Donald Trump: no more Mr. Nice Guy

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to TIME magazine. The article finally dropped on Tuesday and contains lots of interesting little nuggets about what Trump’s plans are for a second term, were he to defeat President Joe Biden this fall, and how his mindset has changed from his first go as president. Reporter Eric Cortellessa notes the Mar-a-Lago chief’s attitude shift in his opener: “Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: he was too nice.”This sentiment will be music to the ears of populist hardliners who felt the former…

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to TIME magazine. The article finally dropped on Tuesday and contains lots of interesting little nuggets about what Trump’s plans are for a second term, were he to defeat President Joe Biden this fall, and how his mindset has changed from his first go as president. Reporter Eric Cortellessa notes the Mar-a-Lago chief’s attitude shift in his opener: “Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: he was too nice.”

This sentiment will be music to the ears of populist hardliners who felt the former president conceded too much, too often in his first term. Trump offers more specific feelings about former cabinet and administration officials who now speak poorly of him — some of whom actively opposed his agenda while he was in office: “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody. I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”

It’s not surprising that Trump feels this way after multiple criminal indictments, state-driven attempts to remove him from presidential ballots and massive civil judgments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, all cheered on by a hostile and vicious media. How could he possibly have the appetite to be conciliatory toward political opponents who have gone further than ever before to not just discredit him, but to financially ruin his family and put him in prison?

Trump told TIME that he is interested in pardoning January 6 rioters, ramping up tariffs on China, expanding qualified immunity protections for police officers, ending sanctuary cities, getting rid of electric vehicle mandates, using the National Guard to quell out-of-control campus protests and to assist with a massive deportation program of illegal aliens — and would consider leaving NATO if other countries don’t pay their fair share. Back in 2019 I was the first to report that the Trump administration had plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to remove illegals, but the program never materialized. Cortellessa suggested to the president that his plans for a second term were “bold,” and Trump replied that they were “common sense.”

Although media reactions to the interview have been apoplectic, characterizing Trump’s proposals as dictatorial and fascistic, the former president made some key commitments. He confirmed he would comply with all Supreme Court rulings — which is more than can be said about Biden, who routinely finds new ways to defy SCOTUS in handing out student loan forgiveness — and would absolutely leave office after his second term. He also pushed back on the reporter’s claim that he “scared” people with his obvious joke that he would be a day-one-dictator: “That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke. Everybody knows that.”

He added cheekily, “I think a lot of people like it.”

Is he wrong?

-Amber Duke

On our radar

GOP DAREDEVILS The Wall Street Journal reports there is a growing number of adrenaline junkies in the Republican caucus, including a group who plan to jump out of airplanes over Normandy to commemorate D-Day this June. The high-risk activities have sparked concern among some members as the GOP majority thins in the House.

‘FULL-ON POLITICAL PROPAGANDA’ An OnlyFans creator said she was paid by a PR firm to promote Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson on her social media channels. After Biden nominated Jackson to the highest court, Farha Khalidi was allegedly asked to say she felt “represented” by a person of color being on SCOTUS.

WEEDING OUT Attorney General Merrick Garland recommended loosening restrictions on marijuana, reclassifying it from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III. The proposal will next be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget.

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NYPD clears Columbia protest

Columbia University finally called in the cops after its Hamilton Hall was breached by student protesters, with videos showing activists climbing into windows, “decolonizing” and renaming the building after an IDF-killed Palestinian child.

NYPD forces, clad in riot gear, encircled the campus around 9 p.m. Tuesday evening before shutting it down. The police confirmed Wednesday morning that 282 arrests were made at both Columbia and the City College of New York.

For context, the operation represented the biggest escalation yet in what has become the epicenter of a nationwide protest movement. And the taking of Hamilton Hall carries historical symbolism; protesters previously barricaded themselves in the building on April 23, 1968, protesting the Vietnam War and alleged discrimination after the university announced plans to build a gym in Harlem.

New York City mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Wednesday that although plenty of students were arrested, the worst of the protest was “led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university.”

Meanwhile, a resolution to protests at Brown University came in calmer fashion. Protesters and administrators reached an agreement Tuesday, with demonstrators vowing to close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel. The university’s agreement marked the first time an American college acquiesced to such a vote since the protests began.

At University of California, Los Angeles, around 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters clashed with activists on campus. Three hours after the altercations began, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass ordered LAPD to break up the demonstration.

Similar skirmishes have been seen since last night at places ranging from the University of Arizona to Tulane University. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in the last ten days. Tensions are high nationwide, including on Capitol Hill, where representatives will vote on the controversial Antisemitism Awareness Act. The legislation would broaden the definition of antisemitism, a move with which some organizations like the ACLU and Human Rights Watch have expressed discomfort.

–Juan P. Villasmil

Daszak on the rack

In recent weeks, Congress has found the spirit of bipartisanship as large majorities in both the House and Senate voted to send billions of dollars of aid to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. This Republican-Democrat handshake continued Wednesday at the expense of Dr. Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit at the heart of the quest for the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

In his long-awaited public testimony before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Daszak doubled down on his opposition to the theory that Covid-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the controversial lab where Daszak’s detractors, like the subcommittee’s chairman, Congressman Brad Wenstrup, accuse him of conducting “dangerous gain-of-function research.”

Democrats on the subcommittee, such as ranking member Raul Ruiz, told the doctor that they are concerned that he avoided questions from this committee in order to evade consequences. Representative Debbie Dingell also expressed concern that Daszak’s “EcoHealth has proven to be careless and imprecise with its federal funding.” Daszak, for his part, argued with the committee, “I only told you the truth.”

While Democrats and Republicans used Daszak as a punching bag for over four hours, where they diverged was on where the pandemic originated — and what to do with Daszak. Ruiz repeatedly emphasized that he has not come to the conclusion on whether Covid-19 emerged from a wet market or a lab leak. Democrats were also not excited by Republicans gunning for Daszak’s scalp.

The GOP members recommended a “formal debarment of and a criminal investigation into EcoHealth and its president.” The recommendation stems from a report, released hours before the hearing, that details EcoHealth’s repeated failures of grant requirements, including “a potentially dangerous gain-of-function experiment conducted at the WIV.”

Following the hearing, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a member of the subcommittee who pressed Daszak on gain of function research, told The Spectator that he failed to convince her that the Department of Justice shouldn’t investigate him.

Daszak “did not reassure me,” she said. He “was not transparent, continued to dodge the OIG report indicating there was not proper oversight of grant’s awardees and sub-awardees, and was doing gain of function research regardless of terminology.”

This hearing was the highest-profile the subcommittee had held to date. Daszak’s testimony likely never would have happened had then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy not established the select committee last year. Its big date with Anthony Fauci is up next on June 3.

–Matthew Foldi