Good morning. It is March 13th. It's a little bit cloudy and supposed to get cloudier in New York City. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Donald Trump's trade war, seemingly the only thing he cares about, continues. This morning on Truth Social, he threatened a 200 % tariff on alcoholic beverages from the European Union, in response to a proposed 50 % tariff on American whiskey going to the EU, which was the EU's response to Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum. The cruddy dishwasher we have here just crapped out again. Looks like it's now or never to make a swift and decisive move on durable goods. 

Those metal tariffs are the lead story on the front of the morning New York Times. Two columns wide, “Trump’s Metal Tariffs Draw Global Reprisals And Risk Larger Feuds / He Vows to Respond to E.U.’s New Fees.” The story notes “Mr. Trump's recent trade moves have rocked stock markets and exacerbated concerns about the economy. Stock markets shifted between gains and losses on Wednesday as investors weighed concerns about tariffs against better than expected inflation data for February.” This morning, it looks like the alcohol tariff cleared up whatever indecision there had been as all the markets went down on opening. 

Below the tariff story is the leading mystery in Washington, D.C. right now. “Specter of Shutdown Is Growing As Democrats Resist Funding Bill.” The headline seems straightforward, but the ongoing and confounding question is what exactly the Democratic Party construes the word “resist” to mean. “After two days of intense closed door party meetings,” the Times writes, “Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, emerged to say that members of his party could not support the bill approved by the House on Tuesday to keep most federal funding flowing at current levels for the next six months. He instead urged Republicans to pass a month-long extension to allow time for Congress to consider individual spending bills and reach a compromise that both parties could accept.” Right now, the parties are extremely far apart, specifically on the question of what it even means to pass a spending bill. As Democrats want Congress to assert some control on making sure that the spending gets spent and not illegally impounded, by Donald Trump and Elon Musk in their own ongoing piecemeal government shutdown. 

The filibuster and its 60 vote threshold represent the minority opposition party's only chance to exert any power against the White House's hijacking of congressional spending prerogatives, even if the only thing they can do is replace the ad hoc shutdown with the complete one. But the Democrats, being Democrats, are conditioned to prefer complicated impotence to direct unpleasant action, and so, well after the jump, the story reports, “even as Mr. Schumer declared his party's opposition, Democrats privately continued to deliberate over a way to avoid a shutdown without appearing to capitulate to Mr. Trump. Some suggested allowing the stopgap spending bill to move forward as long as Republicans agreed to give them a chance to revise it on the Senate floor. That would afford Democrats the chance to make their political case against the measure and show that they were fighting it even if their proposals for changes ultimately failed.” 

There is no “if” there. Trump has iron discipline over the Republicans and a complete dedication to zero sum politics, that guarantees that any democratic performance of amending the bill to include a challenge to Trump's power would be summarily rejected. The story repeatedly talks about how Senate Democrats are at risk of being blamed for any shutdown and are fearing the political blowback after years of castigating Republicans for shutdowns. And, just, how do you live like this as a political party? You're not in power. You don't control the presidency, either House of Congress or the Supreme Court. Any laws you passed while you did have political power will just be ignored if Trump doesn't like them. The Republicans are asking for support for their blatantly unconstitutional position on presidential spending power. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are already in the news every day bragging about shutting down things the government does. If you can't hang a shutdown around the Republicans' necks rather than having it hung around your own, there is nothing you can accomplish in politics or legislation. 

For an example of what happens if they just carry on with business as usual, the next story over on page one is “E.P.A. Mounts Broad Retreat On Pollution.”

“In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday, the Times writes the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation's most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But beyond that,” the Times continues, “Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the EPA. In a two minute and 18 second video posted to X. Mr. Zeldin boasted about the changes and said his agency's mission is to ‘lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business. From the campaign trail to day one and beyond, President Trump has delivered on his promise to unleash energy dominance and lower the cost of living. Mr. Zeldin said, we at EPA will do our part to power the great American comeback.’ Nowhere in the video,” the Times adds, “did he refer to protecting the environment, or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.” The Environmental Protection Agency is now here to unleash energy dominance. 

And, while people are betraying their missions, next story over, “A Chill at Columbia: ‘Nobody Can Protect You’ / Free Speech on Campus Hits Breaking Point Under Trump.” Mahmoud Khalil finally arrives on the front page, as the story begins with a gathering at Columbia's journalism school where administrators, the Times writes, “issued a warning. Students who were not US citizens,” the Times continued, “should avoid publishing work on Gaza, Ukraine, and protests related to their former classmates arrest, urged Stuart Carl, a First Amendment lawyer and adjunct professor. With about two months to go before graduation, their academic accomplishments, or even their freedom, could be at risk if they attracted the ire of the Trump administration. ‘If you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East,’ he told the gathering in Pulitzer Hall. When a Palestinian student objected, the journalism school's dean, Jelani Cobb, was more direct about the school's inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. ‘Nobody can protect you,’ Mr. Cobb said. ‘These are dangerous times.’” Columbia's journalism school and the journalism students fought hard during the protests last year to cover what was happening on their campus. The message here is that they've lost. The old Israel-Palestine exemption to the First Amendment is now, under the Trump administration, a full revocation of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press, even inside Pulitzer Hall. It is a cold hard calculation about the limits on the power of resistance against the full strength of a federal government that has decided to reject the constitution. But it's made much colder and harder by the fact that Columbia still as an institution refuses to stand up and defend Khalil. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. You, listeners, keep us going, through  your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Continue sending those if you're able. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.