Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s politics newsletter that is thinking about applying to be the new special prosecutor in the Georgia election case. Do you think it’s OK to make a couple of jokes in the cover letter?
This week: Congress is one step closer to banning TikTok, but will the next step ever come? Senate Democrats and Donald Trump have concerns. Rep. Lauren Boebert is facing yet another hurdle toward having a job come 2025; the wicked universe has conspired to force political writers to cover Aaron Rodgers; and the Surge is going down to Texas to get some veneers after watching a great promotional video from the governor of South Dakota.
First: Hur-pa derp.
By Jim Newell
The special counsel who investigated President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents testified before the House Judiciary Committee this week. Like most high-profile hearings, it was of zero utility to the American people. Democrats argued that Trump is just as forgetful as Biden, and that Hur’s portrayal of Biden as someone whom juries would find a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” was a partisan hit job. Committee Democrats released the transcript of Hur’s interviews with Biden and asserted that Hur made too much out of Biden forgetting various dates. Republicans, meanwhile, pressed Hur for not indicting Biden, asking him why the president had gotten off the hook for being old. (Hur reinforced that the way Biden would present to the jury was only one element in his decision not to charge.) As with the last time a special counsel testified about his report before Congress—Robert Mueller, in 2019—the Surge has to wonder why precious, fleeting time is spent on such spectacles. Like Mueller, Hur would respond to questions only by reiterating something in his report or saying “That wasn’t in my report.” He served as a prop in another talking-point skirmish between the two parties about which unpopular candidate is more senile or prone to document crime, the story of our thrilling times. Onward, then, to the next special counsel who resolves nothing to anyone’s satisfaction while setting American politics further aflame along the way.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered a speech Thursday laying out the obstacles to a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. They were: “Hamas, and the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways,” “radical right-wing Israelis in government and society,” “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas,” and “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” He said that “any” long-term cease-fire “proposal that leaves Hamas with meaningful power is unacceptable,” and went after the news media and left-wing protesters who don’t note Hamas’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. He also said, though, that “the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7” and that Netanyahu has allowed “his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” He called for a new election in Israel. In short: Everything has to be the opposite of what it is now. Well, guess which plank earned Schumer the most flak? Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said that it “is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel.” Speaker Mike Johnson called a second special press conference at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia to observe that Schumer’s call “is not only highly inappropriate, it’s just plain wrong for an American leader to play such a divisive role in Israeli politics while our closest ally in the region is in an existential battle for its very survival.” Israeli politicians both supportive and critical of Netanyahu’s leadership distanced themselves from Schumer. It’s a big step for someone like Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Jewish politician in American history, to offer even a balanced critique like this; it acknowledged the split within his party on the issue. Republicans’ reaction acknowledged the consensus within theirs.
It feels like years since the Surge has given the big dog his very own entry, in part because nothing changes with him: He says crazy things and makes dictatorial threats, and he’s loved all the more for it within his party. But a couple of unusual digressions this week caught our attention. First, after years of saber rattling against China and consideration of a TikTok ban of his own, Trump came out against a bill that could potentially ban TikTok, arguing that it would only empower other tech companies, like Meta, that he despises. (How interesting that this happened after Trump’s broke ass met with a billionaire GOP megadonor, Jeff Yass, who has a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company.) The House easily passed the TikTok bill over his objections. The sound bite that may be more punishing for him throughout the election, though, regarded Social Security and Medicare. “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements,” he told CNBC on Monday. He quickly ran to Breitbart to clarify that he had strictly been talking about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, not the structure of the programs themselves. And understandably so! Trump broke with fiscal conservatives in his 2016 campaign when he pledged never to touch entitlements—he and Congress immediately went after Medicaid, keep in mind—and it helped him secure office. It wouldn’t make much political sense now for him to turn on that plank. But hey, “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting” were indeed the words that came out of his mouth. Perhaps, every once in a while, he should be held accountable for what he says.
The bill to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell off TikTok or face a ban in the United States indeed sailed through the House, by a 352-to-65 vote. Even with such broad support in the House, though, the Senate is emitting all the signs of slow-walking a bill to death without saying so. All Schumer would provide, in an unenthusiastic statement, was that “the Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House.” There’s a lot of talk among senators about how they need time to review and go through committee, yada yada yada. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, meanwhile, is prepping a to-be-released alternative that, she says, would be “more robust and long-term” than the House bill. In the background, TikTok has built an expensive lobbying operation including numerous former senators and members of Congress, along with former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Why is the Senate Democratic majority so resistant to swift action? Well, Democrats are already having issues with young voters, all of whom are hysterically addicted to this brain-melt app of dancing and political propaganda videos. That is all the more reason to ban it—as if we needed more! Ban, ban, BAN it!—and a touchy election-year reality that could see the issue swept under the rug.
Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a onetime idolized Tea Party conservative, had already announced he wouldn’t run for reelection after daring to voice that his party has gone crazy. This week, though, to the irritation of Speaker Johnson, Buck announced that he’d peace out next week. “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress,” Buck told CNN after his announcement, “and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.” Sure, it’s a tough situation up there. A side effect of Buck’s decision, though, is to complicate the race for his replacement. His district, Colorado’s 4th, is the one that Rep. Lauren Boebert had resettled in for a better chance at maintaining employment. In order to run in the special election for Buck’s seat—scheduled for June 25—Boebert would have had to resign her current seat. That would have A) given Democrats a chance to win a special election for Boebert’s seat, further imperiling the slim Republican majority, and B) deprived Boebert of a paycheck. Boebert announced on Thursday that she wouldn’t run in the special election for Buck’s seat but would remain on the ballot in the primary for the next Congress, which is also June 25. For Boebert to have a chance at a seat in the next Congress, then, primary voters will have to vote for one candidate in a special election, then Boebert in the primary for a full term—when other candidates in the race can compete in both. In a campaign statement, Boebert described Buck’s sudden departure as “a gift to the Uniparty” and “a swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election I’m winning by 25 points.” It’s unlikely that Buck has ever been invited to take part in a backroom deal with the Uniparty. But, yeah, he probably gamed out the implications.
The South Dakota governor posted a most unusual video to Twitter Monday morning. It was a five-minute, direct-to-camera promotional video for a cosmetic dentistry practice called Smile Texas. Boy howdy (that’s what they say in Texas) did Dr. “Tex” Davis of Texas put a real polish on those fangs. He did a “Texas-size” job; each of her teeth is now 7 feet tall. But what the hell was this video? Her office is saying little about why she posted it. Was the promo part of a barter to cover the dental services? Does Smile Texas know where the Noem skeletons are buried? Was she too fancy to have her dental work performed by a comely rattlesnake in the Badlands, as is custom in South Dakota? Perhaps some investigations will deliver answers. The immediate national political question is whether this will affect her chances of becoming Trump’s running mate. Eh, Trump likely both recognizes and admires the chintzy hustle of it all. What hurts Noem’s VP candidacy is her defense of the state’s nearly airtight abortion ban. Noem, of course, could argue that valuable health services are still just a plane ride away from South Dakota.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce his running mate on March 26. This week, the New York Times reported that two of his top contenders are former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The former is crazy. The latter, while possessing an all-time throwing arm, is one of the nation’s dumbest people; he has never heard a bottom-of-the-barrel right-wing conspiracy theory that he hasn’t believed. After Rodgers’ name was floated, CNN reporter Pamela Brown spoke out about an old encounter with Rodgers in which he told her that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting “never happened,” that the children “never existed,” and that the grieving parents were all “actors.” (Touting this conspiracy isn’t just brain-dead and evil—it’s expensive.) Though Rodgers didn’t initially return comment for CNN’s story, he later posted on social media that Sandy Hook was “an absolute tragedy” and that “I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place.” Such a coward, already bending the knee to the corporate media narrative. Where’s the spine? Also, doesn’t he have to play football this fall?
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