From Slate Magazine · · 1m 20s
Capitulation Nation: Who Buckled Under Trump 2.0
Jacob Weisberg names the lawyers, judges, and senators who folded fast, and the few who didn't.
In brief
Jacob Weisberg names the lawyers, judges, and senators who folded fast, and the few who didn't. Institutions don't get rolled by force alone. They get rolled by leaders who trade a fight they might lose for a deal that protects nobody. Originally reported by Slate Magazine.
The deal on a napkin
Brad Karp, one of the country's top lawyers, cut a deal with Trump in the first days of the second term. It amounted to five vague bullet points on an unsigned page.
“five flabby bullet points on an unsigned piece of paper”
Paul, Weiss protects nobody
Dahlia Lithwick and Weisberg pull apart the firm's agreement with Trump. It bought quiet for one firm and shelter for no one else in the profession.
Roberts plays pretend
The Chief Justice is treating Trump as a run-of-the-mill Republican president, as if the job were unchanged and the norms still held.
“Chief Justice John Roberts is pretending the president is a generic Republican.”
A bet on prestige
Roberts is wagering the Court can keep its standing while the Justice Department openly defies federal judges. Weisberg calls that bet fatal.
McConnell built the cage
The Senate's great institutionalist remade the judiciary, and that judiciary handed the president power to shove the Senate aside entirely.
Where the line holds
Harvard refused to make a deal, the first sign of a counterforce. The open question is Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine, and what he does if tested around the midterms.
The one thing
Institutions don't get rolled by force alone. They get rolled by leaders who trade a fight they might lose for a deal that protects nobody.
