New York Times Opinion

David French

Why Trump Can Do No Wrong

Nov. 2, 2025, 6:00 a.m. ET

By David French

Opinion Columnist

I will never forget the moment when I realized that President Trump had transformed the way we think about political scandals.

It was in September 2019, right after Trump released the memorandum of his July 25, 2019, call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. There, in black and white, was one of the clearest examples of an improper quid pro quo in foreign affairs that I’d ever seen.

Zelensky told Trump that he would like to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles for Ukraine. Trump responded with his own request...

From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from An American

Yesterday I wrote that President Donald J. Trump’s celebration of his new marble bathroom in the White House was so tone deaf at a time when federal employees are working without pay, furloughed workers are taking out bank loans to pay their bills, healthcare premiums are skyrocketing, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are at risk, that it seemed likely to make the history books as a symbol of this administration.

But that image got overtaken just hours later by pictures from a Great Gatsby–themed party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago last night hours before SNAP benefits ended. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby skewered the immoral and meaningless lives of the very wealthy during the Jazz Ag...

Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American:

Yesterday, journalists observed members of the Texas National Guard at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, Illinois, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. This morning, the Defense Department announced the federal activation of about 200 soldiers from the Texas National Guard and about 300 from the Illinois National Guard, saying they would be protecting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal agents “who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.”

The statement said the National Guard soldiers “are under federal command and control in a Title 10 status...

We can only hope that the tide will begin to turn soon…

From today’s Letters from an American, by Heather Cox Richardson:

Yesterday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released items from a third batch of documents associated with the criminal investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Republicans have been slow-walking the release of those files since news broke that they mention President Donald J. Trump, a close friend of Epstein during the years of his sex trafficking. The batch of documents includes phone message logs, flight logs and manifests, and Epstein’s daily schedule.

Those documents show that billionaire Peter Thiel, who financially supported Vice President J.D...

From today’s New York Times:

By Garrett M. Graff
Mr. Graff is a journalist, a historian and the author of “The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb.”

Thursday’s charges against James Comey follow a tumultuous week that echoed Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, amid the heart of Watergate in 1973.

This time, the federal attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert resigned after refusing to bring politically motivated charges against Donald Trump’s enemies, so the president railed to his attorney general, Pam Bondi, in a social media post about inaction against Mr. Comey. A shockingly inexperienced interim U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was appointed and Mr. Comey indicted. Mr. Trump declared ...

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said tonight in a video. “But we…will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right, but I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system. I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”

That quote found within Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American newsletter this morning...

More dystopian absurdity from the clown car in D.C.
Today’s summary from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:

Conservative writer Bill Kristol took to social media today to say: “So many coverups. Release the Epstein files. Release the Homan tapes. Release the Venezuelan fishing boats evidence.”

Kristol was referring to three stories about which members of the administration seem to be hiding things that don’t fit their narrative.

The Republican-dominated House Oversight Committee has been slow to release records related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein although interest in them is high—not least because reports that the records mention President Donald Trump seem confirmed by Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel’s r...

From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:

On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics postponed the release of the annual report on consumer expenditures—a key report for understanding inflation—without explanation. The BLS has been under stress since President Donald J. Trump fired its head, Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, after the July jobs report showed far weaker hiring statistics than expected as well as a downgrade for previous months. Officials at the BLS said the new report will be “rescheduled to a later date.”

This weekend, Dan Frosch, Patrick Thomas, and Andrea Peterson of the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is ending its annual report on household food security...

from Heather Cox Richardson:

On Friday, September 5, Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell told Southern Baptist pastor and Newsmax host Tony Perkins that Trump may try to declare that “there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States” in order to claim “emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” overriding the Constitution’s clear designation that states alone have control over elections. Mitchell has long called for voting restrictions and was on the infamous January 2021 phone call Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pressed Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that would give the state’s electoral votes to him rather than the victorious Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.

Democracy Docket, the media...

As a student in elementary school, I learned about our system of government. I learned about our three branches of government. I was taught about an idea of “checks and balances” among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our system.

Now I think about what my grandchildren–bright, eager learners–will be taught when they’re soon in elementary school. Will they be taught about a concept that became obsolete during their lives? Will they be taught about an idea that their generation will continue to fight for? Will they watch their country fight (and vote) for the re-institution of our ideals from the 18th century?

What is it that our 3-branched system of government is designed for?
Why is the concept we learned about in grade school–checks and balances–embedded i...