Summary
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs after Donald Trump confirmed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and 10% on energy, set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
Trump justified the move by linking it to fentanyl smuggling concerns.
Trudeau called the tariffs “unjustified” and imposed 25% tariffs on $155 billion in U.S. goods, with $30 billion effective immediately and the rest in 21 days.
He warned of price hikes and job losses in the U.S., arguing the move violates Trump’s own trade agreement from his last term.
Plus McConnell as leader could have gotten R’s to convict, at least in the second impeachment after Jan 6th, which was a short window when they would probably have gone along with him. It would have made trump ineligible to run again. So I place a large part of the blame on McConnell.
The SCOTUS ruling is just icing on the cake for trump, because once he got into power again, SCOTUS isn’t going to be much of a problem for him no matter how much they might rule against him. He’ll just ignore it and no one will do anything about it because the entire repub party supports him–they are the ones who would have had to check his power but they’re completely on board with him and they have the trifecta, total control.
That’s why I’m worried about the midterms–they aren’t going to give up that power willingly which means they’re more than prepared to do whatever it takes to stop a free and fair election in 2026.
McConnell basically stated that Trump deserved conviction, but didn’t want congress to be the ones to do it. He wagered that it’s a problem that would take care of itself without having to be the ones to piss off the MAGA people he hoped to keep energized and aligned to the GOP even as Trump went away.
Then the SC basically said it’s the job of congress, and not the courts (although they reserved the power to specifically declare something as not a duty of the president, so the courts could proceed if and only if the supreme court signs off on it).
To the extent that it could have maybe had the SC ultimately rule that January 6th was not an official duty, DOJ slow walked the process so that it was way too late before the SC would have even had the chance.
Merrick Garland was Biden’s biggest mistake. By far. But it’s still ultimately McConnell and the other repub senators’ fault. They had the power and more importantly the constitutional responsibility to stop him. They violated their oaths and failed in their duty. It was their cowardice and corruption that allowed this.