![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!gHyb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F83377491-23bd-43b5-bff8-db445f75eea7_5472x3648.jpeg\")
<\/a>Make America Healthy Again hats are given out at a news conference on removing synthetic dyes from America’s food supply at the Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Posner\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\nby William Kristol<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if Donald Trump has a personal health problem. But I\u2019m confident he has a political health care problem.<\/p>\n
At 8:15 a.m. yesterday, bright and early on Labor Day, our president took to Truth Social. That of course isn\u2019t unusual. Trump posts at all hours on any day. But this was, for him, an unusual type of pronouncement. He wasn\u2019t boasting about invented achievements. He wasn\u2019t ranting about dastardly opponents. Instead, he seemed . . . concerned. Almost puzzled. Dare one say, pensive?<\/p>\n
Okay, \u201cpensive\u201d may be overstating it. Still, Trump did appear to be concerned.<\/p>\n The Centers for Disease Control is \u201cbeing ripped apart,\u201d he fretted. Surely Donald Trump hasn\u2019t suddenly developed an appreciation for the importance of not \u201cripping apart\u201d government agencies. But he is, I\u2019d judge, alarmed about the political effects of what\u2019s happening there. And who\u2019s been doing that ripping apart? His own secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, said on Friday that Kennedy is \u201ca crown jewel\u201d of Trump\u2019s administration. Trump\u2019s post yesterday did not repeat this encomium. In fact, it didn\u2019t even include a statement of confidence in his HHS secretary. To the contrary: Trump says that Kennedy is one of those \u201crip[ping] themselves apart\u201d in the controversy.<\/p>\n Crown jewels don\u2019t rip themselves apart.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s post also followed a long article in Sunday\u2019s Washington Post<\/a> claiming<\/a> that a strong bond had developed between Trump and Kennedy. The Post also quoted Trump\u2019s leading outside strategist, Steve Bannon, on the importance of Kennedy to Trump\u2019s overall authoritarian project:<\/p>\n Bobby Kennedy is the instrument, he is the linkage that pulls MAGA and MAHA together. That combination, if we grow it smartly, is going to be unbeatable.<\/p>\n But Bannon didn\u2019t seem confident that the linkage was \u201cgrowing smartly.\u201d Indeed, the Post reported that Bannon had \u201csuggested that Trump should use his Truth Social media platform to defend Kennedy\u2019s moves at CDC ahead of his scheduled appearance before a Senate panel Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n But Trump didn\u2019t do that yesterday. Instead he expressed concern about the CDC being ripped apart.<\/p>\n Bannon\u2019s grandiose future plans for a transformational political coalition notwithstanding, I suspect Trump is aware that Kennedy\u2019s assault on Americans\u2019 health is right now a problem for his administration. He\u2019s also aware that, as Lauren Egan reported yesterday<\/a>, his administration is under assault on health care more broadly.<\/p>\n After all, Trump has always insisted he wouldn\u2019t cut Medicaid and still insists he hasn\u2019t, even as the reconciliation bill that he championed and signed did so. Democrats are going to make reversing those cuts a centerpiece of their September messaging. They\u2019re going to hammer Republicans for every rural hospital closure that happens between now and November 2026. Trump knows that\u2019s a vulnerability.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not the only vulnerability. Last week, Ryan Fournier, head of Students for Trump, interrupted his normal Trump cheerleading and transgender bashing to warn about<\/a> the political consequences of allowing federal support to end for the insurance premiums on the state exchanges set up in the Affordable Care Act:<\/p>\n 2026 READOUT: Trump voters rely on premium tax credits. Letting them vanish means higher costs, lower turnout, and a Democrat Senate. Not an option. Republicans must extend premium tax credits.<\/p>\n As of now, Republicans haven\u2019t acted and don\u2019t intend to act to extend those tax credits. They expire at the end of this year. Insurers are already preparing to raise premiums. Trump\u2019s pollster, Fabrizio Ward, has warned that<\/a> Republicans in competitive congressional districts could see their deficit among registered voters expand to 15 points if the subsidies aren\u2019t extended.<\/p>\n So, as we head into the September showdown on next year\u2019s budget, Republicans have handed Democrats a politically powerful agenda on the issue of health care: Undo the Medicaid cuts. Keep the health insurance tax credits. Provide vaccines.<\/p>\n Trump is now on the unpopular side of these arguments. He doesn\u2019t care about the substance, and will be tempted to give in and take these attacks off the table. But that would fracture his base. MAHA doesn\u2019t like vaccines. Many congressional Republicans, not just the Freedom Caucus, hate concessions on Medicaid or Obamacare. So Trump\u2019s path ahead is rocky.<\/p>\n The Democrats\u2019 path, on the other hand, is pretty simple: Promote and publicize doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and patients and their families, explaining the damage Trump is doing. And then spend all month in D.C. fighting on their behalf.<\/p>\n In 1994, 2010, and 2018, the midterms focused on health care. And they were very bad for the party in power. This September is key to a repeat performance in 2026.<\/p>\n Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n Bulwark Movie Club! Sarah Longwell, JVL, and Sonny Bunch all watched Armando Iannucci\u2019s darkly hilarious 2017 movie \u201cThe Death of Stalin.\u201d Watch along and try not to make too many connections to our current politics.<\/a><\/p>\n Michael Anton\u2019s Final Flight… Before he quits the Trump administration, the author of the infamous \u201cFlight 93 article\u201d will try to make sense of \u2018America First.\u2019 Good luck with that, writes <\/a>GABRIEL SCHOENFELD.<\/a><\/p>\n Hungary Could Free Itself from Orb\u00e1nism Next Spring… An upstart opposition leader, P\u00e9ter Magyar, is shrewdly capitalizing on the prime minister\u2019s blunders, reports <\/a>H. DAVID BAER<\/a>.<\/p>\n Can Democrats Stop Bleeding Voters? SARAH LONGWELL and Third Way\u2019s MATT BENNETT join MONA CHAREN to talk about tanking Democratic voter registration numbers<\/a>, words you should never say, the working class, the donors, and more. All that on the latest Mona Charen Show.<\/p>\n TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS A BILLION: Here is a simple fact about import tariffs: The importing party pays them. If a U.S. company tries to import a product today from a country on which Trump has placed tariffs, that company will both pay the exporter the cost of the product and pay a tariff to the U.S. government. This is basic, fundamental, 2 + 2 = 4 stuff. It\u2019s like saying shoppers, not stores, pay sales tax or that workers, not their companies, pay income tax.<\/p>\n Donald Trump, however, is famously unable to grasp this simple fact. Over the years, he has claimed dozens of times that other countries pay the cost of tariffs\u2014which is a bedrock reason why he sees them as such a beautiful and useful economic tool. And because Trump is unable to grasp the fact that Americans pay tariffs, the task falls to the rest of the right-wing media and political ecosystem to keep the simple truth safely away from his constituents.<\/p>\n So witness this remarkable Fox News exchange<\/a> over the weekend between presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump (here playing the role of \u201cjournalistic interviewer\u201d) and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:<\/p>\n LARA TRUMP: They will say that the tariffs are a hidden tax on the consumers here in the country. But give us the reality.<\/p>\n BESSENT: If they\u2019re so bad, and the American consumer\u2019s paying them, why do we hear the European companies, or the Chinese companies, or the Chinese complaining about tariffs, if it\u2019s all being borne by the American people? It\u2019s just not happening.<\/p>\n Now, for those of us whose brains aren\u2019t rotting out our ears, Bessent\u2019s hypothetical is easy to answer. European companies and Chinese companies suffer from American consumers being forced to pay more for their products, because it makes those consumers less likely to buy those products. Not exactly rocket science.<\/p>\n But what\u2019s particularly interesting here is that this isn\u2019t a flailing face-saving response to a hostile interviewer. It\u2019s the friendliest-turf discussion imaginable. The White House itself tweeted<\/a> out the clip afterward. This is political messaging under Trump 2.0: Inconvenient facts aren\u2019t to be swept under the rug, but loudly denounced as ridiculous lib nonsense.<\/p>\n \u2018GREAT\u2019 IS DEBATABLE: They say there\u2019s no bad ideas in a brainstorm. But the \u201cpostwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration,\u201d which the Washington Post reported on<\/a> Sunday, certainly contains quite a few\u2014ah\u2014creative suggestions.<\/p>\n The 38-page prospectus seen by The Washington Post envisions at least a temporary relocation of all of Gaza\u2019s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls \u201cvoluntary\u201d departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.<\/p>\n Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new \u201cAI-powered, smart cities\u201d to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food. . . .<\/p>\n Called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) now distributing food inside the enclave. Financial planning was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group.<\/p>\n \u201cForced relocation of the entire Gaza population\u201d is a cruel enough idea that even Trump might have trouble getting behind it. But \u201ccrypto-based relocation of the entire Gaza population to Make Gaza Great Again\u201d is the sort of big crackpot proposal it\u2019s easy to imagine him getting excited about. Nothing about the plan is official U.S. policy . . . yet.<\/p>\n A SAD UPDATE: The House Oversight Committee is withdrawing its request for Robert Mueller to testify this week about the government\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigations. The reason? Mueller\u2019s family announced over the weekend he is suffering from Parkinson\u2019s disease. The New York Times report<\/a>s:<\/p>\n In recent months, Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, has had difficulty speaking and experienced mobility issues, people familiar with his condition said. . . . \u201cBob was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease in the summer of 2021,\u201d the family said in a statement to The New York Times. \u201cHe retired from the practice of law at the end of that year. He taught at his law school alma mater during the fall of both 2021 and 2022, and he retired at the end of 2022. His family asks that his privacy be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mueller became F.B.I. director two weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. During his tenure leading the bureau, he had a reputation as a commanding figure, known for not only his ability to remember minute facts about major national security cases but also his physical stamina.<\/p>\n Questions arose about Mr. Mueller\u2019s health after he delivered a halting performance before Congress in 2019 about his report on ties between Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign and Russia, and whether Mr. Trump had obstructed that investigation.<\/p>\n In retrospect, the Mueller investigation during Trump\u2019s first term feels like a sea-change moment in our political history. Mueller, a former FBI director, was known for his poker-straight principles and by-the-book fastidiousness when he was appointed to lead the special-counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Rather than simply cooperate with the investigation\u2014or even quietly stonewall it\u2014Trump fought Mueller tooth and nail every step of the way, denouncing the investigation as a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and taking a number of actions<\/a> against it that arguably amounted to obstruction of justice. Going by the preexisting rules, these would have been bad, self-incriminating, moves. But Trump rewrote the rule book\u2014and the post-truth \u201cwitch hunt\u201d strategy has been serving him well ever since. Mueller finished his report, endured a very choppy congressional testimony that looks different now under the current light, and immediately left public life. Trump\u2019s still here.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n