Losing My Perspicacity April 4, 2025

Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me today.

Hooooy boy. I’ve had many days in the last three months where I’ve sat here, staring at my laptop and said to myself, “Where do I even start?” But today, so far, tops them all.

I woke up yesterday morning to find my husband already at work and watching “Unsolved Mysteries,” as he is wont to do. I said, “Can I turn on the news and see if we still have a retirement account?” He thought I was exaggerating. I was not.

So, the economy went off a cliff yesterday, much to the surprise of Trump voters, who, for some reason, never believed that Trump would do precisely what he said he would do. I generally try not to fall into cruelty and wishing harm on others, but I hope all the Trump voters had the day they voted for.

I’ve seen a lot of people incredulously asking, “How do these tariffs make any sense?” Especially as it will take us generations to fix the trade relationships it took Trump 73 days to torpedo. If you haven’t noticed, we don’t make much in this country anymore. The things we do make are generally assembled with products from overseas. In fact, since 2000, the US has lost a quarter of all manufacturing — more than 4.7 million jobs. That means everything is about to get more expensive because everything we buy comes from somewhere else.

But those asking “how this makes sense” are asking the wrong question. It doesn’t add up if you think Trump’s goal is to “Make America Great Again.” That was never the goal, and it’s depressing that people think it was. Trump’s goals for the tariffs, I believe, are as follows, in descending order of priority: 1) Force the leaders of every country to the bargaining table, where he will dangle removing tariffs over their heads, based on what they offer up to him; 2) Avenging every petty grieveance he’s accumulated since the 1980s; and 3) Allow his millionaire and billionaire pals to load up on cheap stocks so they can remain ultra-rich.

Senator Chris Murphy posted about this last night, and I think he got it right.

It makes even more sense if you think about how quickly the media, universities, and law firms have capitulated to Trump, in some cases transferring tens of millions to him in cash and services. In his mind, why wouldn’t the same thing work with foreign nations? Hell, South Korea has already asked to meet at the bargaining table. (By the way, if you’re into K-Beauty like me, now is a great time to start stocking up on those sunscreams.)

And, because Trump believes everyone will eventually roll over and show them his belly, he also thinks he’ll get to take credit for the economy when he removes the tariffs and rights the ship. Win-win!

The problem is that he’s got a long way to go, both in terms of the market and America’s waning reputation worldwide.

And by the way, if you’re curious as to why Russia got off the hook, I’ve written about that, too. It’s exactly what you’re probably thinking.

Wednesday night, the Senate passed a Democratic resolution to end Trump’s declaration of a “national emergency,” which, as I wrote yesterday, is required for him to impose tariffs, specifically on Canada. Four Republicans — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Rand Paul — crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats. That resolution, which doesn’t have the force of law, anyway, will go nowhere, as the House Republicans are far less reasonable than their Senate counterparts (and that’s saying something, considering guys like Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, and Foghorn Leghorn are in the Senate).

But yesterday, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced bipartisan legislation that would grant Congress more power to reject Trump’s tariffs, which, as we discussed yesterday, is what the Framers intended in the first place.

No word yet on when a vote will come, but I am heavily in favor of making Republicans sign their names to Trump’s policies if they’re unwilling to do their duty as a co-equal branch of government. Let them think about that ahead of the 2026 midterms.

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In today’s news: Trump can’t quit Lara Loomer; Judge Boasberg takes the DOJ to the woodshed; No one was more surprised by the tariffs than the CEO of Restoration Hardware; A disturbing update on Rümeysa Öztürk, and The High Note.

Let’s get into it.

Laura Loomer is back (joy)

If you thought we had seen the back end of Laura Loomer when Trump’s allies had her kicked off his plane during the campaign, surprise! Guess who is back and whispering in Trump’s ear? Everyone’s favorite Mar-a-lago-faced conspiracy theorist!

But wait, it gets so much worse!

If you thought National Security Adviser Mike Waltz setting up 20 Signal chats that contained “sensitive information,” one of which he inadvertently invited a media member to, is terrible for the US, how do you feel about Laura Loomer deciding who stays and who goes on the National Security Council?

It seems like only yesterday Loomer was insisting the Las Vegas mass shooter was affiliated with ISIS, handcuffing herself to the wrong door outside Twitter HQ, and claiming, in 2023, that Joe Biden was dying, if not already dead. Now she’s holding sway over our national security. They grow up so fast.

By the way, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned (just now) that Loomer is only 31 years old. What is in the water over on the right?

Judge Boasberg was back at it on Thursday

We’re all going to have to send Judge Boasberg a huge fruit basket or something when this is all over, because watching him torment DOJ attorneys over the removal of undocumented immigrants, without due process, to a notorious hellhole of a prison has been one of the few bright spots of the last three months.

Yesterday, the DOJ appeared before Boasberg to show cause as to why ICE and Homeland Security should not be held in contempt of court for willfully ignoring Boasberg’s order prohibiting ICE from deporting planefuls of immigrants to El Salvador. The ICE flights took off several hours after Boasberg entered his order, and the ACLU, representing five deportees, asked Boasberg to hold the feds in contempt of court. We still haven’t gotten to the legality of deporting people without due process. Yesterday was all about the Trump administration ignoring the judge’s orders.

Here’s how it went for one lone DOJ lawyer, Drew Ensign:

That was probably the best moment for the DOJ, as it went downhill from there.

As you can see, the DOJ never expected Boasberg to push this hard for the timeline and probably thought he’d give up as soon as they invoked the state secrets doctrine. But Boasberg is not giving up. The entire hearing went pretty poorly for the DOJ, and Boasberg says he will rule next week on whether he has sufficient evidence to hold the feds in contempt.

Up next: A hearing on April 8 on whether or not the government can invoke the state secrets privilege on non-classified information.

Trump shocked the hell out of the CEO of Restoration Hardware

If you were shocked by the tanking of the stock market after Trump’s imposition of tariffs on just about every country in the world (including the Heard & McDonald Islands, inhabited only by penguins, and the British Indian Ocean Territory, in which the main settlement is the US military base at Diego Garcia), at least you weren’t on a call with shareholders when you found out, like the CEO of Restoration Hardware.

I love Restoration Hardware, but I’ve never been able to afford to shop there. Now I never will.

Update on Rümeysa Öztürk

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) posted on update on Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student who was grabbed off the streets by plain-clothed ICE officers, thrown into a van, and informed that her student visa had been revoked after she co-wrote an op-ed for the student paper criticizing the school’s response to the genocide in Gaza. Like nearly everyone else arrested by ICE, Öztürk was sprited away to a Lousiana detention facility without due process, thanks to the Trump administration’s cozy relationship with the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tufts, thankfully, has been aggressively pushing for Öztürk’s release. On Wednesday night, Öztürk’s lawyers asked District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to assume jurisdiction of the case or to transfer it to Vermont, where Öztürk was taken by ICE before her final transfer to Louisiana. If ICE is allowed to snatch people away to a jurisdiction so conservative that even SCOTUS has side-eyed it for some time, they’re all as good as gone.

Judge Capser, an Obama appointee, heard oral arguments yesterday but has not yet ruled on the case.

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

I’ve been thinking about all the escapism I’ve been engaging in lately, and I thought I’d share some of my favorite TV shows, books, and movies with you today. God knows we all need an escape from the news right now.

 Books:

• Project Hail Mary by Eric Weir: This is by the same guy who wrote The Martian, and I only read it because I put a library hold on it months ago, and my number finally came up. And while I thought The Martian was just okay, I really loved this book. It reminded me more of Contact than The Martian, and I’m happy I gave it a chance. It’s coming out as a movie starring Ryan Gosling in 2026, and I’m weirdly excited about it.

• Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green: I’m reading this one right now, and it’s engaging and interesting. Also, I love following John Green on TikTok, so I was never going to not read this book. If you think you know how TB has affected our world, trust me, you don’t know the half of it.

TV:

• Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer (Netflix): I’ve been reading stories and books and watching docs on this since the bodies started showing up in the 2010s. But this documentary does much more than just talk about how the killer was caught. It delves into who we look for, why, and what gets in the way. I give it two thumbs up.

• Hacks (MAX): This is one of the best shows on TV, and it returns on April 10, 2025. The show centers around a washed-up comedienne (Jean Smart) and a canceled millennial comedy writer (Hannah Einbinder). It’s one of the funniest and most heart-warming shows ever on TV. There’s a reason Jean Smart keeps winning Emmys for it.

• Parks and Rec (Peacock): The Office is likely my favorite Michael Schur sitcom, but Parks & Rec is probably objectively the best thing he’s done to date. Watching P&R reruns has become my comfort thing. Don’t we want all our government officials to be as competent as Donna, as tough as Ron Swanson, and as enthusiastic about everything as Leslie Knope? We do, indeed.

Movies:

• September 5 (Amazon Prime): This is an excellent dramatization of what took place in the ABC Sports broadcast headquarters during the kidnapping of the entire Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Games. I love films about media, and this one stars Peter Sarsgaard as legendary sports producer Roone Arledge and Benjamin Walker (High King Gil-galad for all you Rings of Power fans) as Peter Jennings. If you’re a Gen Xer or Xennial, you’ll be amazed how familiar Peter Jennings’ voice is after all this time.

• Top Secret (For rent on Mulitiple Platforms): Top Secret is the first major role Val Kilmer ever had, and it’s an all-timer. Everyone thinks of Real Genius when talking about Kilmer’s comedy chops, and while I love a good Chris Knight joke, his performance as Nick Rivers in this Elvis-movie-meets-World-War-II-spy-thriller parody is, in my mind, one of his most outstanding performances. This is my barometer movie: If you haven’t seen Top Secret, it’s okay. We can be friends. If you didn’t like it, we will never be more than acquaintances. If you love it, you are truly one of my people. RIP, Val.

Finally, because I’m still mourning Val Kilmer over here, I give you the opening song from Top Secret, Skeet Surfin’.

Survive and advance today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

See you all on Monday.