tedious—but while covering the Capitol over the past year trying to surface interesting stories, we’d often hear references to a thrilling “form 1023.” This was the FBI document outlining a supposed “whistleblower” allegation that Hunter and Joe Biden had gotten big, fat bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. This was not the only allegation that House investigators were looking into, but it was certainly the flashiest and the favorite of right-wing media. Well, that “whistleblower” informant turns out to be a man named Alexander Smirnov, who was charged in federal court last week for making it all up. And this week, we learned that Smirnov had ties to “officials associated with Russian intelligence” who were “involved in passing a story” on about Hunter Biden. House Republicans spent this week simultaneously scrubbing any reference to the Smirnov allegations from their impeachment literature and insisting that this is actually fine and good, they have much more to work with. But even before Smirnov’s tales blew up, this impeachment investigation was already heading toward a bust. Kentucky Rep. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, has conceded there may not be an impeachment vote. The case is too—what’s the word?—uncaselike, and the House GOP margins are just too thin. Besides, Republicans already threw a bone to the hardcore impeachment-heads out there with the Mayorkas one. So they’ll just keep their Biden investigations running through the election, because the last thing they’ll ever do is exonerate the president.
To the fellas in the Republican Party: Are we having fun yet with post-Dobbs reproductive rights policy? As was not unexpected after Dobbs, a state supreme court (Alabama’s, in this case) has determined that frozen embryos have personhood rights, prompting the state’s largest hospital to halt IVF treatments for fear of legal repercussions. This is a fully insane situation. The vast majority of everyone—including evangelical Christians—supports access to IVF as practiced. But—but but but!—this is the sort of outcome you will get when you enshrine personhood as beginning at the moment of fertilization into law, and that’s a litmus test for many Republican candidates. And so, this week, we’ve seen them tripping all over their own faces trying to discuss the decision. Here’s Nikki Haley in her cleanup effort, fumbling, blind, for oxygen: “I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. What the question that I was asked is, ‘Do I believe an embryo is a baby?’ I do think that if you look in the definition, an embryo is considered an unborn baby.” Over the course of a brief conversation, meanwhile, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he was “all for” the ruling, then said the pause on IVF treatments in Alabama was “really hard” and that we “need more kids.” Then he diverted to “I’d have to look at the entire bill, how it’s written” (what bill?) and finally landed on: “This is a state issue.” Yeah, no kidding!
It’s expected that shortly after the South Carolina primary, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel will be pushed out of her role and replaced, in part, with Lara Trump as co-chair. The former president’s daughter-in-law has come a long way since Trump reportedly said in 2017 that he “barely even knew who the fuck she was.” Now she’s going to be gifted a national party committee—with some strings attached! For example: Does she think it’s in GOP voters’ interest for the RNC to pay Trump’s legal bills? “Absolutely. That’s why you’ve seen a GoFundMe get started,” Lara Trump told reporters this week. “That’s why people are furious right now and they see the attacks against him. They feel like it’s an attack, not just on Donald Trump, but on this country. … So I think that is a big interest to people. Absolutely.” This followed an earlier comment where she said that “every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC—that is, electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.” So, sorry, down-ballot candidates. Lara Trump had to clean up these remarks later, saying that she thought the “legal bills have already been covered at this point.” The Surge bets that the legal bills have not, in fact, been covered, given how many more are to come. We also bet that she does not actually make her children say the Pledge of Allegiance at bedtime every night, no matter what she says, because that’s not a thing.
With Congress on recess, House Republicans leaders pampered themselves for a retreat at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Miami. The idea was that between luxe massages and sips of cucumber water, the gang would map out a whole strategy for government funding (deadline next week!), Ukraine assistance, investigations, and so on. And the attendees were looking for junior-varsity Speaker Mike Johnson to give them some direction already. It doesn’t sound like they got it. “To a person, nearly every attendee we spoke to,” Punchbowl News reported, “said that Johnson didn’t present a vision, but rather lectured his colleagues. One source compared his performance to a political science professor.” Professors—the worst sort of slimeballs. Politico’s sources described it as a “sermon” that “alarmed” them. “The speaker contended that when one doesn’t have God in their life, the government or ‘state’ will become their guide, referring back to Bible verses,” Politico reported. One member described the presentation as “horrible” and said, “I’m not at church.” They’re just talking openly now about how much this guy sucks. The GOP member who should be speaker but never will be and is choosing to retire instead, North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, said in an interview this week that “we went through five choices and Mike Johnson's the fifth choice.”
This newsletter’s bread and butter is monitoring old politicians’ brains, and we have a fresh—well, maybe that’s not the right word—brain to discuss. Georgia Rep. David Scott, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, has an old brain, and Democrats are officially concerned. Scott, a moderate member, is running for reelection to the “surprise” of his colleagues who “had assumed the 78-year-old would retire at the end of the year,” as Politico reported. “Even in private meetings, Scott frequently reads from a script and at times has trouble carrying out substantive conversations in real time about much of the food and agriculture policy that he oversees,” according to members Politico interviewed, one of whom described Scott as “Exhibit A for term limits.” Now, there are plenty of House members (and even politicians who rank, uh, quite high on the American political chain of command) whose cognitive abilities are under question. The issue with Scott is that as the leading Dem on Ag, he has jurisdiction over the twice-a-decade farm bill, a massive, high-stakes package that bundles agriculture and nutrition (i.e., food stamps) policy. Or does he? Last year, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries put Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson in charge of a brand-new task force on agriculture and nutrition. This was unusual, as there’s already a 200-year-old standing “task force” on those issues called the House Agriculture Committee. That tells you all you need to know about the trust Democratic leaders have in Scott. But actually removing him from the chairmanship? That’s a much more delicate matter.
Sure, Ron DeSantis committed the mortal sin of challenging Trump for his rightful presidential nomination. But, after losing just one contest, he behaved like a dutiful soldier, quitting the race and endorsing Trump. Hatchet buried? There was a moment this week when it appeared so. During a Fox News town hall this week, Trump was recited a list of VP possibilities which included DeSantis, and then asked whether these were all on his shortlist. “They are,” Trump said. But in a phone call this week, DeSantis told campaign backers that “I am not doing that.” He said, of the VP selection: “I have heard that they’re looking more in identity politics. I think that’s a mistake. I think you should just focus on who the best person for the job would be.” Trump’s coterie of trigger-happy minions did not let this one slide. “Chicken fingers and pudding cups is what you will be remembered for you sad little man,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita tweeted. “Ron tucked his tail between his legs and he should have scurried off into the shadows of obscurity,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung tweeted. “Now that he's dipped his high-heeled toes back in the water, he might just find out our shovel can dig a lot deeper.” And Jason Miller, another longtime Trump campaign adviser, tweeted, “we looked past Rob’s half-hearted endorsement and the bullshit trip to South Carolina to try to stay relevant, but if his popping off continues, Thor’s hammer will return.” These boys were shown PG-13 movies at too young an age.
The White House is among the most secure workplaces in the world. That place is locked down to external threats. But what if the threat is internal? Imagine a scenario where you’re in the Situation Room, waiting for a meeting to start. The person next to you is reading a newspaper, covering his face. When the person pulls down the newspaper, though, he reveals himself not to be a person at all, but a titanic German shepherd wearing glasses who says, menacingly, “SSSSnack time!” and then bites you. This has been the work environment in the Biden White House for several years. First it was Major. Major bit everyone. More recently, it’s been Commander. This week, CNN reported on Secret Service records that showed Commander “bit US Secret Service personnel in at least 24 incidents”—a crime spree that spread from the White House to Camp David to Delaware to Nantucket. The report includes an image of a torn-up shirt, and chilling messages that “the pet should not be out on its own.” Commander, according to the White House, has been “living with other family members” since last fall. Pray for the other family members’ security detail.
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