The Oval Outrage—and The Contrarian Counter

Publisher's Roundup, 7

I normally strike an optimistic note in these columns—and there was much to applaud this week, including more progress in the battle for US democracy here at home. I’ll get to that.

But I must start with America’s place on the world stage. I don’t know when in my life I have been more enraged about it. There are moments of international betrayal so foul that the stench reeks through the ages. Munich 1938, when the allies threw Czechoslovakia to the dogs—to Hitler—was one.

Neville Chamberlain, returning from the Munich Conference, held a document signed by himself and Hitler, which essentially granted Hitler control over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, in exchange for a promise that this would be his last territorial demand, thus signifying that he had secured "peace in our time" by appeasing Hitler's aggression.

After Friday, it has company.

I am referring, of course, to the infamous attack on President Zelensky of Ukraine by Donald Trump and JD Vance. I refuse to give them their titles, at least for purposes of this essay, because they no longer deserve them. To treat any foreign leader—any guest—visiting the Oval Office with such contempt, belligerence, and ignorance is utterly unacceptable. But for Trump and Vance to behave that way toward a brave leader of a courageous ally whose country is under unprovoked assault is a national and international disgrace.

It is also profoundly against America’s interests. Vladimir Putin is our adversary and that of our NATO allies. Ukraine is doing our work for us by resisting Russian aggression. Trump and Vance in one fell swoop managed to embolden our adversaries (not just Russia—all of them watched this spectacle with glee) and alienate our staunch European allies. They have stood by us when we needed them, such as in the aftermath of 9/11 or as Transatlantic counterparties in building the greatest economic relationship in the history of the world.

History will remember Friday’s tantrum by mad King Donald and his court jester JD Vance with roughly the same fondness that it regards Caligula. It was mad in both senses of the word: Trump exhibited unhinged rage.

I know well the source of his anger towards Ukraine and Zelensky, at least in part. In 2019-20, I helped lead an impeachment because of Trump pressing Zelensky to attack Trump’s then political opponent, Joe Biden. Trump wanted the Ukrainian president to smear Biden on false charges of corruption relating to his and a family member’s contacts with Ukraine. Zelensky did not bend and, evidently, Trump still has not forgiven him. That is a disgraceful reason for shameful behavior, and the Oval ambush prompted rightful condemnation within the US and globally.

Here at the Contrarian we were proud to speak out vigorously—and instantly.

Our Editor-in-Chief Jen Rubin filmed an immediate reaction with Ilan Goldenberg, fellow Contrarian and former foreign policy adviser for two presidential administrations, who was at the Pentagon for the first year of the Ukraine war. “Never before have we witnessed such a grotesque display of bullying in the Oval Office by a president and vice president of the United States. Berating a democratic ally for the temerity not to sacrifice his own country to Donald Trump’s idol, Vladimir Putin,” Jen said. Their entire discussion is worth viewing; here.

Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, was quick to follow with his own written reaction in A confrontation in the Oval Office and a fractured wartime alliance.

That came on top of coverage all week about the flashing red warning signs of Friday’s Oval aggression. Jen and Adam Kinzinger discussed the new USA/Russia relationship under Trump, highlighting the stark divergence that this administration has taken from previous U.S. Presidents when dealing with Russian foreign relations.

In another foreshadowing of Friday’s appalling display, diplomat and former Representative Tom Malinowski and Jen Rubin discussed U.S. divergence from European allies, a conversation inspired by the U.S. siding with Russia, North Korea, and Belarus, among others, in a UN General Assembly vote against a resolution acknowledging Russia aggression for the war in Ukraine.

Brian O’Neill also addressed Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Gen. Charles Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force—marking a troubling shift in the relationship between civilian leadership and the military establishment.

Given Trump’s lack of human decency or respect for our historic allies, the destabilization of the international community is practically guaranteed. Which is partially why, in the latest installment of Words and Phrases We Could Do Without, Jen Rubin says it’s time to put “American exceptionalism” away for good.

Yeah but what is to be done?

We will have much more coverage, including of what we, The Contrarian community, can do about it. This week we debuted a section dedicated to ongoing coverage of the Democracy Movement. There is a new energy on the streets, in the courts, and in the town halls of our nation. Millions of Americans are taking it upon themselves to deliver acts of opposition of every kind, and this week we will surely see public objections to the Oval Outrage against Ukraine in the mix. We’ll update you daily on the latest in citizen protests, pushback from federal workers, and coordinated civic action.

We want to hear from you. Help us keep up with what’s happening on the ground, and tell us about your own contributions (either in the comments or by sending images or stories to info@contrariannews.org). I will be joining a peaceful, lawful, and vigorous demonstration in support of Ukraine and I hope you will do the same. The power of the people is always greater than the people in power. Thank you to all the Contrarians who have already contributed to stirring coverage of local protests from Raleigh to Missoula, New Jersey to Yosemite, on a variety of issues plaguing the country.

Jen wrote on this groundswell of everyday American citizens rising up to resist Trump and Musk’s regime by applying pressure on GOP politicians to discontinue their apparent vow of muted obedience. Then, in Americans are Standing Up!, we showed you a nation that refuses to hand over our government.

The inspiring video was boosted by a roundup of how this administration’s wanton executive orders and the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency are changing the shape of Americans’ livelihoods across the country. Read about it in Coast to coast, the effects of the Trump administration, penned by The Contrarian’s own Jamie Riley.

Fighting in the court of public opinion—and the courts of law

Often, US presidents turn to an intense focus on foreign policy to distract from domestic problems. That is true of Trump (although, again, I can think of no prior example as reprehensible as what we beheld yesterday). This week his legal losses continued to pile up. I was proud to be among the lawyers who helped bring about one of those outcomes, securing an order from a federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday that found the administration‘s firings of probationary employees to be illegal. Then on Friday, I was in another federal court on the other side of the country in Maryland arguing that Musk and DOGE are unconstitutional.

If you subscribe to The Contrarian, you get to be a part of all that litigation pushback. Because we are not owned by anyone, all profits go back into supporting these kinds of pro bono, pro-democracy cases.

Of course, your subscription also supports our amazing journalism covering the fight—the hundreds of wonderful organizations and lawyers who are bringing dozens of cases from coast to coast. This week, Jen reported on the expanding legal and other resistance in her column The Aura of Invincibility is Fading. She suggests that Americans are finding the confidence to challenge Trump. America is starting to see that the emperor has no new clothes and they don’t like the naked truth. The question remains: are Republicans prepared to do anything about their leader’s bizarre antics?

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse shared a rousing essay on how the first cases testing Trump’s overreach are lapping at the steps of the Roberts Court in Recapturing the Supreme Court for the people. The essay proposes that the fate of these decisions rests in whether this body—who granted Trump unconscionable immunity—is independent enough to rule against the president.

In Jamie Raskin and the Constitutional Cavalry, our pal Harry Litman of Talking Feds spoke with constitutional patriot Rep. Jamie Raskin about where we are after one month of Trump–and what it will take to restore the rule of law. Raskin and his colleagues entered the court fray this week with a legal brief pushing back against the Trump administration‘s attack on the CFPB and the consumers it protects—namely, all of us.

Harry’s prescient Talking Feds roundtable on Monday, Trump Breaks the World, was already anticipating this. Listen to his superb conversation among Anne Applebaum, Michael McFaul, & Stephen Sestanovich as they break it all down and, with special focus on Ukraine, Russia, and Europe, detail the enormous risks for the country and the world of Trump’s abrupt reversals.

In When Lawyers Stand Up. Civil rights legal icon and leader Sherilyn Ifill wrote on the exemplars of ethical courage we’ve seen emerge in recent weeks among DOJ lawyers unwilling to advance an unlawful oligarchy.

Doges and Don’ts

If Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE continue their destruction tour, follow the blueprint of Project 2025, and target the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we will lose not a “climate change cabal” but a vital center of data and reporting about heat waves, hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Jeff Nesbit sounded the alarm in Delete NOAA at our own peril.

Psychological anthropologist Nat Kendall-Taylor argued that we need to take seriously the narrative Trump, Musk and DOGE have been using to justify their federal purge. Not because it’s true (it’s anything but), but because we need to learn how to reach the millions of Americans who believe them. Check out Americans think the system is rigged. We need to start listening.

The Contrarian’s Lily Conway did just that. She listened to federal health workers gathered at the Hart Senate Office to share their personal stories and push back against the siege of DOGE’s blanket firings. Their example is inspiring.

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Nick Anderson mixed it up a bit, casting a gimlet (and red, glowing, Mordor-based) eye on DOGE’s approach to data in his comic, The Eye of Sauron.

In The Department of Government Ineptitude, Max Stier—president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service—was in sync with Nick’s comic, but in a deadly serious way. Max laid out how Musk's DOGE team is violating every principle of good management by bringing the Silicon Valley “break it to fix it” ethos to the public sector. The only result is vulnerable people getting hurt.

We offered another example of where that ethos could only cause harm in DOGE Is Not Here to Help With Your Taxes. The financial data of millions of Americans is at risk as Musk and his hacks bring their unlawful breaches of privacy to the IRS, writes Alan Butler, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Americans will not stand idly by as billionaires break the law to destroy our vital services. This smash-and-grab rampage cannot continue, which is why Eric Blanc—a professor of labor studies—wrote a persuasive piece on How We Stop Elon Musk.

Musk’s Co-President

In Tsar Trump Thinks He’s the State, our friend Jonathan Alter lent us a piece of historical wisdom with his expansive consideration of the very real threat this regime poses to our democratic norms—while noting strong evidence that the “King Donald” pretensions are outstaying their welcome with the American public. Here’s hoping it’s thus always to tyrants…

Nick Anderson’s comic FDR and Churchill imagines how Trump’s approach would go over with another historic global conflict.

Jen Rubin joined Pulitzer Prize winners Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner to discuss Trump's financial feints. They discussed how Trump 2.0 tracks with his lifelong business strategy of “fake it ‘til you make it.”

Journalist Carron J. Phillips wrote that it used to mean something when championship teams declined to visit Trump. To his mind, that was then; this is now, and if The Eagles are willing to visit the White House (deep sigh), perhaps the “activism movement” in sports is no longer.

One team that refuses to give up are women. Jennifer Weiss-Wolf offered a vital look at the horizon of threats to reproductive rights, analyzing Trump’s EO that purports to support IVF while acting as a Trojan horse for future harm in Trump’s Executive Order on IVF is Full of Red Flags.

But let’s admit it, though Trump’s tale is largely one of greed (along with the other six deadly sins—no exceptions), he’s not great with money. In Reality Counts, Jen reports on how markets are getting wise to his and Musk’s grift: “hard as they may try, not even Fox News or the rest of the captive MAGA media can hide inflation, layoffs, and consistently bad economic news.”

The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good

Yes there was plenty of bad and ugly this week. But there was so much good, too! Friday began with features about, with, and by some of the nation’s most prominent and/or promising individuals.

Jen offered another installment in her weekly Undaunted series, this time highlighting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of our most effective communicators in defense of the democracy movement.

“We have an obligation to resist kings,” AOC has declared. “We outnumber them. And they can be overwhelmed.”

Jen then spoke with Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and tireless advocate for democracy, on his pick for the critical upcoming State Supreme Court vote and why Wisconsin is the "fulcrum of the United States.”

We also covered five former defense secretaries releasing an open letter calling the dismissals of senior military leaders as “reckless” and urged Congress not to confirm their successors. The secretaries closed the letter with a terse assertion:

“We're not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; we're asking them to do their jobs. We're urging them to take George Washington's warning to heart.”

That and more was on the agenda when Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Jen discussed the future of the U.S. military, appropriations, the way women are regarded in this administration, and more.

To make sense of it all, we had Joyce Vance’s latest Democracy Index (this installment written by our brilliant friend Julie Zebrak).

Finally, for a lighter touch, we closed out the week with:

The latest Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon in which he goes full alternate history, imagining not so much The Man in the High Castle as The Man In…a different Tower.

Culinary savant Jamie Schler, who opened with a marvelous reminder by Kurt Vonnegut: To practice any art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. So do it. She offered a mouth-watering recipe for gougères: cheesy little works of art perfect for celebrating the Oscars on Sunday, whether your tastes run more to popcorn or prestige.

And of course, no week—no matter how trying—would be complete without our Pet of the Week. Yesterday it was Mo(zart), the gentlemanly Bernedoodle of Contrarian Ellie Kurlander.

Don’t forget to tune in to Coffee with the Contrarians, LIVE for all subscribers each Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:15 ET, and always available for paid subscribers. Start your day with Jen, special guests, and me for a lively, informative chat on the day’s headlines in the fight for democracy. That battle is ongoing, and we need all of you.

Take care of yourselves and one another.

Warmly, Norm