Bullsh*t (July 10, 2025)

Welcome to Home & Away. Two weeks as well as this country’s 249^th birthday have come and gone since I last wrote. So, a few things to catch up on.

War in Our Time

I will start with Ukraine, or more accurately Russia’s continuing war of aggression against Ukraine. President Trump boasted during his campaign that he could and would end the war quickly – within 24 hours, in fact – but that boast has come to naught. Trump clearly underestimated the ability and will of Ukraine and its president to hold out, but even more he overestimated his ability to persuade Vladimir Putin to accept a viable ceasefire.

The most recent interaction between Trump and Putin came just the other day, when they spoke but failed to make any progress in ending the fighting, leaving Trump “disappointed.” Subsequently, the president went further, telling journalists invited into what passes for a Cabinet meeting that “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

This realism (however belated) is most welcome, as it seems to be accompanied by the president’s decision to send more defensive arms to Ukraine, which is facing heavier than ever aerial assaults from a Russian leader who shows no interest in stopping the war absent Ukraine’s capitulation. Trump appears to have overruled his secretary of defense, who had put a hold on shipments on the spurious grounds that U.S. stockpiles are dangerously low, something NBC reported to be untrue.

I don’t doubt that Trump sincerely seeks a ceasefire in the war. He clearly wants to be seen as the world’s most influential diplomat and would-be peacemaker, a man who can accomplish what nobody else can. But diplomatic breakthroughs only result from creating a context in which protagonists accept (be it with enthusiasm or reluctance) what is being put on the table. The way to achieve that here is to arm Ukraine, not so it can pursue an unrealistic hope of liberating lost territory through military force, but to persuade Putin that more war will not deliver what he seeks but to the contrary will cost Russia dearly. More sanctions on Russia and greater enforcement of existing sanctions, which would help demonstrate that time is not on Putin’s side, would also help.

Speaking of the war in Ukraine, there was a revealing moment the other day involving Wang Yi, China’s senior foreign policy hand, and the chief EU foreign policy official. Wang reportedly informed her that China would do what it could to ensure Russia did not lose its war against Ukraine lest this allow the United States to focus its attention on China. Such a statement (which contradicts China’s official line that it seeks a political settlement to end the war as soon as one can be negotiated) fully meets Michael Kinsley’s classic definition of a gaffe, namely, when a public official inadvertently if inconveniently expresses the truth.

BBB

I speak not of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan but Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. It is now law, and while big, it is not beautiful. I say this knowing the president and some others would disagree, although I’d also bet that quite a few Republicans who voted for the bill did so more out of calculation than conviction. The legislation extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts and reduces taxes further by increasing the standard deduction and the child tax credit along with reducing taxes on tips and overtime. It increases spending on the military and border enforcement. It offsets some but far from most of these debt-boosting policies with significant cuts to Medicaid spending, phasing out tax credits associated with alternative energy, and increasing the cost of student loans.

I want to focus on three things. First, some ten million Americans dependent on Medicaid will no longer get their healthcare covered. This means they won’t get the healthcare they need or they will go broke in the process. Or they will get emergency healthcare that by definition is not preventive and where the costs are passed on to others. The across-the-board rollback or elimination of subsidies for clean or alternative energy projects (notably wind and solar) will exacerbate climate change down the road but long before then reduce the ability of American firms to compete in this area with China and others. And the law will increase the national debt by more than $3 trillion over the next decade, in no small part because it does nothing to rein in the costs of Social Security and Medicare (readily done through means-testing) or by raising the corporate tax from a level (21%) that is far lower than is called for if the aim is to support the competitiveness of American companies. That the debt is increasing absent an overriding reason (to get us through a major war or out of a deep recession) only makes a bad situation worse as it gives us little or no cushion should an emergency arise. I know that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but if there is beauty here, it is well hidden.

This last criticism is easy to dismiss, as the accumulation of debt is one of those things that is fine until it is not. Come to think of it, it is not all that fine even now, as what the government pays to service the debt is crowding out spending that is essential or desirable. But the greater risk of debt comes with time. A burgeoning debt constitutes a slow-motion crisis, just the sort of thing governments (especially democratic governments) have the most trouble with, as it is difficult to justify near-term pain or sacrifice for something that has not happened and in the end may not happen. But it may happen, and many would add that when it does, it will force the government to raise interest rates to attract needed borrowing, something that would slow the economy. It promises to be the opposite of a virtuous cycle.

BB

A week for multiples Bs, in this case Bibi, as in Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and the most frequent foreign visitor to the Trump White House. The focus this time around was arranging a temporary (60-day) ceasefire in Gaza that would be accompanied by an additional but still partial hostages-for-prisoners swap. Something bigger – a permanent ceasefire, an end to Israeli occupation of Gaza, and the return of all the hostages – seems beyond reach as Bibi opposes meeting these conditions more than he wants the hostages back.

It is all a tragedy, as returning the hostages and ending the killing of Palestinians ought to be a priority, especially now that Hamas has been reduced to a point where it no longer poses a significant threat to Israelis or their country. But a lasting peace deal is not happening, not just because Hamas is reluctant to give up its remaining leverage and Bibi wants to keep his right-wing coalition intact, but because the United States is not demanding it. Which it could, given that Trump’s standing in Israel in the aftermath of the Iran strikes would make it difficult if not impossible for Netanyahu to resist his pressure.

Let me add one final point. The Israeli government refuses to put forward a “Day After” plan for Gaza or for Palestinians in the West Bank. The United States should push Israel to do so or, failing that, come up with its own. The U.S. proposal would put forward its vision for Gaza’s immediate future as well as the conditions Palestinians would have to meet in order to garner U.S. support for their getting a state of their own. Just as important, the United States should announce what it expects from Israel in the meantime in terms of its presence and activities in Gaza as well as restraint on the building and expansion of settlements and a reining in of settler violence in the West Bank. The Trump administration should also articulate what Israel could expect from the United States in the way of economic and military support alongside the creation of a Palestinian state. The Saudis and other Arab states could be brought in to back the plan, which would include their establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel and funding reconstruction in Gaza. Gaining acceptance of this follow on to the Abraham Accords – call it the “Ishmael and Isaac Accords” – would be worthy of a Nobel Prize.

A Texas-Sized Tragedy

It is impossible not to be moved by the horror of events in Texas, where heavy rains triggered massive flash floods that have thus far claimed the lives of 120 people, a number that could all too easily double given the number of people who remain missing.

Not surprisingly, people are looking for explanations and accountability. Some are blaming the loss of life on cuts in the weather service, which might have been a contributing factor but only if one assumes there would have been more timely and accurate forecasting that people would have responded to. Others are pointing to a decision in Kerr County not to fund (at a reported cost of $1 million) local warning systems, which if true would make it a classic case of penny-wise, pound-foolish decision-making.

A less direct but still relevant explanation would focus on climate change. Extreme weather events are becoming both more extreme and frequent. The New York Times offers a succinct explanation: “Warm air holds more moisture than cool air, and as temperatures rise, storms can produce bigger downpours. When met on the ground with outdated infrastructure or inadequate warning systems, the results can be catastrophic.”

Doing something about climate change is politically difficult. Like indebtedness, it is a slow-motion crisis. Making it even harder is that the issue has taken on deep cultural and political overtones, in which to deny it is central to MAGA and to embrace it as a priority is central to progressives.

Nonetheless, it should be possible to do more to reduce our collective vulnerability to extreme events, be they floods, forest fires, drought, and/or heat. Resilience and adaptation are something that all Americans can get behind because they deal with managing the effects of extreme weather rather than debating or even doing something about the long-term underlying causes of the problem. Zoning, building codes, dikes and levees, along with warning systems and emergency preparations, all come into play. Ideally this would be a cause Republicans and Democrats can agree on; if not, then maybe Elon Musk’s America Party will make it part of its platform.

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Richard Haass in the news

Sunday, July 6: All Things Considered, NPR (“Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits White House to discuss Gaza ceasefire”)

Tuesday, July 8: Morning Joe (on Israel)