Plus: European Defense Without America

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	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Dems Shouldn’t Run Away From the USAID Fight—They Should Win It Plus: European Defense Without America Jim Swift Feb 21   READ IN APP   Recently in The Bulwark: BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: To Russia, With Love, Donald JVL: What Musk’s Black Hat Means 🔐 JOE PERTICONE: One Big Beautiful Mess of a Bill 🔐 Overtime is for everyone. If you’re a subscriber: thank you. If you’re not, there’s no better time to subscribe to Bulwark+ than today. If you like today’s issue, you can share this newsletter with someone you think would value it. Join now TOM MALINOWSKI: Dems Shouldn’t Run Away From the USAID Fight—They Should Win It A demonstrator holds a sign reading "Save USAID" during a protest against Project 2025 and the Trump administration at the Capitol Reflecting Pool near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on February 17, 2025. (Photo by BRYAN DOZIER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images) ON MONDAY, THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT for the District of Columbia published an affidavit from “Terry Doe,” the pseudonym of a USAID employee challenging the Elon Musk-Donald Trump shutdown of America’s foreign assistance programs. We don’t know where Terry Doe is stationed—maybe in Ukraine helping to keep that country’s energy grid up, or in Central America fighting gangs, or in the Horn of Africa supplying hospitals serving war victims. It doesn’t matter. READ THE REST. Join now MONA CHAREN: America Joins the Jackals AS I WATCHED ELECTION RETURNS on the evening of November 5, 2024, I was struck by the sense that Americans had missed the memo. Across the nation, in blue states as well as red, county after county showed a marked rightward shift—an unmistakable signal of dissatisfaction with the Biden years. It was so familiar, so seemingly normal. What do you do when groceries are much more expensive than four years ago, the border is flooded with immigrants, and crime seems to be rising (even though it actually wasn’t)? You vote for the other guy, and if that turns out badly, well, there’s always another election in four years. READ THE REST. 🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧 Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: David Graham and Pablo Torre: Is Lil Marco a Cuban Communist Agent? [YouTube] The Michael Steele Show: Organizing a Revolution in 2025 (With Tamika D. Mallory) [YouTube] Shield of the Republic: An American Blunder in Munich Bulwark+ Live: Trump Teams Up With Saudis On Golf Scam. PGA Surrendering. [YouTube] Revenge Obsessed Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Director, Buckle Up! [YouTube] Is This the End!? What Kash Patel’s Confirmation Means for America [YouTube] Trump’s Poll Numbers Are in the Toilet [YouTube] George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell): Trump Is Not a King [YouTube] Did you know? 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It’s encrypted. 🔐 GISELLE DONNELLY: European Defense Without America AFTER THE “ROOKIE MISTAKES” of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Brussels, the insults and intrusions into Germany’s election hurled by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, and the kowtowing of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov during “peace negotiations” in Riyadh and, finally and most egregiously, President Donald Trump’s scolding of Ukraine for defending itself in a war they “should have never started,” European leaders have come to understand that, after eight decades of Atlantic alliance, the United States has become a feckless and unreliable strategic partner. READ THE REST. Join now WILL SALETAN: Trump Now Has His Election-Denial Dream Team LAST FRIDAY, AT THE MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE, Vice President JD Vance lectured our European allies about democracy. “When we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard,” he preached. “We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.” READ THE REST. 🚨OVERTIME🚨 Happy Thursday! Elon Musks’s private security guards have been deputized by the US Marshals Service, CNN reports. 🎵On the Jukebox… 🎵 Little Bit Closer by Sam Fender. Tracking Trump: His actions on education… “The president has said he wants to eliminate the Education Department while fighting ‘woke’ ideology in schools. A week-by-week look at what he’s done.” (The Hechinger Report) Migrants, Deported to Panama Under Trump Plan… Detained in Remote Jungle Camp (NYTimes 🎁) DOGE’s Millions… As Musk and Trump Gut Government, Their Ax-Cutting Agency Gets Cash Infusion (ProPublica) Download your Kindle books ASAP - before Amazon kills this feature next week (ZDNet) Not The Onion… Trump swaps out Resolute Desk in the Oval Office days after Elon Musk’s son X appeared to wipe booger on it (NYPost) Northeast plane crash victim wanted his son to go on a school trip to Ghana… Let’s make sure he goes. (Inquirer). The End of the Postwar World… Trump and Vance are sending a dark message to America’s allies. (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic) Love Among The Ruins… Matt Labash shares a word from Father Rick Frechette on how to manage your righteous anger. Elon Musk… is having a rough CPAC. Trump floats… running again.¹ OK, Buddy… Kevin Hassett argues that $5,000 DOGE checks wouldn’t be inflationary. Leopards eating faces… The private GOP panic over the slash-and-burn DOGE firings (Politico). It’s Easy To Save Billions In Taxpayer Funds… When Everything Is Made Up (Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt) Join now Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message. —30— Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article. 1 JVL is always right. You’re a free subscriber to Bulwark+. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and ad-free and member-only podcasts, become a paying subscriber. Join now Did you know? You can update your newsletter preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletter or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here.   Like Comment Restack   © 2025 Bulwark Media 1100 Vermont Ave NW, 11th Floor, Washington, DC 20005 Unsubscribe