Come on, people, now, smile on your brother

 

Feel like I need to start following Insta to keep up with Hakeem's extraordinary color choices when he's filming in Brooklyn, also see below. Could change hearts and minds, or even my own wardrobe. 

I'm a little surprised that nobody seems to have come up with the thing that seemed obvious to me about the meeting between Trump son-in-law and crime associate Jared Kushner and the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries some weeks ago, in a story Kushner appears to have leaked for a New York Times story by Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni that appeared on Sunday: that Trump sent Kushner to set up a meeting where he could explore the possibility of bribing Jeffries to block House efforts to impeach the president when Jeffries becomes Speaker in January.

Not likely with cash, but more probably with Trump concessions on legislation Jeffries would like to pass on housing or immigration or the Democrats' "affordability" agenda, making the Times story somewhat truthful—they really did talk about the subjects reported, but I'm speculating they also talked about other stuff.

That certainly fits in better with the Trumpian proclivities than the alternative as reported, that it was a pure policy discussion, backed by the evidence that the two men "have a relationship" from eight years ago, when  Congress was working on the bipartisan First Step prison reform bill, of which Jeffries was the main House Democratic sponsor, and Kushner was its lobbyist in the White House, convincing Trump the bill,  wasn't too "soft on crime" (he's said to have favored it himself in recollection of his criminal father's time in the federal pen). And the prospect of impeachment following expected Republican losses in the coming election is something Trump's been preoccupied with all year:

“You’ve got to win the midterms,” Trump told House Republicans at a GOP retreat in January. “Cause if we don’t win the midterms, they’ll find a reason to impeach me.”...

And the Times story notes

The meeting came as nearly all polls revealed Republicans to be at a disadvantage in the midterms, and showed how members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle were digesting what a Democratic majority next year could look like.

But in the end Jeffries wouldn't make the commitment, so Kushner moved on to Plan B, planting the story in The Times to get Jeffries in trouble with his caucus, as subsequently happened.

Not just with the party's left, by the way, though that's how it's mostly being reported, but also some obdurate centrists—James Carville and a host of Republicanoid Nevertrumpers, Joe Walsh, Rick Wilson, and Jennifer Rubin. 

I'm not quite seeing it, myself: I agree with MS-NOW's Hayes Brown that

Jeffries is likely of the belief — as I am — that more information is better than less and that a meeting with an insider from the opposing camp has the potential to yield insight into their hopes, fears and overall priorities. The midterm elections remain months away, but if there’s a Democratic majority, the more work Jeffries can do now to lay the groundwork for the first months of 2027, the better.

All the more if I'm right about what Kushner's mission was, offering insight into Trump's current panicked state of mind, and probably saying more than he's meant to, given the total diplomatic incompetence Kushner has shown over the last 20 months of shuttling back and forth among Israel and all the various sheikhdoms and emirates and Ukraine and Russia and Switzerland ("We always bring Jared when we wanna get that deal closed," says Trump, but it hasn't been getting closed). He doesn't even seem particularly interested unless the involves some personal profit for himself, lending credence to the report supposedly sent by Iranian officials to JD Vance:

During the U.S.-Iran talks in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland in late June, Iranian negotiators sent a private message to Vice President JD Vance through an intermediary. The Iranians warned Vance that the continued presence of President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner would undermine the chance of turning the June 17 framework into an enduring deal, a senior Iranian official told Drop Site.

The Iranian official spoke to Drop Site on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. In the message, according to the official, Iran conveyed to Vance that the pair were more interested in exploiting insider knowledge of the negotiations to profit in financial markets than they were in reaching a deal. 

(Report bylined by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim but you can see for yourself how in tune it is with the way the whole Trump family has been working to enrich themselves.) It was a team of professionals that negotiated the so-called "Abraham Accords" in 2020, while all he was negotiating was the $2 billion stake the Saudis were going to give him to fund his "investment firm".

 I guess I think Jeffries should have made more of an effort to get out ahead of the story once he found The Times was writing it, and tried harder to influence the way it was written. The statement he gave Karni for the article was good as far as it went

 “Throughout this Congress, Republicans have adopted a my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing that has failed the American people,” he said.

He added: “In every conversation that we have with the Trump administration, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that the affordability crisis is not a hoax, and nothing short of transformational policy change is acceptable. We are fighting for an affordable America. The question is whether Republicans will join us.”

but it didn't go far enough. It's maddeningly indirect, in the ways his utterances often are. He should have made clear that the meeting took place and that it was at Trump's request (since Kushner didn't reveal that to Haberman, it wasn't part of the story, and a lot of the coverage seemed to assume it was actually Jeffries that had somehow gone to Kushner and asked for some kind of assistance, a ridiculous idea if you think about it which was raw meat to those who are constantly mad at Hakeem, as well as untrue). He did it much better in an Instagram video Monday night,

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (@repjeffries)

filming in Brooklyn, giving it the right narrative framing, and showing some real 'tude if I can say that, referring rightly to the "Trump Cartel" and assuring viewers that nobody was going to "get a pass", which did suggest to me that my speculation (Trump scrambling for ways of escaping impeachment and Jeffries saying no) was right. But it was too late for this particular incident. It could have been better if so many of us on the "progressive" end of the party hadn't been so eager to denounce him and demand we find a new Speaker candidate.

Something I'd like to say to this point. "Moderates" in the Democratic party really need to show some ability to understand what "Progressives" get agitated about. Including Hakeem, for sure. When he reverses his longtime support for a Medicare-For-All program he should come out and make it clear that it's not the principle he's objecting to but a specific bill, and maybe explain briefly what he doesn't like about the bill that's on offer at the moment. When he's refusing to question the permanent need to fund the Israeli and Egyptian militaries at levels that hugely exceed our military assistance to any other country (including, obviously, Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine), he needs to acknowledge that there are people in the party who take a different point of view, for a reason; that even if he thinks it's wrong to object to many of IDF's actions in Gaza since October 8, or inactions in the face of the terrorism practiced by some religious Jewish fanatics in the West Bank, he needs to admit it's not crazy. Or (necessarily) antisemitic.

By the same token, "Progressives" need to show some respect for the concerns of "Moderates" at this particular historical moment, which are in great part the reasons why Jeffries keeps seeming to fall short. Above all, we need to understand how much their balkiness and hostility to sensible left ideas is brought about not so much by ideology as genuine fear that is also rational, even if it's probably wrong in some cases. I mean, at least many of them have a pretty good understanding of the threat that the Trump administration and Republican acquiescence pose to our lives and liberties and pursuit of happiness, and how important it is for Democrats to win the coming elections, and are afraid some unnecessary radicalism will fuck it up. They remember the 1972 McGovern campaign or the 1980 Carter campaign (I remember mostly the unnecssary combat between Carter and Ted Kennedy), and they may have watched, too, as the Bernie Sanders theory of political revolution failed to materialize in 2016 and 2020. We don't have to agree with them, I think Trump has made this a great year for an adventurous campaign but we need to accept that they could be acting in good faith and give them credit for that.

I've been really heartened, on this point, by the recent Democratic primaries where winner and loser have come out to celebrate a love feast when the contest is over—Talarico and Crockett in Texas, El-Sayed and Stevens in Michigan, Crowley and Hong in Wisconsin—or winners in different races, like Nixon for senator and Jolly for governor in Florida. It can't hurt to have some of that out here in the Land of the Terminally Online.