Round-up: Signalgate fallout. Trump's socialism. Stefanik stiffed. U.S. threat assessment.

Analysis of the week's events

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The subtext to Signalgate

The Signalgate scandal is continuing to grow, with calls for a congressional investigation and - this being the United States - court cases incoming. It wouldn’t surprise me if the administration does something drastic to try to end the media cycle and change the conversation soon. But even if they do, the scandal has brought into the open a big split within MAGAworld.

What struck most of us as a pretty clear case of reckless and probably criminal behavior on the part of every participant in that messaging group is instead being parsed in much conservative media as a case of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vs. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz.

Why? Because they represent different wings of the conservative approach to foreign policy. Waltz is a traditional hawk and Hegseth is “America First” incarnate. The struggle over who to blame for this debacle is a proxy war between these two worldviews.

And that’s very ominous for Waltz. In his various statements on the scandal, Trump has not uttered a word critical of Hegseth but has been much more measured in his comments about Waltz.

With his more internationalist views, Waltz is indeed a poor fit for the administration. The nature of the scandal could also hardly be worse for him. Here you have someone already considered an elite-loving neoconservative adding to a group chat the editor of The Atlantic, one of the most famous neocons in America and a man who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trumpy media has been more interested in why he had Goldberg’s number on his phone in the first place than any other aspect of the scandal.

Trump might not sack Waltz now because he doesn’t like to appear to give in to media pressure. But I would be amazed if Waltz is still National Security Advisor a year from now. And the fact that he has lost face and credibility matters in the meantime. The NSA, whose job it is to coordinate other departments and make them stick to the president’s agenda, can only be effective if he is known to have the president’s support.

And if he doesn’t, he ought to resign - even if he hasn’t recently participated in sharing classified information on a commercial messaging app.

Stefanik won’t be going to the UN

The White House has withdrawn the nomination of Elise Stefanik to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik has become one of Trump’s major allies in Congress, and the UN ambassador job was her reward for years of sucking up. But now the White House has decided that they need her to say in Congress after all.

The UN ambassador gig is a strange one, particularly in a Republican administration. Republicans are actively hostile to the UN, so you’d think it wouldn’t be a plum position. But because it provides the opportunity to act belligerently to the representatives of other countries while carrying few real-world stakes, it’s a fairly good opportunity for MAGA figures to appeal to the base while looking like they’re getting some serious foreign policy experience.

Stefanik probably hoped that it would work that way for her, allowing her to proceed to a more high-profile job later on in Trump’s term. But it was not to be. If Stefanik goes to the UN job, then her seat in Congress would likely be vacant for most of the year before a special election was organized to pick a replacement. And Republicans are getting nervous about holding seats in special elections as public anger against the Trump administration grows. With one of the tiniest Congressional majorities in decades, they can’t afford to lose Stefanik.

Alas, what is no doubt a great victory for the United Nations bodes ill for Republicans in Congress, who are getting increasingly nervous about passing major legislation with their razor-thin majority. Stefanik sticking around means one more vote is in the bag for Trump, but it still doesn’t mean he’s going to have enough.

Trump’s socialism

This week, Trump announced that he would be imposing 25% tariffs on imports of cars and car parts. More quietly, he also did something else: threatened American carmakers with punitive action if they raise prices.

There’s a name for this crude use of the state to try to control complex markets for political ends: central economic planning. It tends not to work very well, especially when you’re really bad at it.