Good morning. It is March 21st. It's a sunny morning in New York City with the humidity rapidly going away. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The New York Times reported yesterday that Elon Musk was supposed to go to the Pentagon today to be briefed on the United States' top secret battle plans in the event of a war against China. Beyond the widely reported fact that he abuses illegal drugs to an extent that would prevent any normal person from having a security clearance, Musk is also heavily dependent on access to Chinese manufacturing and the Chinese market to keep his auto company going and has been accordingly deferential to the Chinese government. Nevertheless, as Osita Nwanevu put it, grimly and succinctly, when the news broke, the wealthiest man in the world has fully purchased the federal government of the United States. And this would be just the latest manifestation of it. 

The current version of the Times' story has some updated reporting. “Hours after news of the planned meeting was published by the New York Times,” the story now says, “Pentagon officials and President Trump denied that the session would be about military plans involving China. ‘China will not even be mentioned or discussed,’ Mr. Trump said in a late night social media post. It was not clear” the Times added, “if the briefing for Mr. Musk would go ahead as originally planned. But providing Mr. Musk access to some of the nation's most closely guarded military secrets would be a dramatic expansion of his already extensive role as an advisor to Mr. Trump and leader of his effort to slash spending and purge the government of people and policies they oppose.” Pretty good, sharp and direct there, followed immediately, unfortunately, by a retreat into Timesian indirection. “It would also,” the Times writes, “bring into sharp relief the questions about Mr. Musk's conflicts of interest as he ranges widely across the federal bureaucracy while continuing to run businesses that are major government contractors. In this case, Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of both SpaceX and Tesla, is a leading supplier to the Pentagon and has extensive financial interests in China.” As usual, those aren't questions. Those are just facts. 

In another dictatorship by social media development, the president also posted last night that the prominent Democratic leaning law firm, Paul Weiss, has capitulated to him and offered a number of concessions to his demands after he targeted the firm in one of his executive orders. The deal, as described by Trump, includes a shakedown for $40 million in free legal services to, in his words, “support the administration's initiatives.” The Times writes, “Members of the legal profession said in interviews that they were surprised by the deal, as it appears as if the firm — which is dominated by Democrats and has long prided itself in being at the forefront of the fight against the government for civil rights — was capitulating to Mr. Trump over an executive order that is likely illegal.”

The story describes how Trump began this particular campaign with an attack on Covington & Burling because it had done work for special counsel Jack Smith. The Times then writes, “last week, a federal judge in Washington ruled that a subsequent executive order Mr. Trump signed targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, which is also aligned with Democrats, was likely unconstitutional and issued a restraining order halting it. But two days later, Mr. Trump signed a nearly identical executive order against Paul, Weiss. Mr. Trump said he was taking the action to punish the firm for its ties to a lawyer who had pushed for him to be indicted and another who had brought a lawsuit against January 6th rioters. The order barred the firm's lawyers from dealing with the federal government and raised the possibility that its clients would lose their government contracts.” Despite the openly abusive nature of the order, Paul, Weiss decided it would rather roll over than fight it in court, which is among other things, exactly what you do not want to see your expensive law firm do. Not sure those clients are going to be reassured by Paul Weiss being able to retain access to the federal government, now that it's demonstrated that it's afraid to take on the administration and litigation. Here too, some additional material made it into the story after the first version was published. It now notes that after Brad Karp, the head of Paul, Weiss, met with the White House and made the deal, the White House treated him like it does everyone else who tries to accommodate it. “According to two people familiar with the matter,” the Times writes “the White House and Mr. Carp had reached an agreement on the wording of the statement. But despite that agreement, the wording of the statement changed, including a reference to the fact that the firm would not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies. A spokesperson for Paul Weiss did not respond to a message seeking comment on how the statement changed.” 

On the front of this morning's print edition of the Times, in the lead column, the headline writers are doing a better job than before. “PRESIDENT SIGNS
ORDER TO SCRAP EDUCATION DEPT. / LEGAL OBSTACLES LOOM / A Separation of Powers Is Clear for an Agency Congress Created.” As the story says, “the department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement, and supports programs for students with disabilities was created by an act of Congress. That means, according to article one of the constitution that only Congress can shut it down. That clear delineation of power, a fundamental component of democracy from the inception of the United States underscores why no other modern president has tried to unilaterally shutter a federal department.” But, the story notes “Mr. Trump has already taken significant steps that have limited the agency's operations and authority. Since Mr. Trump's inauguration, his administration has slashed the department's workforce by more than half and eliminated $600 million in grants. The job cuts hit particularly hard at the department's Office for Civil Rights, which enforces the country's guarantee that all students will have an equal opportunity to an education.” 

Could use a little nuance in that paragraph, given the ongoing open questions about whether these attempted dismissals and attempted elimination of grants would stand up in court, but at least it all establishes the basic set up that the president is claiming to do things in complete contradiction to the Constitution. 

Next to that, the story is “G.O.P. Assault Aims to Hobble The Democrats / Donation Platform and Lawyers Are Targets.” 

“Executive actions intended to cripple top democratic law firms,”the story begins, “investigations of democratic fundraising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked. Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats' ability to compete in elections for years to come.” 

Again, the Senate minority leader's response to this is to lie low and count on the president's approval ratings to continue to fall. Paul, Weiss just showed how the law firms are going to respond. 

Meanwhile, inside the paper, just take your pick. Page A-12, “In rush to release Kennedy files, personal data went public.” Trump's decision to do a document dump and then figure out what might have needed to be redacted later, expose the Time writes, “personal information, including Social Security numbers of hundreds of Congressional staff members, intelligence researchers, and even an ambassador.” 

Page A13, “Details offered on deportation flights woefully insufficient. Judge says.” Judge James Boasberg, whose order to the administration not to fly plane loads of detainees to a forced labor camp in El Salvador went completely ignored has now given the administration until Tuesday to give them an explanation of why they went ahead with the flights. 

Below that, “Administration interprets wartime law as allowing for warrantless searches,” tossing the Fourth Amendment on the bonfire, along with all the others. 

“Trump administration lawyers,” the Times writes, “have determined that an 18th century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant according to people familiar with internal discussions.” 

“Determined” is an excessively charitable verb for a completely lawless effort to bulldoze through the inconvenient fact that deportation squads have no right to enter people's homes, which has so far been an impediment to Trump's promises of mass deportation. 

Below that, at the bottom of the page, “New group of migrants said to be gang members is flown to Guantanamo base.” After emptying out that particular offshore concentration camp, the administration is now apparently resuming its operations there. 

On page A14, “France says U.S. barred scientists over Trump views.” An unidentified French scientist was trying to travel to a conference near Houston, according to France's Minister for Higher Education, when the U.S. authorities denied entry to the scientist and then deported him because his phone contained message exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed his personal opinion on the Trump administration's science policies. 

And in a strange feat of non-editing, page A15 has the story, “Trump's policies shake academic world and may reshape US culture,” and page A16 has, “Why Trump's ultimatum to Columbia could upend higher education.” The first one's supposed to be a big picture story, the second one focuses more narrowly on the president's demand that Columbia put an entire academic department into receivership, but it's all one phenomenon and it's pretty incoherent to put it in two big chunks on two different pages. 

And, down below the second story, the headline is “Trump extends deadline to end congestion pricing.” MTV reality show performer turned transportation secretary, Sean Duffy said some idiotic things yesterday about the subway, but he backed down for another 30 days from trying to force the MTA to rescind its highly successful and ever more well-received congestion pricing program. Unlike certain fancy, allegedly high-powered lawyers, the MTA saw an unreasonable demand and decided to refuse it. 

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, the listeners, keep us going through your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Send more of those along if you can. Have a pleasant weekend. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again on Monday.