Happy Thursday! Disgraced former GOP Rep. George Santos may be cleaning up on Cameo selling personalized video messages for $350 a pop, but he’s clearly still not over his old job.
After Republicans lost the special election to replace him earlier this week, Semafor reported he started a group chat with some of the lawmakers who pushed to oust him earlier this week—just to call them “f—ing idiots” and tell them he hopes they lose their own races. “Sorry new phone,” GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino responded. “Who dis?”
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto is projected to win Wednesday’s presidential elections in the southeast Asian nation. “This victory must be a victory for all the Indonesian people,” he said in a victory speech yesterday. Subianto, a former general, served under the Suharto dictatorship, which ended in 1998. The minister has been linked to the killing and torture of Suharto’s opponents, among other rights abuses, sparking worries from some observers that Subianto’s presidency could lead to democratic backsliding. Subianto has pledged to continue the policies of his predecessor, President Joko Widodo (aka Jokowi), who backed him in the race. Jokowi is term limited, but his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, ran as Subianto’s vice president.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided not to send a follow-up delegation to Cairo, Egypt, to continue talks over a ceasefire with Hamas, describing the terrorist group’s demands as “delusional.” In a statement Wednesday, he said that “in Cairo, Israel did not receive any new proposal from Hamas on the release of our captives” and that only “a change in Hamas’ positions will allow progress in the negotiations.” Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of strikes Wednesday against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, responding to a rocket attack on Safed, a city in northern Israel, that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded eight others, according to Israeli officials.
- President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday preventing Palestinians in the U.S. from being deported for the next 18 months. Biden cited the risk to civilians in Gaza as justification for deferring deportations—an estimated 6,000 Palestinians will be eligible for the deferment. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the order would give Palestiaians “a temporary safe haven.”
- House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner issued a cryptic request to the Biden administration on Wednesday, asking the White House to declassify information related to a “serious national security threat” and share information on the threat with lawmakers outside of the committee. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the threat was “not an immediate crisis but certainly something we have to be very serious about.” House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back on some of the hysteria that had spread after Turner’s request, saying there was “no need for public alarm.” Sullivan told reporters that briefings with lawmakers to discuss the threat were scheduled for Thursday, but that he is “not in a position to say anything further.” Unconfirmed reporting from anonymous sources suggests that the threat concerns Russian plans for a nuclear weapon in space that could target satellites.
- Special Counsel Jack Smith requested on Wednesday that the Supreme Court reject former President Donald Trump’s request to delay his criminal trial regarding his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The trial is currently delayed pending Trump’s appeal of a lower court Trump’s decision that he is not immune from prosecution. “Delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict—a compelling interest in every criminal case and one that has unique national importance here, as it involves federal criminal charges against a former President for alleged criminal efforts to overturn the results of the Presidential election, including through the use of official power,” Smith wrote in a 40-page filing submitted Wednesday.
- One person was killed and at least 20 others (including 11 children) were injured on Wednesday during a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade, near Kansas City’s Union Station. Police have apprehended three people in relation to the shooting, but no charges had been announced as of Thursday morning. “This is absolutely a tragedy the likes of which we would have never expected in Kansas City and the likes of which we remember for some time,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said.
- Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee announced Wednesday that he won’t seek re-election at the end of his third term. The 59-year-old lawmaker currently serves as the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and spearheaded the House GOP’s effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “This place is so broken,” Green told Axios. “It feels like a lot of something for nothing.” He joins fellow retiring Republican House committee chairs Patrick McHenry, of the Financial Services Committee; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Kay Granger, of the Appropriations Committee, in leaving the lower chamber at the end of this term. Also on Wednesday, Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina announced that he will step down as House Assistant Democratic Leader. He will still seek reelection in the fall.
Trump Threatens Cloudy Future for NATO
Addressing a crowd at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, former President Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite objects of derision: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The former president recounted what he claimed was a real conversation between him and a leader of a “big” European country while Trump was still president. “‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said the leader asked, referring to NATO countries’ mutual defense obligations and members’ promise to spend 2 percent of their national GDP on defense.
“I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump said. “‘No, I wouldn’t protect you—in fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay! You gotta pay your bills!’” His supporters reacted with uproarious applause.
The former president has never shied away from criticizing the multilateral defensive alliance, which celebrates its 75th birthday this year. Despite Trump’s longstanding disdain for the institution and repeated threats to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance, the United States remained a member throughout his presidency. But his comments over the weekend—some of his most strident vis-à-vis the alliance—brought into stark relief what a second Trump term could mean for ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,784-word story on Donald Trump’s recent comments about NATO is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Writing for The Atlantic, Derek Thompson explored Americans’ increasing social isolation. “In its earliest decades, the United States was celebrated for its citizens’ extroversion,” he wrote. “Americans weren’t just setting out to build new churches and new cities. Their associations were, as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, ‘of a thousand different types … religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute.’ Americans seemed adept at forming social groups: political associations, labor unions, local memberships. … After the 1970s, American dynamism declined. Americans moved less from place to place. They stopped showing up at their churches and temples. In the 1990s, the sociologist Robert Putnam recognized that America’s social metabolism was slowing down. In the book Bowling Alone, he gathered reams of statistical evidence to prove that America’s penchant for starting and joining associations appeared to be in free fall. Book clubs and bowling leagues were going bust. If Putnam felt the first raindrops of an antisocial revolution in America, the downpour is fully here, and we’re all getting washed away in the flood. From 2003 to 2022, American men reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent. Boys and girls ages 15 to 19 reduced their weekly social hangouts by more than three hours a week. In short, there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own.”
Presented Without Comment
NBC News: Biden Attacked Hur for Asking Him When [His Son] Beau Died. That Didn’t Happen, Sources Say.
President Joe Biden lashed out at Robert Hur last week over one particular line in the special counsel's report on his handling of classified documents: that Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters in an impromptu White House press conference. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
But Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.
Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: Trump Sends Valentine’s Day Message to Melania Centered on His Criminal Cases
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew reported on Democrat Tom Suozzi’s win in Tuesday’s special election in New York, Scott explored (🔒) the failings of U.S. aluminum tariffs, and Nick highlighted some takeaways from Republicans’ latest high-profile electoral losses.
- On the podcasts: Sarah and David dig into the Hawaii Supreme Court’s latest Second Amendment decision on Advisory Opinions, and substitute Remnant host Chris Stirewalt is joined by Ruy Teixiera, author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to discuss what the wretched state of our parties could mean for the 2024 election.
- On the site today: Drucker reports on the (all-but-certainly doomed) future of immigration reform after Republicans tanked the latest bipartisan push in recent weeks.
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