Hopium Chronicles With Simon Rosenberg Podcast

Afternoon/morning all. We start today with an interview I just did with NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton. In this wonderful interview with our good friend we celebrate her re-election as Chair for another two year term; we get updated on the ongoing legal battle to preserve our 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court win; and talk about her preparation for the 2025-2026 election cycle and the need to not just win elections but also challenge Trump more directly at the local level. As many here know supporting North Carolina was one of our biggest projects last cycle, as we invested more than $1.1m there, and helped Anderson score some of our most important battleground state wins anywhere in the country. I hope you will consider supporting her this year too and help her get off to a strong starts.

So watch, enjoy and share this terrific discussion with one of our party’s most talented and important leaders.

Here is the economic news Americans are waking up to today:

And…..

In a new article, US Economy Shows Signs of Strain from Trump’s Tariffs and Spending Cuts (gift link), the NYT writes:

The United States economy is starting to show signs of strain as President Trump’s abrupt moves to shrink federal spending, lay off government workers and impose tariffs on America’s largest trading partners rattle businesses and reverberate across states and cities.

Funding freezes and firings of federal workers combined with the prospect of costly trade wars are souring consumer sentiment, raising inflation expectations and stalling business investment plans, according to recent economic surveys.

Local economies are also bracing for a sudden withdrawal of fiscal support, forcing officials to contemplate tax increases or municipal bond offerings to stabilize their budgets. While Mr. Trump has acknowledged that his policies could bring some initial pain, the early warning signs suggest that his blunt approach could come with more ominous risks to the economy.

“There’s more uncertainty than I think is widely appreciated,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “All the uncertainty around trade policy, uncertainty around some of the things that the Department of Government Efficiency is doing, I think will have a chilling effect on investment plans and expansion plans.”

Mr. Trump took office last month at a time of stable economic growth and easing inflation. The U.S. economy continues to be the strongest in the world.

But economists have warned that his plans to enact sweeping tariffs could cause prices to rise and trigger trade wars that would weigh on growth. There are early indications that those worries were valid.

And…

Apollo Global Management, an investment firm, estimates that job cuts related to the Department of Government Efficiency could rise to 300,000 and, when government contractors are included, that the total number of layoffs could be closer to one million. That is a small share of the nation’s 160 million workers, but could still affect the job market and other areas of the economy.

“Any increase in layoffs will push jobless claims higher over the coming weeks, and such a rise in the unemployment rate is likely to have consequences for rates, equities and credit,” Torsten Slok, Apollo’s chief economist, wrote in a new report about intensifying risks to the economy.

Economic indicators have been showing signs of mounting stress, with much of the anxiety focused on Mr. Trump’s tariffs. This month, he imposed 10 percent tariffs on Chinese imports and nearly imposed 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, before offering a one-month reprieve. The Trump administration is also preparing to impose higher “reciprocal” tariffs on imports as well as levies on cars, semiconductors and steel and aluminum.

A survey of consumer sentiment published by the Conference Board on Tuesday recorded its largest monthly decline since 2021 in February. The drop was attributed to growing pessimism about employment prospects and future business conditions, with concerns about trade and tariffs reaching levels last seen during the 2019 trade wars in Mr. Trump’s first term.

A measure of corporate activity from S&P Global published last week showed business expansion slowing in the United States in February as a result of “uncertainty and instability surrounding new government policies” such as federal spending cuts and tariff-related developments.

The chaos, betrayal, lying and the intentional damage Trump and his team are doing to the America of the Four Freedoms remains breathtaking. Let’s spend a little more time with it now for it is all a reminder of why have to keep working as hard as we can……

The lead story in The Hill is “GOP senators vent Musk frustrations at closed-door” meeting with WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Elon Musk lied about restarting USAID’s Ebola monitoring program yesterday in Trump’s ridiculous televised Cabinet meeting. In that same meeting Robert Kennedy downplayed the growing measles outbreak that took a child’s life yesterday falsely claiming outbreaks like this happen every year. Greg Sargent has a sobering podcast this morning on what Kennedy and Musk are doing to our ability to monitor and fight pandemics here and abroad, something Sam Stein also dives into this morning in the Bulwark. And yes, the corrupt Roberts courted stayed a lower court decision that would have forced Trump to turn back on $2b in USAID grants to the poorest people in the world. The Washington Post goes in depth to a newly announced set of plans to what can only be charitably described as Musk’s plan to completely disassemble the federal government of the United States of America, leaving us poorer, less healthy, less safe and far less free.

In the New York Times Peter Baker reflects on the ending of the media’s control over the White House press pool this week, comparing it to his early days covering Putin in Moscow:

She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.

The decision by President Trump’s team to handpick which news organizations can participate in the White House press pool that questions him in the Oval Office or travels with him on Air Force One is a step in a direction that no modern American president of either party has ever taken. The White House said it was a privilege, not a right, to have such access, and that it wanted to open space for “new media” outlets, including those that just so happen to support Mr. Trump.

But after the White House’s decision to bar the venerable Associated Press as punishment for its coverage, the message is clear: Any journalist can be expelled from the pool at any time for any reason. There are worse penalties, as Ms. Tregubova would later discover, but in Moscow, at least, her eviction was an early step down a very slippery slope.

As a counter to all that ugliness, let’s now dive into Politico’s lead story about a true bright spot in our slow to come together opposition movement - how the 23 Democratic state Attorneys General were ready to fight Trump on day 1, and have continued meeting and fighting together daily:

The resistance meets daily on Microsoft Teams.

The country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general log on at 4pm ET for a thirty-minute confidential video chat to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration. They share updates on the seven cases they have moving through federal courts and argue about whether to treat Elon Musk as a lawful arm of the government or an uncredentialed interloper to it. They plot where to respond next, leveraging timezone differences to expand the workday….

…….

Then there are the attorneys general, who see themselves as the last backstop between the people and the president. Their multi-state lawsuits have temporarily stopped the president from revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal funding and cutting off money for medical research. This week, they filed their sixth amicus brief in an action against the Trump administration, with 23 attorneys general signing on to argue the importance of the Affordable Care Act. The US Department of Justice declined a request for comment on that suit, or others it is defending…..

………

This year, the attorneys general are executing on a plan they worked to develop for a year before Trump’s return to the White House, according to interviews with more than half of the Democratic attorneys general, former holders of the office and their staff. Coming together to respond to Trump’s policy blitzkrieg after it began, they say, would have represented coming together too late…..

For many of them responding to Trump has become a full-time job, on top of their other constitutional duties. All worry they will need to ask their legislatures for money and more muscle to keep up their national work against Trump without compromising the other work they do investigating Medicaid fraud or suing tobacco companies.

“We talk each and every day these days, and you’d think we start to get tired of it, but we’ve just grown closer over time,” said Kathy Jennings, Delaware’s attorney general. “And in the next four years, we’re going to grow very close.”

My Notes On The Path Forward And Building An Effective and Ferocious Opposition - See my new essays (here, here) on this process of building the opposition and our critical role in leading the way; watch my new video that goes into greater detail, reminding us that

We are Americans. Fighting for freedom and democracy is what we do. Who we are.

Learn why I think it’s time for Congressional Dems to “let Facts be submitted to a candid world;” read my post that pulls together all my big recommendations for the pro-democracy family; and watch my recent interviews with Rep. Eric Swalwell and journalist Leon Krauze for in-depth discussions on how we must fight harder, smarter and get much much louder now.

OK, Let’s Get To Work!!!! - Here are my current working recommendations for calls/contacts this week. Four today, and thanks to all of you who are busting your ass right now:

Fight The Musk Attack On Our Government And Our Privacy, End His Historic Crime Spree - . Encourage your Senators and Reps to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world and criminal referrals filed for him and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI; insist Senators and Reps file amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own; encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.

Organize Against The 17 Most Vulnerable Republican House Members - For those of you who live in AZ, CA, CO, IA, MI, NE, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WI please start talking to your local orgs - state and local Democratic parties, grassroots groups, traditional Dem allies - about mounting a campaign targeting the most vulnerable 17 Republican House Members to urge them to vote against whatever joint House-Senate reconciliation bill emerges in the coming weeks. We launched this new effort last Monday, and while we should be urging all our Senators and Reps to vote against these emerging plans, those of you can work these 17 House Rs have a special role to play in this next phase of the battle over the budget. As we discussed yesterday there is a lot of concern in the Republican House about the size of the Medicaid cuts required in the House outlined passed on Tuesday and we need to keep working it people!

Keep Calling Attorneys General In The States - Ask them to protect you and your data, tax returns and privacy, and to keep federally mandated monies flowing to your states and communities. For those in the 19 states that brought the successful Treasury suit thank them and encourage them to keep going. I still believe these 19 states should make criminal referrals of Musk/his posse to DOJ/FBI and raise the stakes.

Protest, Loudly, Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain.

Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.

A note - while physical protests and rallies are a vital part of how we build our new opposition movement, make sure you only attend or promote events by organizations you know and trust. Please do not support any action - boycott, protest, rally, etc - unless you know and trust the organizers. Given the import of our work now I don’t think it wise or advisable to lend our support to newly formed, opaque organizations without a proven track record of working with Democratic groups and leaders.

For those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind right now:

Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.

Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben and thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $90,000, blowing past our $50,000 goal. We are now upping this to a stretch goal of $100,000 by March 31st. Amazing work everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,000 of you have donated over $91,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start. We now have a new stretch goal of $150,000 by March 31st after our very strong start for this effort (note that we did have some money clawed back due to an error in the amount someone gave!)

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $50,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Off To A Great Start - Yesterday webegan a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat. We’ve raised $6,700 so far - thank you all!

More Things To Do - Dive into my recent interviews with folks who are making a difference. Check out our upcoming events. Register for my March 5th event with Heather Cox Richardson!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon