Kamala Harris — who is probably running to be governor of California in 2026 but is said to still be considering another run for president in 2028 — sent out a fundraising email Friday for the Democratic National Committee, headlined “Cowards.”
You can guess that the email wasn’t about those many Democrats, herself included, who cowardly covered up for Joe Biden’s cognitive decline during his presidency and who cowardly kept quiet when Biden was running for a second term — even, in most cases, after he was forced out following his disastrous debate with Donald Trump.
She definitely wasn’t talking about the new book, “Original Sin” — co-authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson — which, to date, presents the most revealing picture of Biden’s hubristic decision to run for re-election and especially the failures of those who might have stopped him before it was too late. Here’s an excerpt, titled “How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump.”
What were Democrats afraid of? Did they worry about offending Biden? Were they trapped in paralyzing groupthink? Did they really think that Biden was up to the job, at age 82, for another four-year term? In the book, Tapper and Thompson quote aides who suggest Biden wouldn’t have been ready to serve for even another four days
Predictably, though, Harris was talking about Republicans, who are obviously cowardly in the face of the colossus — and I don’t mean that in a good way — that is Donald Trump. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski made that official when she publicly said of fellow Republican politicians, “We’re all afraid” of Trump.
In her email, Harris wondered how they could be more afraid of Trump than for the families, among their constituents, who fear losing food assistance for their children so that Trump can renew a tax cut for billionaires.
I don’t think what Murkowski meant was that Trump — Putin-like — was actually threatening their lives. He was threatening phony-baloney jobs, not only by backing a primary opponent against any dissidents, but by guaranteeing a series of giant checks from the other colossus — and I still don’t mean it in a good way — that is Elon Musk.
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SUBSCRIBEDuring this week, we’ve had two competing but thoroughly connected major stories, among all the other major stories that make a typical Trump week — Trump’s upside-down stance on tariffs; the Supreme Court’s temporary ruling against Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act; right-wing Republicans temporarily scuttling Trump’s beautiful budget bill.
First, there is Trump’s trip to Middle East Gilt-land, from which he brings home the promised gift of a luxury replacement for Air Force One, that is best described as a $400 million bribe, and a bunch of other golden goodies, including deals for Trump golf courses and skyscrapers.
The second story is how “Original Sin” describes the guilt of Democrats who, while covering up for Biden, allowed the Trump/MAGA restoration to succeed, in all its corrupt and autocratic glory.
Would a different Democrat have beaten Trump? Should Biden, after the debate, have dropped out of the race immediately, to give Dems enough time for some kind of mini-primary? Why didn’t Democrats believe their eyes — either after seeing Biden perform in public or in private or after reading the polls in which people plainly said Biden seemed too old and too frail?
To his credit, Michael Bennet was the first Democratic senator to say that Biden would likely lose in a landslide. But, even as he implied it, Bennet couldn’t quite bring himself to explicitly say that Biden needed to step aside.
Even now, long after the fact, most of the people quoted in “Original Sin” are quoted anonymously. Cowardly is the right word. It’s time not just for us to resist, but time for Democrats, especially now that we have an American pope, to engage in a little confession.
But the Trump trip? If those who won’t look at Trump and know they’re looking at a corrupt wanna-be dictator, or maybe king, this trip explains it all. In writing about it for the New Yorker, Susan Glasser called the Middle East kingdoms Trump’s “safe spaces.” These are his people.
He couldn’t feel safer or more accepted than in the glittering palaces, with their “perfecto” marble, home to the strongmen he praises for how they run their countries without fear of nasty democratic constraints like, say, the rule of law. He told these leaders that it wasn’t up to him to give them “lectures on how to live.” How could he?
He praised the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS) who was in power when Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, was carved up with a bone saw. “I like you too much,” Trump told MBS, before going on to announce that the United States would lift 14-year-old sanctions on Syria.
“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump semi-joked as the crowd of princes and sheikhs applauded. You can see the quid, the pro and the quo. And more.
And, of course, Trump said he saw nothing wrong with taking from Qatar the gifted $400 million airplane, which may cost a billion to retrofit as a working Air Force One. That’s the same country that Trump had once accused — and rightly so — of funding terrorist groups. The gift was approved by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, you won’t be surprised to know, was once a lobbyist for Qatar.
Trump has long been envious of the luxury jets owned by the Middle East petro-royalty. He thinks he deserves as much — as if it were his plane, which I guess it is, since it’s supposed to go to the Trump “library” after he leaves office.
The reaction has been, well, just what you’d expect from some Democrats and nearly all progressive columnists. He’s been called a mob boss. A grifter who not only is corrupt but is so openly corrupt. One pundit asked if there’s a better way to let people know you’re open to bribes than to show them you’re open to bribes.
Even House Speaker Mike Johnson offered this, uh, defense of Trump, saying that the so-called Biden Crime Family worked in back rooms and with shell companies to make their deals. Meanwhile, he said, “Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open. They’re not trying to conceal anything.”
The Bidens aren’t actually a crime family, of course. And there’s no real evidence of any corruption involving Joe Biden. That’s just the usual Trumpian big-lie slander. But Johnson is right about Trump’s very open corruption.
As Glasser wrote in that New Yorker piece, Trump is not happy being the most powerful person in the world. He wants to have the most luxurious plane in the world. The more glittery the better. Remember the photo of Trump’s luxurious and glittery version of the Oval Office?
”Air Force One is now 31 years old,” Trump told Glasser in a 2021 interview. “People come in from, especially the Middle East countries, with brand new 747-800s, the brand-new super-duper-new one, and we have planes that are 31 years old.”
How much does that plane-envy, not to mention autocracy-envy and palace-envy, tell you about Trump?
As Bruce Springsteen explained in “Badlands”: “Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain’t satisfied ’til he rules everything.”
At a concert in Manchester, Great Britain, the other day, Springsteen accused Trump of being “corrupt” and “treasonous,” among other crimes against humanity.
Now you might think someone in Trump’s world would explain to him that a president should be above responding to criticism from a rock star, even a Springsteen-level rock star.
Actually no one would think that. In a social media post, Trump called Springsteen “untalented,” “a jerk” and “this dried-up prune of a rocker.”
Springsteen may know it’s beneath him to reply to Trump. But he did end his Manchester concert with Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.” You can watch the live version here.
Dylan wrote it years before anyone had heard of Trump, but the song definitely anticipated him. That’s why Dylan won a Nobel Prize and why Trump, who’s desperate to win the Peace Prize, never will.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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