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Last week Donald Trump demolished the East Wing, forever scarring The People’s House. We didn’t just lose history. We lost the future. Because the East Wing was also the main visitor entrance to the White House, the location people from all over the world entered for public tours of the White House. Among my cherished memories of raising four children are visits with each of them, more than one with some of them, to the White House.
Donald Trump has put an end to that. All tours have been suspended indefinitely. The White House website may be claiming to welcome us to a “Golden Age,” but in reality, Donald Trump has launched a stark, physical attack on democracy for no good reason, simply because he can. Americans need food on their tables and affordable medical care. Instead, they will get a gilded ballroom for the ultra-wealthy.
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This is the message from the president as we enter the week ahead. His house, not our house. It’s hard to avoid the thought that no homeowner, and certainly not a temporary tenant, plans a major renovation like this to a house they’re planning to leave in three years.
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I’m in San Francisco this evening, beginning the second week of my book tour, so you’ll forgive me if tonight’s post is brief. I’ve had the most remarkable time meeting with so many of you, signing your books, and having time to chat. I’m encouraged by your stories of what you’re doing in your communities. We are so resilient. As I write in the book, it’s so easy to see our weaknesses—and Trump exploits them like they are all that matters and his success is inevitable—when in reality, it’s our strengths that count. Woven together, they are how we keep democracy. We can do this as long as we face the facts together and stay committed to doing the work in front of us, as long as we each do what we can and what we are best suited to.
A friend wrote something important to me in this regard: “I read the book this weekend. It was like a civic salve. Sometimes I feel like a sucker or like I’m getting too precious about norms and traditions amid the onslaught—but the book honestly made me feel less crazy and alone. Something very subversive about arguing for the fundamentals right now.” That’s exactly how I hoped it would make people feel when they read it, because that was what I needed too. I hope everyone who’s had a chance to read it is finding it helpful.
This week, we’ll be following a lot of important legal developments including the proceedings in the Abrego Garcia case, where a motion asking the judge to dismiss the prosecution due to selective and vindictive prosecution is on the table. The government is now trying to deport him to Liberia, and his lawyers fear that is merely a pretext for permitting that country to deport him back to El Salvador, where he fears torture and imprisonment.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has responded to House Republicans’ request that he testify behind closed doors, part of their efforts to recast the prosecution of Donald Trump as political. Smith’s response: only in public.
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The law firm Covington & Burling, which was sanctioned by Trump for representing Smith, continues to do so. House Republicans should be careful of what they ask for. And with Trump’s demand for $230 million as damages for a supposed wrongful prosecution on the table, this is the time to air Smith’s evidence against Trump.
This week, we will also see a response from Jim Comey’s legal team to the government’s request that the court move quickly to let it review unspecified evidence from other investigations. We’ll be reading that carefully once it comes in.
Heather Cox Richardson and I will be together for a Substack Live tomorrow at 5 p.m. ET. I’m sure you have a lot of questions for us! Please drop them here, and we’ll get to as many of them as we can.
We’re in this together,
Joyce