The Briefing, Vol. XIII, Issue 10
Mar. 10, 2025
This week:
- Trump’s speech is a triumph
- Will despondent Democrats shut down government to spite him?
- Sen. Cassidy may face a primary challenge
Outlook
Presidential address: It was the longest presidential address ever to a joint session of Congress, but it was also probably the best speech of President Trump’s career.
Here are some highlights:
- Trump dared Democrats to keep treating him like a pariah they can’t afford to “normalize,” knowing they would come off worse for it: “This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. I can find a cure to the most devastating disease … or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.” They took the bait, as we discuss below.
- Border crossings are down by more than 90 percent since Trump took office about 50 days ago, and he used the fact to prove that the border chaos under President Joe Biden had been a choice.
“Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history, and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded … The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”
He thus discarded as disingenuous the narrative promoted by many in the media during 2024 — that Republicans had somehow perpetuated or even created the problem by failing to pass a bill that would have done little.
It was a nice touch that he signed an order renaming a wildlife refuge after the murdered victim of crime by illegal alien gang members.
- Although it remains one of the more controversial aspects of his presidency, Trump touted his tariff threats as having gotten results from Mexico:
“Five nights ago, Mexican authorities, because of our tariff policies being imposed on them, think of this, handed over to us 29 of the biggest cartel leaders in their country. That has never happened before. They want to make us happy. First time ever.”
- Trump called for a new crime bill, taking a page from Bill Clinton’s playbook. It may or may not pass, but it will, if considered, force an uncomfortable vote for Democrats in Congress. Again, one of the features of this speech is that it took such great pains to identify and stress every Democratic pressure point.
- Naturally, that included the problem of gender surgeries, in this case on children — transgenderism being the single issue used to greatest effect against Kamala Harris in 2024. Trump demanded a vote to ban them. Here is yet another pressure point where Democrats will have to take uncomfortable votes. More on this topic below.
There were a few more gems, but that’s a reasonable sample. Expect Trump’s numbers to improve after this speech as new polling is released this week.
Democrats actually in disarray: In this context, the Democratic Party seems surprisingly rudderless. It continues to inflict unnecessary wounds upon itself, entirely because of its obeisance to the party’s far left. We will get to House Democrats’ behavior at Trump’s speech in a moment. But first, the vote that probably rules out Democratic Senate control any time too soon.
- Transgenderism: Just in time for International Women’s Day, Senate Republicans forced a vote on the House-passed bill barring males from girls’ and women’s sports under Title IX. It was a smart move. The bill failed to get the 60 votes required to pass, but every single Senate Democrat present voted against it. The 2026 Republican ads write themselves: “Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) [or other Democrat] is for they/them, [Republican alternative] is for you.”
To say this issue is a political loser for the Democrats is to restate the obvious. Democrats have learned nothing, it suggests.
There has been one development, however. Last week marked the first time any prominent elected Democrat has starting taking baby-steps away from this one. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), eyeing a presidential bid, did not actually flip on the issue, but he did at least acknowledge in an interview with Charlie Kirk that female athletes might have a point when they claim that competition against males as unfair. Believe it or not, even this is progress for a Democratic politician. Perhaps it is the beginning of a bigger shift in the range of acceptable Democratic opinion.
To confirm that the baby-stepping is getting underway on this issue, former Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who lost re-election in November, also had a few things to say on the issue while appearing on Bill Maher’s show. He said that men in women’s sports “is a bunch of crap.” However, he also claimed that this issue is overblown and hasn’t happened in his state (even though it has).
Here’s the challenge Democrats face: Baby steps will not be enough. They need to move faster. If this issue really is so overblown and applies to only a minuscule number of people, then how do they explain to voters why they are so stubbornly unwilling to stop defending it?
- Response to Trump: As for a real political strategy for combating Trump — that was on display last Tuesday at Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress. It wasn’t pretty. Indeed, it is as if Democrats have decided the only way to combat Trump is to be even bigger jerks than they say he is.
Recall that in 2009, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) was officially reprimanded by the House for his lack of decorum after he shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama, who had just made an untrue statement about his healthcare bill. Democrats responded to Trump by taking that to the next level. They wore t-shirts with messages, flashed “protest paddles,” and staged walkouts. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), heckled Trump long and loudly enough to get himself tossed from the chamber by the Sergeant at Arms and censured by a vote of his colleagues, including ten Democrats.
Democrats also refused to stand and clap for anything during the address, just as Trump had goaded them to do in the speech. This meant they sat on their hands rather than stand for a 13-year-old cancer survivor with a dream to join the U.S. Secret Service, or for the hostage recently returned from Russia, or for the mother whose daughter was murdered by Tren de Aragua gangsters.
The one thing Democrats did cheer for was when Trump remarked about “hundreds of billions” having been spent on the Ukraine War. Some of them even applauded his sarcastic follow-up remark — “You want to keep [the war] going another five years?”
Town hall 2017 redux: There has been a second, less-noticed (at least in some parts of the country) response to Trump: an attempt to astroturf public opinion. This includes fake “local news” organizations closely tied to the Democratic Party, but also and especially out-of-town angry crowds showing up out of nowhere at Republican House members’ and senators’ town hall meetings for locals.
Democrats launched a similar effort in early 2017, which achieved more widespread success as Republican members were caught off guard by the mobs. But as then, this year’s effort smacks of inauthenticity. It’s just not plausible, in a county that voted 86 percent for Trump, just one month after he takes office, for a town hall to be packed with enraged liberals without some level of well-funded third-party coordination, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.
No one has proven that the rowdy attendees are themselves being paid, but the operation is clearly choreographed and inorganic — neither spontaneous nor reflective of local public opinion in the places where these meetings are being staged.
Symptoms of depression: All these feeble responses aside, there is no salve for the Left’s despondency over Trump’s return so far, a month and a half into his second term.
In public discourse, their desperation takes on three different forms.
- One is the very common accusation that Trump is an authoritarian. As a political accusation, this one just hasn’t landed. For one, voters are always oblivious to process issues. For another, this boy has simply cried wolf too many times. Liberal academics and Democratic officeholders have so badly abused “constitutional crisis” as code for “disagrees with me” that no one pays attention anymore.
- The second form involves an assertion that Trump is responsible for some current negative trend. For example, they are trying to blame Trump for not instantaneously lowering egg prices, or other consumer prices, or for causing unemployment to rise.
It is already difficult to make this land just because Trump has been in office for less than two months. But when the February payroll data also show no significant change in the unemployment rate — it went from 4.0 to 4.1 percent — it is just impossible. Where is all of that major damage Trump is supposed to be doing?
- The third form, which became more common in the last week or so, consists of a simple assertion that Trump is flailing — that he has entered into negative approval territory. This appears, however, to be based almost entirely on a single outlier poll. Surely Trump will go underwater eventually — it has been his natural state throughout his political career — but the Democrats’ eagerness to get him there more quickly by jumping the rhetorical gun only makes them look silly.
This strategy resembles the desperate attempt to make former Vice President Kamala Harris seem like a brilliant nominee — a completely astroturfed media campaign that ultimately fooled no one.
So that’s where we are today. The Left is struggling to accept what has happened and is happening right now. So far, they have no good answers.
One result is that there appears to be an enormous demand for “consolation reading” for liberals — essays suggesting that Trump’s downfall is imminent, of which there have been quite a few in the last two weeks.
To be sure, the Democratic Party is never out for good — not even when it is down. They can still place some limited hope in the many lawsuits challenging Trump’s early executive orders and firings. Note that even here, the chance of winning is not good for Democrats. Eventually, these cases are headed for the Supreme Court, which, although it will rule against Trump sometimes, can be expected to side with his position most of the time.
Is there a winning Dem strategy? An alternative strategy for Democrats might be to put on some “reasonable-face,” if only for a couple of months. In other words, they could moderate their tone and position, drop the “Trump is Hitler” nonsense, and then just wait for him to screw up and fall out of favor, as all presidents do eventually.
Without sacrificing anything in which their party believed as recently as 2004, Democrats could (to name a few examples) embrace immigration enforcement, endorse a national tough-on-crime strategy, abandon transgenderism as a bridge too far, and acknowledge the need to produce and export much more natural gas, if only to help Ukraine against Russia. They could even buy into a permanent bipartisan tax package with Trump, on grounds that it benefits low income workers (exemptions on taxes and tips are obviously not for billionaires) and their own constituents (many Democrats in states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California want to remove the SALT cap on state and local tax deductions).
But trust us, this is just not going to happen. Democrats are still in denial, at least one more brutal election loss away from hitting rock bottom and attempting any sort of bipartisan collaboration.
Government shutdown: Which leads us to the question this week with the highest stakes, Democrats will have the opportunity to shut down the government after March 14, if they want to.
The vote in the House on a continuing resolution will be very close if all Democrats vote no. And Senate Republicans cannot reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster without at least seven Democrats cooperating.
So, how far are Democrats willing to take their absolute resistance to Trump and their denial of his legitimacy as president? Will they shut down the government on Saturday?
Governor 2026
Alabama: Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) may be preparing to run for governor rather than for re-election to the U.S. Senate, as Gov. Kay Ivey (R) is term-limited. He will reportedly make a decision by May. His choice won’t have too many implications for party politics, given the state’s deep red hue, but it could set off a massive scramble for his Senate seat.
Senate 2026
Louisiana: Is a primary challenge to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) in the cards? State Treasurer and former U.s. Rep. John Fleming (R) has released an internal poll giving him a lead of between two and 13 points over Cassidy, depending on what other names are included in the field.
This is a race where Trump would likely endorse, given that Fleming is a former Trump deputy chief of staff and Cassidy voted to convict him in his 2021 impeachment.
Louisiana now uses a conventional primary system (primary elections next April) instead of its classic jungle format for federal elections.
North Carolina: Former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) leads incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis (R) in a poll taken last week by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, 47 to 43 percent. Those are terrible numbers for an incumbent, but take them with a grain of salt, considering the source.
This race represents the soft underbelly of the Senate GOP in 2026 — the incumbent they are most likely to lose.
